If you donate one dollar, I will tell you a secret. No really, this isn’t one of those “You have won $25,000, just click here!” scams. Moreover, I promise that it will be the best buck you’ll spend all weekend:
I still have just over one week left where I can drone on about running (May 2nd!). With that in mind I am taking full advantage of the opportunity to subject you to yet another posting on this subject. Don’t complain! I could have decided that basket weaving was my big recreational activity. Good thing it isn’t. You people would probably start charging me a dollar for reading my blog (or maybe you’d start donating a dollar just to get me to shut up…).
Guess which continent I am going to be running the Race for Hope on?
At last I am finding some normal women (“normal” according to Megan) who are willing to brave the male-dominated fitness world in Senegal and go running. It takes a certain level of temerity for a toubab to venture out into these streets- smooth asphalt is a rarity, the word “sidewalk” doesn’t exist in Wolof (picture only loose, thick sand that is next to a road, or is the road) and pedestrians NEVER have the right of way ANYWHERE. Once you are presented with these conditions, how could you NOT want join me for a run in Dakar?
Well someone did!
This is Laurie. And this is the street out by my house. Laurie may be married to a Marine Corps officer, but in my opinion she is ballsier than he is for moving to Africa and navigating the frenetic streets, language, and housing office sans hesitation.
Here are some snaps from our morning run:
For lack of a better term I guess you could call this Dakar’s main gym. It is set up right on the Corniche (cliff road) and adjoins the main road into (and out of) town. If you look closely, you can appreciate the quality of the, ahem, equipment. For example, the bench press ingeniously utilizes car rims on each side for weights. Gold’s Gym, eat your heart out!
This is what the Americans here refer to as “Muscle Beach”. I brought my camera out with me on this run, because I wanted to capture the swarms of people working out. Once we got out to the Corniche, however, I was disappointed to see that the peak time for working out is definitely not the morning.
Lucky for you (and me) we took a taxi back into Plateau that evening. We were able to snap some photos of the beach from the cracked windows of our taxi.
Isn’t this nuts? All though it’s a still shot, you can get an idea for how the throng of sportifs move in unison back and forth on the small beach, as if they were the human version of a concertina. I have no idea how they don’t trample one another, and I have no idea why they think this a good idea. I get annoyed when a person hops on a cardio machine right next to me at the gym when there are six other empty machines around me.
Yeah it’s annoying to dodge all types of transportation while walking or running, but check this sidewalk out. This is one of the good ones!
As for Laurie and I, we won’t be heading to muscle beach to pump iron any time soon. With a little luck, we’ll instead be back out on the Dakar streets, opting to brave the perils of speeding taxis, car rapides, horse drawn carts, vendors, piles of rubble that once made for smooth pavement, and other hazards that make you wonder if it is healthier to stay indoors and sip a glass of red wine instead.
Why not do both? That’s what I’ll be doing on May 2nd, and don’t you think I deserve a dollar for my survival efforts on Senegal’s fine road system?
Myriah, this is a car rapide. They are the cheap way for locals to get around town; people squish into them, and they aren’t exactly “safe” by our prudish standards. Indeed, they probably were bought from a demolition derby (Laurie’s observation, not mine).