It’s my blog so I write what I want. Guess what you get to hear about again?

A 5K Race was organized in Dakar!  “Le cross feminin de 5K” (Women’s cross-country 5K) – only 3,000CFA (that’s about 6 bucks) and you get a t-shirt.  Free t-shirt sporting some random African road race? Sign me up!

 Warming up the runners! You’ll be shocked to admit that I stood there and watched everyone warm up. I was never good at jazzercise. 

If you take transportation that is potentially hazardous to your health in order to participate in an event that enhances your health, do the two cancel each other out?  Deep thoughts, as Megan wanders about the starting area…

Time to head to the start! As you can see, it was a great turnout, with a whole lot of toubabs like me, hungry for some kind of organized event.

I was eager to snap photos documenting the fact that they actually closed the corniche for this event!  Woe to the poor travelers riding down the corniche sans clue, who arrived at this very point and were stopped, redirected to the street near my house…only to find another deviation.

On the road. Even though it was a short race, I was kinda wondering if we’d get any water on the course. My money was on “non”.

No way!  Check out what was handed to us next!

Again, me and my snazzy PT gear are put to shame by the people here who just run like they are supposed to be running. Furthermore, the black pavement was really hot at 5pm- you can see the sizzling road with the next shot:

The course had us turning around at about 1.3 miles, which made me think “Hmm…is this really gonna be 5K?” I don’t normally run at 5pm, and it was hot, so the prospect of a shortchanged run didn’t seem too bad at this point. 

Lucky for me my intrepid running pal Laurie was on the course with me. Towards the end, I was feeling like a lead weight being dragged by one of DDD’s often broken-down buses. It was definitely nice to have someone there to help get me to the finish line.

I’m smiling, but I’m sweating!  I prefer my runs along the corniche to take place early in the morning, but the camaraderie and people applauding our efforts were a welcome change. Actually, I usually get applause from the male runners when I go out anyways-  so I’ll just say that I LOVED being a part of the majority for once!

 If you read my blog about waiting for a bus you’ll recall the dude I saw with the “3 3 3” t-shirt. Guess who we passed, wearing the exact same shirt!  I love this country! He must know what this shirt says, and I’m gonna keep an eye out for him.

More Evian stations- but if you look beyond the guy with the water bottle, there’s another dude with Evian Facial Mist Spray (you think I’m kidding? Google this product).  What race have YOU run where you were misted with French mineral water as you passed by?

I took this photo to show you that even covered women run out here. (As an aside, she had just taken off her flip flops to run barefoot- after having already done two miles in them!)

The finish line is in site! The Garmin says I’m at 2.6 miles at this point.

Laurie and I crossed the finish line and were handed these slips and told to “garde ça”. What could it mean? There is no way that we placed 21st and 22nd, but that’s the story we think we’ll tell. Whatever the case, it was very official-looking.

As I told Laurie during our run, this was definitely the smoothest-executed evolution that I have experienced while in Dakar. From publicizing the race, the ticket purchases, t-shirt pick up (no packets here), to race support and organization- Dakar’elles, a (ahem) women’s group, did a great job. 

Maybe I should ask them if they can get me enrolled into the university…