It’s kinda the norm where I wake up in the morning and have no immediate sense as to where I am. Such was the case today, as I returned late last night from a trip that included many of my favorite diversions: running, spending time with good people, sightseeing, muttering “eff you” to men making kissing noises as we walk by, and sampling really great food. It was great to spend a bit of time further exploring the always visitworthy country of Morocco.
The focus of this trip centered around the half marathon held in Casablanca. If people know anything factual about this town (I’m looking past you, Hollywood), then they know that Casa is kind of a hole- especially when you line it up against the other cities in this country. Come to think of it, if someone had the opportunity to visit Morocco but only to see Casablanca, I’d recommend that they skip the trip altogether- because I don’t feel that it leaves you with an accurate interpretation of this fantastic and diverse country.
Having said all of that, I’m no expert on Moroccan culture, so I’ll not expound any further on the subject. Instead, I’d like to send out a request to fellow Time magazine readers who can explain to me why Mariah Carey named her kid Moroccan. And no, your reasoning cannot have anything to do with her intelligence quotient.
Anyway, back to Casablanca. As always, the stories originates in some hub of transportation:
The last time I rolled through the Casa Voyageurs train station was back in January. The Marrakesh Half Marathon was the event of the hour (or two), and I had a great time running the race with my friend Christina. Now nine months later, she’s convinced me to return to her country of study in order to compete in another event. I love visiting Morocco, so it didn’t take too much convincing on her part.
I’ve never been to Casablanca proper, so our arrival at and transportation from the train station presented a completely new experience. A loud, sprawling and fairly chaotic experience, to be precise. Casa is a bit reminiscent of Dakar- only larger and far more organized (match point to Casablanca though- since it manages to have functioning traffic lights and taxi meters).
A perfect visual representation of Casablanca. I’m not even sure that I want to explain to you how this traffic circle works. I’m not even sure I understand. In fact, I think I’m just going to leave this composition of modern art to your own interpretation. We personally found it fascinating and bewildering to watch the city’s traffic flow.
Immediately after checking into our hotel, we have to head to the stadium in order to retrieve our race bibs. The red cars in this city are the taxis, and while these guys may be in better materiel condition than their dakarois counterparts, I will say that I have never seen a cadre of workers more dissatisfied with their chosen metier. Climbing into one of these things- if you were lucky enough to have one stop for you- was like sitting down to a potentially volatile game of speed dating. Apprehension mixed with a trace amount of thrill at what’s to come. But we’ll return to the taxi issue later…
We get our packets, and the bag’s contents include our bib, a sponge and a race shirt with a hole in the middle of it. Beggars can’t be choosers, and we’re ready for tomorrow morning. I have no plans on using the sponge.
The great thing about a half marathon (at least for me) is that the idea of running 13 miles is not too daunting. I feel like I can train and capture this mileage pretty easily, and as such it makes half marathons way more accessible than taking on a whole 26.2 miles. Especially the taper and night before phase. With a half marathon, you are more likely to head into the event minimal mental preparation (for me, I just wanted to ensure that I remembered my sneakers). There is no ridiculous panicked week-of paranoia that leaves you wondering, “Am I coming down with mono?!” and you can also skip out on the dreaded ice baths. More importantly, half marathons are more likely to include pre-race dinners of wine and whatever exotically-spiced crazy ass tagine that your taste buds are dying to try.
With all of that said, I’m a greater fan of half marathons.
Since we’re talking about food, I’ll skip to the morning of the race. Start time is not until 9:45, which is a bit disappointing for two reasons. Me, I prefer to run on a mostly empty stomach: espresso and maybe half a banana if I’m going out for a long run. Second, I like to finish my run when the sun is just starting to hike its way up above the horizon. Especially in Africa. Having just complained about the 9:45 start time, I will say that this is no great loss. I’m breaking bread with great company and I have not lost sight of the fact that I’m in frickin’ Morocco: land of superlative orange juice, coffee and whole wheat bread. Who am I to gripe about this tragic existence of mine?
We kill time at breakfast before flagging down a taxi in order to get to the start area. Casablanca is already under construction (they’re putting in a new tramway), so we know that the already salty cab driver will just love driving three westerners anywhere close to a road race event. Still, we get picked up, and put on our best smiles as we tell the driver our destination. I don’t speak Arabic, but I had no difficulty at all in understanding his sentiments each time he would go down a road, only to find it blocked off due to the race. Come to think about it, I’m surprised that he even consented to let three people wearing race numbers into his car…
Once we’re dropped off, it’s easy to figure out where the starting point is located. We’ve got a god turnout for this race.
After standing around for awhile, the mass finally makes its way over the start line. Start your watches! It’s a beautiful day, there’s plenty of sunshine, and the impending heat is coming our way.
Every race in every country is going to have a patriot donning a cape-fashioned flag. If you’re not a flag person (I love maps and flags), then I will tell you that this dude was representing the home team: Morocco.
I haven’t yet mentioned my running companions. There are three other Olmsteders (click here if you don’t know what that means) running the race. Here are two of them, Christina and Meaghan. Jamil, being the speedy guy that he is, took off and is already up ahead of us.
At about two miles in we reach our first water stop. I completely bypass this opportunity for water because, well, it’s only been two miles- and I’m not thirsty. Besides, I figure I’ll have plenty more opportunities for water up ahead. Note to self: never assume anything.
The course takes us along the corniche, and we’ve got a view of the ocean to our right and cool Moroccan entertainment to our left. This band was awesome, and they played some really cool traditional tunes as we went by.
So far, so good. It’s always best to get the bulk of your candid photos done early on in a race, before you look completely disheveled. And parched.
Things are going well, and we have passed a second water stop at about mile five. Luckily for me, I was wise enough to grab a bottle and take a few swings of water to wash down a GU gel. Little did I know that this would be my last chance for hydration- and as you can see it’s a sunny day.
Our race course takes us past the Hassan II Mosque, the largest mosque in Morocco. At this stage I am running alongside Jamil, and he was telling me some interesting trivia about this place. Like how it costed $800 million USD to build, and some other things that I have long-since forgotten due to hydration. We were both really thirsty, and just babbled on to one another in order to get our minds off the whole No Water thing. With respect to the mosque, Christina later told me that this was supposed to be the people’s mosque, with all citizens contributing money towards its construction….whether they volunteered their money or were voluntold is up for debate…
Ahh there’s a lighthouse on this course! I had to snap a photo- which was harder than it looked at this stage. I was a little delirious under the bright sun and my polarized sunglasses don’t really allow me to see look at the viewer and determine whether I am actually capturing a Kodak moment. Where is that water stand? I’m getting a sunburn on my face…
I will say this about Casablanca: the interior of this city (the biggest city in the Maghreb, according to Wikipedia) looks nothing like its seaside environs. As you can tell from my artfully-composed photos, the corniche is bright, clean and a bit reminiscent of California. That is, if California had a ton of mosques.
We all plod on, and I will continue to say that it is hot outside. Of course I’m still looking forward to another water stop somewhere between mile 5 and mile 13- or at least a mirage of a water stop. As I plod along and try not to think about how thirsty I am, I can see nothing but straightaways and a disconcerting paucity of potential water tables in the distance. Damn. I start to scan the sides of the street for bottles that might have traces of hydration left inside.
I’m not dying of thirst, but at about the 11 mile mark I come upon empty table that used to be a water stop. I can see about four half-empty bottles sitting on said table, and to me this is a gift from الله. I ask the rather useless dude manning the table if I can take a bottle, and suddenly I am in business by swilling someone else’s discard without grateful relief. This is no desert crossing endeavor, but I’m a wimp who wants to down another GU gel. Besides, I had wine last night, remember?
I don’t want to keep cracking on how this race was planned, but I will say that there was a bit of deception with respect to where the race ended. This here is the real finish line, but big overhead signs and bands were set up started about a mile back- giving everyone a false impression that you were done. In order to get to the real end, which was three quarters of the way around this track, you had to skip across 100 meters of zig-zagging blue felt walkway that made you wonder if you were suddenly inexplicably misdirected. I was pretty tired and felt a lot pissed off defeated by this surprise bonus lap. I barely remember taking this photo.
I cross the finish line and am finally in possession of my own bottle of water and snacks. And a rose. The medal I understood- being handed a rose, not so much. Next to me here is Meaghan- who just completed her first ever Half Marathon. She killed it by finishing in two hours- and did it all by performing a training plan that consisted of running around Paris with a jogging stroller that contained her wave-happy one year old. Chapeau, Meaghan.
Unlike in Marrakesh, our post-race snack did not include tasty dates. Instead there was cookies, a banana, an orange, orange juice and the precious H2O. My one thought as I opened up this package of chocolate chip cookies was, “Where the hell are the chocolate chips?! These are not, as the package states, Top Cookies”. No matter, I’m still guzzling my water and feeling very bloated by my rehydration technique.
Here’s a photo of Jamil and his awesome wife DeDe, along with their two cute kids. All four of us runners came in at around the two hour mark, which made for an easy meet-up at the end. DeDe and Jamil have a great blog that captures their adventures as Olmsted Scholars in Morocco- you can click here to check it out.
Once we are done with the race, we decide to move our sweaty bodies out of the stadium in order to head back to our hotel. Time for another run in with the notorious army of Casablanca taxis. This time, however, we are picked up by the complete antithesis of the angry dude who drove us to the start line. This guy was an absolute gem, and even if you don’t understand French or Arabic, I think you’ll appreciate our exchange with him here:
He is asking which one of us won the race, and we keep telling him that each other won. As he dropped us off at the hotel, this guy would not let us pay the taxi fare. Instead, he congratulated us and wished “his three American princesses un bon séjour à Casablanca”. We couldn’t get out of his car without offering some token of thanks for his kindness, so instead he was payed with some beautiful long-stemmed red roses.
Thirteen miles is still a little long on the legs, and while I won’t tell you about how I finally lost a toenail after this race, we did celebrate our achievement by heading out for some relaxation, Moroccan style. A trip to the hammam (a place where you have your body scrubbed within an inch of your life), followed by a massage was exactly what we needed to feel rejuvenated. We moved from our spa appointments up to the roof of our hotel in order to take in the remainder of the beautiful day’s sunlight.
It’s kind of hard to make out, but this view of the skyline has a view of the massive mosque, as well as the massive Casablanca Cathedral. Oh yes and we were also just down there running around like fools just a few short hours ago.
Casablanca is not exactly tops in terms of aesthetics, but the sunset does its best to shade its buildings a pleasant desert hue.
Relaxing on the rooftop and drinking Moroccan tea. If you’re wondering why we aren’t enjoying post-race cocktails…so were we. Our hotel was so new that it was operating sans alcohol license. Oh the humanity. No matter, this transgression would be remedied later in the night.
Here we are: the end of our night. We actually ended up in Rick’s Café, an unabashed capitalization on the movie we all love to watch and quote. Yes, they did have the 1942 classic playing on a silent loop just above our table- but apart from a few movie posters, the interior was very cool and blessedly kitsch-free. I think I read that this place only opened in 1993, and I was shocked that it took someone that long to build an actual Rick’s that was a sure draw for the dumb tourists coming to Casa and expected to find Rick Blaine mooning behind some cigarette.
So that’s kind of it for the half marathon. All told, it was a fun race- and as always I enjoyed my months of preparation that didn’t culminate in my bonking and being run over by an army of humans draped in technical gear and iPods.
The following morning produced absolutely lousy conditions that would have made us think twice about running a race outdoors. In addition to high winds that kicked up all kinds of disgusting dirt and trash, Morocco got its first rain of the season. It was like stepping out into a completely different city, and one that we were happy to have experienced just one day prior.
Who knows where my next race will be- but wherever it is, I can only hope that I get to do it surrounded by cool friends, a jovial taxi driver, and hopefully a series of well-spaced water stops. If not, then the course had better be 7.1 miles and leading me past Nobska light.