In the mountains, there you feel free.
-Eliot
Our Big Day One wasn’t exactly over after we ran the race. After eating lunch we packed up our things and boarded the bus to head for an alternate overnight location.
You know what’s nice about taking a bus? It’s not your legs that are doing the transporting, and you can also look out the window and take in the majestic scenery. It sure beats continuously looking down at the ground and carefully selecting every scree-pocked footfall.
Of course our big coach is cruising some of these little twisty roads with a bit more drama than I would like. I just try to appreciate how, um, up close we get with some of these natural drop offs.
After about an hour on the bus we reach what seems to be a cliffside- and this marks the spot where we disembark with our gear and meet our newest home away from camp. We’ll start Stage Two from here tomorrow morning.
Here’s where Christina and I stay (along with the rest of the female runners). It’s kind of like a Bed and Breakfast (although I’m not sure if they’d serve breakfast). This says “Welcome” in the local Berber language. Everyone in town was incredibly gracious- and this place had a real toilet (a huge luxury given our tired legs, let me tell you).
We dropped off our stuff and walked up a side street to our meal site. You see all kinds of shiny new Renaults, Audis and Beemers rolling around these parts, but I kind of liked this car and house combo. If this car had been a Delorean, I’d count it the coolest photo I’ve ever taken.
With water cascading down the side of the mountain, we cross the resulting stream (more of a neat rushing rapid) and are greeted with what must be the most beautiful outdoor dining arrangement I have ever seen. Brought to you by Ain Ifrane (the somewhat stingy water sponsor for the race).
There were a number of waterfalls running from the cliffs, and with the sun dropping behind teh mountains it made this little village seem almost fake. Does anyone outside of Morocco have any idea how incredibly breathtaking this country is?
Before supper, we decided to hobble climb up a bit of the mountainside in order to get a better look at our surroundings.
This is what I call, “religious greeting card beautiful”.
As our day is winding down, so is the workday for the goats, sheep and herders of the region. This pack interrupts our serenity (not really, though) as they appear from out of nowhere higher up on the mountain.
The sun has gone down so it’s time to head down to what is probably our most favorite activity during this race. The dining segment.
We’re hungry. Ken is excited for supper, and I think Jamil is using his using his non-verbal interior monologue skills to wonder aloud if we are actually going to get served tonight. Like I said, we’re hungry after running a billion miles- but unfortunately we’re seated at the very back of the tent. Shortly after this photo was taken I opted to create our own destiny and appropriated a container of bread from the catering table. I get a bit cranky when I don’t eat before 9pm.
Supper doesn’t finish up until around 11pm, and with full bellies and blisters that are in their infancy stages, we head back to our rooms for some shut eye. Tomorrow we’ve got about 11 miles on tap, and we hear that it’s going to be full of inclines.
We get about six hours of shut eye before we’re preparing our synthetic running accouterments for another day of punishment. As I sit in bed and pour blister shield into my toe socks, several of the Moroccan women take advantage of the open patch of floor next to me and take turns coming into our room. They’re clad in the latest of Nike and Adidas running apparel, but they unroll a rug and cover their heads before saying the first prayers of the day. Allahu Akbar.To occupy the same space as Muslims while they proceed to say their prayers has long ceased to come off as anything remarkable- but I mention it only because I think that many Americans don’t have that much exposure to Islam. To me, c’est la même chose – Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Voodoo Guy- no matter what religion you are talking about, we’re all pretty much doing the same thing as we try to get through life.
Hopping off my religious soapbox, I return to the subject of food. Here’s Dave and Ken heading back out to the side of the hill to get some morning chow. Don’t you love how the carpet is rolled out on top of the dirt?
(Note: Great thanks to Ken and Brian for sharing their race photos with me- these blog entries are a team effort thanks to our collective photographic skillz.)
After breakfast we’ve got to load all of our stuff back on the bus again since we’re heading straight back to our original camp following the run. I always thought that I would have left my backpack in my teen and early twenty-something days. Oh how little I knew back then…
One last look at this cool town before we head over to the starting line.
As we wait for things to get going, we see a mini stampede of kids who age from four to ten years old as they race through town. They’re all sporting oversized white tank tops that say “Marathon of Cedars 5K”. Big hats off to the race organizers for also organizing a Kid 5K race and really getting everyone involved in such a healthy activity. You can see the little girls in the foreground as they check out their race medals. I’m still wondering if I’ll score my own shiny object in a few short miles. Maybe I shoulda registered for the kiddie race.
And before we know it, once again we are off! Sure, we knew that this stage would be fraught with lots and lots of uphills, but Brian here appears to love them. Marines.
Here’s flag guy coming up the hill. A few minutes earlier I had shared some GU chomps with him. Literally, he showed up in Ifrane with litttle more than a Moroccan flag and a photo of the King that would be pinned onto his shirt. Judging only by his beard and unflappable good humor, I deem him the Bill McKay of Morocco (for those readers who hail from the Cape).
It only looks like I’m running up this hill because I saw Ken pausing to take a photo of me. God forbid it looks like I walked any portion of this 54 mile Oregon Trail. I’m not gonna lie- this was tough. And I might have caught dysentery at the last water stop.
I haul my ass to the top of the hill so I can catch up with Brian- he graciously waits for me and snaps a photo. This backdrop is something that I don’t want to forget.
I’m hitting the fast-forward button here and showing you what we looked like at the finish line- about 11.5 miles later. Literally as soon as I crossed the finish line I was interviewed by a Moroccan media guy- camera and all. I never saw the broadcast, but I can’t imagine I offered up anything of intelligible substance in my delirious state. I just kept eyeballing my unopened bottle of Ain Ifrane water after he volunteered to “hold it for me” so I could talk to my Moroccan public.
After finishing Stage Two, we were promptly transported back to our original bivouac. We were smelly and hungry- so we decided to get cleaned up before heading over to our place of worship: the sacred meal tent.
I’m not going to go into specifics about how our shower stall got backed up and essentially rendered the facility unusable (especially for those of us who did not bring shower shoes). Luckily, some kind Moroccans told Christina about a river where most people went down to rinse off. It could have been the river Styx that was being offered up as a bathing option- anything was going to be better than the shower option back at camp.
It’s a beautiful walk through nature- even if I’m hobbling a bit from day two of wicked long miles.
At last we reach a part of the river where we can dip our bodies into the current. It’s pretty cold- which is no problem 1) if you’re a New Englander and 2) if you are used to post-run ice baths. Christina and I agreed that this temperature was absolutely perfect for our tired legs. The lads had a bit more trouble easing in. There was probably some shrinkage going on.
After our make-your-own bathtub evolution, we headed back to camp for food.
Each meal was always served on these fabulous silver platters. They would open the top with a flourish, and as you can see, Ken is already wildly impressed with the pomp and circumstance. I don’t care if there’s only a grilled shoe offered up underneath, I’m ready to eat!
Course one is a delicious salad combo. Inexplicably, most of our tables were provided with an excess of plates and silverware- but almost consistently there were only four glasses to a table that typically sat nine people. Community and sharing was the name of the game over these four days.
A beautiful main course. Remember- this is all being served to us out in the woods (and here you can see that we asked for more glasses- the resourceful geniuses that we are).
Sufficiently fed and watered, we then took advantage of some post-run instruments of torture.
As the sun still sat high in the sky, we all slowed down and made our way over to a group of folks sitting around and playing cards. Soon, a guitar was produced and suddenly we were treated to an impromptu jam session.
Here’s a quick snippet of some of the music being played from under the big Berber tent. I hate being obtrusive when capturing moments like this- I’d rather just sit and be an observer participant. Also, roasted chick peas, almonds and Senegalese peanuts were being passed around- snacks not to be missed!
For me, the best part of experiencing this moment unfold was watching the group of teenage boys playing cards off to the left. Sporting slicked back fauxhawks and street-cool clothing, you thought that they weren’t paying attention to the traditional songs at all- and then all of a sudden they’d absentmindedly chime in with the song’s refrain. Soon enough, they put the cards down and joined the circle to sing with the rest of the group.
The music slowly drew everyone over to the tent. Another cool aspect for me was noticing that the main guitar player sported a marathon t-shirt from a previous race underneath his white garb. Modernity and traditionalism- these are labels that can be very misleading when we talk about describing one another.
This was one of those moments where you really understood that this crazy four day event wasn’t so much about running, but more about the people you meet and the conversations that were passed around.
At the end of Day Two, I did manage to jot down some thoughts in the little notebook that I carry around with me. Here’s what I wrote following our afternoon social activities:
Day Two is coming to a close and I can safely assume that the entirety of our remaining équipe have tended to the presence of newfound wounds and have retired to foam mattresses mounted on wooden slats. Sleep, whether or not you are disturbed by the higher decibel level of darija, is pretty much a non-negotiable afternoon option.
Not all of us are going to finish this four-day race that has demanded so many hours of training. Our counterparts who have flown in from Brussels have more important health issues that require withdrawal- and me, I’m eyeballing the fourth toe of my left foot. I know with every certainty that I will eventually lose the toenail- but I worry right now about whether the bruising will be painful enough to preclude completion of tomorrow’s 30 kilometer mountain jaunt. I’m also hopeful that our friends are okay and they still feel very much a part of this adventure.
But these issues, while important, are not the moments that will be most remembered come the end of this race. I can look at today’s seemingly neverendless walk-run-walk climbs up mountain passes and instead remember being encouraged by unknown fellow competitors who come to my side and say “Allons-y” (essentially: “Let’s do this together”). I took much heart in sharing the mentally taxing terrain with them, and their spirit of fellowship provided a perfect snapshot of how generous and open the Moroccan people really are.
Get ready for Day Three. It’s going to be a long one.