Baghdad Marathon

(Photo: Our "kiss-off" instead of a "handoff" raised many "aaauuuw's" from the supporters of the Baghdad Marathon)


On Saturday November 11th, a bunch of us participated in the Baghdad Marathon. While three of our much, much braver colleagues ran the entire 26.2 mi through the International Zone (accomplished through two laps around a 13mi course), the rest of us opted to sign up for the 5-person teams. As part of a relay team each member had to complete one 5.2 lap for a total of 5 laps.

(Photo -Coming in for the finish)

Certainly one of the most interesting courses one could ever hope to run. The highlights of the day started with the only pre-race safety briefing I ever heard to include "incoming fire" and "kidnapping risk" - now I don't know, perhaps runners in Colombia get the same briefing, but it was a first for us. Comments to the instructions to "duck" included "or run faster".


The first runner departed at 0500 from the back of Saddam's palace, next to the pool. As each runner completes the course he/she hands off at the same location. Mile one was run flanking the T-walls where a row of big-rig supply trucks were lined up to be scanned, searched and scrutinized before gaining access to the highly guarded Embassy compound. Not quite used to dodging rigs on runs either, but hey - it's not the half of it. At the end of the long stretch of T-wall, marathoners went underneath, relayers went to the right of the 14th of July bridge, in plane site of the Tigris river, and mind you, the Red Zone (hence the "indirect fire" briefing I imagine). Continuing on straight to the traffic circle with the statue of the four soldiers (the same statue that was infamously hit by a certain South African colleague in a 300K armored vehicle, winning him a one-way ticket home). From there the route veered slightly left toward the convention center, right at the "tomb of the unknown soldier" (the marathoners got to run under Saddam's swords but not the relayers) past the Combat Support Hospital (CASH), and back around the embassy.


All along the route were KBR employees for whom the distinction between "marathoner" and "relayer" apparently posed just too much information, hence rendering most of the relayers to run far longer than the planned 5.2 mi. In addition to KBR folks were the ever-present Peruvian guards, automatic rifle in hand, ready with the standard greeting "buenos dias miiiieeeeeeees...."

Apart from our starter not coordinating with the second fellow (resulting in the second guy waiting around for about 20 mins before simply jumping into the next group of people that ran past at the change over), our team did fine - and most importantly, we all had a great time. A computer crash at the embassy caused the loss of most of the race times, so I regress that I cannot report back on our marvelous performance.