Yallah! (Let's Go)

This time tomorrow, I will inshallah be about 12 miles into the Dubai Marathon.

Some of you may be surprised that I haven't talked about training for a marathon on this blog. That is because I haven't, in fact, "trained." I mean I've been running, of course, just not in the typical "back in college when I ran 80 miles a week" sense. In fact the longest run I've done recently was the half-marathon I did in Tennessee back in... April?

But I'm going for it anyhow, because I feel like I have something to prove to myself (that I'm still a runner, no matter where I live or what I'm doing) and something to prove to this city/region/culture (that no matter how little you respect pedestrians/Americans/women, we will still prevail! in very short running shorts, nonetheless!).

And so tomorrow I will wake up before dawn, and I will play "Eye of the Tiger," and I will eat my frozen bagel, and I will run. It won't be fast - I'm just aiming to finish under the 6-hour limit, a far cry from the days of 3:39 - and it probably won't be pretty, but if all goes according to plan it will be finished, and that's what counts.

Bring it, Dubai.