The Sharaf Road race at Meydan Dubai was my first road race after a long time, the last one was back in February, where I did a half marathon.
And then…Covid happened, and the race season ended at home.
Let’s not reminisce about the time spent indoors, maybe in some other blog post. One thing to say, it sure was a time to learn, reflect and understand a lot about life.
Coming back to racing, the Sharaf Road Race was my first race in the training programme. The competition took place on October 2, in Dubai. With all the COVID preventive measures in place, the race village felt quite empty. The silence without the buzz and the crowd was the new normal. Hugs and handshakes were replaced with fist bumps and runners were sent in waves, rather than the whole distance group.
For this race, I geared up with GEL TRI NOOSA 12. Light, easy, no hassle. Slide it on and off you go. The weather wasn’t the best, and the race timings could have been better, but being the first race of the season, I was partially satisfied with my effort. The first two kilometres of the race went according to the plan; however, I picked up side stitches on the second leg of the race, making it impossible for me complete it in the desired time. I finished the 5km with timing of 21:48—a right learning curve for me.
Overall, I would say a decent effort put in by the organizers keeping in mind the current situation and crowd capacity. The ASICS Frontrunners did pretty well within their respective categories and smashed their races.
Organization: ⭐⭐⭐
Racecourse: ⭐⭐
Cost: ⭐⭐⭐
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐
