Music City Marathon

‘Where is Music City?’

‘Isn’t it Nashville, Tennessee?’

Oh the conversation’s just sparkling at 0515 in the morning as we line up on the start line.

It is another weekend and despite being a heck of a long way from Afghanistan the Music City Marathon is another excuse for a race at Kandahar airfield.  Still, it’s another weekend and whilst the Music City Marathon, or to give it it’s correct title the Country Music Marathon and Half Marathon, was held in the United States last weekend that would have clashed with the Army Ten Miler so we are running a little late.  I can only assume that the young US Army captain from the medivac team (helicopter borne medical evacuation; think MASH in a hot and dusty setting) who has organized this race lives somewhere in Tennessee.  She has certainly done a good job.  Everyone who pre-entered has a race pack with a number, pins and a t shirt and there is a choice of a 10k, a half marathon and a full marathon with plenty of water stations and medics.  The only disappointment is that she doesn’t look like Hot Lips Hoolihan.

Who would want to run a full marathon round an airfield?  It was certainly not my option, although a few hardy souls gave it a go.  I stuck to the half.  All three races started together and followed the same opening route (no, it’s not a ‘rawt’, as the Americans like to pronounce it).  A third of the way round the airfield, in the opposite direction to last week’s race, and then retrace your steps.  The 10k lightweights stop when they get back to where we started.  The rest continue round the airfield for another full lap.  And then the mad buggers on the full marathon repeat the whole thing again.

At the 10k drop out stage I could have stopped and had a top 10 finish.  I was tempted.  But, I pushed on with a Canadian guy stuck to my shoulder.  Having upped the pace a little I dropped him at about the 7 mile mark (not that there are any mile markers so you have to guess) and felt pretty good about that.  The problem being it left me completely on my own.  I had lost sight of the runner ahead of me so motivating myself to push on became a bit of a challenge that I probably failed to live up to.  A final finishing place of 5th seemed pretty respectable even if my time of 1 hour 32 was somewhat slower than I had hoped.  The good news was that we had been sent the wrong way so had added at least a couple of minutes to the route and the whole measuring thing is pretty unreliable here anyway, so I am not too hung up about the time.  The bad news was that the Canuk I dropped appeared a minute or two after me and started his second lap for the full marathon.  Perhaps I hadn’t dropped him with my superior tactics, he’d just hung back to conserve a bit of energy.  Hey ho.

Next up is the Canadian organized Terry Fox 5k and 10k on Thursday morning.  Another early start and no breakfast.  At some point we must put the running to one side and get on with fighting the Taliban.

All the best

Gus