Dead2Red

The impending Dead2Red race was on my mind this whole week. Since I found out only a week in advance, I had very little time to train for it, but after work every day I went for a run so that I could prepare a little bit, but in reality nothing but months and months of running could have actually prepared me for the race. Thursday finally arrived, and I left work early to rush back to my room and finish packing, to then run to the dinning hall to quickly eat, and then rush over to the parking lot to pack up the cars. The drive to the Dead Sea was much longer than I anticipated. It took about 50 minutes, because Madaba is up in the mountains, and the Dead Sea in 1,300 feet below sea level, so the whole drive consisted of slowly driving down dangerously curved roads, carved into the side of the mountains. Even after we arrived at the Dead Sea, we had to continue driving until we reached the other side. The Dead Sea is the color of the sky on a clear, cloudless day, bright blue, with light dancing on the water as the sun is mirrored in all directions layering areas of dark, rich blues, and light turquoises, leaving a ribbon of white along rocky shore from the salt. 

Hundreds of runners were warming up as tried to find parking along the crowed Dead Sea Highway. I anxiously began stretching, and after a half hour, our first runner went to the starting line, and the rest of us hopped back into the cars to get dropped off along the road at increments of 500m to await our turn to grab the baton and start running. 

Beginning of the race, with the Dead Sea on the right

This is how the Dead2Red works: the distance from each sea is 242 km, that is split up into 24 km for each runner. It is a relay race, each team has ten members, and there is no set distance that each runner must run before passing the baton, though most do around 500m. Oh, and you have 24 hours to complete the race. You don’t get to rest at 12 am for the night, you just keep running, and running, and running. 

While I was waiting I saw the a runner from the team that ended up winning. He was sprinting down the mountain. That was the first and last time I saw that team the whole race. My turn finally arrived, and I sped down the mountain. I finished in a couple of minutes, and thought, “Oh that’s not to bad”. 1 down, 48 more times to go. The race was like a giant game of leap frog. I ran, and my car sped ahead of me to drop off the next runner, they got out, I passed them the baton, got back into the car, and we sped off ahead to drop off the next runner, and pick up the current one, the last runner got out, and passed it to the first runner of the next car. We went ahead 3.5 km, as the car did their rotation, and passed it to one last car before the baton made its way back to us again. And so the cycle was, all 49 times. I had a love hate relationship with the race. At around 8 pm, I was loving it, we were blasting music in the car, I having a ball. 12 am rolls around, the initial excitement is long gone, but I’m still going strong. 3 am, I dread every time that I have to get out of the warm car and run in the cold, pitch black desert, but at least I was comforted by the sounds of large howling, feral, most likely rabies infested dogs in the distance. 6 am rolls around, and the sun pears over the jagged mountains revealing the vast desert to my right. At this point I’m slightly comforted by the fact that it is finally day time, but then I quickly realize that I still have over 6 hours more to run, and I haven’t had any sleep, I am hating that I signed up for the race. Also, within about an hour my ankles gave in because since I didn’t think I would be doing extensive running in Jordan, I didn’t think to bring my good  track shoes, instead I wore a pair of tennis shoes, which was an awful mistake. After quite a few excruciatingly painful, and slow runs, my team members just looked at me, told me to get in the car and take a break. I originally put up a bit of a fight because I really did want to finish the whole race on my own, but after not even being able to walk without a lot of pain, I decided it was for the best. I ended up only stoping 25k or so short of the finish line, so I did run the majority of the race anyways. 

View from my room

Our team got lost in Aqaba trying to find out what street to run down next, but finally we found our way, and then all got out of the car together and crossed the finish line together in 20 hours and 26 minutes. This was great, because first of all, there were two staff teams this year, the good one, with people who are avid runners, and then our team, the disappointments as well called ourselves, who were in it just for fun, and to say we did it. So it was quite an accomplishment to finish four hours before the deadline. 

We all limped into the hotel which was a lovely 5 star resort on the Red Sea. Let me tell you, relaxing on the beach is the best way to end a 20 hour race. The Red Sea is gorgeous, and from Aqaba, you can see Israel to the right, with Egypt further down the coast, and Saudi on the far left behind some mountains. The Sea is lined with a thin beach, and red jagged mountains. The sand is dark, and from a distance the water is a very dark, royal blue. But when you swim in it, it becomes a deep turquoise. We stayed the night there, and went to a dinner at the Mövenpick in Aqaba for the runners. I spent the next day relaxing at the beach, and walking around Aqaba. All in all, I am very glad that I ran the race. Though I hated it at times, it was a great experience, and I really pushed myself physically, it was definitely worth it, though if I ever decide to do it again, I’ll be sure to spend months prior to it training.