Today marked the first ever Air Force ½ Marathon and 10K shadow event held at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, Africa. We were unable to meet the deadline to become a sanctioned deployed event, but the pieces are in place for it to be one next year. Since it was held entirely on a deployed base, registration was limited to military members, government civilians, and government contractors. We had amazing volunteer support from all over camp as well as the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) office, so registration was free!
I volunteered to come up with the course map, which was a pain in the butt since this base isn’t very big and we couldn’t shut down all of the roads or use the runway, it is shared with the local airport. Therefore, the bulk of the race was limited to the 2 mile stretch of running trail as you can see below. I was able to run the route last month to check it out and to give everyone an interactive look at the turnarounds, so it was only natural that road construction would cause us to move our start line. Luckily it didn’t affect the total distance for the ½ and barely affected the 10K.
Packet pickup was held at the camp MWR center on Thursday and Friday. They handed out Sports Authority bags with random items in them that were donated. The shirts are a dri-fit material and were paid for by MWR. Race volunteers received a yellow cotton shirt. I didn't get my volunteer shirt since I was running, hoping they have some left over so I can take it home to my wife. The race start time was scheduled for 0400 due to the extreme weather conditions here, so I attempted to get to bed early last night. Bad idea, I may have slept 3 hours total. I think my brain was worried I would sleep through the alarm since it was going off so early.
I finally crawled out of bed around 0310 and got dressed, everything was already laid out and ready to go like always. I jogged a little bit to get warmed up and made the short walk over to the start area and did my dynamic stretching and put down some Gatorade chews. The weather at this point is already 88 degrees and 75% humidity, miserable as usual. Our race director made a few comments, gave the safety brief, national anthem was played, and we were on our way. There really isn’t much to say about the course, it’s a military base in the middle of Africa. There is no scenery, there were no spectators, and it was still dark outside. The ½ and 10K course were the same right up until the 5.8 mile mark, that’s when the 10K runners exited the running trail and headed to the finish line. The ½ runners stayed on the trail for 6 more miles and exited the running trail on the opposite end and did another 1.1 mi around the area of camp where we all live. My pace was pretty consistent the entire race, the only real hiccup was at the mile 8 turnaround when I stopped to use my GU and gather myself and make some clothing adjustments, I think I walked for about a minute. The only other issue was my first ever bloody nipple and the other one almost joined in, which didn't surprise me due to the humidity. I missed the email yesterday stating that the medics had Vaseline. I once again barely missed hitting that elusive sub 2 hour finish, but it was a PR and in these conditions, I’ll take it. It was awesome to be a part of the first event like this on the camp. Hopefully next year they get to put on a sanctioned event.
This also doubled as a virtual 1/2 marathon I signed up for about a month ago, that is what the bib and medal in the last picture are for.
