Enjoy our Dead2Red team video – it makes the experience look so much fun (which is was) but kind of ignores the pain part.

Well, what a phenomenal experience. That had to have been one of the coolest and craziest things that I have ever done. I will post pictures and a video that I am making soon, here are some quick stats about our race.

• Kilometers ran: 242
• Miles ran: 150
• Time: 18 hours, 50 minutes
• Average time per kilometer: 4:40
• Average time per mile: 7:32
• Average marathon time at this pace: 3 hours, 15 minutes (which we did almost 6 times)
• Place: 10th out of 28
• Winner’s time: 14 hours, 12 minutes
• Number of people running on our team: 10
• Number of people driving (3 cars continuously for 19 hours): 4
• Average age of the runners: 31
• Amount you had to run each cycle through: 0.5 km
• Number of times we did that: about 48
• Break you got in between running: 20 minutes
• Total distance ran by each person: 24.2 km = 15 miles
• Approximate time spent running by each person: 1 hour, 53 minutes
  
• Number of times someone had to drop out: 0
• Number of times someone skipped their shift: 0
• Number of times someone walked instead of ran: 0
• Number of my knees that are still in incredible pain from running that far and fast on pavement: 2
• My happiness level on a scale of 1-10 from 3:30-5 in the morning: 1
• My happiness level for having done the race: 10

At 4 pm tomorrow, I will be the leadoff runner for our team in a 242 km relay from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea (see post explaining the race). We will be running about 0.5 km at a time (a third of a mile), so I will run for about 2 minutes and then get 18 minutes off…. and then repeat this same process 48 times (total running distance of about 24 km, or 15 miles) The hardest part is going to be staying awake from 4 pm until noon the next day for the race (especially with my insane amount of teaching induced tiredness).

Our team name is “Chicken and Rice” which is only really funny if you are a member of the King’s community – our dining hall serves chicken and rice at least one meal a day, so it’s kind of a running joke with the whole school. We have people ranging in age from 19 to 54, teachers from pretty much every academic department here at school, men/women, Jordanians/Americans. And we get to wear reflective vests!

I’m excited beyond words for the experience – wish us luck and I promise to post copious amounts of pictures and stories.

On March 4th, I’ll be participating in one of the coolest road races I have ever heard of. I’ve already had great experiences with road races in Jordan (see my post on the Amman International Marathon), but this one is on a different level. It’s called the Dead2Red – a 242 km (150 mi) race from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea, more than halfway across the entire country. The Dead Sea is on the northern end of Jordan’s border with Israel and the Red Sea is at the very bottom tip of Jordan. To make it a bit worse, the Dead Sea happens to be the lowest place on earth, so the first (very long) stretch is uphill.

242 km/150 mi? Bowman, you can’t do that. Well, I won’t be doing it myself – you run in teams of 10. The rule is that one person has to be running at all times. The rest of the group waits in the bus and when it’s time to switch, the bus stops to let someone new out to grab the baton and take up the running. Most teams have the runners do 0.5-1 km shifts so you end up running every half hour or so, but only for like 3-4 minutes, running a total of about 24 km (15 mi) over the course of the race. The race takes almost an entire day – it starts in the evening on a Thursday at the Dead Sea and ends mid-day on a Friday in Aqaba.

We have a team of 10 faculty members participating, ranging from a few of the 22 year olds to a couple of faculty members in their 50s. There are two student teams, and we hope to crush their hopes, dreams, spirits, everything. I’m starting to “train” now (though I don’t think it’s really as intense as it sounds). Look for future posts about our progress.