A couple weeks ago Gail found that there was a 10k the following Friday in Abu Dhabi. She asked me in a cute little voice, "would you run with me". Naturally, I said yes. How bad could it be, right?
Never being ones to miss an opportunity for a night out, we booked a hotel room about a half k from the race, which was held at Sheik Zayed Sports City. The hotel is called the Aloft, and we've been there a couple times for sundowners at the rooftop bar. It looks like a really nice place at first glance......upon further review!
Thursday evening the adventure began. I had an evening meeting, and once I wrapped it up we snagged a cab and headed to the hotel (which is really only a 15 minute drive).
We got to the hotel and realized that we had forgotten our passports. They are required for checking into hotels if you don't have a UAE National card. So, I jumped back in the cab and made the trip back to the apt, grabbed the passports, and headed back to the hotel. I was anxious to get checked in and head up to the rooftop for a nightcap. We got to our room and threw are bags in and, "What the hell is that smell?" Our room smelled horrible! After a little research I found water damage and black mold on the bathroom ceiling. If we were staying any length of time we would have turned around and demanded a new room. The ironic thing was, this was an upgraded room to make up for the inconvenience of having to make the special trip for the passports.
We had our nightcap....crap service, and headed to bed. We looked to see if there were any movies. The only English speaking channel had no audio! It's now around 10:30, and with a 5:15 wakeup, we decided it was time for lights out. Thing is, our upgraded room is directly over the pool deck...which has a live band playing until after midnight. Once they stopped, we laid there and listened to the AC louver rattle as we tried not to inhale any black mold spores. I had the alarm set on my phone next to the bed, and at 3:00am it starts buzzing. It was an email from my boss! WHY THE FACE! (Random Modern Family reference)
Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep. 5ish we rolled out and started prepping for the pain, and headed down to find a cab around 5:50. Thing is, it's Friday morning (which is akin to Sunday in the US) and this hotel is hell and gone from any main roads. We hoofed it to the road that was on the way to our final destination and has a little more traffic, and were rewarded by a little silver present from above (a Toyota with an empty back seat).
We got to the race with plenty of time to spare and started praying...I mean stretching. It was already 87 degrees at the 7am start and felt much hotter. Half way through the first lap I told Gail to take off. No need for me to drag down her time. Half way through the second lap I came to the realization that it wouldn't be safe for me to attempt to finish after exactly three training runs on the treadmill. Luckily the race was four laps of a 2.5k circuit and I bailed after two laps. I felt bad at first, then took the approach that I finished my own personnel 5k. They did have a guy collapse and go to the hospital. Glad it wasn't me!
Gail rocked it in one hour and 6 minutes! A nice brunch at the facility followed the run, then we tracked a cab down and headed for the pool! BTW, the pool was really nice! As we got back, Gail and I asked if we could get a late checkout, and were told "no problem" we had until 1pm instead of noon. You can guess what happened next, right? We head up at 12:40 and are locked out of our moldy room! So we paraded down to the front desk in our swim suits.
We got it sorted out and packed up and headed out to grab a cab. I have a habit of checking my pockets a lot, and fortunately I did that right before we got in the cab. My keys were missing. I knew I had put them in my pocket, but searched the bags anyway..nothing. Back to the front desk to get a temporary key and back to the room. There they were, sitting on the floor. Tragedy averted!
So, back to our cozy apartment for an afternoon of moaning and groaning due to my ever-tightening muscles.
This entire episode took place in under 20 hours!
Life is an adventure!
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