Les Foulées du Lac, Semi-Marathon

Oopsie! Two running posts back to back - I didn't mean to do that, I promise life is about much more than running at the moment. Work has been insanely busy so I've been a bit shoddy with my posts, but I promise to try harder this week - then we shall have a big hiatus.

Anyway, start clapping, boys and girls because yesterday I ran my second half-marathon! and two halves make a whole, right? I blooming wish!

It was the Berges du Lac Half Marathon, proudly sponsored by Activia (I warned you about the Tunisians and their yogurts, right?) and it was hot hot hot! I put on suncream but I still got burnt on the backs of my legs - I now look like I'm wearing permanent red socks - sexy!!

So Berges du Lac is a suburb of Tunis, built up around an artificial lake, with two distinct parts, Lac I and Lac II. Lac I was developed in the 1990's using Saudi funds which tied the area into specific "dry-laws" meaning that no alcohol can be bought or sold there (except within the embassies). They have a great assortment of cafes, restaurants, and ice-rink, two bowling alleys, wedding venues, gyms and lots of high end shops. Also, in Lac I is the greatest cheesecake shop in the entire world (in my personal and most humble opinion). The apartments are plush and generic and really you could be anywhere in the world.
Lac II is still effectively a building site, some of my friends and colleagues live there as the institution that I work for has an office there and you can get Lac I quality apartments a bit cheaper. And sadly it's also dry.

The race was around both Lacs I and II. Starting in Lac I by one of the big bowling places (where I tore up the lanes only last week. All the strikes. I'm actually lying of course. I'm actually terrible). Our running team was depleted this week as my lovely friend Lucy tore a muscle in her leg about a month ago, and although it has now healed and she ran with us last week, she hasn't done any long distance for a while and so decided to sit this one out. Erika, our other running angel has been having problems with her feet and also didn't feel ready, so it was just myself and Tunisia's fastest 10km sprinter, Penny, who represented.

Having spent most of Saturday driving around town, trying to find the registration place, getting lost, nearly getting hit by a tram, calling the organisers 10 minutes before the office was due to close and being told that we could just pick up our race numbers on the day - we rolled up to the race with an hour to spare and hearts full of confidence. But alas, the race number disbursement was terrible - being non-Tunisian it was relatively quick to zoom our eyes down the thousands and lists and find our names... but really... in this day and age? We got our numbers with 15 minutes to spare. Just enough time to take a quick selfie of us and the Lac:

 

...Persuade a local cafe to let us use their loo, drop the bags off at the car, eat a couple of fried egg sweeties (for protein...) and head back to the start line. We were casually walking along, I was getting the old snazzy-pants watch to pick up the GPS satellites and we were discussing race tactics, like not going too fast at the beginning and dropping banana skins for our competitors, when all of a sudden some people came up the road running towards us. We carried on casually walking along for a minute before realising - Holy Moly! It's started! and we missed the start!!

We dove into the cheering crowd and weaved in and out for about 800m before wiggling our way to the back of the runners, the final few who were just crossing the start line ahead of the ambulance. I started my watch and we were off!

We spent the first 5km overtaking and laughing about the start - how had we possibly missed it? and also taking it in turns to stretch and catch up as the other one kept pace. This was not ideal and my legs were really sore today, probably as a result of this. Then we ran... and ran and ran and ran...

This half marathon was so much easier than the last one, yes it was hotter and I'm a little... ahem... heavier than last time (I can keep smiling and saying it's all muscle as much as I like, but I think a little bit of it may be made of moelleux au chocolat...), but really I am fitter and it didn't require such a mental battle of wills.

Berges du Lac is BORING - there were none of the beautiful views of the Medeterranian Ocean like the La Marsa Half Marathon only lots of building sites. Here's the route, thank you clever watch:

As you can see there were lots of loop the loops, which made it fun for cheering each other on and seeing the other competitors. One man ran with a huge Tunisia flag. It was really heavy. I know this because he let me hold it afterwards. He beat me. Some women ran in hijabs - they were brilliant. A 5km fun-run was going on simultaneously - some women did that in full burkas - I don't have enough words of admiration to cover that. Intense.

It was pretty windy, so the worst part was going past the building sites and all the dust and sand going in your eyes, and the fuel stops... hello? No fuel! nothing! Just water! 21.1km and just water! Seriously - we were superhuman!

So I finished at 2 hours 4 minutes, by my watch, but I think the official time might be a bit longer... given that we were late and all. Otherwise, very happy!

At the finish line we were given a medal, a hat (does anyone want an Activia hat? it's green and yogurty! I have a massive head, hats never fit me), more halwa, some warm peach-flavoured Activia yogurts (yum!), a lucozade and some water.

But at Lucy's house we were given pork sausages and wine, and that's what made it all worth it.

Ready for the Money Shot?