The Dubai Marathon
The Dubai Marathon is known for its extremes: the extreme heat, the world-class elites, the exorbitant prize money, and now in 2023 there is one more superlative to add … a painfully boring race course. The Dubai Marathon has been held since 1998 and has been known for its elite field, fast times and some of the greatest cash prizes in long-distance running history. In 2008, one million dollars were offered for a world record and a quarter million to both the men’s and women’s winners. Haile Gebrselassie took the win in that race with an impressive time of 2:04:53, though not fast enough for a world record and a clean million. Now that my daughter is living in Dubai (hopefully not permanently), I figured it would be fun to visit her and combine the trip with the marathon, even though the course had the reputation of being relative monotonous with three city loops. But I was excited to run under the skyscrapers, including the iconic Burj Al Arab and the magical Burj Khalifa, the tallest...