Having waxed lyrical about what I'm going to miss about Dubai in a blog post that critics have described as "emotional"*, "heartwrenching"* and "Hemigwayesque is its absolute desire to discover the truth of the human condition"*, it's now time to tell you all what I'm not going to miss. I am, after all, a British journalist and, therefore, only build something up so I can revel in knocking it back down... a career on The Daily Mail surely awaits!
*None of these things were actually said out loud by anyone but could have been Tweeted by someone somewhere once, after all, who's to say..?
So... adopting my best transatlantic 'ray-dee-oh deee-jay' voice, here we go with the top five... (da da daah, da da daah, daaa, daa, daaah...)
5. The races. Not a dig at race organisers at all, they are marvellous and lovely people without whom we’d just be a bunch of idiots who train a lot, but my god are the triathlons in Dubai boring! There are two problems, as I see it. One: due to the whole traffic thing etc, they're always in the middle of nowhere on some godforsaken stretch of road that makes an hour on the turbo trainer seem like a riveting 60 minutes of scenic exploration. Two: as locations are limited, the race calendar is made up of these races being repeated many times over.
4. The drivers. A few times, I ventured out on to real actual roads on my bike – usually hitting Al Wasl and the Beach Road early morning, but even bravely (OK, stupidly) attempting to commute to work by bike for some time… I still have not quite managed to fully unclench my sphincter. Sweet eight pound six ounce newborn baby Jesus, that is some scary stuff. I was only hit (very lightly) once on the bike, when an Indian driver attempted some sort of clever dummy, by indicating and looking one way, then turning the other – really tearing up the rule book with that sort of driving – but there were some close calls, in Nad Al Sheba especially, where the driving resembles a bunch of monkeys let loose on high speed bumper cars. Amazingly I was 'bumped' twice while out running in Dubai - don't want to make any general sweeping generalisations but both times it was by Arab women wearing full abayas, in heavily blacked-out windowed vehicles, at night... giving them the sort of range of vision that Stevie Wonder has of his keyboard.
3. The laps and laps and laps and laps. Granted, over the past few years the number of options for cycling in Dubai have increased but it still boils down to going around and around and around the same few places – whether that’s lots of laps of the NAS cycle path, the autodrome or Ghantoot, or a few less laps of Nad Al Sheba, Longtoot or Al Qudra. On the plus side, it certainly builds some mental fortitude!
OK, rant over. Annnnnd breathe...
*None of these things were actually said out loud by anyone but could have been Tweeted by someone somewhere once, after all, who's to say..?
So... adopting my best transatlantic 'ray-dee-oh deee-jay' voice, here we go with the top five... (da da daah, da da daah, daaa, daa, daaah...)
5. The races. Not a dig at race organisers at all, they are marvellous and lovely people without whom we’d just be a bunch of idiots who train a lot, but my god are the triathlons in Dubai boring! There are two problems, as I see it. One: due to the whole traffic thing etc, they're always in the middle of nowhere on some godforsaken stretch of road that makes an hour on the turbo trainer seem like a riveting 60 minutes of scenic exploration. Two: as locations are limited, the race calendar is made up of these races being repeated many times over.
4. The drivers. A few times, I ventured out on to real actual roads on my bike – usually hitting Al Wasl and the Beach Road early morning, but even bravely (OK, stupidly) attempting to commute to work by bike for some time… I still have not quite managed to fully unclench my sphincter. Sweet eight pound six ounce newborn baby Jesus, that is some scary stuff. I was only hit (very lightly) once on the bike, when an Indian driver attempted some sort of clever dummy, by indicating and looking one way, then turning the other – really tearing up the rule book with that sort of driving – but there were some close calls, in Nad Al Sheba especially, where the driving resembles a bunch of monkeys let loose on high speed bumper cars. Amazingly I was 'bumped' twice while out running in Dubai - don't want to make any general sweeping generalisations but both times it was by Arab women wearing full abayas, in heavily blacked-out windowed vehicles, at night... giving them the sort of range of vision that Stevie Wonder has of his keyboard.
3. The laps and laps and laps and laps. Granted, over the past few years the number of options for cycling in Dubai have increased but it still boils down to going around and around and around the same few places – whether that’s lots of laps of the NAS cycle path, the autodrome or Ghantoot, or a few less laps of Nad Al Sheba, Longtoot or Al Qudra. On the plus side, it certainly builds some mental fortitude!
2. The heat. An obvious one but there it is… put simply, my body does
not operate well in the heat – so running when my body is so soaked with sweat that my trainer makes a squelching noise every time it hits the ground, and my tingling skin feels like it might explode into a human fireball at any moment is not really my idea
of fun. Just as cycling into a fan oven for several hours is, in my mind, more
akin to torture than anything edifying or enjoyable.
1. The early mornings. Number one, with a bullet! I’m not
adverse to an early morning and I’m certainly not the kind of person who loves
to sleep in all day but, still, 2.30am-6am is a time window during which - even by the extraordinary set of rules that triathletes live their lives by - everyone should be asleep. It is most definitely not a time at which humans should be up and riding. It is not the ideal hour for hitting the sea for a choppy dawn swim session. And it is not a time slot that should be reserved for driving to Hatta.
OK, rant over. Annnnnd breathe...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.