Wine & Running

The three most important events for joggers living in Egypt took place within just four weeks. On 12.02.2010 Luxor was the venue for a marathon, a half-marathon and a 12km race. On 05.03 2010 Cairo hosted the Pyramid race over a distance of 7 km and on 12.03.2010 a half-marathon took place in Sharm El Sheikh.
Red Sea Bulletin was on site in Luxor and Cairo and gathered the following impressions.

The races in Luxor and Sharm are professionally organised and have an international attendance. This year participants came from nearly 20 different countries. In Luxor there were 236 entrants who crossed the finishing line after 12kms (=100), the half-marathon (=84) and the marathon (=52). Unfortunately there were only 38 entrants in Sharm.

The men’s best times for the marathon, 2:27, and 1:22 for the half-marathon show a remarkable level. Particularly if you take into account that there are hardly any energy-saving and motivational tactics possible in such small groups of participants.

Those who would like to experience a real “public race” should start with around 1.200 other enthusiasts – mainly children and youngsters from the DEO (Deutsche Evangelische Oberschule) on the Pyramids site. At the forefront there are good results, plenty of participants at all different paces, an enthusiastic audience as well as entertainment due to falls and collisions. We could well do without this sort of amusement, but when a mass start takes place on a field of scree and a crowd of people have to squeeze into a 5 meter wide zone within a distance of 100m and on top of this the starters decide to throw a 30 meter long plastic band into the crowd, then blood flows.

Right next to me an iron-man participant as well as an internationally successful triathlete were run over, of all people! A child in front of me met the same fate when it wanted to take a little rest after its 100meter sprint.

It stayed amusing on the route as it alternated between metalled paths and rough ground. In parts the ground was so bad that the track was narrowed down to two lorry trails in the sand. This alone would not have presented such a problem, if everyone had been running in the same direction. Since this stretch was a turning point area, very soon there were constantly participants coming towards you, which again, would not have been a problem had everyone remained in their ‘own’ track. But then we would have been running in Germany, not in Egypt! After the finishing line the timekeeper called out the times and half a dozen busy helpers jotted these times down on the starting cards. This caused considerable confusion and led to ‘fantasy-results’. However, at the same time everyone received a little piece of wood which enabled a correct placing, since only one person was distributing this documentation, so by questioning and calculation the real times could finally be established.

The results were written on certificates, and everybody was relieved to have survived this spectacle without serious cuts and bruises.

In comparison to this, the Luxor marathon was contemplative. After the start, which was at the Temple of Hatshepsut, the field was soon drawn apart and after the first round of 11 km half the participants disappeared in the direction of the finishing line. If you didn’t come from Venezuela or Japan (the two countries that the biggest groups came from), or you hadn’t joined up in a ‘solidarity group’, then you were practically alone. Respect is due to all who finished the marathon, for after two hours the sun was burning down mercilessly.
Later in the evening there followed the After-Run-Party with the award ceremony, speeches, a buffet, certificates and folklore performances. 60 Euros is quite a lot to pay, if you just regard it under the aspect of a competition, but this would not do justice to the whole spectacle.
 
 
For people older than 30 years: Wine, sports and achievements:
 

• If you combine wine, sports and achievements, you will become a champion of ’joie de vivre’ at a high level.
• If you do sports for the sake of achievement and abstain from wine you will become a champion, if at the same time you find joy in asceticism.
• If you continuously do sports for the sake of achievements and don’t become a champion, you have been doing something wrong.
• Ever since I have been doing sports, wine has been an integral part of my life, as has the striving for achievements in all various aspects.
• Both are measurable: the number of championship titles I have won, and the number of wines I have tasted. The first is easy to document with my senior world champion title, the second with my 470 wine seminar lectures with wine tasting of 10 to 20 different wines.
• Ultimately it comes down to balance in life. Just as I will not try to set a new personal record in wine tasting on the day before a championship, I will not spend my competition-free time subjecting myself to unnecessary asceticism.
• Moderate wine consumption is a life prolonging measure. Its merit for physical health has been amply proven, its gains for ‘joie de vivre’ documented for thousands of years.
• Top-level sporting achievements are a luxury I allow myself, as other people might strive for material goods. For this to succeed it requires an investment and circumstances, which some have been gifted with. 
• Just as I will not do more training than is good for my body, I will not drink more than is good for my well-being. Occasionally I overdo the ‘doing myself good’ and ruin my form by training too hard and too much, similarly it can happen that enthusiasm can lead me to drink more than my personally recommended maximum amount of 0,25l per day. This state is also distinguishable by a loss of form!
• I can abstain from drinking wine for the sake of maximum performance, for reasons of asceticism, to raise my awareness. I hereby strengthen my mental power which helps me to stay focussed throughout the competition. From a physiological point of view, having abstained from a glass of wine during my preparations has not given me the advantage of even a tenth of a second, or a single centimetre. All the national and international championship medals that I didn’t win are an important realization that not everything can be achieved just because I have made an effort; so have all the others. It also had nothing to do with wine and lack of asceticism during preparation.
• I am living proof that a high level of physical achievement at an advanced age can definitely be linked with a high level of ‘joie de vivre’ – in this case to be measured by wine consumption. On my way to finding this knowledge I met numerous World- and European athletics champions who were notably older than me, and who had acted in exactly the same way.