Why in the World?!

I'm a runner.  I'm one of the crazy people who actually finds enjoyment from running.  Still, I've often wondered why in the world someone would want to run a marathon... 42.2km... 4 (or 5, or 6) hours.  It sounds crazy to me!  At least it used to.  I said it in an earlier blog post, and here it is again:  never say never.  Next Sunday Tom and I will be running the Barcelona Marathon.

What convinced us?!  Food!  I'm not talking about "if you run a lot you can eat whatever you want."  That's not even true.  I would have to run for about an hour to burn off just 1 small DQ blizzard.  What I'm talking about is the post long-run brunch with the Maadi Runners, our Egyptian running club.  We joined the Maadi Runners in September, after having some trouble making it out for runs on the busy streets of Cairo on our own.  The picture below is from our run to the Pyramids.  It's not everyone who can get up on Friday morning and jog from home to the Pyramids in about two hours.

It wasn't the Pyramid run that convinced us to stay with the group though.  As I said, it was the food.  The Maadi Runners are an international running group, most of whom live in a suburb of Cairo called Maadi (where we live).  The group trains for one marathon each year.  Last year they ran Milan, this year's destination is Barcelona.  They, or I guess I should say we, meet every Friday morning for the weekly long run.  Friday is the first and quietest day of the weekend in Egypt.  After the run, we meet for a potluck brunch.  It's a wonderful social and gastronomic event.  Some people cook or bake, while others stop at the grocery store on the way to breakfast.  It's always a feast.  The last weekend before we were evacuated from Cairo, Tom and I hosted the Maadi Runners brunch.

Although the job of the hosts is supposed to be simply providing a venue, and maybe some coffee, the hosts almost always prepare something good, often common in their home country.  Since we don't have any real maple syrup with us, we decided to stick with our Canadian greasy spoon favourites:  eggs and homefries.  It may not be original, but you want to be a little practical when having 30 people over to eat breakfast.  Let me tell you, we prepared a lot of eggs, and a lot of potatoes. 

We didn't need to make quite as much food as we did.  30 people arriving with food will provide quite a meal!  We could barely fit it all on our dining room table.  Aside from our eggs and potatoes, plus cheese platter and fruit and dip, there was a curry casserole, homemade lemon biscuits and banana bread, cinnamon rolls, pita, foul (Egyptian breakfast food), lots of bananas,  halawa (Middle-Eastern dessert), cakes, muffins, lentils, yogurt, macaroons, fresh pretzels, and more that I'm sure I'm forgetting. 

It comes as no surprise that Tom's home fries were delicious, and not even one was leftover.  Don't ask him for the secret ingredient though... if he told you, it wouldn't be a secret now would it?! There were plenty of leftovers of other items though, which came in pretty handy.  We actually took a bagful of goodies to the airport for our evacuation flight, since we figured (correctly) that we'd be at the airport for a while. 

Looking at the photos, you are hopefully getting an idea of what is going through my mind two hours into a Friday morning run.  "Get me to the brunch!"  This week's hosts were another Canadian couple, who DID have real Canadian maple syrup.  Another worthwhile run !

It really is a great tradition, not just for the food, but for the great company.  Beware to those of you living in or near Ottawa.  When we get home, I will likely try to convince you to join a running (and eating) club.  It's been really motivating and fun for us.  Thank you Maadi Runners and your brunches for pushing us to get to Barcelona.  The marathon is on Sunday, March 6, so watch for an update later next week.