Beirut marathon, 18th november

Published monday 19th of november

Beirut has an annual marathon that crosses Beirut city. This is a big happening where the Red Cross attends each year with their message. This year the focus was on AIDS, the motto was “Discrimination is more painful than AIDS” We were around 300 souls from the Red Cross Youth that walked the mini marathon of 10 km. Everyone was dressed in similar t-shirts and carried balloons marked with the AIDS ribbon. In addition there was a big banner that was carried of the volunteers. There were incredibly many that walked the marathon together, I was numbered 29 528, and then you can imagine how many that participated.

I followed the run in big excitement, I took on my best walking shoes and my good mood. The starting was at 7 in the morning at the headquarter, and we all walked from there, with lots of good spirit. All the roads where the marathon crossed, was made into pedestrian streets, and the street I live in (Hamra) was one of the roads that was closed. This was a strange feeling, because suddenly there were no cars and no hooting with the car horns (this street is usually always packed up with traffic). For each sign appeared showing how many kilometres you had walked, was met with a big cheer. I fought my way through with blisters under my feet and it was good to reach the end, where we got a medallion (that was a medallion from last years marathon, but that doesn’t matter). In all I walked around 20 km, something that felt really good. It felt good to be a part of something bigger, and it felt good to show the Red Cross.