After months of practice, weeks of sunburn, and days of decisions and planning, the 12th Annual Dead 2 Red running and biking relay has officially been completed. Our five-person team, DRed Shaheen, had an excellent showing, placing 3rd out of the 10 officially-listed 5-person teams. All biking teams started at 3:50 AM on Friday morning, and DRed Shaheen took exactly 8 hours and 12 minutes to complete the trip, which was (supposedly) 242 kilometers long (more on that later). Now, with all the numbers and statistics out of the way, let’s get started on the Red-Bull-and-Snickers-powered details.

I had realized some days earlier that I definitely wanted to my part and provide an extra “something special” for the team like everyone else was. Rami and Galen were each providing their bicycles for usage, Omar got his brother to loan us a big shiny pickup truck with an extended cab, and Brittany used her connections in Aqaba to get us a discounted hotel room. But I hadn’t given anything to the team yet besides my biking ability and my smiling face, so I decided that I could cook the pre-race pasta dinner for everyone. Using my dad’s famous spaghetti recipe (which yes, really did lunch a thousand forks), and a few hours of free time Thursday afternoon, I was able to make a passable representation of my dad’s cooking, which of course was greatly enjoyed by all. Philip has an amazing vegetable garden out in the front of the house which, due to Jordan’s mild winter and spring weather, is pretty much always stocked up – I was able to gather my own onions from there for the meal.

We didn't just have cake and spaghetti, we also had these odd pill-packets filled with the Arab version of M&Ms!

We didn't just have cake and spaghetti, we also had these odd pill-packets filled with the Arab version of M&Ms!

The night happened to be extra-special because it was also Rami’s birthday, so Brittany and her friend Reem came over early to the house to bake him a cake. The recipe may have been slightly off, so even though there ended up being seven dinner attendees, the cake itself looked like it was made for the loneliest birthday party ever. The new oven that we got here a couple weeks ago hasn’t exactly had all the kinks worked out of it yet, and we comically leapt around it, fiddling with the gas tank and trying to figure out how not to have it make that loud exploding noise like a cannon going off. Quote of the night as the cake started to get cut: “I didn’t know that you were making a layer cake,” I commented as I examined the slice piece. Brittany: “Uh…it’s not a layer cake.”

Between dinner and our 12:30 AM meeting time at Cycling Jordan, we had about 3 hours to sleep. I packed my bag, updated my Facebook status, and dropped out on a farsha in the living room. Of course, that full stomach of spaghetti means that I probably spent my sleeping energies towards digesting instead, so I was almost too tired to take pictures of everyone when Omar and Rami arrived with the truck. Well, almost. You know me; I couldn’t help myself (even though I’m sure that the others would have liked me to).

We tuned up our bicycles, picked up some energy drinks and candy bars at the 24-hour Safeway, and hit the road from Cycling Jordan at about 2 in the morning. Jordan has a distinct lack of energy/exercise related food products here that I’ve found so far, so instead of a nutrigrain bar or two, I contented myself with a bag of mini Snickers, which I promised myself I would ration throughout the day. The car ride was filled with our excited chatter and some warmup electronica music, and in only an hour we had arrived at the Wadi Mujib bridge, headlights from a dozen other early cars and trucks that were pulled into the sandy gravel at the side of the road. Shivering slightly with excitement and the cold breeze blowing off of the shimmering sea 100 meters to the right, we joined the other wandering bikers and support crews, checking out each others bikes, reflective gear, and meeting old friends from other bike teams.  I came across a team of Fulbright scholars, some of whom are also in the Dozan wa Awtar choir with me – I had no idea that they were all cyclists as well!

Kamal and Luay prepare to leave for their long 250 KM ride

Kamal and Luay prepare to leave for their long 250 KM ride

Standing near the front of the pack was a small yet extremely organized-looking groups of cyclist on state of the art bikes and large camel-packs of water and energy supplies. This was the individual bikers, the almost mythical people who would be making the entire 250 kilometer trip by themselves, most of them without even any more support than a cell phone and (if it was me) heartfelt prayers. Luay and Kamal, my two friends from Cycling Jordan, were there waiting. Luay was of course in his full biking regalia and looked like a dead ringer for Lance Armstrong, but I was shocked to see that Kamal was just in shorts, a t-shirt, and on a mountain bike! He smiled a roguish English grin and told me that he was sure he’d do just fine; he’d been biking for much longer distances than this back in the United Kingdom.

Unfortunately, there was an extreme lack of official organizers present at the start line – that is, if we even knew where the start line was supposed to be. In the end, the entire ragtag band of cyclists and cars had to pile back in and drive another couple minutes down the road before finding a place that had the red start line glinting in the darkness. The tense excitement increased. I walked in and out of the packs of bikers, chatting with starters and wishing everyone luck. Galen and his road biker were our starters; we figured it best since he would know his bike more than any of the others of us. He was silent, thoughtful, and almost meditative before the start, decked out in an iridescent yellow traffic vest that would have made a less-solemn person look comical.

Only minutes remain before the race...

Only minutes remain before the race...

With only minutes left to go before the race start, the support teams and non-starters trickled back to their waiting cars behind the starting line. I was talking with Omar and Brittany when I heard a shout and then a roar, and I thought I’d missed the starting – but it was the individual bikers, being given a head start. I watched the dots of their lights flickering in and out of each other, weaving and already fighting for the lead. I thought they took off awfully fast for people who had no relief to help them out; in a few seconds they had rounded a bend in the road 400 meters down and disappeared from sight. I had little time to contemplate the beginning of Luay and Kamal’s journey because a moment later an invisible signal must have been sounded to the team starters. Suddenly there was a blur of motion and, as one unit, all 40 remaining bikers shot forward like bullets and had vanished within moments around the same corner. We all hurriedly dropped back into our seats, started up the car, and the race was on.

The first few minutes were slow going. Although our truck was near the front of the crush of support vehicles, it was thanks to Omar’s masterful steering that we were able to successfully maneuver around the slow-moving vehicles to find the gray-black blur that was Galen, artfully dodging, dashing and drafting past dozens of dudes faster than you can say that previous phrase. The four of us in the car were in joyful good humor as we squinted at the bikers we were passing; “is that him? There with the reflectors on the shoulders?” “No! That’s a mountain bike and that guy weighs like 80 kilos!” With every biker we crept past towards the front, we crowed with victory like we were already in Aqaba. When we finally found Galen, he had already passed all but 3 people and was rapidly gaining on another on a mild incline. The lights of a potash plant glared eerily at us from behind his hunched shape, haloing him in the hazy, salt-soaked glow that I’ve come to associate with the Dead Sea. We pulled up next to him, neatly fitting in next to another Cycling Jordan five-person team’s support car, and cheered him merrily, telling him all that he’d accomplished in only 10 minutes. Galen is a superb biker (who else would bring their own Italian-made racing bike from America?) and his amazing pace of 45 kph showed it. He easily held his position for the rest of his placement, and we shouted his times and pace periodically from our open window while Daft Punk blared out to serenade him.

We had already decided that at 9 kilometers, the truck would pull forward so that the next racer could get out and get setup to prepare for the hand-slap switch of riders. Rami, our second stretch rider, was ready to go as Galen passed the nine kilo mark, and we roared ahead of the the lead riders and for a few brief minutes, the only sound was our engine and music – we were alone again. Rami pulled his mountain bike from the bed of the truck, adjusted his miner’s headlamp and started the computer attached to the handlebars. He grinned at us once, his dark Arabian face bleached white by the headlights of the truck, and then Galen was on us and Rami swung the heavy mountain bike over the hill in front of us and was gone. Galen did a another half kilometer as a “cool down” (we had also agreed on this, in order to keep our muscles loose for the next stretch) and accidentally put his bike into the back of Saad’s truck, who was coming up behind us with his 3 person team. We called out to him and he shook his head in suprise at our voices in the darkness, and set the light carbon bicycle into the right truck. He folded himself into the front seat with a sigh, removed his helmet, and instantly dug into a jar of peanut butter as we started questioning him about the temperature and the hills’ grade.

Meanwhile, we quickly gained on Rami who was having a rougher time on the hills with the mountain bike. We were passed by a few other bikers and fell behind a little bit as the bikers on road bikes caught up with us, but we knew that a few kilometers behind others here and there meant nothing in the long run. We kept the truck’s blinkers on and followed behind him at about 5 meters. We would periodically move forward and call out the remaining kilometers of his 10, which would be received with a short nod and glance. After twenty minutes, the truck leapt forward again ahead of him, and we deposited Brittany and Galen’s bike on the road as Rami labored heavily over one last hill and shot down towards us. Galen hurriedly pulled out an Allen wrench and lowered his seat for her, and she got onto the seat just in time for Rami’s arrival.

Brittany was lucky to have some well-placed hills and the excellent road bike at her disposal, so we made good time and, as she neared five kilometers, she even moved into the lead; first position over all the other bikers including the individual riders. Unfortunately near the end, two expert individual riders caught up to her on their own road bikes and, leaning low over the handlebars and calling to each other in Arabic, drafted off of her momentum on the last hill and she dropped behind again. We didn’t have time to watch how the positioning tug-of-war turned out there; we needed to get to the 30 kilometer mark to drop me off so I could begin my first stretch.

At 4:50 in the morning, I'm ready to begin my first stretch

At 4:50 in the morning, I'm ready to begin my first stretch

I stood in my t-shirt and bike shorts on the cold black asphalt, Rami’s helmet and miner lamp on my head, and his bicycle’s handlebars clutched in my gloved hands, peering backwards to catch a glimpse of the yellow reflectors of Brittany’s jacket. Rami hovered about it me, pointing out how to turn on and change the computer’s modes and adjusting the lamp’s brightness. I took a deep breath and suddenly behind me I could hear the whir of tires, whipping towards me, and suddenly there was Brittany, the tiny LED on the front of the road bicycle an unblinking white eye chasing me as I kicked my legs up and started rolling forward. I felt her pass by me, but my eyes were already on the road and she called, “good luck!” and I gasped back, “thanks!” and then I was alone and it was my turn to feel the responsibility weigh upon my helmet.

I’m not too proud to admit that I had a slow start. With all the talk of adjusting lights and electronic gizmos, I had forgotten to ask Rami a slightly more important question – how to shift the gears. His mountain bike had changed the time-tested placement of the upper gear shifters to some unknown place, so as my feet spun uselessly on the low-gear pedals and I barely moved, I frantically patted the handlebars, searching for some way to make the bike actually move. Suddenly I was surrounded by reflective ghosts whooshing past me and vanishing over the hill and I finally jerked forward as my thumbs discovered the hidden shifter under the bars. Muttering darkly under my breath, I pushed forward over the rest of the hill, shifted all the way up, and blasted down it, almost making up for my lost time.

The wind roared over my ears and into my un-shaded eyes and I was in that same crowd of ghosts, which resolved themselves into fellow bikers and support cars as the wind tears faded from eyes. The cars were cheering and shouting instructions in a dozen languages to faceless riders, bent over the bars and straining to get out of the pack. I used the hill behind me and an element of surprise to get past most of them within moments, judging how much speed I would need to get past the greatest number without needing to turn to avoid slower riders. I put myself comfortably into the 3rd or 4th position spot, and the gaps started to widen. I settled back down into my seat and started the hard part – the long, slow climb.

After five minutes, the truck caught up with me, windows rolled down, and I could vaguely hear my friends cheering for me from the cab. Mostly I just heard rushing wind and the sound of the engine, but my name was definitely in there somewhere. They would occasionally shout a number or time, but I couldn’t tell what I was hearing so after a few more minutes, I just nodded grimly whenever I heard a voice and kept pushing forward, eyes on the cracks in the road in front of me. After the first few kilometers, the road seemed to start to slant upwards almost imperceptibly, enough that my speed slowed to 20 KPH and the truck’s engine faded to a low growl behind me as it crawled along. I wasn’t sure if I actually was going upwards or just imagining it, but as my strength sapped away, suddenly the truck blared a series of rapid beeps and then shot past me, leaving me with only the glow of my headlamp for company. I glanced at the computer and sure enough, it had been 9 kilometers and I was almost done. I strained forward to see their lights, two red pinpricks glowing a kilometer away and pushed myself as hard as I could. Rami was (attempting) a handstand next to the car, and Omar had decided to take the road bike instead of the mountain bike, and was waiting for me, arm outstretched. I lunged the final pace to pass him as the others clapped, and Omar instantly kicked off and used the amazing power of Galen’s bike to easily put 200 meters between us within seconds. I slowed down to 19, then 15, then 14 KPH to cool down slowly from that last boost of speed, then practically fell off the bike as the truck hurried forward to meet me. I was done with my first stretch, only 4 identical ones left to go.

Now that we were already on our last biker’s 10 kilometers an hour and a half after starting, the sky was starting to lighten, just barely, and for the first time we could make out the misty shadows of the mountains around us. We were surrounded by low-hanging but thick trees which reached out to us towards the road as we caught up with Omar. The moon swam hazily over the brush covered dunes, and he occasionally called to me as I sat in the front passenger seat now and gulped down Snickers bars, asking what the distance and his speed was; Galen’s bike did not have a computer on it, unlike Rami’s. By this time, the road was angling away from the last bit of the Dead Sea, and now there were farms and plantations on either side of us. I knew that somewhere up ahead of us, the first place riders were still nearby and within striking distance.

We had completed our first 50 kilometers as Omar finished and Galen quickly took his place again on his bicycle. By this time the sun had almost broken over the top of the mountains to the east, our left. We whooped and cheered as we finally came across the first place riders, with whom the incredible and tenacious Kamal was still holding his own on the mountain bike. Galen moved through them without much effort and it almost seemed to us like the next 200 kilometers would be easy sailing. However, that was before we saw That %#$@ Hill in front of us, a crouching, hideous beast angling up and to the left into the mountains. Galen said nothing to us as he kept increasing his lead, just lowered his head and plunged towards the %#$@’ing thing.

Galen fights to hold his lead on the crushing ascent up That %#$@ Hill

Galen fights to hold his lead on the crushing ascent up That %#$@ Hill

That %#$@ Hill was the only time on the trip that any one of us was relieved of duty before he/she had done the full 10 kilometer stretch. The individual cyclists, who may or may not have actually been Terminator robots, methodically powered past Galen a third of the way up it, silently taking the lead away again. The four of us left in the car made the executive decision to have Rami take over when Galen had reached 8 kilometers, although Galen would have probably have kept going until he reached the top if we hadn’t have stopped him. Rami looked a little uneasy as he started off, and rightfully so – at his starting point That %#$@ Hill showed no sign of slacking off. A few minutes later, as Galen came back from his cool-down, Kamal pedaled slowly around the bend towards us, finally showing signs of some fatigue and casting up the slope to where his companions had vanished.

The top of That %#$@ Hill marked, for us at least, our final placement. By the time that Rami finally reached the top and barely had time to enjoy the slight descent before his stretch was done, the individual bikers and the other Cycling Jordan team were no where to be seen. With no way of telling how far behind we were, besides getting sketchy estimations from farmers lounging by the side of the road, we lost a lot of the competitive drive which had pushed us so far in the nighttime stretches. We settled into a quiet, regular pattern of biking and seat rotation – each rider would sit in the front passenger seat and hydrate during the stretch right after their own, then shift out when that stretch was finish. All of us would get out and stretch to keep limber not just before and after our own turns, but each one. We tried to keep track of how long each person took on each stretch, and unlike what I had originally thought, none of us slept or even napped in the car, preferring instead to listen to our music, keep track of distances, and of course, enjoy the stark stillness of the desert in the morning.

At one point during my third or fourth stretch, there was nothing ahead of me and nothing behind me but utterly straight, flat, featureless desert, and the dim shapes of the retreating mountains distantly to my left. For 20 minutes of exertion, I literally had nothing to do or focus on except biking, and I almost fell asleep from boredom and lack of sleep even with my most metally metal playing. I kept myself awake by trying to dance, or sing along with the music, or wind the bicycle sinuously between the omnipresent yellow reflectors spaced every 3 meters down the road, or try to make up shapes from the cracks in the asphalt. I must have been an extremely odd sight and sound, both for any vehicles that came towards us, and for my own teammates behind me!

The truck swerved around in front of us, careened to a halt, and then this guy leapt out and ran to the road

The truck swerved around in front of us, careened to a halt, and then this guy leapt out and ran to the road

Throughout the trip, farmers and trucks would wave at us and call out as they saw us. Bicycling is relatively uncommon in Jordan so seeing such a large number of cyclists at one time is a new experience for everyone, unless they’ve seen it every year for the past 12 years on the same route. There was this truck trying to promote an energy drink, “Power Trip” that seemed to be stalking the leading cyclists; they would pull up next to our bikers and then wave bottles of drinks out the window at them. We never took them up on their offers but someone must have been because we saw the litter on the side of the road to prove it. At about 110 kilometers, we took the truck ahead of the cyclist (I think it was Rami at the time) and found a young Arab lounging by the side of the road, and Omar interrogated him about how far ahead the other cyclists were. The guy estimated about 15 minutes ago, and we figured out at that moment that we were probably not going to see them again until Aqaba.

No matter, though! We had a healthy lead over the riders behind us and we were feeling great. Rami started eyeing the road bicyle after watching the other three on it, and soon enough, I was the only holdout riding the mountain bike, out of worry that I might hurt my back or that I wouldn’t be able to balance properly. I’ve only ridden a road bike once before; my brother’s around Madison, and although it was definitely interesting, I didn’t want to possibly cause problems for the team if it turned out that I actually got slower while using it. But the fact of the matter was that I felt I was already holding everyone else back. I could tell from Rami’s computer that I had an average speed of 24 KPH on Rami’s mountain bicycle, but in the truck I winced when I saw that everyone else was able to easily pull an average of 31 to 35 KPH using the road bike. I debated it, decided that we had a solid lead and weren’t going to catch the teams in front of us anyway, and asked to use the road bike. And wow, am I glad I did!

I never thought that riding a road bike instead of a hybrid bike could be so rewarding!

I never thought that riding a road bike instead of a hybrid bike could be so rewarding (and don't I look aerodynamic)!

It was like riding an entirely different piece of machinery. Rami and Omar had warned me about how sore their legs and back got because, like me, they weren’t used to it, but I didn’t mind the soreness because it told me that this bicycle was actually utilizing more of my body than anything that I could throw at the mountain bike. I started out a little wobbly at first on the narrow tires, but since in the desert near Aqaba almost everything is flat, I quickly got the hang of things and was able to ride smoothly within a few minutes. I could literally feel the difference in the strokes of my legs and the resulting speed increase, although of course I had no idea how much I was increasing. And although I found that my legs were definitely sore from the sudden increase in work they were performing, I was much less out of breath than my previous stretches, and felt like I could have kept going at the same regular pace for another 10 kilometers. When I pulled up to the truck at the end, everyone cheered and Rami exclaimed, “You were averaging 40 KPH for the entire time!” Astonished, I looked at the time and at his records he’d written down. Sure enough; I had increased my average by at least 15 KPH just by switching bicycles. I found myself hugging my new favorite bicycle with sheer happiness, although they had to wrench it out of my hands to give it to Omar so he could continue along our highway.

We reached 200 kilometers soon afterwards, with an estimated 42 left to go. We dropped the length of our stretches from 10 kilometers to 5 kilometers each, and now that we were all using the mountain bike, we were easily completing each stretch in 7 to 10 minutes apiece and were making amazing time, which I celebrated by downing more Snickers and Red Bull. A new mountain range had rose up to meet us on the left, and now we could clearly see across a long field of “no man’s land” to our right that marked the border between Jordan and Palestine/Israel, separated only by a few lonely watchtowers that we started seeing after we passed without incident through the checkpoint at the edge of the Aqaba Free-Trade zone, where all those many months ago in October I had passed through with Haitham and the others. I found these watchtowers interesting, as they seemed to serve no purpose besides “being there.” Or perhaps, that was just what Jordan wants Israel to think…!

"So how was your day, honey?" "Oh you know, just sat their and stared at Israel all day. The usual."

"So how was your day, honey?" "Oh you know, just sat there and stared at Israel all day. The usual."

Brittany and I shared the full force of city biking through Aqaba when we reached the outskirts of the city at about 11:30 in the morning. Both cyclist and truck were often forced to a crawl to avoid the heavy traffic that only got worse as we reached the center of the town. I switched with her halfway through for my 5K stretch, and actually found the nerve-rattling zig-zag through the cars, buses, and unobservant pedestrians extremely enjoyable after 50 kilometers of endless, featureless, almost entire flat desert riding. The truck often was held up by traffic or red lights behind me, which I of course ignored, and I punctuated every twist of the pedals with the call of “Yalla! Itla’! Afwan!” – literally, “let’s go, get out, excuse me!” and occasionally, as I started wondering if I was actually going down the right streets, shouts of “Wayn Tala Bay?” to kids gaping at me from the side of the road. The finish line and resort, Tala Bay, was somewhere around here, but as we had already passed 242 kilometers somewhere back near the edge of Aqaba, I had no idea where.

Galen, the hero of the day, about to cross the finish line at the Tala Bay finish line

Galen, the hero of the day, just about to cross the finish line at the Tala Bay parking lot.

Fittingly, it was Galen who ended the race for us, almost anticlimactically in my opinion. We came across the very last of the Dead 2 Red runners in the last few kilometers; all of them had started at 3 in the afternoon the previous day and now had been running for almost 21 straight hours. Galen had only gone 2 or 3 kilometers, all of us searching for any signs or road marks saying where the end was, when suddenly we rounded a corner and almost missed the banner unfurled over Tala Bay’s entrance, and Galen swerved in and that was that, we were done. The organizers and other teams cheered for us as Truck #26 DRed Shaheen arrived, and within minutes we had parked and all five of us were finally together as one team at last for the first time in 8 hours. We were a full 25 minutes ahead of the next 5-person team behind us, the Fulbright scholars, including my choir friends, who congratulated us on our good time. The other Cycling Jordan team, who called themselves “The United Nations” because of their diverse homelands (America, Norway, Germany, Jordan, and Russia) had also beat us by about 20 minutes, but our three teams were all quite pleased with our respective times, and even more so when the organizers wandered around and draped shiny silver “participatory medals” on each of us.

DRed Shaheen and 4/5ths of the United Nations together at the end of the race

DRed Shaheen and 4/5ths of the United Nations together at the end of the race

We went back to the city of Aqaba and checked into our low-priced sleeping arrangements, the Ra’ad Hotel, which gave us a discount thanks to Brittany’s connections. I learned a little bit more about Arab cultural laws there, when the hotel managers forbid Rami and Brittany from sharing a room, which had been our original plan, because of laws that apparently state that foreign women and Arab men cannot share a hotel room together. In any case, after we had all showered and gotten some lunch from a restaurant coincidentally named “Shaheen” (it was destiny) we headed back to Tala Bay to spend some time relaxing with Luay and Kamal, who had originally planned to stay with us at the Ra’ad but after arriving at 3 in the afternoon (3 hours after us), were too exhausted to move and just got a room there at the resort. The two of them, Kamal in particular, looked as if they had been fried on the surface of the sun and described their physical sensation as something between death and being fired out of a cannon.

I'm still amazed by the first place individual rider, who finished 45 minutes before us!

I'm still amazed by the first place individual rider, who finished 45 minutes before us!

The entire group of Dead 2 Red athletes, running and cycling, convened on the conference room in the resort that evening for a free dinner and the distribution of awards. Sa’ad and his 3 person team, which included his young son Karim, had placed second in the 3 person teams, and they joined United Nations and DRed Shaheen at our large table for the announcement of the awards. The cool sea air felt excellent on our somewhat-sunburnt skin, as we were seated outdoors no more than 20 meters from the lapping waves of the Gulf. I found some students from my Christian school who had done the running event, and they also placed highly, scoring 2nd place right after the national Jordanian team! The top 3 finishers/teams from each category got small trophies, although we found it ironically amusing that the sponsors, who were called out first, received trophies that were thrice as large as any of ours, including the first placers. The dinner was good, especially the dessert table – the organizers must have known that we would all be desperately be seeking a massive sugar rush after our workouts.

Brittany had already made plans for us to go to parties, pick up some tax-free beer, and have fun all night. We drove back to our hotel again, and I barely managed to stay awake long enough to pick up some food and I almost walked out of the store after giving the cashier a 20 instead of a 5. He patted me on the shoulder (causing me to wince in pain) and offered it to me with a knowing smile. Back at the hotel, we all promptly fell asleep within half an hour with the TV on. We may not have partied all night, but it sure was an awesome sleep anyway. I guess it’s the thought that counts.

After the workout we had yesterday, we deserved a day on the beach! (Someone poke a fork in my arm; I think it's done)

After the workout we had yesterday, we deserved a day on the beach! (Someone poke a fork in my arm; I think it's done)

The next morning was spent comfortably relaxing back at Tala Bay, where we utilized our wasta and got in with Kamal, Luay, and Sa’ad. Brittany and Omar lay out on the beach in the sun, while Rami and I went with Karim and Sa’ad to photograph them jet skiing. I was kind of interested in going myself, but nothing comes in an affordable price at Tala Bay: 25 dinar for 15 minutes? I had the same response as I did to their offer of 8 dinar shots of whiskey at the dinner the previous night – not happening.  In any case, though, Rami and I got prime seats (for free) on the motorboat which followed Sa’ad and his son around for safety purposes, me without sunblock, cheerfully doing the equivalent of rolling myself in glaze and lying out on a grill. I would definitely come to regret my lack of sunblock later, but for the time being, I enjoyed being closer than ever before to the Egyptian border, as we were now looking across the Gulf directly at the Sinai Peninsula. After the boat ride, we took turns sharing Luay’s swimming goggles and peering under the crystal blue water at the expansive lengths of coral and the fish that swam next to our legs, completely used to tourists and utterly unconcerned by our flailing. For me, this was my first experience in a semi-tropical environment and I wished that we had more time to go a little farther south and do some scuba diving. But as it was already getting late in the afternoon, we knew it was time to get back to Amman. We got a quick lunch in Aqaba with the rest of the Cycling Jordan people, and then our trucks began their return home – much more rapidly than we had come down!

Team DRed Shaheen should have probably made history with our ride; we were the only team that placed that was using a mountain bike at all. We probably could have taken second, or even first place, if we had used two road bikes instead, which would have not only have increased our overall speed average, but we could have saved an average of 45 seconds to a minute with every switch, because of the need to change the seat level on the road bike with every different cyclist. None of us were concerned by these small details (except for me, maybe, because I felt that my usage of the mountain bike had slowed us down for the first 6 hours), but it would definitely be something to think about – perhaps for next year? But no matter what, sunburn or not, I’m definitely glad that I did it!