Hats off to DO for a great job at the TOCM!!

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  • Matteo
    November 1, 2016 at 12:37 pm #2668

    Last weekend members of our club participated as support teams in the first Tropic of Cancer Marathon in the Al Quaa desert of Al Ain. We had been preparing for this event for the last few weeks with the event organizer as there were a lot of logistical and pratical things to address and sort out. The event was a hit with more than 70-80 participants plus many organizers, sponsors, and of course, our DO team. We had 18 DO cars there to support the event with many cars having multiple people (friends, family, etc). It was a fairly long day with prep starting at 5am and the day was hot as the sun rose. I am personnally very proud of how everyone maintained professionalism and enthusiasm throughout the duration of the race and made DO look like a shining star. I hope we can do more of these type of events in the future to support the offroad community whether on 4 wheels or 2 feet! This work by our club demonstrates that we truly are the leader in our offroad community.

    I would like to thank all the member individually who supported:

    Ahmad
    Ajay
    Abdalla & Alaa & Mischa
    Baher
    Saif
    Sebastien & Gwendelyn
    Avinash
    Abdalla Al Sayegh + 2 friends
    Hassan + 2 friends
    Francis
    Asim
    Bernardo
    Dan
    Shamel + 2 friends
    Simon & Dawn
    Peter & Katie
    Sami, Swamiti, Tharindu (Rangers from Wadi Wurrayah)

    I really hope I didn’t forget anyone but if I did please feel free to yell at me and let me know.

    Here is a link to the write-up from David O’hara who was the only runner to run the 50km. It is very clear how much he appreciated all the work that DO did for him and the overall event. So a big pat on the back to each of you.

    https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/2016-10-29%20Tropic%20of%20Cancer%20Ultra%20Marathon.pdf?token=AWxvpHzxy05F_9iBz9JIeo3oONIvlom7zS9f2HYPN-Kijxj63OzyLlgg2_duClNuBYvxbi5FFadMqbNEaIHOTt4IeeGbSB1g4sWV38lQEc7a0Xq_AkJFr4QkYqjvYnaMAOAMk4lpUUHXBjYeGwdhi3ir

    Lastly, we will be meeting with Max and other members of the event organization team to give constructive feedback for subsequent events. If you have thoughts or ideas of what could be done to imrove the next event please feel free to comment here. I will aggregate all of the comments and channel them back to Max.

    Thanks again for everyone’s stellar support!! :thanks: :thanks:

    Matt

    Bernardo
    November 1, 2016 at 1:02 pm #37036

    Matt,
    Many thanks for the given opportunity and let us be part of the DO support team. It was a pleasure to be part of it.
    My suggestions are the following:
    – the organisation should provide us more water so that we could give it to the runners
    – all runners should have an identification number to make easy to identify them
    – runners should wear different shirts Color to identify how many km they are running
    – all support car drivers should have a copy of the map highlighting each flag point so that we could move from one point to another easily

    Shamel Marshan
    November 2, 2016 at 5:09 am #37045

    Thanks Matt, you was at the beginning of the whole thing.
    It was a great honor to me taking a part in this event.
    An opportunity to return back some favor to this club that gives a lot.
    Although the long time and efforts we made there, I enjoyed every moment of the event.
    I totally agree of what @bernardo suggestions, these points might be very useful.
    Thanks to all DO members for their support and special thanks to @Ajay .

    Seb
    November 2, 2016 at 5:20 am #37046

    @Bernardo beat me to the answer 🙂

    I fully agree with @Bernardo s comments

    I would add that
    – The 1.5 litters bottles are not convenient for the runners and there was not enough water we had to use our own stock of water.
    – There were not enough flags, and the arrival point of the 42 Klm was a “spinneys” yellow bag attached to the fence 🙂 . the arrival of the 50k was a broken truck

    – Concerning DO. it would have been helpful if we did a recon drive the day before
    – Sweeping for bottles was overlooked we when back on the whole trail and picked up a full garbage bag of empty bottles

    This was a very enjoyable week end can’t wait until the next edition

    Sebastien

    alaa
    November 2, 2016 at 7:06 am #37047

    Many thanks Matt and thanks for all who is make the TOCM good and wonderful, i hope to join next Marathon, really we had nice night 🙂 .

    Simon
    November 3, 2016 at 12:16 pm #37066

    It was a lovely weekend with good company. Agree with all the suggestions especially

    1. More water
    2. Should have been shown the course the day before the marathon.

    And my addition

    3. The dune that separated the course and the main camp was difficult to navigate. A different placement would have allowed quick travel when dropping of participants and collecting extra water.

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