18 Nov Oman Desert Marathon 2019 – Stage 3
As part of the Sultanate’s celebrations of the National Day, a picture with a 49th shape formation was taken, runners started the third stage on an unusual cloudy day. Three big sand dunes were expecting them but the runners took advantage of the cool weather and moved fast the first half.
In this stage we saw more presence of local wildlife. Goats and camels were close to the course area, signs of Bedouin encampments, which made a nice memory for the athletes.
The third stage is crucial, the runners that didn’t manage correctly their feeding and hydration will start losing all their energies, on the other hand for those who adopted a correct strategy, now the adaptation to the desert is complete and running on the sand is starting to be familiar. For many, may be the make or break day of the race. A couple of runner’s experience discomfort and expressed their concern on the 10 kilometers. They were having second thoughts about continuing and felt overwhelmed by the effort that this stage required. Runner Salim al Hasni from Oman was the surprise of the day , as he was in the lead when crossing kilometer 10 , followed by Rachid Almurabity and Mohammed Almurabity from Marocco.
On the women side Aziza Raji from Morocco was still on the lead, followed by Fabiana Pizzali from Switzerland and Emmanuelle Romanzi from France.
The landscape continued to impress the runners as they were awed by the changing on the color of the sand, from golden sand to red sand dunes, and the rare presence of green vegetation in between the dunes.
It is said that if you can complete day 3 stage, you are well within reach of finishing the race. Daytime temperatures will be more forgiving as we approach the Arabian Sea in the days ahead.
The last part to get to the finish line was composed of small dunes with dead vegetation and needed considerable effort to many of the runners. The first position was for Rachid Almurabity , second place his brother Mohammed Almurabity and third position for Evgeni Glyva from Ukraine. The first woman to arrive was Aziza Raji, followed by Pizzali Fabiana and Romazi Emmanuelle from Switzerland and France respectively.
RESULTS STAGE 3
OVERALL RESULTS @ STAGE 3
Photografer: Salim Alhajri
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