Bahrain Half Marathon 2013

This is just a short post not exactly about the race itself, but that the whole race took place on a route on land that did not exist in 2000, in fact most of it did not exist in 2005, it was coral reefs in the sea. Much of the route is along what has been a construction site since I arrived in the Kingdom in 2011, the King Faisal Highway has been growing steadily wider, a massive overpass that I drive beneath every day has been steadily stretching from the piles of sand at Bahrain Bay to the mainland. For one morning one lane of the highway is closed off and has become a running track. running along the track opposite to the flow of the traffic gives a view of the development that you don’t normally get to see,  behind the fences that are normally not noticeable in the traffic, is the makings of a new landscape, although resembling a car park at present, and beyond a Corniche, a sea front, a place that I have grown up taking for granted is being built.

Up and onto the overpass and what will become the main Bahrain Bay road, past Arcapita a kind of suspended glass box office block and some utilitarian buildings that resemble standard issue sub stations and bang! into a headwind, past the boxes and on to the top of the road, the view across to the shoreline is beginning to look dramatic with the Bahrain World Trade Centre, being framed by structures moving out of the ground that are beginning to resemble the renderings at least in form, the Four Seasons on its own island in the middle of the ‘Bay’ and the twisting form of the Wyndham Grand. Has a feel of the Victorian rush to the seaside in the UK during the19th Century, except the weather is good here all the time and the smog is not in the cites but the traffic. Continuing around the loop of Bahrain Bay to the financial harbour and the bookend office blocks and the twisted sisters, the 3 abandoned towers and back on to the highway this time running with the traffic, why do they all feel the need to ‘beep’ as they go by? Perhaps they think they are encouraging us, or is it that we are occupying their space? An hour later after I have remembered how to walk again, the cones are gone, the traffic has built up to its relentless rush and everything is back to what passes for normal.

Having experienced the makings of SOM’s master plan shaping up on the ground, there is the feeling of anticipation or is it trepidation? of how this place is going to shape up, either way looking forward the next event where we can get the running track back again in the ever changing landscape.