Then the heat hit us! HOLY COW! In the blast of the plane, and the heat of the day and the blowing sand, we were finally getting the full desert summer experience and they weren’t kidding. It was brutal. Fortunately for us, the blowing sand was just from the plane moving, and not from the natural wind, so it calmed down as soon as the plane moved. We hopped in another shuttle, and got a great tour of the base. Sr Martin told us how the base was built on Saddam Houssain’s old military base, and he showed us the stadium here. Apparently he used to threaten the lives of the athletes and the families of the athletes who competed on the Iraqi Olympic soccer and track team, they if they didn’t win, he would kill them. The base was built to house 2000 Iraqi soldiers. They also had a very sophisticated fuel shut off system underground that if there was a fire anywhere on base, the fuel to that tank would shut off and route the fuel to all the other tanks all over the base. He also mentioned that we might see Mig fighter jets scattered all over the desert because Saddam found that if he scattered them, one bomb wouldn’t devastate the whole fleet! Now they’re just decoration! With a few additions and adjustments, this air base now houses 17,000 soldiers. Sr Martin is also a hard core runner, so he was thrilled to have Frank Shorter on board, was looking forward to the race tomorrow to run a sub 21 minute race. Pretty impressive. He was helping to organize a half marathon on this base in honor of a high ranking female soldier who was killed. That race is August 15, and again Bart and Robi jumped into action and are going to help him out with publicity and all that. GREAT stuff. He is also looking forward to running the Iraq satellite Marine Corps Marathon in October. He told us how they have a 5K here about every 3-4 weeks, and a lot of the people we talked to had run all of them since they’d been here. Very cool stuff. We were all very excited for this race because the estimates of runners were pretty high!
We went to The Lion’s Den (housing) and got our rooms. The guy had to share, but Sandy, Nicole and I all got our own rooms and they were NIIIIICE! Double the size…even triple that of the room in Kuwait…and a double bed! This place is PLUSH! Cpt Martin told us they call it Camp Cupcake because of all the amenities! Nicole and I commented that we kept expecting it to get worse, but getting better with every base? Our expectations are going to be out of whack!
We threw down our stuff and ran to the theatre to get the band set up. With the 8 hour delay at the airport in Kuwait, it gave the band about an hour and a half to set up before the show started at 7:30. We helped them all we could, got registration set up then jumped on the shuttle to head back to housing for a quick outfit change into our official Under Armour Warrior Tours uniform then back to the theatre for SHOW TIME! Josh and Rick had the registration all set up, we got the autograph cards and chairs for Bart. Sandy and Frank all set up. While we were setting up, we already had a line, so we were chatting with the troops a little, then once we were all set, we got things underway.
The guys and gals in line knew there were famous people at the end of the line, but hadn’t gotten the full word on who they were, so I worked the crowd. I walked around handing out registration forms, talking to the troops. Everyone is so darned friendly and happy to talk to you! When I’m working the crowd at an expo, I sometimes feel like I have a disease or really bad breath because no one wants to talk to me. Here, I can strike up a conversation with any of them, and it’s an intelligent conversation and they’re awesome! A few people asked if I was famous, and I joked, ten told them who the real celebs were. At this point, once we’d gotten a bunch of people registered, Catch Penny started playing and they ROCK! I can’t think of another band I’d like to hear 7 nights in a row! They were great. Unfortunately this particular base had hosted a whole bunch of shows lately, so while the race registration was booming, the audience in the theatre was pretty sad. A bummer of a way to start the tour for the band, but we were all pretty excited about the race. As the crowd in the lobby died down, the band took a break, and Robi took the stage to introduce us all to the audience. After a really nice intro, we went back into the lobby while Catch Penny did a meet and greet and handed out CDs. We finished up registration and the run staff were rushed off to catch a quick bite before the chow hall closed. Unfortunately Catch Penny hadn’t gotten anything other than chips, muffins and cookies since we arrived as they were so busy setting up in a hurry. They had just started their second set, so they’d have to wait till the midnight meal. (which was at 11….go figure!) We ate, talked a little about plans for the next morning, then half the crew went back to housing while Robi, Josh, Rick and I went back to the theatre to get everything set for the next morning. We set up the flags at the start/finish line, futzed around with a few more things and headed back to housing for some rest. I tried to get caught up on the blog, but gave myself a midnight deadline (need some sleep) and I couldn’t get the internet to work, so I typed a little and went to bed. Laid and relaxed and counted and breathed until 1:30 then suddenly the alarm went off. NICE! I slept and slept hard. Knock on wood, the time zone transition has been quite smooth. Probably the 8 hours relaxing in the airport in Kuwait helped!
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