Da Nang hosts a marathon at the beach

I can't really imagine that sort of person that would be interested in running a marathon in the horrifically high temperatures that we have here in Vietnam this time of year but apparently there are some people that the heat affects a great deal less than it does me.

Hundreds of competitors arrived at 4 in the morning, where I guess the temperature would be a bit more bearable, to run along the ocean and around a loop in the city of Da Nang. Sunday is probably a really good day for them to do this because this city normally has horrendous traffic issues and blocking off roads for a footrace would make this much worse.

I did NOT participate in the race but a friend of mine did so I went down there at around 7am to support him. There were quite a lot more people involved than I would have imagined there would be in this heat and just like everyone else in attendance that was not running I started to feel a sense of awe at how great of shape these people must be in.

I think this is the guy that came in first. I can't say for sure but he had a film crew in front of him with a translator so I just zoomed in and took a picture just in case he ends up being someone famous that I have never heard of.

While I am sure it was super annoying to the people that were just trying to drive somewhere I have to say that the beach was so much more enjoyable without all the usual road noise complete with endless honking of horns for god knows what reason - it's just part of the culture. People feel as though they haven't done their day correctly if they don't toot their horn at least 30 times in a day.

Of course this interruption of the road noise and the ensuing silence could not be tolerated by any event organizer in Vietnam so they had a massive sound system pumping out techno from 5am to 10am. Absolutely ridiculous levels of volume as well.

I was really proud of these two guys that I know. I don't know them very well but we run into one another every now and then and one of them works with a mutual friend of ours. They didn't place very well, but they finished the entire race and one of them said that he never stopped jogging. The other, larger one, said that he frequently stopped to walk rather than maintain a running pace throughout the entire thing.

I'll say that I am truly impressed. I'm not super out of shape but honestly don't think I could run 5k in a row, especially in this heat, without stopping. These guys ran nearly 25 MILES.

I'm sure they sleep really well tonight!