What did run with the Abu Dhabi Striders mean to me?

What did run with the Abu Dhabi Striders mean to me?

There couldn’t have been better beginning than paraphrasing the Divine Comedy to describe the allegory of my running journey with the Striders:

[…] In the middle of my run, I came to myself, in a dark desert, where the direct way was lost. I was so weak and spent, at that point on the Scorpion where I abandoned the true way. But when I reached the top of Birdcage, where the desert, that had pierced my heart with fear, came to an end, I looked down and saw its shoulders brightened with the rays of that sun that leads men rightly on every turn of the Snail. Then the fear, that had settled in the lake of my heart, through the night that I had spent so miserably, became a little calmer. […]

Al Wathba Birdcage Hill

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

You made me fully appreciate that running is like life, there is enthusiasm, uncertainty, tears of despair and joy, many failures, and few victories, but along the way there is always someone ready to support, to hand a smile, a word of reassurance and to make me feeling like a king, at least for a day, because “the praise of the wise few is more important than the mockery of the foolish many.

You have touched my soul, made me laugh when I was grumpy, kept listening to my continuous rants and chatters, helped me to overcome my fears and to take up challenges, which I had always considered impossible, because I do now believe that a new achievement is only one step further than the current limit.

You are the only ones I wanted to be with at 0400 AM when everyone else was still sleeping, be with watching sunrise while going up and down rocky and sandy hills, share pain & sweat, celebrate achievements and joke about failures, planning the next crazy endeavor, sharing a fleeting glance of encouragement when needed because “The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never!”

A wise runner once told me “...We start together and we finish together…”, and I further realized that every finish line is not an end, but it is the starting point of the next adventure to share together.