Sharjah Tourny + Bill Brown Ride = Busy weekend

I mentioned that the Mosaic conference was the first of several weeks of busy-ness. This past weekend, the leap year weekend, was the second installment. Friday was a rugby tournament in Sharjah, Saturday was a bike ride I was organizing for the Carnegie Mellon community. Fortunately there were no classes on Thursday so I had the time to spend preparing. Still... it was a crazy weekend.

Friday I got up at the crack of dawn as usual to go to the airport. We always take short day trips into tournaments so that we can save the money we'd be spending on hotels. I've become very familiar at this point with the Dubai airport, so it's an easy transit. We got to the grounds and our first game was a short 20 minutes later. Needless to say we weren't warmed up enough and ended up playing one of the better teams in the league. The game didn't turn out so well, especially when it ended with a last tackle by me causing my shoulder to dislocate for the FOURTH time since last October. I was taken off the field, sweaty, tired, and in pain, to be put in a room with a doctor who couldn't get my shoulder reducted after 4 tries. At this point my entire body was drenched in sweat from the stress of the situation, and my shoulder muscles were spasming so much it was impossible to get my shoulder back in. They gave me a shot of something in my butt which still didn't work, so they took me to the hospital. Of course when we got there at noon, the only emergency doctor was out an noon prayer and took 15 minutes to get back. They gave me a small IV of valium, a blur washed over me, and sure enough my shoulder was back in place. I got back to the rugby pitch just in time to see their third and final game. We came in 5th of 8 which we all know we could have done better, but oh well. I'm slowly recuperating, and now looking at the prospects of surgery as I've now given up on the rest of the season of rugby. I'll still go to practices and be supportive of the team, but I think I won't be tackling anybody for a while.

Luckily, we got back from the airport early such that I got enough sleep to get up in the morning and ride the fastest I've ever ridden to Al Khor and back. The ride was something my group of cyclists have been talking about for a while. The ride was in celebration of the life of the late Bill Brown, a professor at both the Doha and Pittsburgh campuses and a major part of both communities. There were three distances: 26km, 46km, and 68km. For some reason I thought it would be a great idea to do the longest, this less than 24 hours after I'd dislocated my shoulder. I did it in just over 2 hours. There were 76 riders total which shattered my expectations of the event and even more showed up to volunteer and come to the BBQ lunch at the golf club afterwards. We had tons of support from the local bike shops as well as the police force who escorted us the entire time. The helpfulness and organization of the police single-handedly redeemed my faith in the civil defense force of Qatar (b/c all I've ever seen them do is direct traffic at backed-up roundabouts). We even had equipment donated by ROTA/Aspire Academy and Qatar Cycling Federation. It was truly a community event, which was the greatest feat in my estimation. The event was a complete success and I already have loads of people asking me when the next ride will be... not for a long time if it's me in charge of things. It's just great to know that there are that many cycling enthusiasts here in Doha.