Crossing Continents: My Istanbul Marathon 15K Adventure
There’s something uniquely exhilarating about running from one continent to another. But in the end, my mind was somewhere else and did not have time to grasp what was happening. But I am jumping ahead, let's start in the morning. I arrived in Istanbul the day before, and with very little sleep, I barely managed to navigate public transport to pick up my race kit and plan my route to the starting line before falling into bed, utterly exhausted. My alarm went off at 6:00 am, and I dragged myself up, getting ready in a daze. I would have loved to sleep longer, but I wanted to be safe and arrive early. Or so I thought. The night before, I’d asked the hotel to book a taxi for 6:40 am, but when I got to the lobby, they were just making the call. It was early Sunday morning, and the hotel was far from central, so I anxiously watched the minutes tick by until the taxi finally arrived. Due to road closures for the race, the special ferries transporting runners from Europe to the sta...