The race for President, and the 10k

Hello Dom here,
I am recovering from a night of excess and preparing for the Beirut marathon (well the 10k) so it is a Saturday night in with pasta and not even a wee glass of wine. Italy beating Scottyland in the football, so I thought I would quickly blog - as I write Scotland have equalised - come on the Jocks!

Not that you would know it from the international media which seems to completely ignore Lebanon, this is an absolutely massive week for the country coming up. After 9 long years of President Emile Lahoud he will hopefully step down on Friday, to be replaced by...well who knows? The debate has been quite nasty, to have a pro-government (ie pro-western) President, an anti-government (pro-Syrian) one, or most likely a consensus one. Mostly it boils down to many of the politicians hating each other with scars going back to the civil war and beyond, and having refused to talk for nearly a year they are now forced to start dealing with each other because nobody wants the place to fall apart. So there is a list of names now with the leaders of the government and opposition - the list has been selected following working meetings of all sides with the leader of the Maronite church as the President has to be Christian under the constitution. Strangely the leaders of the pro/anti government are Sunni and Shia respectively, but that doesn't seem to matter. After weeks and months of doom and gloom, there are some glimmers of optimism that this might at last be sorted out. And maybe the happy campers in the tent city who have been there for 353 days and paralysed the centre of town might go home! It's about time. If all goes well Parliament meets on Wednesday to do the deed!

In more interesting news Fiona and I are running the Beirut 10k tomorrow. Everyone I know who is Lebanese and doing the 10k says they are running the marathon - which they are not! There is a marathon tomorrow but it starts at 7 am and is a very long way, so nobody in their right mind/that I know is doing it. We have been doing a bit of training though. Last year I did it in just over an hour with a mixture of running and walking so I hope to break the hour mark.

The weather is cooler now but still lovely in the day around 20 degrees. But the first big rains came last weekend - briefly - and more is forecast for this week. So hopefully some snow will arrive on the mountains and we can turn our minds to skiing again.

Watch this space for news this week on both important races!