The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Let’s be honest for a second: health and fitness isn’t exactly at the forefront of Cairenes’ collective consciousness. Granted, gyms around the city are regularly frequented by a dedicated few, but for most, there are just better things to do with one’s time.

Whether it’s fuelled by vanity or the wish to add an extra few years of your life, the biggest issue for those looking to keep fit lays at the mercy of practicality and affordability. We often forget that most Cairenes just don’t have the disposable income to shell out 4000LE for a gym membership. Others suffer from inconvenience; in a city that is notoriously difficult to get around comfortably, popping down to your gym for a quick session before work isn’t always a viable plan.

In CairoRunners, however, we have been delivered an almighty solution. If you have the intestinal fortitude to leave your home before noon on a Friday, you may well have encountered them – everywhere from Zamalek to 6th of October City. Having come to fruition at the end of 2012, CairoRunners organised their first 4K run with sixty participants. Now, that number often reaches an impressive 1000.

While the idea of organised group runs is in no way groundbreaking, CairoRunners offers Cairenes an easy way to keep fit while pulling runners away from treadmills and closed-tracks to enjoy Cairo’s great outdoors. And though founder, Ibrahim Safwat, is keen to shake off the idea of CairoRunners being an organisation, so to speak, the initiative has built a very tight but welcoming community, keeping in touch with the public via social media platforms.

This weekend marks CairoRunners’ biggest run – a half marathon beggining and ending at Almaz Garden in Heliopolis. Taking place over 21km of Heliopolis streets, with an alternative, shorter  7km course also on offer, the event has taken a momentous effort from its organisers. Planning safe, suitable routes has been the bane of CairoRunners’ existence; while locations such as the Fifth Settlement offer appropriate stretches for the dedicated commune, others closer to the centre of town pose a number of issues – lack of safe spaces, cracked roads, et al.  But the CairoRunners team are a resolute bunch, and the weekend’s half marathon is testament to the group’s iron will, and their resolve to truly contribute to the community.

Apart from helping to subsidise the marathon itself, a small 30LE registration fee will also go towards two very worthy causes: the Egypt Liver Institute and the Egyptian Special Olympics Team. With an estimated 15000 Egyptians diagnosed with Hepatitis C every year, many will go on to need transplants – a costly expense that befalls man an Egyptian. Meanwhile, after the debacle that tainted the Egyptian team at last year’s London Olympics, their Special Olympics counterparts are weary of suffering similar setbacks on the grandest stages.

In a time where relations between the population and the government are somewhat strained, causes such as these have little stability. In this sense, then, CairoRunners has very quickly evolved into something that is much more than a just fitness initiative.  Politics continues to fail in soothing Egypt’s sinking, fractured society, and though many will consider this a vastly romanticised suggestion, it is in fact grass-cairorevamp_users initiatives like CairoRunners that is helping to create closer-knit communities. There’s no exclusivity, no discrimination; just running.

Safwat and his rag-tag team have shown that we can find brilliance in simplicity; in a mere few months, a group of guys and gals who just want to run has reached thousands of Cairenes and their magnus opus comes in a few days time with one of the most significant public events of the year.

Registration for Cairo’s Half Marathon is mandatory – check out the CairoRunners website for a full rundown of the registration locations around Cairo and more information.