Thanks for asking
Overall the meet was awesome. Its one of the few team competitions that works well. The lack of fans was discouraging, and feeds into the whole State of the Sport discussion. Everyone at the meet and around the city that I talked to knew El G and Aouita (easy talking point / conversation starter), but it didn't translate into a full arena. Still the meet was good
The athletes seemed to really enjoy the meet as well, moreso than some other meets ive spectated. There was a lot of money so they were competing hard, but it wasn't the Olympics so they appeared to be a little more relaxed. You could see it in their demeanor on the track at starts and especially afterwards. In particular the relays were fun bc guys and gals who often race agianst eachother were teaming up. We got random opportunities to chat with athletes afterwards and they were all around enjoying the meet too. I even bumped into an athlete in the soukhs, which as you can imagine is really unlikely, but it appeared at least some were taking advantage of the opportunity to site see
The actual meet was well run, everything was on time. The athlete introductions left a little to be desired and the acoustics were bad. The stadium was well decorated. There were also signs all over the city for the meet. They didn't ever put field event distances, heights, or misses on the jumbotron screen which made it hard to follow the action. We got front row finish line seats no problem bc of the low attendance and were able to move around to see other events as we wanted.
The stadium concourse and bathrooms were confusing, and there were very few concessions - but I think that's just what you get in the region.
Just some quick thoughts on some of the Day 2 events:
W3000SC
Emma Coburn solidified a great season with a win - the small predominantly African crowd wasn't happy about the apparent contact at the end but it was great to see her win
M3000SC
Great to see Evan Jager close hard, good race against the definitive world #1 Birech and a great season. Sub8 for him in the future? We can hope
M3000
Caleb Ndiku show over the last 400m. Dude is fast. An always gracious and competitive Lagat got a near standing ovation from the crowd
W5000m
The race was crawling (18:00 pace) for the first kilometer but eventually the two Africans took off and gapped the field. 40 y/o Brit Jo Pavey made a brilliant charge for 2nd and the last stretch was electric but she ended up a well beaten 3rd
M800m
What a field. Mo Aman, Nigel Amos, Adam Kszot, not to mention Bang Bang Solomon In the end Nigel's finishing speed could not be matched by anyone and he did his famous tongue wag at the end. It was marvelous.
M4x400
Africa had a superb race and the US team was out of it after 2 legs. Donald Sanford for Europe was the 3rd leg and turned the 15m gap the African Saviour Kombe had into a 5m gap and hand off to Martyn Rooney. Martin pulled even with Van Niekerk on the backstretch and the final homestretch battle was EPIC with Africa winning in the end. What a race! The crowd was really alive at that moment
WShotput
Valerie Adams got hurt in warmup and didn't compete, major bummer. Hopefully she recovers and rebounds
WHJ
Chaunte Lowe always entertaining and personable, she took second to Kuchina
We really enjoyed Marrakech. The differences between it and US cities were a little unsettling at first but you get used to it and i really enjoyed it. For example when we first arrived the cab dropped us off at the main entrance to Jemma al Fna and our host met us there. But he tells us that our raid is full and he's moving us to another one. Since all travel blogs warn you about deception, this was a sketchy start. But we did our due diligence and in the end it all turned out to be legitimate. We were at riad deux portes which was about 600m off the main square. It was a great place. We did a tannery tour, walked the soukhs, saw Madeiras Ben youssef, and walked around tosee other mosques and palaces and gardens. It was a great experience.
We ran a couple times, and I believe we used the exact park you recommended with the soft paths. We ran around Geuliz (new city) and the Arsat Moulay Abdeslam Cyber Parc which had a couple km of soft paths and shade. The beginning and end of our runs went though Jemma al Fna which was entertaining for us and hopefully for the other people too