Skiers visiting Dubai’s famous indoor ski slope can now get there by metro.

Ski Dubai on a slow day.

The new Dubai metro has a stop at the Mall of the Emirates, home of Ski Dubai, making it possible for people to reach the ski slopes directly from the airport. The mall is famous for being a stopover destination for international travelers, and ski stopovers may eventually become a reality.

“It will take time for people to get used to the metro as such. I don’t think that they are ready to go from the airport to the metro to come here as he might be in London, for example,” the manager of the Kempinski hotel in the Mall told local media. “But once people are more accustomed to the concept they will start to use it, knowing that they can get from the airport to the hotel without going outside.”

With 54 marathons to his name, six wins and 51 of them completed in under three hours, Nick Berrill is arguably Dubai’s fastest man and, it seems fair to say, somewhat of a marathon expert. In the six years since arriving in Dubai, the 45-year-old Dubai Metro programme director has finished all but one of the city’s races at the top of his category.

Nick Berrill pounds the pavement in Dubai. Jeff Topping / The National

He ran his fastest race in two hours 28 minutes while living in the UK, and in 2006 he and his wife, Anna, also an accomplished runner, set up ABRaS AC, a club that caters to Dubai’s more competitive runners.

But as the English father of three prepares for his seventh Dubai race in January, his appetite for the 42.2km race has been tempered by a desire for longer distances and tougher routes. Having won a silver medal for completing the 56km Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon in South Africa earlier this year in under four hours, he now has his sights firmly set on ultra-marathons.

“Next year I’m going to go to South Africa and do the Comrades Marathon and I want to get a silver medal there,” he says.

The Comrades Marathon, which takes place on May 30, is labelled the Ultimate Human Race at 89km. “You don’t do a lot differently for the training,” Berrill says. “All I do is extend my long run. I run over marathons for training anyway, quite often I’ll run 44km or 45km. For me it’s about getting the time.”

Berrill typically runs two marathons a year and has run twice a day, almost every day, for 20 years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his hero is the former European and Commonwealth marathon champion Ron Hill, who has not missed a day of running since December 1964 – even running with a broken sternum and the day after bunion surgery.

Berrill and his wife met at a running club in Northampton when Anna was an international triathlete. “Most of the people I used to run with married non-runners and so their running faded away very quickly,” he said. “I married a runner and that’s a good thing to do.

“You can empathise, understanding you have to commit some time, understanding that if you don’t run it causes bad behaviour – that you get frustrated. There’s also mutual support.”

These days, the sport also provides Berrill with a way to alleviate work stress. “I’d say some of my best decisions have been made while running for this job,” he said.

Berrill began running short distances at the age of 15 as part of rugby and football training but claims he was never particularly talented. “You don’t have to be talented to run a marathon or even run a good marathon. It’s just about hard work and patience.”

He attributes his staggered improvement in times and distance to the running club circuit in the UK and, in particular, the group of runners he met while at Northampton Phoenix club. “That’s what is really important about marathon running, to get a great group, because you do pull each other through the training.”

By the time Dubai became an option, in 2003, Berrill was running 100 miles a week. The UAE’s summers presented a major challenge to the running enthusiast and factored highly in his decision about whether to move here.

“I did research it and it was part of the decision mix in coming here, not just from a climate point of view but from air quality, and also the running clubs, of which at that time there were really only two: Dubai Creek Striders and Dubai Road Runners.

Berrill is relaxed about January’s race. “I try to maintain a certain level of training. I’m only ever 10 weeks away from a marathon because I can just adopt a training plan that can get me through,” he says.

One of the benefits of the world’s richest race, he says, is knowing the course and having support from fellow runners. “If you have been training with people and they’re coming down the other side then there’s that encouragement.”

Alstom, the French rail firm, says it will lay the first tracks in December for the Al Sufouh tram project in Dubai, a Dh4 billion (US1.08bn) mass transit system running from Dubai Marina to the Mall of the Emirates.

Dubai

The tramline would be the first in the Gulf and the first anywhere with air conditioned stations, officials said. The 11km first phase, which includes 2.5km of rail running above ground across a viaduct and 11 Alstom Citadis trams, is scheduled to open in 2011.

“This will be a world premiere,” said Eric Lenoir, the regional communications manager of Alstom, which is building phase one with BESIX of Belgium and Serco, which is based in the UK.

Reflecting a design trend, Al Sufouh’s tram system would be driven by a ground-level power supply, compared with conventional trams which rely on overhead electrical wires, Mr Lenoir said.

Rail projects have become popular in the GCC as the region tries to reduce road congestion and improve the quality of life. Dubai has invested heavily in mass transit and this year opened the Palm Jumeira Monorail on the man-made island as well as the first line of its Dh28bn Dubai Metro rail transit system.

In Abu Dhabi, planners have considered spending up to Dh250bn on tram, metro and long-distance rail lines as part of its 2030 plan, with the first services scheduled to open about 2014.

This year, the UAE Government incorporated the Union Railway Company to begin work developing a 1,300km heavy rail line to stimulate freight and passenger transport among the seven emirates. The line will eventually become part of the GCC railway linking Kuwait with Oman.

Mr Lenoir said work was progressing smoothly on the project for Al Sufouh.

Project engineers began work this summer on the viaduct and excavation for the platforms and stations. Work on the first cars began in France this month as well as laying of the first track bed, Mr Lenoir said.

A second phase on the line has been postponed, said the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority.

In winning the phase one contract, Alstom reportedly beat rival bids from Ansaldo Energia of Italy, Marubeni of Japan, Leighton Holdings of Australia and Siemens of Germany.

igale@thenational.ae