10 km Hakuna Shida

I ran 10 km in the Nairobi Marathon, hakuna shida (no problem). It’s not far but I’m really tired! As I was waiting for the 10 km group to start I saw the wheelchair group fly by, and then the full marathon group. The 42 km guys are serious runners, holy shit. And the wheelchair guys were going so fast, and with such vigor, that I wondered if any of them ever fall. It would have to be catastrophic! I don’t even remember seeing them wearing helmets…

I had a lot of fun, so I’m actually looking forward to more runs in Kenya. I felt a real comradery when I arrived in the city center in a matatu in the morning. Because the police had closed all the roads I had to walk from the business district to Nyayo Stadium where the race was starting. Lots of people were walking, and random people were slapping high fives when they saw that you were obviously running in the marathon. As we were waiting at the venue I saw kids, old ladies with hunchbacks, and people in way worse shape than me running 10 km, and that’s ridiculous. I’ll have to do 21 in the next marathon, but never 42. Out of the 60 or so ILRI people who ran, two went for the full marathon. They both finished, but one of them was a bit out of this world when he crossed the finish line (if you know what I mean). 42 is too far!

We had ILRI people taking lots of photos, so I’ll post those when I get copies later this week.

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