Marathon

Kenya

The Nairobi Marathon is only ten days away. ILRI is sponsoring us, and I think we’ll represent them well — I saw a list go around work today and there are fifty five names on it! It’s pretty evenly divided between men and women, but there are only two men running the ten kilometer race, me and some other guy. I caught a lot of flak from my running buddies at work for not doing twenty one, but I don’t care! I think they’re in it to win it, but I just want the cool t-shirt.

I’ve been running at work for the past month or so, hopefully that’s enough training to make sure I don’t faint during the real deal on October 25th. We usually run through the countryside around ILRI, something like seven kilometers three days per week. Keep in mind this is high altitude and we’re running on hilly dirt roads, sometimes through terraced corn fields. I’ve really got to take my phone one day so I can get some pictures. Yesterday I was running with a Kenyan colleague and we were keeping a pretty good pace. looked around and realized we were in a beautiful, green part of Kenya, with people yelling at cows, planting corn, speaking all kinds of languages, etc… it was pretty surreal. I’m sure I’ll look back fondly at this time in ten years.

Stay tuned…

Kenya

I haven’t died yet! Today was the first day of the running club at work. I feel great, but the run was really hard. I had figured I’d show up where everyone assembles before the run and then pick the weakest ones… but my colleagues swang by and picked me up just before lunch, took me to the changing room, and then off we went! “It’s not far” took us through a rural villagy area near my work, and into a terraced corn farm (big hills, up and down), then around oh my god and down and up up up up up oh my god. After a while I told my partners to leave me and I had to walk up this hill.

I walked for a few minutes and then started to run, then got tired. Several times! My buddies said that was probably around eight kilometers, of which probably three was up a mountain — not to mention the altitude of running in Nairobi/Uthiru. That’s why Kenyan runners dominate when they go to international marathons! They’re trying to convince me to run in the Nairobi marathon in a few months. I told them I’d do ten kilometers and they were unimpressed, pushing me to do the twenty one. I guess the marathon is all flat, so by then I won’t even feel it.

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