The Accidental 42 on top of the earth

The Accidental 42 on top of the earth

When the opportunity to participate in a marathon in the Arctic circle presented itself, I grabbed it.  Then the opportunity to do a 42k accompanied it, I jumped on it.  I had only 20-days* to actualize both.  And actualize I did. 

(*The full details of this is being crafted in ‘The Accidental Trip’ to be released Dec. 31, 2019.  If you want the raw unedited, please get in touch)

So let me jump straight to chapter twenty-eight, which details this marathon.  I had ‘somehow’ tried my best to prepare for this run, despite the short notice.  I only had three weeks and I pumped eight preparatory runs into that duration, including my second run where I got lost in the strange land and ended up doing an ‘accidental’ 21km after running round and round without getting out of the maze, until I had to gather courage, break tradition, and ask for help.  

We had already been updated that the normal tradition here is not to say nothing.  Keep quiet and keep to yourself.  I forgot to say ‘Hi’ by day 5, since no one expected it and no one responded anyway.  It was a bother they did not anticipate.  Remember that meme that one of the things that runners do is to say ‘Hi’?  They lied!  Even marathoners do not say Hello to each other when they meet out there doing their runs.  Strange, I tell you but, the Viking tradition is tradition.

During four of my preparatory runs, I did realize that it was much easier to run over here without getting as tired.  I could easily clock a 15k, just like that, when intending to do a ‘lunch-hour’ run of 13k in the evening.  Maybe it was the sea level altitude?  Maybe it was the many forested trails that were quiet, shaded and peaceful for the runs?  Maybe it was that nobody dared ‘disturb’ you with a ‘Hello’?  Maybe it was the geography, just located immediately next to the north pole?  I do not know, but the run felt easier on the legs.  

The only contention that I had was being rained on while running.  It rains like daily, apart from that one-week of heat wave that was affecting Europe that did not spare this place.  Other than that, cold and rain is the order of the day, and night.  In fact, I was even glad that I was rained on during my last run before the marathon.  It would give me a feel of a rainy marathon.  The feeling was not good.  The rain was cold and the environment was cold, ending up with a chilly run, while the cold run gear was tightly caressing your body – forcing the cold onto the skin.  However, I was ready for it if it came to that.

Do not register

When I ‘accidentally’ registered for this marathon a week to the event, I was quite surprised as to how steep it could cost.  I had to pay for the marathon entry itself as $69, yes, you are not reading double, you are reading it correctly – 7k for the registration.  Then I had to pay an additional 500bob for license fee (no running without this).  When I thought that the deal would not get any better, it did get better in the worse way.  I was charged 175/= for service fee and 150/= for processing fee.  I paid a total of 7,800 bob for that run.  Paying in local Kenya shillings also meant that I had to suffer double currency conversion losses from Shillings to Dollars, then Dollars to Kroner, ending up with a total Kenyan bill of 9k!  Just for one run!! Robbers!!

There would be one final surprise – I got an email to collect my runner number from the organizer’s town center office, Radisson Blue hotel, just next to where the run would also start.  From my residence to town was about 5km, with buses plying the route every ten or so minutes.  The footnote of that email was that I should carry some $24.9 for a ‘beautiful runner Tshirt’.

“Kwani how expensive is this run,” I asked the email, loudly!!

I did collect my runner no. 621, branded with my name and the Kenya flag was printed on the lower left corner of the paper, just below the word ‘maraton’.  I did not get a Tshirt.  I would run on plan B.  Who needs another Tshirt when I belong to team NMM2*?  I already had a personalized branded luminous yellow T.  While at it, I just remembered that my expenditure list would now include the cost of this trip, which was setting me back 370/= for fare, with a ticket that was valid for one hour.  After that hour, one would have to get another one of a similar amount.  This marathon was not happening.  But, it just had to happen because my bank card had been depleted dry – and I would better have something to show for it.

*Ni Mungu na Miguu Tu

Which weather?

On Friday before the marathon it had drizzled most day.  It was a cold day.  A rainy marathon was surely in the offing.  My plan to be in bed by nine so as to be fully rested for the next day’s marathon backfired when the sun ‘refused’ to set down.  How was I supposed to sleep when the sun was still shining?  It was already 10pm and the night was still daytime with sun!.  I could see everything in this daylight at ten-P.  How could I sleep in this light?  I had even formed a habit of taking dinner at mid-night, since it is around then that there would be some semblance of darkness.  My sleeps were therefore mostly in the AM.  The one before the marathon was no different.

I had hardly slept, hardly dreamt, hardly turned, when the alarm on the phone woke me up at seven.  I got out of bed, in my small two by four room that I was paying two arms and two legs for.  I gazed out of the window and it was drizzling.

“This is just great!,” I said in frustration.  

I did not want to carry a change of clothes.  I just wanted to go to town ready for the run – no changing, no changing room, no left luggage and no luggage to claim after the run.  If it did rain then I would have to be clad in a jacket and trousers for the trip to town, and inevitable left luggage to deposit, and later claim – what a bother!

A cup of ‘tea’ made from ‘Sjokoladepulver’ kicked my day.  I had started picking a few words in Norsk.  It was the only way to survive.  That ‘chocolate powder’ was one of the words in the list so far.  It was still chilly when I left the hostel block to the bus stage just four hundred meters away.  I bought a ticket from a dispensing machine for 370/= that lasts an hour and waited for a bus to town.  The distance is short, in ten minutes you are in town.  I still believe it is just 5k, a distance that I shall shame by walking through one day soon.  That would mean that the ticket is overpriced for the hour, that is my take.

By 8.35am I was at the prehistoric ‘Stavanger dormkirke’, OK, old cathedral, where the 9.00am full marathon run was to start within 30 minutes.  The half marathon would begin 40 minutes later, while the 5k was a 1330hrs event.  There was an under-10 kids run on the card, scheduled for quarter to three.  When I encountered the slowly trickling crowd of runners, I started realizing the magnitude of my current predicament.  The details of the runners had already been published online as at the previous night.

“Africa?,” I said to myself, “How can you put all this on me?”

I was the only runner from south of the Mediterranean!  That was a burden too heavy to carry.  I even thought of dropping out!  The online list of 262 full marathon runners had only me and another one from ET.  I scanned around and for sure there was no one from ET.  I was all alone to battle it out with the Norwegians for the pride of the ‘south of Med’.  Bring it on!

*The marathon route (source: http://stavangermarathon.no/en/information/ )

Off we go!

The run started promptly at nine.  There were many preamble announcements in Norsk, which I did not get.  The countdown in any language is however unmistakable.  The once cold morning had metamorphosed into a warm morning.  The only disadvantage that I faced was lack of intelligence on the route profile, route map and route condition.  I started by just following the front runners.  We started by running through city streets, but mostly on the dedicated sidewalks, usually used by pedestrians on the normal course of life.  

I observed that the run did not seem to interrupt motor vehicle traffic much, if not at all.  Life continued, and the run continued.  Hardly five minutes into the run and I would momentarily be stuck with this group that had one of them with an overhanging flag affixed to his back reading, “3:30 – 5.00 min per km”.  The information on the website had promised pacesetters for 3hr 30min, 4.00hr and 4hr 30min.  I was glad to have seen this promise fulfilled, at least for the 3.30hr.  I soon overtook that group and just kept going – gazing in front for the direction that the front runners were taking and following suite.

The run was easy going.  While we were mostly on the pedestrian walkways, the run was also mostly done on trails in forested areas and majorly around two lakes and the beachfront.  The view was marvelous.  The run was smooth.  The fear of getting lost kept speeding me up to at least have someone ahead whom I could follow along.  They promised water, they delivered water.  That was on the 5k mark.  In small paper tumblers, they handed the water or allowed runners to pick.  However, that meant having to stop, sip, take, hand back the tumbler, then resume the run.  It was a strange one.  I am used to water in bottles (of cause Kili marathon had this tumbler business, the only one in my many years).

They promised energy drink, they delivered energy drinks from the 10k interval and for every other subsequent station, generally on 5k intervals.  All the way to the finish we had now both water and energy drinks.  The liquid was quite little – just a sip, but you could get a second helping.  

The run continued.  

I was glad that my worries about being hydrated were now put to rest.  I had not carried any water and if there was none on the course then I would have been roasted.  I had my three timing gadgets, and I remember that announcement of “Thirteen kilometers in one-hour, average pace four minutes thirty-six seconds per kilometer,” as clearly as the nighttime sunshine.  I was aiming for a 3hr 30min, but with that pace… I would end up with a 3-15!  That was not meant to be.  I was just gauging the new lands!

The run starts, again

And then the marathon started.  Let me let you in on the marathon secret, the marathon starts after 21km.  That is when it starts.  Repeat, again, the marathon starts on the 21km mark.  That is the point you aim for when doing the marathon.  I saw the 21km red marker on a small paper like structure, hardly the size of a foolscap, affixed to the ground on the left of my running path.  We were just about through running around the two lakes when this marker appeared.  I had to forget that I had been running and now start running to the finish line.  If I could, I should have reset my timers, but keep this part of resetting timers for later.

They promised squeezy gel on the 23k mark, they delivered ‘squeezy energy gel’ on that mark, alongside water and energy drinks.  

“These people have memory,” I told myself since I really doubted this gel thing.

I was still struggling to break the 33g gel tube when I was drawn by these chants of, “Heia!  Heia!  Heia!”

I looked to my left to see the group of kids, hardly teens, brandishing Norwegian flags and clapping along, excited.  There are runners before and after me.  I note that their “Heia!” intensifies with the approach of each runner.  I would observe many more “Heia”s on the route.  I liked it.

Talking of memory, I had one myself.  I remembered this 23k mark as exactly as I was now seeing it, a fourth time!  When I ‘got lost’ during one of those preparatory runs, I had ended up on this junction and turned back, then ran back to it twice more and turned back.  Every turn back convinced me that I was lost – and it was true.  It was so far from where I was supposed to have been running.  What a pleasant surprise to see it again!

Really?

This would not happen, I had told myself.  It is a “no way”.  But believe it or not, they promised chocolate, they delivered dark chocolate at the 27km mark, alongside energy drinks and water – energy drinks on the first table as usual.  I picked two small cubes of chocolate.  Tiredness was already creeping in, since it took me about 5km to partake my chocos – with lots of effort, both to push a piece to the mouth and then to get a munch going.

Soon I hit that beach that I knew so well – the Atlantic Ocean, which I had just touched the last weekend.  Those waters were as cold as ice.  Then!  And then there they were, on my right, the “Sverd i fjell”.  The three ten-meter metallic swords that have been fixed to the ground.  

This ‘sword in rock’ scene was a pictorial background in many selfies just last Sunday.  Now it was a run-through section as we faced the one kilometer run along the ocean front.  I would easily just cross the highway on my left and head back to my hostel some three kilometers from that point.  However, that was not happening since I had now already hit 30km and nothing, repeat, nothing was stopping me in the last 12km.

I did not have much time to strategize since… they promised bananas, and they delivered ripe bananas.  The 31km marker had about three small tables, the first one with energy drinks in small tumblers, the second with water in equally small paper tumblers, and a third with bananas, cut to pieces.  I had to stop for a mouthful of energy, then started off, banana piece in hand.  

Before long we hit the 32k mark.  I had a second flashback, attributed to the different times that I had got lost during my preparatory runs.  On that occasion, about a week ago, I had seen a red arrow marked on the tarmac pointed towards me.  I had to make a judgment call, and I thought it had something to do with prohibition, with only one-way traffic allowed.  I therefore had to do a plan B run on that day, instead of going against the arrow drawn on the tarmac.  Little did I know that it was the marathon organizers playing a trick on me.  That marking was for the full marathon route!  Cheats!!

The last 10km were already etched on my memory as per the map.  We would generally run along the oceanfront all the way back to ‘dormkirche’.

And… finally, they promised coke, and they delivered coke.  This was on the 39km mark, where we now had water, energy drink, coke and bananas.  At 39k the run is technically done.  You only have 3km and the run if finished.  But, but wait a minute, we would soon hit 40k, just like that and we now had the end in sight.  Just make a right turn somewhere in town, hit that tarmac and get to where the music was coming from.  

And here now comes the second trick of running the full marathon – the run is easily lost on the 40k.  The secret is out!  By this time you are tired and your mind is hardly working.  Your legs are just going on free.  The mind can give them a wrong signal at any time, including ‘stop’, so these last 2km are the most crucial for a recreation runner.  Master them, control them, have dominion over those two, and you shall finish the run.  

Life begins at…

When you hit 40, not age, when you hit the 40k mark, the end is surely in sight.  Every step you take makes you more tired.  The mind miscalculates everything, and gives it an exaggeration of x10.  After you have run only 100m, you feel like you have cleared a kilometer.  Run 200m and you believe that you should be finishing the run – the truth is that you have not even hit 41, not age, the 41k mark.  

Master your mind on these last two if you want to finish the run.  This is how you do it – know that you still have quite a distance to the finish line.  Do not think about the finish line, just know that it shall come ‘when the time is right’.  And that time is likely to be ten to fifteen minutes away.  It is usually that far. 

I just found myself at the finish line, since I knew that I would be there ‘when the time is right’ and the time was right at 3hr 14min 56sec as per the wrist gadget that never lets me down, though it let me down ‘kidogo’ on the distance, indicating that it was a 43.24km – still a very good account for an analogue.  

My other two gadgets ‘refused’ to be stopped after the finish line.  I took almost a minute trying to unlock the screens to get to the apps, so that I could stop them.  When I did, the Runkeeper read 3.15.35 for 42.21km.  How accurate can these digital things get!!  This was super precise, especially on the distance.  

Believe it or not, upon unlocking the screen of the second phone, the Endomondo was having that dreaded error message, “Unfortunately this app has stopped working, do you want to reset”!  Just imagine if that was my only gadget!!

The run was done.  Just like it had started, it came to an end.  There was no much pomp or funfare.  Runners were just finishing at their own pace and proceeding to leave.  I also left, just after stumbling upon James, a TZ student whom I had gotten acquainted with.  His story of this run was quite interesting, that he came in late then got lost!  He found himself towards the finishing line of a 42k run hardly 30-minutes after starting, “It was crazy, nakuambia,” he narrated, “So my marathon just ended like that.”

Extra run

The worst minutes for the runner are those 30-minutes after you hit the finish line.  While on the run you were surviving on adrenalin, and forced motion, especially the last two kilometers.  Now you are not running and there is no adrenalin, just pain on your joints and your mind coming back to full alertness.  Now it reminds you that you are not OK, that your legs are aching, that your shoe pinches somewhere, that you are tired.  

Many things are now happening to your body in real time.  However, they promised a pasta at the finish line…. and I was surprised to be handed a small plastic container with something white inside.  

I did not know how I survived the 30-minutes post run – that time when you are just moving around aimlessly.  Every muscle aches.  You are limping, you usually limp, you must limp, due to some leg ache, muscle pain or shoe strain.  However, I was back to normal by the time a got another hour ticket and got a bus back home.  

The red lanyard with white-blue-white strips holding the finishers medal was hanging around my neck.  The medal had the inscription, “Stavanger Marathon – NM 2019 – 42195 meter.”  That is soooo precise!  They need to change their slogan to ‘every meter counts’!  The reverse side of the circular metal had the wordings – “Alexander Kielland”, which had to send me back to the history books to read of the marvels of this Norsk writer.

Even as I write this story in the plain daylight of eight in the night, sorry in the daylight, I realize that ‘somehow’ I am not as tired as the runs that I have had back home, despite running the second-best time ever on that distance.  My PB stands at 03.07.51 in Nairobi, 2009.  At this rate, that record may not last long.

Updates (3-Sep-2019): Final results have been published on the organizer's website.

Helmaraton aka 42k full marathon:
Menn: 2.34.53 (ETH), 2.36.10 (NOR) and 2.38.39 (NOR)
Kvinner: 2.51.06 (NOR), 2.53.02 (NOR) and 3.05.56 (NOR)
I was position 20 overall with a time of 3.14.46 (+0.39.54 after the winner. My speed was 4m37s per km) and position 15 on the men's event.
223 runners finished the full marathon.

Helvmaraton aka 21k half marathon:
Menn: 1.09.36 (NOR), 1.10.49 (NOR) and 1.13.19 (NOR)
Kvinner:1.24.14 (NOR), 1.24.56 (DEN) and 1.31.10 (NOR)

732 participants finished this run

WWB, Stavanger, Aug. 31, 2019