First International Marathon of 2020 – Even a change of route could not stop this one

First International Marathon of 2020 – Even a change of route could not stop this one


I was just recovering from the malaria of last week when the date of the first international half marathon, code name ‘struggling-back-to-shape’, finally came by.  After those numerous feasts of Dec, surely this run deserved that name.  It was a Friday.  It was January 24.  The run was on.  It was a run on the usual 21km Kanyariri route that has already been mapped and scouted since last year.  All was well until Charles, who had promised to skip the marathon, came back from his lunch hour run.

“The road is closed,” he looked through my door as he came back from the run and got into the block, around one-forty, sweaty as a river.
“What do you mean the ‘road is closed’,” I looked up from my keyboard, a cup of warm water standing just next to my right hand.
“The loop is closed.  That section just after the wall is now closed.  There is even a gate!  And… a padlock!”

This was not happening.  I had hardly two hours before the early starters would be starting off the run, and now this?  It takes about a month to formulate a marathon route.  The initial stages involve mapping it out on Google map to see how a 21k circuit can run, followed by a physical scouting of the route to confirm that it is runnable.  

Occasionally, the scouting reveals new issues that necessitate revision of route.  You may scout out the route and find out that some sections are closed or impassible, information that may not be apparent on the online map.  Each revision means another mapping, then another scouting.  It takes a month to get the route and the distance right.  Do not even mention how the MoE* have to debate and disagree on the route despite all the work done.  I now had less than 2-hours to formulate a new 21km route!

That is when that light bulb flashed.  If the loop was closed by just a gate, and the rest of the loop still existed, then it was possible to do the loop from the reverse direction upto the gate, then just turn back at that gate.  That should still give the same distance, apart from the small addition distance to access the road to the reverse circuit.  That is exactly the message that I did sent to runners as a last-minute revision.  I informed them that the route had changed ‘slightly’ and provided an elaborate map of the alternative way to loop around the 1km section that was affected by this closure.

There were no formal confirmation of attendance when I got ready for the inaugural marathon of 2020 at four.  If anything, only Beryl of the B-and-B had confirmed her participation.  I would later see her rush to the office at four-ten for the four o’clock run.
“Coach, I am here for that early start.  Si ina anza saa kumi?”
“Very funny,” I responded.

We started the run at 4.20pm from the Generator.  I did not know who needed coaching amongst the two.  B was already a pacesetter in the marathon ranking, having smashed 80k by week 1.  The other B was just coming out of a malaria episode.  If anything, I only had a January 3 and January 20 scouting runs on this 21k route as the only noteworthy runs in the year.  I was already doubting my sanity in registering for the 1,000-miles-a-year online challenge, courtesy of the link from Edu.  I was already off the target just in month one!

We started the run as I took over the coaching role.
“We shall be taking it easy upto the highway.  However, when we cross over, we shall have to quicken it a bit.”
 

That is how the first phase of our run went.  Crossing the highway was however unforgiving, something that I had taken for granted.
“Wowi!, coach, how do you jump over this?,” she pointed at the barrier within the road, that separates the main road from the side road.
I wondered over the question for a moment.  I had already jumped over the half metre, knee high barrier.  I would in a moment see her struggle through a small gap within the barrier.  She finally managed to squeezer herself through.

We soon got to ‘the wall’, that barrier that is put in place to prevent anything wider than a meter to pass through, and just then…. just then we saw that infamous gate to our immediate right.  We would normally have turned right at this point and ran though the U-shaped loop.  Now we had to run straight ahead for about one-hundred metres, then make a right turn to do the reverse of this U-shaped route back to this locked gate.  We would then have to turn back after touching the gate on the other side of the gate.  

That is what we did.  

It did not take long before ‘good Samaritans’ stopped up on our tracks.
“Njia imefungwa.  Rudini,” the fight group of about three offered the helpful advice.  We deliberately ignored it.  They shook their heads behind our backs as they uttered their own reservations about ‘hao wajuaji, ngoja tu watarudi’. 

Soon another person would remind us that the road was closed and that we should turn back.  We ignored him as well.  We kept running towards the locked gate.  We would later ignore a third reminder as we now just faced the gate.  We touched the gate and turned back.  This turn back would have been the usual way of running had the gate not have been installed in that gap earlier on that day.

We kept running and got to Ndumboini, then faced the long Kanyariri road that runs all the way to Gitaru to join the Nakuru highway.  This is generally a hilly section that we faced and ran at our pace.  The weather was good.  The run was enjoyable.  

Jeff would overtake us just as we neared Gitaru market.  We waved him on as we kept going.  We walked as we reached Gitaru market and kept walking all the way to Wangige road, where we resumed our run on the Wangige road that is under construction.  We would use this route to circle Gitaru market then rejoin Kanyariri road for the run-down.

We met Edu coming up hill as we did our run-down.  We encouraged him up, while we ran down.  The pace increased as the run become more enjoyable.  Our legs would get to the tapping rhythm as we enjoyed the downhill.

“Hey, ningojeni!,” I thought that I heard, but maybe I just thought that I heard.
“Nyinyi wase, hamsikii.  Ningojeni!”
We turned back almost in unison, losing the rhythm of our run.  

We saw Janet frantically waving at us from behind.  We stopped and waited for her.  We exchanged niceties then resumed our run.  She wondered why her distance was still reading fifteen k on the ‘gadget’, yet ours was seventeen.
“Did you really do the loop?”
“Which loop?,” she asked in surprise.
“The changed loop.  The one I wrote on email.”
“Which email?”

I would have to describe the ‘locked-gate loop’ circuit even as we kept running.

It was finally over – the first international marathon of 2020 done and in good time.  We clocked 2hr 40min 18sec on a 21.85km distance.  We were already planning for the next international marathon which was not being received well from the onset, and B was not shy about it.
“You mean that you want to ‘spoil’ my Valentine with a run on fourteenth?”
*MoE = marathoners of expert.  The select committee that organizes the runs.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 27, 2020

Runner versus Parasite… the winners is…

Runner versus Parasite… the winners is…

“81.3km”

That was the mark that Beryl set on the runners leader-board as posted on WhatsApp.  This is how the year started, as early as Saturday, January 4, 2020.  She had just set an impossible bar for 2020, hardly four days into the new year.  That would have meant something like 20k of run each and every day!

“That is insane!,” I murmured to the computer screen, while reading that message.

“That is impossible!,” I drummed the desk while still affixed to that message.

That happened just before the talk of 2020 kilometers in 2020 started doing the round on the running group.  This 2020-2020 was a big milestone – doable but difficult.  That meant clocking 40km each and every week of the year.  No breaks, no Easters, no Christmases, no Vals, no break!  Crazy, I told you!

Nonetheless, I started working towards the 40km per week in the first week of January.  I was already far from the benchmark 81km in 4-days already set by B, who at some point was in the B-and-B team.  That was now a gone benchmark.  No need trying to catchup.  I was now even wondering whether I can join her team.  Previously she would be joining my league, now she was gone to a different one.  I had to set my own follow-up targets.  2020 in 2020, but at my own pace.  If anything, take it easy with the calculated 40km per week and see if it is even workable.

But theoretical calculations and practical execution usually differ.  I could only manage one run of 21k in that first week of January.  Even this one run was quite a tough ‘welcome’ run on that Friday, clocking a 1.46.28 for the 21.75k on that famous international route.  The very one that I did in a sub 1.40 not so long ago.  Nonetheless, no two runs are ever the same and I was still content with my attempt.  I just had to start accumulating the 40k-per-week.  I would try to maintain the momentum with the usual three runs a week, which are almost 30km, and that should surely propel me towards the 2020, right? Wrong!

I could only afford two runs in week two.  The first one was with Edu, when we decided to check out the Mary Leakey route on a Wednesday evening for the 13k course.  The second run was on the same route the next day, just to speed things up, in compensation for our run-walk of the previous day.  The plan was then to add a 21k to that mix on the next day, Friday.

But Friday came with its own set of challenges.  I struggled to walk to the office on that Friday.

“What is happening to me?,” I asked my lethargic self as I moved slowly towards the workplace.

A distance of 1km that I usually walk for ten minutes turned out to be a fifteen-minute walk on this morning.  Something was amiss.  Something was wrong with my body.

This would be proven when the evening came and I started getting the fever.  Despite taking so long to walk back home, I could feel the chill hitting me all over.  I slept with a sweater, but still felt cold in the night.  I tried making it to the workplace on a Saturday, to do my own schoolwork but I could hardly walk or concentrate on the intended work.  This forced me to be back home by mid-afternoon.  I was just feeling cold and my steps felt labored.

On Sunday I did make another attempt to do my schoolwork at the workplace but it was worse than I thought.  I struggled to walk the kilometer and just had to immediately walk back home since I could not even afford to sit for a minute.  My body was just too restless.  The cold that I was feeling was too overwhelming.  I got to bed early, as early as three.  I did not have an appetite for anything.  I stayed hungry since the morning.

I woke up Monday feeling a bad headache and a persistent fever.  However, some bed-rest gave me a semblance of relief, since I had fought the headache by two and it seemed to have subsided substantially.  I assumed that the headache must have been due to fatigue, especially that Thursday late night when I had to work on an article that had a deadline of midnight, which I delivered by 3am, but that was still ‘by midnight’ Europe time.  Despite the headache going down, the fever persisted and being in bed in a jacket was the only comfortable rest for me on Monday daytime.  I hoped that the chill would also reduce, or be gone, just like the headache had reduced.

Things would turn to the worse on Monday night, when the joint pains creeped in and I could not sleep comfortably in any position.  I tried sleeping on my left side but was too uncomfortable after a minute.  I changed to my right side, but same feeling.  I tried facing up, nothing doing.  Belly down, too uncomfortable.  I did repeat this four-position routine for most of the night.  I even woke up at some point in the night and sat on a chair.

“What is happening to me?,” I said as I read the time on the cellphone as being 00.25 – just past midnight, yet I had tossed and tossed and tossed.  I had hoped that it would be almost morning.  I was still far from morning.  I still had another six hours of misery to contend with.

I did toss on the bed some more, but somehow I did make it to the morning.  By Tuesday morning I was sure that I could not survive another night with such discomfort.  The headache was not the issue, the issue was the fever and joint pains when asleep.

I got an Uber taxi at one, benefited from a two-hundred-shilling discount promotion for being ‘welcomed back’ to their system, and was soon at a clinic at Prestige plaza on Ngong road.  Taking those flight of stairs to the second floor was the hardest task that I faced in the year.  I reached that floor out of breadth, by the mere lethargy that had engulfed my system.

I booked in on the clinic register at 1.35pm and started the wait.  We were just five people at the reception area.  Some two gentlemen seated to my right, and some lady and a young boy seated just in front of me, next to the reception desk.  This is the only reception in Kenya where we have three seats placed next to the door, and three of such people, including me, sit with their backs to the door.  Despite being these few, I still had to endure a wait of about twenty minutes before I was called in to fill in the insurance forms to start the process.  I was not surprised.  We have places that are notorious for delays, despite the registration of names on the TAT* register.

As usual, the first place that a patient visits is the small booth where the vitals are checked.  I would be called to that station around 2.05pm.

“Shoes off and step on the scale.”

I did.

“OK, that is seventy… what? Let me confirm…”

She re-read the weighing scale to reconfirm, then jotted down the final reading of the analog dial on the circular scale.

“Now, roll the left sleeve for pressure check.”

I removed the outer jacket, then unrolled the left sleeve of the sports shirt.

She affixed that pressure measuring sleeve around my arm and it would instantaneously start its squeezing action.  Momentarily, she pointed some beam to my neck.

“Oh my God!,” she shouted!

I was perplexed while at my sitting position.  I thought that something had punctured her finger or something.

“It can’t be!  Let me repeat!,” she said while pointing the red laser to my neck a second time.

“It can’t be true!  Oh my God!!!,” she shouted again.

“What is it?,” I forced myself to say.  By then the pressure measuring thing had already finished squeezing my upper arm and had already released its grip.

“You are forty!”

“What does that mean?”

“Your temperature is over forty!”

“Yes, I see, but what does that mean?”

“It means that you should not even be walking around!”

“Does that mean that I shall be boiling up?,” I thought silently.

The nurse immediately directed me to the opposite consultation room, I saw it labelled ‘4 - consultation’.  I was asked to lie down on the thin hospital type bed.  Within no time I saw her bring in the paraphernalia that is associated with intravenous intrusion.

“Stretch out your right arm and relax,” she directed.

I did.

I soon felt that sharp instantaneous prick.  I swallowed.

“Make a fist, we want to draw some blood.”

I did.

What is it with doctors and ‘we’?  The nurse was just alone!  There was no one else in that room to help her draw the blood!

I then felt the blood flow out but soon there was a new situation….

“Judy!,” she shouted.

“Aya yaya yai, Judy!  Come quickly!,” she shouted towards the corridor.  By that time both her hands were fully engaged, holding my wrist area.

“Hey, Judy, can you hear me!  Hurry up!  Emergency!  Judy!!”

Judy arrived after a minute.

“Gloves, quick,” she told Judy.

“The blood has failed to stop.  The vials are full and I have no way of stopping it.  Help me arrest the situation”

Judy looked at the blood that had now messed up the floor area just under my outstretched arm.

I could see her suppressed shock from my sleeping position.

“This is serious!,” Judy said, as she joined in and did whatever they did to my arm.

“Phew!,” the nurse finally exclaimed after another two minutes.  Relief evident on her voice, face and gestures, “That was scary!”

I remained in the sleeping position.  The nurses owed me an explanation.  At least now they would use ‘we’ in the right context.

“We realized that your blood somehow continued flowing out even after we tried to block the syringe.  That should not happen normally.  In fact, we need to test why this occurred.”

In a few minutes, the blood incident was dispensed with and an intravenous fluid was directed to my hand.  I saw the bottle that was about 300ml overhang on the metallic stand as it started its rhythmic drops down the tube to my body.  This continued for some time, as the cleaner come in to the room to clean up the underside of the bed, that must have been literally ‘bloody’.

It took about thirty minutes for the results of the first tests of the blood to come out.  That was also the time that I saw the doc for the first time.  I was still lying on the thin bed.  With just the company of the headache in the background and the fever, now drastically reducing.

“Let us examine you,” the doc introduced herself, stethoscope at hand.

She then read the test results that she had with her and reconfirmed that I had malaria, no doubt.  She also commented about the low platelets count, which she said had caused that episode of blood overflow.

“Nothing worrisome,” she concluded, “All readings can be attributed to the state of illness”

I would in a moment be getting another IV infused dosage of anti-malarial concoction.  I say concoction because that is what it was.  How do you describe a mixture of about eight different powders and liquids?  And each dose costs an arm and some leg – 3k for each of such a mixture.  I could see from my sleeping position that each of the four packages had a label ‘Artesun’.

“Let us see,” the doc told the nurse who had just administered the IV, “It is now three, so twelve more hours means, eh...., three AM, yes, three AM.”

Turning to me, still asleep on the thin bed at Consultation 4, “Your next dose of this medicine is at 3.00am.  Choose a hospital where you can go to at three, for the next dose.”

“You people are crazy!  Three AM!,” I almost responded!

Instead, I responded, “OK, Parklands, I can be there at three.”

Momentarily, some lady matches into the room.  The two medics turn to her entrance in unison.  
“Hi, I am here!,” she exclaims towards my direction, ignoring the medics.
“Ah, your sister,” the doc says after a pause, “Just in time since you are free to leave.”
We burst out laughing, leaving the two medics puzzled.
“More like his daughter,” the visitor adds more confusion to the medics.

I leave the facility at four, IV needle still stuck to my right arm, covered in a mound of bandage.

I could not believe that I was setting the alarm for 2.15am, but I did.  By the time I was setting this alarm, just around nine, I was surely already cured.  The fever was gone and the headache was gone, almost.  I was even thinking twice about this second dose.  It is only that they had given me the four packets of concoction as ‘take away’ for use in the next facility and imprisoned me with the IV needle stuck on my right arm.  The very needle prick that the nurse had already declared was ‘badly affixed due to lack of materials’.  This is the situation that was forcing me to be prepared for the 3am thing – otherwise I do value my sleep.

It was not long before it was alarm time.  Despite the night rains and the morning showers, I was out of the compound ready to get a taxi.  The first Uber that was to arrive in 10 minutes did not arrive.  If anything, the driver ‘refused’ to take my calls.  I had to cancel the request despite the warning from the Uber app that I would be charged a cancellation fee.  I cannot pay a cancellation fee for services not offered, and I was ready to fight it out with Uber, all the way to their hq in the US.  A second Uber request did not materialize either.  It turned out to be one of those conversations that go like:

“I hope you shall be here in the six minutes?”

“Where are you?,” the expected driver answers.

I hate this question.  Is it that their App does not show locations?

Of which I respond, “Uthiru, next to the supermarket”

“Where are you going?”

Another one that I do hate, someone please tell me, does it mean the Uber drivers do not see the destination?  My app has both origin and destination information.

“Parklands”

A pause.

A long pause.

“Ai, huko ni mbali, I don’t think I can make it there.”

Now, this is the very thing that I hate to the core about Uber, agreeing to take you somewhere, then claiming that they cannot take you there.  Why should you be in Uber business if you cannot do Uber business?  Isn’t is self-contradictory ab-initio?  It then gets worse….

“Sawa, then cancel,” I say.

“Hapana, wewe cancel from your end.”

“But it is you who have said that you cannot make this trip, so cancel!,” I respond, maintaining my calm.

“No, it is you to cancel!”

I am too sleepy to even afford an argument in this cold drizzly morning.

I cancel on the cellphone app.  Then, it is the turn of the app to give a final... “Beep beep, beep beep – You have been charged 200/= for cancellation.”

As I said before, I am not paying for services not rendered.  Let us meet in court!

It is now 2.45am.  Thirty minutes have been spent trying to get a taxi.  I had hoped to be at Parklands at 3.00am.  That is now not happening.  A third Uber booking is successful.  If anything, the waiting time is only 1 minute(s).  The vehicle seems to be next door.  However, the vehicle is not moving.  It is stationary somewhere just at the next block.  I call the driver.  He says that he is actually already at the supermarket.  

Liar!

I get to the supermarket and he is not there.  I call him again.

“I am just opposite the supermarket, next to the lorry.  Hapo kwa hiyo hotel.  Nakunywa chai.”

Very funny!

We get going at 2.50am, reaching Parklands at 3.10am.

Despite being assured that we shall not be charged for this service, we are still charged anyway, and a big fee of eight hundred for that matter, just to mix that mixture!

Just before the infusion, the nurse who was loosening the bandage could not resist to give his two cents to the job initially done in sticking that needle to my arm.

“Who did this?”

“Your clinic at Prestige”

“Really, they did this?,” he points at the needle that is just about to pop out since there is nothing to hold it in place.

He finally manages to fix it in place with some adhesive and I get out of the facility at about three-thirty for the taxi back to Uthiru.

Finally, I am happily matching to Prestige on Wednesday for a last dose and removal of the inconvenient IV needle on my arm.  The gate person at Prestige is sympathetic.  She consoles me after I get through the metal detector, “Pole for your hand injury,” pointing at my bandaged arm.

It takes me time to process.  I do not have an injured hand.  I realize the misconception.  I have to either explain or accept the consolation.  I decide to accept, instead of explaining.

“Was it while running?,” the second sentry asks.

This is completely out of guess work.  How does he even know that I run.

“Running?”

“Yes, running, your T-shirt reads ‘Running for a reason’,” he points out.

Despite being assured by the Prestige clinic that my last dose would be at 3.00pm on that Wednesday, they ensure that the episode ends with a new twist to the effect that, “the three doses means yet another final dose tomorrow at three.”

Means another day with a bandaged arm…. Another day with a ‘hand injury’

*TAT = turn around time

WWB, the coach, Nairobi, Kenya, January 16, 2020