Running with a face mask? Eish…

Running with a face mask?  Eish…

At 6.00pm I was back to the gate.  In now just had about three hundred metres to get to my finish point.  I would soon be let in and in less than a minute would be finishing the Wednesday run.  I raised my hands in triumph as I hit the finish line just outside my office door.  My right hand had a fist, my left had the four fingers protruding.

“Nine – zero,” I finally exhaled, as I opened the office door.

I was on a winning streak.  Nine wins streak.  

Nine for runner.  

Zero for TT.  

This was despite more stringent measures now imposed onto the citizens due to this TT thing.  First, the seven-to-five curfew, and lately, the use of facemasks while at public places.

It is this use of facemasks at public places that is the essence of today’s blogstory…

On Tuesday, just a day before, I had already sent a message to the runners on the WhatsApp group and email to the effect that the use of facemasks at public places was now a requirement.  Whether our sometimes-deserted running routes were considered public places was still in contention.  However, I believed that any road that was accessible without restriction or warning about privacy, was a public road, not withstanding the number of people using it.  That meant that all our running routes were public spaces.  We were now compelled to adorn facemasks while on these routes.

I would however do the facemasks experiment myself, which I did around four while still seated at my desk.  I started by putting on the very top of range facemask – the N95.  This version is claimed to prevent 100% of all things from getting to your nose and mouth.  100% dust, 100% dust, 100% bacteria and 100% viruses – sorry, actually 95% viruses.  This is the bomb!  

The fixture of N95 on the face was tight and airtight.  Breathing through with nose only was difficult.  Breathing through with both nose and mouse seemed manageable but a bit laboured.  I was having a hard time managing normal respiration, however, I endured a five minute seating session with N95.  It was not comfortable.  I could not imagine running in it.

I then tried the surgical mask.  This was not so airtight after being fixed in place, covering the mouth and nose.  I could easily breath through, even with nose only.  The nose and mouth area just felt a bit hot, due to the continued breathing onto that front covered area.  Apart from that, it was quite comfortable to wear and to breath through.  Its efficacy was however 80% for pollen, dust and bacteria, and 95% for viruses.  It seemed something that could be subjected to a run….

After changing into the run gear, I left the office at 4.15pm, with the surgical mask in place.  It was comfortable as I walked out of the building and momentarily started my timer and phone apps ready for the run.  I would first run down to the generator starting point, then run the distance of the day’s marathon from there.  It was a day for an easy recovery run, to be done on the Mary Leakey route.  No pressure.  No worries.  No concerns.  Just a normal evening run at my discretion.

But things took a turn just after my first five steps of the run.  I started gasping for air from the covered nose and mouth.  I was on a downhill run for the next one hundred metres and so I survived with little breathing, but any attempt to pull air through the mask was laboured and difficult.  

After the downhill, and turning right towards the generator, I had to face a somewhat hilly terrain.  I once again started gasping for air.  I tried taking slower steps but started feeling like suffocating.  I could not manage to run.  I was running out of breath with every attempt to breathe in the very limited air getting through the mask.

“The hech!,” I shouted!

“Waste of my time!,” I exclaimed.

Both these chants were done with the mask now already lowered below the nose level.  My free nose was now getting in all the air that I needed.  The mask was now just covering my mouth.  I increased speed and would soon be making the U-turn at the generator now ready to do the full length of the Mary-Leakey route, which is anything from 13k to infinity, depending on the twists that you add to it.

Drawing air freely was a good feeling.  I felt like a runner.  I even wondered how I had survived the one-minute run with the mask cover.  I retained the mask cover on my mouth with the nose free to draw in the fresh air.  I would soon cross Waiyaki way, then past ‘the wall’ and then to the Vet loop.  

By Vet loop I was already suffering a covered mouth, as I now needed more air, not only from the nose, but also from the mouth.  I lowered the facemask further and let it now just hang around my neck.  I had by this time just covered 4km.  The total run time was just about nineteen minutes.

I would have to run the rest of the distance without the facemask, without the nose and mouth cover.  There was no way that I could manage enough air intake at such a high ‘run-level’ volume with a facemask.  Not possible.  I therefore just kept doing the run and feeling guilty, like breaking some law, as I traversed the long route.  However, I also had to make observation on the number of other people around me who were wearing their masks.

As I went down Kapenguria road towards Wangari Maathai Institute I did meet two people walking uphill with masks on.  Every other person that I met had no mask of any sort, on or hanging, at hand or with them.  As I headed to the river, I met four runners, doing their hill drills.  The two men and two women did not adorn any masks.  They did not seem to have any with them.  As I went uphill after the river towards KAGRI, I did meet another two groups of walkers.  They looked like runners or walkers based on their attire.  None had a mask.

I finally hit Lower Kabete tarmac road, to turn left for the half kilometer uphill before taking the left turn to Mary Leakey.  I met a lady runner on this stretch running towards my direction.  She did not have a facemask.  I met several walkers, they seem to wonder about the facemask hanging on my neck.  They had none.  

The road after Mary Leakey school is generally deserted, with little traffic.  I met few people, none with facemasks.  I did not meet any runner, even as I traversed the route all the way through the University farm, to emerge at the Kanyariri road tarmac, at ‘the tank’.

From the tank I would turn left, to take the tarmac back to Ndumbo market.  The road started having many walkers as I headed to the market.  Those with facemasks were countable – in fact I counted three, out of the multitude of people who were numbering the fifties.  I would soon be back to the Vet loop and back to Waiyaki way to cross and be back to the starting point.

My conclusion was that running with facemasks, at least the N95 or surgical type, was not possible.  Secondly, very few Kenyans have embraced the use of facemasks at public places.  I met and counted about seventy people, out of which those with masks were less than ten.  That is just about 10% compliance with the new law that requires all citizens to have facemasks while at public places.  

Thirdly, I discovered a new ‘accidental’ half-marathon route, which is just the Mary Leakey route that we all know, add to it four Vet-loops.  It surprised me to make the discovery that a marathon was very much possible at our very backyard, even as I stopped my gadgets after 1hr 45min 38min on a distance that turned out to be 22.33km.  

Finally, it was another streak for runner, with Corona losing for a ninth straight time – though its devastation on planet earth now stood at 1,504,971 infections with 87,984 fatalities as per JHU dashboard of April 8 run date, at about midnight.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, April 8, 2020