Streak 23 – Time for divine intervention
I stopped looking at COVID19 stats two weeks ago. I said, “That is it,” at that time, since this TT thing is here to stay and there is no need to let it get into our way of business. Just put on your mask while in the crowds a.k.a public places, wash your hands regularly or sanitize, to keep any potential germs from the possibility of getting to the respiratory track, and…. and hope for the best.
Should you get it, just self-quarantine for two weeks, take lots of fluids, keep your temperature controlled and you should be OK, even without medication. Of course, seek medication if the symptoms become too much to bear.
But do not take my work for it, the ‘stay at home if you have it’, even after confirming that you have it is the official position from the employer, so let us do our best to avoid getting TT, but there is still life with TT, and life after TT.
I am also encouraged that life is getting back to normal where the TT started. China is back. Germany is back. France is back. Spain is back! England is back!! Life shall be back to normal – TT or TT.
So, there it is, TT is done with.
Now back to the runs. I have been on the road three times a week since early March. Initially it was a duel with TT. Now that compe with TT is gone. I run for myself. I run because I want to run. I just finished streak number 23 today.
I am forced to retain these streak numbers for purposes of maintain a coherent story over time, otherwise, TT can easily take credit for having started this streak numbering system, but I am not letting it take that credit. I count these numbers because I want to count from some starting date, being March 20, which because streak no. 1. From that time it is three runs in a week, with each run being numbered. TT, sorry, I am not giving you the honors of being responsible for this numbering.
The route that I was taking for this Monday’s run was the same old Mary Leakey route. I have taken to having this route as my default run route, since it is ‘just at the backyard’ but it can give you as many kilometres as you want it to give. Just add those Vet loops and you can even get 42k if you want to.
Let me not keep repeating the route profile that crosses the Waiyaki way at Kabete Poly, for the Vet loop across the road, on the other side. These are the loops that can extend run to infinity. After the loop or loops, you get to Ndumboini and down Wangari Maathai institute to Lower Kabete road. From there a short uphill before you ‘disappear’ to the left to face the Mary Leakey route to be ‘abandoned’ at the university farm, before finally emerging at ‘the tank’ on Kanyariri tarmac to get you back to Ndumbo. That is it, no need to repeat describing that route.
The route and what I encounter on it has remained usual, and I shall not bother repeat the usual. I shall henceforth just be pointing out anything that gets out of the ordinary. To start with, a lot more people are now putting on their masks, which is quite unlike hardly four weeks ago, when very few had them. Even yours truly now runs with a mask – repeat – with a mask, not necessarily putting on a mask.
The consequences of not having a mask ‘with you’ are dire. A friend was arrested while walking around Westlands three weeks ago, since she was not having a mask on. She however, got away with a forced 14-day quarantine confinement in a Government facility, read, some secondary school.
She did this ‘getting away’ by telling the men-in-blue that she was two-months pregnant, hence was continually nauseated. She was lucky that she had the mask in her bag, and showed it as evidence. That incident reinforces the lesson – just have the mask with you, wearing it should be ideal, but having it is the bare minimum when using a public road – running, walking or crawling.
So, I was ‘on the run’, on the same old ML route. Observing the many people now having their masks mainly fully covering their noses and mouths, few just having it hang on the neck. I would soon be on the downhill run from Ndumboini heading towards Wangari Maathai institute.
The downhill is easy to run, but you need good brakes, since you may over-accelerate to your fall. I was on a steady pace – which would usually give me a 4min per k, when I heard some loud running footsteps, more of foot-thumping, from behind.
There was definitely a runner behind me – but this runner liked the runner’s footsteps loud! Usually we step on the road in such a way that the footsteps are not that loud. These were loud, believe me. I kept my steady pace.
“That must surely hurt,” I imaged the pressure hitting the soles of the feet, as I awaited the approach.
I would soon see this guy pass by and continue running downhill Infront of my path. We were both on the left edge of the road.
“Wow!,” I thought loudly, “That is fast!”
But there was something with that run that did not seem right. The loud steps. The ‘on-your-face’ type of overtaking. The evident ‘dare-you’ attitude that he displayed as he passed me. There were all things wrong with this fast run. I was not however falling for this ‘children’ behaviour. I have run many ks to be tricked into a dare. I run my own run.
And his tricks would soon be evident, as the apparent runner would slow down hardly twenty metres ahead and come towards a walk, then a stop. He started walking as my approach become very evident. I would soon be almost overtaking his walking frame, when he again started running besides me.
I kept my pace, even slowed a bit, to give him time to just overtake and be gone on his own, but he seemed glad to also reduce his pace, so that he could continue to somehow now just run alongside. I tried to get back to pace, and he also started accelerating. He kept alongside for about twenty metres.
“Just run your pace and leave me alone!,” I thought of yelling at him!
A runner does not like company, unless the company is solicited, welcomed and encouraged. You do not force yourself onto some other runner’s run path and routine! That is a cardinal rule for crying out loud! No wonder I really doubted the authenticity of this colleague of mine, or maybe that is just how he was brought up – to outrun runners and dare them to an unsolicited duel.
I would force myself to slow down again to let him go his way. I believe that he got the message even as he now tried his best to increase the pace of his tired body to a left turn towards Wangari Maathai institute. I would soon observe him come to a stop at the gate, with his both hands on his knees. I knew that he was suffering a burnout. I could only imagine the fire burning on his chest as he maintained that stoop. I continued my downhill to the river and then faced the uphill to Lower Kabete road.
The weather was great for this lunch hour run and the usually muddy paths along the university farm were not that slippery, if anything they were drying up and starting to be easily passable. I am so used to the paths being slippery and muddy that the ease by which I passed by still amazed me. That road condition would also mean that it has not rained heavily, or at all, in the last two days – and it is true.
I was now enjoying the run on this very isolated section of the road, where you run about two kilometres completely on your own, without meeting a soul, in the middle of the jungle – probably one of the very few isolated green spaces in Nairobi at the moment. The quiet and tranquility was equal to none, it even felt a bit frightening. But a runner is never frightened by any situation. You adopt then adapt.
That stillness would soon be broken when I saw something like a silhouette of a person in the thickets about two hundred metres to my right. Soon I would surely perceive a real person somewhere in the thickets, somewhere under the shades of the giant trees that provided a shelter from the two o’clock sunshine that was now brightening my footpath.
That person took me aback. I had to slow down to feed my eyes onto his every move. I saw him make short walks, of about five steps to one end, then turnback and make about the same five steps to his starting point. He was just oscillating on a small area in the thicket. I was still wondering what could be gwan.
I nonetheless kept running, one look forward, two looks to my right to peer into the knee-high thicket to observe the man. The mystery would soon be over when I caught the very faint, but distinct chant of a prayer.
Now…. what else could need divine intervention, at the most tranquil of places, if not the TT, whose stats, as per JHU site now stood at 4,159,377 total cases on planet earth, 284,883 fatalities, out of which Kenya had a round figure of 700 cases and 33 fatalities? The very TT that I have now given up on? It can run its stats, while I run my run, just as I did today, at my backyard, over a 21.6km distance in a time of 1hr 45m 51s.
WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, May 11, 2020
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