Running through a roadblock… with life changing consequences

Running through a roadblock… with life changing consequences

June 15 was the exact middle of the month.  It had a cold mid-day, the first such weather in a long time.  Maybe the first this year.  I could feel the chill hit my skin.  My exposed legs and arms bore the brunt of the low temperatures.  It was a still day with no sign of rain, though it was a bit overcast.

I really thought about it long and hard.  Was I really ready for this?  In fact, the only reason why I saw myself leave for this run was because it was a Monday.  Had it not been a Monday, then I have doubts as to whether I could have exposed myself to such a cold.

I left the starting line at 12.30pm.  I have to reemphasize that it was cold.  I was however capable of managing this.  I have been in worse cold.  Worse runs in worse temperatures.  I have even run in sub-zero, albeit for a short time and survived.  By short I do mean about one hour.

I have been hit by sub-zero rains during runs and I managed.  It was not a good feeling, but it happened.  I have been able to breath in sub-zero air.  It was not a good feeling, but it happened.  These were last year experiences at the Arctic circle when I did my runs up there near the North pole.  I was not looking forward to a repeat, but it was a Monday and the run was on.

The route of my runs over the last two months have now been fixed.  Etched on stone even.  I was now so used to it that I could even let go and do the whole run without thinking about the course.  You cross the Waiyaki way, do the Vet loops, then run the Kapenguria road to Lower Kabete road so as to get to Mary Leakey route then through the University farm.  From there, you join the Kanyariri tarmac back to Ndumbo and once more back to the Vet loop to finally head to the starting line as your finish line.  

A good circuit with uphills and downhills, mostly uphills, but a good circuit by all definitions.  There is very little exposure to vehicular traffic, apart from the fairly deserted Kapenguria tarmac and that dreaded crossing of six-lane Waiyaki way, with its mid-road half-metre high barrier.

The first phase of the run was just starting.  I had clocked just about 10k.  The body was now already used to the cold after doing those two loops at the Vet circuit.  It could only get better, so I thought.  Then….

Then as I finished off the two loops and was heading for Ndumbo matatu stage when it happened!  I just stumbled upon a giant metallic gate fixed menacingly across the whole width of the tarmac!  Totally blocking any way through!

“This is messed!,” I thought of saying even as I slowed down to start thinking of my options.  The gate was progressively getting nearer and nearer as I moved on.  I would soon collide with it.

A marathoner must be ready and fast in thinking while on their feet on the run.  Things can happen from nowhere and this was one of those moments.  I was now facing a closed gate in the middle of the road and in a few steps I would be crashing into it if nothing else would give.

But come to think of it, this was not a real surprise.  The signs that things may change started about three months ago, just when COVID19, aka TT was starting to affect the country.  By then Kenya was registering the first confirmed case and had just instituted a curfew and lockdown.  I had started seeing signs of an upcoming building, just a few metres from the main Ndumbo matatu stage.  At that time I thought this building on the right side of the road while approaching from the loop, was related to TT.  

My thoughts were that it was either a washroom or handwash station of sorts.  I largely ignored it even as it kept on being constructed and taking shape over the last three months.  It would finally evolve into a roadside building.  It still had all the makings of a washroom or handwash station.  It did not look like dwelling quarters.  It remains a single room, even as it started receiving finishes in terms of metallic windows and doors.  

Then two week ago I started noticing a new development.  The sideroad section, near this house structure, just next to the matatu stage was being cleared and the ground was being levelled up.  And one week ago the levelled ground started receiving fencing posts.  That got me thinking.

“Why would they be fencing the area next to the new building?”

If anything, the concrete posts of the fence were being installed on the other side of the road, after the new building.  For sure, a fence was coming up, but how was it related to this block?

Then the impossible happened!  Last week I saw that the fence and its chainlink were largely finished and two giant sections of a gate were lying beside the road, just next to the new building.  There was now no doubt as to what was coming up.  I had even given my marathoners team on WhatsApp a heads-up on this.

“The loop as we know it shall soon be out of our run route, since a gate is coming up near Ndumbo stage to block access to the loop.”

Little did I know that that ‘soon’ would be this Monday.

There I was, running towards a blocked road.  Blocked by the imposing double sections of a big metallic gate standing tall astride the whole width of the road.  I could see the matatus make a U-turn just on the other side of the gate, about fifty metres away.  I just had to get to the gate and make a final decision at the gate.  The decision was now likely to be a turnback.  

A turnback had the implication of having to map a new route out of the loop and back to the other side of this gate.  It would be a long circular route to just get to the fifty metres that I was seeing across that gate, if I was to turnback and seek an alternative route.  This seems to be inevitable.

I was just about to stop and walk to the gate, mainly just to examine it and quench my disbelief that it was surely a real structure blocking the road, when I heard a sound,

“Pitia hapa!”

I was taken aback.  

I saw a small pedestrian walkthrough gate just touching the new building.  Someone standing next to the small gate had held it ajar and was beckoning me to use it.

It was a relief to just get through.  I could not help but look back at the gate and the blockage that it was now causing.  I have run this loop for over ten years, and in fact the usual adage is ‘there is no run without the loop’.  All our international marathons have the loop as a permanent feature on the run map!  

Our daily runs have the loop as the warmup section before doing the serious runs on Kanyariri road or Kapenguria road!  Surely!?  I could not believe that this was the end of the run through the loop.  Our runs and marathons shall never be the same without the loop.  I have to go back to the drawing board to map many of our runs, especially the international marathon route!  This was dire!

Could it be related to this TT thing?  I thought TT and I had agreed to let each other be?  To mind our own respective businesses?  We agreed to have a common understanding of non-interference in each other’s affairs?  This could not be defined as ‘non-interference’.  It was interference by any definition.  This was surely getting into my business, if you block a marathon route that has existed for over a decade.  

I know that TT can claim to have infected 8,108,667 people as at this Monday, with 438,596 deaths worldwide and Kenya registering 3,727 infections and 104 deaths.  I know that TT is responsible for new addition to our vocabulary in the name of ‘social distancing’, ‘alcohol-based hand sanitizers’, ‘temperature checks at entrances to buildings/compounds/malls’ and ‘facemasks’, but going to the extent of closing a major road?  That is hitting below the running feet!

That gate kept me thinking and calculating alternatives through the whole of my run on the Mary Leakey route.  It was not long before I found myself back to Ndumbo and was about to turn left to face the gate and loop once more, when the idea of exploring an alternative route just hit me.  Remember, a marathoner must be fast at thinking on their feet.  I decided to continue with the road and maintain the profile taken by matatus as I headed back to Waiyaki way, avoiding the loop altogether.  

After a two-minute run I found myself back to ‘the wall’, which would usually mark the start of the loop on Waiyaki way.  I had already run using this ‘the wall’ throughway twice when doing the two loops earlier on.  I could have easily turned left to get back to the wall and do a loop if I so wished, but I was suffering the shock of closure of the loop and was not willing to do another loop.  Let me mourn the demise of the loop, the ten-year-plus loop, in peace.

I was back to the starting line ten minutes later.  The weather was still cold with no signs of improvement though it was heading to two-thirty.  By three I had already gone through denial that the loop was no more, and was now accepting the new reality.  If anything, I was already crafting a route that would have the loop and still avoid that gate.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, June 15, 2020