Easter? Which Easter?

Easter? Which Easter?

It was a Monday, April 5.  A Monday is usually a run day and so I was out for the run at three.  With curfew hours starting early, I really wanted to be done with the run in good time – as ‘good time’ as six, so that I can start walking home around seven.

My weekly runs have remained the same, on the same old proven route from Uthiru via Kapenguria road to Lower Kebete road, then a run through the Uni farm after Mary Leakey school, and finally a run on Kanyariri road to Gitaru and back.  The run would however prove to be not so old, since I started feeling the running pains hardly 12km into the run, just as I emerged at ‘the tank’ to then join Kanyariri road to start the journey to Gitaru.  

I could feel the pain on my legs, the type of pain that wants to force you to just stop running.  Each step became forced and painful.  I really thought about stopping and turning back, but this was not an option, being over ten kilometres from the finish line.  A walk over a ten-kilometre stretch would surely take forever!  I had no option on this one.  I just kept running as planned, and absorbed the pain on each step.

It was music when I finally did the U-turn on the Gitaru-Wangige road to now start my run back, mainly on Kanyariri road all the way to Ndumbo market, then just cross Waiyaki way and I am home.  That lessened the mental pain, but the physical pain continued.

I just had to collapse on the 28.63km mark.  The spirit was telling me to go those extra 400m to make it a well-rounded 29k, but there was no way for that to happen.  My body was completely gone.  My legs could hardly move.  I even wondered how I managed to do the run the return leg of the run from that U-turn to the finish line.  The legs were the most painful and resistant to movement for the first time in a long time.  It was a real struggle doing this 2.33.24 run.  However, no two runs are ever the same, and this turned out to be one of those runs.

It was after walking home to beat the eight o’clock curfew, albeit with a slight limp due to my compromised left foot, and tuning in to the local news, that I found out that it was a holiday!  It was actually Easter Monday!  I was even surprised that there was a holiday period of several days!  Life has been the same old ‘new normal’ that holidays are no longer a big deal.  With no congregations and no gatherings, the 4-day Easter holiday went unnoticed.  It could as well have been any other day.

But bad news did not end with the end of Easter as we know it.  Humanity still had to contend with this thing called Corona virus.  The virus that causes this COVID19 disease.  The disease that has been on an infection rampage and has led to disruption of life as we know it… including the eight PM curfew, and the lockdown of the red zone of Nairobi, Nakuru, Kiambu, Machakos and Kajiado, where there is no getting in or out of ‘the zone’.

But do not even take my word for it.  Just look at the grim stats* of today – 132,235,128 total confirmed infections globally, with 2,869,803 deaths.  The Kenya numbers are 139,448 and 2,244 respectively.  These are the numbers that represent the reality of the situation.  However, it is not all grim - we have vaccines already being administered, which lessen the burden of the disease even if one gets infected after vaccination.  

Despite vaccines, we already have the proven control measures of social distancing, masking and hand washing, which lessen the chances of transmission and infection in the first place.  We are inconvenienced, yes, but there is hope... and soon.  And that vaccine thing is the next subject of the blog story, with a live experience.

*worldometers website

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, April 5, 2021