Did the 5-runs affect me? - Of records and a 6th run

Did the 5-runs affect me? - Of records and a 6th run

Today was another run day Monday, though we are on the countdown to the forthcoming marathon a/k/a the Divas International marathon scheduled for Friday, June 24.  This ‘divas’ is part of the series of monthly half marathons organized by the MOE*.  It is budded ‘divas’ since the gals are given the leeway to formulate and come up with the run logistics and rules for the day.  As we waited for the ruleset, and still being pained by the 5-runs-in-5-days challenge of last week, I did decide to bring some life back the aching legs on this Monday by doing yet another run.
*MOE = marathoners of expert, the committee that organizes run events for the group

I would normally take a week’s break before a major run, but I just needed to straighten the legs on this Monday.  Maybe those daily runs had addicted my legs, since I had felt restless through the day that even the 6km morning walk to Kangemi and back did not do much to quench the feeling.  This morning’s walk was the second such walk to Kangemi in as many days.  The walk on Saturday was full of time wasting.  

I had gone for some medication at Mt. View mall only to be told to wait for the pharmacist who had ‘fallen ill and gone to hospital elsewhere’ as had been announced by the medical personnel to try and appease the patients whose patience was running out.  I would wonder why a worker at the hospital would be seeking medical help from somewhere else.  Did they not trust their own docs?  What about us?  But I did not wonder for long.  I recall that during one of those regular doctors’ strikes of two years ago they had lamented that they were too broke to even afford treatment in their own hospitals.  This revelation still seemed contradictory.  Even thinking of a doctor falling ill, or being treated by another doctor is just mindboggling.

The pharmacy guy would finally match in at around one.  There was already a pile of prescriptions even as I added my own to that full tray.  The pharma person proceeded to start dispensing, even before he could have a breather to put on those white coats that intimidate.  It wat not until two-thirty that I was called to the counter to be told that the medicine was out of stock and that I should go back on Monday.  No apology, no nothing.  

But that did not even come close to the encounter that I had had with the doctor around twelve-thirty on the same day.  He called my name in some mumbled unclear pronunciation that I just guessed must be me, and I even had to reconfirm with him when I got to the consultation room.  After a casual nod to confirm the name, he looked at the file without a glance in my direction and proceeded to write whatever he was writing.
“Take this to the pharmacy,” he concluded, still glued to the file.  It is only his hand that waved the small A5 duplicated paper in my direction.  His rest of body remained on the file.

What happened to good old doctor-patient interrogations?  When you were asked real questions and probed deep until all your secrets, medical or otherwise are laid out in the open?  What is the world coming to when our docs are shy and robotic in their actions?  

What become of the QAs?
“Do you have any question for me?,” I loved that question from some doc in February, just four months ago.  All that was now gone.

Well, believe it or not, I had gone back to the same medical institution on this Monday with that A5 paper and still got a non-apologetic out-of-stock response.  At least the madam at the pharmacy had some semblance of courtesy by taking my phone number and promised to call me when the drugs were availed ‘within the day, by two’.

Do I need to say that it is now nearly midnight and I am yet to receive that phone call?

Anyway, back to the lunch hour when the body had ached for a run and I just left for the run at 12.45pm without much prodding.  I just followed the route of the ‘5-runs’ of last week.  The sun was on and off.  The route remained the same, with that almost 2km of hill from the river past Wangari Maathai institute all the way to Ndumboni, still proving to any runner that they are nothing on that terrain.  Nonetheless, it was just a day to enjoy the run and I could feel it.

The reward would come at the end of the run when I recorded a sub-5 average, with a 13.16km run in 1:05:21.  Probably the first sub-5 this year.  Maybe those ‘5-runs’ did something to me?  Let me put the ‘new me’ to the test come Divas international of Friday, June 24.  The run where the gals set rules and the rule they have finally set is…. ‘no rules’.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, June 20, 2022