Runner versus Co-rona – who shall win?
Our monthly marathon was meant to be on Friday, Mar. 27. It had already been publicized in January when we were formulating the 2020 calendar of events. I had already sent a reminder to marathoners at the start of the month, just after the Beyond Zero marathon, that the March 27 run was on. We already had it code-named ‘Easter-run-before-Easter’.
However, a series of turns and twists would come to bear on this run. It started when the government of the republic ordered all schools and colleges shut by eighteenth, through that communique of Sunday, March 15. The same advisory asked employers to consider asking their workers to work from home. All this was as a result of the international spread of the Corona virus.
It would get worse when the employer actually went ahead and issued a ‘work from home’ directive, effective eighteenth. More was yet to come when a moratorium was imposed on all visits, official and personal. There was no way that any runner was going to get to the starting line aka ‘be generated’ on March 27. The goose was cooked… but I doubted if anyone even had an appetite.
The Corona pandemic cannot be underestimated. It is the most serious situation I have experienced in my lifetime. We should not be taking it casually. If anything, we should be speaking about it in hushed tones. It was traditional to talk about ‘bad’ things in hushed tones or changed names during my childhood. I have grown up with that etched in me.
This is a monster! You should not even be mentioning it by name, lest it hears and responds! This viral disease, in the family of the flu, is spread through droplets. And do not think of droplets like rain droplets – nope. Droplets means the air exhaled from an infection person to the person nearby. Contaminated surfaces that bear the droplets can infect someone else if these viral particles can be picked out from these surfaces to find their way into the mouth, nose or eyes. The disease is not airborne; luckily, hence the infection is mainly confined to person-to-person or contaminated-surfaces-to-person.
Once it afflicts someone, the signs must show in a fourteen-day incubation period. That fact has led to quarantine requirements whenever one suspects of being in contact with an infected person or situation. The fourteen-day quarantine eventually leads to either getting it or not getting it. The treatment or rather no-treatment takes about the same period for the symptoms to go away.
Our monthly marathon was meant to be on Friday, Mar. 27. It had already been publicized in January when we were formulating the 2020 calendar of events. I had already sent a reminder to marathoners at the start of the month, just after the Beyond Zero marathon, that the March 27 run was on. We already had it code-named ‘Easter-run-before-Easter’.
However, a series of turns and twists would come to bear on this run. It started when the government of the republic ordered all schools and colleges shut by eighteenth, through that communique of Sunday, March 15. The same advisory asked employers to consider asking their workers to work from home. All this was as a result of the international spread of the Corona virus.
It would get worse when the employer actually went ahead and issued a ‘work from home’ directive, effective eighteenth. More was yet to come when a moratorium was imposed on all visits, official and personal. There was no way that any runner was going to get to the starting line aka ‘be generated’ on March 27. The goose was cooked… but I doubted if anyone even had an appetite.
The Corona pandemic cannot be underestimated. It is the most serious situation I have experienced in my lifetime. We should not be taking it casually. If anything, we should be speaking about it in hushed tones. It was traditional to talk about ‘bad’ things in hushed tones or changed names during my childhood. I have grown up with that etched in me.
This is a monster! You should not even be mentioning it by name, lest it hears and responds! This viral disease, in the family of the flu, is spread through droplets. And do not think of droplets like rain droplets – nope. Droplets means the air exhaled from an infection person to the person nearby. Contaminated surfaces that bear the droplets can infect someone else if these viral particles can be picked out from these surfaces to find their way into the mouth, nose or eyes. The disease is not airborne; luckily, hence the infection is mainly confined to person-to-person or contaminated-surfaces-to-person.
Once it afflicts someone, the signs must show in a fourteen-day incubation period. That fact has led to quarantine requirements whenever one suspects of being in contact with an infected person or situation. The fourteen-day quarantine eventually leads to either getting it or not getting it. The treatment or rather no-treatment takes about the same period for the symptoms to go away.
The symptoms are principally a dry cough, shortness of breath and a high fever. These should go away on their own within the fortnight, but those with other underlying medical issues are likely to require hospitalization. These symptoms also hit different people in different ways – with others suffering severe distress more than others. Admission into hospital or need to take some medicine may be required by others, while others may survive the distress without medication. Full treatment could taker longer depending on the health complications that would result.
The Corona virus disease of December 2019, COVID-19, is not a small matter. It has spread throughout the whole world, from the original patient-zero at Wuhan city in Hubei province in China in December 2019, to the current situation, four months later, where almost all countries in the globe have a reported case. The John Hopkins University and Medicine has a Coronavirus Resource Center, accessible online to the public. On that site they publish the stats of how the virus is spreading worldwide, with total confirmed cases, total deaths and total recovered. It is a nice and scary dashboard.
It was a Friday. It was March 20. I was looking at the dashboard. I had already had a long run on Tuesday, three days ago. That two-thirds of a marathon run had really drained me. I was completely out of shape on Wednesday, and was just about recovered on Thursday. I did not have any intention of hitting the road again until the new week.
The Corona virus disease of December 2019, COVID-19, is not a small matter. It has spread throughout the whole world, from the original patient-zero at Wuhan city in Hubei province in China in December 2019, to the current situation, four months later, where almost all countries in the globe have a reported case. The John Hopkins University and Medicine has a Coronavirus Resource Center, accessible online to the public. On that site they publish the stats of how the virus is spreading worldwide, with total confirmed cases, total deaths and total recovered. It is a nice and scary dashboard.
It was a Friday. It was March 20. I was looking at the dashboard. I had already had a long run on Tuesday, three days ago. That two-thirds of a marathon run had really drained me. I was completely out of shape on Wednesday, and was just about recovered on Thursday. I did not have any intention of hitting the road again until the new week.
But things were happening. Staff were already working from home. I had early attempted to attend a meeting at our main hall – the very hall where we can park 600 seats. On this Friday I was turned away, hardly five minutes after the start of meeting, because the hall ‘was full’.
“What do you mean full?”
“You cannot get in,” the sentry had repeated in a whisper, “Just look and see”
I looked through the door.
The place was full alright – with about twenty people seated.
This came about due to the requirement for ‘social distancing’. The seats were so sparsely spaced that even fitting twenty was a miracle. They were so far apart that it looked like an exam room than a meeting room. I would instead have to tune into the meeting online. Social distancing and reducing exposure were the main reasons for the now ‘optional’ compulsory advise that we work from home. Additional precautions were emphasized, being sanitization of hands and surfaces at all times, at all places. Greetings and hugging had already been abolished like a week prior.
“What do you mean full?”
“You cannot get in,” the sentry had repeated in a whisper, “Just look and see”
I looked through the door.
The place was full alright – with about twenty people seated.
This came about due to the requirement for ‘social distancing’. The seats were so sparsely spaced that even fitting twenty was a miracle. They were so far apart that it looked like an exam room than a meeting room. I would instead have to tune into the meeting online. Social distancing and reducing exposure were the main reasons for the now ‘optional’ compulsory advise that we work from home. Additional precautions were emphasized, being sanitization of hands and surfaces at all times, at all places. Greetings and hugging had already been abolished like a week prior.
Distancing
It is the social distancing thing that was still puzzling me. A one-metre gap was needed between people at all times – be it in offices, in walking situations or in meetings. Thinking of it, now I do know why the hall had like twenty people. Meetings of more than ten had already been abolished. The hall in use was actually two halls combined into one for this occasion. It qualified as two distinct rooms. Technology made the speaker appear in both at the same time. Of course, the middle separator had also been removed.
Social distancing – being a metre apart. I kept thinking about this while watching the proceedings online.
Social distancing… wait a minute! I had earlier on, on this selfsame morning been in a matatu to Westlands. I remember being packed onto the fairly small seats on the 32-seater, for the whole 30-minute travel. There was no metre separation for sure.
Social distancing… I kept thinking about it, since I had used another matatu back and had to seat with the rest of my country people next to one another. At Kangemi market I had observed how densely parked the market vendors and buyers were, as they jostled on the small footpath besides road. That footpath had been made worse by the road construction that destroyed almost all available walkway. Now it is a real struggle for survival between the vendors, who have laid out their wares on the small footpath, and the pedestrians who have to walk-through.
The story does not end there. We still have to deal with the buyers who have to stop on the same narrow path to negotiate, look and buy. That is not all, we have the nduthis that believe that they can pass-by anywhere, anytime and that they are entitled to right of way. That is not all, we have the wheelbarrows, that are used by vendors smack in the middle of the footpath. They occasionally get compelled to wheel them back by half a meter to allow people through, before they return them to the road to block it once more.
Social distancing… my mind went back to the other events of just this selfsame day. I had even been to the local supermarket, where the shelf isles as so narrow, that you literally have to front-hug or hind-bump someone to go past them while moving from isle to isle. We paid by queuing on a tight-knit fashion at the cashiers.
Social distancing… I am taken aback to the same morning when I had to do some mobile money transaction. I went to this Uthiru chemist where about six of us were crowded Infront of the grill barrier. Three of us struggling to get MPESA going, while another three talking to the pharmacist, almost in unison, to get some drug or other. More people kept coming in and blocking the doorway, waiting to be served.
Social distancing… I thought.
The stats
It was now in the afternoon. I was seated facing the JHU dashboard. It had grim statistics of the effects caused by this severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus version 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This wretched virus! The same virus that someone called ‘this thing’ on a YouTube video. His reason was not because ‘it may respond to being called’ but because the content managers at YT had been pulling down videos of ‘the thing’ whenever mentioned by real name – COVID-19 or Corona.
I was at the dashboard – 244,601 total confirmed cases. That is massive!
10,031 deaths – a 4% mortality rate.
86,033 total recovered – 35% recovery rate as at Friday, March 20, 2020 at 12.43.03pm!
These were bad stats.
But that was not all, as my ear was still tuned to the AJZ channel, where major cities in the world were on lockdown. And lockdown means you are locked into your house, without any chance of enjoying the freedoms that you take for granted like taking a walk or doing a run. London was in lockdown. Paris was in lockdown. New York was in lockdown.
Even Rome was in lockdown, having suffered the most deaths of just over 3k in that 10k figure of mortality, overtaking China, which also had a figure of just over 3k. The same AJZ that was also breaking the news of the deaths of my favourite musicians in the name of Aurlus Mabele and Kenny Rogers. Bad news was everywhere on this day!
I was still looking at the dashboard. I kept looking at it.
I was listening to stories of ‘the thing’. I kept listening to them.
‘The thing’ had already caused a ‘work from home’ directive. The thing (TT) had even caused a death to an innocent Kenyan, who was lynched by the mob for just coughing out loud on the street, with the mob accusing him of having the thing. TT was bad. TT was not something to take lightly. TT had already forced people to start avoiding handling of currency notes and money in general, saying that those papers are breeding grounds for SARS-CoV-2. What else did TT want from humanity! What else does TT want from humanity!!
I kept looking at the dashboard. At this rate, the whole world was going to be infected! At this rate, we shall be having a lockdown ourselves over here!
“Lockdown!,” I said out loud, unconsciously.
The prospects of a lockdown were unimaginable. If social-distancing was already causing us all manner of trouble. How about a lockdown?
“Lockdown!,” I found myself repeating, shaking my head.
That is when the light-bulb flickered.
“Why can’t I just make the best out of the situation while ‘the thing’ has not yet arrived?”
That question quickly saw me preparing for the evening run that I would otherwise have been taking a breather from. The March 27 run was already off, but the March 20 run was not yet off. I would keep running as much as I can, for as long as I have, before TT takes over life as we know it today.
That marked the start of the streak between Runner and Co-runner, I mean co-rona.
I left the generator at 4.45pm and was surprised as to how energetic I did feel. The pains of the Tuesday run were gone, and my strides were quite energetic. I intended to just do a mock run on the 21k route and just confirm that it still existed. I would also take the opportunity to ‘check out’ how other country people were being affected by TT.
Life seemed to be continued as usual. I still met groups of people walking, especially around Kabete Polytechnic – groups of three, four or even five – walking together, talking, holding hands, calling each other ‘babe’ or ‘bae’. Taking shoulder-to-shoulder selfies and generally oblivious of any care in the world. The motorbikes continued carrying two or three passengers unbothered. The matatus kept on their business. The bus stages were still full of crowds standing next to each other.
At Ndumbo, the market was still full, with sellers and buyers. That nduthi stage, just before you take the left turn on Kanyariri road was still packed with parked motorbikes. The riders were still in deep animated discussions – shouting and laughing, occasionally ‘sss-sss’-ing a passing girl. Kanyariri road thinned out after the market area. From there on the road was a bit deserted. I occasionally found the young people walking around, holding hands and even once saw two of them dancing in the middle of the road, cheered on by four other colleagues. I shook my head as I raced up Kanyariri road.
The Gitaru matatu stage was full as usual. Matatus were beckoning passengers onto their vehicles, as they cashed-in on the evening demand. I would soon circle around the market and be back to Kanyariri road. The down-road was smooth and quick. The international route remained what I expected – the same old route that gives you a 10k of hill, then a 10k of downhill.
I did another Vet loop on my way back, as the energy reserves on this day were just top notch. That ‘take full advantage of the days before TT strikes’ must have filled my body with adrenaline. I was fast and I was energetic. Despite making hay while the sun still shone, I did not want to destroy the hay in the process and hence I had to put an end to the run and plan for another run on another day. I would stop my timer on a time of 02.05.03 for 24.17km, averaging 5m10s per km.
I was just settling down after the run when I saw this ‘1000-Miles-1-year’ title on one of my webpages.
“What?,” I studied that title puzzled.
I was taken aback.
I had all along thought it was ‘1000-Kilometers-1-year’ challenge?
“This is not going to happen at all, with TT hanging over my shoulder?”
Nonetheless, I shall keep taking advantage of the run opportunities as they arise, whether it is for 1000mi or 1000k or to beat TT. It does not matter!
The verdict…
For round one – I give it to the runner. I hope that the runner can enjoy a long uninterrupted streak before TT takes over through an affliction, a quarantine or a lockdown.
WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Mar. 20, 2020
I was still looking at the dashboard. I kept looking at it.
I was listening to stories of ‘the thing’. I kept listening to them.
‘The thing’ had already caused a ‘work from home’ directive. The thing (TT) had even caused a death to an innocent Kenyan, who was lynched by the mob for just coughing out loud on the street, with the mob accusing him of having the thing. TT was bad. TT was not something to take lightly. TT had already forced people to start avoiding handling of currency notes and money in general, saying that those papers are breeding grounds for SARS-CoV-2. What else did TT want from humanity! What else does TT want from humanity!!
I kept looking at the dashboard. At this rate, the whole world was going to be infected! At this rate, we shall be having a lockdown ourselves over here!
“Lockdown!,” I said out loud, unconsciously.
The prospects of a lockdown were unimaginable. If social-distancing was already causing us all manner of trouble. How about a lockdown?
“Lockdown!,” I found myself repeating, shaking my head.
That is when the light-bulb flickered.
“Why can’t I just make the best out of the situation while ‘the thing’ has not yet arrived?”
That question quickly saw me preparing for the evening run that I would otherwise have been taking a breather from. The March 27 run was already off, but the March 20 run was not yet off. I would keep running as much as I can, for as long as I have, before TT takes over life as we know it today.
That marked the start of the streak between Runner and Co-runner, I mean co-rona.
I left the generator at 4.45pm and was surprised as to how energetic I did feel. The pains of the Tuesday run were gone, and my strides were quite energetic. I intended to just do a mock run on the 21k route and just confirm that it still existed. I would also take the opportunity to ‘check out’ how other country people were being affected by TT.
Life seemed to be continued as usual. I still met groups of people walking, especially around Kabete Polytechnic – groups of three, four or even five – walking together, talking, holding hands, calling each other ‘babe’ or ‘bae’. Taking shoulder-to-shoulder selfies and generally oblivious of any care in the world. The motorbikes continued carrying two or three passengers unbothered. The matatus kept on their business. The bus stages were still full of crowds standing next to each other.
At Ndumbo, the market was still full, with sellers and buyers. That nduthi stage, just before you take the left turn on Kanyariri road was still packed with parked motorbikes. The riders were still in deep animated discussions – shouting and laughing, occasionally ‘sss-sss’-ing a passing girl. Kanyariri road thinned out after the market area. From there on the road was a bit deserted. I occasionally found the young people walking around, holding hands and even once saw two of them dancing in the middle of the road, cheered on by four other colleagues. I shook my head as I raced up Kanyariri road.
The Gitaru matatu stage was full as usual. Matatus were beckoning passengers onto their vehicles, as they cashed-in on the evening demand. I would soon circle around the market and be back to Kanyariri road. The down-road was smooth and quick. The international route remained what I expected – the same old route that gives you a 10k of hill, then a 10k of downhill.
I did another Vet loop on my way back, as the energy reserves on this day were just top notch. That ‘take full advantage of the days before TT strikes’ must have filled my body with adrenaline. I was fast and I was energetic. Despite making hay while the sun still shone, I did not want to destroy the hay in the process and hence I had to put an end to the run and plan for another run on another day. I would stop my timer on a time of 02.05.03 for 24.17km, averaging 5m10s per km.
I was just settling down after the run when I saw this ‘1000-Miles-1-year’ title on one of my webpages.
“What?,” I studied that title puzzled.
I was taken aback.
I had all along thought it was ‘1000-Kilometers-1-year’ challenge?
“This is not going to happen at all, with TT hanging over my shoulder?”
Nonetheless, I shall keep taking advantage of the run opportunities as they arise, whether it is for 1000mi or 1000k or to beat TT. It does not matter!
The verdict…
For round one – I give it to the runner. I hope that the runner can enjoy a long uninterrupted streak before TT takes over through an affliction, a quarantine or a lockdown.
WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Mar. 20, 2020
