Two marathons, the full ones…. in two weeks

Two marathons, the full ones…. in two weeks

Episode 1 - First half of first marathon

It was a bad idea from the beginning.  Two marathons, the full marathons, in two weeks.  This was in keeping with the tradition of the unlimitedness of the human spirit – an ‘Ineos159’ thing.  The main run was supposed to be the ‘ultimate’ international marathon – the one that closes the year – scheduled for Friday, Dec. 20.  There was nothing supposed to be held before this year closing event.  

But things do happen.  I had seen many other marathons still being advertised on our marathoners groups WhatsApp.

“Is this a scheme to sabotage the ‘ultimate’?,” I found myself asking as I saw marathon after another being promoted.  There was no talk of the ultimate.  If anything, my single announcement did not elicit any response.  I was already reminding myself of the November international, codename ‘route eleven’, where only my own two legs turned up.

It is the usual convention to scout the route before a run.  I had already scouted it for ‘route eleven’ hardly a month prior.  Surely, nothing could have changed in that time, could there be?  There was only one way to find out.  The finding out took place on Monday, Dec. 9.  I left for the evening run in a relaxed ‘scouting’ mood – no pressure.  This was just the usual 21k on the usual international route, with the usual 10km hill.  Nothing new.

That feeling would soon be short lived just as I crossed the main Nakuru highway at Kabete Police, bottle of water in hand, two cells at hand to time the run with two different apps.  I started feeling pain in my stomach.  That was strange.  That was new.  

I had been on a usual watchful diet.  My last heavy meal had been the late breakfast at ten – just a cup of black tea and a piece of sweet potato.  I had thereafter taken two more cups of tea and about a half litre of water in the timespan between ten and four.  I took the last sip of warm water just past four, ready for the run that started at 4.45pm.  The stomach pain hardly fifteen minutes from start of the run was a strange one.

I was in a run-stopping pain by the time I started the Vet loop part of the run on the second kilometer.  I encouraged myself to continue monitoring the situation.

“Push it to Ndumbo river on the 4k,” I told myself.

“Gauge it there and be ready to turn back,” I continued the self-talk.

The rains earlier in the day had made the path muddy, before I could get to the tarmac road at Ndumbo.  The weather was a bit cold.  It was drizzling as I ran down towards Ndumbo river – the point of decision on whether I would continue the run or not.

It would not be long before the decision would be clear – the run was on.  My stomach pain had subsided and I started up the hill with an energetic leap.  The drizzles also subsided and the weather would remain dull through the run.  The tummy pain would however resume just past Kanyariri school.  I still had that final two kilometers of hill towards Nakuru highway.

“Do I turn back?”

I kept going, albeit with slowed pace.

I somehow got to the highway with pain on my stomach.  It was now the turning point of the 21k and there was no going back on this run now.  I now just had to go round the big circle of Gitaru market and start my way back.

My mouth did not feel like taking a sip.  I could not even imagine taking in any water.  Just the thought of it almost got me throwing up.  I would be running ‘dry’ on this run.  I kept going with my full bottle of half-litre of water on this half-marathon.  The stomach pain would subside as I ran down towards Ndumbo river.  

I now had only three kilometres to the finish.  The effects of dehydration were evident.  I was finding it hard to pump in any more powerful kicks as I faced the final hill to Ndumbo market.  I was tired!  I longed for water, which I had at hand, but my mouth had refused to pertain any.  It took willpower to cross Waiyaki way and get to Kabete Poly for the last kilometer.  But having done twenty already, I had just to push through that last one – even if it was the last thing that I would do.

I stopped my timer at 1.46.01.  Runkeeper gave me 21.82km while Endomondo gave me 21.23km.  I had given myself 1.50.00.  I was glad to have been vindicated despite how I felt.  The run was a 5.00min/k pace.  

Episode 2 - Second half of first marathon

It was a Friday, four days after the painful Monday run.  I had already enjoyed a day of rest in the name of Jamhuri day holiday on Thursday.  I was ready to take myself back on the 21k route.  This run was more of a confirmation that my body was still working well.  Maybe the Monday experience was telling me something.  I was going to find out.  It had not rained since Thursday morning.  It was getting drier.  Some dark clouds around four threatened to culminate into a rainy evening.  It did not.  The evening was sunny – hot even.

I started my run at quarter to five, a bottle of water at hand.  The warm weather propelled my steps and I was soon crossing the Waiyaki way at Kabete hardly ten minutes after starting the run.  The run was just too smooth.  

There was nothing special on the route.  Just the usual no-other-runners, the usual vehicles hooting you out of the way despite the road being too big to accommodate the single vehicle and one runner.  The usual evening sun that can be hot when it means to – and it did mean to on this Friday.

I reached Gitaru market without much ado.  I had already taken a few sips of water.  I would go around the market partly on Wangige road and be back to Kanyariri road before long.  The spice of the route is the downhill run from Gitaru market back to Ndumbo river.  I found myself down acceleration lane as I covered this part without much effort.  I was just on top of the world on this run.  The sips of water helped keep me hydrated.

A vehicle flashes me with full headlights as we both converge on the same road bump going in opposite directions.

The driver waves.  I hardly notice him since our relative motions are increasing our separation with each passing second.  I wave back.  I am useless without my specs.  I am not sure which runner that is.  All I know is that he is a runner.

It is not long before it is the turn of a motorbike.  I am running without a care, when the motorbike approaches me and hoots.  I give it way before the passenger draws my attention.

“Dabliu Biiiii!,” an excited sound comes from the passenger of the motorbike, which has now slowed down towards a stop.  I am already five metres gone, heading towards ten metres gone.

I try to look back while maintaining a front motion.  I am not sure whether I should stop or not.

I recognize the passenger.

“Haki woiye!  Good work!  Dabliu Biiii!!  Haki wewe!!,” Lavender shouts back at my retreating form.

“Thanks!,” I shout back loudly.  I am now past ten metres and going.

I run the last four kilometres without noticing much around me.  I am just doing a run that shall soon come to an end.  And coming to an end it does.  This second half marathon of the first marathon ends with a time of 1.39.55!  This was a 4.42min/km pace. 

“That can’t be true!,” I shake my head as I get into the compound.  Shaving off seven-minutes from the half is just unimaginable!  Both the apps record this run as a 21.27km event.

Episode 3 - First half of second marathon

“My medal number 22 at Tigoni,” Janet declared on the WhatsApp page with photographic evidence.  It was a Saturday. 

“The last run in 2019,” she adds.  

I now know why she is not running in next Friday’s ‘ultimate’ international.  Will anyone turn up for this final run?  I ponder.

How about medals?  The ultimate run would have none.  

I had imagined that I was a diligent runner in the year, with 1,110km ran since June 1, but I only had five medals to show for it.  Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro full, Kenya’s Muituni half, Kenya’s Alliance twenty k, Norway’s Stavanger full and Netherlands’s Amsterdam full – But twenty-two medals!  How is that even possible?  Where have I been?  I started having self-doubt as to whether I was running a lost cause.

This third run in the second week was proving to be the hardest to arrange and execute.  It should have been on a Monday, but the SMS from the doc was categorical, “You have a 3.00pm appointment on Monday.  Do not miss.”

I liked the ‘Do not miss’ part.  It was as though I was due for some important award.

If this third run was not to be done on a Monday, and yet I had the ultimate on Friday, then when would this third run be ‘squeezed in’?  Tuesday seemed too late!

I was seated, more like reclined on the dental chair at exactly three.  I was able to look through the large window on this first-floor room to see the newly constructed Ngong road section just a stone throw away.  I could see matatus and motorbikes competing for space on the vast road, hooting each other loudly.  

It is not the poking of my teeth with that sharp thing that looked like a screw driver that cause my dread, it was the tick-tock towards the evening run that got me thinking.

‘The doc’, sorry ‘the dent’, would finally say, after three cycles of examining the x-ray then the poking, “This image does not look like what I see now.  You must have healed in the last one month.”

That was music to my ears.  The nursing assistant also seemed relieved.  I was expecting one of those prolonged ‘sit-ins’, sorry, ‘recline-ins’.  This would not happen today.  This was to be the shortest stay on that chair.

It was now just past 3.30pm.  I had to ‘somehow’ make it to the run in an hour.  The distance was not the issue, the means of travel was.  Matatus are so untimely and unpredictable once you are on board.  

How many times have you been forced out of the matatu before your destination with a simple, “Mwisho! Mwisho! Shukeni! Tumefika mwisho!  Gari inarudi!”

Just like that, without a care in the world – rain or no rain.  No refund and no refund!

That would probably be three to five kilometers from the expected destination!

How about the route being changed without notice!  You are heading towards your destination, which you can see right ahead, then the matatu diverts to a bumpy side road that takes them longer in the name of ‘avoiding traffic’.  Please do not get me started on matatus.  I just use them though we have a hate-hate relationship.

I ‘somehow’ got to my destination at 4.15pm.  This was in good time for the run.  This run would happen.  Let ‘us’ get this run done with… and that is what ‘we’ did.  You need to read a previous blog to know the origin of this pluralization.  To refresh your memory, I got it from the same dents, who keep using plural for their individual selves.

I started the run at the international starting line at exactly 4.45pm.  The weather was good, if anything it was hot.  A second hot run in four days.  It did not take long before I was feeling the heat, even as I crossed Waiyaki way after five minutes of run.  The run was the same usual run.  Through the route that is now etched into memory.  I can close my eyes and replicate that route any day, or night if the Addis experience of nightruns can help in this route.

There was nothing much to write about on this first half of the second marathon.  It went on as planned – a relaxed run without any pressure of any sorts whatsoever.  I eventually finished the run, stopping the now well-behaved gadgets at 21.20km in 1hr 42min 05sec (Endomondo) and 21.17km in 1hr 42min 09sec (Runkeeper).  A 4.49min/km pace.  

I say ‘well-behaved’ since I have the secret of eliciting this behavior on these gadgets.  Switch on the Airplane mode when you are using them.  That forces all background apps to freeze, leaving the gadgets with only one thing to do – track your run – and that is what you want, right?.

Episode 4 - Second half of second marathon – the ultimate

There was now only one run standing, sorry running, between me and a four-run streak – this was the ‘ultimate’ marathon planned for Friday, Dec. 20, 2019.  This was the run to close the year – the very last one – the ‘ultimate’.  

However, it did not seem to stand much chance of success.  If the November ‘penultimate’ was largely shunned, yet the runners had not even tasted the festivities yet!  How about this one that was occurring two-weeks after the employer had hosted the staff to a lavish end year bash?  This ultimate run was technically off, but unfortunately it was part of the 4-run streak and I would have to partake, even if it was the last thing that I was doing this year.

“Coach!  Long time!,” Edu shouted in my direction as I approached his trio.  They were like ten metres away.  It was lunch hour.  A Thursday.  One day to the final run of 2019.

“Oh!  Hi there yourselves!”

“Kupotea nayo!?” 

We had now met and were exchanging greetings.

“Niko!  Hata kesho kuna mbio – the last one!  The ultimate!!”

“Ah, you mean?,” he started.  

I already knew his next sentence, but still waited for him to say it, “Sisi tulishafunga mbio mpaka next year!”

Now, this ultimate thing is not going to happen.  If the likes of Edu, had called it ‘a year’ already?  The real veterans in my group!?  Then who else would dare make it to the ‘ultimate’?

I was packing up for the evening, ready to face the inevitable solo ‘ultimate’.  I was already resigned to that inevitable fate.

“Bad things happen,” I thought loudly.  

I was just about to walk home, when a friend requested for some two reds to sort out something.  I was doing the lending by mobile money, one hundred at a time.  The first hundred went through successfully.  I could even here the beep beep from the phone that was just placed on the seat.  I would momentarily hear another beep beep.  

I then transferred the second red and heard those double beeps.  It was not long before the owner of the phone came back to the office and possessed the phone.

“Have you sent me the money?”

“Yes, of course I did!”

“Mbona sioni?”

“I have just sent.  Check your phone!,” I responded with conviction.

“Sioni kitu, are you sure?”

“Yes, si numba yako ni seven eight seven?”

“Ai, wewe!  Sasa mbona ulituma kwa hiyo namba?”

I was taken aback.  I had to process.

“What do you mean, ‘mbona’?  Isn’t that your number?”

“Yes, lakini hiyo ina fuliza.  Imagine that money was ‘chewed’ immediately.”

I had to loan another two additional reds to the right number.  This is just crazy!

It took me the whole length of the 1.2km walking home to get to know what this fuliza thing that ‘chews‘ money was all about.  Even as I reached home and prepared my running shoes ready for the ultimate.  I believed that one more night rest was all that was needed to crack this run.  Only time (and weather) would tell, whether the ultimate succeeds or not.

And…. time and weather did tell when it was finally a Friday and it was 4.45pm – time for the run.  The weather was good.  The evening sun was bright, warm and quite inviting as I flagged myself off at the generator.  I was the only one at the starting line.  That was expected.  I was feeling quite on top of the world as I started the run.  However, the Friday run would soon become similar, in fact congruent to the Monday run!  

My stomach pain started hardly five minutes after I started the run, as I crossed Waiyaki way at Kabete Technical’s N-junction.

“This is not happening, again,” I told myself even as I crossed the highway.

My speed had started reducing by the time I was at Ndumbo having just done about fifteen minutes of run.  By then my stomach was so painful that every step that I took seemed to increase the pain.

“I shall not make it this time round,” I shook my head as I went down from Ndumbo towards the river.

I do not even remember how I got the energy to carry me from the river for the 1km run to the elevated tank.  It was the most painful uphill run.

“I give up!,” I said when I reached the tank, and if anything made up my mind to cancel the run by diverting to the right ready to just do the Mary Leakey route and get back.  I would have to make do with a 13k instead of 21k.

I was running slowly through the university farm when the pain in the stomach subsided and was soon gone.  I had hardly gone a kilometer through this dusty footpath.

“Now what?,” I said while turning back, deciding to abandon the Mary Leakey alternative and going back to the original run. 

Maybe the pain was just a temporary thing.  I may as well just do the intended full run.  After all, maji ukiyavulia nguo lazima uyaoge (when you strip you just have to take a bath).  I was already stripped for this bathing.  I just had to do it.  I turned back and was soon back to Kanyariri road at the elevated tank.  I turned to my right and continued with Kanyariri road, to do the initially intended run. 

The eye of the stomach however must have seen that I was back to Kanyariri road, since it was hardly five minutes after rejoining Kanyariri that the stomach pain resumed.

“I have no choice, I shall have to do this run…. Painfully.”

I had now just covered about 6km.  

I still had another 15km – Wowi!  Fifteen more?  

I had not even done half!!

So I did the run, one painful step at a time.  Fifteen thousand more such steps!

As I said, the run was similar, sorry congruent to the Monday run.  Same feeling, same pain and no appetite for water.  I finished the run when I was as dehydrated as a stone in summer, yet I still had my full bottle of water at hand.  

This stomach thing was now a serious thing.  It did not seem to be related to diet.  I must have been bit by some form of bug that now needed medical intervention.  

I stopped my gadgets in 1hr 54min 56min for a distance of 22.86km - A 5.05min/km pace.  The worst pace in the four run streak.  The final lessons from the coach after 2 full marathons in 2 weeks – forget legs.  You need a good stomach for your runs.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2020.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Dec. 20, 2019

Running at night – part 3

Running at night – part 3

Read part 2 here

“This is messed up!,” I almost shouted at the lady at the check-in counter at Bole.

She had just delivered the shattering blow to my otherwise well-planned day.  One minute prior to this particular feeling, she had asked, “What’s your flight?”

“KQ to Nairobi”

“The flight be delay to nan-tati”

This meant an extra two-unplanned-hours at the airport… doing nothing!  What I hated was not the ‘at the airport’ part.  What got me was the ‘doing nothing’ part.  And let no one cheat you – airports are the most boring of places that you ever want to spend your time.

“This is messed up!,” I finally said to myself after the very fast processing through immigration.  There was zero person on any queue.  Nobody nowhere.  It was deserted.  I then proceeded to seat at the first floor lounge, to wait for my five hours of doing nothing.

It would however become worse.  As I sat to start my five hours of nothingness, I noted that the ‘free’ wifi was showing that dreaded ‘no internet’ message.  It took a few tweaks to force it to open a browser page for me to accept their terms and condition before I could finally connect.  I just clicked the checkbox next to, “Please tick box to confirm you read and agree with our Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy” and then clicked ‘Connect’.

Talking of these T&C, who reads them?  That is exactly why they are there – not to be read.  And that is by design.  In that long, small font text of the T&Cs are those illegal forced consent to the collection, processing and use of personal information and browsing history.  But who cares – the cyberworld is already messed up as it is.  An additional continuation of what they do best (take our info and use it for whatever they do) won’t make a difference, will it?.  I however have free advice if you want to make a difference – stop using anything that connects to any network.  Don’t we all just love free advice!

I reflected on my last few hours and it was quite a day.  I remembered reading and re-reading those boring hotel rules on the folder placed on the table of the hotel room.  My boredom was temporary turned to some interest when I saw the special consideration for weekends.  It was clear than on weekends breakfast was served from 7.00am to 11.00am.  That was quite something.  I had to re-read that part and internalize.  

That would mean that even if I woke up at eleven-ish, I could still make it for breakfast.  I had had a busy week in Addis and just wanted to have a one-long night rest that should culminate into a late waking up at eleven-ish.  Thank you hotel management for knowing that weekends are special.  I gave them a ‘like’ with a thumbs up.  I wish there was a feedback form.  Maybe it was there, in the maze of many papers in that folder.

But the Saturday morning started with a mind of its own.  My intended wake-up-late morning did not happen.  I lost my sleep at eight and flipped through the boring TV programmes.  The signal reception was poor – those grainy analogue signals.  The choice of programmes was equally limited – just ten channels.  Six grainy, two news channels, a movie channel and some other channel that was difficult-to-understand-what-it-was-all-about.  It is the only channel where you could be watching an edge-of-the-seat movie at one moment, only to be interrupted by a long display of channel listing.  Before long, you could see the cursor moving live on screen, in a manner of flipping through the channels, only for the channel to be changed to something else – like cartoons – just like that!

I therefore decided to keep flipping through the bouquet of ten, looking for nothing in particular, until I stumbled upon the channel with the soap opera for men.  I was starting to sympathize with myself over how I have been cheated for so long over what goes on in our view.  I infact was now knowledgeable of all the ‘lies’ that I now could spot them live on screen.  I recognized that trash talk as fake.  I knew that those apparent ‘painful’ kicks and high falls were made to ‘sound’ painful than the real pain.  I was now even enjoying the moments, with truth on my side, when the screen just went off!  The room become dark and life came to a standstill.  It was hardly nine and we were having a power fail.  

I was confident that this would be short lived, after all no hotel can be worth its star-rating if it did not have a power-backup right? Wrong!  It would take almost an hour before the power was back.  I struggled to get something to do in the sixty-minutes, but nothing could keep me contained.  I tried sleeping, I could not.  I tried pacing, I got tired after a look through the window of the second-floor balcony.  I tried doing something on the phone but the wifi was off.  I tried packing – that seemed to work, but I was through pushing stuff in my one hand luggage in the shortest of time.  It was now just over five minutes since the power fail and I had exhausted my arsenal of ‘doing nothing’.

The men’s soap resumed with the power around ten.  By then I had bathed, thanks to the centralized heating instead of an instant heating which would have meant no hot water.  I had read and re-read that notice in the washroom….

“Think of the tonnes of towels being laundered unnecessarily in hotels throughout the world. And of the huge quantities of detergent polluting our water.  Please decide for yourself…”

Below this heading were four options.  The first one was that if you put a towel on the floor then it shall go for laundry, any other placement meant that it shall not be touched.  The third bullet point was that a green card placed on the bed meant no change of linen, a red card gives those linen a red to the laundry.  It was my last day here.  I was meant to check out.  I was to ‘decide for myself’.  What to do?

But this was not my first room.  I had ‘nomaded’ over three places during my one-week stay.  I started at the employer’s operated hostels.  Those were just in a different world.  I big room in a secure premise.  A kitchenette with fridge, albeit empty, an electric kettle, a bowl of sugar and eight sachets of tea bags.  Two bottles of water topped it all up.  These consumables were on daily replenishment.  The screen had a dedicated decoder for one to flip through and watch anything in full HD on an equally gigantic screen.  

I only stayed there two nights.  I was then moved to this hotel, but to a fourth-floor room.  The room was ‘OK’, until I took a bath and the bathwater overflowed out of the shower cubicle due to blocked drainage.  This wastewater would soon flood most of the bathroom cubicle and start flowing towards the living room.  I had to arrest the situation with a towel.  The towel remained soaked through the night.  My visits to the washroom in the night brought a sobering moment every time I stepped on that wet cold towel.

On the next day, Thursday morning, I had asked for a repair of the blockage.  I came back in the evening to get an offer for a change of room instead.  My interpretation was that they must have known that the situation in 408 was incorrigible.  The second-floor room 204 was better.  The TV was newish and bigger.  The bathroom had a tub, unlike the previous room.  The room felt hot when I first stepped in.  However, an air-conditioning unit was standing on top of the archway to the main room, just past the entrance, and past the washrooms.  The TV programmes of course turned out to be a big let down and more was to come.  

After opening the water tap and waiting for three-to-four minutes for the shower water to finally be warm enough, I stood in the tub and started to absorb the volume of water from the giant square showerhead on the ceiling.  It could have been a good shower had it not been for the water that started soaking my feet in the tub.

“What is going on here?”

The bathtub also had a blocked drainage and the wastewater was starting to fill up with every flow of the shower waters.  Not wishing to continue standing in the waste water, I had to cut short my otherwise enjoyable shower.

Nonetheless, I managed to stay two nights on the second floor and made do with the room condition.  After all, what do you need in a sleeping room?  Just a bed – and it had one.  Everything else was a bonus to use or not.

I had survived my two nights and it was now time to check out.  I had already experienced that one-hour blackout.  I had already been subjected to ‘’decide for yourself’ moments… twice!  I had already watched the men’s soap.  If anything, I was just enjoying the last moment of the ‘big lie’ on screen.  I still went along.  It would be rude to burst anybody’s bubble, even if they are on screen.  Just play along… or at least pretend.  When the soap ended with a predictable result, with commentators screaming “What a surprise!”, and the ref knocked out ‘unconscious’ for one minute only to come to after a minute, to do a 1-2-3 count, then you can imagine why I had to play along.

It was now just 10.30am.  I wanted to stretch this breakfast thing to its very limit.  A heavy breakfast around eleven would brunch me for the day so that I just await my evening travel back home.  But I had nothing else to do at this moment, and so I walked downstairs for breakfast at ten-thirty.  You can imagine my surprise when I got to the breakfast diner only to find the attendants clearing the last bits of serving plates from the buffet serving area.

“Where is breakfast?,” I asked, assuming that maybe the venue had been changed.

“We close breakfast!”

“But why?  It is not yet eleven.”

“Today not eleven.  Eleven be weekend only.”

“But it is Saturday!?”

“No, eleven be weekend only.  Tomorrow it be eleven.”

“But the information in the hotel room clearly indicates that you serve breakfast until eleven on weekends!  Today is a weekend, right?”

“That be no true.  Eleven be weekend only.  Only tomorrow”

The lady then just left me standing and joined her crew in clearing.  She did not seem bothered that one of their paying customers was about to miss breakfast.  She did not want to bother about thinking of an alternative.  She was just about to retreat to the kitchen when someone seated at the diner, to my left, next to our exchange intervened.

“Serve him,” he told the lady who was retreating to the kitchen.  He added some other utterances in Amharic, then continued his own breakfast with a colleague.

He looked at me, still affixed, “Just take a seat there.  They serve you.”

I sat and waited.  However, it was not long before I got an ‘anything goes’ conglomerate described as breakfast, served by the same person, egg on her face!  I did not care.  It had all ingredients that can make up for a missed breakfast.  I only missed the injera, the meats, the sausages, the flakes, the rice, the fruits – Eish – I did not know that I missed a lot!  But toast, egg and tea is just OK.  However, if you promise breakfast until eleven, then please deliver breakfast until eleven.  If Saturday is a weekend, then let Saturday be a weekend.  

Before I could put this matter to rest, I actually had to go back to my room and re-read those hotel rules, specifically the issue of when breakfast shall be served.  As sure as the sun rises from the East, it was still there, in black and white…

“Breakfast time

From Monday to Friday from 6:A.m to 10.00A.m

Saturday and Sunday from 7:A.m To11:00Am

Room check out time @ 12:00pm”

I am even surprised that the concept of ‘weekend’ that we were arguing about so passionately was not even mentioned at all in that notice!

Lost

Back to the moment, I identified a secluded spot at Bole and took a seat.  The ‘secluded’ place was more by design than by choice.  I needed a power socket and one of those pillars turned out to be the ideal place to seat and get connected to the juice.  I decided to MYOB and covered my ears with the giant muffs of the headphone.  

I was seated just next to the clear glass window facing the airport tarmac below.  I could see the runway about half a kilometer in front of my view, with planes touching down and taking off.  I had nothing to do but massacre the four hours of waiting.  It was hardly six, despite imagining that I must have been waiting for hours.  I had just finished an hour of waiting, with another three to go.

Despite my muffed ears, I was quite alert to all the going ons near gate A7 where I was seated alone, twenty of so other seats were empty on this section.  As I said, by design.  I then noted this guy who came and sat two seats from where I had sat.  He seemed a bit restless, as I gauged him from the corner of my left eye.  My specs were fixed straight to my laptop.  My head did not move an inch, but my eye took in his every restless move on that seat to my left.  I kept gazing on the screen.  

He kept being jumpy.  He stood up.  Walked around.  Came back.  Sat down.  Stood up again.  Held the rail of the structure holding the large windows in front of our sitting place.  He sat down again.  He momentarily left, only to come back and take the same seat once more.  I guessed that it must have been the fatigue of a flight or the apprehension of the next or just the stress of travel.  Traveling ain’t easy.  

I kept pounding on the keyboard.  My left eye doings its corner thing.  Absorbing every moment.  I later got used to his restlessness and continued with MYOBing.

“Excuse me!”

It did not come as a surprise.  I acted surprised.  I looked up.

“Yes!”

“It is Sunday right?”

What is it with today and Sunday?  First the hotel and now this?

“No. It is Saturday.”

“You sure?, which date?”

“December seven.  Saturday.”

I started doubting whether it was a Saturday myself.  Maybe it has been a Sunday all along!  I started having that panic attack.  Could it be true?

“See,” I clicked the lower right part of the laptop screen, where the clock was displaying 6:30 PM.  Momentarily, the popup showed up as “Saturday, December 7, 2019.”

“So, tomorrow is Sunday…,” he said almost in deep thought.  He then went ahead to count loudly, “Then Monday nine, Tuesday ten and Wednesday eleven, so I get there twelve.”

I had stopped typing.  He was just standing and gazing over the vast tarmac ahead.  He went back to his seat, two seats away.

I had hardly resumed my typing before he was back, “Can I borrow your laptop?  I need to send email, urgent.”

I started weighing my options.  A few what-ifs ran through my mind.  I started disconnecting the USB cables ready to hand over the machine.  I was just about to unplug the power and give him the laptop when he continued, “I lost my phone today, and I must send an urgent message to my people in India, before I fly at eight.”

I hurried the process of handing over the laptop.  He resumed his seat, two seats from where I was seated.  He pounded on the keyboard.  It did not take long before he asked me to get him a clean Gmail logging webpage to enable him access his email.  I walked to his sitting position, logged out my accounts and handed back the machine.  

He started his work.  He worked in full concentration.  I was taking a break, just pretending to listen to something on the muffs, which were now off.  It did not take more than ten minutes before he handed back the laptop.

“Thanks.  Imagine losing a phone!  It had my everything!”

“Bad things happen,” I found myself saying, for lack of a better consolation.

Mmmhhh, so that was the issue!  That was bad!

“What do you think can happen?”

“It is likely that the phone shall be erased and sold,” I told him.

“That would be good.  That phone had everything!”

“It is unlikely that something shall use it for ulterior motive like ransom or identity theft,” I reassured his dejected physique.

“I hope so.  I had put a lock.  I sure hope so.  The phone had everything!”

I had never known that a phone can be so dear.  When I lost my Infinix in August, my only thought was the resale value for the big 128GB SD card.  Now I was getting a whole new perspective about phones.  This particular episode got me thinking about phones.

My thoughts must have been for long, since I now realized that I still had two and a half more hours before I left.  Reducing the waiting time from three hour to two point five hours was a small reduction in waiting time… but a reduction in time nonetheless.

It was now almost eight-thirty.  Instead of preparing to land at Nairobi at this particular time, I was now just about to board, in one hour, then start my night run to NBO.  Just another day when I have to face another night run.  The runs that I am now so much accustomed to.  

But no one would have prepared me for ‘the flight is further delayed’ message that showed up on the screen at Gate C2 from 2100hrs when we should have been boarding.  The delay persisted even at 2145hrs when we should have been taking off!  This run in the night would be longer than I imagined!

WWB, the Coach, Addis Ababa, Dec. 7, 2019

Running at night part 2 - running with memories

Running at night part 2 - running with memories

Read part 1 here

Lightning does not strike twice, so goes a famous homeland saying, and that is what I was banking on when I re-attempted the Addis campus run.  I even took extra precaution and started the run earlier – at 5.15pm instead of 5.30pm.  I was good to beat the course in good time.

I flagged myself off and started the monotony of the circuit that runs generally on the perimeter of the compound.  I had already known it as a 2km high altitude route, with about half of it being a gently uphill.  I was starting at 2366m above sea level, to a low of 2360m, then finally to a high of 2376m.  With only a 16m height different, the route was not hilly by any definition.  

It was just one of those fairly flat routes.  But let that small difference not cheat you – running at an altitude over 2000m is not comfortable at all.  You just feel something pulling you back.  You apply lots of forward energy to get you going, and you tend to breath heavily.  Your speed is curtailed from start, unless you compensate by additional forward energy.

I would meet few other walkers on the route.  Greetings was the order of the day with every person that I met.

“Salamno!”

“Salamno!,” I replied, as I kept treading the trail.

Some encounters were even conversations, though I tried to keep going at a reduced speed.

“Salamno, you run good.  Very good!”

“Thanks,” I respond as I keep going.

“You extend also to road near gate, you must go to road there.”

“Oh, Ok, I shall try,” I respond while still on the run.  The person I am responding to must now be ten metres behind, walking.

“Be sure go that road,” he shouts to catch my attention, now almost fifteen metres ahead.

“Will do!,” I shout back.

What is this turning into?  A conversation!  Wasn’t it supposed to be a ‘Hi’.

But I am glad that I am even saying Hello.  It can be worse.  It has been worse, as I thought about what happened four months ago…..

When we got to P-10, our dormitory, the sun was still sweet and bright.  There was no way I would miss a run on this evening.  After all, this was a Wednesday – a run day.  While Paul and Eric decided to enjoy their day with the one-month free gym membership, I was on my journey of discovery – exploration of the open roads far from UiS.  

I had mapped my run on Google map and knew how it should turn out, at least on the map.  Unfortunately, I could not have the map while on the run, since I did not have internet connectivity while on the run.  This would not be possible without a local SIM card and data bundles on the SIM.  

Of course, I would have benefitted from the free wifi if I was configured properly on a local SIM, but that was just wishful for now.  I just had the map on computer screen, memory on how it should be, and reliance on good old luck to pull this off.  The map showed the route as being straight enough.  Just a long loop on the tarmac in front of my windows, and that shall be it.  It should be a simple 6km loop – a thirty minutes thing.  Simple!  Do this four times, and I am done.  Simple, I told you.

The time for the run would come.  I would adorn my running kit.  It was five-thirty.  I left and started slowly, past Kiwi supermarket and kept going.  I had now learnt to keep my runs to the side walkways.  And the walkways were available along all the roads, no exception.  

At times, the walkways would get under the roads as a crossing, then get you to the other side.  Other walkways were over the roads.  I would finally get to the main road that I intended.  I was to turn right on this road, which I did, and then kept going on straight ahead.  I soon passed the Clarion hotel on my right and kept following along Madlaveien, the main road to city centre.  

After some underpass that the footpath led me through, I found myself on the other side of the overhead main road.  This was just a road tributary.  The main road that I was running next to started drifting further to my left.  Soon the main road was so far to the left that I could only make it out by the vehicles swishing in the background.  

I kept running and found myself through a residential housing estate.  I was skeptical as to whether I was still on the right path.  This did not seem like a main road, but it was also not blocked in any way.  Wooden-walled houses stood on both side of this deserted tarmac road.  Most of the houses did not have fences.  The few with fences had some short green live fence.

I reduced speed, wondering whether I was still on the right track, but kept going through the estate for another five minutes.  I was quite relieved to finally get out of the residential estate and joined a sideroad next to a main road.  It was even possible that it was the same main road that had disappeared on me.  I was glad to get it, but that did not last.  After about fifty meters, the side road that I was running on seems to just end!  Just like that!  I just noticed it leading to some red strips marked on the tarmac, straight where I was to run.  What is going on here?

Nonetheless, this now red-marked part of the road was still on the side of the road, but not as well defined as the previous side walkways.  The previous sidewalks tended to have a gap, of greenery or otherwise, between them and the main roads.  This was just the road kerb, painted in red strips.  That is where I kept running.  It did not feel right, but I did not see any alternatives for me.  Then another fifty metres ahead and I got to a big roundabout, with large expansive roads all around the big circle.  I turned to the right, just as the road did turn right.  

Then… Then I heard a car hoot behind me, then pass.  I looked at it and did not see anything of concern.  Then another car hooted from behind and I stopped to look at it.  It soon came to a stop just next to my standing position, on this two-lane road.  The passenger on the front seat opened her window, and the driver, on the other side of the car tried to lean over, “No run here. This is highway,” he said.

“So where do I run?”

“Get run path, but no highway.”

I was forced to retreat the one hundred meters back to where the red marks started.  I still did not see the side walkway that would give me a chance to run towards this direction.  Where was it?  Where did I miss it?  I simply could not see how to run towards this direction on the expected footpath since I saw none.  

Not wishing to run myself into some trouble, I decided to just run back to UiS and remap my run from there.  I would also get an opportunity to maybe restudy the route map once more and then re-strategize.  So, I started running back, using the same path that I had taken.  It was a relief to start getting back home – just a reverse of the road that I had already taken.  A simple run back.  I kept running.  

It was now just past six.  The sun was still high and bright.  I kept going.  I met quite a few people on the side path, mostly those on bicycles.  I kept going.  Very few vehicles were on the main road.  I kept going.

“This must be my turn,” I finally told myself, relieved, as I got to the turn.

I turned to my left and kept going.  

I got a “wait a minute” moment, when the road somehow made a turn to the right, hardly two hundred meters after the turn.  My expectation was that once I turned left, I would run generally straight, all the way to Kiwi.  There surely was no right turn anywhere on the road, if I was to retrace my steps rightly.

“Maybe I was too busy running to notice the road profile,” I told myself, “For sure, I had made a turning when I was running to this direction, and that turning must surely be this one.  There was no other turning but this.”

I still kept going, but with lots of doubt in my mind.  The surrounding infrastructure did not seem familiar at all.  Maybe I had not been keen when running through the first time!?  I was running without my specs, but I still wondered why the route seemed different this time round when running back.  

Ten minutes down the road and I would for sure know that I was lost!  This is because this road came to an end and joined another crossroad.  For sure the road to Kiwi had no other junction at all.  It had a roundabout but not a junction.  That was a certainty.  I was lost!

I ran back to the first junction that I took from the main road, and thought that maybe I had turned left too early.  So, I decided to rejoin the highway and continue further down, then take the next left turn, just in case I had taken my first turn too soon.  

I started running down the main road, and soon enough found another left turn.  I took this turn and started another run on this road.  This road would again soon turn slightly to the right, unlike my expectation that it should be continuing straight on.  I kept going, grudgingly, but ten more minutes of run would lead to the same realization that I was lost, again.

So, there I was, lost twice…. but nothing to worry, it was still too bright.  It was hardly six-thirty.  My strategy was to still go back to the highway, rejoin it, and continue with the highway further down and get to the next left turn, just in case I had again turned to my left too soon in the last two attempts.  This third attempt was even more disastrous.  My road just came to an end then turned left into a residential estate!  That was for sure not the turn that I expected to take me back to UiS – no way!  

I therefore ran back to the highway and chanced once more on that first turn that I had taken initially.  Maybe I was just not being observant.  Maybe the road to UiS was just there in plain view, but I was not seeing it.  I once more faced that first turn that I was already lost on anyway, but my mind told me to give it another try.  

I kept running, came to that same turn and ran its full length.  There was no change.  It brought me back exactly where it had brought me the first time – to a cross road which was surely not the road to UiS.  I ran back, now worried.  It was over an hour now.

I had done more than twelve kilometers, yet I was not yet back to my UiS starting point – a starting point that should have just been a 6km circuit.  And now I was surely lost!  Lost in the Arctic circle.  Will I ever be found?  What would my family say?  Will my friends ever know?  These thoughts were now filling my mind.  I was heading towards a panic.

My phone could not load a map to show my position.  I had no idea at all where I was.  I came to a standstill and started looking around, just to see if I could decipher anything familiar.  Nothing came to mind.  I saw a place called Stokka Forum building, and opposite it a church, I guess Lutheran, written Karismakirken.  I was standing next to them now, but I could not recall ever seeing these two when I was coming this direction for the first time.

I now had no choice but to ask someone.  I felt bad about this prospect of asking someone.  I would have preferred to continue looking for the route myself, however long it took.  Nonetheless, there was no use going round and round without any possibility of getting out of this maze.  If anything, I would get more lost.  

I passed besides Stokka and headed towards a compound that looked like a school or sports club of sorts.  There was a big field with children playing.  There was a fence around it.  A footpath ran next to the field.  I saw some gentleman on the footpath heading away from the field, going same direction.  I quickened my walk and soon caught up with him.  I was just about to break the cardinal Norwegian rule of MYOB.  I felt bad about it. 

“Excuse me,” I said when we were walking parallel.

He was taken aback.

“Hello, I was running but I seem lost.  I want to go back to UiS,” I updated him in quick succession.

“Hi,” he hesitated and stopped.

I also stopped.  We did not exchange any handshakes.  We just gauged each other.

“I was running from UiS, and want to go back there.  I seem lost,” I reassured.

“I see,” he continued to gauge me out.  

I looked harmless enough.  Just a Tee-top, a pair of green shorts and the running shoes.  No danger from me here, on this bright daylight.

“Which UiS?”

“University of Stavanger!”

“They are many, which one?”

“The one near Kiwi.  Kiwi supermarket”

“Kiwi are many.  Which Kiwi?”

I was completely lost.  I did not have sense of direction or road names or building names or even localities.

“Main campus… The main University, the big one... Near a tall tower”

He absorbed the new intel.  I could see from his expression that it seemed like bad news awaited.

“You are far,” he finally said, in reflection.  Sympathy forming on his otherwise expressionless face. 

He extracted his phone, “You are here,” he pointed at some place on Google map, “And you are going here,” he pointed at another place.

“Wuuwi!,” I almost shouted.  

I was completely lost!

There was no way I would have got myself out of this quagmire without help.  I immediately realized that I was getting lost further with every attempt that I made in keeping going down the main road.  I immediately knew that my mistake was having missed the correct left turn in the first place.  I had from the onset taken the second left turn, instead of the correct first left turn.  That is why I was now lost… by far.

“You have two ways.  Go back and round, or cross through here, turn left to the main road then turn right on that road.  Keep going until you get to the turn that goes to UiS” he talked, while pointing at the map on the cell.

“Mhh,” I responded, noddingly.

“You sure you will get it?,” he sympathized, visibly.

“Sure.  Provided I get to the roundabout.  Just to that turn and I shall be done.  Thanks a million.”

And as surely as explained, I just crossed through the edge of the playing field, the children and apparent guardians looking at me suspiciously, and got out of that enclosure.  On the other side of the field was the tarmac road where I turned left.  Before long I had seen the main road where I crossed and turned right.  This was the very elusive road that I had already stepped on during my first phase of the run.  

I resumed my running on the sidewalk and it did not take me long to start seeing all the familiar landmarks.  Everything that I expected to see was back – visible in plain daylight!  There it was, the DNB arena.  I remember marveling at its size on my first leg of the run.  ‘Stavanger Ishall’ was next to it, then the building marked DLL.  Even the elusive Clarion was there!  In plain view!!

What a welcome relief to be back to familiar territory!  That final underpass at the roundabout marked my final left-turn that would then take me straight back to UiS on a 2km stretch of road.  I was so charged up, full of adrenalin, when I reached UiS that I had to take an additional dose of another quick 2km circuit around the uni, to finally stop my run with a time of 02.04.48.  The analogue showed 20.87km, while the mobile phone app showed 21.99km.  The app provided a route map of the run.  A map that I would treasure forever as the half marathon that was not meant to be… the lost half… the accidental half...

“Very funny,” I said to myself as I shook my head back to the reality of the moment.  I realized that I was still running the trail round the Addis Ababa campus.  The route was fairly deserted, just these two regular walkers that I overtook severally during the run.  Just the ache of the run at high altitude.  I was now doing the seventh and last loop.  It was dark, just as dark as my Tuesday run.  For a second time, nature had beaten me and forced the dark onto my running path, despite my early start.

I was glad to finally fight the dark path to the finishing line, with my gadgets recording differently:

Endomondo gave me 15.40km in 1.15.09

Runkeeper recorded the run as 16.01km in 1.15.08

The marathoners guide 101 dictates that I pick the maximum time in the shortest distance, so, Endomondo it is.

WWB, the Coach, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dec. 5, 2019

Running at night - dare you?

Running at night - dare you?

“Am I imagining that I imagine a light hitting my face?,” I asked myself, as I stepped carefully, with heavy steps, on the dim trail.

It happened again, a beam tore through my approaching form, just for a moment, then it went dead again.  This caused my second temporary blindness as the rods in my eyes had to readjust from high intensity light to darkness.  I kept going.  I would soon pass by a sentry, hardly visible, apart from his form that could be made out from the side of the now dark and almost invisible trail.

“Salamno,” I say in his direction as I pass by.

“Salamno!”

I am soon gone and face the left turn on the ninety degrees corner of the farmland.  My only worry now is a stumble, which may affect the run completion.  A fall would be worse, as it would spell the end of my run for the day.  I just kept stepping on by faith that all is well.  From the corner, I would run about half a k, to get to the main road that leads in and out of the compound.  I then have to continue making my way through the trail that generally runs around the outer perimeter of the compound.  

This is just my fifth circuit out of the six that I plan to do.  I still have one more of these dark runs to contend with.  However, I am not to blame.  Blame my location.  I surely started the run at 5.30pm, when it was still bright and light.  It just become dark as I started the fourth circuit.  It was hardly 6.10pm when the darkness hit.  I was doing this ‘torch-beam’ circuit hardly ten minutes later on this 2k circuit.  My last sixth would end at 6.38pm.  I had survived over 30-minutes of running in the dark.

Running in the dark has its own share of issues.  To start with, you need to be alert – all senses alert type.  Your eyes are not your only guide.  They are hardly your guide since you cannot see properly.  Your ears are your second most important sense.  You judge your action with what you hear.  Like that apparent movement in the thickets on my left before I met with that beam.  That thicket noise surely meant something.  I was faced with a ‘stop-think-retreat’ or ‘accelerate-think-later’ when I first heard these sounds.  I accelerated, only to get that face load of beam!  

The wild

It was just one day after this Monday run that we were discussing the ‘animals on campus’.  I was all smiles as I saw the presentation on large screen about the other stakeholders that this campus in Ethiopia coexists with.

The list had snakes – that is not strange.  Have vegetation, have trees, have insects, have rodents and that would be the natural predator.  This campus has all these.

“We have rats,” the presenter would say.  

Surely!  That is not something worth talking about when listing animals on campus!  Is a rat even an animal?

“We have jackals, near the field.”

“Did you say jackals?,” I had to reconfirm this.

“Yes, just on the thicket next to the field.”

My experience on that trail next to the field came back to mind.  That must have been it.

We would be provided with the full list of the other animals on campus, those that my Engineering department had to find a place for.  Blue breasted bee-eater, the bird.  A duiker, I had to check that out before I found out what it was.  How about another bird, the Rouget’s rail!  Several tortoises – I had seen these while on previous runs, just grazing next to the trail.  Hooded vultures – no comment on this.  Frogs – this is an animal?  Liars!  White-tailed mongoose.  

A civet – that was another animal that I had not heard of, but there it was projected on the big screen.  Vervet monkey – so that is what that thing is called!?  The list would go on… Green parrot, Honey bees…

“We also have three of the four species of Ibis nesting around the waste water ponds,” the presenter would update us.

I had to look that one up, since that would be quite something.  The real genus for this would therefore be Bostrychia, though my source would indicate five species in this genus.

Back to the run at night, where you must have both your eyes and ears open.  You also need to have your instinct ready and waiting.  The run at night is also likely to be faster since your adrenalin is likely to be elevated ready for ‘anything’.  However, this also means that your stress level may be unnecessarily high during and immediately after the run, hence you need to know how to deal with it.  Just finish your run and get something to relax you, like a warm bath and a cup of your favourite drink – water can still do.  I finished off with a bath and a glass of warm water, even as my Endomondo gave out the stats as: 

DISTANCE - 13.94 km

DURATION - 1h:08m:10s 

Finally, please note that there is a difference between running-in-the-dark and night-running.

WWB, the Coach, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dec. 4, 2019