The June divas marathon that never was…. Almost

The June divas marathon that never was…. Almost

“How was the diva’s?,” Reena asked.

It was exactly seven-days after the fact, on this Friday evening of July 1.  It was even already a different month from that scheduled run of June 24.

This July 1 was a busy Friday.  The day started with a final meeting with the visiting staff from our Ethiopian campus.  The visitor was to then have a free time after lunch to run some errands in readiness for the next day’s departure.  A visit to Maasai market at Prestige Ngong road was therefore scheduled for two so that she could be back by four-thirty for a five o’clock event.

Her company to Prestige called me at three-thirty, “Imagine it is now that I have cleared with school and is free to take Rachel for the shopping.”

“Are you even listening to yourself?,” I asked, not sure if Nanna was serious.  I have known her to be time unconscious, but this was a stretch by all definitions, “How will you make it back by five?”

“Si you just know me,” she LOLed, “Just arrange for Rachel to pick me at Kawangware stage”

I would soon try to trace Rachel on WhatsApp, since she did not have a Kenyan number.  The first call went unanswered and so I left a message that she should urgently get in touch so that she can pick a taxi cab to Ngong road.  Being a true sister to Nanna, with time not of much concern, I got a final knock on my door at about four, “Sorry misa president. Me get delay Finance and not watch Whatsapp… eh… Me not see call.  Maybe now I go taxi?”

“You are sure you wanna do this?  I mean go shopping and be back in an hour?”

“Yes, me shop eh…, maybe jus ten minutes? And then back with Nanna?”

I let her go and meet Nana at the designated location at Kawangware, having provided the driver with Nanna’s phone contact and also providing Rachel with my backup phone that has the Telkom line.

Soon it was five and I made a call to the two gals.  Nanna assured me that they were through and they were starting to travel back.

“When can we expect you gals?  At midnight?”

Nana laughed and let it resonate for a minute or so, “No! We are done”

“I know you Nanna, you have hardly even started your shopping.  I can hear market sounds in the background”

“No, I cannot lie.  We are through and starting our journey back,” she reassured.

I knew better than that.  That duo had not even started their moving around the market and my estimation was that they would be back at seven.

And I was right, Rachel made it back just before seven and it was around seven that the party of six, in two vehicles, made its way on Naivasha road to pick Nanna, then subsequently to Kilimani.  The cab with the guys arrived first, probably five minutes before us.  We thought that they would be settled in, but was surprised to still see the trio just standing outside the establishment.

“Why are you just standing outside on this cold evening?,” I greeted them.

“They say we they do not know us.  There is no reservation!”

I was taken aback.  Here I am with a team of three guys and three ladies and we are being stopped dead on our track.  How do you even formulate a plan B? 

“But I booked!?”

I moved into the building and confronted the lady that I found at the reception desk, just to the left of the single door entrance.

“Did you not get this?,” I pointed to the email message displayed on my phone.

She examined it.

“Ah, I see,” she saw, “Let me contact Fiona who booked.”

We remained blocking the entry with our party of seven.  The restaurant was already full.  There was hardly a table.  In a minute we were allowed in and pointed to a crowded outdoor location with only a small two-seater table available.  The workers soon pulled another one table and did a setup at the dead centre of the walkway of the extension part of the restaurant.  It was a cold part of the room and we soon complained that we could not survive that place, asking to be moved to any other place instead.

Another shuffle of chairs and tables would soon see us being setup at the main restaurant just two table rows after the main entrance.  This was better, though the two tables on our setup were not of the same size and were generally small for the seven of us, but who cares?  We are in a meating!  Sorry, meat inn.

“Welcome to Fogo Gaucho, do you know what to do?,” someone clad in a funny looking trouser and high boots approached the table and asked the team, roving his eyes around the many pairs of eyes.  The three ladies were set on one side of the length of the table, to my right.  Two guys sat opposite them.  The remaining two sat on the shorter edges of the rectangular setup.

“Of course, we do,” I volunteered, as I updated the only visitor in the group.

“Rachel, now you need to turn this card green,” I demoed, “Then we shall go and pick some salads over there,” I pointed towards their backs.

“Thereafter, you shall pick on the assorted roasts that shall be passing by using these forceps”

She had just heard of the routine before, but had never experienced it.  The rubber was now meating the road, sorry, meeting the road.

“Are you ready?”

“Sure, we go salad?  Maybe?,” she confirmed, unsure.

We got the salads and settled.  The cuts soon followed in quick succession.  I even saw a few circular cards turned red on the table, hardly fifteen minutes into the feast.  It was now all good.  

Our initial lateness and reservation woes were now forgotten, but…..

“Happy birthday dear Carolineeeee?”

“Happy birthday dear Carolineeee!,” some people answered.

What is going on!  We looked around to get accustomed to the singing.

“Happy birthday dear Carolineeee?,” one of those staffers with funny trousers and high boots could be observed coming from the salad corner towards the table just next to us, on my right, towards the backs of the ladies.  They turned to look around as to what was going on.

“Happy birthday dear Carolineeee!,” the members in that affected table responded, even as the staffers led by a soloist carrying a cake moved to that table.

“Happy birthday dear Carolineee?,” he belted out loudly, now just about five metres from where we were.

“Happy birthday dear Carolineee!,” we all sang back, unconsciously, morsels of meats in our mouths.

“Kata keki siyo ugaliiiiii!”

“Kata keki siyo ugaliiiiii!,” we shouted back, most people, at least in the main restaurant, clapping or tapping along their cutlery.

Rachel was completely amazed.  She would keep humming this song until she travelled back the next day.

Soon the song was forgotten, and Caroline and her crew could be observed digging into the cake, amidst unending supply of roast meat cuts being passed around by those high-booted men.

It was not long before we sang many more other birthday songs to many other people in that establishment, including to the party on the very next table to my left, directly infront of the ladies.  We just missed that particular cake by a whisker since we really sang our hearts out to ‘dear Kimani’ but there was no cake for us on this meaty day.

Our taxis were waiting to take us back home at nine as per the booking, but that is when we were deep into the eating.  Kimani’s birthday song had not even started by nine when the taxi people started calling me.  We were forced to finally put an end to the eating, when our body could not take it any more and leave at ten.

The first two taxis left with the guys and I was now just about to share one cab with the gals so that all are dropped at their respective places, with my Uthiru place being the last.  I am not sure whether it came as a surprise when the gals said that it was too early to go home and instructed the driver to go to a new joint that would eventually mean getting home at one.  The delay that you have to endure when you have to share a ride!  It was while on the way home, at one, when the marathon story came up amongst the many stories that were blubbered along.  By this time all were seriously slurring, apart from the Uber driver.

“How was the diva’s,” Reena asked.  How she her mind even thought of a run this late in the night remains a wonder.

“What diva’s?  The one that you ladies boycotted?  The very run that turned out to be a men’s event?”

“You mean?”

“Yes, I mean.  You girls still owe us a proper divas.  That one does not count, even though we did a twenty-one.”

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, July 5, 2022

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

Even three strikes could not stop the Divas International

Even three strikes could not stop the Divas International

After our last international marathon on Feb. 15, code name NLLV, the MOE* had directed that the next marathon would be organized by the divas.  They would choose a date and route.  They would map out the run categories and formulate all the rules.  “Anything and everything is at your discretion,” I recall sending them a confirmatory email in response to how much ‘degrees of freedom’ they could exercise.

Then came the date… they informed me that they had settled on the twenty-second:

“Coach, we have a date,” a caller whom I later recognized to be Fay informed me on my office extension.

“We do?”

“Yes we do.  March 22.  What do you think about it?”

I soon realized that we were talking the marathon.

“Just go ahead.  All rules are on you.  Is it agreeable to you gals?”

“Yes, it was unanimous.”

Soon I would be breaking news on the date on the mailing and Whatsapping groups.  It seemed a perfect Friday for this run.  Just enough time to recover after the Kili marathon, and not so late in the month to prevent ‘end month loading’ from interfering with the participation.  By March 10 we had the initial run rules under discussion – more of the gals telling us about it, while we, the rest of us, accepted them as they came.

It came as a surprise when they released the route maps… and… and the infamous ‘Mary Leakey’ route was back in the mix.  This section has not been featured in any ‘international’ ever since we started the series last year.  This is a route that we avoid at all costs.  After diverting off Lower Kabete road, you are faced with a general uphill on dry weather road for about 3k.  Though you get to run through a shaded area at the University farm, the isolation and loneliness can get to you.

More was to follow.  While we are used to an ‘international’ being a ‘do it or don’t do it’ run, the divas had a new twist to the equation.  They introduced four variants of the marathon.  You read right – four variants.  A 10k run – the usual ‘tarmac’, a 13k run – the usual ‘Mary Leakey’, a new 16k to be 13k + 3k loop on Kanyariri route and finally the full ‘international’ that goes to the 16k route loop back but continues on the new Rukubi road all the way to Gitaru-Wangige road and back.

Then the three strikes happened….

Strike one – an official visitor who had been planning to visit my department for over one year was finally given clearance to travel and chose the week of March 18-22 as the suitable week.  March 22 was to be his final day where he scheduled a departmental debrief at 3.00pm to 5.00pm to be followed by a ‘must attend’ farewell dinner.  Early same Friday, and I would get an invitation email indicating that we shall leave the compound at 5.30pm on pre-arranged transport for this dinner.

It was not long after that particular email that I got a calendar reminder about a Cooperative meeting taking place out of campus at Limuru road ‘from 12.30pm to 4.30pm’.  Travel time between the two locations was at least 30 minutes and worse during the evening traffic jam.  Attending this meeting would mean getting back for the run around 5.30pm.

I would be hit a third time on the same day when I got insider information, being in MOE, that I would be a major participant in the Divas International with two roles – to countdown the run, a task I had done in all the ‘internationals’ and that I would be the ‘first-aider’, which means running with the slower runners to ensure that no one was left behind.

“Please, keep time and do not disappoint,” part of the insider info indicated.

How was I supposed to survive three strikes!  Must all happen on the same day?......

At 4.27pm I ran to the generator adorning my ‘first aider’ jacket to find a big group of runners.  This was the largest group that I had ever seen ‘generated’.  My quick count gave me 15.  Soon others would join in on the countdown to a final number of 21.  All were in high spirits.  The psyche was overwhelming.  The excitement was uncontainable.  I even met a few ‘Kili-thoners’.

“Everyone, line up behind this line,” I pointed out, as I drew an imaginary line.

The runners obliged.  Soon we had some semblance of a lineup.

“OK, we now start the countdown… ten, nine, ei….”

“Stop!,” someone interrupted, “We have not taken the photo.”

The tension subsided as the runners readjusted their state of readiness to take a pose.

“Ahoy! Let us resume the countdown,” I brought order back from the interruption.

“Eight, seven, six, fi…”

“Stop!,” another shout, “Our Strava is not yet ready!”

What is this turning out to be?  A run that will never happen?

The tension subsided once more and runners confirmed, reconfirmed, started or restarted their various gadgets.

“No more interruptions.  This run is happening now in… four, three, two, one – Go.”

We set off at 4.45pm, all runners aware that they had a choice of four different runs on this day.  I stuck to the back of the group as per my mandate.  I would soon be completely left behind, but rules are rules, and roles are roles.  I kept with the last runners at all times and took them to their various turning points, starting with one that I took to Wangari Maathai, then increased my pace to the next group at the tarmac.  As I headed up Lower Kabete road, I did get yet another runner whom I took slowly, walkingly all the way to Kanyariri turn off after conquering the Mary Leakey section.

“I would have been lost in this section,” runner Jully told me as we made a final turn to now run the section through University farm.

“This place is cool but scary,” she reminded me as we savored the shaded trees at the farm, few meters to the tank and exit to the tarmac, “I cannot run alone here.”

“It is a good route, especially with some company.  It is even doable over the lunch hour,” I updated her.

Finally, we got to the tarmac at Kanyariri, where she turned left back towards the finish line, while I turned right to face the full run.  I would soon catch up with JV and friend running for the 16k route.

“That teq that you have been complaining about since last year is available today,” JV reminded me.

“Can’t wait.”

“You shall be blessing the ancestors, as usual?,” she commented.

It reminded me of the ritual, last done sometime last year, when J&B was at the centre of the table.

I soon got their permission to run ahead and that is what I did, as I now faced the rest of the route as the last runner.  At some point after diverting right on Rukubi-Kanyariri road, I found the leading group of Edu and crew already on their way back.  We exchanged our greetings and let them continue their lead while I kept the chase towards the extreme turning point.  Before the extreme turning point I met the final group of runners.  I noticed that Fay, Janet and Beryl were in that group.  Someone in the group handed me a bottle of water as we run in opposite directions.

“Water!,” I told myself in surprise, “This is a first one!”

After my turning point, I continued to race behind the runners and found the last group that had earlier handed me the water bottle waiting for me at the 16k junction.

“Stop!  Pass by here,” Janet called me back.  By that time I was about to pass the group as I kept on running.

I stopped and crossed the road to where this group of runners was assembled.

“We have some fruits,” Fay informed me and pointed to the containers.  This was in front of one of the shops at the cross road and junction.

Sure enough we had some fruits.  Bananas and water melons, already cut down to size.  This was a welcome relief.

I knew that the divas would come up with some surprises, but they had now beaten me twice with these surprises.

We resumed our run as a group and kept going at a steady pace, but gauging each other out so that no one was left behind.  After 2km of run, just next to the Primary school and Mary Leakey turn-off, we were asked once more to stop at a roadside shop.  This was another water stop, where we took bottled water.  Three surprises, completely unexpected, and all attributed to the Divas International marathon.

Though we finished our run quite late, when it was seriously dark, the divas surely over-did it this time round.  They set the bar so high that the upcoming ‘internationals’ have lots to learn from.  By role, I was to be the last person at the finish line.  I took that honour in 2hr 50min, with two other runs just seconds ahead.

Back to my predicaments – how did I survive the three strikes?  Here’s how… I missed most of the official afternoon meeting with the visitor, but this came at the expense of missing out on the marathoners teq party.  I had to miss out on this now well matured teq that we started planning for as early as October last year.  Of course I did attend the chama meeting, but I left the meeting early, around 1530hrs.  A Taxify taxi, sorry Bolt taxi, bolted me fast enough to the compound by 1600hrs.  I had a brief meetup with the visitor for the closing meeting and was at the starting line by 4.27pm.  Finally, being at the starting line at 4.30pm enabled me flag off the run and take up my role as the ‘first aider’.

*MOE = marathoners of expert, the organizing committee for marathons

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, March 22, 2019