Streak 23 – Time for divine intervention

Streak 23 – Time for divine intervention

I stopped looking at COVID19 stats two weeks ago.  I said, “That is it,” at that time, since this TT thing is here to stay and there is no need to let it get into our way of business.  Just put on your mask while in the crowds a.k.a public places, wash your hands regularly or sanitize, to keep any potential germs from the possibility of getting to the respiratory track, and…. and hope for the best.  

Should you get it, just self-quarantine for two weeks, take lots of fluids, keep your temperature controlled and you should be OK, even without medication.  Of course, seek medication if the symptoms become too much to bear.  

But do not take my work for it, the ‘stay at home if you have it’, even after confirming that you have it is the official position from the employer, so let us do our best to avoid getting TT, but there is still life with TT, and life after TT.  

I am also encouraged that life is getting back to normal where the TT started.  China is back.  Germany is back.  France is back.  Spain is back!  England is back!!  Life shall be back to normal – TT or TT.

So, there it is, TT is done with.  

Now back to the runs.  I have been on the road three times a week since early March.  Initially it was a duel with TT.  Now that compe with TT is gone.  I run for myself.  I run because I want to run.  I just finished streak number 23 today.  

I am forced to retain these streak numbers for purposes of maintain a coherent story over time, otherwise, TT can easily take credit for having started this streak numbering system, but I am not letting it take that credit.  I count these numbers because I want to count from some starting date, being March 20, which because streak no. 1.  From that time it is three runs in a week, with each run being numbered.  TT, sorry, I am not giving you the honors of being responsible for this numbering.

The route that I was taking for this Monday’s run was the same old Mary Leakey route.  I have taken to having this route as my default run route, since it is ‘just at the backyard’ but it can give you as many kilometres as you want it to give.  Just add those Vet loops and you can even get 42k if you want to.

Let me not keep repeating the route profile that crosses the Waiyaki way at Kabete Poly, for the Vet loop across the road, on the other side.  These are the loops that can extend run to infinity.  After the loop or loops, you get to Ndumboini and down Wangari Maathai institute to Lower Kabete road.  From there a short uphill before you ‘disappear’ to the left to face the Mary Leakey route to be ‘abandoned’ at the university farm, before finally emerging at ‘the tank’ on Kanyariri tarmac to get you back to Ndumbo.  That is it, no need to repeat describing that route.

The route and what I encounter on it has remained usual, and I shall not bother repeat the usual.  I shall henceforth just be pointing out anything that gets out of the ordinary.  To start with, a lot more people are now putting on their masks, which is quite unlike hardly four weeks ago, when very few had them.  Even yours truly now runs with a mask – repeat – with a mask, not necessarily putting on a mask.  

The consequences of not having a mask ‘with you’ are dire.  A friend was arrested while walking around Westlands three weeks ago, since she was not having a mask on.  She however, got away with a forced 14-day quarantine confinement in a Government facility, read, some secondary school.  

She did this ‘getting away’ by telling the men-in-blue that she was two-months pregnant, hence was continually nauseated.  She was lucky that she had the mask in her bag, and showed it as evidence.  That incident reinforces the lesson – just have the mask with you, wearing it should be ideal, but having it is the bare minimum when using a public road – running, walking or crawling.

So, I was ‘on the run’, on the same old ML route.  Observing the many people now having their masks mainly fully covering their noses and mouths, few just having it hang on the neck.  I would soon be on the downhill run from Ndumboini heading towards Wangari Maathai institute.  

The downhill is easy to run, but you need good brakes, since you may over-accelerate to your fall.  I was on a steady pace – which would usually give me a 4min per k, when I heard some loud running footsteps, more of foot-thumping, from behind.  

There was definitely a runner behind me – but this runner liked the runner’s footsteps loud!  Usually we step on the road in such a way that the footsteps are not that loud.  These were loud, believe me.  I kept my steady pace.

“That must surely hurt,” I imaged the pressure hitting the soles of the feet, as I awaited the approach.

I would soon see this guy pass by and continue running downhill Infront of my path.  We were both on the left edge of the road.  

“Wow!,” I thought loudly, “That is fast!”

But there was something with that run that did not seem right.  The loud steps.  The ‘on-your-face’ type of overtaking.  The evident ‘dare-you’ attitude that he displayed as he passed me.  There were all things wrong with this fast run.  I was not however falling for this ‘children’ behaviour.  I have run many ks to be tricked into a dare.  I run my own run.  

And his tricks would soon be evident, as the apparent runner would slow down hardly twenty metres ahead and come towards a walk, then a stop.  He started walking as my approach become very evident.  I would soon be almost overtaking his walking frame, when he again started running besides me.  

I kept my pace, even slowed a bit, to give him time to just overtake and be gone on his own, but he seemed glad to also reduce his pace, so that he could continue to somehow now just run alongside.  I tried to get back to pace, and he also started accelerating.  He kept alongside for about twenty metres.

“Just run your pace and leave me alone!,” I thought of yelling at him!

A runner does not like company, unless the company is solicited, welcomed and encouraged.  You do not force yourself onto some other runner’s run path and routine!  That is a cardinal rule for crying out loud!  No wonder I really doubted the authenticity of this colleague of mine, or maybe that is just how he was brought up – to outrun runners and dare them to an unsolicited duel.

I would force myself to slow down again to let him go his way.  I believe that he got the message even as he now tried his best to increase the pace of his tired body to a left turn towards Wangari Maathai institute.  I would soon observe him come to a stop at the gate, with his both hands on his knees.  I knew that he was suffering a burnout.  I could only imagine the fire burning on his chest as he maintained that stoop.  I continued my downhill to the river and then faced the uphill to Lower Kabete road.  

The weather was great for this lunch hour run and the usually muddy paths along the university farm were not that slippery, if anything they were drying up and starting to be easily passable.  I am so used to the paths being slippery and muddy that the ease by which I passed by still amazed me.  That road condition would also mean that it has not rained heavily, or at all, in the last two days – and it is true.  

I was now enjoying the run on this very isolated section of the road, where you run about two kilometres completely on your own, without meeting a soul, in the middle of the jungle – probably one of the very few isolated green spaces in Nairobi at the moment.  The quiet and tranquility was equal to none, it even felt a bit frightening.  But a runner is never frightened by any situation.  You adopt then adapt.  

That stillness would soon be broken when I saw something like a silhouette of a person in the thickets about two hundred metres to my right.  Soon I would surely perceive a real person somewhere in the thickets, somewhere under the shades of the giant trees that provided a shelter from the two o’clock sunshine that was now brightening my footpath.

That person took me aback.  I had to slow down to feed my eyes onto his every move.  I saw him make short walks, of about five steps to one end, then turnback and make about the same five steps to his starting point.  He was just oscillating on a small area in the thicket.  I was still wondering what could be gwan.  

I nonetheless kept running, one look forward, two looks to my right to peer into the knee-high thicket to observe the man.  The mystery would soon be over when I caught the very faint, but distinct chant of a prayer.

Now…. what else could need divine intervention, at the most tranquil of places, if not the TT, whose stats, as per JHU site now stood at 4,159,377 total cases on planet earth, 284,883 fatalities, out of which Kenya had a round figure of 700 cases and 33 fatalities?  The very TT that I have now given up on?  It can run its stats, while I run my run, just as I did today, at my backyard, over a 21.6km distance in a time of 1hr 45m 51s.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, May 11, 2020

When 13 is the lucky number

When 13 is the lucky number

The rains were not going to get me again.  I was still feeling the pain of being rained-on on Wednesday, just two days ago.  I did not want to experience any more such pain ever.  The same rain made me lose the opportunity to do a proper half marathon, since the last two hundred metres had to be cancelled as the rain made the run-to-the-finish-line untenable.  On that Wednesday I did start my run at 3.30pm, hoping to finish by 5.30pm just before the rain.  But the rains would have nothing to do with my plans.  It had its own plans for an early rain that started around five.

On this Friday I was determined to start the run at three.  Another thirty minutes earlier than usual.  At this rate of starting early, I would soon be starting my runs at two!  I was sure that I would finish the run by 4.30pm and surely, it could not have rained by that time!  That early?  Can it?

My other consolation that I had was that the anger of the rain had kind of been quenched already, since there was about thirty minutes of mid-day rain, from around one.  It was not very heavy, but it was heavy enough to cause a blockage at Uthiru roundabout.  It takes quite some rain water volume to block that trench inside the roundabout to force the water to overflow onto the roundabout tarmac.  There was water on the tarmac as I walked work-wards just after 1.30pm on this Friday.

Despite my best of intentions, the run actually started at 3.10pm.  I was aiming to redo the missed marathon of Wednesday.  The one that was short by just two hundred metres.  Almost doesn’t count, does it?  I had to do something that counts.  That is what was on my mind as I set-off at three-ten.

The route was to be the same ol’ Mary Leakey, with four loops at the Vet loop.  This combination had already been proved to be exactly the half marathon, if anything, it was a bit more, depending on how far one would be go for the U-turn every time they did the monotonous loop.  The weather was downcast.  There was no sun, nor was there rain.  It was still and cloudy.  There was no sign of impending rains, though the horizon was starting to get dark.  The Ngong hills were getting dark, and the windmills were now hardly visible.

I started the first phase of the run by dispensing of the four Vet loops first, so that I could now just be left with only the ML to tackle… and then be straight back to the finish point at ‘the generator’.  The rains of the previous day and that lunch hour mock rain had made the dry weather roads wet, slippery and full of water puddles.  These roads were the Vet loop and the section of the road from Lower Kabete road as you divert to the left to ML school, then through the Uni farm.  I still managed, despite soiled shoes, soiled socks and soiled legs.

I was not exempt from having a facemask myself since I was in a public environment, running on public roads.  I also had my mask… handing on my neck.  I still observed very few people having their masks either on or at hand.  However, the situation had improved.  I would rate that every one in ten people that I came across was having some form of face mask.  I insist on ‘some form of’, since this issue of facemasks is now taking a nonsensical twist or even some comical turns in some cases.  The things people put on their faces in the name of masks!  There was even a news article the previous day of folks now turning inner wears into face masks!  

In exactly two hours, actually, 2.00.36, I was through with the repeat run of Friday.  This being compensation for the Wednesday run that was ‘almost’ a half marathon.  24.34km was the Runkeeper distance, while Endomondo gave this run a 24.31km.  The distance is not the subject matter, nor the time.  The subject matter is that you should do your run, at your distance and your pace – while there is still time for that.  

Even go ahead and do your walks out there, while you still have the opportunity.  Just do something while the time is still there.  The subject is that we have TT lurking in the shadows waiting to inflict a big blow to the running community.  TT, aka COVID-19, now had infected 2,218,332 people globally, with fatalities figure being 148,654, as per JHU stats of today at 11.38.41pm.  My own motherland is contributing 246 cases onto that 2M figure.

Many countries in the world are in some form of movement restriction or lockdown that is causing real inconveniences.  Runners have not been spared either.  They are suffering the most with the inability to access run routes, or being forced into facemasks that they cannot breathe-through.  Our motherland has only initiated partial lockdown in the name of 7.00pm to 5.00am curfew and the requirement to adorn a facemask while at public places.  

There could soon be a total lockdown where even running ‘out there’ shall not be possible.  Take maximum advantage and run as much as you can while we still have time… while we can still tame TT.  The time for TT to take over and start its streak may be with us sooner than later.  

China’s lockdown was 63-days (2 months) – the total ‘no leaving your house’ type.  That would be 24 missed runs – a 24-win streak for TT, if such a restriction was imposed on us back here.  Better be having 24 wins with you as early as today, if you really want to gain any real advantage over TT in the unlikely event of a total lockdown.

Finally, this was the thirteenth streak since I first dared TT – and yes, I am celebrating my 13-0 win, four weeks since the first dare!  And to put icing on the run, it turned out to be quite enjoyable.  It did not even rain during and after the run!  The more reason why I believe that 13 is a lucky number.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, April 17, 2020

Running with a face mask? Eish…

Running with a face mask?  Eish…

At 6.00pm I was back to the gate.  In now just had about three hundred metres to get to my finish point.  I would soon be let in and in less than a minute would be finishing the Wednesday run.  I raised my hands in triumph as I hit the finish line just outside my office door.  My right hand had a fist, my left had the four fingers protruding.

“Nine – zero,” I finally exhaled, as I opened the office door.

I was on a winning streak.  Nine wins streak.  

Nine for runner.  

Zero for TT.  

This was despite more stringent measures now imposed onto the citizens due to this TT thing.  First, the seven-to-five curfew, and lately, the use of facemasks while at public places.

It is this use of facemasks at public places that is the essence of today’s blogstory…

On Tuesday, just a day before, I had already sent a message to the runners on the WhatsApp group and email to the effect that the use of facemasks at public places was now a requirement.  Whether our sometimes-deserted running routes were considered public places was still in contention.  However, I believed that any road that was accessible without restriction or warning about privacy, was a public road, not withstanding the number of people using it.  That meant that all our running routes were public spaces.  We were now compelled to adorn facemasks while on these routes.

I would however do the facemasks experiment myself, which I did around four while still seated at my desk.  I started by putting on the very top of range facemask – the N95.  This version is claimed to prevent 100% of all things from getting to your nose and mouth.  100% dust, 100% dust, 100% bacteria and 100% viruses – sorry, actually 95% viruses.  This is the bomb!  

The fixture of N95 on the face was tight and airtight.  Breathing through with nose only was difficult.  Breathing through with both nose and mouse seemed manageable but a bit laboured.  I was having a hard time managing normal respiration, however, I endured a five minute seating session with N95.  It was not comfortable.  I could not imagine running in it.

I then tried the surgical mask.  This was not so airtight after being fixed in place, covering the mouth and nose.  I could easily breath through, even with nose only.  The nose and mouth area just felt a bit hot, due to the continued breathing onto that front covered area.  Apart from that, it was quite comfortable to wear and to breath through.  Its efficacy was however 80% for pollen, dust and bacteria, and 95% for viruses.  It seemed something that could be subjected to a run….

After changing into the run gear, I left the office at 4.15pm, with the surgical mask in place.  It was comfortable as I walked out of the building and momentarily started my timer and phone apps ready for the run.  I would first run down to the generator starting point, then run the distance of the day’s marathon from there.  It was a day for an easy recovery run, to be done on the Mary Leakey route.  No pressure.  No worries.  No concerns.  Just a normal evening run at my discretion.

But things took a turn just after my first five steps of the run.  I started gasping for air from the covered nose and mouth.  I was on a downhill run for the next one hundred metres and so I survived with little breathing, but any attempt to pull air through the mask was laboured and difficult.  

After the downhill, and turning right towards the generator, I had to face a somewhat hilly terrain.  I once again started gasping for air.  I tried taking slower steps but started feeling like suffocating.  I could not manage to run.  I was running out of breath with every attempt to breathe in the very limited air getting through the mask.

“The hech!,” I shouted!

“Waste of my time!,” I exclaimed.

Both these chants were done with the mask now already lowered below the nose level.  My free nose was now getting in all the air that I needed.  The mask was now just covering my mouth.  I increased speed and would soon be making the U-turn at the generator now ready to do the full length of the Mary-Leakey route, which is anything from 13k to infinity, depending on the twists that you add to it.

Drawing air freely was a good feeling.  I felt like a runner.  I even wondered how I had survived the one-minute run with the mask cover.  I retained the mask cover on my mouth with the nose free to draw in the fresh air.  I would soon cross Waiyaki way, then past ‘the wall’ and then to the Vet loop.  

By Vet loop I was already suffering a covered mouth, as I now needed more air, not only from the nose, but also from the mouth.  I lowered the facemask further and let it now just hang around my neck.  I had by this time just covered 4km.  The total run time was just about nineteen minutes.

I would have to run the rest of the distance without the facemask, without the nose and mouth cover.  There was no way that I could manage enough air intake at such a high ‘run-level’ volume with a facemask.  Not possible.  I therefore just kept doing the run and feeling guilty, like breaking some law, as I traversed the long route.  However, I also had to make observation on the number of other people around me who were wearing their masks.

As I went down Kapenguria road towards Wangari Maathai Institute I did meet two people walking uphill with masks on.  Every other person that I met had no mask of any sort, on or hanging, at hand or with them.  As I headed to the river, I met four runners, doing their hill drills.  The two men and two women did not adorn any masks.  They did not seem to have any with them.  As I went uphill after the river towards KAGRI, I did meet another two groups of walkers.  They looked like runners or walkers based on their attire.  None had a mask.

I finally hit Lower Kabete tarmac road, to turn left for the half kilometer uphill before taking the left turn to Mary Leakey.  I met a lady runner on this stretch running towards my direction.  She did not have a facemask.  I met several walkers, they seem to wonder about the facemask hanging on my neck.  They had none.  

The road after Mary Leakey school is generally deserted, with little traffic.  I met few people, none with facemasks.  I did not meet any runner, even as I traversed the route all the way through the University farm, to emerge at the Kanyariri road tarmac, at ‘the tank’.

From the tank I would turn left, to take the tarmac back to Ndumbo market.  The road started having many walkers as I headed to the market.  Those with facemasks were countable – in fact I counted three, out of the multitude of people who were numbering the fifties.  I would soon be back to the Vet loop and back to Waiyaki way to cross and be back to the starting point.

My conclusion was that running with facemasks, at least the N95 or surgical type, was not possible.  Secondly, very few Kenyans have embraced the use of facemasks at public places.  I met and counted about seventy people, out of which those with masks were less than ten.  That is just about 10% compliance with the new law that requires all citizens to have facemasks while at public places.  

Thirdly, I discovered a new ‘accidental’ half-marathon route, which is just the Mary Leakey route that we all know, add to it four Vet-loops.  It surprised me to make the discovery that a marathon was very much possible at our very backyard, even as I stopped my gadgets after 1hr 45min 38min on a distance that turned out to be 22.33km.  

Finally, it was another streak for runner, with Corona losing for a ninth straight time – though its devastation on planet earth now stood at 1,504,971 infections with 87,984 fatalities as per JHU dashboard of April 8 run date, at about midnight.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, April 8, 2020