You cannot beat the Mountain – the Kili marathon story
Part 1
No crossing
Why it took us over 2 hours to clear with immigrations at the border between Kenya and Tanzania at the town of Namanga still defeats me. It was a Saturday. It was March 2. The traffic should have been lower. It seemingly was not. The Kenyan ‘exit’ counter was chap chap – just present your travel document, be it passport or EA pass, they stamp it out and it is done.
After that you are out of Kenya and you have to queue on the next line at TZ for you to get an ‘Entry’ stamp. That entry stamp is what seemed to take time. We were leaving the immigration building at noon-thirty, after arriving at 10.30am. The trip from Nairobi started at 7.50am, instead of 0730hrs. We had boarded at Jeevan Jee gardens and picked three other people, not part of our team, along the route. One at Belle Vue on Mombasa road, and another two at Kitengela, Yukos.
Soon the driver was on phone, loudly, with some other person, “Naomba kuuliza. Mbona wanipa passenja wenye tiketi zimeandikwa Moshi Shato? Kwani Moshi Shato to kampuni gani hiyo?”
There was a pause as the driver seemed to listen. We could only assume that the respondent was giving explanations. After a minute or so he was back loudly.
“Hapana, hiyo haiwezekani kwa gari ya idara. Tiketi kama hizo lazima ni gushi. Nime wachukua tu, lakini hii nikunipa balaa mtupu. Lazima afisi itatue. Naomba ujue hivyo.”
Awake
After two naps, I did find myself being asked to leave the bus to the immigration building at Namanga. We left all our luggage in the bus. After clearing with the immigration, we had found our bus, and other buses on the ‘other side’ waiting for us – on the TZ side. Since we were clearing at different times, it was difficult to gather all travelers altogether for the start of trip from Namanga to Moshi. If anything, we even learnt that one of us was doing a fresh e-citizen application at a cybercafé in order to process a pass after his passport was rejected. This particular twist was a process that was bound to take time.
That is why JV, Fay, Edu, Onyi and I decided to grab something at the TZ kiosks, just next to the immigration buildings.
“Can we get a washroom,” Onyi asked at some kiosk.
The attendants just stared back. He realized his mistake and tried again, “Twataka pa kujisaidia.”
That still did not do.
Edu stepped in, “Twaomba kwa kujisaidia.”
That elicited a “Hakuna hapa, labda mjaribu hapo kwingine.”
That is how we found ourselves finally getting restrooms in the next block.
No food
After that we settled into the kiosks and our small table was soon full of noise and chatter, typical Kenya style. Soon an attendant came to deal with us.
“Wapi menu?,” Onyi tried but there was no reaction.
“Twaomba menu,” Edu jumped in.
You can only try so much and it is therefore no surprise that it was at this exact point that Onyi declared that he is not trying Kiswahili again. He was resorting to gestures instead.
“Hakuna menu. Mwasema tu, na mimi naleta.”
So we ordered ugali and fish, principally. We asked them to make it snappy since we were a bit wary of time.
Take this to the bank – twenty minutes later, and they had just fetched the green veggies from somewhere. They were yet to be cooked, not even cut, not even touched. The ‘sima’ was just being finished off. The fish was still awaiting a final deep fry. That is the very same time when we were called back to the bus to resume our trip since everyone had finally cleared the immigration process. We contemplated leaving the lunch, but good marathon cheer prevailed and we did ‘take away’.
Back to the bus the driver was in fits.
“Serikali ya sha niambia niondoke, na nyinyi hamna kasi yoyote!”
We had to wait for two other people, with the driver’s lament continuing, “Serikali imeniambia nitoke na bado niko hapa!!”
We finally left Namanga at 12.50pm.
Part 2
Crossing over
We started fast. I could imagine a speed of over 100km/h. All of a sudden the driver stepped on the brakes and brought the vehicle to half speed. The Kenyans in us looked outside to see if there was something like an accident or a Police stop. There was none. Momentarily, we saw the 50 km/p speed limit sign beside the road. Despite the road being completely clear of no other traffic at all, we did travel at fifty for about ten minutes.
This was a shock welcome to the Kenyans in the bus. It has a happy ending though, since at the end of the ten minutes we did see some people in white, who turned out to be cops, seated by the roadside, relaxed, speed guns in hand. They did not flag us down, and soon we saw the speed limit cancellation sign and the pilot went back to full throttle.
We would later reach Arusha, the town that owns Mount Meru. Some of us even imagined that it was the Kili, since it was equally tall. We had a stopover at the bus company’s offices at Impala hotel. We soon set off around 3.30pm for Moshi. We landed at 5.30pm and checked into the hotel.
Scouting
We finally met our host CJ after we had settled into Kindoroko hotel, where we checked in around 5.30pm. CJ handed over our runner numbers and kits. My runner number 524 was immediately affixed to the Tshirt. Do such things immediately you them. That is one rule of marathon. Before long, it was our host’s idea that we go scout the venue of the run, just to be sure.
“Can’t just walk there?,” I asked.
“Not possible, it is about 2km away.”
That is how we found our group of seven joining CJ to scout the location. We first tried to get ‘bajaji’, the three wheelers, but we could not get many to carry our team that would need three of these. We tried to get the ‘nduthi’, with Edu proposing that we take them ‘kimshikaki’. For a moment we were happy that we shall be enjoying this delicacy of nyama-in-sticks, only to be told that ‘mshikaki’ style mean two passengers per motorbike.
The machine
We finally got and filled up a vehicle after many false starts at getting a dala dala or tuku tuku to fit the nine. Soon the noisiness in Kenyans become manifest in this private sanctuary, which seems to be normally quiet. The dala dala was eventually refilled though it was already full. These extra passengers sat just behind the driver, next to CJ and Fay who had the honours to taste this seat, and hence were facing the rest of us. It was not long before the selfies were flashing around. That was Edu’s idea. But it was not long before Onyi unleashed ‘the massin’.
“Emanu, weka hiyo mkebe kando,” he said, “All of you please pose for a real selfie from a real phone… my new iPhone 8”
Most of the matatu, being Kenyan laughed. The few TZians who understood what was going on joined into the laughter. Soon there was murmur of “Hawa waKenya.”
It was not long before the conductor asked the passengers for money, “Reteni hera, kira mtu mia nne nne.” (Provide fare, 400 shillings each)
I already had a 500 shilling coin ready for this. The rest followed suit.
Back to college
We had not even enjoyed the ride before we alighted at Moshi Cooperative University (MCU). By this time it was already dark, around seven thirty. We matched into the gate and our host led the discussions with the sentries.
“Wajomba, naomba mnisaidie. Nina swari. Mbio za kesho za anza wapi? Naomba mnijibu.”
“Babu we,” the sentry started, “Sisi pia hatuna uhakika, rakini rabda ni kure kwenye stadiumu. Labda mka angarie uko,” he motioned.
We were soon on our way towards the stadium through the gate.
Then it hit me…. I have been here before. It was too familiar to be a coincidence. The gate… that gate.. the stadium… that stadium. The internal roads… these internal roads. I have been here before, but I shelved this line of thought to allow the day break.
CJ did not come back with us after the scouting episode. We were on our own. However, we were able to get the dala dala at MCU gate and get back to the hotel. We looked around the hotel for an eatery. Our natural inclination was to try the very next joint at the hotel.
“Nma ugali,” JV asked someone in the hotel. She just looked at her. We got the joke.
“Twaomba kujua, mna sima?,” Edu, whom we later learnt had done some fieldwork in TZ previously, rescued the situation.
“Samahani,” we were informed.
A quick chat with our hotel watchie finally yielded an ugali place.
“Mwende pare mbere, na baada ya msikiti, mvuke hadi upande wa kuria. Kuna mama nitirie hapo”
Dona, ugali or sima?
That is where we took our dinner. Ugali with mboga alright. Some meat, some rice, some tea – mdalasi tea, very aromatic. There, on the very side of the street, on wooden benches, in fact with two of our people seated on the steps leading to some now-closed-shops. That right there, lit by street lights, is where we took our dinner. Very good food, Mama-nitilie style. We even learnt the three different types of the white stuff - dona, ugali and sima. It is complicated.
“Twataka kulipa,” one of the Kenyans said. The single elderly lady running the open-sky-street-joint ignored the question.
“Twaomba kulipa,” Edu again to the rescue.
“Mmoja mmoja basi, mlieleze mlichokura,” she said. I almost told her that she was the one who served and should be knowing, instead, I was enjoying the moment and started off, “Naomba kusema kwamba nimekura sima, mboga za majani, nyama na chai ya mdarasini.”
“Erfu mbiri“
I handed over a 10,000 note and waited for my balance. Which I got.
Edu’s turn, “Mimi ni wali na nyama ndio inanihusu.”
Later it was JV. She had already learnt, but her education was not yet over, “Naomba kulipa. Nilikula ugali, mchicha na nyama… lakini hiyo nyama ilikuwa na matumbo.”
A stranger, just paying for his own meal jumped to the rescue on this, “Matumbo ni yale machafu tunayotoa kwenye tumbo la ngombe. Hayo hutupiliwa mbali. Hayalwi. Lakini, hapa bongo ni kawaida kupika nyama na utumbo mchanganyiko.”
But come to think about it, JV was not the right candidate to be ‘caught up’ in the current language mess. She had earlier confessed to having worked in TZ for some months. However, cultures are different and in the Kenya lingua matumbo rules dictate that it should not be mixed nor thrown away.
Part 3
No sleep
After the dinner it was just natural that all head for bed early ready for the next day’s early morning appointment. Four of us were on 42k starting at 6.30am. We agreed to leave the hotel at 5.45am. We were unlikely to get breakfast at that time and had to buy some snacks as alternatives. The hotel staff had said that they would ‘try’ to have breakfast early, but we had already learnt that ‘quick’ trials are likely to fail at this side of the border.
When I finally retired to bed, I did have a long moment to appreciate the 33k room properly for the first time. I had to take a shower and be in bed in the moment. Though at check-in they had indicated that the ‘single room is small’, I did not expect it to be this small.
For some reason, which from Engineering perspective is either last minute decision of unplanned extension, a waste pipe was running outside the wall in the sitting room, just next to the bedside table. “What is this pipe all about?,” I found myself asking loudly. It did not take long before I saw a light come up inside my bathroom, so I thought and even was afraid that someone was already using my bath. In a moment the sound of flushing water came from that same pipe.
That window
When I went for the shower I met the smallest bathroom cum toilet that I ever met. Another Engineering question came to my mind as to what came first. That light that I thought came from my own bathroom was actually lit in the next room. They somehow decided to have a big window about 2m high that looks over two separate rooms.
The toilet was the most interesting installation in the whole washroom scene. It was set in such a way that you had to just over it to access the shower on the extreme end of the room. Jumping over also meant that it did not have sitting space then, unless you sit one sided the way some people sit on a motorbike, with legs both hanging on the same side. That toilet? Nay nay!
Soon I was in slumber land, but not for long. I was woken up by loud loudspeaker chanting. I glanced on the chronometer which indicated 3.00am. All that chant at three? But cultures are different and let everyone have their culture. I soon struggled to go to back to sleep and somehow succeeded despite the heat that was made worse by the overhead fan.
No breakfast
The 5.00am alarm was unmistakable – loud, shrill and persistent. Having prepared my gear the previous evening, it was a well-planned quick shower (due to the heat), then a quick clad into the screaming yellow Tshirt, and off to the reception. I found Onyi at the reception at that 5.15am time. It was still 30 minutes before our departure time, but we wanted to have this breakfast impasse resolved once and for all. When you pay BnB, you should surely get BnB. I had just finalized the first B and the establishment owed us another B.
“Nyinyi watu mungetupea breakfast. Hi si fair,” Onyi told the reception guy while handing the key. He did not seem happy. The very Onyi who had vowed not to ever talk at all, and use gestures instead since he was always being caught on the wrong side of language.
“Naomba niwajulishe kuwa kuna brekfasti kure kwenye rufi topu.”
That is how we ended up taking breakfast that was not meant to be. It must have been a last minute prodding that resulted into this. Soon Edu was to join in at the roof top.
“That egg pizza,” he greeted us, “That thing messed my stomach.”
He was later to bring us to speed that he had taken an egg pizza yester-night that was appetizing on the outside but seemed to affect the inside.
“Just take it easy on the run,” I advised him, “However, the tummy may end up being stable by then.”
One taxi ride got us to MUC, having paid 1,000/= each.
Part 4
The run prep
Kilimanjaro mountain had already proclaimed who ruled this place, even before the run started at the Moshi Cooperative University stadium. We had already seen the unmistakable snowcapped peak rise somewhere above the clouds. It was just there, a silver-lined cone shaped thing miraculously visible on top of the clouds. It was a marvel. It was like a mountain in heaven, in the clouds.
“We must selfie with that,” Fay forced Onyi into submission, reluctantly. The excitement around the starting line was already getting to us. It was just past 6.30am. The run that was to start at 0630hrs was to now to start at 6.45am instead. No explanations were given for change of start time. Nobody cared. This was not important.
None of us had run Kili before. Our 42 team of Edu, Onyi, Fay and I were all doing an inaugural. In fact, Fay and Edu were actually doing their very first attempt at the big four-two.
“Heads up,” I gave Fay and Edu the very final tip of this forever run, “Ensure that you take some water at every station… no exception.”
“True,” Onyi added, “Though I have an injury and shall really go slow, but that advice is true.”
The injury
We had already debated this issue of ‘the injury’, a back pain, lower back according to Onyi.
“If I had not registered last year,” he reminded us again, at the starting line, “I would not have registered at all.”
“Just take it easy,” was my final advise, “Walk if you must, but do not aggravate that injury just due to a marathon. There is always another run”
This was the good coach speaking, speaking from the heart. We had already discussed this selfsame topic hardly twenty four hours prior to this run. We were at that time traveling from Nairobi to Moshi.
I had heard both sides of the story, with Edu being forthright with, “Onyi always talks about an injury then goes ahead and breaks records, like that 2hr 30min for the 42k at Stanchart.”
“Yenyewe nilikuwa na injury, but it got better so I did that good time.”
“How about that other run, where you had an injury then just overtook us immediately after the starting line?,” Edu could not let go.
“That one, eh… that one I also improved with time, but this one is real. I cannot lie.”
That is why this whole discussion was finally put the coach. I was seated on the fourth row of the 20-seater hired mini-bus. Edu was the co-driver. Fay and JV were just behind the pilot. Issac who had already been given a reggae sermon on the bus stereo was just behind the gals. Onyi, whom I was meeting for the first time, was on the seat in front of my own seat, window side. The others in the bus were runners, some whom I had met, some whom I had not met. All were on ‘destination Moshi’ ready for Kili.
Having heard the two side, I made the call, and looking at it 24-hours later, it was the right call. I had told the bus full that, “Never trust anybody when it comes to an international marathon. That is just Onyi’s strategy and I do not believe that injury any bit.”
“Musiwe hivyo,” he protested, “I cannot lie over such a thing.”
I did not revise my conclusion.
The run
The run started at exactly 6.45am. No much fanfare, just a whistle and the run started at the tracks of MCU stadium. All the runners that I knew just mingled into the crowd and left. I did the same – mingled and left. When running a very first marathon on a strange route, you do expect surprises. I had read the map, carefully, so I thought, and was expecting as little surprises as possible, but I did expect surprises nonetheless. Some of the notable ones being the starting point. The website had indicated that this shall be at the MCU gate. This had now been changed to some 800m further, into the stadium.
The second surprise was the elevation of the route. The map details had indicated that the first 21k would be on a flat circuit, then join the ‘real’ 21k route which was a hilly first half to about 31k, then downhill all the way the finish line. This was bollocks, at least some of it. That first 21km was not that flat, especially the hill that started from around 17k and not at 21k.
Is cheating allowed?
I also noted that the first 21k was a circuit without a mid-road barrier of any sort. Secondly, there was no extreme end timing chip recording equipment. This loop hole was exploited by at least one person whom I saw with my very two. This person just crossed from the 7km mark and joined us on the 13k side – removing 6km from his bill just like that. I faced a moral dilemma on whether to protest or keep in swallowed. Without knowing the circumstances of this instance, I did nothing. I feel bad, but I did nothing.
From 17k we faced the hill that was heading towards our starting point at MCU gates. We kept at it until the gate and the ‘official starting point’ at the main road. The hill did not end. It kept appearing. It was not giving us any break. Just hill, then hill, then hill. I could not fail to compare this route with Ndakaini marathon, my toughest marathon route so far. Ndakaini is called the 21k uphill run. However, the official number of hills is ten. You are entitled to a reprieve, even if it is a short 100m of flat run or downhill before you face the next hill. So, hilly yes, but with some resting points. The Kili was hearing nothing of that. It was a gentle hill, but a non-stop hill towards Kilimanjaro mountain. You could still see the snow-caped peak just in front of the road. Somewhere in the clouds. Yes, in front of the hill but deep in the sky.
Back memory lane
With nothing to do, but uphill run, it was not long before my mind was taken aback to a run that I had had the last Sunday. This run came about when Beryl took me up on an offer that I had made, that I would take her to ‘her run any day any distance’. She had just missed the last Research International half marathon, dubbed NLLV.
She cashed in and booked me on a Sunday, of all the days! The day when I sleep until I cannot sleep. However, a debt is a debt, and that is how I found myself retracing the step that I had already taken hardly ten days before. Starting at the Generator to Kabete Poly, crossing the highway and finally looping to hit Kanyariri uphill that ends at the 10km mark. A down-run covers the balance distance.
Kili was taking the shape of this half, and I was imagining myself on that treacherous hill at Kanyariri.
“You know that you gals are in charge of the next international, don’t you?,” I asked at some point along the run.
“Yes, I do.”
“Any preliminary secrets that you can unleash?”
“It won’t be a secret if I was to tell you, would it?,” she asked lookingly.
“I guess it won’t,” at least I had tried to get the secrets of the run, on behalf of the boy child. However, the gals were not letting anything out on the forthcoming Divas International half, where the gals set the rule – but it must be in March.
It is real
“Mkenya huyo,” someone jolted me back to reality, “Wewe mbongo, pita huyo Mkenya.”
I learnt that the crowd was urging one of their own to give me an overtaking. But how did they know that I was a Kenyan? Was it that obvious? My unspoken language was that loud? Of course this did not happen. Once I hit the uphill gear, with Kanyariri as my reference, I just kept it going, Kanyariri style. At the same uphill section is where I heard this woman tease some man loudly.
“Wewe babu Juma, si ujaribu mbio hizi? Kwani mbio unayoijua ni ile ya kitandani tu.”
It sounded out of turn, but it seemed that the language here was a bit liberal, because soon I would hear other womenfolk talk loudly about another woman runner’s anatomy like it was nothing strange. The way they described that runner made me cringe. They said, “Naomba jamani! Huyo mwanadada amezibeba kama.… Lazima yasumbua sana mwamume huyo dada.”
What is this with men and women always talking big things about men and women business? Back home these things are ‘after-dusk’ rated topics. You dare not speak of them just liberally like that!
The route
I liked the route because it had distance markers at each kilometer, on the kilometer. This was a first one. It was noteworthy. I also liked and disliked their water stations – two contradicting emotions at the same time, but let me explain. There was a water point every 5km, sometimes even two, but they were there, guaranteed. They had water, and be ready for this… and they had Coke too. There was no limit on either water or Coke. Take your fill. Wonderful. Like! But, my dislike was the serving. The water or Coke was served in open 200ml tumblers, which would be half filled and ready. A runner either picked from the table or grabbed from the extended hands of the route assistants.
The grab meant that half of the half was likely to spill. And I do hate wastage with a passion. This type of container also is quite unfriendly to the month. You are more likely to stop to drink or just abandon it all altogether. I saw lots of wastage at these water points. I was forced to stop and walk in order to take the water and Coke. The Coke part was perfect for all those facing a long run. I made sure that I kept my energy levels high by Coking up at every station. They also had glucose servings at these water points – good, but the serving method also meant missing out, spilling it or stopping to take. I took the last option whenever it was necessary, though the Coke was energy enough and the glucose was not very useful on the last 21k of the run.
Take them down
At 22k is when I was taken a back with a beckon, “Coach!, Hey coach,” there was a caller from behind. I looked back only to see Onyi coming towards me and soon joining in. I had words for him, but I did not give him words. In fact I immediately got a new use for him.
“Please take down those bragging Swaras from Nairobi. Beat them for us.”
“I will try,” he said as he went towards the silver-lined mountain cap. I followed suite, but allowed him to increase the gap.
The rule of any run is always to run your run, however tempting the circumstances are. Soon I would need a washroom, with all this Coke, but there was none at any of the water stations, or along the route. I had to visit the surrounding coffee plantations. Though I overtook Onyi on the 32k, he returned the favour at the 36k, the same place where I was forced to take a medical break.
The hill ended around 32k, and the downhill followed as advertised. The downhill however also resulted into a very painful experience for me. I felt pain just above the knees on the inner thigh. This was my first such pain. I am used to lower leg pains, but this was a first. I had to take a break at the water point at 36k and get a ‘Deep heat’ spray. I shooed Onyi on.
Got a puncture
This spray momentarily numbed the pain, though I had to walk a bit, and every bending of the knees caused pain subsequently. I started worrying that I would have to walk the last 8km – that was tragedy right there. That walk would take 1hr 30min.
“Don’t let this happen to me,” I mouthed, to I don’t know who. The ‘I don’t know who’ must have heard me, since I was momentarily back to the run, slow nonetheless despite it being a downhill.
On the same downhill I did run alongside a Police vehicle for some time. The vehicle was just on patrol. At some point a lady that I overtook talked to the two cops in the front cabin of the Landrover.
“Naomba rifti jameni!”
“Dada tafadhali twaomba tusikupe rifti. Haturuhusiwa. Rabda iwe ni dharura ya matibabu ambayo itashungulikiwa na amburensi.”
“Sawa wakubwa. Lakini naomba mniambie mwendo bado mrefu?”
“Dada twaomba kukuarifu kuwa sasa ni kupinda tu, harafu ni kuua”
The lost end
A final hill would come from nowhere around the 38k, then it was back to downhill until all of a sudden and from nowhere I saw the ‘2km remaining’ sign. Now this confused me a bit. I could easily see, or imagine seeing the big ‘starting sign’ on the road, uphill, which did not seem to be a 1km distance from where I was. But maybe I had run too much until my own mind was not fully functional. Maybe it was possible that the finish line was surely uphill ahead.
This was not to be, the Kili was bound to spring one final surprise when I reached the supposedly finish line, only to be directed towards Moshi Uni and asked to keep going. It was now as clear as the snow on top of Kili that the run was ending at the stadium. The road to the stadium was fully packed with traffic heading both directions. They should have organized this part better. I had to push runners aside to make my way to the finish line. Finally, Kili was conquered in 3.57.24 or rather, Kili conquered me in 3.57.24 when I made my first shot at it. (The official results on the organizers site indicated the position as 122 with a time of 3.56.48).
It was also a great joy to soon see Fay head towards the gate and it was good encouraging her to the finish line. Soon after, Emanu who had been hit by the bug walked to the finish line. We all made it with different experiences but each with a red lanyard clad medal.
Wrong medals?
I noted that the 21k runner were having blue lanyards. Someone would soon point out that the medal did not indicate 42k anywhere. Apart from the lanyard colour differentiation, it was true that the lanyards just had the wordings, “The Kilimanjaro Premium Lager Marathon 3rd March 2019 Tanzania.” The medal, shaped like the TZ country was just written, ‘Kilimanjaro marathon Tanzania’ on one side and ‘Kilimanjaro premium lager’ on the other side. Who cares!
Later we heard through the PA system at the stadium that the fastest guy ran in 2hr 18min, while the divas crown was grabbed in 2hr 52min. No prizes for guessing who won. The top ten in both runs were 80% Kenya, with top three in both 42s going to the boys and gals from Kenia.
Enough respects to the highest point in Africa. Your day shall come. This was just round one. As I made my way out of the stadium it dawned on me why this place was this familiar…. I had been there before. I was on a students retreat many years ago. This is the very stadium where we held the final service. By then it was called the Moshi Cooperative College.
Nothing much had changed, apart from the name. The terraces, the stadium structures, the track… all was as it was over a decade ago. I did all these flashbacks as I waited around to find other run colleagues. It is a challenge when you cannot communicate due to unavailability of a network compatible to your home country system. The hotel had wifi hence we could send Whatsapp messages, but at the stadium there was no such thing. Only keen eyes and good luck would make you see your team members amongst the sea of runners at the finishing point or along the route. That good luck thing enabled me get my other 42k colleagues, apart from Onyi who had already started his travel back to the motherland after finishing the run one minute earlier than me.
Part 5
Siesta
After climbing the stairs to my third floor room, the walk alone taking over 5 minutes due to the pain all over the legs, I did take a quick shower and got into bed. That was after finishing a whole 1500ml of a mixture of soda and water. I just ‘bottomed-uped’ the concoction. Why do the marathons make one so thirsty?, I wondered as I hit the bed for an afternoon siesta. It was already one o'clock.
I was however too tired to even think of lunch. Soon I was fast asleep, with Taarab music coming out of the ‘sound magic’ small speaker connected to the small Samsung lappy. Sleeping was however not easy. I had to keep turning around since the legs were aching with a passion. This is what I have come to expect from a 42. You get a whole day of leg ache, but that is why it is a 42, where else would the fun be?
I somehow imagined a door knock while deep in slumber. It persistent. It was a real knock. I dressed up in something and went to the door and opened up.
“Coach, we are going for lunch, and we are going with you,” Fay summoned me.
“OK, give me a sec, I shall be down.”
Brown table
Soon we were in a joint just behind the hotel. We found Edu, Isaac, JV and the four new comers to the group, already there. The table was already browned up. Kenyans and drinks! Soon it was as noisy as usual and the music was soon playing to our tunes, with all afoot and doing their best to outdo each other. By that time we had a sample of each of the top TZ browns on the table. Soon word went round that Kibo was the thing, the real ruler.
“Niletee Vibo mbili,” Isaac told the waiter.
It took us and the waiter time to digest and were almost dismissing him for asking for the inexistent, when he clarified that, “Manze, hii ni ngeli ya ki-vi, kwa hivyo kama moja ni Kibo, basi mbili je?”
It did not take long before JV unleashed the bar of chocolate. She did this in an effort to make us forget that she was yet to deliver on the promise of the Teq since the New Year run. She even failed to bottle-up during NLLV. Though coach was given the honours to unwrap the choco on this occassion, it was Isaac who was nominated to bless the bar, the chocolate bar silly. He stretched his hands towards the chocolate, now held out from my hands.
“May our ancestors hear us and bless this thing we are about to partake”
“Stop right there!,” Edu shouted him down, “Our ancestors are surely not here in TZ!”
How dare he stop the prayers! Who does he think he is? No wonder the ancestors had to miss out on the bite of succulent yummy chocolate. However, we shall revisit this issue of using choco as a smokescreen when the real thing we need is the Teq Gold. JV be warned. The next prayers to the ancestors better be with Gold on the table.
Don't spin if you can't spin
Dancing on achy legs is a big challenge and we had to tie-break. This was made worse by amateur DJ Edu, who thought that music should be mixed by inserting long periods of silence in between the beats. DJE thought this was a marathon where you can run and stop. It was clear that there are things that he is yet to learn in the spinning bizna, where continuity rules. Soon it came to a contest between the gals, as represented by JV and the boys as represent by Isaac. How did it end? Unfortunately, I cannot say, since what happens in TZ stays in TZ.
I was all smiles with nostalgia as I took the ride back home using a mini-bus from the same shuttle company. We ran the run, represented Kenya well and would do this again some other day. As a final verdict, does Kili take the crown of the toughest marathon? Probably not, unless on the 42. Doing a 21 would be a breeze and probably more gentle than Ndakani, the famous marathon of 10 hills.
The Kili also needs to grow up. How do you do loops on the same road without mid-road barrier and scouts to watch out? Leaving unscrupulous runners to just cheat about? I was even told of a runner who took a motorbike and still alighted just next to MCU to claim a medal. How about the leading car on the marathon route that had no timer? No washrooms along the route… and only one block of rooms at the start? Where I remember queuing for eons just before the marathon started earlier in the day? However, the view of Kilimanjaro mountain peak on top of the clouds beats all the shortcomings.
WWB, the coach, Moshi, Tanzania, Mar 3, 2019
