Runner versus Parasite… the winners is…

Runner versus Parasite… the winners is…

“81.3km”

That was the mark that Beryl set on the runners leader-board as posted on WhatsApp.  This is how the year started, as early as Saturday, January 4, 2020.  She had just set an impossible bar for 2020, hardly four days into the new year.  That would have meant something like 20k of run each and every day!

“That is insane!,” I murmured to the computer screen, while reading that message.

“That is impossible!,” I drummed the desk while still affixed to that message.

That happened just before the talk of 2020 kilometers in 2020 started doing the round on the running group.  This 2020-2020 was a big milestone – doable but difficult.  That meant clocking 40km each and every week of the year.  No breaks, no Easters, no Christmases, no Vals, no break!  Crazy, I told you!

Nonetheless, I started working towards the 40km per week in the first week of January.  I was already far from the benchmark 81km in 4-days already set by B, who at some point was in the B-and-B team.  That was now a gone benchmark.  No need trying to catchup.  I was now even wondering whether I can join her team.  Previously she would be joining my league, now she was gone to a different one.  I had to set my own follow-up targets.  2020 in 2020, but at my own pace.  If anything, take it easy with the calculated 40km per week and see if it is even workable.

But theoretical calculations and practical execution usually differ.  I could only manage one run of 21k in that first week of January.  Even this one run was quite a tough ‘welcome’ run on that Friday, clocking a 1.46.28 for the 21.75k on that famous international route.  The very one that I did in a sub 1.40 not so long ago.  Nonetheless, no two runs are ever the same and I was still content with my attempt.  I just had to start accumulating the 40k-per-week.  I would try to maintain the momentum with the usual three runs a week, which are almost 30km, and that should surely propel me towards the 2020, right? Wrong!

I could only afford two runs in week two.  The first one was with Edu, when we decided to check out the Mary Leakey route on a Wednesday evening for the 13k course.  The second run was on the same route the next day, just to speed things up, in compensation for our run-walk of the previous day.  The plan was then to add a 21k to that mix on the next day, Friday.

But Friday came with its own set of challenges.  I struggled to walk to the office on that Friday.

“What is happening to me?,” I asked my lethargic self as I moved slowly towards the workplace.

A distance of 1km that I usually walk for ten minutes turned out to be a fifteen-minute walk on this morning.  Something was amiss.  Something was wrong with my body.

This would be proven when the evening came and I started getting the fever.  Despite taking so long to walk back home, I could feel the chill hitting me all over.  I slept with a sweater, but still felt cold in the night.  I tried making it to the workplace on a Saturday, to do my own schoolwork but I could hardly walk or concentrate on the intended work.  This forced me to be back home by mid-afternoon.  I was just feeling cold and my steps felt labored.

On Sunday I did make another attempt to do my schoolwork at the workplace but it was worse than I thought.  I struggled to walk the kilometer and just had to immediately walk back home since I could not even afford to sit for a minute.  My body was just too restless.  The cold that I was feeling was too overwhelming.  I got to bed early, as early as three.  I did not have an appetite for anything.  I stayed hungry since the morning.

I woke up Monday feeling a bad headache and a persistent fever.  However, some bed-rest gave me a semblance of relief, since I had fought the headache by two and it seemed to have subsided substantially.  I assumed that the headache must have been due to fatigue, especially that Thursday late night when I had to work on an article that had a deadline of midnight, which I delivered by 3am, but that was still ‘by midnight’ Europe time.  Despite the headache going down, the fever persisted and being in bed in a jacket was the only comfortable rest for me on Monday daytime.  I hoped that the chill would also reduce, or be gone, just like the headache had reduced.

Things would turn to the worse on Monday night, when the joint pains creeped in and I could not sleep comfortably in any position.  I tried sleeping on my left side but was too uncomfortable after a minute.  I changed to my right side, but same feeling.  I tried facing up, nothing doing.  Belly down, too uncomfortable.  I did repeat this four-position routine for most of the night.  I even woke up at some point in the night and sat on a chair.

“What is happening to me?,” I said as I read the time on the cellphone as being 00.25 – just past midnight, yet I had tossed and tossed and tossed.  I had hoped that it would be almost morning.  I was still far from morning.  I still had another six hours of misery to contend with.

I did toss on the bed some more, but somehow I did make it to the morning.  By Tuesday morning I was sure that I could not survive another night with such discomfort.  The headache was not the issue, the issue was the fever and joint pains when asleep.

I got an Uber taxi at one, benefited from a two-hundred-shilling discount promotion for being ‘welcomed back’ to their system, and was soon at a clinic at Prestige plaza on Ngong road.  Taking those flight of stairs to the second floor was the hardest task that I faced in the year.  I reached that floor out of breadth, by the mere lethargy that had engulfed my system.

I booked in on the clinic register at 1.35pm and started the wait.  We were just five people at the reception area.  Some two gentlemen seated to my right, and some lady and a young boy seated just in front of me, next to the reception desk.  This is the only reception in Kenya where we have three seats placed next to the door, and three of such people, including me, sit with their backs to the door.  Despite being these few, I still had to endure a wait of about twenty minutes before I was called in to fill in the insurance forms to start the process.  I was not surprised.  We have places that are notorious for delays, despite the registration of names on the TAT* register.

As usual, the first place that a patient visits is the small booth where the vitals are checked.  I would be called to that station around 2.05pm.

“Shoes off and step on the scale.”

I did.

“OK, that is seventy… what? Let me confirm…”

She re-read the weighing scale to reconfirm, then jotted down the final reading of the analog dial on the circular scale.

“Now, roll the left sleeve for pressure check.”

I removed the outer jacket, then unrolled the left sleeve of the sports shirt.

She affixed that pressure measuring sleeve around my arm and it would instantaneously start its squeezing action.  Momentarily, she pointed some beam to my neck.

“Oh my God!,” she shouted!

I was perplexed while at my sitting position.  I thought that something had punctured her finger or something.

“It can’t be!  Let me repeat!,” she said while pointing the red laser to my neck a second time.

“It can’t be true!  Oh my God!!!,” she shouted again.

“What is it?,” I forced myself to say.  By then the pressure measuring thing had already finished squeezing my upper arm and had already released its grip.

“You are forty!”

“What does that mean?”

“Your temperature is over forty!”

“Yes, I see, but what does that mean?”

“It means that you should not even be walking around!”

“Does that mean that I shall be boiling up?,” I thought silently.

The nurse immediately directed me to the opposite consultation room, I saw it labelled ‘4 - consultation’.  I was asked to lie down on the thin hospital type bed.  Within no time I saw her bring in the paraphernalia that is associated with intravenous intrusion.

“Stretch out your right arm and relax,” she directed.

I did.

I soon felt that sharp instantaneous prick.  I swallowed.

“Make a fist, we want to draw some blood.”

I did.

What is it with doctors and ‘we’?  The nurse was just alone!  There was no one else in that room to help her draw the blood!

I then felt the blood flow out but soon there was a new situation….

“Judy!,” she shouted.

“Aya yaya yai, Judy!  Come quickly!,” she shouted towards the corridor.  By that time both her hands were fully engaged, holding my wrist area.

“Hey, Judy, can you hear me!  Hurry up!  Emergency!  Judy!!”

Judy arrived after a minute.

“Gloves, quick,” she told Judy.

“The blood has failed to stop.  The vials are full and I have no way of stopping it.  Help me arrest the situation”

Judy looked at the blood that had now messed up the floor area just under my outstretched arm.

I could see her suppressed shock from my sleeping position.

“This is serious!,” Judy said, as she joined in and did whatever they did to my arm.

“Phew!,” the nurse finally exclaimed after another two minutes.  Relief evident on her voice, face and gestures, “That was scary!”

I remained in the sleeping position.  The nurses owed me an explanation.  At least now they would use ‘we’ in the right context.

“We realized that your blood somehow continued flowing out even after we tried to block the syringe.  That should not happen normally.  In fact, we need to test why this occurred.”

In a few minutes, the blood incident was dispensed with and an intravenous fluid was directed to my hand.  I saw the bottle that was about 300ml overhang on the metallic stand as it started its rhythmic drops down the tube to my body.  This continued for some time, as the cleaner come in to the room to clean up the underside of the bed, that must have been literally ‘bloody’.

It took about thirty minutes for the results of the first tests of the blood to come out.  That was also the time that I saw the doc for the first time.  I was still lying on the thin bed.  With just the company of the headache in the background and the fever, now drastically reducing.

“Let us examine you,” the doc introduced herself, stethoscope at hand.

She then read the test results that she had with her and reconfirmed that I had malaria, no doubt.  She also commented about the low platelets count, which she said had caused that episode of blood overflow.

“Nothing worrisome,” she concluded, “All readings can be attributed to the state of illness”

I would in a moment be getting another IV infused dosage of anti-malarial concoction.  I say concoction because that is what it was.  How do you describe a mixture of about eight different powders and liquids?  And each dose costs an arm and some leg – 3k for each of such a mixture.  I could see from my sleeping position that each of the four packages had a label ‘Artesun’.

“Let us see,” the doc told the nurse who had just administered the IV, “It is now three, so twelve more hours means, eh...., three AM, yes, three AM.”

Turning to me, still asleep on the thin bed at Consultation 4, “Your next dose of this medicine is at 3.00am.  Choose a hospital where you can go to at three, for the next dose.”

“You people are crazy!  Three AM!,” I almost responded!

Instead, I responded, “OK, Parklands, I can be there at three.”

Momentarily, some lady matches into the room.  The two medics turn to her entrance in unison.  
“Hi, I am here!,” she exclaims towards my direction, ignoring the medics.
“Ah, your sister,” the doc says after a pause, “Just in time since you are free to leave.”
We burst out laughing, leaving the two medics puzzled.
“More like his daughter,” the visitor adds more confusion to the medics.

I leave the facility at four, IV needle still stuck to my right arm, covered in a mound of bandage.

I could not believe that I was setting the alarm for 2.15am, but I did.  By the time I was setting this alarm, just around nine, I was surely already cured.  The fever was gone and the headache was gone, almost.  I was even thinking twice about this second dose.  It is only that they had given me the four packets of concoction as ‘take away’ for use in the next facility and imprisoned me with the IV needle stuck on my right arm.  The very needle prick that the nurse had already declared was ‘badly affixed due to lack of materials’.  This is the situation that was forcing me to be prepared for the 3am thing – otherwise I do value my sleep.

It was not long before it was alarm time.  Despite the night rains and the morning showers, I was out of the compound ready to get a taxi.  The first Uber that was to arrive in 10 minutes did not arrive.  If anything, the driver ‘refused’ to take my calls.  I had to cancel the request despite the warning from the Uber app that I would be charged a cancellation fee.  I cannot pay a cancellation fee for services not offered, and I was ready to fight it out with Uber, all the way to their hq in the US.  A second Uber request did not materialize either.  It turned out to be one of those conversations that go like:

“I hope you shall be here in the six minutes?”

“Where are you?,” the expected driver answers.

I hate this question.  Is it that their App does not show locations?

Of which I respond, “Uthiru, next to the supermarket”

“Where are you going?”

Another one that I do hate, someone please tell me, does it mean the Uber drivers do not see the destination?  My app has both origin and destination information.

“Parklands”

A pause.

A long pause.

“Ai, huko ni mbali, I don’t think I can make it there.”

Now, this is the very thing that I hate to the core about Uber, agreeing to take you somewhere, then claiming that they cannot take you there.  Why should you be in Uber business if you cannot do Uber business?  Isn’t is self-contradictory ab-initio?  It then gets worse….

“Sawa, then cancel,” I say.

“Hapana, wewe cancel from your end.”

“But it is you who have said that you cannot make this trip, so cancel!,” I respond, maintaining my calm.

“No, it is you to cancel!”

I am too sleepy to even afford an argument in this cold drizzly morning.

I cancel on the cellphone app.  Then, it is the turn of the app to give a final... “Beep beep, beep beep – You have been charged 200/= for cancellation.”

As I said before, I am not paying for services not rendered.  Let us meet in court!

It is now 2.45am.  Thirty minutes have been spent trying to get a taxi.  I had hoped to be at Parklands at 3.00am.  That is now not happening.  A third Uber booking is successful.  If anything, the waiting time is only 1 minute(s).  The vehicle seems to be next door.  However, the vehicle is not moving.  It is stationary somewhere just at the next block.  I call the driver.  He says that he is actually already at the supermarket.  

Liar!

I get to the supermarket and he is not there.  I call him again.

“I am just opposite the supermarket, next to the lorry.  Hapo kwa hiyo hotel.  Nakunywa chai.”

Very funny!

We get going at 2.50am, reaching Parklands at 3.10am.

Despite being assured that we shall not be charged for this service, we are still charged anyway, and a big fee of eight hundred for that matter, just to mix that mixture!

Just before the infusion, the nurse who was loosening the bandage could not resist to give his two cents to the job initially done in sticking that needle to my arm.

“Who did this?”

“Your clinic at Prestige”

“Really, they did this?,” he points at the needle that is just about to pop out since there is nothing to hold it in place.

He finally manages to fix it in place with some adhesive and I get out of the facility at about three-thirty for the taxi back to Uthiru.

Finally, I am happily matching to Prestige on Wednesday for a last dose and removal of the inconvenient IV needle on my arm.  The gate person at Prestige is sympathetic.  She consoles me after I get through the metal detector, “Pole for your hand injury,” pointing at my bandaged arm.

It takes me time to process.  I do not have an injured hand.  I realize the misconception.  I have to either explain or accept the consolation.  I decide to accept, instead of explaining.

“Was it while running?,” the second sentry asks.

This is completely out of guess work.  How does he even know that I run.

“Running?”

“Yes, running, your T-shirt reads ‘Running for a reason’,” he points out.

Despite being assured by the Prestige clinic that my last dose would be at 3.00pm on that Wednesday, they ensure that the episode ends with a new twist to the effect that, “the three doses means yet another final dose tomorrow at three.”

Means another day with a bandaged arm…. Another day with a ‘hand injury’

*TAT = turn around time

WWB, the coach, Nairobi, Kenya, January 16, 2020

Running…. until you are broke

Running…. until you are broke

“Are you happy?”

My eyes had been on that sign since I left the city.  The sign was affixed on the top panel above the two large windshields of the Easy Coach bus.  I was seated on 4B, the fourth-row seat, isle side.  Below the sign was a telephone number after the word ‘SMS’.  

I assumed that it was a ‘happiness’ number.  There seemed to be no ‘sadness’ number.  I had no happiness to report.  I had an ‘otherwise’ to report.  The fare had been hiked from the usual 1250/= to 1350/= despite my booking a month in advance.  The bus that was to leave the city at 8.30am was leaving at 11.00am.  

The closest we got to an apology was a megaphone announcement that, “Basi letu leo anachelewa sababu ya mbua.  Lakini yeye anakuja tu.  Apana choka.”

Why should our plans be disrupted by the rains that we have no control over?  The very rains that have been forecast over time, including that it would be raining over this weekend culminating into this Tuesday, the December 24?  What surprise was there that it was raining?  This is what we expected!

“Excuses!,” I found myself murmuring even as that announcement was repeated.  

The morning rains had flooded the bus station.  The additional showers around nine did not help matters.  The station was filthy.  Dirty!  Muddy!  Slippery!  An eyesore.  Unpaved.  Dirty, with specs of rubbish seen on the various water puddles, which dominated the available spaces.  

Every step around the station, as one walked around upto the boarding time, subjected us to a forced walk through the muddy filth.

“We deserve better!,” I cried out loud as I got into the bus with shoes full of mud.

The journey would thereafter be smooth, though slow due to the jam-packed roads.  We generally faced a queue of vehicles from Nairobi to Nakuru.  But I am assuming so, since I only witnessed the traffic jam from city centre towards Westlands, and was completely knocked out by the consistent persuasion of sleep from the warmth in the bus, made worse by the slow soothing vibrations of the movement.  I found myself in Nakuru at three.

“Four hours to Nakuru is a joke!,” I yawned as I disembarked at the Nakuru petrol station where the coaches stopover for a thirty-minute break.  Another three and a half hours of travel would bring me to Eldoret for my first stop of the journey.

Early morning

A taxi carried me through the short five-minute journey to Eldoret bus stage.  I immediately got into the 7-seater matatu as the fourth passenger at about five-ten.  I paid a fare of five hundred for the short 140-kilometer journey.  The vehicle would leave Eldoret stage immediately thereafter with three seats still empty. 

“No way!,” I made a mental observation.

But I would be vindicated as the matatu would make three stops along the way to pick up three passengers.  One near Eldoret airport, one at Mosoriot and a final person at Kapsabet.

The early morning travel was smooth, on roads that were virtually free of traffic.  But this would not last forever.  We soon got to the worst road in Kenya, the Kakamega road just near Migosi junction as you get to Kisumu town.  The road has been ‘destroyed’ for construction with no alternative road for vehicles!  Vehicles have to find their own way through the half kilometer of total chaos of no road and no rules!

“We deserve better,” I do another cry out loud as the matatu bumps us up and down so violently that I feel the pain with every hit onto the seat.  I alight at Kisumu stage just past seven.

I was heading to my rural home.  From Eldoret I had three options to get home.  Go to Bungoma, then Mumias, then Butere, then Manyulia my local market.  After that, a four-kilometer walk would get me home to Diriko village.  That route would mean a change of three vehicles, all unreliable in terms of availability and timeliness.  

The second option would be to travel first to Kakamega, then Butere, then Manyulia.  This alternative would also suffer the same uncertainty as the first option, probably worse due to relatively low number of travelers on the route.  And… and these matatus ‘insist’ on being full to capacity before departing from the station.  You can wait a whole day for the 14-seater to get fourteen passengers.  

The third option was what I was taking on this Friday morning.  Get to Kisumu, which is quite a busy route from Eldy, then use the Busia road from Kisumu, another busy road.  Alight at the local market of Dudi, walk the five kilometers and you are home!  I was soon home after paying another 250/= from Kisumu.

“Robbers!,” I lament over the fare for this 50km distance.

Now I had landed at the locality.  I was at the hood – and the hood does not come cheap!

“Brother!,” someone draws my attention from across the road, as I alight and cross the tarmac to get to the market side of the road, ready for my walk home.

“Eh!, Hi there yourself!?,” I respond, trying to figure out this relative.

“I must take you home.  I am happy that you have brought skuku,” he zooms his bike to my direction, where I have now already crossed the road.  

He has just beaten another three or so bike people, who were drawing my attention.

“But I intended to walk!,” I think of saying that to him.  I find myself being polite instead, “Eh!, Ok.  Lets go!”

It hardly takes ten minutes on the motorbike to traverse the five kilometers.

“How much?”

“Brother!  You have brought skuku.  Just pay me anything!”

Now, how do you pay someone whom you have brought ‘skuku’ to?  The normal fare, which is already too inflated in my view, for the 5k distance, is one hundred shillings.  Now you see why I had wanted to just walk this short forty-five-minute walk?  As I see the greenery and admire the good scenery?

I end up paying two hundred shillings.

I am seated under the mango tree, my favourite spot in the homestead, savouring the refreshing air on the very tranquil environment.  The place is so green, that this is the only colour that you see all the way to the horizon.  Civilization has hardly hit.  No tall structures.  No big houses.  No big roads.  No vehicular traffic – just an occasional disturbance of the stillness by the sound of a motorbike, which is still few and far between.

“My dad has come!,” I hear an exclamation coming from the direction of the main gate to the compound.  The homestead is generally on the upper part of a hilly terrain.  I am able to observe, and be observed, by anyone coming from the lower side of the compound, while seated at the shade of the mango tree.

The person gets to the mango tree.  We exchange greetings.  He pulls a seat and we are soon in conversation.  I know him from childhood.  He is a distant relation.  Our association must be in the great-great-great grandfather level.

“Now dad, I have to leave,” he finally declares after ten minutes or so.

“That soon?.  Ok, I am just around.  See you soon.”

“Yes, but, dad, I need skuku.  You just know how home is.  I am happy that you have brought skuku.”

I part with a red.

“You mean my brother is here!”

We are both interrupted by this call that comes from behind the main house, in a compound that has nine houses.  Someone has accessed the compound from the fence behind the main house that faces directly towards the main gate.  He has just managed to see what has just happened.

“My brother!,” he shouts animatedly upon his approach.  

I am still seated, while ‘my son’ is standing, bank note in hand ready to depart.

“Oh, brother!  You cannot leave me without skuku!  Thank God you came.  Just ka fegi tu is all I need.”

I end up with another one hundred gone, as the two leave me and walk together down towards the gate.  They are on top of the world.  Father and son walk off.  My brother and his son walk off.  They are of course not related in the nuclear setting – maybe six generations is what you need to dig through before you can connect.

I have soon had enough rest and decide to check out the neighbourhood.  I do not walk more than five minutes before I meet a random person on the road.

“Fadhe you know me!?  Karibu nyumbani!  Eh, fadhe, good to see you at shags.”

I am still processing this stranger.  I cannot place him.

“Of course, my nephew!,” I extend a hand.  I have no recollection.  I cannot force memory.

We stop in the middle of the deserted footpath.

“Fadhe, uwezi niacha hivo.  Ka skuku hivi.  Ka mozo tu!”

I part with one hundred as we say our goodbyes.

I am back home one hour later.  I ask the young ones to get me some sugarcane.  This is the fun part of being in the hood – the natural delicacies.  The young ones have not even had a chance to start their walk towards the gate, when they are stopped on their tracks.

“Uncle, did you say you want sugarcane?  Why did you not just say so?”

I am taken aback.  I see the new person who has just emerged from the next compound having crossed over the fence.

We exchange greetings.  He soon arranges for some two sticks of sugarcane that are delivered in record time, just from the next compound.

“Uncle,” he starts, as I break a piece from the long stave with my knee and start on my chewing, “Aki Uncle, thank God you came.  Sasa skuku ni aje!”

I appreciate the sugarcane and his efforts with two hundred shillings.

I sleep exhausted.

I am woken up at four when the exposed roof iron sheets start being hit by the rains.  It starts with single drumming that are far between, then intensifies as the drops hit the iron.  It is a complete drumming from the roof in less than five minutes.  The drumming gets louder as the rain intensifies.  Soon it is so loud from the roof that there is nothing to do but get back to sleep through the noise.  The noise is soon in the background of the sleep and I enjoy the last moments of sleep and wake up when the rain subsides at eight on this Saturday morning.

I get out of the house to find my uncle waiting.  I do not expect him to be seeing me, if anything, I should be visiting him.

“My nephew!”

“Oh! Uncle!,” I say while rubbing the morning sleep from the rainy night.

“I just had to see you when I was told you are around.  I have not seen you for a year!”

“Not intentional, just many things have been happening.”

“Have you really been in Kenya this year?”

How did he know?

“I have,” I economize the truth, and change the subject.

It is not long before he begs to leave.  I offer to escort him.  His place is less than three kilometres away.  We keep chatting.  He soon offers nuggets of reality.

“You still remember that I am your uncle, right?”

“Right, of course,” I respond in truth.  I used to pass by my grandmother’s place almost daily during my primary school days, many years ago.  Her homestead was located on my way from school.  That woman loved me to the core.  She had lost her daughter when I was still eight.  She told me that I was the closest thing to her daughter and that she wanted to keep her memory.  Fond memories passed through, but I was back to the moment.

“If my sister had killed my mother at childbirth, then I could not have been born.  You know that, right?”

“I know,” I respond as we keep walking.

“And you know that you remind me my sister, who left you while you were still young, right?”

“Sure uncle,” I say as we keep walking.

What is this turning into?  Twenty-one questions?

“So never forget me, even at this skuku time!”

I find myself handing over a wad of notes.

Being a Saturday, there is nothing much to do as most of the folks are gone to church and normalcy would return past one when church ends.  I seat in my house listening to the iron-sheets make that clang sound as they expanded slowly with the burning sun.  The clang would go on for over an hour as the iron adjusts to its new size.  The sound is just magical.  This clang would be repeated in the evening when the sun goes down and the sheets have to contract back to their restful size.

I was observing the big gaping hole on the wall of one of the inner rooms.  This hole was caused by those damn termites.  The same nitwits whose mound I had just cleared the previous evening and had by now, one day later, created a similar big mound just overnight!  

It is not long before my neighbor from next compound joins me in the house to discuss this particular termite predicament.

“Imagine the termites have rebuilt!  Hata kama ndio bidii kama ya mchwa!,” I show him the fresh mound that is covering almost half of the hole on the wall.  This hole was created by the same wretched termites in the first place.  The very termites that ate through that very wall, with successive attempts to remove them resulting into the wall being cut through.

“Ah, hizo!  Usijali, we already killed the queen.  These are just the remnant soldiers trying to re-establish a colony, but they are useless,” he examines the insects at work, then continues, “Kesho nitamwaga dawa ukitoka.  The dawa is so pungent.  You cannot stay around when I pour in the mixture.”

“You killed the queen?”

“Of course!  We found the source to be somewhere in the farm and dug it out,” he pointed to the adjacent farmland, just past the house, “It sure was the queen.  Even Ken, your nephew, actually fried it and ate it!”

We would chat about this and that and he would finally take his leave.

“For that additional dawa, you shall part with some one-thao.  That should do it.  Alafu siunajua tu ni skuku!”

On Sunday I was at Dudi stage, hardly with any fare to get me back to Nairobi.  I would have to call someone to ‘beg’ for fare back!  I had just participated in one of the most expensive runs in the year!

WWB, the Coach, 30-Dec-2019

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