Race morning. Alarm at 4:45. (Sidenote here: I roomed with Karicho, and one cool thing is that he closes every single day by gathering for a few minutes with his roommates to pray, and then does the same immediately after waking each morning.) So on waking on race morning, as on the other mornings in Tanzania, I got to spend a few minutes praying with a guy who just amazes me over and over with the kind of person he is. After that, the others (Em, Titus, Douglas, Waiganjo, Gititi, Eunice, and our visiting photographer Jessica) joined us for a breakfast of bananas and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We left the hotel by about 5:35, only 5 minutes after our targeted departure time, but then waited a few minutes at the hotel next door for our friend Genevive from Nigeria, who, lest I forget to mention it later on, ended up getting second in the half marathon. So that put us in a bit of a squeeze on making it to the race in time for the start. We jammed on the 3-4 km walk over to the stadium and made it there just in time for me to make my traditional desperation bathroom run. And then the race started.

I don’t know what gets into people at the start of a 42 km race, but there are always a ton of people who think they are going to win it in the first 500 meters. Of course, when you are racing with a lot of East Africans, there are also always a bunch of people who start like they are running a 1500 meter race and then just go ahead and continue at that pace for 2 more hours. Titus turned out to be one of these people. He was amazing. He did this race on 5 weeks of training off of a calf muscle injury, and he finished in 2:25, good enough for 17th place. Now that time doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but that’s because I haven’t yet begun my rant about how diabolical this course was. One way of putting it is that four years ago in San Diego, I ran a 3:10 in my only other marathon. On this course I ran 3:26, and I am a much better runner (thanks in large part to Titus) now than I was then. Another way of putting it is that Karicho ran a 1:51 in the 30-km race in Nairobi (think 3 x 37-minute 10k, or on pace for a 2:37 marathon) on what was not a flat course, and he ran 3:08 here. Or still another way of putting it is that there was a freaking BRUTAL AND UNRELENTING 12.5 KM HILL that gained more than a thousand feet of elevation from kilometers 19 – 31.5, and that the temperature at the start of the race was hot enough that I was already sweating through my shirt after only a kilometer!

So, given what I just said, Titus ran amazing, and though the rest of our times didn’t look very impressive, I think we can’t be too disappointed. It would have been really easy to quit on that course with the hill as long as it was and coming where it did in the race, and believe me I thought about quitting a lot. As it was, though, we all put in great efforts. Douglas and Karicho finished before me, so I didn’t get to see their states of delirium after the race, but for my own part, after I finished, I became completely helpless for about an hour. Titus insisted on making me stay on my feet for 10 minutes or so, and for me to do this, he and Karicho had to support me because every time they let go I would lose my balance and fall into a random stranger. When Titus finally let me lay down, I ended up laying such that the sun was in my eyes, but I just wasn’t strong enough to change my position. I literally couldn't move. It was one of those times where you feel so terrible that you are convinced that there will actually be no future. Only this pain. And you wonder how in the heck you were actually running while in this condition just a few minutes before. And then you start thinking about the people you know who are still out there on the course, and you just hope they are okay... But with time the misery subsided and I was able to get up and find some more water and wait for Em to finish, and then watch her go through the same thing I had just gone through.

So… all of this before noon! Quite a morning! After we had all walked/taxied back to the hotel, Em asked Titus how he felt, and he said, in all seriousness and without meaning to boast, that he thought he was ready to do another marathon. Great, Titus, thanks. Then he started getting a kick out of how completely incapacitated everyone else was. He jokingly asked Karicho and me if we “would be in a position to do a bit of jogging”, but we took the question seriously because it was exactly the kind of question he would ask. Then at dinner, I asked Douglas how he was feeling, and at my question Titus just started to lose it laughing, doubling over in his chair and unable to control himself. Apparently Douglas had been unable to go down the stairs when they were walking to dinner, so he had to turn around and go down backwards. Then he lost it laughing again when he saw me get up from my chair after dinner and try to walk.

Okay, I think that’s all for the marathon. The next day was 12 hours of stiff, sore legs in shuttles and matatus again, but the smiling faces in the lighted windows at Tumaini lifted our tired spirits.

The coaches and Claire and Lara (who founded and manage Hope Runs) really want to make it possible for the kids here to do another marathon to reward them for all the hard work they did in vain for this one (see post of two days ago for the story), so they have decided to try to arrange for them to race in the Mombasa International Marathon on 18 May. We really really really hope this works out for them!!