Ping Pong Project =)

We have been working on building a ping pong table for the kids and we finally completed it before we left for the marathon. It was a really fun project and the kids jumped on the chance to play as soon as the finishing touches were completed. Maybe we'll fit in a tournament before we leave. Here are some pictures taken along the way...

Ping Pong!

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!!

Mt Kili Marathon Part 2

… Continuing from yesterday…

A sleepy two-hour trip landed us in Nairobi, where we grabbed some tea for breakfast and then boarded a shuttle that would take us across the Kenya-Tanzania border and ultimately to Kilimanjaro. Frustrating story at the border: visas for American citizens traveling into Tanzania already cost a steep $100. We didn’t have American money with us, so we pulled out 7000 Kenyan schillings, figuring that since the exchange rate was hovering around 68 ksh to the dollar, we would be covered. The guy at the window told us we needed to pay him 8000 ksh, so we asked him what exchange rate they were using to calculate that. When we asked that question, he wouldn’t answer, but just became angry and started raising his voice at us and telling us that if we wanted to argue we should just go back across into Kenya and get US money. I don’t like to be suspicious of people, but I think there is a decent chance that the guy pocketed 1000 ksh out of that deal.

Southern Kenya and northern Tanzania were a lot different from Nyeri topographically. The hills are much more gentle – just barely steep enough to make for a brutal marathon. Also, this region is at lower elevation (~3000 ft instead of ~6000), so it is a lot hotter and a lot drier. We never saw a drop of water during our time in Tanzania save for about 5 minutes of light rain one afternoon. Other than that and the tap, not a puddle, not a creek, nothing. It looks like a much less hospitable place to live than central Kenya. Just the same, we did see a lot of people – mostly either nomadic Masai dressed in traditional clothing and jewelry and herding their animals or else tiny villages with mud huts.

So, we rolled into Moshi with stiff legs at around 3:00 in the afternoon, 12 hours after departing from Nyeri, and after some delicious Indian food from the Indian-Italian restaurant (yeah, weird combo, eh?) across the road, slept hard.

The next day, Saturday, we awoke and looked out the window to find out why the race we were about to do was called the Kilimanjaro Marathon. Moshi literally sits at the foot of the mountain. It is really amazing – it looms over the town, its top 16,000 feet above the streets where we would be running.

Around mid-morning went to register for the marathon, and this scene was of course a zoo. We were comforted to find that there were going to be quite a few other wazungu racing, which meant that we wouldn’t be the last finishers. We also got several requests from random kids to pay for them to register for the 5K fun run. We said yes to a couple of them, and then the floodgates opened, and we ended up registering 26 kids for the race. At about 80 cents a piece, this seemed like a great use of money. We hope that they actually raced. Also, as usual, one kid got screwed because another kid claimed his race number. This was a bummer, but there just wasn’t much we could do.

Okay, that’s a lot of boring details. Stay posted to hear about the actual race tomorrow…

Mt Kili Marathon Part One

We know we have been MIA on the blog scene over the past couple of months so in our last days here we hope to play a lil catch up. To start things off...I'll fill you in on our Tanzanian marathon adventure:

We walked (or rather staggered) through the gate into Tumaini last night around 11p.m. and were welcomed by lighted windows filled with smiling faces and waving hands. The kids all crowded around their windows in their dorm rooms to wave and shout down questions about our trip. After an exhausting 11-hour bus ride including a sketchy trek through nairobi at 9pm at night - this was the best welcome ever! It felt really good to be home...

3 Days and 20 Hours Earlier - We jump onto the matatu at 3am Friday morning with two kids, two coaches, a manager and one talented and beautiful videographer. YUP, just TWO freakin kids. Let me just say that our plans for the marathon got royally douched on. it was a real big fat bummer! the manager was not able (after jumping through many hoops) to get border passes for the kids, SO that meant that out of the 20+ kids that trained with us for four months on many grueling long runs, we were only able to get two of them passes into Tanzania. You can imagine our heart break and discouragement. Plus, ALL of the girls were not able to come so I was extra bummed out! poop on a stinkin cracker! Thankfully, the kids had a more balanced and mature perspective on the whole disaster [side note - i realized that unfortunately that was probably due to the fact that they are more used to things not working out and being let down...which totally sucks that we were contributing to that theme in their life...that was probably killing me the most]. They were obviously discouraged but handled the news with incredible grace and understanding.

The whole thing was hanging by a thread but we decided to not pull the plug completely and continue on as planned with the two kids that were able to get passes. Most of this was because both were Form Four leavers (graduated high schoolers - ie. last chance for this opportunity) and one was James Karicho (a faithful, committed, and freakin fast runner who basically acts as captain and has been putting his whole heart into training for the marathon).

With that in mind, we decided to go for it and boarded the early morning matatu with heavy hearts, tense pre-marathon nerves, and tired eyelids.

To Be Continued...