Kipchoge has me gunning for a marathon

In 1991, at a time when the Marathon record stood at 2hr 6min, a certain Dr. Michael Joyner was ridiculed for suggesting that it was humanly possible to run the marathon in 1hr 58mins. Last weekend Eliud Kipchoge just might have started vindicating him. He didn’t break the 2hr barrier, but he took the record tore it up and ate the pieces with such relish that it is generally agreed it’s only a matter of time before the man whose pace in Berlin burnt out professional pace-setters, dips below 2hours. These are exciting times in long distance running.
And you can imagine what that did to Nairobi, a town in which right now, one can’t stretch an arm without touching a person who is training for a marathon. The place is a hub of road running. In the evenings the roads are sandwiched by wiry folk who look like they only stop to sleep and lycra-clad corporate types, complete with iPhone on arm measuring a research-lab-worthy set of metrics.
Even less woke middle aged men with obstinate legs and weight situations bordering on obesity like myself, who started off running as an attempt to find some balance in life has also been sucked into this eagerness and is making a full-scale attempt at next month’s Standard Chartered Marathon.
Unlike my friends some of whom have been drafting my eulogies, my mentor has kept enough faith to see me through 150km and 15 weeks of training. It has been depravation and pain but apparently that, alongside ignoring the naysayers, is what it takes.
The upside is that I have lost 7kgs in body weight and moved from being unable to jog for more than 500m without cursing, to sustaining a speed of 8km/hr. for 90 minutes. That won’t be enough to get me into the prize-money bracket in the 21km race I am registered for, but I have just enough to qualify in my own personal marathon and in that arena, I’m one of the best I know.
You see this is no more than a personal attempt to demonstrate to myself that I can push the limits of my abilities a little further. My people need not worry about my health. I won’t be racing against those big-lunged chaps whose effortless striding is a statement about us slackers who won’t commit 10,000 hours of practice to master something. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Cannot and will not find the time or motivation.
So, I have decided this is going to be an exercise in moderation. I intend to find a balance between doing nothing and doing too much. I will walk when lactic deficiency dictates so and zoom past those unfortunate enough to be less fit than I especially in the early parts of the race. Ultimately, I want to do a reasonable job at doing the half marathon and a stellar job at ticking one item off my bucket list. In the end, maybe this only really matters to me.