The story of my first half marathon event in Nairobi

By 6.30am last Sunday we were gathered by the thousands at the starting line of the Standard Chartered Marathon, in Nairobi’s Uhuru park.
The biting cold did nothing to dampen our spirits as we tried to sync our warm-ups to Bob Marley’s “Get up stand up”. I didn’t feel anyone’s rights were being trampled upon, but now, after weeks of mental and physical preparation, wasn’t the time to give up the fight.
Anyway, first off were the aliens who do 42km, elite runners at the front and the bucket-list crusaders behind them, jostling for a chance to be spotted by the drone-cameras that hovered high above.
Then it was 20 minutes of selfies with friends and strangers alike, before we were also sent on our way.
This was my first half-marathon and I had been warned about getting sucked in by the pace of others. A few kilometers in, as we wound our way through the emptied streets of Nairobi’s central business district, the elite runners screamed past us on their return leg in the opposite direction– six or eight sinewy men with money on their minds, eye-balling each other for signs of weakness.
Theirs was clearly a different league. I got that.
But I promised myself that I was going to demonstrate my potency to especially the loud road-rage-inducing clowns who thought asking for Nyama Choma at water points was funny. We were now at 7km and I stepped on the gas and their noise faded into the background.
Big mistake. It turns out these were very fit clowns. They noisily raced past me shortly after 10km as we went up the steep ramp onto Thika Super Highway. I never heard from them again.
I don’t suffer fools, and I never envisaged a podium finish, but I had to pick other motivational battles quickly because the sea of runners behind me was quickly shrinking. I settled for a lady in a tutu and the former MD of Standard Chartered Bank Uganda who was walking at a pace fast enough to challenge my laboured jog.
However, fatigue was the price I was paying for my ego. I don’t know whether it was sugar deficiency or the sight of those who were nursing uncooperative hamstrings by the roadside, but at 17km my mind started to play tricks on me and my shoes started to feel like concrete blocks.
But the end was near, and I could make out that the DJ hadn’t switched from Bob Marley. ‘Jamming’ was playing in the distance and I felt no bullet could stop me now.
So, I gathered my last ounce of strength and coaxed my tortured body across the finish line that eventually appeared amongst the eucalyptus trees of Uhuru park.
In three or so hours I had taken myself to a place where the body twitches in places you didn’t know had muscle and the mind hangs at the edge of blankness. I won’t be going back but trust me, nothing compares to the feeling of personal accomplishment that has engulfed me since.
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MBanturaki