Kampala Marathon

The Final Stretch.

Lets start at the beginning.  5 months ago I decided it would be a really good idea to train for a marathon. I have done ½ marathons in the States and really enjoyed both training for them and the race itself, so I thought.... why not step it up and try a full.  One of the main reasons I thought I should train for it was because I didn’t think that there would be another time in my life where I would have so much free time.  I was right about that much at least.  A full marathon is 26.2 miles (42.1 Kilometers) long.  There were obviously a few things that I was ignoring at the time, but I really love to challenge myself so I considered all of those things (the fact that I am in a third world country, under a lot of stress, that I live on the equator).... all of them I chalked up to an added challenge. Idiot.

I began training in July and things went pretty well... up until the wet season began in September.  The rains normally come in the morning, interestingly enough at the same time that I am running.  There were multiple times that I got caught in a storm and had to simply sit it out under a tree and then sadly walk back to my house, because it is impossible to run on muddy roads. 

On my longest training run (3:20) I got caught in a massive storm about 8 miles away from my house.  I decided there was no choice but to continue running, and a good 6 of the 12 miles I still had to go were on tarmac so I felt good about that atleast.  I tried to stay on paved road, so I ended my run about 4 miles from my house.  I knew right as I ended that I was going to be in some major pain, but wasn’t really sure where exactly it was going to hurt.  I ducked into a duka and the lady sitting at the table said, “Bambi”, which is sort of sorry in Luganda.  I told her I needed a large glass of tea with a lot of sugar and I sat in her shop for an hour and a half until the rain stopped.  Luckily I learned early on to carry money in my bra, so I took a private hire back to my house.  When I got home I changed into dry clothes.  As I was taking off my wet clothes I realized that I was chafed beyond imaginable belief.  My armpits were bleeding, my thighs were bleeding, there was a nice burn mark around all of the seams where my sports bra was, the sides of my feet were bleeding.  I couldn’t believe that I was stupid enough to run in the rain for 12 miles.... but I guess I learned my lesson.  I could barely walk for 2 days because the chafing was so bad.  I immediately called my mother and had her send Nike dri-fit stuff for the marathon.  In the end I persevered and finished all of my long runs and began tapering off about 3 weeks ago. 

Which now takes us to the day of the marathon.  I woke up super early, and just like everything one does in Uganda... I walked the two miles to where the race would begin.  I overestimated (along with other people) how long it would take and only got there 5 minutes early.  As I walked up, the gun for the full marathon went off.  So of course, the only thing that ever started early in Uganda is the marathon that I am in.  So I climb up a massive grass hill to the start and just bolted out.  At this time, the elite half-marathoners were getting lined up and within 2 minutes of my race start they were all around me.  A video camera on the back of a motorcycle was getting all of their action and I was trying to look extra strong as these world champion runners breezed past me as though I was walking.  Regardless of my speed, that was something really cool... to be running next to Olympic athletes... on their home turf none the less!

About two miles into it, I see someone running across the road towards me.  I was a bit confused because he was Ugandan, but as he got closer I realized it was my counterpart George!!  He about got hit by 5 matatus, but he managed to give me a hi-five as I passed him.  What a great surprise. Throughout the race Peace Corps friends were there to cheer me on and to give me Gu and Gatorade.  There were multiple times where I thought I would quit, but I saw Chester and Tine cheering up ahead and so I just kept chugging along.  At about mile sixteen things got pretty dreary.  The race went far out and so I didn’t see my friends for a good long while.  Also, Ugandans don’t cheer during races, so I would be running through massive crowds of Ugandans who would just stare.  No shout.  No clap.  No “keep it up”.  It was depressing.  After I hit the round-about, I could see about 18 people in front of me... all men (I only saw 3 other women during my race) and every last one of them was walking.  Let me tell you, one of the hardest things I have ever done is continued to run when 25 year old men are walking the same course.

Around this point, my knees really started giving out.  I mentioned in my last blog that I fell down pretty hard a few weeks ago, but didn’t really go into it too much.  Anyways, I busted both my knees and obviously didn’t give them enough recovery time.  I was in tears by what I assume was mile 20.  Did I mention the fact that there were NO MILE MARKERS on the entire course.  To add insult to injury, at the water stations they had no clue how far out you still were.  Ugandans are terrible at distances in the first place, but I assumed those manning the stations would at least have an educated guess.  Educated is the last word I would categorize their obvious guesses as.  When I still had over 6 miles to go, I stopped at a water station where I was informed it was 5K to the finish (3 miles).  The next water station told me I was about 10K (6 miles), and then the next one told me I was less than a Kilometer (maybe 8 minutes of running) from the finish line.  All were terribly wrong and made the race that much harder because I was mentally preparing myself to finish as well.  With about 4K to go.... I got lost. (Im not going to lie, at this point I was crying.  Hard.  It was everything I could do to stop myself because it was so hard to breath when I was running, and my knees felt like they had been hit with a baseball bat) I wasn’t lost because I have a bad sense of direction, but simply because they were tearing everything down.  The elite runners had finished 2 hours ago and therefore they thought they could pull down the signs and cones.  No one was there to tell me the way, but luckily a Ugandan man was running with me and he could ask people where we were supposed to go.  With less than 1K left I got lost yet again, and decided not to follow the Ugandan (he was going up a hill and that pissed me off).  In the end I just stood in the middle of the road and screamed “Where the hell is Kololo Airstrip?”  Someone pointed in the general left direction and I headed down a hill, where I could hear Chester and Tine screaming.  They had actually heard me screaming before they saw me coming down the hill. Ha.

            They told me that it was just around the corner and they followed me into the finish!!  I sprinted in where all the rest of the Peace Corps people as well as Kohei, my JICA neighbor, were waiting for me.  What a great feeling to have finished a marathon.  Tine later reminded me that my first words after finishing my marathon were, “If I ever decided to do this again... smack me.”  Ha.  I don’t know if I will ever do another marathon, but I do know that I won’t choose one in a third world country that straddles the equator. J 

ps.  The published the results yesterday in the paper.  I came in 156th!!