Cool runnings Part 1

When I was younger I had the chance of a lifetime, a French guy in glasses asked me “you want to study, see new places and meet new people?” and of course being the crazy slightly off center geek that I am, I said yes.

He might have mentioned that I would have to do it all in French and that it snows, but obviously being the great applier of selective hearing that I am, I didn’t quite pay attention to that.  To my surprise everything was in French and it snowed, next time I will definitely pay attention. But I did do one thing though; in between the hectic classes, labs and field trips, I pulled out a mental piece of paper and made a bucket list. I am not dying, neither am I planning to die, which however does not mean that I cannot die. Eventually either by choice or circumstance I will die, I prefer to be an old man in the arms of his wife surrounded by grandkids when it happens. But it doesn’t quite work like that, but enough of the death talk let’s get to the bucket list.

A bucket list is a basically a list, a list of things to do before you die or kick the bucket, which is stating the obvious but stay with me here. I blazed through my bucket list in my early twenties, I had scratched “climbed the Eiffel tower, French kissed a French girl, played soccer in the rain, bought beer in district 13 with an Indian dude, fought a snowball war with kids from Thailand  and started an online blog” off the list within the space of six months. Somewhere on that list was run a marathon and climb Kilimanjaro, common sense dictates that the marathon comes first because Kilimanjaro aint going nowhere. The best way to prepare for a marathon is to run a half marathon, so me being me I decided to run a half marathon. I have been jogging since I was in my teens, my friend Thukuluza always says “Eh boy, why are you trying to piss the white people off by stealing their hobby”, and he says it every time I take a jog after work when I’m in the field. Thukuluza is adamant that jogging just like sky diving is something only white people should do. Incidentally “sky dive wearing a liverpool shirt” is on my bucket list, don’t ask.

On the 1^st of June I got up early to run my first 20 km race, although I had been training with Swakopmund United, a local second division soccer team for two months. The difference between soccer and distance running is that in distance running, there are no breaks. In distance running you keep running, you never stop to take a free kick or a throw in. You run and keep running, so although a soccer player can cover 10 km in just 90 minutes. You have to take into account that the soccer player is not always in motion; there are breaks in the game. So that morning my buddy Steven and I registered for the 20 km race at the AREVA race for fun, Steven’s exact words were “fuck you man, I aint running no 10 km’s. I want to play with the big boys”. When we were changing into our running shoes, common sense prevailed and Steven quickly ran to change to the 10 km race because although running is easy, running 20 km is not exactly is like running around the corner to buy bread from the shop.

After a quick warm up with Steven, the time had come. It was time to rumble in the urban jungle, the route was simple. It was just a quick 5 km loop to Vineta (suburb) and back, the loop repeated four times amounts to 20 km. So the race began and even though the leaders didn’t run away from us, the pace that they set was just too fast, so at about 3 km’s the leaders broke off and a gap between the leaders and the chasing group formed. I was comfortable in the chasing group next to an old timer (who features in part 2) and a German guy with a mop of hair and a neon vest. I decided that I was going to stick behind these two and just reserve my energy for the second half of the race because I wasn’t sure if I would last the race at the pace that the leaders set. When we reached the 5 km turn around the leaders were already a km ahead. My legs felt fine and I was surprisingly in good form despite all the beer I had guzzled during the two days before the race at our project wrap up party.

I ran the first ten km’s in 35 minutes, which was pretty quick for a first timer. Then disaster struck after the 10 km turn around I started getting abdominal cramps, which are a tell tale signs of a lack of fitness. It’s your body’s way of telling you that you are pushing it too far, I slowed down and resorted to light jogging just to catch my breath. As I struggled pas the 11 km mark, the old timer and the German guy started running into the sunset. I was getting left behind. One of the boys from Swakopmund United came up from behind me and passed me, His name is Nakale (no relation to the Namibian folk singer). There and then I decided to throw any plan I had out of the window.

The new plan was to stick behind Nakale and basically let him be the pacemaker, still keeping some energy in the tank for a big finish. As I pushed myself towards the 15 km mark, Nakale was starting to leave me in his dust. Little did I know that Nakale is one of the best junior male runners in Swakopmund, he is the future and the future was making me looked very old. I got to the water point at 17 km’s and took three water bottles, emptied one each on my legs and abdomen and splashed the last one on my face before drinking was left. With only 3 km’s left I was going to put it all on the line, the after burners were officially on. I took another three bottles of water at the 19 km mark, my legs were starting to stiffen up and that was not a good thing although I was determined to catch Nakale. But Nakale is not one of the best juniors for nothing; he kept increasing his pace as I got closer. As we came towards the finish line with both of us clearly tired and suffering from slight cramp, I sprinted for the finish with only 80 meters left. I sprinted as though a ghost was chasing me; buy the time I burst out of Nakale’s blind spot we were at the finish line. It was a photo finish in Namibian terms of course because there was at least 10 meters between us in the end. Nakale was so focused on finishing he never saw me coming up from behind him, he had no time to react and by the time he kicked up a gear I was across the finish line. I put my hands on my knees to catch my breath and when I looked up, Nakale was right behind me doing exactly the same thing. There is one thing that I know for sure, running long distance races is tiring.

 But as we embraced each other, reality both hit us and the cramp kicked in. Anaerobic respiring limbs aside I was proud of myself. Although Kilimanjaro was still on the list I could almost scratch running a marathon off the list, so I decided to amend the list and add “run a half marathon” to the list. In two weeks I was going to run the Old Mutual Victory race and that would mean I was officially halfway to my goal.

I finished 8^th overall, clocking in at an hour and 23 minutes. My Buddy Steven managed to comfortably finish the 10 km race but it came at a price, he ran in tennis shoes and they gave him the worst blisters I've ever seen, yellow people and blisters do not go together. As we left to go home, I joked to him that it was a good thing that he didn't run the 20 km’s as he originally planned. All in all the sponsors of the race raised 400 000 thousand dollars and a freezer for a local charity, my registration fee was my contribution.