Running with the Kenyans

by Adharanand Finn

  “Godfrey, I can’t eat just rice the night before the race,” I say.

  More plates of meat are arriving. They place one down in front of Shadrack, to his horror. He pulls Godfrey’s hand. There’s a commotion as they discuss Shadrack’s meal. Godfrey tells me that Shadrack wants ugali, but they don’t have any. He suggests I take Shadrack to another restaurant beside the hotel where they might have something vegetarian.

  “What’s going on, man?” says Chris from the other table, his mustache glistening with the juice from the meat.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll meet you back at the hotel. Come on, Shadrack, let’s go and find some ugali.”

  Shadrack keeps two paces behind me as we dodge our way through the busy street, avoiding the motorbikes and buses blazing their headlights at us, and watching out for holes in the rutted road. I ask him why he wants ugali so badly.

  “I always eat ugali before a race,” he says, his eyes fixed ahead.

  The other restaurant is quiet, with rows of sculpted concrete tables, and artwork on the walls. The woman behind the counter thinks hard when I ask if they have ugali, before finally nodding. And vegetables? She nods again. I order two plates and we sit in front of the window. Outside, people in Somali robes stroll by, one man with a goat tied across his back. We eat in silence. This is it. It feels more like the end of the world than just the end of my journey. A bedraggled landscape of broken vans and trucks, a small wind picking up the dust and swirling it in the light from the window. Opposite me sits a lone warrior. Our champion, preparing for the battle ahead. The time has finally come.

  He looks up at me midmouthful. “It’s good,” he says.

  “Good.” Eat well, my man, for the moment is nigh.

  Twenty-five

  Japhet collects water from a Samburu tribesman

  Uma and Lila are waving to me from the sidelines, held aloft by Marietta and Godfrey. A small rope held by security men in bright jackets presses against my legs. Ahead of us lie the empty grasslands, the course narrowing up ahead through a small cluster of trees. Beyond that, twenty-six miles of wilderness. A man with a microphone is talking, telling us about the great work the race does for local charities. He’s buying time. Occasionally, the helicopters skirt across the sky.

  “I think we’re getting the all-clear signal,” he says. There are lions on the course. The helicopters are trying to scare them away, so they don’t start picking us off like a herd of migrating wildebeest. But I guess it’s not a simple job, getting lions to move by swooping at them in a helicopter.

  “We have a few famous athletes in the field today,” the man says.

  I’ve been telling Chris that he’s the star runner at the race, trying to make him feel special. The whole project has never quite had his seal of approval. At one point, after I returned from Ethiopia, Godfrey told me that Chris was talking about quitting. I wasn’t surprised. In every long run he seemed short of training. His enthusiasm for the race was always fragile. He kept asking me questions about it, looking, I always thought, for reasons to drop out. So I kept building it up, to keep him on board.

  Godfrey told us that the race would be shown live on national television. “Of course,” he said. “It’s a big race. They always show it live. Everyone watches it.” I told Chris the organizers were excited that he was running. He was a big name, I told him. They had given him a complimentary place in the race. They were even mentioning him in their promotional materials. That last bit was not quite true, but I was getting carried away, wanting to satisfy his need for approval. Godfrey was as bad as me, trying to make Chris happy. He went even further. He told us he had met two filmmakers from the U.S. TV channel ESPN who were filming the race for a newsreel. They were so excited to hear that Chris was running, he told us, that they wanted to film him before the race and interview him afterward. Chris grinned happily. Really? Me? I said I was sure the announcer would call out his name at the start. I emailed through the details of our team, with Chris’s name at the top, his achievements in bold type.

  The day before the race, we found out that it wasn’t being televised live on Kenyan TV after all. Then, when I went to collect the race numbers, they told me they didn’t have a complimentary place for Chris. I had to call up the race director on her cellphone. She was obviously busy with other things. “Hi,” I said. “You agreed to give Christopher Cheboiboch a free race entry.”

  “Who?”

  “Christopher Cheboiboch.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s a big-name runner. He came second in the New York and Boston marathons.” I felt like the agent of a D-list celebrity trying to get him an invitation to the opening of a local supermarket.

  “Sorry, we can’t do that.”

  “But you’ve already agreed. I can send you the emails to prove it.”

  “Did I? Okay, he can have a place.”

  With so many amazing runners in Kenya, finishing second in New York ten years ago ranks about as highly as being a man who was once interviewed on the street about the price of gas. Unless an athlete wins the Olympics, he is soon pretty much forgotten in Kenya, even among race organizers.

  On the start line, the ESPN TV crew is indeed there, panning along the runners, shuffling through the dry grass, a big camera catching these last moments before we head out on our odyssey. They don’t linger as they pass Chris.

  “We have a team of elite runners here called the Iten Town Harriers,” says the announcer. “They are, Chris”—he hesitates as he reads the name—“Cheboych, who came second in the New York marathon.” He’s said it wrong. I don’t look across at Chris. The announcer is reading the rest of our names out, but nobody is listening. People are talking, preparing to run a marathon. The announcer is a background noise, an outside interference. It’s time to focus. Only when he tells us, finally, that we’re ready to go, and starts the countdown from five, do we actually hear him. It’s as if all the world, all the other sounds, everything that ever existed or happened, is being sucked down into those tumbling numbers—“Three, two, one”—as the rope is dropped and we’re off.

  The race starts off at a charge. People are sprinting. For some reason I wasn’t expecting this surge of runners. I feel myself being swarmed, left behind like a boat still tied to the dock. I catch Chris out of the corner of my vision, streaking away at the front, but the others, like me, seem to have been caught off guard by the fast start. They’re running just in front of me as a sea of bodies converges through the trees, the path narrowing, strides chopping, arms out so as not to crash into other people. Philip squeezes past me, but the leaders are already far, far ahead. We’ve got some catching up to do.

  The race is both a marathon and a half marathon run together, with the marathon runners lapping the course twice. We’d talked the night before about how some of the people running the half marathon might go off fast, but that we shouldn’t panic because they wouldn’t be in our race. But we’re already a long way behind. Surely they can’t all be half-marathon runners.

  After about a mile I start passing people. Some of them seem already spent; slow, thudding strides; big, thick legs; heavy, sweating T-shirts. I’m skipping past them, hopping up on the grass verges when the dirt track is too congested. I’m in a hurry, I seem too far behind. But I need to calm down, I tell myself. This is a marathon. I pull my cap down over my eyes, recalling the steely gaze of Joan Benoit in those YouTube clips, settling into a steadier pace. Beatrice is a few yards ahead of me now. The others have gone off on the chase, somewhere among the long line of runners zigzagging toward the horizon.

  After about ten minutes the race seems to settle down. The people around me are now running about the same speed as me. The soft, gray dirt underfoot puffs gently as we run. Everything else is silent. Up ahead I spot another mzungu. I start reeling him in, without pushing too hard, just keeping my pace steady, passing him calmly, pressing on along the track. I’m feeling light on my feet, my barefoot style gentle on my r
acing flats.

  At the two-mile marker, we turn sharply and head up the first hill. My legs feel strong as I keep up the pace, not slowing, passing other runners who are hitting their first difficult patch. At the top of the hill is the first water station. It’s manned by a team of white women in khaki safari clothes, leaping around and cheering everyone on. “First mzungu, first mzungu,” they shout, going wild as I run by. “Well done, well done.” They hand me some water. I take a few sips and discard it like a man in a hurry. The first mzungu. Where are all the half-marathon runners?

  As I run on, I spy a herd of zebra in the distance. I want to point them out to someone, but I’m running on my own now. I pull my cap down and press on.

  At three miles I begin to wonder how fast I’m running. I made a late decision not to wear a watch. Anders thought I was mad, but I’ve done every training run without one, and the Kenyan runners at the Kimbia camp didn’t think it was a problem. Just run how you feel, they said.

  The course dips down suddenly into a narrow valley. It feels like the sort of sheltered, shady place you might find wild animals resting. I try not to think about it. The field is more spread out now, but I’m still passing people, people who started off too quickly. I cruise by, discarding them, one by one, in my wake.

  At one point, a man battles back past me. His persistence disrupts my rhythm, making me feel as though I’m working hard for the first time in the race. We’re at five miles, heading up a steep slope back out of the crevasse. I surge hard to drop him as we rise up, twisting through the rocky grassland, up and up. It’s not steep, but every time I think we’re at the top, it rises up more. To make matters worse, the ground here is even softer, sandlike, sapping energy from my legs with each stride. I keep crossing over from one side of the track to the other, because it keeps looking firmer on the other side. But it never is. My mind is playing tricks on me, I think, half-joking with myself. I’m becoming delusional. Up ahead, the heat is beginning to make the plains shimmer. It’s getting hotter, 80 degrees and still rising.

  For the next few miles the course goes up and down, up and down like a roller coaster, except one you have to push along yourself. I try to stride down the slopes, but I’m getting cramps now. I press my stomach with my fingers, which helps, but mainly it just comes and goes with the slopes, returning whenever I go downhill.

  At each water stop, the stewards tell me I’m the first mzungu. They’ve been waiting to see how long it would take, I can tell. Well, finally, here I am.

  At about nine miles, I see Marietta and the children for the first time. They’re cheering, Come on, Daddy, Ossian peering out at me with his indifferent what-are-you-doing? look. Jophie, Marietta’s sister, is also there. She looks as though she might cry.

  “Come on, Dhar, you’re the first mzungu,” she says, disbelieving.

  Godfrey is there, too. “Come on, Finn, you’re doing great.”

  I stride through the water station like I’m leading the London Marathon, swiping a bottle of water, grinning at my kids, and heading back out into the silent, open plains. I’ve got a job to do, kids, I’ll see you soon.

  They all pop up again at the eleven-mile point. Godfrey looks at his watch as I pass. “Eighteen kilometers. One hour sixteen minutes. Looking good, Finn.”

  It sets my mind off, trying to calculate how fast I’m going. But the heat is pounding on my brain now. I figure I’ll hit halfway in under 1 hour 30 minutes, which is pretty fast. I may get that sub-three hours, yet. As we come up to the halfway point, however, ready to set out on the second lap, I imagine for a moment that I’m doing only the half marathon and that I’m gathering myself to sprint to the end. I’m not sure that if I wanted to I could go any faster. I feel totally spent.

  Beatrice is still ahead of me, but I’m starting to catch her. If I’m feeling this tired, she must really be struggling. I fear she has gone off too hard. I feel sorry for her. She was so confident, her big smile, telling me she would do it. Two women have passed me in the last few minutes, running strongly. Now they’re chasing Beatrice, moving in like two lions for the kill. It’s hard to watch.

  At the halfway point, I pass Ray, the man I stayed with in Nairobi, who sent me along to run with the Hash House Harriers. His job is to make sure the half-marathon runners go one way, to the finish, and the full marathon runners head out on another lap, to do it all again. I can tell he’s excited to see me because he stands up from his plastic chair. “Come on,” he screeches. “Get a bloody move on.”

  A few corners later, I pass a glum-faced Chris negotiating with a motorbike for a lift. He has dropped out. The gash on his leg is the official reason.

  “Bad luck, Chris,” I say, holding out my hand as I pass.

  “Okay,” is all he can muster, barely looking at me. We go to slap hands, but miss. It feels symbolic, somehow.

  Meanwhile, Shadrack and Japhet have both started off way too slow, but are making steady progress through the field. At halfway they are up into the top fifteen, running together stride for stride. Paul and Philip are strung out some way behind them.

  As I run through the start line again to head out on the second lap, everything is eerily quiet. Just ninety minutes ago this place was buzzing with runners, spectators, the announcer on his microphone, the air humming with anticipation, the sense that something epic was about to begin. Now it is just me. It’s as though the show has gone home, but for some reason I’m still running.

  I head on, leaving the start line behind. Every step now feels nearer to the end. The balance between what I’ve done and what I still have to do has tipped. I’m on the downward slope. All I have to do is cruise in to the finish. Or so I think. The reality, of course, is that I’ve only just passed base camp, and instead of going down, the slope keeps rising, getting steeper. The real climbing is only just about to begin.

  Up ahead, Beatrice isn’t getting any closer. In fact, she seems to be pulling away from me, her shoulders swinging from side to side, pushing on. Good for her, I’m thinking. I can see the two women still chasing her. Can she hold out? There is still a long way to go. At the same time, the fact that I’m not catching her is slightly concerning. I usually pass her at some point, but my legs are tiring. The ground feels softer now than it did on the first lap. The long, straight lines cutting across the parched landscape seem to stretch on farther than before. The gentle wind and the soft pat, pat, pat of my feet are the only sounds. I swing a few glances behind me, but there is no one as far as I can see. Just the long path already traveled, empty, as though I’m the last runner on earth.

  I have an energy gel in my back pocket. I had planned to take it at eighteen miles, but now, at fifteen miles, it’s all I can think about. It’s like magic, someone told me. I pull it out, the yellow tube glistening in the sunlight. I rip it open and squeeze it into my mouth. It tastes of lemon-flavored candy. Sickly sweet. I suck on the packet. I’m in a hurry to finish it, squeezing out the last globs. Even holding it seems like a waste of my precious, fast-depleting energy. I shove the packet back into my pocket as I turn and start to head up what was once the first hill. This time, however, I can’t seem to move myself beyond a slow grind, churning my body up the hill with my arms, my feet taking short little steps.

  At the top, the excitable women at the water station have also run out of energy. “Well done,” says one, quietly, as she hands me a bottle of water.

  I guzzle down the whole bottle. I’m suddenly insatiably thirsty. But the water station is gone. I’ll have to wait until the next one.

  Spurred on by the gel, and the downward slope, I begin to pick my speed back up. But it’s so quiet out here. For the first time, as I dip down into the narrow valley again, I start looking around. I’m out in the bush. Alone. There are lions, cheetahs, and leopards out here. I remember the roar of the lions outside the tent in our first week in Kenya. That was only a few miles from here. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a man sitting beside the track. I almost don’t see him. He�
��s dressed in a green uniform, with a gun across his lap. He gives me a friendly wave, as though I just happen to be passing.

  Soon I’m running through another water station, at around eighteen miles. A man with a trash bag is collecting the discarded bottles from the first lap. I grab a full water bottle from a young boy and drink it up.

  On I go, beginning the series of steep climbs. They continue, up and down, but mostly up, for about six miles. I can barely jog up the slopes now, instead keeping my head down and shuffling as sure and steady as I can. At one point a woman overtakes me. “Come on,” she says, urging me to run with her. “Don’t give up.”

  I haven’t given up, but I really can’t go any faster. My legs feel as though they’ve been drained of life and refilled with lead. I can barely move. I almost need to use my hands to pull my legs along. Come on, I tell myself. I try chanting. I love you, Lila. I love you, Lila. But it’s no use. The heavy, debilitating exhaustion swamping me swallows the chant whole, sucking it away until I can’t even remember what it is. This time it’s not a question of willpower. This time I haven’t lost the psychological battle. No, my focus is intense. I’m pushing myself as hard as I can. This time it’s purely physical. I’m struggling just to keep moving. At each water station I drink more. Two bottles of water. A fizzy energy drink. But my thirst is unforgiving. I squeeze sponges of ice cold water over my head and for a blissful second I feel refreshed. But the burning trail stretches on.

  The distance markers become my only sanity, the only evidence that I’m actually still moving forward, and not just drifting aimlessly across a dry ocean. I begin to call them my little magic markers, talking to myself, to the little signs hammered into the ground. “Ah, there you are, my little magic marker. What took you so long?”

  Suddenly Godfrey is standing alone on the horizon, calling my name. At least, I think he is. I squint to see if I’m dreaming. When I reach him, he runs along beside me. “Marietta was worried. How do you feel?” He barely has to jog to keep up with me.