Million-dollar-run ‘from the sea to the stars’

Daniel Komen, a living legend and the current world record holder at 3,000 metres and two miles, has achieved what no other man has on this globe, in the running world - being the only man alive to run two miles in under eight minutes.

Yet, there was one race he wished he had ran: “I wanted to go on that journey. I wanted to run ‘from the Sea to the Stars’ with Toby, up the mountain.”

Two-time New York Marathon Champion, German Silva of Mexico, was another: “The next time you do something crazy, Toby, let me know. I’m coming!”

It was an event that captured the imagination: A run from Africa’s very shoreline to its highest ceiling.

At the start of 2010, Toby Tanser, the CEO-Founder-Staff of Shoe4Africa, and one of the directors for the New York Road Runners, who organise the New York Marathon, looked at the financial books of his small charity.

World record attempt

He knew that he wanted to start a landmark project in 2011: building the largest public children’s hospital in Africa, yet he also knew he would be approximately $100,000 (Sh8 million) short of the one million dollars (Sh80 million) deemed the amount needed to break ground in Eldoret.

“I recognized that I must do something unique, never done before, to be able to fund-raise for such a huge amount,” he said in an interview with Monday Sport last week

“Ten years ago I was attacked on the African coast, and with a smashed skull, I had run to save my own life, looking for medical care.

“This time, I thought ‘let me go back and this time run for the children of Kenya,’ symbolically ending the run on the top of Africa’s roof, to touch the stars.”

Tanser’s route would be a world record attempt, to get from absolute sea level to the top of the world’s highest free-standing mountain, running on foot, from one Sunday to the next.

Most people take an entire week to just climb to Kilimanjaro’s 5,895-metre Uhuru peak.

In fact, it is difficult to find a guide who will agree to take you up faster than a week due to safety issues, yet Tanser would try to run 400km from the coastline, through the streets of Mombasa, across the scorching Taru desert, past the town of Voi, over the rolling Taita Hills, through the Tsavo Game Park, into Tanzania, and up the mountain!

“When I was an athlete I liked best the 5,000m distance,” said Tanser, who used to train in Ngong town with a group of Kenya’s best distance runners in the ‘90’s, the likes of Paul Tergat, Sammy Korir, William Sigei, Eric Kimaiyo, Simon Biwott and Paul Bitok.

“I hated anything to do with the word ‘Ultra’ when used in conjunction with running. The longest I ever ran was a marathon, which I found way too long, and here I was planning to run 65 kilometres a day for a week, so of course it was a challenge to me. Could I do it? Could my body handle it?, I wondered.

“Then also, 99 percent of all people I talked to were telling me ‘you can’t run up Kilimanjaro, it is impossible, you need to acclimatise day by day. People have died trying to climb up too fast.

“It is true, but I knew if I did not make this an intimidating challenge, people would not sponsor me to attempt this run. For the kids I just had to do it, I had to get to one million – my mantra became ‘refusing limits’.”

On November 21, 2010, with the soles of his shoes wet in the turquoise Indian Ocean, Tanser started running.

Mohammed Said, a tour guide from Mombasa, drove a vehicle to give Tanser water as he ran through the insufferable coastal weather mixed with the heavy choking fumes of the lorries and trucks that pepper the roads.

“He’s my hero, he did it, it was not easy but I saw straight away he had the discipline and the morale,” said Said.

On day two, it was 41 degrees on the thermometer and near 95 percent humidity. There was absolutely no shade as he ran exposed across the Taru desert.

Tanser recalled how he stopped to urinate and passed pure blood, almost fainting with each step.

He soldiered on, having to jump over a big black snake that blocked his path on day three, seeing a pride of lions on day four (luckily after they had eaten) and nearly stepping on a scorpion on day five.

In the evenings, he would meet friends and stay at local hotels, collapsing like a dead man on the mattress, trying to recoup for the next day’s dose of kilometres.

“I was so worried that my foot was going to get a stress fracture from all the mileage, it was painful from day one and I was running the equivalent of two marathons per day.

“I could not contemplate quitting and any time the going got rough, I focused on Kenyan children I knew had died because of inadequate healthcare.

“I said to myself ‘If you had raised this money sooner and built this hospital years ago, they would have never died, so why are you complaining, you are here, alive!”

Luckily, fate had it in store for Tanser to reach the peak, and on noon, Sunday, November 28, he touched the stars of Africa, summiting the world’s highest free-standing mountain.

“I would have got up a day earlier. First, we were delayed in waiting for the park to open, and then the porters carrying our food were so far behind on the first day that we had to wait till the evening for them half way up the mountain so we could eat something.

So on the next morning, my guide, Simon Mtuy, who holds the unassisted ascent/descent record on Kilimanjaro, said: “Let’s leave the porters behind, carry our own supplies and summit. We’ll meet them when we descend.”

And that is what happened.

All in all, Tanser was on foot, nine hours going up the mountain, and said on reaching the peak, the only emotion he felt was relief.

“To hit one million dollars was incredible. I did not even look at the view at the top, I just wanted to touch the signpost and get back to Kenya to celebrate with my friends Pieter Langerhorst and Lornah Kiplagat knowing I’d hit a million!”

“I am still a long way from completing the hospital, the journey to raise the first million dollars is now done, and now I embark on the next leg… I can’t give up, I owe it to the children of Africa,” concludes Tanser, drawing a sip of Java coffee from his favorite café in Adams Arcade, Nairobi.

“Kenya is God’s land, the best people I have ever found and believe you me, I have really travelled all over the world, we just need more opportunities over here, that is all.

“Just the things people in other countries take as a birth right… like kids getting basic public healthcare in their own hospital.”