2018 Lewa Marathon was analogous to life – suffering for the future good

I ran the Lewa Marathon, a half-marathon to be precise. Although I have ran the same course before, this time it was a different experience.

I practised, talked to different marathoners, and slept well but in the end, it was a gruelling experience that felt like deliberate mental and physical torture.

We were up at 5am for breakfast. I sat next to legendary marathoner Henry Wanyoike. His advice was that I must have two bananas for energy.

A friend, Kennedy Kihara, a great social marathoner, advised that I have to maintain my own pace.

We got into vehicles and drove to the starting point. Here, a sea of people prepped themselves up. I kept close to Ken hoping to leverage on his pace.

At 7.15am sharp, First Lady Margaret Kenyatta, a marathoner of repute herself, flagged us off.

The huge number of runners kicked up a storm of dust. This was not part of my plan and I had no plan B.

I stayed behind Ken and at the 5km mark he told me to deviate and shake hands with the First Lady, who had used a different spectator route to watch us punish ourselves up hill. “Really!” I told him. He said, “Yes!”

UNBEARABLE DUST

We quickly shook hands and returned to the track. The dust was so unbearable that I had to make an erratic decision to run ahead of Ken.

Big mistake. I lost the pace and pushed myself to an unsustainable pace. Hydration became necessary and instead of sipping a little, I gulped half a litre of water.
The water went straight into the bladder. At the next station I was desperate for a toilet.

A large number of people ahead of me had made a similar mistake, necessitating a queue. We were running out of time, so we decided that the Lewa grass needed to be hydrated.

By the time I got back on track, Ken had left me far behind and there was no way I was going to catch up with him and keep his pace.

Fortunately, my time was within my target. I was doing between five and six minutes per kilometre. I wanted to finish the race between two 2 hours and 15 minutes and 2 hours and 30 minutes.

At the 10km mark, my time was hovering around 55 minutes as I went up a hill.

At the top of the hill, I lost my concentration to the beauty of the surrounding environment.

BACK ON TRACK BUT LOSING RHYTHM

It suddenly became difficult to concentrate on my original task. Eventually, I convinced myself to focus on where my next step will be.

I was back on track but still not able to get the original rhythm. With the runners now well spread and with no dust, I forced myself into some form of pace while listening to the feet of the runners as they ground the soft clay soil.

It wasn’t much of music but it helped me to focus on the task or running instead of distracting myself with the beauty of this animal sanctuary.

At the 15km mark, there was a steep descent, followed by a sharp climb. It shattered my plan.

My running shoes were pinching (I had bought new ones for the marathon – another big mistake) and the mind wanted me to surrender. Then I saw a sign declaring “16km ahead” and figured that I had only five more to go.

I looked at the watch. I had 25 minutes to finish inside my goal but needed to cover the 500-metre slope that was perhaps more difficult than running uphill.
My knees were caving in but I kept moving. Two people ahead of me were limping.

GETTING DISTRACTED

I slowed down but regained some energy to push myself at the flat between 17 and 18. This drained all the energy I had for the last kick.

My source of endurance was to either finish my half-marathon with the full marathon runners or finish ahead of them.

At 18, the vegetation changed and a new "cow-dungish" smell assailed our noses.

A large water pan sat to the left. This, we guessed, is where animals congregate to hydrate, depositing their dung as they hang around.

As my mind wavered, a lanky man passed me as though he had just started a 100-metre dash with Usain Bolt. Then another man followed him.

These, it turned out, were number one and two in the full marathon. Their speed rattled me as I began to get my tempo.

My mind deviated once more when I reached what would pass as an acacia forest.

The disruption caused me to think that the organisers had played us by stretching 18 longer than other areas previously covered. Perhaps a mistake in their measurement. Then I thought that perhaps I went past 19 and was approaching 20.

I was settling to seeing 20 ahead when suddenly 19 appeared. Holly gracious! I have two kilometres to cover in eight minutes.

A SPOUSE'S REVENGE

Physically, I was completely drained and had no chance of finishing ahead of full marathon runners.

In my struggle, I began to pass other strugglers. Among them was a young team from Oracle. Much younger than me, they felt insulted that I was passing them. They decided to increase their tempo, threatening to run past me. No way! I told myself.

I marshalled every bit of energy and sprinted the last 500 metres to finish head to head with the team. My time was 2 hours 32 minutes, some 13 minutes ahead of my wife. In the previous marathon, she’d beat me by one hour. I was heavier then. She plans to dismantle my record in the coming days.

My mentors did well, with Henry Wanyoike finishing at 1 hour 20 minutes and Ken at 1 hour 58 minutes.

The whole exercise was an analogy to life. In life, we allow ourselves to suffer for a future good.

Most successes in life require a plan accompanied with a good strategy on how to achieve our goals. These goals are broken down to objectives and tasks.

But more importantly, focus on achieving the tasks is paramount. At any step, we stand the risk of being distracted but the greatest lesson is to maintain some rhythm and keep on moving forward without giving up and never censoring yourself while you are at it.

SCINTILLATING BEAUTY

The following morning, as we took our breakfast, a soft sun set its rays on us as though it was sent to rekindle our energies. Across the hills was Mt Kenya.

The sky cleared for us to view the scintillating beauty of this majestic mountain from the Meru side. It has more snow than we think when we see it from the Nanyuki side.

We have a beautiful country and its sceneries speak to us. Perhaps Lewa had a story for me that one day I will decipher.

As we bade farewell to Lewa from an Air Kenya Germany-made Dornier Do-228 Light Transport Aircraft, aloft we see the sadness of our failure to plan.

We have no long-term goals for the fauna in our country. The Lewa Conservancy is under pressure from humans in a place that is clearly meant for animals. The human-wildlife conflict will intensify as more people settle too closely to wildlife.

As such, we must take painful steps, as in running a marathon, and deal with our flora and fauna without which our existence will be totally different and perhaps worthless.

At the moment it is foreign support that has enabled our children to see some of this wildlife. These benefactors have no obligation to continue helping us.

We must rise to love the beauty of our country with everything that God created in it because our lives are intertwined with the environment we live in.

The writer is an associate professor at the University of Nairobi’s School of Business. Twitter: @bantigito