Day 1: 27th January, 2013: Resolve to get back to my form after staying off the road for two months. Check in with the Doc on 24th Jan, 2013...given a clean bill of health, breathe a sigh of relief. I have gained a cool 4kgs and my muscles are all flaccid. Leave the house at 5:45am with my morale under my feet. I have the Ironman triathlon watch which I resolve to put to use.
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| Here we go again! |
It’s darker than usual and it makes me recoil. If my body doesn’t want to do it then I will drag it all the way to town and back if I have to but today it must put some distance…I am talking to myself. This is the problem with starting over. I am so out of it, feeling soft and heavy – my body and mind are completely out of sync but after this I will sure put them back together again. I have to do something about this vile invasion and savage attack on my fitness and health.
Decide to skip the formalities of 5kms, then 10kms and so forth and focus on 21km. Start slow becoz I want to at least do a complete 21km run. With my weight and unexercised muscles, going for the Upper hill climb is a sure way of courting an injury. Pass City Stadium in 35mins (7kms) maintain the 5min/km tempo so as not to burn out too soon. Burning out early is a morale killer – trekking back on the first day is a no no for me. Get to railways roundabout in 45mins (9kms). After Haile Selassie, plan to turn to Uhuru highway and then to Industrial area but on reaching the H/Selassie roundabout, that question that misleads people with perfidious innuendo pops up in my head ‘what are you half assing about?’ Slow down and look at Upper Hill, see some two guys doing a slow climb and ask myself ‘what’s the worst that can happen?’ It’s good to think before you act, but the thinking has to be of finite duration and action must follow…failure is not an action with consequence. Inaction is and besides, I have wasted two months already.
I will pass out before I die so it can’t kill me after all. I plunge myself headlong and charge towards it with renewed vigour and this hill surely gets its sweet revenge for all the past I’ve been cruising on it as if it didn’t exist. It makes me embrace new, honest and unadulterated views about my fitness, endurance and physical strength. We get well acquainted – takes a tidy amount of my time and a lot of air out of my chest. Reach City Mortuary in 1:02 (12kms) that’s 4 minutes less my last run of 2nd Dec, 2013 with my feet buckling and lungs in my mouth.
Get back my breath in the Mbagathi downhill stretch. Reach Nyayo stadium in 1:25 (17kms). Join the Lungalunga stretch in 1:47 (21kms) completely out of breathe with 6kms to go. Damn, this road is the longest. Upper hill was a very bad idea. Come to an abrupt stop after 25kms (2:06), I am completely dehydrated, the sun has drained me out. Walk and run the remaining two kms…’there is no such thing as a bad run’ is a good motivator quote.
My muscles are now warmed up and ready to take the next challenge….to lose the extra 4kgs by mid next month and then hit the road. Let the games begin!
