Epic Failure.

Sunday’s events were both epic and a failure. Let me explain.

Sunday morning, after a restless night’s sleep, I woke up at 4:30 am to catch a private hire with fellow USP students that left at 5am. The private hire then drove a group of nine of us to the Kampala airstrip, the starting point of the MTN marathon. We rolled up to the airstrip, still in the dark, and put on our bright yellow tank tops, visors, and registration numbers.

EPIC:

After splitting up into our separate groups (10kers and 21kers) we headed over to the starting point. The five of us running the 21k waited around for about 45 minutes in a sea of yellow and black, only to find out that the 21k had just begun, and we were stuck behind the 10k runners who were waiting to start. So we literally shoved and mobbed through the crowd, made our way to the front, and made a mad sprint to attempt to catch up to our group. After running for about 15 minutes, we began to get into our groove, set our pace, and prepare ourselves mentally for the long, sweaty run ahead. (mind you, the entire time we were running we were being shoved and called at by the Ugandan runners around us. Their method of running seems to be sprint as fast as they can, then walk. So every whenever it was sprint time, we would practically get run over; there was one point where I was tripped from behind, but the man who tripped me caught me right before I hit the ground). The Kampala marathon has become fairly popular, so there were over 15,000 runners. In fact, the winner of the race has the possibility of qualifying for the Olympics, since this is East Africa. The joke of the marathon is that once the Kenyan finishes, everyone else stops watching the race… Needless to say, I felt like I was running amongst thousands of Olympians (many of them even looked the part). This is where the failure part comes in.

 

FAILURE:

As we were running, I began to notice that we seemed to be curving a bit more than we should have. It seemed like maybe we were taking the wrong loop, so we began to ask multiple people if we were going the right way—all of them affirmed that we were on the right track. At about the 8k marker, one of the two girls I was running with had to stop and walk because she had gotten sick the night before (major bummer, as we had all been training together for the past month or so), so the two of us forged on together, still asking people whether or not we were going the right way, and being affirmed that we were. Eventually we neared the finish line. Of course both of us are super puzzled, because we had only been running for 10k, but people continued to tell us to keep going forward, so we assumed that we would go through the end and loop back around (you never know how marathons work in Africa…). Unfortunately, after slowly going through the finish line, we are told to hand in our time chips because we are finished. Naturally, my friend and I were very upset because we had been led through the wrong loop! We still had energy and motivation to finish the entire 21k, especially because we’d been training for it, but we had no choice but to stop. It was probably one of the more unsatisfying finishes to a race I have ever experienced.  But I am still so glad I could be a part of it! TIA (this is Africa).

 

SOLUTION TO THE EPIC FAILURE:

Because all three of us, who had been training together, did not get to run the 21k, we did our own half marathon this morning. We ran around the UCU track in our tank tops and visors and our friends came with signs and took pictures of us, handed us water, and made a finish line; I felt so loved. Unfortuantely, nobody joined us in super short shorts, converse shoes, sandals, skirts, and holding umbrellas (all of which we saw at the marathon).

 

I only have three more weeks here and I cannot believe it!!!!!!!!!!! Leaving will be so bittersweet. Happy Thanksgiving to all! I will be making pumpkin pie in honor of you.

Love you, miss you, praying for you, thinking of you.