Dismantling the Pop Cultural Cliché Called Rest in Peace.

Ultimate Human Pain

Death is an immensely serious matter, and the loss of a loved one is a profound and heart-wrenching experience. In fact, a study published in JACC journal adds to the evidence that losing a loved one isn’t just painful: it can also be life-threatening.

In the secular world, death is often regarded as the most intense form of human suffering. For Christians, it sits cruelly at number two, after what the Bible describes thus in Ecclesiastes 7:26: ”And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.”

Loss and grief is universal and should be treated with empathy and compassion understanding that they affect people deeply regardless of their religious or philosophical perspectives. However, humanity has always been at a loss on what to say during incidences of death. One of the normative phrases used as an expression of respect and condolence for someone who has passed away is ”rest in peace.”

The phrase has been used for centuries and can be found on many tombstones and grave markers as a wish for the deceased to find eternal peace in the afterlife. Over time, “Rest in Peace” has become a widely recognized and culturally significant way to express sympathy and offer thoughts of tranquility for the departed.

However, upon reflection, one might wonder whether this phrase holds any literal meaning. While the notion of an afterlife varies across different belief systems, the phrase remains open to interpretation. Can a deceased person truly experience peace or distress? Do they have the capacity to rest or become restless in the afterlife?

A brief history

The phrase “rest in peace” (RIP) has a long historical record of use, especially in the context of Christian burials and epitaphs. While it is challenging to pinpoint the exact origins of the phrase, we can find early instances of its use in historical records.

One of the earliest known uses of the Latin equivalent “requiescat in pace” can be traced back to the 8th century, according to dictionary.com. Inscriptions in catacombs and on early Christian tombs used the phrase to invoke God’s mercy and ask for eternal rest for the deceased. Early Christian communities in the Roman Empire commonly used Latin for religious inscriptions, and “requiescat in pace” was a prevalent phrase in that context.

As Christianity spread throughout Europe, the use of Latin in religious texts and inscriptions continued, and so did the phrase “requiescat in pace.” Tombstones and memorials often featured this expression as a way to commemorate the dead and pray for their peaceful repose.

In English, the phrase “rest in peace” started to appear on tombstones and memorials from at least the 18th century. However, it’s worth noting that variations of the phrase might have been used in local dialects or languages even before that time.

The phrase “rest in peace” gained further popularity and widespread use in the English-speaking world during the Victorian era (19th century). The Victorian era was characterized by a strong emphasis on mourning and elaborate funeral customs, and expressions of sorrow and remembrance were common. “Rest in peace” became a more familiar phrase during this period and has since become a staple in modern funeral customs and expressions of condolences.

With the rise of global communication and cultural exchange, the phrase “rest in peace” has transcended linguistic and cultural boundaries, becoming a universal expression used in many different languages and contexts to show sympathy and respect for the deceased. Today, it is commonly used in various forms, including in social media posts and obituaries, as a way to honor and remember those who have passed away.

Romish Superstition

The Roman Catholic Church is responsible for propagating the use of this phrase since the 18th century, generally on gravestones belonging to Roman Catholics, being a translation of the Latin words ‘Requiescat in pace’.

Those words form part of the Roman Catholic burial liturgy, and appear severally in the requiem mass. ‘Requiescat in pace’ was a offered prayer to God, in the hope that the soul of the deceased person would find peace in the next life. In simple terms it was a prayer for the dead. Although we may say it innocently, and with good intentions, a prayer for the dead is nothing but Romish superstition.

Mindless Human Imitation

Rest in peace is rooted in afterlife belief systems − a prayerful wish for the departed to find right standing with God. However, we can’t usurp God’s role in deciding the fate of the deceased. The redeemed do not need our prayers, and the lost can no longer benefit from them once they have passed from us.

Even the very Christian Bible insinuates that there is nothing going on in the grave: ”Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.” (Eccl. 9:10). How much better it would be if we prayed more for them whilst we still can!

In a society brimming with creative hashtags, and a longing for rest, in peace, ”RIP” remains the first thing someone will write on social media. It has been passed down as a mindless, insincere, and generic response in an uneasy circumstance.

Customs hang on even when they lack logical basis. The central idea is, to whom are you expressing “‘rest in peace?” The deceased won’t care and you don’t tell the family to rest in peace. As a principal, I refrain from using that phrase or directly addressing the departed.

Instead, we can offer prayers and wholehearted support to the grieving family, while also sharing the positive impact and good deeds the departed left behind. By doing so, we can uphold the significance of mourning while embracing the universality of human emotions in the face of loss. If seeking an alternative term, “I am sorry for your loss” or “gone but not forgotten” would be logical options.

When are You Hanging Boots? Should we Ask Athletes?

Kipchoge Crossing the finish line | Image Source: Ineos 1:59 Challenge.

World marathon great, Eliud Kipchoge, made headlines after winning the 2022 BMW Berlin marathon, breaking his own record to set a new world record. However, in a typical fashion, journalists were quick to ask his retirement plans with a 71-year-old Canadian journalist asking him if he intended to retire like tennis greats Roger Federer and Serena Williams who retired at the age of 41 and 40, respectively. Kipchoge, who was 37 at the time, gave a pithy statement that suggested that retiring was not an option for him at the moment. He said, “You forgot Lewis Hamilton is 37 and he is still driving a car at a speed of 360 Kilometers per hour.”

This is not the only time that Kipchoge has been saddled with this question, it dates way back in 2019, after he became the first person to run a marathon distance under two hours. Many assumed he should retire after achieving such a great milestone. Many more athletes around the age of 40, in various sports, have tussled with this question.

Asking athletes about their retirement plans is not an uncommon practice among journalists, and the general public, especially when athletes are approaching the age of 40. However, this line of questioning can be both intrusive and inappropriate. Elite athletes, often at the top of their game, may not be ready or willing to consider retirement, despite their age.

One reason why we should avoid asking elite athletes about their retirement plans is that it can be a distraction from their current performance. When an athlete is constantly being asked about their retirement, it can take away from the focus on their current achievements and future goals. It can also create unnecessary pressure on the athlete to make a decision about retirement, which may not be in their best interest.

Another issue with asking athletes about their retirement plans is that it can perpetuate ageism in sports. The assumption that an athlete should retire simply because of their age is unfair and inaccurate. Age should not be the only factor considered when determining an athlete’s future in the sport. Many athletes continue to perform at a high level well into their 40s and beyond, and it is unfair to assume that they should retire simply because they have reached a certain age. Benard Lagat, a Kenyan-American distance runner, continued to compete at a high level into his 40s qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympics at age 41. George Foreman performed competitively in boxing until age 48.

Moreover, retirement is a deeply personal decision that should be left up to the individual athlete. Obsessing over an athlete’s retirement plan can be intrusive and disrespectful, particularly if the athlete has not publicly expressed any desire to do so. It is not anyone’s place to pressure an athlete into making a decision about their future in the sport, as this decision should be made based on the athlete’s personal goals and circumstances.

Furthermore, asking this question can also perpetuate the notion that an athlete’s worth is solely based on their performance in the sport. This can be harmful to an athlete’s mental health and well-being, as they may feel pressured to continue competing even if they are not ready or interested in doing so. 

Athletes are human beings with personal lives and interests outside of their sport, and it is important to respect their autonomy and agency in making decisions about their future and instead focus on their achievements and future goals rather than their age. Let us stop with the pressure and expectations of athletes retiring at the top of their game. Let them use all their talents.

Working with Noise: Navigating the Social Media Jungle for Authentic Engagement

In today’s digital age, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives, revolutionizing the way we connect, communicate, and engage with the world around us. However, the downside of social media is that it has become increasingly difficult to engage with content due to the growing number of personal advertisements and marketing products that are being pushed.  

Advertising on social media is not inherently a bad idea. It can be a powerful tool for businesses and individuals to promote themselves and their products as it enables them to reach a vast audience. If a product or service is genuinely helpful or valuable, for example, promoting it in the comment section can help increase awareness and generate interest from potential customers. Moreover, some users may even appreciate seeing marketing products in comment sections because it can provide them with a convenient way to discover new products or services that align with their interests.

The comment section of a social media post, in particular, was initially intended to be an interactive space for people to share their thoughts, opinions, and engage in healthy discussions. However, it turns out that those spaces have become inundated with marketers who are eager to promote their products and services to a captive audience. 

Twitter is notorious for this. When something trends on Twitter, marketers jump on the bandwagon, flooding the comment section with their own products and tags related to the trend, hoping to catch the attention of people who are interested in the topic. This strategy can be effective, as people often click on the tags to see what others are saying about the topic. However, it can also be annoying and time-consuming for people looking for genuine content, as they have to filter out the noise. The situation is so dire that a handful of accounts have sprung up specifically to coalesce what is trending, to save people the need to weed through “garbage” but how long will that go before they are invaded as well?

The problem with this trend is that it makes it challenging for users to engage with the content they are interested in. Instead of having meaningful discussions and exchanging valuable ideas, users are forced to sift and triage through a pile of personal advertisements and marketing products before they can find what they are looking for.

Another issue with personal advertisements and marketing products on social media is that they often come across as insincere and manipulative. Users may feel that they are being sold to rather than being presented with information that can genuinely help them. This type of marketing can also create a negative impression of the brand or product being promoted. Users may associate the constant bombardment of promotional material with spam and disreputable marketing practices. This can have a detrimental effect on the brand’s reputation, as users may be less likely to trust or engage with future content from that brand.

Fortunately, there are sites like Quora, a popular question-and-answer website known for high-quality content, that shows that it is possible to create a user-friendly and valuable platform for constructive engagement.

Unless readers develop mechanisms to remain impervious to these marketing tactics, they will get frustrated and burnt out. While marketing on social media can be effective, it is important to balance promotional content with useful, engaging content that keeps readers interested and invested in the platform. 

Learning from Tragedy: How Aviation Industry Has Evolved to Improve Safety

Airplane crash scene on the ground.

The aviation industry has come a long way since the days of the Wright Brothers. Over the past century, advancements in technology and safety measures have made air travel one of the safest modes of transportation. However, this has come at a great loss of human life, in plane crashes, which has ironically led to significant changes in the industry, particularly in the area of safety.

Data from the Aviation Safety Network shows that aviation accidents were a common occurrence with high fatality rates before 1979. However, as the aviation industry matured and technology advanced, the frequency of accidents decreased and the number of fatalities declined, even with the overall increase in aviation traffic. Despite this, crashes still occurred, and it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the concept of proactive safety management came to fore according to Skybrary data. It encompasses a business-like management approach to the safety of flight operations. Several dozen post-crash investigations have revealed the silliest errors that jolted aviation actors to make sweeping changes. 

One of the major improvements that resulted from plane crashes was the development of new safety protocols and procedures. A good example is the crash of the 1991 Lauda Air Flight 004. The accident occurred when the Boeing 767-300ER aircraft experienced an unprompted thrust reverser deployment on one of its engines during cruise flight, causing the plane to enter an uncontrollable roll and ultimately crash into a mountain in Thailand, killing all 223 passengers and crew on board. The cause of the accident was traced back to the maintenance crew’s improper installation of the thrust reverser actuation system, which had been partially disassembled during a maintenance check. During the reassembly, a critical port was blocked by masking tape that was not removed prior to the aircraft’s departure.

In the wake of such crashes, investigators analyze every aspect of the accident to determine what went wrong and how it can be prevented in the future. This analysis has led to the implementation of new safety protocols and procedures that have helped make air travel safer.

Not using loss of life as an inflection point still has a long way to go. Two examples point out this fact. A lack of definitive closure on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which disappeared in 2014 with 239 people on board and the mysterious nosedive of United Airlines flight 1722, which the US recently said they will investigate. 

The loss of life in plane crashes has been a tragic reality of air travel. In hindsight, one can say that such a tragedy has been a quasi-bioethical way of making incremental safety protocols. What rats are in scientific research for human biology, humanity has been for aviation advancement. However, these tragedies have also been instrumental in improving the aviation industry. The implementations such as of black boxes, the development of new safety protocols and procedures, the introduction of Crew Resource Management, and advancements in technology are just a few examples of how the industry has improved as a result of plane crashes. 

While we can never completely eliminate the risk of accidents, these changes have helped make air travel one of the safest modes of transportation available today.

Plane crash, plane on fire and smoke. Fear of Air Travel Concept

I May now Return to the Land of the Living but Low-key

A couple days ago, my 7-month-old phone shut down and would not power back on. Can I say I shut it up inadvertently? For lack of tech-telepathy, it was having a ‘weird behaviour’ and while bootstrapping on basic technology skills, I rebooted it. I normally perform this amateurish tech jujitsu but this time, it won’t power back on.

On a friend’s phone, I asked google “Mr. Google, I rebooted my Xiomi Poco m3 phone and it won’t power back on?” Google gave a slew of guidelines, among them, ‘press the power and volume up buttons until the screen lights up’- all of which failed. After my educated efforts proved futile, I determined it would be more educated to take the phone to the ‘Xiomi people’ to check it up.

I don’t consider myself a brand consumer when it comes to smartphones. If I can avoid Techno phones, anything with a larger screen, 128 GB ROM, 4GB or more RAM, 6000 mAh battery or more, and reasonable camera, appeals to me.

I bought this phone last year to defeat a nightmare I have had with smartphones: battery. I conducted research and all expert reviews pointed an endorsing finger at it saying it was the best phone to buy at a competitive price in the Kenyan market at that time. Ironically, a few months after it’s purchase, it became more expensive in the market than when I did. According to Decide, after just 10 days on the market, 10 percent of new Android models have already dropped by a whopping 30 percent of their original price. And after 35 days, half of all new android phones drop in price by 30%. I assumed the manufacturer had not known how potent his innovation was when they first launched, and congratulated myself on the strategic thinking and farsightedness that went into procuring this incredible pocket gizmo.

As a heavy user, I wanted a device I can go out for hours without carrying a charger. Poco m3 made the cut above the rest. My former phone had been HTC desire 10 pro, with a battery capacity of 3000mAh. HTC had great metallic design, sleek appearance but needed charging every half hour and I would order numerous chargers online. But for a smartphone that’s supposed to be dead, Poco m3 is very much the best phone I have ever used and it’s ghost will haunt my future phones forever. It had a humongous battery capacity of 6000 mAh, which gave me the confidence to leave home. The MIUI android operating system, its thoughtful interface, and informatics made it the genius behind Xiomi.

When I returned Poco for repair I was surprised to see heaps of similar phones returned by users. They said the phone model had a technology issue and they were accepting them back and refunding consumers. Earlier returnees received Redmi models of the same specs but subsequent ones got a flat-rate monetary refund. It appears that the humongous battery capacity did not auger with the firmware/motherboard and blacked out at some point in their usage. Even though they have refunded slightly more than I bought the phone for, the amount can’t buy a phone with similar features in a market festooned by inflation and the shilling dropping against the dollar. Economically, we have lost time value of money.

Desperate times, desperate moves

Away from the firmware woes, when it stalled, it meant I would be severed from social media until I upgraded. This is an experience that betrayed my unhealthy dependence on phone. I treated it like home, a place where I lived. I tried stop gap measures like installing twitter and accessing WhatsApp web on my pc yet still realized I was not properly at the center of social media buzz. For a few days, I craved the sound bite media. I missed breaking news and feeds of random strangers. I acquired a brick phone two days later and would look for the snake game or mindlessly press buttons to slake my desire to touch a screen. I even started listening to radio. I would put on earphones everywhere I went and catch up with BBC World Service radio, being apprised of things like the assassination of ex Japan premier, Shinzo Abe, the protests in Sri Lanka, Boris Johnson’s resignation, Wimbledon and the shooting at a South African bar. I wondered what Miguna Miguna twitted about the ‘brave patriotic’ Sri Lankans who stormed into the presidential palace and reveled in the ‘despot’s’ swimming pool.

Takeaways

In a world where everybody and everything is online, it’s good to maintain a certain level of mystery. There is too much noise in the world. The pressure to be available, to respond, to instantly turn grey ticks into blue and accompany them with words and emoticons. My stint in the oblivion has helped me to make sweeping changes in my digital life. To purge from the mental befoulment that comes with a good, long wallow in the stream of online content, as infinite as it is innutritious. I want to develop the discipline to focus on more meaningful things like reading and helping others. I also have upped my digital anonymity, pulling down photos and starting a more reserved lifestyle. Perhaps the only thing I will continue to share online is my life as a runner and thoughts on important topics being discussed.

How long can you/have you gone without a smartphone and what was/is/would be your experience? Share in the comments.

Africa’s Richest Marathon Wanted Me to DNF

I did not train for this race. Got a health scare early this year and had spent a couple months in the doctor’s office.  I, however, finagled a couple of training in April but it was not enough to line up at the start of an official race. Besides, I did not have Nairobi City Marathon in mind as I learnt of it a week prior. I felt ungainly on those few April runs. Data on the running app showed I was getting slower. Despite this, I still signed up for the half marathon option of the event, my favourite distance. I have been enraged by the two years of marathoning drought after normal lives were upended by Covid-19.

Nairobi City Marathon had many an allure that even the most sidelined runner would find irresistible. Besides being the first city marathon post-pandemic, it was an inaugural race staged on top of the new Nairobi Expressway. The government has built it to expand road network in the city and its backwaters. Even though I am from amateur community and therefore not contending for prize, we would run alongside top elite runners. Its prize money is the heftiest in Africa. Even more, it dwarfs the 2021 London Marathon purse by $ 76,000!

This event however, comes off as an eccentric race it being bankrolled by the government. First, it has extraneous alias: Uhuru Classic – a nomenclature synonymous with the president. Also, participants received red shirts, the leitmotif of Jubilee government, a minimalist bib, and a tawdry rucksack. So it is fair to say it wanted to be politically expedient. But as runners, our concern is pounding the tarmac.

However, I did not race in the race shirt.  Not for political reasons but because the rule of thumb is; nothing new on race day. The real reason though is that coming with your training shirt instead of the one provided is considered a kind of sports defiance by runners with years of experience.

The first two kilometres were run outside the expressway. It is characterised by unbridled jostling, trenchant competition by novices, and uproarious celebrations of a ‘distant, near-impossible’ goal. Soon, the verve and pep talks would melt away, thanks to the glamorous pain of distance running.

Once we hit the expressway, the zeitgeist of the race took a new turn. I begun to not noticing what was happening in the here and now. I did not know that cars were moving underneath me, or a trader procuring tomatoes at Muthurwa market, or someone eating boiled eggs in Gedi lane. I did not remember that it was mothers day or that Uhuru Kenyatta , who flagged of the race, is the president of Kenya. My mind focused on the majestic task at hand, digging in a little, wiping sweat with my hand from the face, adjusting underpants, and hoping that stitch won’t start. Running takes you away from the lived world into dystopia where the only struggle is to be indifferent to pain.

Whenever I glimpsed at a runner beside me, I wondered whether they would reach the finish. They are heaving so bad, rocking their head and stirring the air so miserably. They are focusing as if to escape death by the teeth of their skin. It is not football, where you pass on the ball and fall back. It is a test of human endurance, one foot in front of the other until you have outlasted the distance.

Since I run a little faster, I left a vast majority of runners behind. After I found the rhythm, I raced so hard to set several miles behind me. On reaching the 20th Km mark, I was surprised to meet a steep hill leading to turns I did not anticipate. Running is a mind game and I had not expected these final brutal turns. What I saw was a straight line after exiting the expressway, the harmless Douglas Wakiihuri road and the home stretch. That is why when I saw the turns, my mind switched off, legs became wobbly and I bonked.  I had reached where my mind was set to reach. As last resort, I switched to run with my heart in a run-walk strategy to convert myself into the stadium. I can’t blame the organizers. They wrote in the runner’s guide that they reserve the right to change the route or distance to be covered and might well have  exercised their authority. It is the first time I have walked in a race.

This user guide indicated a straight line after exiting expressway. What I found instead is brutal turns. By knowing the finish line and how far we have to go until we get there, our brains calculate how fast we can go and tell us how tired we are.

Even with walking, I ranked 222 out of 1, 659, all genders combined. Majority of athletes who outlasted me are elites whose speed is a far cry from mine. But amateur runners don’t have to beat anyone. The goal is to be better than the way you used to be.

Before one dies, they probably need to run a marathon. DNF* – Did Not Finish.

Do We Understand How Fast Kipchoge Runs?

It is no-brainer that Eliud Kipchoge is an extraordinary marathoner. So much has been documented about him to cement such agreement. But do we really understand how fast he is? If we want to know how fast Eliud Kipchoge runs, the secret is not in vicarious consumption of recorded data from marathons that depict his splits. The secret is in consuming those data and also in trying to run ourselves, at whatever pace.

As a recreational runner, I’ve become fairly talented at distance running. I ran my first half marathon in 90 minutes and the second one in 74 minutes during the 2020 First Lady’s Beyond Zero campaigns. I log miles five days a week and perform pilates to strengthen the core yet, I can’t keep up with Kipchoge’s speed for more than a kilometer. My lifetime best is 3:30 per kilometer according to strava (running app) data.

When he ran the Ineos 1:59 challenge in October 2019, he never went slower than 2 min 52 sec per Km, with the fastest split being 2:48 to boot. On average, his speed was 2:50 per Km for the entire journey. His retinue of 41 world-class pacemakers wore an intense mien – a closer study of the video shows their lips trembling as their bodies get worked. They were being rotated yet Kipchoge was being there, with the unwavering precisive pace of laser beams mounted on electric car. The amount of training and mental toughness it takes to do this is ineffable. Such speed should not be classified as running, that is pure sprinting. And to sprint 42.195Km sub two hours is still mind-blowing to researchers, who suggested in Medicine and Science in Sport’s and Exercise journal of American College of Sports Medicine that such feat would not be achieved until May 2032.

When Kipchoge ran the London marathon in 2020, and faced a debacle occasioned by blockage of his right ear – which failed to open even after he tried all devices known to him, it took many people by surprise. How could the greatest of all be encumbered by a mere ear blockage? Right? Some derided the maestro with memes on social media. But if you’ve run a little, you will know that at elite level performance, at Kipchoge’s speed so to speak, even the best athlete can be stymied by a modicum of anomaly. Something as trivial as a pimple on the cheek or a bird’s poop from nowhere could be a great undoing. The throes of elite level running can be appreciated only by someone who has made a stub at running because it is by experience that we learn best.

Eliud Kipchoge is a mass of moving energy and blood. He feeds off pain and comes about as an intelligent breathing machine – the efficiency with which his system consumes copious amounts of gas to maintain such speed is amazing. His cadence is legendary, when he lifts his foot closer to the butt area, as it appears to me, you can only imagine where it lands next with alacrity. That same foot is rotated with swiftness, it doesn’t stay on the ground, it just ‘kisses’ it, whether on uphill, downhill, while taking drinks, not taking drinks, waving to fans or not waving to fans. Eliud Kipchoge is an enigma whose face, deserves to be printed on a durable material and distributed door to door all over the world as a wall hanging. He is an alien who crash landed on earth to elude time and distance.

Endurance running is tough and Eliud Kipchoge’s speed is indeed unreal and we can only appreciate it better if we care to run a little, and not solely through reminiscence at the comfort of our homes.

Celebrating Two Years of Consistent Running

Beyond Zero half Marathon

Thousands of miles logged, two half marathons graced, and four pairs of running shoes sloughed off, what started as a quixotic quest to lose fats on the cheeks has become a way of life. In the words of Hal Higdon I can say: it’s not so much that I begun to run, but that I continued.

The initial plan was to commit for only three months. I’d read original research papers and meta-analyses from Mayo Clinic et al which concluded that to see any significant outcome from workout, one has to exercise for 12 weeks – and from my reasoning capacity of a gargle of chickens, I thought 12 weeks was enough to sculpt me into shape once and for all. Three months seemed as though I would deserve public approbation at the end of it, complete with press conference to give secrets from my performance.

Now running has shown up as a friend who wants to grow old with me together. In every neighbourhood I’ve moved into, I’ve been first a runner then denizen. And regardless of how tough life gets or how unrewarding a day can be, I’ve always run first.

I’ve never had interest in running while growing up. Once in primary school, a teacher tried to kill us when, without training, he put us on cross country for an entire week in the rural villages surrounding the school. The results of this harebrained experiment was detrimental, our muscles sored really bad, prompting some pupils to miss school. In high school, I’d hide to avoid taking two laps around the pitch even though I now pay to run! I’d read magazines about Mo Farah, Britain’s greatest ever athlete and wondered how it’s possible for a human being to run 10, 000 meters. I wasn’t conversant with marathon running, a far cry from 10, 000 meters. From my primary school experience, and reading these mind blowing magazines, I never imagined I could run for 5 minutes, leave alone the 90 minutes I clocked in my first ever half marathon.

Statistics

Stats from Strava

By shifting the tectonic plates of my mind through deliberate training, I’ve run more than 10, 000m (25 laps in a standard pitch) five days per week, mixed with half marathons, 15Ks and speed runs. 24 months later, my lifetime best in 5K is 18:29, 10K; 37:52, and 74 minutes for half marathon – my favourite distance. My aplomb to clock 74 minutes at the 2020 First Lady’s Beyond Zero half marathon was hellacious. I bit more than I could chew, consigning myself to getting ripped up by jaws of Satan in Dante’s third layer of hell. But at the finish line, I was excited to have gone all in and created a moment that would live on. Only an advanced runner can finish a half marathon in anything less than 80 minutes or a 10k under 40 minutes or a 5k under 20.

10K Personal Best

Seen it all

There is no bad weather I’ve not run in, whether it’s freezing temperatures below 13°C, rain of cats and dogs or windy conditions. Under the ineffectual whirr of cold breeze, I attempted to run in the scorching sun of 3:20pm and quit after 12.18k. These conditions have not only given me a bad ass credit, they’ve improved my mental toughness and ameliorated my endurance. For surfaces, a huge chunk of the 24 months involved running on pavement – I even named myself ‘pavement runner & primitive mouth breather’. I’ve enjoyed running on asphalt (main road) during races and dirt/earth when I show up in the evenings. Dirt/earth is rated the third best surface to run on after grass and woodland by the Runner’s World. Pavement/concrete is almost the worst surface, that’s why in distance running, shoe is king – you want one that has lightweight cushioning and high energy return.

Hot

Injuries

Running might be seen by the uninitiated as an injury free sport which is wrong when you consider what the tens of thousands of pounding in just a single run does to the tendons, muscles and ligaments. It is an extreme sport replete with injuries – shin splints, Achilles tendinitis, stress fractures, ankle sprains, runner’s knee, IT band syndrome among others. Pursuing mens sana in corpore sano ( a healthy mind in a healthy body) for 24 months has left injuries in it’s wake. My weakest link has been the runner’s stomach, plantar fasciitis and proximal hamstring tendinopathy. Runners’s stomach, a catch-all term that represents the many ways your stomach can attempt to sabotage you during a run occurs due to agitation of the digestive system during high-endurance exercise. I’ve cancelled several morning runs due to stomach distresses and even debulked once at 5am on desuetude railway line. Poop stories maybe unsettling to non runners but are common among runners.

Safety

In the morning of 2nd August 2019, I escaped being brushed by a rogue motorist. Running in a city like Nairobi, with roads designed minus runners in mind involves working at cross-purpose – while you are trying to preserve your life through sport, the traffic is conspiring to snap it. Cyclists have no choice but for runners, the golden safety rule is to stick to pavement, and while on it, run against the traffic.

Diet Culture

I no longer run to lose weight, I run to be free, including the freedom to feel food entitled. While we can never outrun a bad diet, I never have a restrictive diet culture – categorizing food into bad and good. The job of figuring out food would unsettle my mental health. My basic diet culture involves not taking fizzy drinks and reducing sugar intake to just one spoon in a day (Hardest things I’ve done recently and I see myself returning to fizzy drinks, abstemiously).

My Takeaways

Running reminds me that I’m stronger than I think and can achieve more than I ever imagined. A lifestyle of running is possible through consistency, self-discipline and hard work. It’s benefits are already clear to whoever set foot in class. Legend has it that if you say you can’t run, you not only deny history, you deny yourself. Finally, sometimes the weight we need to lose is not on our body but in our mind and Michael D’aulerio said it better – “It’s not the distance you must conquer in running, it’s yourself.”

KEY WORDS

• Half Marathon – 21.1K road race.

• K – Runner’s rebellious way of writing  Km

• Plantar fasciitis – stabbing pain near the heel, mine caused mainly by wrong landing.
• Proximal hamstring tendinopathy – affects ‘back of the thigh,’ one of the most important muscle groups in running.
• IT Band Syndrome – Iliotibial Band Syndrome

How I ran the StanChart Marathon in 90 Minutes

I started running on 12th March 2019. As the first run, I looped around a slightly half the Olympic size community pitch in an oversize pair of shorts and a white promotional T-shirt 80 times! I was angry at myself and cheeks – which had been mocked for being clinically chubby. I thought I would conquer them in a matter of 80 revolutions.

On the second day, my neighbour took me on road running for about 40 minutes, an experience that gave me an open disavowal to looping a muddy, wet pitch.

Third day, I rebelled from my neighbour and discovered own route defined by wide sidewalks and freedom from a durable feeling of being hit by motorists. Measuring the distance on Strava, the route sat at a staggering 10.22km. I’ve been executing this distance five times in a week with a Zen like consistency.

In August, I got on a wild runner’s high and did 29 days without a care in the world (world to mean pain in the knees, lower back and groin)! That’s only 296.38km. If you run this distance 22.227 times from Nairobi, in the coordinates 16°46’24.53″N, 3°0’26.71″W, you are in Timbuktu!

Mastering this game for 7 months convinced me I was ripe to enter local races. When the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon reared its charitable running nose, I was excited I’m taking my first experience.

With a new found resilience from 10.22k regime, I dabbled in the thought of jumping into the 42.195Km and only disregarded it when I learnt it would be a big jump and a-not-a-nice-way to make a debut. I had read street-wise in-the-face articles, which convinced me it would be a tragic overambition considering I hadn’t achieved the level of training into it.

According to damn experts, It’s similar to coming to a gun fight with a knife and expecting to win. Even more, I’m not Eliud Kipchoge.

So I started a bespoke training for 21.1k and developing a mindset that would impact me winning the game. On the last training, I went full swing and did 21.26Km in 1:54: 56 to keep my preparation on top gear and have a model 21.1k experience. It was the kind of training that reassured me the half marathon was well worth pursuing.

Initially, I was afraid of the feat as the once far-off race day started to become real. What if I have to pee during the race? I was not me when I finished a 10k yet, here I was contending for slightly double the effort.

When the destined day came, I ate and went to bed early. I took some over the counter drugs to clear my stomach to avoid stopping on the race to use a washroom. My waterloo in running is the runner’s stomach – a condition in which the digestive system experience a large amount of agitation from the act of running or high-endurance exercise.

There was the blurring of music at the start with a mammoth of ecstatic men and women doing all manner of stretching to make a statement. The road was thick at the start. I combed through the masses and found myself running in a leaner road from the 6th Km mark.

Running with crowd means exposure to certain elements like the spit of a discourteous runner. At about the 8th km, a runner slowed me down by lodging a thick saliva on my very mouth as I tried to pass him. I hated my mouth for what it was – a cesspit of viscera full of bio hazards. I cleaned it with my clothe as I rushed to the nearest water point.

When I started to run towards the city, I turned faster runners into pacers and major milestones, spotting and passing them one at a time.

I came to StanChart to run in 106 minutes given my prior personal bests. When I hit my stopwatch at the finish line, I was surprised I made it in 90 minutes (1:30:04) unofficial time. This is a phenomenal speed for a casual marathoner! For males, the average half marathon finish time is 1:55:26 in UK according to the Runner’s World. Why I chose UK as my measuring stick is because RunRepeat data suggests that the half marathon is the preferred distance of Europe.

Reasons why I achieved this can be attributed to the following:

1. Unlike during training where I run on empty stomach, on the marathon, I grabbed a morsel and a cup of coffee and drank about 1litre of glucose-enabled warm water an hour to the start. Running with a little food in the stomach makes a huge difference for me.

2. The training terrain is a little terrible, you need to sidestep pedestrians, ditches and motorists. This doesn’t happen in the marathon as the road is smooth and well defined.

3. Water handed over by the marathon officials also made a difference.

4. In everything that I do, I apply 100% passion. I don’t do things in halves. I’m either going to do it or I’m not going to do it.

Finally, I’m registering (or would love you to register me) for the beyond zero half marathon in March. I will come back later with an article on how I anticipate to run it in 75 minutes, comparing and contrasting those strategies with those of StanChart marathon.

I’ve been Running for 3 Months, Here are the Otherworldly Results

Trail shoes

Chubby cheeks

My body transformation journey started when I had a video call with a friend. To my chagrin, she commented on how chubby my cheeks had become and congratulated me on the quote unquote good life I was leading (I’m convinced I ‘ve never had chubby cheeks, only people look funny in video, but lets assume I did).

Nevertheles, I didn’t want to interpret as a badge of honour the thought of having a pack of subcutenous fat dangling all over my twenty-something-year-old body. Clinically chubby cheeks is a harbinger of a difficult future and not a yardstick for living standards or lack thereof.

It meant I would take up a workout challenge that promises a leaner body and reduces my chance of all-cause mortality by an outsize percentage. Besides the quest for a lean body, this journey has taught me an incredible amount about my body and overall health. I’ve discovered my latent elemental resources that would remain that way except through hitting the road.

After I was saddled with this amount of ‘body shaming,’ I tagged my cousin to the shop two days later to scout for a good cushioned trail shoe.

I chose running over others for its efficiency. It is free to run so I have no excuse if I’m unable to subscribe to a gym facility. You don’t need a field, a court or arena. Furthermore, besides a good pair of running shoes, there is no special equipment. All you have to do is lace up your shoes and hit the road right from your door step!

Not a jolly jaunt

As a beginner, I set a target of running for three months. All I’ve wanted is to show up five days a week, for 1½ hours and build endurance and a habit. Experts say it takes at least 12 weeks (3 months) to experience significant benefits from a workout program.Its not a jolly jaunt when you first begin. If exercise could be bottled up and sold as a drug, it would be a billion-dollar business.

Your own body is resisting your helping it! It is not used to stresses and strains of running. It is like sponsoring a kid to school and they tell you they are better off without an education.

My heart pumped so painfully and thighs hurt so bad. Legs became numb and heavy. My body felt like it had been run over by a truck. Now I don’t experience any of that and can run for 21km with an amazing cadence!

Primitive mouth breather

As a naive, clueless beginner, I did a lot of stuff wrong: leaping instead of taking small steps, landing on the toes instead of midsole and breathing solely through the nose. With intense reading, I’m learning the art of running and that I need to breath through the mouth because the nose is very small and can’t sustain the enormous gas requirements. Its to say I’ve become a primitive mouth breather!

Tremendous Respect

I opened up to two strangers we shared a table at an hotel about my running enthusiasm. The first question was that can’t I get mugged while running in the streets in the morning. There is really nothing to mugg off of an athlete in a Nairobi street. People have tremendous respect for us. They give way and jealously watch as you do something they are not.

Majority of motorists stop and give you the yellow light to cross the road. You meet fellow runners who shout out ‘strooooong’ as others raise their both hands in the air in a show of camaraderie. Some clap for you and you clap back.

What gets measured gets managed

My starting body weight was 75.1Kg with a BMI of 23.8. I’m pleasantly surprised I’ve added weight! My current weight is 75.46 with a BMI of 23.95. Weight loss is not a helpful concept because you want to lose fat and gain muscle (which is heavier than fat). The scale only provide one number, your absolute weight which isn’t always the best assessment of changes in your weight, or more importantly, your fitness. Plus I’ve been drinking gallons of water, which might have added water weight. Remember, a perfect outcome is not required either in any other aspect of life.

However, there are elements that have been enjoyable, such as the physical response of my body, the feeling of getting stronger, and the pleasure that comes with mastering a sport. Success is continuously improving who you are.

My last pavement stretch from Donholm to Umoja Innercore.

Health facts

Fact one: As a young person with energy to spare, exercising regularly sets a good precedence for your sunset years and retain your agility as you grow old. A simple one hour exercise can break down up to 755 calories in your body!

Fact two: Workout can prove frustrating if you push yourself too hard and expect instant results. It is not possible to shed weight you’ve packed up for years in a month. A standard work out programme requires at least 12 weeks (3 months) to achieve any meaningful results.

Fact three: When you do something every day, you don’t notice any difference at that moment. You think, “Where are the benefits?” But when you keep doing it for a long time, the positive effects compound. The snowball effect of compounding is a concept you must adapt to.So happy to have made a fitness decision to transform my life from sedentary to running, to move from one step to another.

I don’t walk the talk. I run the talk