Bless Those Hashers!

I ran with the Lilongwe Hash House Harriers last night. The HHH are a worldwide club – “Drinkers with a running problem” – and a nice point of familiarity that you can find in almost nearly city around the world. Most weekly runs consist of a track that has been laid with flour earlier in the day, with various checkpoints and dead-ends along the way. At the end there are silly songs, mockeries of various people for no good reason, and – of course – plenty of beer.

Last night there was a big group of about 40 people. The run started off in spurts; for the first few checkpoints we would run for 3 minutes and then wait around to regroup for another 5. But eventually we got into a good running rhythm. Jimmy was running in the front pack with some guys who were showing off for each other, while I was stuck somewhere behind in no-man’s land. Eventually I decided to try to bridge the gap (I won’t deny simulating Paul and Phil Tour de France commentary as I did so) and caught them. The last 15 minutes felt like a hard tempo run with other people around to push you. Which was, fantastically, exactly what it was.

Another thing I like about hash runs is the people you meet. Last night during the run I met a guy who had just spent 14 months in Iraq working on a democracy project; he was vacationing in Malawi and on his way to Nigeria. (“Yep,” he joked, “Democracy in Iraq, check. Now it’s time to move on to Nigeria.”) He told me about running in Baghdad around Sadaam Hussein’s palace with an armored tank and four guards. “Sure beats the treadmill,” he said.

I also met the veterinarian who lives down the street from us. I had seen the sign outside her clinic but, because of the big walls with barbed wire that we live behind, had never seen past her gate. She is British but has been in Malawi for 12 years. She told me that there is a group that does long runs every Saturday morning – “with a big breakfast afterwards.”

If I can’t have Magnolia Café, maybe it’s the next best thing!

Long Run, But Short on Patience

Jimmy and I spent this weekend at Senga Bay, a fishing and tourist village about halfway up the coast of Lake Malawi. Lake Malawi sits in a depression in the African Rift Valley, and people call it the Calendar Lake because they say it is 365 miles long and 52 miles wide. (Personally, I think this assertion is crap, but what am I going to do – Go out and measure it myself?) What I do know to be true is that there are many and good-tasting fish in that lake, so going for the weekend is a chance to eat well and local.

Saturday morning we headed out for a 2-hour run, the first of my new training cycle. I have to admit that I wasn't feeling particularly peppy. I am not one of those people for whom running is pure bliss -- who finds a lesson, if not an epiphany, in every run. I am still not sure about the whole "runner's high" thing, and my runs tend to be determined by similar criteria to the rest of my daily activities: my mood, whether I am tired, where I am on the lazy-meter.

Saturday morning, I was enjoying reading and sitting around, slightly hung over -- I had put down two gin and tonics in short order the night before while chatting with some Dutch medical students volunteering in Malawi. But after a couple of cups of coffee, Jimmy and I realized that despite the fact that all science would point to the fact that it is winter here, it's starting to feel an awful like what I know as summer.

There was no real route planned, but we headed across the sand of the village and up on to the main road, which, while not particularly scenic, at least promised sure footing. Or so I thought. Within 10 minutes, though, I was face down on the ground, bleeding from my elbows and my knee.

Which just managed to further foul my mood. Falling on my face while running, unfortunately, is a pretty regular occurrence, but it does nothing to part a dark cloud. Men rode by on bicycles, little girls carrying baby brothers and sisters on their backs, women pumped water at boreholes. I cursed at all of them in my head.

We shuffled along in silence, at least verbally (I was busy complaining to myself inside my head). Soon afterwards, we turned down a dirt road and were promptly joined by about 5 little girls in dresses. All of them were covered in dirt, but they were screaming and singing and laughing as they ran as a group, right on our heels. At one point, Jimmy said, “Do you think they need a surprise?” He counted to three and we both turned around and charged towards them like big white lumbering bulls with tennis shoes.

Of course, they were terrified and ran screaming the other way as fast as they could. Some hid behind trees, others laid down on the ground. But when they got over being afraid, we could hear them giggling behind us. Sure enough, soon they had regrouped and were back on our heels.

The rest of the run proceeded this way. We stop and bought cold cokes in bottles at a tiny roadside vendor while a crowd gathered to watch us drink. We turned down another dirt road and suddenly “Hellos” were coming from everywhere and little Malawian heads appeared like Jack in the Boxes: in the corn fields, from behind a mud hut, in the window of an unfinished brick building. Close to the end of the run I caught myself laughing each time a head would pop out suddenly in front of us – “Hello! Hello!” – and realized that despite myself, the persistence of strangers had changed my whole attitude towards the run.

We completed it tired, dehydrated, and slow – but finished. I am not sure what to expect from my training in terms of fitness, but I have a feeling that I will have more fans to cheer me on than I could have ever expected – or deserved.

Let the Blogging Begin!

I have started running again, and with that comes new things. Cramping legs in the middle of the night, perpetual hunger, getting antsy with one day off of running. And, for me this go-round, a blog.

I honestly don’t know why I feel the need to chronicle this extracurricular aspect of my life. Maybe to hold myself to some kind of external accountability. Maybe because I find running in Africa to be pretty interesting. Could be that it’s nice to have someone to talk to about running, and with the options limited in Malawi, the computer screen seems like the next best thing.

Maybe it’s because my moment-to-moment thoughts reach me in the format of a constant narrative that spools through my head every second I am awake. And when I am running is the time that I pay most attention.

But there are more tangible reasons too. My current plan is to run a marathon in Texas in early 2008, and I want to break the 3:30 barrier that has been eluding me. In January 2006, 2 months before we came to Malawi, I ran a 3:32. My training had been well structured (thanks, Steve Sisson) but too short; at 11 weeks, I felt like I had to push too hard too fast to get to the fitness level I needed to go sub-3:30.

So I am trying again. But with a very different set of circumstances. Since we came to Africa about a year and a half ago, I have made fits and starts at getting back into a regular running routine. It feels like mostly fits, but I guess there have been starts: Jimmy and I even went so far as to run the Two Oceans marathon (actually 35 miles) back in April.

However, training has been kind of a drag and, without a longer-term goal, not much more than going through the motions of the long run that had to be done each weekend. I also am without running partners, except for Jimmy. (Jimmy is a great partner for a lot of things but right now already has to wear multiple hats of husband, best friend, wailing wall, and all-purpose familiar figure -- so he is a little overstretched). I don’t have a coach, or even really a schedule, but I think that’s ok for now.

I do have a tentative plan: Ramp up mileage to the point where I feel comfortable at about 45 miles/week (try to stay within the 10% rule to reduce injury risk). Hill repeats at least once a week, and a hilly long run if possible. Possibly adding one tempo-ish run, depending on how it affects my ability to recover, which I think is crucial right now.

This will be my first week at about 40 miles. I can’t really track mileage, so I am going on time instead. Today I did hill repeats on the hill known as “Korea Garden Lodge,” about an 800-meter hill that doesn’t look super steep but kicks up nastily enough times to get your really winded by the top.

I was supposed to do 65 minutes today. Even though I finished in 63, my log reads 65. Hence the impetus of this blog’s name. You guessed it, I’m a sucker for rounding it up.