Trash Day

Today was trash day in Area 9. This morning when I went on my easy run, I saw about 15 different groups of guys – from old men to young boys – going through the garbage of the people who live in our neighborhood. They were all carrying bags that were spilling over with plastic bottles, plastic jumbos (grocery bags), and other things that could be either used or sold for pennies. I didn’t see any food, but I’m sure they were pulling that out too.

Last Thursday, I encountered a plastic-bottle man walking through one of the fancier neighborhoods in Lilongwe. The plastic-bottle man is literally covered with plastic bottles; he has them draped on ropes over his shoulders, arms and across his back. He spends his day walking the streets, and calling out in a sing-songy voice for people to bring their bottles out. Occasionally, he comes across some in the trash or gets lucky as someone brings them out from behind a gate. I don’t know what he can get for them, but it can’t be more than a dollar or two. This for a full day’s work.

The trash guys and the plastic-bottle men are always friendly. They smile, and if their hands aren’t full, they give me a thumbs up when I run by. I thought one of them was going to join me today, but he thought better of it at the last minute. I must admit I was relieved. After all, how would I feel being beaten down the street by a man covered in plastic?

Also out in full force during my run this morning were the Learner (note the capital “L”) drivers. A driver’s license is a coveted, if rare, commodity in Malawi. Even though only the tiniest fraction of Malawians actually own cars, having a driver’s license can be the ticket to a wealthier future, especially for young men.

Transportation is a major industry in Malawi; with a driver’s license, you can be a driver for an organization (nearly every company, government agency or NGO has them), drive a minibus (little minivans, which are the way 99% of people get around), steer a truck or pilot a lorry. Malawi has an agriculture-based economy, so there is always something that needs hauling: corn, tobacco, vegetables, farming equipment, people.

Getting the money together to pay for driving lessons (about $200) is quite a feat in and of itself. Once you manage, you choose from a myriad of schools, where you must attend lessons for 40 days. That’s right: 40 days of driving lessons! And I swear that every school does half of its lessons in my neighborhood. Because it has paved roads and relatively light traffic, it is ideal for student driving. Which makes it not, of course, ideal for pedestrians.

Running while driving school happens around you feels uncomfortably like a game of Frogger where everyone is watching to see you go splat. At every corner, people in groups of about 10-12 are sitting and waiting for their turn at the wheel. To be more efficient -- and because most schools only have 1-2 cars, often beat-up pieces of crap -- the cars load up with pupils at the office, cramming as many as possible into the car. Once they get into the practice zone, they then drop most of them off, carrying only a comfortable number of students for each pass around the neighborhood. Today there must have been 10 schools going at one time.

During my entire route today, drunken-like cars were swerving to avoid bicycles, walkers, and each other. They would back up and forward in fits and starts. They’d barrel off the road and onto the dirt, spinning their wheels before lurching forward. Two of the companies, I have noted with trepidation, are named “Spot Success” and “Quick Pass.” I try to especially steer clear of them.

While running, I scurried by every car, giving each one as wide a berth as possible. Sometimes I found myself running in the middle of the road, between two passing cars. Once I nearly got mowed over by a truck that suddenly decided to practice driving backwards. A couple of times I got huge cheering sections when I ran by groups waiting for their turn to drive.

I ran for 45 minutes and barely even noticed.

***

The Sunday 2-hour long run felt sluggish again this weekend. It felt much longer than it was, and towards the end I complained to Jimmy that I didn’t know why I felt so bad. I thought, I said, that I had “gotten over the hump.”

He laughed. “What?” I demanded. “Janie,” he said, like he was addressing a small child who should definitely know better but still needs to be told: “There is no hump.”

Oh yeah.

But today, I thought again, I am over the hump. I measured out a mile in the neighborhood and thought I would clock myself running easily, just to see what kind of times I am running at a pace that feels very relaxed. Both ways, I hit sub-8:30 miles, which makes me think that either a) my car speedometer is calibrated incorrectly or b) I am in better shape than I thought I was, meaning 8-minute miles is a very realistic goal for me at the Houston marathon in January.

Either could be possible. One is more likely than the other. But for the sake of rounding things up, I’m going with the latter.

Five Ambassador's Hill Repeats

I am finally reaching a point where running is feeling more a comfortable part of the rhythm of life. It has taken about 6 weeks, but my legs are feeling less like squeaky wheels and more like…well, I can’t take that metaphor to its logical conclusion, as the correct term is nothing close to “well oiled machines.” But I can say that daily running is feeling more like a given, as opposed to a daily slog I have to wring out of a lethargic soul. When I get moving, it takes less time for me to get into the running mindset than it did even a month ago, and I am actually enjoying the running part more and more – instead of just anxiously awaiting its end.

Yesterday as I was running I was thinking about how lucky I am to be aware of the phases my body and mind have to progress through in order to get to this point. If I didn’t, I would certainly capitulate after the first few painful runs. I totally understand how beginning runners try and quit; I simply count myself lucky that I was stupid enough to refuse to give up running despite the loneliness and misery during those first months of my first marathon training in 1995.

The running journey – mind, body, soul – is so enigmatic and difficult to explain to others. During coaching for the Austin marathon, I remember begging my first-time marathoners who were threatening mutiny after 3 weeks into the program: “Give it 8 weeks. Please!” Why, they would ask. Will the pain go away? I would always feel at a loss for words, and stumble out with something true but hardly comforting: “No. But you know all those things that feel terrible and painful now? You’ll be happy about them then!” Eyebrows raised, more than a few were known to back away, as you would in the presence of a crazy person, and never return.

And rightly so. It is kind of crazy, this evolution that happens when running regularly becomes -- well, regular again. Somehow, I start associating morning soreness with a positive feeling about myself. I relate constant hunger to an active physical engine. Oddly enough, even not-so-healthy sensations – getting lightheaded when I get out of a chair too fast in the afternoon after a hard morning run, for instance – reminds me that I am pushing myself past what is comfortable.

And strangely enough, that feels normal.

I was thinking about all this yesterday as I ran 5 repeats of the Ambassador’s hill, which I have christened such because its last 10 meters pass the house of the American Ambassador to Malawi.

You might think that, being in the 11th poorest country in the world, the American Ambassador’s house in Malawi would be a bit understated. This, however, does not seem to be the case, unless you consider 1970s cheesy architecture to be inconspicuous. The house is a one-story lodge-type building, with some palm trees and tennis courts out back. About 5 SUVs hulk in the driveway. The best way to share the image with you is to hearken back to the 2005-2006 season of “24.” Remember President Logan’s pad: The sprawling one with lots of rooms? The one with wood paneling on the ceilings and walls that seemed to be there simply to muffle the conspiracies? Not that I really have any idea, since my encounters have only occurred when I am about 100 meters away and in a hypoxic state.

But anyway, all that is to say that there is a killer hill just outside his house. I am now reinstating a mid-week medium-long run with some hard running in the middle – hill repeats now, and probably progressive pace or speedwork later on. So yesterday, I sandwiched the hill repeats between two segments of easy running.

I made it back to my car after an hour and twenty minutes. When I got there, my legs were tired and twitchy, the bottom of my face was covered -- beard like -- in dirt, my eyes were stingy from sweat, and I was dehydrated.

The dominant thought in my mind as I stood by the car, tying to catch my breath? How nice to feel normal again.