In the early hours of Sunday October 31^st 2021, a Covid era, muted version of the renowned Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon was launched at the Carnivore grounds. My running colleague and I arrived at the starting point at about 05:40 hours navigating in the dark through a green t-shirted sea of humanity that was walking, cycling, wheelchair pushing or jogging to the starting point. The breaking dawn air was thick with a palpable community of sporting purpose and the Covid phantom could not suppress the general camaraderie that Kenyans share at large events where tribe, race and economic stature are completely irrelevant.

The event was well secured with resources from the police as well as a private security firm. All security parties had been given a brief that was well executed: no one could enter the general vicinity of the starting point without a wrist band that was only issued to verified, Covid-19 vaccinated participants.

As earlier mentioned, I was with a colleague who is an accomplished runner for pleasure, so he had signed up for the 21km half marathon. The way the marathon works is that the elite professional runners [read the serious guys who do this for a living and run a kilometre in the time it takes you to inhale one sip of your favourite double cappuccino) line up right at the front of the starting block and the amateur runners stand at the back. Once the starter’s gun went off, the 21km runners left and I distinctly recall standing with my mouth agape as I saw the wizened face of a little old lady, quite likely aged 74 to 76 years with beige colored headscarf loosely tied on top of her head heading off with the amateur runners. Later, as we post-mortemed our way through the event, my colleague told me the old lady blasted past him about 15 minutes into the 21km race and he never saw her again. Yoh!

And that is what made me put pen to paper about this event. There were so many epic Eliud Kipchoge inspired “No human is limited” moments that I came away from the function completely awed. Let me begin with the stars of the show, the elite 42km runners. It’s one thing watching those guys and girls on the television screen. It’s another seeing them on the opposite side of the road gliding past you in formation, sweat glinting off the faces set rigid with determination and backs ramrod straight. It is actually a marvel to observe as I recently started running about a year ago and getting past the chest burning, hips and knees caving, foot arches exploding physical conversation with yourself is a herculean task. As I had done a pathetic excuse of a pre-marathon training [read, I started and stopped but foolishly decided to do the marathon anyway] I was pretty much doubled up in poor posture, legs shuffling all over the tarmac but rabidly determined to jog my way without a single walking step on the 10km that I had signed up for.

About 3 kms into the race, the route looped back and I could see the 10km runners ahead of me now on the opposite side of the road. My second jaw dropping occasion was seeing the Stanchart Kenya CEO, Kariuki Ngari trail blazing his way with the amateur 10Km pack, not breaking a sweat. A few metres behind him was the Stanchart Kenya Board chairperson, Kellen Kariuki, running while comfortably chatting with another participant without losing a single breath at a time I was struggling to mentally formulate a basic ‘Why the hell am I doing this race?’ sentence!  It’s important to put this into context: Kellen was my senior at Citibank when I first started working in the banking industry and Kariuki was my senior at Barclays when I joined the institution back in 2003. There they were both ahead of me, not on the professional career track but on the Southern Bypass tarmac, running effortlessly and royally waving at me like the very Queen herself causing me to realign my mental mind maps on exactly what professional seniority meant.  I straightened my back one inch, determined to show them that we were together. I almost fell on my face doing it. But I can speak without fear of contradiction, that was a CEO and Board Chair leading from the front.

Last Sunday’s marathon was a true testimony to the resilience of the human spirit, and the great community of runners of all races, ages, fitness levels and genders who came together to push their mental and physical limits. The wheelchair participants who raced pushing the wheels, many of whom did not use gloves, were incredible in their tenacity. The whole event was a marvel to both watch and participate and a stark “Kipchogean” reminder of that no human is limited.

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Twitter: @carolmusyoka