Tambacounda Half Marathon

In early December 2013 I found myself in a very nice Peace Corps car heading up to Tambacounda.  Why was I in this air-conditioned car, what was my purpose in Tambacounda, besides of course, seeing the amazing Tamba volunteers?  Because I was going to run in the Tambacounda half marathon.  Why did I run?  That is something I asked myself occasionally and was asked frequently.  I remember having many conversations with Katie Curtis about why the heck I was planning on running it.

“So you’re coming to Tamba to run in the race right?”

“Yup”

“And you’re still intending to run the half marathon?”

“Yup”

“You do realize that there is also a 5k and a 10k run.  You don’t even jog, I don’t want you to get heat exhaustion and die.  Just run the 10k.”

“Nah, Ima run the half”

“But why?”

And “why” is really the question.  I mean, why do we do what we do?  What drives people to climb Mount Everest or swim the English Channel?  Because it is there!  I wanted to set my mind to something, strive and dedicate myself to that purpose, and succeed.  I don’t know, I guess I was at the point in my service where I wanted to prove to myself that I could set a goal, no matter how unlikely it was, do my best to prepare myself, and then go out and achieve it.  Maybe if I succeeded in the half marathon I could translate that success to other areas I find myself deficient.

So I had a little over a month to train for this race.  I decided I would jog every day at an increasing distance until the week of the race.  So that's how I found myself in shorts, in my running shoes, walking through my village to the road that leads to Guingara.  Many heads were turned,

“Hey Hamady, what are you doing?”
 “I’m going to run.”
 “But why?”
 “Fii esport!!”

And I was off, jogging for the first time in God knows how long.  It was about 5 minutes into my jog when I realized, “I’ve made a terrible mistake”.

But I gritted my teeth and got through it for about a 45 minute jog.  I went to bed that night exhausted, but satisfied.  Jogging was actually a great activity.  Because I was jogging on the road to Guingara I met many people from that village that I didn’t know, and I was able to alternate routes to different villages and in that way met people from Thiobo, Santanko, Baratinguira, and Takouru as well.  The days I didn’t jog I was asked, “Hey Hamady, I didn’t see you jog today!”

 “Today was my day off!”.

I can’t say that I ran every day, but I tried my best.  For a week in November that I wanted to train I went out to Saraya to help with the end-season sweeps for PECADOM PLUS.  I wasn’t able to jog then, but I tried to ask to go to the more distant villages so I could get some exercise riding my bike.

So there I was, in the Peace Corps car heading to Tambacounda.  I had done the best I could to prepare myself for the half marathon, but I was definitely not yet ready.  I had never really jogged for more than an hour at a time before becoming exhausted and stopping.  I realized in the car “I can’t finish the half marathon, I just haven’t trained enough, but I can run the most I can before walking, maybe I can alternate between jogging and walking.” It would be a bit humiliating, but I would at least be able to strive for my goal.  The other option was to run the 10k.  This had been suggested to me many times, and I had been considering it if I didn't feel prepared for the half marathon.  I did not feel prepared for the half marathon.  I had no idea what I was going to do.

I arrived in Tambacounda where I met up with a lot of friends from my stage and from other stages who were there to run as well.  I was asked often,

“So I heard rumors you’re planning on running the half, I didn’t know you ran.”
“I don’t really.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I still don’t know”.

That whole evening I was sitting there while hanging out with other volunteers, with that question in the back of my mind, what should I run?!  At around 9pm Miles came over and said that I really needed to register for one of the distances, and asked what was I going to run.  What was I going to run?  I still didn’t know, so I said, “Sign me up for whatever you think best.”  He walked off and came back a few minutes later,

 “Yeah, I signed you up for the half marathon.”

 Well, it looks like I’m running the half!

 How hard could it be?

The next morning I woke up at the unreasonable, ungodly hour of 6:30 because the race was to start at 7:00.  Or maybe it was earlier, I don’t remember.  I realized that I hadn't brought any socks.  By this point I was basically wearing flip flops everywhere I went, so though I remembered to bring shoes, I forgot socks!  I told this to Miles who was very concerned.  He suggested I could use his, but unfortunately they were his only pair.  So, through his generosity, I was fully geared for the race (and God bless him, Miles ran the 10k in shoes without socks).  Anyway, we were bused over to the starting line; there were about 13 of us.

In the hear of the city

The city was pretty empty so early in the morning and we were really the only ones out on the streets.  As we stretched and waited for the race to begin all of the other participants were talking about all the different half marathons they had run and what their favorite tracks were and things like that.  It was really nerve-racking, like, “yeah… I’ve never run a race before, let alone a half marathon, and these guys are like professionals.”

And then like that we were off, running through the streets of Tambacounda.  The race was about 11km along the road to Kedougou, and then 11k back.

It looks so far!

 I found a running partner in Adam and we just kind of hung out and talked while jogging.  The pack separated pretty quickly and we were basically at the very back of it.  We spent a lot of time talking about the various ways we would cripple those ahead of us when they were on the return leg of the race and we would pass each other.  Also, yelling at the people ahead of us for making us look bad and that there were girls watching. 

Seriously, I gotta look good

I managed to get to the turn-around while still feeling good, but then started to fade.  It was at this point that Adam decided to pick up the pace, to my chagrin.  He soon jogged past me and out of sight, but I came upon him 2k later.  He had injured himself was was being looked at by the medical staff who were there to make sure everyone stayed healthy during the run.  There may be a lesson to be learned from this.  At around the 15k mark I was kind of in agony, but there was only 7k more to go.  Those last 5k must have been the hardest in my life.  All of my muscles were screaming, and all of my tendons and ligaments were painfully tight.  At this point my jogging was less of running than like old man running.  You know how sometimes when you go out to the track early in the morning you will see old men jogging around?  They sort of have this weird shuffle thing.  I was old man shuffling.  I’m sure people were walking faster than I was jogging.

As I got back into the city of Tambacounda, which was now bustling as it was around 9 in the morning, I got a lot of quizzical looks from passer-bys and a lot of laughs.  I just zoned them out.  At one point the gendarmerie van passed by.  They drove real slow and shouted encouragement to me, “You can do it! You’re almost done, just a little bit more!”  It was actually really encouraging and nice of them to do, so, thank you Tambacounda gendarmerie!

I didn't bring anything to listen to while running, which I regretted, as music would definitely have been a good distraction.  There was, however, a sort of serenity in the quiet.  Thoughts would come and go, or would loop through my mind.  I passed the Tambacounda cemetery, which is cimetiere in French.  I knew that ciment was "cement" in French.  I wondered whether the word for cemetery in English came from the word for cement.  It would make sense in a way.  I don't know why, but this thought stuck in my mind for the last few kilometers of the run, and has stuck with me ever since.  I just had the chance to look it up, and it doesn't come from the word cement.  It comes from the Greek word for sleep.  Oh well!  With these thoughts running through my mind, I continued through the heart of Tambacounda.  It was probably best that no other volunteers saw, my running by that point was pretty pathetic. 

But I finished the race!  And I did it without ever stopping to walk.  It took me like 2 hours and 30 minutes or something, which isn’t actually very good, but I had achieved my goal of not walking.  I reached the finish line, high-fived people, milled around, and then took a seat and drank some ORS.  About 15 minutes later I thought I’d get up and get a bean sandwich… I could not get out of my chair.  Oh well, I guess I could rest a little bit more!

My smile betrays my exhaustion (Thumbs up Courtney!)

People began filtering out of the finishing line area, but there I remained, unable to leave that chair.  As my friends were leaving they asked if I was ready... I clearly wasn't.  They agreed to wait with me longer, and maybe 15 minutes after that I was ready to return to the Tambacounda regional house.  A large party was planned for that evening, but few were in the mood for it after being so exhausted.  As I sat in the regional house, Ouissam, the Peace Corps Medical Officer who was there to make sure that no one got injured, came over the check on me.  He suggested I take some paracetemol, the unequivocal go-to medicine in Senegal.  He said that he noticed that I hadn't gotten the flu shot for the season.

"Do you want the flu shot now?"
"...Sure"

So exhausted, I received the flu shot, and I barely felt it.

In conclusion, I am proud that I was able to set a goal and see it through.  I apparently am a bit of a Tamba half marathon legend.  When at WAIST I met someone from the new stage and they were like, “yeah, I saw you at the half marathon, you’re kind of a legend.” “Oh really?” “Yeah, you were the guy who showed up without like training at all and needed to borrow someone’s shoes and then you ran the whole thing.” “Well, I had trained a bit and it was socks I had to borrow, not shoes, but it’s good to know I have a reputation.”

And I haven’t run since.