After my rather dismal performance in the 5 km race held at the school recently, I lost some faith in my running ability.

When faced with what I considered a failure, what to do? Give up? Or double down? I decided to give myself a new challenge: I entered the 5 km race being organised alongside the Nairobi marathon. Some other colleagues were also interested – two entered the 10 km race; one joined me in the 5 km race.

The race was last Sunday, and we only registered one week beforehand. The race website confirmed our payment but had no information on the start times of each of the races. After some calls and emails the organisers sent us a map of the course, which included the start times: 08.30 for the 10K, and 09.30 for the 5K.

We are more than an hour’s drive from Nairobi and wanted to allow an hour for collecting our race numbers and shirts, so we booked a taxi for 06.15.

Then on Saturday evening I received a text from the organisers with new start times for each race. The 10K now started at 07.45, and the 5K at 08.30!!

I frantically contacted our taxi driver, who agreed to pick us up at 05.30. Then it was early to bed, to try and get some rest.

We all awoke at 05.00 and set of just after 05.30. The traffic near the start of the race was pretty heavy, but we arrived just before 07.00. There were not too many people collecting their race numbers (they could also be collected earlier in the week) so we were well in time for the start.

Here we are, before collecting our numbers and shirts:

We already had some suspicions about the organisation of the race, given the late change in start times. Then we found they didn’t have the size shirts we had ordered and had run out of race numbers for the 5K Women’s event. Since that was classed as a family fun run, they were not doing official timings, so Rachael just ran without a number.

We made our way to the start, and watched Petra and Emma set off on their 10K run. The courses were all loops of various sizes, and whilst we waited for the start of the 5K event, Rachael and I watched various runners come past in the opposite direction, including the leaders of the marathon, who stormed past behind a timing car.

Clearly not everyone had got the message about the changed start times, and 10K runners kept arriving until 08.30, when they closed the 10K start, so that the 5K race could begin.

It felt more like a 5K walk at the beginning, but after about 100 meters Rachael and I decided to start running and began weaving our way in and out of the other participants.

We were running round the southern bypass of the city, so the surface was smooth, and although there was a gradual incline for half the time, it was much kinder than the steep slopes around the school.

Around 9000 entered the 10K race, and 4000 entered the 5K race. Add to that the half-marathon and marathon runners, and it was a big event, and quite crowded.

I felt good throughout the race, helped I am sure by three months training at relatively high altitude. My final time was 29 minutes 26 seconds, which is my best time for 5K for more than three years. I was pretty pleased to have managed it in less than 30 minutes.

After we crossed the line we all got finisher medals

They accidentally gave me a half-marathon finisher medal, but I didn’t feel able to keep it. I went back and swapped it for a 5K medal and told them I would be back next year to collect the 21K medal properly.

Rachael came in a few minutes after me, and Emma and Petra had already finished. Eventually we managed to meet up:

Then in true Kenyan style, there was music and dancing to celebrate:

We had a great day, although it was rather stressful for the main runners, as you can read in this report of the marathon itself.

https://nation.africa/kenya/sports/athletics/chelimo-chepkech-win-chaotic-stanchart-nairobi-marathon-4002594