| Sunrise during dry season on one of my morning runs |
I have never done much running in my life before I came here
in Uganda. I really have never been a fan of running in general but since I
have been working on trying new things that I decided back around November to
run in the Rwanda International Peace Marathon. I started out training for the
½ Marathon, as I knew I would not have time to train for a full plus the
thought of running a full makes me want to chop off my feet. So training for
the ½ Marathon started and I would get up at 5:15AM and would be out running by
6/6:15AM. The roads get too busy and hot after 7:30AM and I like my privacy as
I am huffing and puffing along. It started off really great and I was having
fun and making great distances.
Uganda is very different when it comes to running, there is
something about it that just makes you want to run, run, and keep running. I
would run every other day just to help my joints that do not like running and
help me not get to the point of ‘oh why do I have to get up and do this!?” It
helped a lot with keeping it fun.
After I came back from Italy in December (I didn't run at
all during that time due to the cold), I had no drive and I really was not in
the groove to run anymore. I would run here and there but nothing was ever consistent.
Finally, April rolled around and I went okay this is dumb you need to run at
the end of May, so I started training again and developed an issue in both
hamstrings that made me very uncomfortable and nervous about them snapping and
ending my short lived running career, I cut back on the amount of running and the
½ was out of the question so I focused on doing a simple 5K.
| Finish line of The International Peace Marathon |
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After a couple weeks, I finished up my final training and
then headed south on a bus to Kigali, Rwanda. I had time for two training runs
after arriving in Kigali and after six months of running on dirt and trails,
running on pavement for the first time was very interesting. I can tell you, I enjoy running trails and dirt way better then street
running.
This past Sunday, I did run the 5K in the Rwanda
International Peace Marathon. At site I was running around 25-28 minute 5K and
my goal was to get in around 26 minutes. There was a lot of stress and
frustration that morning and the sun at 7AM was already blazing after a week of
cool almost chilly weather. Kigali is land of 100,000 hills and the whole 5k
was nothing but going up a hill or down a hill. I ended up coming in just under
30 minutes and I am not going to lie there was a lot of frustration and
disappointment at that time but looking back on it, I PR’d and ran my first 5K
overseas and should be very happy and I am.
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| It Was Hot! |
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| Start of the race out into the street |
Everyone who came down from PC Uganda finished the ½
marathon or the full marathon all had the same thing to say ‘wow that was
tough’ but there was a lot of joy as it was a lot of firsts for people. It was
a wonderful experience to run my first 5K overseas and I learned a lot of that.
Looking toward the future but I think I will focus on trail running and would
like to run longer distances in the future!
| At the finish line after my run |
Great job Kate! It must have been so rewarding to run in the 5K!!!
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