Headed out Friday morning at 5:30am for an 8:00am flight. Very interesting amount of not-that-great-at-the-concept-of-lines and odd ticket counter having-to-go-back-out-the-way-you-came-in?!? But onto flight without a problem. (Except the inspector who didn't want me to take any food on the flight... so I ate some and gave him the rest. Unimpressed.) Arrived in Goma (an hour ahead of Kinshasa! Who knew!??!?) and was promptly ferried to the AMAZING hotel (Lac Kivu Lodge) by the protocol guy and his driver... the protocol got a phone call about renting one of his boats from the Chief of the Central Bank or something... so he was pretty thrilled by that. Settled into my room and found this on the closet.
Up and out, transferred to the border, where I walked from the Congolese side, past some corn and barbed wire, and into my FIFTH (!) African country. My driver was there waiting, I paid my reasonable $30 visa fee without any problem or hassle and headed out for the 3.5 hour drive. I was totally captivated. Admittedly I have seen very little of Congolese countryside, but this was just magical. Green green green backdrop of incredibly fertile land with every kind of vegetable and farm animal, gorgeously painted buildings and fabrics, so incredibly pretty. I asked 80 million questions and the poor guy (the driver that my friend uses when she is on business in Kigali) tried as best he could to answer them. We descended one of the many hills into Kigali, (Smuggler's notch, Grenoble, Corsica and Greece in one?!?!) ran into the stadium for my 'physical' and race bib, and found my very close-by hotel easily. Next was a jaunt to the grocery store for peanut butter and nutella! I even remembered to buy a knife, plus plenty of water to try to hydrate. Then I asked Emmanuel the driver to take me to the Genocide memorial. It was just staggering the sheer numbers and the history of it all. Very sobering, I am glad I went. Headed back to the hotel to relax. I did actually sleep fairly well the whole trip, considering my nervousness.
The next morning, I headed out with my water backpack and music for the 7:30 start time and was bombarded by not insane amounts, but lots of people all around (including a large contingent with a DRCongo flag, upside down?!? I will never get that?!?). We were let into the stadium at about 7:15 and the gun went off pretty early at about 7:25. I realized early on that it was a lot of gentle downhill... so that was not encouraging, but I continued on, waving and smiling at friendly people headed to church or just doing their thing. Miles 1-5 were pretty fine. I didn't exactly find a rhythm, the downhills had me going a little fast and the climate (much drier than Kin) had my lips and nose all dry, but when we got to an uphill that I could almost touch the hill with my hands in front of my face, I realized that I was going to have to walk some. And I did confirm on my running watch that my walking uphill was faster than my running, so that was good anyway. I made it to the 10K distance without trouble, but now it was time to repeat all of the downhills I had breezed down in the opposite direction. And more walking commenced. I never really ran steadily after that point... I had some funny side stitches (tried eating my running food but it didn't seem to help), and other sad excuses, but soldiered on. We passed the stadium eventually, and looped around to get back to it... and I clocked in at 3 hours and 6 minutes. Which, incidentally, is only 8 minutes slower than my training run, where I walked NOT AT ALL. So perhaps it's better for me just to walk?!? But also perhaps better for me to run where the elevation is not 1,000 feet higher than the highest peak in Vermont. Seriously. Thank goodness I didn't look that up until AFTER I ran. Side note: Being lapped by the real marathon runners twice, it did make me feel better seeing that, while running INSANELY quickly, they did also look like they were out of breath and working hard. They didn't 'make it look easy' (though they made it look a lot easier than I did) and that was somehow comforting.
Headed out from the hotel at noon to get back to Congo, dealt with some hassle at the border (Courtesy Visa does not mean they will be courteous to you. Seriously.) but got back to the hotel fine and happily had another helping of pasta.
Monday morning things turned sour... my ticket said 1:20pm flight. So the protocol said he would send his driver at 11:30 to get me at the hotel. That seemed reasonable to me for a domestic flight. However, when we arrived at the airport, either the flight was earlier than 1:20 or the rules are just very strict, but the check-in had closed at 11:30. I felt sick to my stomach (still do) about my idiocy in believing the protocol guy and getting duped so royally. I spent several frantic hours on the phone, trying to fix my ticket, get my sub plans together, reschedule everything, and obviously get a room for another night in the hotel. I still feel terrible about it, but I guess what are you going to do. This morning, we headed out at NINE AM! For the flight and I made it on time... so now back home and ready for whatever the rest of the week will bring. I am so happy that I went to Rwanda, it is so pretty, and I am so happy that I worked hard to train (which was therapeutic in it's own right, doing something for myself and doing something out in Kinshasa in the early morning). I am also happy to say "I did it!" but will need to find a lower elevation for my next race and see if I can run more of it!
So many thoughts about Rwanda I might need another post about it... but I will leave this here for now. Have a good week all!
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