3 Good Omens and the Second 42

The Good Omens

1. Wednesday: It was one of my last training runs before the marathon- a quick and easy three miles. The sky was overcast, but that's nothing new for the time of year. After about two miles, the sky opened up and threw down hail and rain by the bucketful. Having never experienced hail before coming to Lesotho, I used to be quite amused by the phenomenon, witnessed from the snug confines of my house. No more. Hail hurts. I slung my left arm (which now looks like someone took a bat to it) over my head and took off my glasses and sprinted blindly home, up to my ankles in water and screaming obsenities at the sky. (Why this is a good omen, I have no idea, but it somehow seemed a sign that the race would be ok).
2. Friday: Last year for Halloween I dressed as a tree (brown pants with vertical bark-esque stictching, shirt with a leaf pattern and paper leaves and flowers wound around my arms and head). No one had any clue what I was supposed to be ("Eve" was one guess, "mother nature" another). Two days after Halloween, I had an abysmal marathon and discovered bad costume = bad marathon. I thought it would be wise to steer clear of flora this year, but ended up dressing as a strawberry. Nobody mistook me for a biblical figure or philosophical concept and a couple even knew what I was supposed to be.

3. Saturday: On my college cross country team, we had several people superstitious about their bib numbers. When they got their number, the first thing they would do was try to figure out some sort of mathematical, personal or historical significance of the numbers. When I picked up my number for the marathon, it was 2345. It doesn't get any better than that!

The 42 Kilometers

I have been pondering running the comrades marathon (http://www.comrades.com/) which has a qualifying time of sub 5 hours. I have run much faster, but on this course, which is quite hilly, I have also run much slower. I was told to aim for 4:45 to give myself some room for cramping, fatigue and other small disasters. Except I got so excited that I took off in the low 50s for the first 10 k, under 2 hours at the half way point, slowing down the next 10 k, and from 31 k on, fantasizing about lying down in the road and being trampled by the other runners. I got a disproportionate amount of cheers to those around me, partially because I was often the only woman in a pack of men (go lady! strong woman!) but mostly because people probably thought I was far younger than I am due to my stature and fat head (wow baby girl! look at that little girl go!) The cheers were encouraging but I still hobbled up the last few hills, sure those around me could hear the screeching feeling in my hips. I missed the markers for the last three kilometers, and was stunned when I saw the finish line approaching. My time was about 4:48, fast enough to qualify for comrades. . .

Some Bad Luck (With a Little Good Luck For Me)

A fellow Maseru expat who was also a stranger to me until Saturday, was kind enough to wait for me at the finish line. He had run the 10 k race earlier that day and was part of a big international contingent that came up from Lesotho. He found me as soon as I finished and before I had time to catch my breath and wipe the salt off my face, said, "I'm going to tell you some bad news in one minute." All I could think was that the bag with my passport had been stolen out of someone's car and I now had to live in Soweto. Well, it turned out that of the four cars from Maseru that drove to the races, one had been stolen and two had been broken into. People lost in addition to car, wallets, ipods, phones, etc. By a ridiculous and random stroke of luck, the car that contained my stuff was the only car that hadn't been broken into. All of these cars had Lesotho plates, and I was later told that 7 other cars with Lesotho plates had been stolen from the parking lot, that cars with Lesotho plates are targeted in South Africa because they are difficult to trace, and that the race organizers cut the security by two thirds and put that one third on the course, looking for bandits (people that don't register or pay for races but run the course anyway).

And a Little Bit More of Good Luck

I decided to sign up for the comrades today, just in case I decide to run it. Although registration only opened yesterday and there are 5,000 spots for new runners, the spaces were expected to fill quickly because of the world cup. I almost gave up because the credit card info wasn't going through and finally decided after some internal debate to use my American card. I signed up and 2 hours later when I went to look something up, I saw the registration was already entirely fille up! Whew, just made it!

PS

I didn't see any protesters.