Running in Mile High Country

I went from running through sand at sea level to the complete opposite – running hills a mile high. Spoiler alert: t’s not any easier.

Rwanda is known as “le pays des milles collines” (land of 1000 hills), and they aren’t kidding. There are nothing but hills as far as the eye can see. And it’s beautiful! [ADD PICTURE] But you forget all that pretty quickly when you try and go for a run, as I did my 2nd day in Kigali. Although, actually, the hills pale in comparison to the lung-tightening, persistent breathlessness that is the result of not being accustomed to the altitude.

I tried it again a week later when I got peer pressured into running a 5k “fun run” affiliated with the International Peace Marathon in Kigali. And it was fun. Except maybe for the running part. Which was tough. There were hills and yep, we were still a mile up.

BUT I’ve always loved the atmosphere around marathons, and Kigali was no different. Well, it was a little different. The organization of the event was more of a go-with-the-flow type of thing.

The races all started and ended at Amahoro Stadium, which you may have heard of as a site where thousands of Tutsi refugees took shelter during the 1994 genocide (one of the few places where they survived).

The half-marathon (or, as they call it here, the “semi” marathon) started first, with zero fanfare, outside of the stadium. There wasn’t really a start line, and definitely no starting gun – somehow people figured out where to stand and then a guy basically yelled “go!”. From what I could tell, it worked.

The “semi” marathon starting line

The start of the “semi” marathon

Then everyone trooped back into the stadium for the start of the marathon. The 100 or so runners got to start on the track with a bit more fanfare than their semi-marathon compatriots. There was an emcee with a microphone this time, there was a section for the media (it was empty, but still…), and after multiple announcements imploring the runners to avoid running into a camera that was set up in the middle of the track, the minister of something yelled “go!” into the microphone. Success!

Finally, it was time for the fun run to get going. By this time we’d been there for almost an hour and a half and the lovely cool morning had disappeared into a still lovely, but HOT morning. Half a mile in I was sucking wind. About a mile in I decided to walk and try and get my breath back, then realized that’s easier said than done at high altitude, so I figured I should just start running again and get it all over with as quickly as possible. Once I succumbed to the idea that I just wasn’t going to be able breath well for the next 20 minutes, it actually got less bad and I managed to plod along the rest of the way and reconnect with the group from the embassy at the finish line with minimal problems. So, mission accomplished, although I was toast for the rest of the day.  But someone did point out it was my first international race, and that’s kind of cool! Also, apparently if you get used to running at altitude you get really fast when you go back to sea level. I don’t think I’m going to be in Rwanda long enough to benefit from that nice side-effect, but it’s good to keep in mind for future reference…

The finish line!