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Kilimanjaro Marathon
By Louis Naude
The little
advert in the Lowdown every month to encourage Social Road Runners
to come together and train towards the Kilimanjaro marathon had
mixed results. The very early daily meeting time of 5.25 am was
probably the main reason for only a handful of runners to
participate intermittently.
But we
persevered and over the past few months we had various runners
joining us for very pleasant runs through the nicest neighbourhoods
of Lusaka. We hope that Shelle, Sandra, Doug, Alan, Chris and Rienzo
will join us in future for early morning runs, especially the longer
ones on Saturdays.
The weather
conditions (temperature and humidity) during the training runs were
very similar to that experienced in Moshi, Tanzania where the
marathon was held. What we lacked during training were some decent
hills to match those experienced in Moshi.
In the end
only Shelle and myself (and a non-running friend) took off on the
long journey to Moshi. On the first day we covered 1,100 km to Mbeya.
It took about twelve hours including the customary one and a half
hours at the border post to get us there. On the second day we took
another 12 hours to cover the last 1,200 km to Moshi. We arrived
just in time to get a glimpse of the mountain before dark.
The race was
very tough. From about the 20 km mark a continuous steep climb up
the side of the foot of the mountain took us to the 32 km mark.
Thereafter the route comes back down the same steep hill to end in
Moshi. We were pretty washed-out and enjoyed the Sunday afternoon
nap after a visit to the entrance of the Kilimanjaro National Park.
We drove back to Lusaka over the following two days.
Although the
trip consisted of four full days driving with the marathon in the
middle, it was nevertheless very pleasant. The scenery during this
time of the year is beautiful along the entire route. The 50 km
drive through the Mikumi Game Reserve in Tanzania presented more
than enough wildlife to enjoy. The roads are in reasonably good
condition for most of the way, with some roadworks before Mbeya and
again before and after Chalinze. In general the roads on the Zambian
side are in much better shape than in Tanzania. The Utengule Hotel
near Mbeya and the Marangu Hotel on the slopes of the Mountain were
very pleasant and were good value for the $40 per night per person
B&B.
We shall
probably continue our training runs every morning in future. If
anyone knows of any half- or full marathons planned in Zambia please
let us know so that we can set ourselves some goals. |
April 2004