marathon prep

It's this weekend!

Tomorrow we'll caravan out to Mt. Kenya and beyond to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. By "we" I mean my traveling buddies: Phil and Linda and 2 of their kids, an extra tag-a-long kid, Todd and Allyson and their baby, and me. The other car contains one of my students and her family - her dad is running. So we are Team Kijabe. We're going to drive the 21K loop and get a feel for the "4 small hills and 1 big hill" we get to run . . . twice . . . during the course of the race. I'm excited for our mini-safari and hoping for some good animal sightings while I have my camera on me.

That night we'll camp out under the stars. Restful, for sure.

Saturday morning we'll hit the pavement . . .er . . . dirt track at 7:15. And sometime that afternoon we'll trickle in, flop into the car, and begin the 5 hour ride back to Kijabe.

Sound crazy? Oh, it gets better.

Celebrity sightings: hoping to see the recent Olympic champion Samuel Wanjiru, who is running the race.
Last year's results: Linda noticed there were only 4 people in her age category. She could place! We're kind of counting on not having to stay for a medal ceremony, however.
Let's go back to the camping the night before: "The campsite is equipped with water points, cold showers, firewood and long drop loos," according to the official site. Did I mention the baby going with us?
Wildlife: Running through a conservancy. Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Running buddies: Let's remember that during the half-marathon on PAVEMENT in lower-altitude Nairobi, a) Todd passed out and had to be hooked to an IV b) I got a stress-fracture and c) Linda carried me to the car.

PRAYER POINTS:
* safety and sanity all the way there and back
* health (so many fevers this week at RVA!) and safety and injury-free running
* that we could get back to Kijabe Saturday night
* for a FUN time!

I'm excited . . . too excited to want to sleep right now. I've been in prep-mode, making Team Kijabe t-shirts and homemade granola bars, guzzling fluids for days, reading new Runners World, fresh from America. And then when I get back, my girl Jenny arrives! Pray for HER and the others that are leaving the US this weekend for a new life in Africa!

So that's the update. More later, I hope, with happy pictures. The ladies of Kijabe had a shower for me last weekend, which deserves a marvelous blog tribute, for sure!

see you on the other side . . .