We Came for a Race. We Left as Something Else
We Came for a Race. We Left as Something Else. Mercy Gitari Mudathon · Mt.Kenya · KESAL team unannounced The morning after There is a cockroach in the hotel room. I see it before I see the glorious sunrise. I am lying in bundu's, this gloriously silent, wonderfully little hotel somewhere between yesterday and a fever dream, and the first living creature that greets me on this earth, the morning after the Mudathon, is a cockroach doing casual laps near the skirting board. Like it too survived an obstacle course yesterday. Like it is simply cooling down. I do not scream. I do not call reception. I lie very still, stare at the ceiling, and I smile. Fair enough, mate. You earned your rest too. Outside, through a window I am too gloriously boneless to open, the green goes on forever. Kirinyaga green. Ungovernable. The kind of colour that makes Nairobi's manicured roundabout shrubs look like they need therapy. Mount Kenya sits in the middle distance not doing anything in particular e...