Dancing With The Dirt: 2013

After three and a half hours we stopped at a stream crossing to fill our water bottles. Most of us were either out of, or nearly out of, water. Our regard for each other as a team would begin here as we helped fill each other’s bottle with a Steripen and portable filter. At this point we had covered just 14 kilometers and had climbed and descended almost 3000 feet. We were less than half way through the first day of the 1st Annual Stage Run Around The Roof of Africa … and we began to wonder what we were in for!

The run around Mount Kilimanjaro was conceived of by Simon Mtuy, owner and senior guide of Summit Expeditions & Nomadic Experience (SENE), a Tanzania adventure travel company. The Mbahe Village on the southeastern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro is where he grew up and grew to love the mountain. Mtuy has summited Kilimanjaro several hundred times, has finished the Western States Endurance Run nine times, and holds the record for fastest unsupported run up and down Kilimanjaro (he held the record for fastest supported ascent-descent until it was broken in 2010 by Kilian Jornet, whom Simon helped train and guide on his record run).

Simon's dream of the Stage Run was fueled by several desires. The mountain has been an important part of his life – first, as the provider of life-sustaining water and fertile soil for his family’s farm growing up, then as a boundless source of beautiful and challenging trails for running, the sport he loves, and finally as a livelihood with his climb business. Simon has been on the mountain hundreds of times and it holds a spiritual aspect for him. This run would be a chance for him to bring those all together and share them with fellow trail runners from around the world.

After several years of scouting the lower slopes, he had established a route that completely encircled the lower slopes on trails and paths that – we would soon discover – were diverse in the environments through which they passed, with beautiful sights at every turn, and quite challenging. Simon assembled his crew of cooks, drivers, navigators, and guides to launch the Stage Run in October of 2012 as eight days of running over 170 miles. But beyond the numbers, an important element of all trips that Simon leads is to offer guests a chance to encounter Tanzania and meet its people in a more personal and natural way. We realized this more as we runners immersed ourselves in the experience.

The Runners
Five runners signed up for this first year.

Steve, a good friend of Mtuys, from Hawaii and an ultrarunner having completed the HURT 100 in Hawaii several times. For Steve the world is his playground who often expressed his Hawaiian enthusiasm with words like 'awesome' and 'rad' along with a generous helping of the “hang loose” sign.

Tim who works for SENE in the United States and helped Simon scout the route. He's a solid midwestern road runner who would resemble one of the characters from Lake Wobegon.

Jerry, the elder statesman of the group at 57, from St. Louis who had completed his 13th 100-miler just a month earlier. He's a quiet, thoughtful, spiritual man enlivened by his first trip outside the US.

Krissy, one of the top women ultrarunners in the world. She loves to engage each new experience, person, and culture wholeheartedly.

And myself, a lifelong athlete and lover of big, unusual adventures.

Simon was our guide and leader, full of energy, good humor, and kind words for everyone.

Andrew King of South Africa was with us the entire trip filming and taking pictures of this grand adventure. And Kate from Hawaii was here with Steve and became our cheerleader for the week, meeting us every day. It was always a delight to see Kate's bright shirts and cheery words of support and encouragement in the middle of the day..

All-in-all we were a well matched group with a fairly similar strength, endurance, and pace. Most importantly, we were all thrilled to be here and had ear-to-ear grins the whole way. As Kate said often, her cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

The Crew

Simon's team consisted of Kiplet and Robinson, camp cooks extraordinaire; Manase and (another) Simon, who departed each morning before daybreak to mark the route; Iddy and Sigfrid as additional guides; and Willie, William, and Joseph as navigators, drivers, and daily spirited support. Throughout the week the unflappable and always upbeat team took care of us in every way imaginable.

The Run

On October 20 we began our adventure from Mtuy's family farm in Mbahe Village, about 45 minutes outside of Moshi, Tanzania. Each of the next eight days provided a new and different running and cultural experience, and allowed us, the runners, to discover new things about ourselves, our new friends, the people of the Kilimanjaro, and the mountain environment..

We began the first day with a tree planting ceremony around a natural spring in Mbahe Village to give back to the local community and to help preserve the all important water source that supports the Mbahe Village and many communities miles downstream. Kilimanjaro is an ecological system unto itself and provides the tribes living on its flanks water for drinking and irrigation, rich soil for planting, and wood for fuel and building. But that system has seen recent upheaval with climate change. In the past century 80% of the glacial ice cap has disappeared, and thousands of acres of virgin forest has been cut for fuel and cropland. Preserving the environment and giving back to the community have always been pillars of Simon’s work in the community and around the mountain. After the tree-planting we had an official start of the run at the Marangu entrance gate to Kilimanjaro National Park.

The running itself was fantastic! We ran through pine forests on beds of pine needles. We ran along farm fields. We ran through numerous Chagga and Maasai villages. At times we enjoyed the company of local kids as they ran with us. At other times we ran in solitude. We saw dozens of bare-footed grandmothers walking the paths with enormous bundles of grass, sticks and what-have-you balanced on their heads (at one point Simon offered to carry the bundle for one particularly old woman and then gave us the opportunity to lift it onto our heads – and were amazed by the weight of the load!). We descended many incredibly beautiful and remote valleys on trails no wider than a shoe, ran on trails alongside hand-dug irrigation furrows, on “Indiana Jones” trails requiring hand-holds on roots and rocks as we climbed radically steep slopes. Sometimes we ran on single-track, sometimes on jeep roads. It wasn’t unusual for us to run where there was no trail.

We saw waterfalls, baboons, and colobus monkeys. We passed herds of sheep and cattle being led to pasture or to market. We saw Mt. Kilimanjaro every day, from all sides and in many ways – in brilliant sunshine, shrouded in clouds, underneath a bright blue sky or in silhouette against star-filled blackness. We took pictures everywhere and even witnessed the juxtaposition of a Maasai in his traditional clothing taking a picture with his cell phone of us in our traditional running gear (a most remarkable sight to him, no doubt).

We laughed and talked with each other. We thrilled at jumping from rock to rock across streams and the chance to douse our heads with the cool mountain water. We did a double-take when hearing Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” coming from a radio in the middle of nowhere. As we ran through the pines forests, we heard the wind and the sound of the trees talking. We were grateful witness to school children lining up for their morning exercises and daily singing of the Tanzanian national anthem.

We camped on school grounds, in luscious grass fields, near a beautiful river, and at the top of a ridge overlooking the lights of Moshi. The fourth night was spent at Simba Farm where we enjoyed more amazing food, beds, and a hot shower. We were constantly with smiles and waves and the traditional Swahili greeting of Jambo (‘hello’) or Pole Pole (‘go easy’). We found it ironic that nobody ever encouraged us to "go faster" or "speed up." As they say, no hurry in Africa. And besides, why go faster when we are enjoying every minute of this fantastic adventure?

Every mile, every day was a thrilling surprise. By greeting the unexpected with a smile and child-like wonder, we developed bonds with each other and allowed us to experience Tanzania and Kilimanjaro in a way few ever have. After eight days we arrived back at the Marangu gate to celebrate with each other!

The Food

Being a runner, I knew Simon would have enough food to feed hungry runners every day. I had somewhat expected the food to be fairly basic and so before leaving I had my favorite meals - a Ted's Montana Grill burger, a beautiful full salad, and my favorite burrito. How wrong I was!

Like everything else on this trip, the food that we ate was absolutely amazing. Simon and his chefs were very conscious of preparing nutritious, balanced meals to fuel us for each day’s challenge. His farm provided plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables from broccoli to greens to avocado to bananas to strawberries. Every morning we'd start with eggs, bacon, toast, porridge or oatmeal, coffee and tea, and several varieties of fruit. We even had crepes and french toast! On the table was fresh passion fruit honey from Simon's farm, peanut butter and jam. It seemed like nothing was missing. Surely the best kind of food to keep us going for each day of running.

When we finished running, the table was already ready with snacks - roasted cashews, crackers, tea and coffee. The best part was popcorn!

Every evening was another incredible spread of food. We'd start with a soup - tomato with ginger, lentil, pumpkin, zucchini, or carrot. Then we'd get a main meal with potatoes or rice, some kind of meat, more vegetables. We'd finish off with some kind of dessert.

I know how good even something basic like ramen or a cup-of-noodles can be in the middle of a long run. It's like heaven sometimes. This was not that feeling - this was simply incredibly made, local, fresh food prepared with great care.

Being Prepared

There is no doubt this is a challenging run, even a very challenging run. Total elevation gain was more than 35,000 feet and the entire route was run at an altitude between 4,500 and 7,000 feet. By comparison, I would consider the TransRockies 6-day run in Colorado relatively mild. You have to be prepared for long days - five of the eight days were we out for more than six hours. While the elevation and cloud cover mitigated the tropical heat, we did experience direct sun (Kilimanjaro is 3 degrees south of the equator) in open stretches with temperatures reaching 85 to 90 degrees.

The combination of elevation, temperature, vertical gain and descent, and distance meant it was common to take 6-8 hours to cover 20 miles. With few markers of distance, we learned to be mentally prepared for long days and imprecise mileage, providing for us first-timers to Kilimanjaro a sense of exploring the unknown..

Celebrating

After finishing at the Marangu Gate, we walked back to the small stream on Mtuy's farm. Awaiting us was a picturesque waterfall and 10 foot cliff offering a celebratory plunge into the refreshingly cool mountain pool. It was a perfect ending to our incredible adventure. Back at the farm we were greeted with another feast and our first afternoon to rest. In the evening we celebrated with a traditional Chagga dinner of ugali (cornmeal) and a beef stew with potatoes, carrots, and cooked bananas, washed down with oversize bottles of local beer (appropriately named “Kilimanjaro”). Simon and his crew sang to us; Krissy was moved enough to write a song about the trip which she and Kate sang. The chorus:

Running like crazy till the day’s gonna end

Running like crazy cuz Simon’s our friend

Hey, runnin’ round Kili

Running like crazy through the sun and the heat

Running like crazy even if it’s killin' our feet

Hey, runnin’ round Kili

Finally Simon spoke offering his heartfelt gratitude for all of us being here and sharing in his dream of a stage run around the “Roof of Africa.” For all it was an enjoyable and emotional celebratory dinner together.

In the End

While I can write about the run, the food, and who was there, the experience itself was absolutely incredible! I'm sure we exceeded all hopes Simon had for this first run. We all have new friends, stories to remember for a lifetime, an appreciation of Kilimanjaro, and a piece of Africa in our soul. There are few experiences that can match the Roof of Africa run!

Dancing With The Dirt

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Roof of Africa - more

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The Roof of Africa

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Lime Green