The entire day!

It turns out my dad may have been right, all those mornings growing up when he used to say that sleeping in until 9am was WASTING THE ENTIRE DAY.

I woke up at 5:45 this morning, and by mid-day I had run a marathon, invented a mango-mimosa, baked some raspberry-lemon curd muffins, and washed the dishes. 

… Did you catch that?  The “run a marathon” bit?  Although, I suppose the more correct use of quotation marks would probably be that I “ran” a “marathon,” where the "marathon" was actually a 10K road race, and the "running" was a bit of jogging, interspersed with walking, chatting, and taking goofy pictures. 

 Even the guy speed-walking with the tiny backpack thinks I’m a fool.

Today was the annual Nairobi Marathon (42K, 21K, 10K, or 4K family fun run), sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank, and staff from my work went together as a team-building event.  The theme was “Run for a Reason,” as a certain portion of the proceeds go to some sort of blindness-prevention program.  However, the theme’s subtitle is much more explicit, though it ranks at least top 5 on the list of things that really don’t need to be said. 

 “Run with your feet.  Bank with your fingers.” In case there was any doubt.

We started the 10K run at Nyayo Stadium, by “those big ugly birds that live on the way to the airport” as everyone knows them. 

Ugly birds.

It rained last night, and the streets were still retaining water, which added some sporadic obstacles to an otherwise tame course.

Goofballs are goofballs all over the world.

The best thing about the race was that they closed off downtown Nairobi to car-traffic, so we got to enjoy the city on foot without threat of getting smushed by a wayward matatu.  For those unfamiliar, this is downtown Nairobi:

Uhuru Highway.

Downtown.

Nairobi.

And we ended thusly:

We have built team.  

After crossing the finish line, we came across a guy in very short shorts who was leading an aerobics class with no followers, so we joined in for our cool-down, and I think he appreciated the company. 

Show some leg!

Now stop surfing the internet, Dad; you’re WASTING THE ENTIRE DAY!