Over and almost out

After a solid 24 hours travel, via the Impala Shuttle bus from Arusha to Nairobi; a flight to Dubai; another to Glasgow, and a ride home to Larbert (with LOTS of waiting in between some of the stages), I write this instalment a few hours after returning to my comfortingly-frosted homeland. Waking up to lovely weather every day's for wimps.

I marched out the Arrivals gate at Glasgow Airport this morning to a phalanx of camera crews and media men. Amazingly, they were not there to interview me about my Tanzania experiences, but were there to greet the just-arrived Czech Republic international football team, ahead of the friendly match at Hampden tomorrow night. And take a bow Emirates, for being a super-cool airline. Most of the seven hours between Dubai and Glasgow was spent on the on-board ICE entertainment system, listening to everything from "Jungle Drum" by Emiliana Torrini to "The Stonk" by Hale & Pace. I saw "Jungle Drum" performed live last year by ET at Oran Mor, whereas "The Stonk", on the other hand, I have not heard in almost decades.



Anyway, the day before yesterday, I did something I've been looking forward to for more than a year - the Kilimanjaro Half Marathon. As the name suggests, it took place very close to the mountain of the same name, and was as tough as you might expect.

Despite training pretty hard for the last 12 weeks, I found the pace very hard going, and was so hot I think I sweated from places I've never sweated from before. The course was a simple 10.5km out, turnaround, and come back kinda affair, which was 'a bit' undulating, in the same way that John Terry's been 'a bit' of a naughty boy lately.

Anyway, I got across the finish line in 1 hour 32 minutes 16 seconds (154th out of 1,110, apparently - www.kilimanjaromarathon.com/resultsfrm.htm). It's way slower than I am hoping to achieve this year, and more than 13 minutes outside my PB from last year. But in the circumstances - it was 30 degrees at 6am, and hotter when my race started at 7am - I'm happy enough.

When I crossed the finish line, I made a beeline for brekkie, and after stuffing my face, followed it up with a final sup of Kilimanjaro beer (which tasted great):



The race marked the last big activity of my Tanzania experience, and pretty much the end of me having anything worth blogging about. To anyone who's been reading this blog since last September, two things: my apologies, and enjoy the next entry, because it will be the last one - a summing-up of sorts, focussed on the specifics of my business development program.

Unpacking though, is more of a priority right now...


Ross