Varsity Track

Location – ISK/ Nyayo Stadium

            I joined Varsity track for the first quarter of the school year. I started by training for the 1500 meter event. I used to run 5km once or twice every week, and I became fairly good at the 1500 meter event, so I decided to join the track team. However, this decision was a win and lose situation in the end. After training for this event for about 2 and half months, I started to grow bored of running in continuous ovals (around a track). For the final event, a track meet between multiple schools at the Kenyan National Stadium (Nyayo Stadium) I didn’t even run the 1500 meter. The week preceding the event (which was on a Saturday), I was informed I would be running in the 4x400 meter relay.

            The reason for this was that there were two runners (me and another) for the 1500 meter, and only 3 runners for the 4x400 meter relay team. Since the other 1500 meter runner was a bit faster than I, he ran that event and I ran the 4x400meter relay. The ‘win’ part of me being on the varsity track team for this quarter is that we came third in the event, and broke the ISK record time for 4x400meter relay. The ‘lose’ side is that I feel like I wasted that entire quarter. I had run the 1500meter event in a previous event, however that event was very unorganized and was only a friendly. However, they moved up the time of my race without informing me, I ran the event barefoot about a minute after drinking a full coke, I didn’t have time to warm up or stretch, and I didn’t do very well. I feel like I wasted the training I had put in because in one event I was unable to perform at the best of my ability, and at the second event I didn’t even run my event.

            However, all in all, for the time being my name is one of the names on the ISK track records board, so overall I guess it was a win. That name will be there, hopefully, for a long time.