I am Kenyan...for today

Out in the East African savanna, where grasses sway and wildebeest get eaten by crocodiles, Kenyan schoolchildren live in remote villages miles away from health, economic, or educational infrastructure. But having few resources, there are no cars, no bikes to take them to town; no, they must run. Every morning to go to school, they run miles through the countryside, and every evening they run home.

This is the popular folklore surrounding the state of the Kenyan hinterlands, the story used to explain the dominance of Kenyan distance runners. I suspect it's more romanticized than we suspect, but it makes for compelling storylines. Anyway, point is, I was Kenyan today, running to work and running home from work. It was a great feeling, but unlikely to become a routine for a couple of reasons.

First of all, for a town over which darkness falls at 4PM, London has a surprising lack of streetlamps. Wow, that was kind of an awkward sentence, but you get the point. Hyde Park was completely dark, except for the passing lights of more seasoned cyclists. Also, cars will not stop for you. There's no 'pedestrians have the right of way' going on here. This is probably more practical than anything else, since given the millions of pedestrians, a driver would get nowhere yielding to walkers. But regardless, it was nice to get in a couple of runs today, even if I didn't see any water buffalo.