V 11 N. 85 Catherine Ndereba Road in Nairobi gets trashed and literature on Running You May Never Have Read

One of the things I enjoy about blogging is never having to answer to an editor or someone looking over my shoulder and having to justify what I put on the blog.   Today I read a miserable story about an incident in Nairobi, Kenya where 40,000 slum dwellers were dispossessed of their 'homes' and what little they owned to widen a road so the rich could get into the center of the city from the airport more quickly.   Almost no warning was given before the bulldozers arrived supported by the police.  The reason I think I can get away with reporting this on a track and field blog is that the street that was cleared out had been named to honor Catherine Ndereba one of Kenya's world champion marathoners.  Anyone who has visited Kenya in recent times knows that it's a miserable two to four hour ride to cover the 10 miles into town because of traffic and people congestion.  The super rich who can afford a top-end safari can take a helicopter or small plane from the airport out to the safari destinations  But the common man has no choice.  I once went through that airport and became stranded for two days when ground crews and gate workers went on strike.  It was a time to see people, the tourists, behaving badly.   Fortunately my Peace Corps Swahili helped me find a friendly official who granted me a visa on the spot and sent me out to a fancy golf resort for two free nights accommodation until the workers were brought back at gun point to reopen the airport.  Things often work a bit differently in Africa.   No Kenyan distance runner ever trained in Nairobi.  They may have come into town to race but not to train.  Those folks all live out in the western part of the country around the Great Rift Valley where they can breathe the thin clean air and run to their heart's content on the dirt roads that meander  through the forests .  Anyway before I start telling some personal horror stories, here is the  article from the Dec. 8, 2021 The Guardian about the infamous clearing of land in the slums of Nairobi.

Land Reclamation Kenyan Style

Now on the slightly lighter side:  

I've been reading an Inspector Morse crime novel "The Remorseful Day" by Colin Dexter.  Some of you may be familiar with the series seen for many years on PBS with the setting in Oxford, England, often filmed on location in that famous university.  In this book Dexter makes several references to running, usually literary, in the form of quotes by others.

Here are a few.

At the beginning of Chapter 43 p. 244 we see

                 "For coping with even one quarter of that course known as 'Marathon' - for coping without frequent halts for refreshment or periodic bouts of vomiting - a man has to dedicate one half of his youthful years to quite intolerable training and endurance.  Such dedication is not for me."        

Here's the kicker,   this piece from "The Joys of Occasional Idleness" was written by one Diogenes Small, but Small it turns out is just a character that Dexter has fabricated for his novels.

 However 

At the beginning of Chapter 54.  Dexter quotes the opening lines of "To An Athlete Dying Young"   by A.E. Housman in  "Shropshire Lad"

   The time you won your town the race

   We chaired you through the market place.

   Man and boy stood cheering by,

    And home we brought you shoulder high.

    Today the road, all runners come,

    Shoulder high we bring you home,

    And set you at your threshold down,

    Townsman of a stiller town.

Now here is the full poem

To an Athlete Dying Young

BY A. E. HOUSMAN

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut,

And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,

The fleet foot on the sill of shade,

And hold to the low lintel up

The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,

And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girl’s.