We are very happy to host a series of posts by Stephen Pampuro about a wonderful adventure he had in runner’s Africa.
In January 2020 Stephen felt the need to embark on a new adventure in Africa, in the cradle of running, training in the highlands of Kenya and Ethiopia alongside some of the world’s strongest athletes. An experience that made him touch closely on the dramas of a continent struggling to get back on its feet, in the setting of the most serious epidemic in a hundred years. From this experience a book was born: Beyond the border. Journey to the heart of the cbear. The book was released on April 29 and you can purchase it on Amazon.
Happy reading!
I have to make an effort to keep up with Efrem, as soon as I get distracted for a moment he immediately eats up a meter. We’ve been running for twenty minutes but I’m already out of breath and every little acceleration costs me dearly.
We have recently left Bekoji behind, and the paved road is taking us little by little to a countryside surrounded by immense meadows that stretch without an end. Occasionally the green grass breaks into the darkened earth of a cultivated field, and at other times it continues unimpeded in the direction of the horizon.
The farther we move away from the population center, the more the number of brick houses decreases and the number of thatched and mud buildings increases instead. Some look so fragile that they could collapse at any moment, and yet who knows how long they have been there, guarding those endless spaces. We run side by side without saying a word, every now and then a truck passes by us raising a cloud of dust, other than that we are surrounded by nothing. I would be tempted to ask him when we get to the famous eucalyptus forest, but yesterday it took me an hour to figure out how old he was, so I don’t think he would understand me very easily.
I wonder what he is thinking. Who knows? Every now and then this guy takes on a somber expression that I can’t decipher. Basically, I know practically nothing about him, except that he likes computers and computing.
I would like to be able to have a word with them, even a simple one, but for now I have to worry about not bursting. As we pass the third kilometer, the road begins to arch toward each other but fortunately Efrem waves me to turn left, toward a forest beyond a stream.
The boy glances at the stopwatch then slightly increases his pace, motioning me to follow him, and in an instant we are surrounded by trees and a smell that catapults us into another dimension. So this is the famous eucalyptus forest where the great Kenenisa Bekele started running.
It’s a giant forest, I can’t see the end of it, but even the sound is something surreal that doesn’t seem to belong in this world. Who knows how many tens, nay hundreds of kilometers young Kenenisa must have grinded up and down this forest, when no one yet knew him and only Coach Senteyu understood what he was made of. He will almost certainly have run right where I am doing it, among these dry branches and these blades of grass under my feet. Forests are places where space expands, taking away your sense of direction. By now we have gone so far into it that I wouldn’t know how to go back on my own. Little matter, now the only thing that matters is not to make me disconnect.
Out of the corner of my eye I see that he is reading the stopwatch then suddenly crosses my gaze and shouts “go!” We set off, him in the front and me in the back. The Ethiopian starts jumping between trees as if in a grand ski slalom. I get through the first five or six without any problems, in fact I am almost relieved because we reduce speed, but on the tenth a stretch explodes that almost leaves me on the spot. This is how I discover, to my cost, that the famous workout in the eucalyptus forest is actually a game of slaloms and sudden stretches.
Stretches so aggressive they literally cut into my legs, and by the fourth my heart is so out of whack that lactic acid is coming out of my mouth. And in the meantime Efrem goes, he doesn’t want to stop, and I have no idea how long this torment will last. We have been running for forty minutes and there is not a soul around us, only the scent of eucalyptus trees and my labored breathing. I have to try my hardest not to lose contact, and as I try to follow in his wake trying not to trip over any roots I feel like I am going to die. This boy may be a “beginner” as Senteyu always repeats, but he is still a respectable beginner.
My gps shows seven kilometers, but it took us three to get here, so if the trees didn’t throw off the signal we should be on the verge of finishing, or at least I hope because I’m on the edge. I have just enough energy left to hold up two more stretches, then fortunately it slows down slightly and stops short. I would not have lasted another hundred meters. I try to get back to an upright position but I can’t get my hands off my knees. Running at this altitude literally takes the oxygen out of your mouth, consuming you like a candle. Efrem is tired as well, I don’t need to see him, I just need to hear his breath to know. He is accustomed to this rarefied air; his lungs have been breathing it since he was a child, while mine tasted that salty-smelling air a stone’s throw from the sea. Running often can be excruciating.
We walk to a sunlit patch of land where we begin to perform some stretching exercises. Around us, meanwhile, the stillness of the forest has taken over everything, and the wind is little more than a whisper between the eucalyptus foreheads.
My hare mimes a gesture in the air, then utters Bekele’s name.
I think he wants to tell me that Kenenisa used to train here many years ago.
– Was he slaloming through the trees?-I ask him using my hands. He nods his head.
After all, what we are treading on is a place rich in history.
A story that a predestined young man named Kenenisa began to write many years ago in the very silence of this forest.
(Main image credit: betochagas on DepositPhotos.com. The other images are from the author)