Cat and Shanmao's blog

Well, Gui and I have been busy having fun this month and I've been a little lazy about providing updates here.

I'll mention a 5k race that I ran in early June - the 5k Run and Walk for Lupus held in Mountain View just beside the Googleplex (Google's headquarters), near the bay. I had run this annual 5k race back in 2003 (or was it 2002?) and wanted to try again to see if I'd improved or gotten worse. The first time around I was coming off a period of having not run at all for quite a while. Since I had gotten my new orthotics to prevent my knees from hurting from running I had been training more now and hoped to do better, but didn't really know what to expect. Unexpectedly, the course had moved from being a flat run in Saratoga on a college campus to a somewhat hilly run near the shoreline in Mountain View.

After doing a minimal warm-up (really too little I realize now), at the starting line-up I noticed that most runners looked like me - recreational runners, some of them probably far better but most probably a little slower. However, one participant stood out since he basically looked like a Kenyan olympic athlete, dressed in the appropriate running gear (tank top, most runners wear t shirts), extremely skinny but obviously muscled. I try not to judge people by appearances since I'm often surprised by how someone who doesn't fit the stereotype excels and those who look like pros are really not that good at what they're doing.

The race started and we immediately began climbing a small hill, followed a winding path down the other side to a golf course, looped around the golf course, returned to the hill, and on to the finish line. I was so nervous that on the initial hill climb my energy was all gone - I even felt myself beginning to get the tunnel vision that comes when you're oxygen deprived. Need to work on calming my nerves down and getting ready for the start (which a good warm-up would probably do). At the start of the race, I noticed the super skinny guy out front with one other runner. Since I had to concentrate on my race and they were so far ahead I lost track of them. Later on it turns out the super skinny runner came in about 45 seconds before the 2nd runner.

The results are posted here but cutting and pasting for posterity:

Gui remarked that there were some young runners. Well, I was trailing somewhat who certainly seemed very young and turned out he was 13, and just ahead of him was a 12 year old. The runner that Gui noticed however was way ahead and was only 10!

Later on I looked up the top runner to find out if there was any information about him. Turned out to be quite an interesting story.

Jason Lokwatom is from Kenya and is visiting the SF Bay area for the purpose of running in foot races to attract the attention of college recruiters and get a scholarship to run track and field. He's being sponsored by his employer back in Kenya - the Kenya Wildlife Service. He was (and I guess still is) a park ranger at Nairobi National Park!

Here's a picture from a Los Gatos race. He had placed a respectable 16th place in the 2007 Bay To Breakers I had run in the previous month (I was in the top 2000 I believe). I wonder if some talented script writer could put together something and turn his story into a Disney film. From lions and elephants to elite running in the USA!