Running, cricket, security and ghosts

You hear a lot of nonsense about why Kenyans dominate long distance running. I’ve blogged about it before so no need to repeat myself there. I believe most important reason Kenyan runners are so dominating is because no one else trains like them.

In school we used to have some crazy sports teachers. One of them used to tell us that he would push us so hard so that nothing in game could ever come close to the intensity of training. That way when in the middle of a tough match you could draw the team together and tell them, “listen this is no where near as bad as that session we had last week, if we survived that surely we can beat these clowns.”

That seems to be the approach the Kenyan Cross Country Team coaches have taken. With less than two weeks before the World Cross Country championships take place for the first time on Kenyan soil in Mombasa, the Kenyan Cross Country team moved to Embu on the slopes of Mt. Kenya. In one of those sports reports which do not make it to the online edition of the paper, some members of the team had a couple of training session which involved running up the side of the mountain through in the bush. Up a side of the mountain, through the bush. Don’t give me any crap about Kenyans winning medals simply because they have, “these massive lungs”.

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Our first match at the cricket World Cup starts in 30mins time. 16.30 Kenyan time. What excuse can you give your boss to leave the office early knowing that the man will never appreciate your passion for the game? If we work out a list of excuses we can rotate them amongst us and we’ll all end up watching the game. Anyone know of any pubs in Nairobi showing the matches live?

At the world cup itself Michael Holding’s comments that “minnows” should not be allowed to compete at the World Cup are just silly. First of all Mr Holding should remind himself that a cricketing minnow country called Kenya spanked his very own West Indies in the 1996 world cup in what is one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time. And Kenya made it to the semi final last time around and although test nations like to say that was just because New Zealand refused to play in Nairobi (because Cape Town is so much safer you see) they conveniently forget we had to beat Sri Lanka to get there and nearly, nearly beat India in the semis as well.

Back to the West Indies a couple of years ago the Australian press were wondering, loudly, what the point of Australia playing the West Indies in a test series was as the WI were, according to the Australian press, crap. Legend after West Indian cricket legend appeared on Sky Sports to tell the Australians to shut up and remember that when Australia was crap at cricket the West Indies were amongst their strongest supporters arguing for their right to play test cricket. How quickly these legends forget. After Kenya I normally support the West Indies, this time forget them, its all about minnow power. (Yeah I know the government will probably not recall ambassadors on the back of this blog post but who knows.)

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I have a video clip from the first few minutes of the Mater Heart Run. Watch it and see if you can spot the Vice President’s undercover security team. They really blend into the crowd.

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A decade or so or more ago when I was in high school if students wanted time away from school they go on strike protestesting against the, “quality of the food”, the “quality of the teachers”, which would result in the whole school being suspended by that authorities = holiday. Now days school kids are on a whole new level, they manage to hire some ghosts to possess the whole school. I wonder how long that Kenya Times writer has been waiting to use the words “ghost buster” in an article. These ghosts/spirits are a bit strange in that they calm down once comforted by the blood of a white goat. I’m trying to imagine approaching my old headmaster, whom we called simply “THE Doctor”, and telling him,

“Sir, everyone has gone mad sir. We think its ghosts or evil spirits or something. We need the blood of a white goat.”

“Inform the school any pupil who has the misfortune of being possessed will have triple detention on Sunday.”