Week 7 log: Ghostly Apparitions and Hyena Taxis
Well dudes it is just as well you weren’t in Maseru this last week. There were rumors of a dodgy apparition roaming the streets in the early mornings and evenings, gasping, wheezing and foaming at the mouth. It was ugly dudes, ugly! I fear that I am back where I was 3 or 4 weeks ago in terms of fitness. In spite of this, there is no chance of letting up. As they say in the classics; “the presence of the hangman’s noose concentrates the mind wonderfully”. And the metaphorical noose in this case is the Sky Run, now only 2,5 months away.

One of the idiosyncrasies of Maseru taxi drivers is that when I am running and they see me they give a little staccato beep, beep, beep. Initially I thought they were just being friendly but in one of my more cynical moments I imagined that they were more like four wheeled hyenas sensing a possible killing due to the extremely knackered condition of the lungu runner.

Maseru is basically situated in and around a whole bunch of hills. In any other place they would be called mountains but you can’t really call them that in the Mountain Kingdom. This means that every run has chunky climbs. There is one that is so formidable I call it “the beast”. It is nuts. The only way I can rationalise it is that the dude building the road didn’t have enough money for 2 or 3 hairpin bends so just built it straight up. The beast takes no prisoners, brooks no dissent and only understands grovelling subservience. Its not quite as powerful as a Balrog but its in that league. Its only redeeming feature is that, if I reach the point where I can run over that mofo without stopping I will know then, truly, that I am ready for the Sky Run.

Well that upshot of all that was that I clocked 36 km; my best week yet. 36 very had earned kms, I can tell you!