I Can’t Wait to Get High

Growing up, I was always a plump little munchkin. Baby fat and all. Just freaking adorable.

Until the baby fat decided to grow up with me and soon, all the cute looks and abujubujus turned into looks of concern and worry.

Despite my growing fat, I was a very active child. I swam competitively till high school. I hiked, I was part of the PA (Presidential Awards) programme, and at some point, God knows why, I even tried out for the rugby team. That lasted all of one semester, until I nearly broke my little finger one day and decided rugby wasn’t for me. I would need all my fingers, thank you very much.

At some point, I decided to tackle the stubborn fat and get fit, so I started working out. Home workouts, because we couldn’t afford a gym membership just yet. So in came Insanity by Shaun T, which absolutely melted the fat right off. Alsongide the ramped up the swimming and hiking, and when the money came, the gym also joined the chat.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, I discovered running. Or perhaps running discovered me. Either way, I was about to become insufferable about it.

I don’t quite remember how that happened. I do remember thinking it was overhyped and deciding to try it so I could see what all the fuss was about. I was wrong. There is nothing overhyped about running. As soon as I started, I was an addict. I wanted to run every day, and once I was out on a run, I wouldn’t stop. I wanted to keep going for as long as it took, until my body gave out or gave in.

I was doing endless miles. Back then, Kilimani wasn’t the concrete jungle it is today. It was beautiful. There were apartments here and there, but still enough trees and greenery to give it that leafy, upmarket feel and set it apart from Pipeline.

I ran early in the mornings, just as the sun was coming up and painting the sky in those beautiful morning colours. I’d lace up my Nikes, stretch a little (nowhere near as much as I should have), put on my iPod – remember those little things that carried your entire music library around? – and off I’d go.

As I ran along the green pathways of Kilimani towards the CBD, the world seemed to stop. Or perhaps it was just that I stopped paying attention to everything else. The only thing I was aware of was what was going on inside me.

My usually chaotic, disorganised thoughts seemed to fall into single file, allowing me to process them one at a time until, somehow, things began to make sense. The music played on in my ears, my feet found their rhythm, my breathing settled, and somewhere along the way, I could feel myself slipping into that lovely state where everything felt just right.

It was almost as though my body had a little switch somewhere, and once I’d run long enough, it flipped. The feel-good chemicals kicked in, coursing through me, and now I was floating. I felt lighter, happier, clearer.

I didn’t know the science behind it then. I just knew I loved how it made me feel. I would later learn that there was a name for it: the runner’s high.

I’m an overachiever by design. So I loved pushing my body to see just how far I could go.

Eventually, I was running from Adams, Kilimani, all the way to GPO and back. Multiple times a week. That’s at least 10K a day, just for the fun of it. I was also running marathons, and there was almost always a hike somewhere in the mix. Running, hiking, swimming, repeat. I was doing it all. God, I was having the time of my life. Oh, to be young.

And then, one day, it all came crumbling down.

I left the house as I usually did, laced up and ready for my morning run, looking forward to the high. I was about 3km in when a sudden, sharp pain shot up the side of my right knee. It caught me completely off guard. Before I could even register what had happened, it disappeared. Just like that. Gone.

I brushed it off and kept running. Surely it was nothing.

A few steps later, the pain was back. Only this time, it brought reinforcements. It stopped me dead in my tracks. I remember wincing out loud. I waited for it to pass, as it had the first time. But it didn’t. This time, it wasn’t going anywhere.

I bent over and reached for my knee, trying to figure out what was wrong, or better yet, fix it by massaging it gently. That didn’t work. I tried to start running again. Maybe it was a short circuit. A simple, momentary malfunction. Surely, that had to be it. I refused to listen to my body and the pain only got worse.

I remember slowly becoming aware of my surroundings. It was a sunny day, a pretty sky, the sun still soft and beautiful in that way that’s enjoyable when some of the night’s cool still lingers. I was on Valley Road, and it was clear I needed to turn back.

I tucked the denial away, switched into solution mode, and began the long limp home. And it was long. When you run, you don’t realise just how far you’ve come until you have to go back. And now home feels like Timbuktu.

The whole way, I thought about what the problem might be and how to solve it. That’s how I would spent the next day, the next couple of weeks and months: going from one physiotherapist to the next.

I was hopeful at first. They all promised a diagnosis and a quick fix because my problem was nothing new.

“I’ve seen this before. It’s common with runners. You’ll be back to running in no time.”

“It’s the shoes.”

“It’s running on tarmac.”

Great hypotheses. Brilliant deductions. Now, can we fix it so I can put to use those lovely new running shoes I’ve acquired and that new running track I’ve discovered?

Unfortunately, none of them delivered. Surely this was a simple problem. Plenty of people run. Plenty of people get injured. Why couldn’t anyone figure out how to fix me?

As the months turned into years, money was poured into institutions and people who didn’t deliver a lasting result. I tried different treatments, hoping each new attempt would be the one that finally got me back on my feet. Nothing doing.

Each disappointment chipped away at my once-unshakeable optimism, and slowly, quietly, I began to resign myself to the fact that I might never run again. I didn’t say it out loud, but the thought absolutely broke my heart.

I threw myself into the gym instead, turning to other equipment to get my cardio in and chasing that high I’d soon discover couldn’t be replaced.

Every now and then, I’d attempt to run, just to see whether time had magically healed me. I’d get on the treadmill, ease into it, almost as though I could trick my body into cooperating. It never worked. I couldn’t get through a kilometre before the pain reared its ugly head. I felt betrayed by my body, or perhaps guilty for having betrayed it. Worse still, I began to wonder whether I was permanently broken.

Each attempt was another heartbreak. Eventually, I stopped trying. There were other things I could do, so I focused on those.

Eventually, running wasn’t the only thing I had to give up. Hiking went too.

But just like that, two things I’d loved for most of my life were no longer part of it.

It’s been seven years now. Seven years of watching people live my dream. Going for runs, weekend hikes, marathons, and me swallowing large, hot potatoes of jealousy.

Until recently, when something in me finally rebelled. What do you mean I’ll never run again? Never hike again? The very things I’ve enjoyed for most of my life, I’m never to enjoy again? No, that can’t be the final verdict.

So I decided to try again. I started physiotherapy.

The first guy, like many before him, simply wasted my time and money. He had one strategy: electrotherapy. He’d attach these little electrode pads around the injured area and run electrical currents through them, supposedly to stimulate the muscles, relax them, or something along those lines. That was pretty much all he’d do before sending me off.

I’d return for the next session, report that the pain was still there and that we were making absolutely no progress, and he’d respond by turning up the intensity. Each session, a little more voltage. Until one day, he damn near fried me. That was the last time he would see me.

So I found another guy. This one hurts me.

He makes conversation first, asks me about my life and work, lulling me into a false sense of safety and security before he starts digging his fingers mercilessly into my legs. One second I’m laughing at something funny he said, and the next I’m writhing in pain, contorting my body into all kinds of positions in an attempt to ease the pain. Electrotherapy is still part of the gig but more so his merciless hands.

In those moments, my muscles, tendons, nerves and calves all loathe him, and every so often I contemplate murder just to immobilize him and make the pain stop. But then I remember I might not be able to run once I’m incarcerated, which would defeat the purpose of all this.

Today, though, something happened.

For the first time in seven years, I ran 5K on the treadmill. Five kilometres! With no pain until a little at the very end.

I couldn’t believe it. This must be what it felt like when Jesus touched people and healed them. Okay, Jesus didn’t have them writhing in pain for an hour every week before the results became evident.

Nontheless, I am elated. Over the moon. Overjoyed. I ran the 5K in 37 minutes. Thirty-seven minutes after seven years of not running. Turns out the pain had a purpose and daktari isn’t just a sadist.

I’m grateful for that milestone. And I’m here to celebrate the 5K.

But I’m also celebrating what it represents: the possibility that I might get back something I had convinced myself was lost forever.

Perhaps I can again be one of those people who talk about going for a run in Karura, or running marathons.

I can’t wait to get high.

To get high on a 10K, then a 21K, and eventually a 42K.

Because forget marijuana and opioids. There’s nothing quite like a runner’s high.

If all goes well, I predict you’re about to get sick of hearing about, and seeing, me running.

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