In 2009, I had done a few full and half marathons and was starting to get fairly decent finishing times and I decided to take a crack at running a race overseas. At the time I was working for a global company that had offices in Africa and I had gotten to be friends with a couple of my co-workers who lived there. I had heard plenty of interesting stories about the people, different cultures, wildlife, etc., and figured that running a marathon would be a perfect excuse to take a trip there and see some of these things for myself. So I did some research and decided on the Mt. Kilimanjaro Marathon, which is held in Moshi, Tanzania each year and has a course that offers a great view of Mt. Kilimanjaro along with a chance to see some wildlife and run with some locals from Tanzania and Kenya (which is right across the border).

What surprised me the most when I first started putting my travel plans together was how easy it was to work with the race director, Marie Frances. She sent me a big packet of information about the area, gave helped me apply for my travel visa, worked with the airlines to book my flight and took care of my hotel reservations too - it was like having a personal travel agent who also happened to be in charge of the race I was about to run. Anytime I had a question, I would send her an email and she would usually reply within 24 hours.... the reason I'm mentioning all of that here is because she's one of the main reasons that I would recommend this race to anyone that's up for an overseas adventure.

Well... that and the fact that the scenery is stunning, the wildlife is amazing, the locals are super friendly, and the entire experience will be something that you'll never forget....

The most important thing to note about signing up for this race is that it isn't the same as signing up for any other race (another reason I was so thankful to Ms. Frances for all of her help). Instead of doing the trip piecemeal, you sign up for an entire package that includes the race entry, hotel fees, airfare, transportation, meals, and whatever other activities you decide you want to do ahead of time (besides the race, you can also go on a safari and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro). The only things I had to pay for while I was there were beer and souvenirs.

I decided on a package that included the safari and the race. The one piece of advice I would give anyone that's interested in doing this race is to sign up for the full package that includes all of the activities. Whenever I think about that trip, I regret not doing it - it is more expensive and will extend the length of the trip by about a week.... but the reasons I skipped climbing the mountain at the time were because I didn't want to take too much time off of work and didn't want to spend the extra $750 (or whatever it was at the time). First of all, I don't work at that company anymore and when I look back, taking an extra few days off really wouldn't have made any difference at all, and besides that, I've spent a lot more than $750 on junk that I don't even remember buying since then. I've learned over the years that living life to the fullest is more about having amazing experiences than owning a bunch of stuff, and this could have been my chance to have had the experience of going on a safari, running a marathon, and climbing one of the most famous mountains in the world all within two weeks of each other. That being said though, the parts that I did get to experience will be etched in my mind forever.

There are no direct flights from Chicago to Moshi - in fact, there are hardly any direct flights from anywhere to Moshi, and because of the timing of the race and when I needed to be there for all of the various activities, etc., my travel plans were even more complex than usual - I was glad I didn't have to figure this all out myself: in order to get there, I flew from Chicago to Detroit (1 hour), then changed planes and flew to Amsterdam (8 hours), changed planes again after a short layover, and then flew to Dar Es Salaam (7 hours), and then finally changed planes one last time and flew to Moshi (1 hour). After traveling for almost 24 hours straight, changing planes four times and crossing eight time zones, I was exhausted and wasn't even really sure what day it was anymore. Another benefit of paying for the entire trip as a package was that as soon as I walked off the plane and picked up my luggage, there was a driver waiting to take me to the hotel.

For as late as it was and for exhausted as I was, I had so much adrenaline pumping through my veins that there was no way I was going to be sleeping anytime soon. I was glad that I flew out almost 5 days before the race so that my body would have a chance to adjust. Everything about Africa is different from anything I had experienced before - even subtle things like the sounds you hear and the stars you see at night are like nothing you'll see or hear in the states.

The drive from the airport to the Mountain Inn Hotel takes about 45 minutes and while I was in the van I met another runner (another key difference from other races is that everyone who does this race stays at the same hotel, eats together, and travels around Moshi together as a group). She and I passed the time by talking about races we had done and places we had traveled to. One of my favorite things about running besides the actual act itself is that no matter where I am in the world, whenever I meet another runner, I know that I can have a new friend within minutes because there's always so much to talk about. Before we knew it, the van was pulling into the hotel driveway.

The Mountain Inn is one of the most high class hotels in Moshi. It still manages to provide a great African experience though - it's definitely not the Hilton. The hotel sits on the outskirts of town, just at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the majority of people who stay there are climbers who just need a place to leave their stuff while they're out on the mountain... My room came complete with mosquito nets and some cool looking traditional African art.

By the time I got to my room, it was pretty late and the exhaustion of all the traveling was finally starting to set in so I pretty much just flopped in my bed and fell asleep. Over the next few days, I got to do a little more exploring around the hotel and meet the staff and some of the other runners in my group.

Runners traveling in from the states or other places for this race all stay together at the Mountain View Hotel and local transportation is provided for everyone, etc.... Packet pickup is combined with a pre-race party that's held at the hotel the night before the race and we had a bus waiting to take us to the start line on race morning and we were all able to leave our gear on the bus instead of having to check it somewhere, which was nice and convenient.

When we first got there, it was raining.... not a big deal - I actually really like running in the rain. The only downside was that the first quarter mile or so of the race was on a dirt road that had turned to mud overnight so within the first couple minutes, my feet felt soaked and heavy from all of the mud that was sticking to my shoes. Once I got onto the pavement though, I was able to knock most of it off and carry on. Other than that, the course was pretty decent and the weather did eventually clear up.

Here are a few of my memories of this race that stand out the most -

When I tell people that I ran a marathon in Africa at the end of June, one of the most common questions I get asked is how hot it was. Actually it was quite mild. Tanzania is in the Southern Hemisphere, which means that the middle of June is actually the middle of winter. Being so close to the equator, it obviously never gets as cold as it does in the states, but the average temperatures during my entire trip ranged from the high 60's to the mid 70's F.

The streets in Moshi are not as well kept up as they are in the states. Even though we were running on major roads throughout most of the race, there was still quite a bit of dodging cracks and potholes that needed to be done. That being said though, there weren't very many runners doing this race so it really wasn't a big deal. Within the first half mile or so, we had pretty much all separated out and were running our own pace (more on that in a little bit).

It's not easy to block off 26.2 miles worth of roads in Moshi because there wouldn't be enough alternate routes for traffic, so the race was actually a loop that was roughly 10K long and we ran it four times. I was good with this too because there was some interesting scenery along the course, including a lot of leftover bridges and other various relics from back when Tanzania was still a colony. Tanzania was first colonized by Germany in the late 1800s, taken over by Great Britain in 1919 and then became an independent country in 1961. It was the Germans and British who built a lot of the infrastructure, which means that a lot of the roads, buildings, etc... are over 50 years old (hence the cracks and potholes).

Instead of traditional water tables, the race director and some of her assistants drove up and down the course in a van handing out water and orange slices to anyone who wanted them. I actually really liked this - on a normal race course, there's a water table about every two miles or so, and unless you carry your own water with you, if you start to feel thirsty, you have to wait until you get to the next table for a drink. By comparison, this was like having a personalized water delivery service available.

About a mile into the race though something crazy happened that I'm not sure will ever happen to me again in another race..... First a little background: the Mt. Kilimanjaro Marathon is the original marathon in Moshi that offers views of Mt. Kilimanjaro and tour packages that include safaris and options to climb the mountain, etc.... Once the race started to get popular, a rival group created their own race and called it the Kilimanjaro Marathon (similar name, held about 6 weeks earlier, and run by a completely different group of people). The directors of the Kilimanjaro Marathon have a lot of local connections, not only in Tanzania, but in a lot of the surrounding countries as well and they've used their connections to try and attract runners away from the original Mt. Kilimanjaro Marathon. In this particular case, there was a police officer directing traffic at one of the busier intersections.... who we later found out had been paid off by the directors of the rival race... and he sent a fairly large group of runners (myself included) off in the wrong direction. Even though we had seen the course the previous day, none of us were familiar with the area, so we followed the directions and didn't realize that we were going the wrong way until about 3 miles later when we realized that nothing around us looked familiar. To make things worse though, by this point we had split off into two groups and it was the group that was further back who actually made the realization about the course so a few of us had to pick up our pace and run ahead a little more quickly to let the others know.... and then of course we had to turn around and run back to the actual course. At the time I wasn't very happy about this but when I look back now, I honestly have nothing but fond memories of this race and trip and I would still go back and do it again in a heartbeat. Not every race is perfect and something that I've come to learn is that the most challenging ones are the ones that I come away from with the best memories and stories.

To circle back to my thoughts about pace.... this race is open to both overseas runners from the states and other continents and also to local runners from Tanzania and other surrounding countries like Kenya. Two things about this - 1. A lot of the local runners ran the entire race barefoot.... potholes, cracks, mud and all..... and 2. The slowest Tanzanian runner finished the race almost an hour ahead of the fastest American runner.... even with bare feet....

After the race, there was a big post race party where awards were given out by the mayor of Moshi. Because of the huge differences in finishing times, there are actually two sets of awards - one set for local runners and a second set for people who traveled in for the race. I thought that was kind of funny.... but my favorite memory from after the race was meeting my friend Nelson. Nelson is from Tanzania and finished in second place overall in the race. He was also one of the people I mentioned above who ran the entire race barefoot. The reason we started talking was because we noticed that we had the same sized feet and he mentioned that he liked my shoes. So I gave them to him. I had brought another pair and I figured that he could use those a lot more than I could. Nelson showed me an invitation that he had gotten from Elite Racing to come and run marathons in the United States and he's been here a few times since then. We've never gotten a chance to see each other again in person but we do stay in touch via email - English isn't Nelson's first language (and I don't speak Swahili) but we've always been able to find ways to communicate with each other and this is a perfect example of why I love running so much. Runners all share a common bond that reaches across cultural barriers and all it takes is a pair of shoes and a good run with someone to make a new friend for life.

After the race, we had another day to head into downtown Moshi and we all had one last lunch together before everyone started heading to the airport to catch their flights back home. As I was heading to the airport to catch my flight, I was able to watch the sun setting over the African plains and I thought it was a perfect end to an amazing trip.