Sunday morning, after our drive back from Malawi, Steve and Grant Schaeffer left Lusaka at 4AM to drive to Cape Town, South Africa to run in the Two Oceans Marathon. It took them 4 long days of driving. They arrived Wednesday evening.
The goal this year was to run it in under 6 hours. It is a 56K marathon. They ran it in 6 hours 8 minutes last year. This year was cold and raining. The finish line is on a nice grassy green field. By the time they crossed it, it was just sloppy, mucky, yucky mud! They did cross the line in 5 hours and 59 minutes.
Steve felt much better prepared this year. The hill training paid off. Grant kept telling him to go on, but Steve was determined not to leave him. Last year was Grant’s year and he wouldn’t leave Steve.
On Monday morning Steve got on a plane and flew back to Lusaka. He took a taxi to the bus station and got on a bus for Mbala. He arrived back in Mbala Tuesday morning. He had been gone for three weeks. He is a homebody and was so glad to be back home. But I don’t think he will be stepping back on a bus anytime soon. We see lots of bus accidents here and after riding on one, we now know why they wreck a lot.
Steve kept texting me all night long telling me were he was. He thought I might have to drive out to the junction and pick him up at 4 in the morning. I would get a text that just said: Mpeka. Then: Kasama. These are towns on the way. The last text said: backdoor. It was 4 AM I was so glad I didn’t have to get up and drive some where that early in the morning to pick him up.
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