Earthworks musicians Seth Bernard and May Erlewine joined the team for today’s 16-mile run, which took us into the Yirgachefe coffee region, and a mere 36 miles from our ultimate destination on Thursday. At every water and food stop along the road, Seth and May lit up the crowds of villagers and children, who clapped, danced, and engaged in the sort of cross-cultural love and understanding that music knows best.
The Run Across Ethiopia expanded today, with Timothy Young’s daughter Stella, and Hans Voss’ wife Maureen and daughters joining us on Day 8. Filmmakers James and Jamaica Weston have returned to us after spending much of the past week in Addis Ababa. And even our local support crew — nurse Mamoosh and interpreter Egga — donned sneakers and left the van to leg out a few miles. As such, the team that ascended 15 miles into the Sidamo coffee-rich region was nearly 20 people strong.
With four consecutive 30-mile days in the rearview mirror, and the distance between Addis Ababa and Yirgachefe now 67 percent complete, the Run Across Ethiopia harriers took it relatively easy today. They slept in (until 7 a.m.) and enjoyed a restaurant sit-down breakfast, before legging 15 miles (24 kilometers) through hilly but beautiful, jungle-like terrain south of Hawassa. This journalist’s left knee felt recovered enough to join the team for seven miles. Tonight and tomorrow night we’ll stay in the gorgeous Agadash lodge, which overlooks miles of lush green foliage, and where we can literally feed wild hyenas (there’s so much food in this valley that the animals won’t hurt humans).
How did 1,000 ganja-loving Jamaican Rastafarians show up in a rural village in southern Ethiopia? The Run Across Ethiopia harriers learned how on Day 6 of their 250-mile run to Yirgachefe. Former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (“Negus Negusti”, the “king of kings”) gave land in the village of Shashomane, north of Hawassa, to 300 Jamaican Rastafarians in the 1950s. Rastafarians believed that Selassie was a prophet from God.
Coach Dan Zemper — a late but very important addition to the run — held court with an allegorical story about how Canadian geese fly faster in a tight V formation because they remain in a pack, draft behind one another, and never let a single goose fall behind. The runners took Zemper’s words to heart, remained in a pack today, and finished strong despite a vicious midday sun that beat through a cloudless sky.
Today, the Run Across Ethiopia harriers and local Tesfa team runners faced a third straight 30-mile run through the Rift Valley to Lake Lagano. The team that awoke this morning before 5 a.m. hobbled, limped, crawled and pranced their way to the bus for a predawn breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and coffee — some of their toes bound in tape and sore ankles and knees wrapped, their stomachs victims of the local cuisine, and looking battle-weary like soldiers returning from the front.
Yesterday the team of Run Across Ethiopia harriers completed their first of four consecutive 30-mile-per-day bouts, starting at 7 a.m. in Koke and finishing at 1:30 p.m. in the midday heat in Meki. Fighting through aches and pains are a given now, but so is the supportive camaraderie that keeps our gang together, running in a pack and dishing out encouragement like a support group.
The Run Across Ethiopia harriers stepped things up a notch on Day 2 of the 250-mile, 11-day journey. This morning, shortly before 8 a.m., we left the town of Debre Zeyit and headed southeast, then due south, on a 28-mile jog, during which the urban congestion gave way to beautiful rolling fields of teff grass (which Ethiopians use to make injera, their national dish).
This morning at 9:38 a.m. local time (1:38 a.m. in Michigan), the much anticipated Run Across Ethiopia put feet to the road and began jogging south, out of Addis Ababa toward Yirgachefe. Here a few short videos taken shortly before, during and after the run’s beginning.
At 9:38 a.m. local time (1:38 a.m. in Michigan), the Run Across Ethiopia departed from Addis Ababa to fanfare, words of rally from organizer Timothy Young, and the brief participation of Ethiopian Olympic gold medal winner Million Wolde (5,000 meters, Sydney 2000) as well as a handful of friends, journalists and onlookers.