Matthew Todd

My trouble with blogging is that when I’m doing things I’d write about, I don’t have any time to write about them. So:

My buddies Michael and Andrew made the trip last month, and we climbed the mountain together!

They’re both quite good photographers, so I didn’t even bother carrying a camera. The shot above’s from Michael’s Tanzania photoset on Flickr, and Andrew’s are up (with hilarious comments) on his site.

On the climb, you really come to appreciate the strength and tirelessness of the guides and porters—and to realize (machismo notwithstanding) that there’s no way you could make it up the mountain without all these guys carrying your stuff for you.

We climbed with Marangu Hotel, who take good care of their porters. Many, many companies don’t, so I’d encourage you to check out the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project and lend a hand as you’re able.

Looking back at the marathon, I feel really good about it. I had tried to stick well to this novice training schedule I’d found online, and by the morning of the race, even though the bottom was dropping out of my chest, I knew I’d be able to finish alright.

I cued up “Where the Streets Have No Name” on Karen’s iPod at the starting line, waiting to push play until they said go. I hadn’t remembered the first line, but as I was turning left out the cooperative college gate onto the main road, Bono came in with “I want to run,” and holy cow, I almost lost it.

Running itself was pretty much normal. I was worried about starting off too fast, so I found a few people who looked like they were going at a good pace, and we stuck together through the first half of the race.

After that, Karen’s marathon support plan kicked into full gear—she’d stationed people every mile with all sorts of gummy bears, jelly beans, water bottles, potato chips, and sponge buckets. It was fun!

Some of them even ran along with me for a while, which was super encouraging. Jen pushed Benjamin in the stroller, Joe told me corny programmer jokes, and Aaron just kept running—for 11 miles! Here we are coming down the hill with 2½ left.

During those last couple of miles, my quads started cramping and a blister popped on my little toe, but by then it was hard to care about much of anything.

By the time I got to the finish line, I could keep running, but I think that was only because of developed habit, not because I actually had anything left. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so right cursing in desperation before.

Two and a half weeks later, I’m feeling great, and totally eager to keep running. There’s supposed to be a half-marathon in the Serengeti in June, and it looks like there are some other folks here who’d also be interested—though it’ll be one heckuva road trip to get all the way out there!

Also, thanks so much to all of you who helped support the Porters Assistance Project. We came in over our goal, and Karen’s thrilled!

Update, March 1st: Wow, thanks, everyone, we’re pretty much there! (Anybody want to take us over the top?) The race is in just over 10 hours now—10:30pm Saturday EST in the States, 6:30am Sunday here. I’ll be sure to post some pictures!

So, you probably know that I’ve been running a lot these days, getting ready to run the Kilimanjaro Marathon in—holy cow—3 weeks!

What you probably don’t know is that now would be an extremely helpful time for our friend Karen’s organization, the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project, to receive some funds to support their great work.

The porters who help schlep people’s stuff up Kili are seldom treated well by the companies they work for. Most are local farmers trying to make some extra money to feed their families, and with very few exceptions they’re grossly underpaid, overloaded, underfed, and ill-equipped for their difficult work. We’re talking half the established wage, 20 pounds over the legal limit, 1 meal a day, and little proper gear for protection at altitude.

Karen’s working to change all that, and finding remarkable success in getting foreign travel companies to exert pressure on their local affiliates to get their acts together.

So, to help them out, I’d like to ask you to consider sponsoring my running on behalf of KPAP.

I’ve set up a page at http://www.firstgiving.org/matthewtodd where you can make a donation with a couple of clicks. Firstgiving will direct your donation to International Mountain Explorers Connection, KPAP’s (tax-deductible) parent organization in the States, who’ll send it straight here.

Dollars become remarkably effective when you turn them into Tanzanian shillings!

Oh, and I think some sort of publicity stunt / way of saying thanks might be in order, like magic-markering all the donations on my arms before the race, something like that. Any ideas?