Well I'm back in England now after spending 9 weeks in Kenya, the 9 weeks have definitely paid of because just as me and Nick was leaving the plane the air stewardess complimented us on our proper well good tans. The last week in Kenya was pretty good but not so much running wise for me. Last Thursday Alyson Dixon came back out to Kericho so that she could prepare for her upcoming marathon after having a successful spell out here in our in the 1st 3 weeks in which she went home and won all of her races in Pb's and tops the rankings in both the 10k and half marathon, unfortunately for her though she won't be coming back as tanned as me and Nick because just as we where leaving the rain season had just started in Kericho, unlucky Alyson! so when Aly arrived we wasted no time in showing her our usual day since she left, we went for a 40min run in the morning and then went for a curry at a restaurant followed by our last trip to the tea hotel so we could watch Under Siege for the 5th time, by the 5th viewing we both knew pretty much all the words to the film so said them out loud before Steven Seagal did. Friday was the day that I managed to pick up a groin injury by doing some lunges for a minute, I feel ashamed to say that after doubling my mileage up for the last 8 weeks or so and not having problems with that, that I would pick a injury up by doing faggy lunges. This injury is nearly as bad as when Darius Vassell injured himself when he popped a blood blister with a cordless drill. Just before dinner me and Nick decided to go for a walk because we couldn't be bothered to wait around in camp, so we walked alongside the road and bumped into Stan, Stan then took us to the pub for a barbecue. After we ate the food we both agreed that it was the best beef we had ate in along time, only to discover a hour later that it was actually goat. After the food Stan decided that he wanted to buy me and Nick 3 bottles of wine and before we knew it we was sat with some random Kenyan guys in the garden listening to the vengaboys having the times of our lives. One of the Kenyan guys who was sat with us was telling us about how proud he was about he's daughter and that she is going to grow up to be the prime minister, after he had told us this he put down he's bottle of vodka ( now empty ) and told us that he is going to pick her up from school and bring her to the pub, true to he's word he actually did and he even bought me and Nick some samosas, what a really nice guy he was. Sunday was meant to be my last session in Kenya but because of my groin I could only manage fag pace so decided not to do the session, so me and Aly just watched Nick put himself in pain on he's own. This was the Nick 1st proper running session after weeks and weeks of sessions that involved biscuit eating, you could sort of tell because when he was running you could see trails of digestive crumbs and o.n the last rep he actually looked like a massive custard cream. On Monday we left Kericho and made our way down to lake Naivasha so it was goodbye to lots of painful runs and thankfully goodbye to Stano who manged to cry for the whole 9 weeks and pretty much never let us get to sleep, Stano is pretty lucky not to have received a kick in the face because Matt Nick and myself came pretty close to doing so, if any of you are reading this and thinking that this is tight you shouldn't because more than likely he will grow up to become a really bad person. When we arrived in Naivasha by coach we got dropped off under a motorway bridge with loads of Kenyan hells angels there, soon as we got dropped off they came running over offering to take us to a hotel, our first thoughts was that it wasn't going to happen because there was no way they could give us a lift with our massive backpacks. Before we could even make a decision they had grabbed our bags of us loaded them on to the front of their bikes and told us to jump on, the guy on my bike had my backpack between he's legs and he was also on the phone. It was pretty mental to say the least as we where overtaking big lorries and weaving in and out of cars, it sort of felt like yet again I was in a action film like I was in Bad boys 3 chasing after bad guys, After all of the action packed driving we pulled up at our hotel and it is here when we realised that we wasn't in a action film and that we was living a life of 2 simple guys trying to make their way in life whilst looking pretty tanned. After we had unpacked our bags at the hotel we went for a walk around a country hotel and saw lots of animals like Giraffes, Zebras, Impalas, Buffaloes and even a Ziraffe which is a cross bread between a Zebra and Giraffe, It was pretty good because we got within touching distance and we felt like we where two proper well tanned people filming a documentary on the geographical channel. The hotel was for posh and rich people only so me and Nick being poor and tanned couldn't afford to stay there but that didn't stop us ordering brews and booking it to room number 5. Our last day in Kenya was pretty eventful, at about 3 in the morning me and Nick was chasing a Mosquito around the room trying to kill it, I headbutted it about 3 time Nick uppercutted it twice but the bastard wouldn't die so we spent most of the night trying to kill it, as you may or may not know Mosquito causes the more deaths than snakes, spiders, tigers, lions and sharks combined so in theory we would of been safer sleeping in a room with a lion. At about 10am we made our way to Mt Longonot on motorbikes and yet again it felt like we where Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. As we pulled up to the mountain at the main gates where your meant to pay we decided that we didn't want to pay so we walked out of site from the main gate and made our way through the long grass and up to the mountain, as we walked through the grass I could of swore that I could hear snakes but Nick just laughed when I mentioned it to him. Just before we got to the climb a few Impala's ran past us making us jump, we then made our way onto the tourist path out of site of the main gate and after about a hour we finally got to the top of the mountain which is actually a extinct volcano, we then made our way around the crater rim which is about 10km and it took us about 2hours. After we made our way around the crater rim we headed back down the mountain and the plan was to walk as much as we could on the tourist path and avoid the main entrance but just as we was about to head into the long grass we saw a security guard coming towards us so we pretty much knew what was happening. When he got over to us he told us that he could arrest us for not paying so he took me and Nick into a room and started questioning us asking why we walked around the main gate, so we told him that we wanted to get close to the animals and that we where going to pay after coming down, at this point I was thinking that he was going to lock us in the room and call the police and if this would of happened we would of missed our flights. We both kept saying how we liked Giraffe's and this is when he realised that we where just to good eggs and he just decided to let us off with paying, after we had payed we asked what other animals was up and around the mountain and he told us that there where lots of snakes in the grass, so when I said to Nick before about the snakes I was pretty much correct. After we climbed the mountain we headed back to the hotel to pack our bags shower and make our way to Nairobi airport, we travelled by minibus and yet again I had to sit next to a fat women whose elbows and big fat legs kept touching me now and again, about 1 hour into the journey Nick turned around and showed me what it said about the place where the minibus was dropping us off, It said that this street was a popular place for muggings of tourist with big bags so the next hour sat in the minibus had me thinking what I would do if somebody tried to mug me, the best thing I could think was to repeatedly punch myself in the face whilst laughing because I'm pretty sure if I would of done this then the mugger would of ran off and targeted a normal person. Luckily we didn't get mugged or bummed and made it safely to the airport, when we arrived in England we got told that our bags was still in Switzerland so we had to make our way from London with only our hand luggage so in a way it was pretty good because I didn't have to trail around my bag and it arrived this morning. As we sat on the tube me and Nick was talking about how ignorant and miserable English people are compared to Kenyan's so as we where saying this some oldish women sat up and offered her seat to a pregnant women, we both felt like 2 horrible well tanned people and both said how we feel bad. The next 40 minutes spent on the tube we where hoping for a old women to come on or even another pregnant women so that we could offer our seats, this didn't happen so we arrived at Kings cross station still feeling bad. We both made our separate ways home and as I was saying goodbye to Nick I could see the emotion in he's eyes but he managed to fight back the tears and got onto he's train to Newcastle loaded with a KFC wicked zinger meal and probably a pack of custard creams.I'm not sure if Nick managed to do a good deed on he's train but I did by letting a old women read my newspaper, I know it's not the same as offering your seat to a pregnant women but it's better than stuffing your face with biscuits and not doing a thing.So it's back to reality for the both of us after an amazing 9 weeks in Kenya which was made possible due to Ian Ladbrooke's generosity so it's a big thanks to him and we would also like to thank Matt Pierson who kept us entertained for the first 3 weeks with he's views on life and people which we reminisced about over our last few weeks. I'm sort of liking being back with having home comforts like warm showers a tv a big comfy bed and the thought of always having toilet roll and not having to substitute it for bread, the only rubbish thing is going to be going back to work but as soon as I go back I'm going to start saving up for another trip out to Kenya later this year so that I can be a action movie star like Will smith. Thanks for reading my blogs, your all a bunch of bloody good eggs!
JT
