The question some people may ask is: Why should a 67-year-old woman nursing an injured right leg travel all the way from Kenya to Boston to torture herself while taking part in a 42-kilometre marathon?
But Joyce Nduku aka Tata aka the Marathon Granny will ask: Why should I not?
Running over long distances is her raison d’être. It is something she has been doing since she was 50 in 2004 and she is not about to stop. And so, tomorrow from 3pm Kenyan time when the Boston Marathon starts, Nduku will be among the recreational runners.
This will be her third marathon in the Abott World Marathon Majors. In 2008, she completed the Chicago Marathon and in 2019, she conquered the New York Marathon in four hours and 50 seconds.
Hoping she would shun a niggling Achilles problem and complete Boston, Nduku told the Sunday Nation last week, she will be left with three marathons to conquer in the world majors series: London, Berlin and Tokyo. Those who complete all the six are called “generals” and are given special medals. “Very soon, I will be a general,” she declared.
One of the “generals” in Kenya is Felicita Kagwanja, a friend of Nduku’s.
“She is 62 years and she has finished the six World Marathon Majors,” said Nduku, who retired in 2014 as a nutrition field officer with the Kenya Medical Research Institute.
Recreational running is a sport that is catching on in Kenya, but Nduku wishes more people took part. “We need to push this country and put it on the world map; that this country is not only for elite running but also for recreational running,” she said.
To participate in the Boston run, she paid about Sh32,000 for registration and Sh2,000 as insurance, but she has spent more on her trip and she is footing all the bills.
Nduku wants the Boston race to count. She seeks to support Caroline Mbula at the East African University, who has a debt of about Sh200,000. You help Caroline via M-Pesa and make Nduku’s run count through PayBill number 174507 and account number BED/0062/2016.