3/21

Tried doing a bit of an interval workout today. I was originally intending to try to do some 1k repeats or some 800m repeats, but Vigil and Virgin said they thought it would be too much (especially since I was considering doing 5-8 of them.) They both felt that shorter and faster would 1) take less out of me. 2) sharpen me for the race better. 3) maintain my current level of fitness since it would be impossible for any workout at this point to improve my fitness before the race. So at coach Vigil's recommendation, I did 6 x 60 second buildups followed by 4 x 30 second buildups. The buildup was started at normal easy running pace, but built up to absolute top sprinting speed at the very end, and was a gradual acceleration during the course of each buildup. Because of the heat and humidity, it wound up feeling like a tougher workout than I would have expected it to be, but I do feel that I recovered well, and that it won't hurt me on race day, but at least maintained my fitness. Spent the rest of the day resting and relaxing (and doing my taxes.) I did take the opportunity to take a crash course in negotiating skills. I know this is asking for trouble, so I decided to try to minimize the pain of the lesson in trying to purchase something small. I've had the good fortune in recent months of learning some negotiation skills. I went down to the beach where all the hustlers were selling their goods. They sell everything from cheap bracelets to multi-day safaris. I found one guy (Peter) that had carved animals out of ebony wood. He asked me what my name was, where I was from, if I was running the race, if I was enjoying Kenya, etc. etc. He did a good job at building rapport (first step in a successful negotiation.) He told me he'd carve my name into a lion or a zebra. I asked him if he could carve my wife's name into a monkey. He told me that he could have it done in an hour. I thought it would be fun to bring Rachel back something like that. So he asked for 3500ks. I did a quick calculation in my head and realized he was asking for about $50. I said it was waaaay to much and offered him 350ks. He looked insulted. I knew he wasn't, because I knew that $5 was nearly half of what the average Kenyan makes in a month (so he was asking for nearly 5 months wages for this one carving.) See, being armed with information helps in a negotiation! He named a lower price, I named a little higher price, and we wound up meeting at 1000ks, which is still overpaying for me, but I got a great lesson in negotiation tactics and I was paying a little extra to a worker in a third world country that needed the money more than I did. My price was equivalent to about $18. Cheap lesson in negotiation that hopefully will come in handy down the road with some real estate transactions. He asked for 500ks up front as a deposit so he could go get the ebony wood to carve. I knew he was just trying to ensure that I'd come back in an hour and pay what I promised, but I wasn't about to give him anything up front because I didn't trust that I'd see him in an hour. He told me he couldn't do it without the deposit because he needed it to buy the wood. I told him that he should use money from his sales earlier in the day to buy the wood. He told me I was his first customer. I told him that if I was his first customer that he must not be very good at his trade, and that I didn't want to buy anything from him. He again looked insulted (I knew he was just putting on a show) and told me to come back in an hour with the 1000ks, and he'd have it done. I did come back later, got my carving, and it is pretty cool! Maybe not worth 1000ks, but the lesson sure was.

The beach at the hotel

We were walking down a tiny street in Old Town Mombassa, and there's a poster on the wall advertising the race

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