Kenyan Distance Runner Marko Cheseto's Frostbitten Feet Amputated in Anchorage

A twenty-eight year old champion distance runner from Kenya on the University of Alaska at Anchorage’s track team had both his feet amputated as a result of severe frostbite. Distance running is a somewhat vulnerable to freezing pastime above 60 degrees north latitude after October 1st. One must use special heat running shoes and intermodal survival attire often lacking from collegiate equipment. I had a nice town an country goose down parka that was absolutely useless with a little sweat and would then refreeze in a wet condition until spring that about April 20th.

Runners should have special running spikes, in head verbal g.p.s instructions if from Kenya in their own Zulu language and an emergency locator beacon with a dead man switch that will alert rescuers an hour after the system is activated because of measured thermal hypothermia transition in the athlete’s body.

I saw one of these Kenyan distance runners on the street near a midtown park in Anchorage last winter and thought then that the light sweat clothing and weather circumstance with frozen icy sidewalks, cool wind and walk/don’t walk signals were not conducive to an equatorial runner’s health.

For six months annual the high temperature in Anchorage is usually below freezing. Wind often rises from salt water cook Inlet even when its 5 degrees Fahrenheit sending the wind chill plummeting far below zero. It is easy to flash freeze and frost damage the little blood vessels on the nose giving one the purple nose appearance associated with drunks. Equatorial African runners given athletic scholarships to provide winning times for the University in intercollegiate competition (one did win this year) have about zero experience with cold weather. The runner who lost his feet did so shortly after the return of seasonal cold weather when running should reasonably have stopped for the winter. The Univ. of Alaska at Anchorage does not import marathoners from Greenland, Iceland or Russia to win races for them. Running these days to win at the highest levels is a year-round training prospect. That’s good in Equatorial Africa yet not so good in Anchorage Alaska.



African runners of an elite caliber on scholarship don’t have the normal years of cold weather experience. Neither do distance runners turn off their innate inertia to run six months a year. So one gets to see the somewhat pathetic sight of ultra-thin distance runners slowly picking their way along slick cold icy streets at a near jog-in-place pace rather unenthusiastically I should imagine. Cold weather to the uninformed is a little like an ocean wave that engulfs you. The cold is its own pressing, saturating immediate reality that requires experience to survive with all of one’s body parts intact.

If a newly arrived homeless person from the south arrives and is careless, he may have his toes frozen if left outside a sleeping bag a few hours. A Kenyan runner can ecome disoriented in a snowstorm or slip on ice in a park hitting his head and be covered by snow-and be lucky to wake up. Athletes on scholarship must perform immediately upon arrival and continuously for their four years at college. In Oregon running distances year round might have been reasonable before the Kenyan conditions for better year round running fanaticism arrived. Anchorage Alaska is a better place to import Russian weight lifters or Swiss competition climbers (If there is such a collegiate sport), Indonesian scuba divers or Scandinavian skiers instead of equatorial African runners. If the University f Alaska at Anchorage insists upon giving scholarships to out of nation non-residents it should try for 7 foot indoor basketball players from South Africa or a shot putter or two in order that they can have realistic year-round training opportunity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15835528