Tegla is a five foot tall wooden statue I bought in Tanzania in 1992. I saw her at a roadside market and asked the wood carver about her. She is made of ebony, an intensely black wood that is very heavy. Locally in the sub-Sahara, the “blackwood” tree is known as mpingo. It is known for its high density, fine texture and the ability to be polished to a very smooth finish. I gave the carver a large sum of cash to pay for her and shipping back to the States. He promised that she would arrive  in one piece by the time I got home. My traveling companions just told me I got ripped off. They were wrong. I believed the wood carver and rightfully so. When I arrived home a few weeks later, there Tegla was – in a box on my doorstep…and in one piece. In the eighteen years since she arrived in the States she has been the center of all my living rooms. Some folks have their tv as the center – but for me, it’s been this life-size Tanzanian statue. My mother, known as Nana, always got a kick out of Tegla and we’d kid her that she was shorter than Tegla…and getting shorter every year.

Besides being a great source of entertainment for visiting family and friends, Tegla has been the wearer of my running and triathlon medals. And since 2002, when Laura moved in, Tegla’s served as the medal holder for both of us. Since we both were racing quite frequently, the weight of our finisher’s medals and awards were taking a toll on her and this pint-size Ebony queen appeared ready to tip over and come crashing down on our hardwood farm plank floor . We started placing the medals around her neck with the medallion part on her back to improve her balance.

In 2004 we took all of the medals off of Tegla for a count. Laura had been trying to convince me that I had  run more than 100 marathons -a number I’d been telling people for years. The number turned out to be 153 marathons – or at least 153 of the medals around Tegla’s neck were from my marathons. Last night – six years after the big medal count of ’04 – we decided to strip Tegla of all of our medals once again and give her a much need breather. The stats so far: 420 medals pretty much split 50/50 between Laura’s various ultras and marathons and my runs and triathlons. Besides the medals, Tegla was wearing some Africna beaded bracelets, a safari hat complete with netting, a Canadian Maple Leaf Court jester hat, beneath that a Comrades cap and some Jamaican dreadlocks under that. Laura gave her a nice cleaning and oiling. All Tegla is wearing now is a simple beaded necklace and a prayer cloth that made it to the top of Everest when a friend summited in May. While the medals up to her neck were pretty comical I think it’s time to just let her look regal for a while or at least until somebody puts a witch’s hat on her for Halloween and antlers for Christmas.

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