Tata, the Marathon Grandmother: ‘Every Sweat Dripping off My Face Is for a Cause’

Joyce Nduku has been hitting the headlines recently, almost as much as she hits the streets in her running shoes – and its all for a good cause. Lesalon Kasaine recently caught up with her.

by Lesalon Kasaine

It’s 2014, and Joyce Nduku is turning 60. Unlike most sixty-year-olds cooling off from years of work, to recline into sedentary lives, Joyce Nduku is different. She is running.
On this particular day in 2014, she’s in running gear, her running shoes laced tight. One step after another, keep going, she whispers to herself, for every sweat dripping off my face is for a cause.

She keeps pumping her legs, focused on the race. She knows that running is a mental game; tell your mind to keep going, that you’re able, and the body responds with energy.

There are runners in front of her as well as behind her. She’s the oldest in this marathon, a luminary swimming against the current that sweeps most people her age, and above her age, down the stream of laid-back lives with little physical straining. People in running circles call her Tata Nduku. Tata means grandmother. She is Tata, the marathon granny.

Joyce Nduku isn’t running away from anything; she is running towards something, for someone. She’s running for a boy back in her village who was born with rectal malformation—a birth defect occurring when the anus and rectum don’t develop properly. A seasoned charity marathon runner, Joyce Nduku made a deal with God days ago that she’d use every coin raised from this marathon to pay for the boy’s surgery.
Her t-shirt pasted onto her sweaty back, beads of sweat rolling down her face, she keeps going. Every sweat dripping off my face is for a cause…

It’s 2024, and Joyce Nduku is now 70 years old. In all honesty, she doesn’t look 70. She looks younger, as if 70 exists only on paper—not her. Maybe her only claim to 70 is the hint of white and grey on her hair which she keeps trimmed short. On this day in June, she has invited Qazini into her home in Kitengela, Kajiado County, about 34 kilometres south of the capital Nairobi. She shares the story of her journey as a marathoner. Every journey has a beginning point, and that’s where she starts.

The back story

In 2004, Joyce Nduku turned 50. It’s a blessing to celebrate such a milestone, but for her, the joy came with a problem. Her knees ached, throbbing with all signs of arthritis. She was then a staff at Kenya Medical Research Institute, KEMRI—one of the leading health institutions in Kenya—which meant she understood that most diseases attack people from the age of 50.

“One morning as I prepared to go for fieldwork, I struggled to tie my shoelaces. The pain in my knees had worsened, making such a minor routine task of tying laces arduous. The pain worried me and I wondered, could it be that my lifestyle has contributed to this problem?”

Before then, Nduku had taken care of her health, though she hadn’t been so keen on her lifestyle. For example, she wasn’t deliberate on her diet and physical exercise. She’d moved up and down working in the field for KEMRI, and while most consider such movement enough physical exercise for someone her age, Nduku thought otherwise. It was then that she made a deliberate decision to make lifestyle shifts; be conscious of her diet and ramp up her physical exercise. The latter, she made up her mind to achieve through running.

“I chose running because it is simple. It doesn’t require a lot of logistics, and anyone can start at any time, from wherever they are. You get your tracksuit or t-shirt and shorts, a pair of running shoes, and schedule some time to jog or engage in brisk walking. It’s not rocket science.”

Joyce Nduku had never run before, unless we count the compulsory running her school teachers enforced many years ago during games time when she was a primary school pupil.

After running solo for two months, she decided to start a running group at KEMRI, because running requires a team where members psyche each other up and hold each other accountable.

Hitting the ground running

They hit the ground running, literally, but this wasn’t without occasional jeers from naysayers finding it crass for older women to wear tights and be on the streets. Joyce Nduku never cared. In life, you get to moments of personal convictions where words of critics, meant to knock the wind out of your sails, wield no power over you. Because you know your why.

It didn’t take long for Nduku to begin reaping the benefits of running. Her memory improved; her mind could now “retrieve, at night, information I had forgotten during the day”. She also felt “younger and energised”. Her newly found hobby, she decided, was here to stay.

A few weeks into running, Joyce Nduku heard about the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon. It was in 2004 and the marathon was in its second edition, having set off a year earlier in 2003 with an inaugural marathon.

“Why not sign up for it?” Nduku asked herself. “It’s time I take on a challenge.” She registered for the marathon and for the first time in her life, ran a half marathon.
Joyce Nduku was a sight to behold: A fifty-year-old woman, running with a heavily bandaged knee. The issue with her knee still plagued her, though, with treatment and her deliberate exercising, she was well on a recovery lane.

She narrated, “After the marathon, I walked from KICC in Nairobi’s CBD, all the way to my home. Back then I was living in Nairobi West. In the days that followed, I felt an unexplainable peace with self.”

In 2005, Joyce Nduku ran the Lewa Safari Marathon and proceeded to run it for 8 consecutive years. However, when the organisers revised their registration fee northward, making it unmanageable for many Kenyans, Nduku pulled the plug and focused on other marathons.

Nduku’s presence and participation in marathons inspired many. People began celebrating her in running circles. However, her colleague runners couldn’t call her by her name, Joyce Nduku. As she explained, “In the African culture, younger ones have been taught not to call the older ones by their names. It’s a respect thing. So, they started calling me Tata, which means grandmother. I liked it.”

The colloquial ‘Tata’ stuck and soon became her brand.

“In the running circles, if you ask for Joyce Nduku, chances are you won’t find me as quickly as you would if you asked for Tata, or Tata Nduku.”

In 2007, Joyce Nduku decided to up the ante. Until then, she had only run half marathons. I can do a full marathon. I am capable, she thought to herself. She registered for her first full marathon at the year’s Standard Chartered Marathon and completed it in 5 hours and 7 minutes.

“Completing my first full marathon gave me so much peace and happiness. I considered it my greatest achievement.”

This new achievement came with oodles of motivation for Nduku to keep running. Furthermore, her health had improved—she felt and looked younger, and her brain was sharp. Most people her age were beginning to lose memory.

Any marathoner will tell you that it’s a dream to run the famous six world marathon majors: the Chicago Marathon, Boston Marathon, New York Marathon, London Marathon, Berlin Marathon and Tokyo Marathon. Nduku thought about them and a yearning opened up in her heart like a budding flower, blooming by the day. Getting into these marathons, however, isn’t easy. It’s not only competitive but also attracts a huge number of runners. Nduku gave an example, “The London marathon alone gets over 500,000 applications, yet it’s only 50,000 applicants who’ll make the list.”

In 2008, Nduku made it to the list of selected runners to participate in the Chicago Marathon. Compared to her first marathon a year back where she finished in 5 hours and 7 minutes, in Chigaco she knocked down an hour to finish in 4 hours and 7 minutes. Already a big inspiration to many for showing the world that limits can be broken, this achievement strengthened her resolve.

I’ll keep doing this, there’s no stopping, Nduku thought to herself. She wasn’t about to give up the joy, peace and fitness running gave her.

Another new chapter of her life came when she was about to turn 56. It was in 2010. Some friends brought to her attention an ultra-marathon in South Africa called Two Oceans.

“Hey, have you heard about the Two Oceans marathon?” One of her friends asked.

“Two Oceans marathon?” Nduku mirrored.

“Yes. The two oceans represent the Atlantic and the Indian ocean. The marathon takes place in Cape Town, South Africa, and we think you need it especially now that you are turning fifty-six.” Another friend answered.

“Great,” Nduku said. “But tell me one thing, why now when I am turning fifty-six?”
The friends went on to explain that the marathon was for a distance of 56 kilometres. As the point sunk into Joyce Nduku’s mind, her eyes glowed with conviction. 56 for each year; 56 at 56. What an amazing idea!

Joyce Nduku registered for the Two Oceans marathon and made the final list. That year, she marked her 56 years by running for 56 kilometres in Cape Town, in 5 hours and 35 minutes. The milestone not only marked the beginning of her participation in ultra-marathons but also pointed her to her true North: It was then that she vowed in her heart that every bead of sweat dripping off her body would be for a worthy cause—charity. She vowed to run with the goal of changing the life of someone in need.

The charity works

Over the following years, Joyce Nduku and her running circle organised marathons whose number one intention was to raise money to help children in the slums of Kibera suffering from Cerebral Palsy, a group of neurological disorders affecting a person’s ability to move or maintain balance and posture. These children’s dire situation attracted the attention of Nduku, who felt a conviction in her heart to step in and help.

“Their mothers had little hope, and some had resigned to the fate of their children,” Nduku explained. “You’d see them [the mothers] take washing jobs to earn a living, and while bending backs to scrub clothes, they would have their sick children sitting next to them. And that was their lives. Wake up, carry the child to work, sit them there, wash the clothes, go home. Wake up again the next day and repeat the routine. That’s something that could change, but it needed money. My friends and I vowed to run to change these lives.”

A good number of these children were in need of sitting and standing aids. Nduku and her friends ran and raised money which they used to take the children to a physiotherapist, and to buy sitting and standing aids for them.

Indeed, the why is more powerful than the what. Tata, the marathon granny, had found her big why. She’d attached her running to a good cause, that of charity. This became her new motivation.

By 2014, when Nduku was retiring and leaving KEMRI at the age of 60, she had run for several charities. In the wake of her retirement, she was clear on one thing: my retirement is from employment, not from my new lifestyle. I’ll keep running. But a serious injury—an Achilles injury on her left foot—posed a threat to the continuity of her running. It was bad to the point that Nduku went in for surgery.

Fear can debilitate, and that’s what it did to her. Scary what-ifs kept funnelling into her mind as she lay on a hospital bed at Mater Hospital in Nairobi, waiting for a nurse to wheel her on her bed to the theatre.

What if the surgery compromises my ability to run? What if my last marathon was my last marathon? If I do an audit of these years I’ve run, have I really given my best? I vowed to run for a cause; am I comfortable with what I’ve done for my community so far, or could I do more? Is this where and how it ends, in a theatre room? Will I allow this Achilles injury to snatch my purpose in such a cruel fashion?

Joyce Nduku summoned the surgeon. “If this surgery will compromise my running, then leave it. I’m not going in for the operation.”
The surgeon reassured her that she’d put on her running shoes again. “Dear God,” Joyce Nduku prayed, negotiating a deal with God, “If you let me run again, I promise to change the life of the boy in my village who was born with rectal malformation. Amen.”
The boy.

Think about living with a defect where your rectum wasn’t fully formed. A defect you neither asked for nor deserved; it came attached to your life when you breathed your first. It means you can’t move your bowel like normal people do. You need bowel management programs, for example, scheduled bowel evacuations. You’ve never relieved yourself the normal way.

Exercise your empathy a little bit and fit in the shoes of the boy’s mother. You carried a pregnancy to term, nine gruelling months. And it all led to a hospital bed, in a maternity ward, where labour pains cut and stung you for hours. You weep and break sweat as you push a life out of you. But then not long after your baby’s first wails fill your ears, the doctor, sullen, faces you with the news. “Your baby has a defect. Rectal malformation. I’m sorry.” It’s probably the first time you hear of that defect. How first times can change lives for a long time, sometimes for good.

That’s the pain the boy and her family endured for years. Joyce Nduku, on a hospital bed, vowed to God to change that life. If only…
The surgery was successful. Joyce Nduku pulled on her running shoes again, organised a charity run for her 60th birthday, and invited her friends. They raised enough money to pay for a correctional surgery for the boy.

When the boy went in for his surgery, Joyce Nduku’s mind tossed fear up to the surface. What if he dies in there? She asked God to preserve the life of the boy, for if he died on the operation table, the guilt would live with her for the rest of her life. She was the one who’d taken the kid from the village and brought him here.

She hung around the theatre for close to 8 hours; pacing corridors, praying, hoping. God granted her request, and the boy now lives a normal life.

Another charity work that Joyce Nduku has been involved in is the construction of the first ever public children’s cancer hospital in sub-Saharan Africa. The construction is underway in Eldoret, at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital. Here’s a fun fact: the work is being entirely funded by marathoners; people like Joyce Nduku who have vowed to run for charity. Every sweat dripping off my face is for a cause…
Her lifestyle advice

“I’ve worked for many years at KEMRI, one of the leading health institutions, and I can tell you: 80% of bed occupancy in hospitals is as a result of lifestyle diseases. Kenyans do one thing so well, yet they do another poorly. They eat a lot of junk yet fail to properly exercise. Take the example of a middle-class Kenyan living and working in Upperhill. You’ll find them behind steering wheels in the morning, stuck in traffic. And I ask, why can’t you use that opportunity to walk or cycle to work, given it’s not so far away? You are not only congesting our roads but also doing a great disservice to your body. Body exercise keeps you fit mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.”
Joyce Nduku understands that a lifestyle change might cause you the loss of some friends.

“I am aware that choosing to walk to work or cycle or be on the streets running or shift your diet and change the places you hang out might cost you some friendships. Some friends want to hang out with you the way they used to hang out with you, indulging in activities that pose danger to your health. If you choose a healthy lifestyle but then encounter such friends, cut them off. I experienced the same when I started running. Some friends thought me a mad woman, wearing tights at my age and running in the streets. But who cares? In my seventies, I am stronger and healthier compared to most of my peers, because of a healthy lifestyle.”

In her family, some of her siblings suffer from hypertension, whereas some of her uncles collapsed from heart attacks. None of these diseases have come near Joyce Nduku. She chalks it up to her healthy lifestyle and advises not only her family members but also anyone reading this story to pick up a healthy lifestyle. It’s never too late to start.

“We need to be deliberate on what we eat. Look at our parents and grandparents who lived during times when there wasn’t great advancement is technology. They ate healthy foods like githeri, whole maize flour grinded at posho mills, and fresh vegetables. They lived long, healthy lives. But now? The nation is in the claws of refined foods.

“One scenario makes me shake my head: during holidays when we visit our relatives upcountry, we shop refined foods for them, thinking we are gifting them; treating them to a great holiday. In return, we carry back to the city healthy foods fresh from their farms. Why are we selling to them the idea that refined foods are superior?”
In truth, when we sell the idea to our relatives and friends upcountry that refined foods are superior to their fresh-from-farm products, we tamper with their healthy eating lifestyles. We introduce a slow serial killer into their systems: refined foods and junk.
I wake up by 5.30 in the morning

Seventy-year-old Joyce Nduku currently lives in Kitengela on the outskirts of Nairobi. Retired, she chose not to employ a house help but instead do everything for herself. She maintains a kitchen garden where she produces her own fresh vegetables. She keeps dogs, rears chickens, and grows trees and flowers which she enjoys watering. She also enjoys domestic tourism, exploring Kenya with a group of her friends.

“Kenya is beautiful. I encourage Kenyans to be domestic tourists; I’ve discovered places I never knew existed. And it’s easy, you research for places then come together with like-minded friends and car-pool.”

In her own words, this is what her daily routine looks like:

“I’m an early riser. By 5.30 in the morning, I am up. I lock my dogs and then go for my morning run. I run six to ten kilometers a day (an average of 1 hour 20 minutes), six days every week. If it rains before I leave the house, I cancel running, but if rain finds me already running, I keep going. When I get back from my running I feed the chicken, have breakfast, and then tend to my kitchen garden. I normally have an early dinner at 5 o’clock but with snacks in between breakfast and then. Occasionally, I enjoy a glass of good wine.”

Joyce Nduku runs a minimum of two marathons every year. Her dream is to participate in all six major world marathons: Chicago, Boston, New York, Tokyo, and Berlin. So far she’s run the Chicago marathon twice.

She is a mother of two boys who are now adults working and charting out their journeys.

Her philosophy in life: In your journey, make a difference in someone else’s life.

Distributed by bird story agency

Lesalon Kasaine is a thriller writer, poet, and journalist charged to tell stories of ordinary Africans doing the extraordinary. He is the content manager at Qazini.com, a platform dedicated to changing the narrative of Africa.