Rev Runs!

Scenes from a run

2012-01-16T18:19:00.000+11:00

A few weeks ago, I took my pocket camera (Canon N95) with me on my Saturday run so I could share with you what it looks like to run here in Katima Mulilo, Namibia. I hope the photos get posted in order (since I post to my blog via e-mail, sometimes I don’t always get the results I expect).

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First, the view out my door which now shows the under-construction Parish Hall across the way. The temperature is nice, not too hot, with a slight breeze. You can also see that my yard is starting to get a bit green from the rain we have had.

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Turn on my handy, dandy Garmin 410 GPS watch and allow it to find the satellite signals while I do my 100-Up warmup exercises.

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The room where I stay is part of a larger conference center run by the Sisters here in the Mission where I live (there is a convent, a parish church with an Indian priest, primary and secondary schools and a girls’ hostel, and the Cheshire Home for Disabled Children here, in addition to this conference center.) That’s my room on the end with the open window.

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The sandy road leading out. This is a nice way to start, since I’m in barefeet. It loosens up the ligaments, muscles, tendons and joints in my feet and ankles.

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A sample of the road I run on. It is tarmac, but not the smooth, predictable kind of asphalt one finds in the Western world. However, there are not very many cars up here, so the road is actually in very good shape. Unfortunately, due to a high rate of alcohol consumption, and a lack of glass bottle recycling (as is common everywhere else in Africa), there is a lot of broken glass on the road. Gotta keep my eyes open.

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Three guys on their way to work. We bike commuters in Katima are a small but tight fraternity.

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I love this house. A beautiful example of traditional building methods. I’ve never been inside, but I bet that it is wonderfully cool in the hot season.

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Boys. . . Future rap stars or auto builders? They were initially amused by my interest in their cars, but then quite proud of their handiwork. One of my favorite things about Saturday morning runs is that it’s almost the only time I see school age kids out playing.

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What is this? An odd site early on a Saturday morning—a group of adults standing around. But during my entire run, there were cars stopping here and getting out to look--

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At this accident. Pretty amazing that the car turned itself around so that the back end was demolished by the tree, not the front. There was a couple in the car. The woman passenger, stepped out and was essentially unhurt. The male driver had crashed his own car a few weeks before. This accident occurred around 7am this Saturday morning (it was about 8:15am or so when I got there). He was taken to the hospital, but died shortly after. Drunk driving.

I think it made an impact on at least some of the people who stopped to take a look.

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The family compound just before my 4-mile turnaround point. This is how people live out here—in small extended family groupings. There may be several of these within a couple of kiliometres of each other which make up a “village” by the government’s definition. This is the only house I’ve ever seen that is raised up off the ground which is quite wise as this is on the flood plain. Last year, there were two refugee camps within 8km along this road, this year, so far we haven’t had any severe flooding.

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One of the myriad of fascinating bugs we have here in Namibia. I think this is some sort of cricket or grasshopper.

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A small pond filled with lily pads. The roots of the lily pad are a local sweet here (though they are not really very sweet). They taste pretty nice—not a strong flavor at all.

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You can barely see these small, spider-shaped, flowers but as a bush, they give off an aroma that nearly bowled me over. So sweet and luscious! When I was running by, I had to stop and go find what was producing that smell. Incredible!

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The graves of a couple, always beautifully maintained. Richard lived into his early-70s and his wife into her late 60s. Clearly they are a family of means.

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Next to their graves, the family herd of cows. Since they are mostly lying down, I predict rain is coming. Just a small sampling of the lovely, grassfed beef found throughout Caprivi.

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Ah, back within the town limits.

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Home again. Just a couple hundred meters to go now.

of names and lizards

2011-12-05T03:26:00.000+11:00

Over the past few weeks, my running consistency has not been what it should be. Mostly I’ve run 3 times, one week only twice, I think—one run during the week and a run on Saturday and another Sunday. During the week, I just sort of “haven’t felt like it” or something. Partly I think that taking time off to rest my Achilles and then the tendonitis on the top of my right foot got me out of the habit somewhat. And it seems that the weekend runs are a bit harder on my feet as a result. So, my plan this week is to run more frequently, but shorter runs. Ideally, I’d like to run every day, at least a mile or two, but we’ll see how it really pans out. I’m hoping giving myself permission to run shorter (rather than having to do an hour every time), will get me out the door. I always feel better when I get out there.

Yesterday (Saturday), I ran eight miles, but I had to get off the pavement around mile 5 or so because it just got too hot for my tootsies. I like to laze around a bit on the weekends, but this can put a crimp in my plans because if the sun is out, the tarmac is really too hot to run on by 9:30 or 10:00am. Though I’ve pushed it until I cannot stand it anymore, I don’t think this is the wisest move. Last week on Sunday, even wearing huarache sandals and running on the sandy trail gave little relief. Fortunately, this week it had just rained Friday night, so the trail was cooler.

Today, it was totally overcast (yippee!) when I went out and I decided to do a trail run, for the first time in weeks and weeks. This was my longest barefoot run yet at 10 miles. I ran into the sunshine around 4 miles, so those middle two miles I was pretty hot, but then I ran back into the clouds which I really appreciated. The path had a great diversity of textures—about as much diversity as one can get around here—soft and hard sand, some sandy mud, dirt, grass and some rocky bits. Very nice. I didn’t get any blisters, but I did have some “friction” marks, reminding me that these trails let me get a bit lax with my form.

Best Positive Exchange: Yesterday, while running back on the trail that parallels the road, I ran into two young girls. I said hello (it is pretty rare to see young girls out just playing) and to my great surprise, they started to run with me! As readers know, I’ve had this happen with boys, but never before with girls. They were Anna and Giai (spelling?). I cannot really figure out how to spell the second name. She pronounced it with a very soft G and a long I – like “shy” except starting with a soft G sound. It just hit me like one of the most beautiful names I’d ever heard! For the past year or so, I’ve been pondering the possibility of changing my name and, if I could figure out how to spell it, I think I may have found my new name! At any rate, they were very sweet girls, about 10 years old, I think. They ran with me for about half a mile talking to each other along the way in amazement, clearly about me. Were they surprised to see a woman running? Or that I was barefoot? Or that I was white? Or the whole combo of a white woman barefoot? Either way, I was happy to make their acquaintance and give them a different image of what a woman can be.

Sunday was a much more solitary run. Two miles into this trail, I turn onto a path that is pretty much deserted except for the two weeks in August that the Seventh Day Adventist Church is using their camp out that way. I did run into some very fresh foot prints, but never found the people that belonged to them. However, on my way back, I encountered one of the coolest lizards I’ve ever seen! He was neon lime green with black circles like leopard spots. His head was roundish, like a chameleon, but he was very small. I looked him up in my guidebook, but he wasn’t listed. I ran over him and then stopped to watch him (hmm, or her?) and he was walking painfully slowly. He’d lift his right front leg and his left back leg and then they would both move forward and touch down, then he’d raise the left front leg and right back leg. . . Luckily there weren’t any cars around ‘cause he’d surely be squished at the rate he was moving. But geez, he was really beautiful. I kept looking at him and saying, “ah geez, I wish I had a camera!”

The 100 Up experiment

2011-12-02T18:14:00.001+11:00

I can’t believe today marks 3 weeks into the 100 Up experiment. And it is pretty amazing how many people are doing it. On the Facebook group alone, there are well over 300 people.

There are two types of 100 Ups, the “minors” and the “majors”. The minors are basically walking and the majors running (in both cases “in place”). I have been doing both on most days because they are very different. The minors are slower and more controlled. It is easier to concentrate on my form. They are also less effort, so when I am feeling lazy and “don’t wanna”, I just tell myself to do the minors and that gets me going. But when I do the minors, they are still very “jerky”—there’s some way that my foot lands on the ground and the next one comes up which is not smooth. But I have definitely improved over the course of the weeks. At first, my right foot was coming down consistently behind my left foot and they are now even. I’ve also felt “smooth” a couple of times—a glance into what is possible.

I find the majors overall easier, though. And quicker! I’m lighter on my feet and somehow more fluid. Again, there have been some changes as the weeks have gone along. As I discovered through running barefoot, for me all the action is in my hips. For proper form, I need to focus on tilting the top of my pelvis forward. (To me, this feels like I’m sticking my butt out, but when I look in the mirror, I’m actually barely straight. . .) This action has my feet come down under my center of gravity and helps to keep my feet from “scraping” the ground. This has changed and been reinforced by doing the 100 Up majors. When I started out, I was just basically lifting my knees high. But this tilted my pelvis under and rounded my lower back and had my feet land in front of my body. One day, I experimented with keeping my arms down by my sides (because I had read that the guy who “invented” the 100 Up said that is how you should do them) and suddenly, I had to change my pelvis or I would fall backwards.

Have I seen any benefits?

I’m not sure, but I’m holding off assessment at least until the 30 days are up. I had hoped that my barefoot running form would improve, allowing me to run longer and faster. I did really hope that they would help me go faster. Though I cannot say that I’ve seen any difference on that front. Ever since running with the heart rate monitor, barefoot and breathing through my nose, I don’t think I’ve improved at all. I just looked at a graph of my runs for the last 3 months since I started this and maybe I have improved my average pace from about 11:30 min/mi to 11:00 min/mi but, hmm, I am really hoping my “easy” pace could be more like 10:00 min/mi. And I thought 10-12 weeks would show more improvement. But my consistency has not been great the last few weeks. I strained my Achilles tendon (my calf got so tight it was pulling on the Achilles tendon) and then I had some kind of tendonitis on the top of my other foot. So maybe I just need to be more patient? Not my strong suit.

Barefoot beauty

2011-12-02T18:14:00.000+11:00

aka foot porn ;-)

Thought I’d share what my feet look like, in case any of you were worried that your feet get all gnarly and nasty from barefooting. Au contraire!

The 100 Up Challenge

2011-11-12T01:44:00.000+11:00

If you read Christopher McDougall’s latest article in the New York Times, “The Once and Future Way to Run” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/running-christopher-mcdougall.html, then you have heard of the 100 Up. In the article, he talks about this exercise used by W. G. George in the late 19^th Century to become one of the best milers in the world.

It is very simple. You basically do 100 (that is, 50 on each leg) high knee raises each day.

Within minutes, it seemed, one guy threw up a website: http://hundredup.com and another created a Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/274754402564073/ both with the idea to get a bunch of people to try this for 30-days. So, I joined the FB group and I’m going to give it a try. Will it make me stronger? Will it improve my form? Will it make me faster? We shall see.

This morning, I was just jumping around a bit to loosen up before my run and realized that I had done 10 “Ups” without even thinking about it, so I just continued and did 100 (of the “major” version). I was surprised because I thought they’d be harder and that I would have to start with the “minor” version, but there you go. So, one day down, twenty-nine to go!

Best Postive Exchange

2011-11-06T15:16:00.000+11:00

Thanks to Caity at Run Barefoot Girl (www.runbarefootgirl.com), I’ve just gotten turned on to the Naked Runners Podcast (www.thenakedrunners.com). The Naked Runners are a couple of Australian guys (and boy, I am learning so much Australian slang!) on a mission to encourage people to run “naked” by which they mean without distractions. (I think they’d love to encourage people to actually run naked, from their personalities, but they are respectful of societal standards and laws about wearing clothing. . . J) They run barefoot or minimalist themselves, but beyond that, they want you to ditch the iPod and the watch and the heartrate monitor, to “strip it back” and “ditch the distractions.” Totally in line with my movement towards minimalism, to getting back to the essentials.

Yikes! This is really the next level for me. I am very attached to both my iPod and my Garmin and I have very good reasons for using these when I run. I love music and my runs are *the* time I get to listen to music. My Garmin is an invaluable tool for someone who travels as much as I do and currently I am using the heartrate monitor (for the first time in my life) to teach myself to run aerobically. Personally, I thought I was good because I don’t, and never have, run with a phone! But these guys are very enrolling, so I may just try “running naked” this week. . .

One of the features on their podcast is the “Best Positive Exchange” (BPE) – that is, sharing an exchange with someone you encounter on your run. I love that, so I will be reporting in each post on a BPE I’ve had on one of my runs.

This week, my Best Positive Exchange was with Noel. One of the joys of my Saturday morning run is that there are kids out and about just playing. So now for the second time in recent weeks, I’ve been joined by a couple of boys who actually ran along with me. This time, one boy started running with me and there were two others who at first laughed, but then joined along as well. I wasn’t running very fast, but they were young boys and pretty small—maybe half my height—so they were breathing a bit hard as we ran along. I have to say that I was pretty chuffed by that—that I was in good enough shape that running barefoot, nose breathing, at a pace where I could have been talking the whole time, I was running a bit too fast for these boys. Not bad for an old lady. Anyway, Noel was the first boy who joined me and after half a mile when they were stopping, he said thank you! I stopped, turned, shook his hand and thanked him as well.

Today’s run was great overall. I ran 8 miles on the road, which is the most I’ve done barefoot on the roads. Yippee! It felt like I took my feet just to the edge, but not over, so that is perfect.

The other great thing about today’s run was clouds! The sky was totally overcast until a few minutes after the end of my run (how is that for timing?!) which meant that it was much cooler than it has been for weeks. I don’t think it was over 80F, which is 20-24F less than it has been since the beginning of October. Very much appreciated. And it meant that I didn’t suffer even though I lolled around and didn’t get out for my run until after 9am. Would that tomorrow will be the same!

I’m going to Windhoek Monday for the VSO Regional Representatives meeting and 21^st Anniversary celebration. It is much, much cooler there. The days will hopefully warm up (weather forecast says ~75F), but the low I predicted to be in the 50’sF which is scary enough that I’m going to bring my Moc3 shoes and my arm sleeves for running in the early morning.

Great summary of the Paleo/Primal template

2011-11-04T21:08:00.001+11:00

Tim, one of my tribe on the IPMG (Int’l Paleo Movement Group) on Facebook just posted a very nice, clearly written summary of the Paleo/Primal lifestyle template. For those of you interested, wondering or questioning, check it out.

http://bigtimsprimaljourney.com/2011/11/02/the-primalpaleo-template/

RunBarefootGirl Interview

2011-10-24T21:14:00.000+11:00

Caity McCardell of RunBarefootGirl.com interviewed me and the podcast is now up! Check it out:

http://runbarefootgirl.com/2011/10/rbg-21-tracy-longacre-barefoot-runner-in-namibia-africa/

A good running week!

2011-10-24T18:25:00.000+11:00

Last week was a good running week, which felt pretty sweet because the Friday before my lower back spasmed and I hadn’t run in a week. Also, I ran my World Wide Festival of Races half-marathon on the 9^th and it wasn’t great. Well, it was okay, but. . . What happened was I knew I wasn’t prepared to run that far in bare feet. So I chose to wear my Luna Catamount sandals. I also chose a route that was 50% tar road (the first ¼ and the last ¼) and 50% “dirt” road (which here means sand and gravel covered rock). Though I’d run 2 hours many times before—that’s my usual Sunday run—my feet hurt at the end of this run much more than they have before. It was also hot and very windy. The temperature wasn’t too bad when I started out, but it got hotter as I went along and when I turned around at the halfway point, I was heading directly into a strong headwind.

My experience of the race itself was that I didn’t really like it. I have been running very slowly recently, trying to build up my aerobic base and teach myself to run easy. And I have gotten used to that. I have gotten used to running and finishing with plenty of energy, feeling like I could go again. So to do a run where I felt depleted even halfway in was not much fun. When I turned at the halfway point, I realized that I didn’t actually have any motivation to run fast and my splits reflect that. (This is also a big disadvantage to running a race on your own—you don’t have the motivation or competition coming from others).

In the end, my time was 2:06:40, nearly 15 minutes slower than my last half-marathon, but actually not really a bad time. In my mind, I was disappointed, but when I think of all the factors—first time not wearing “real” shoes, the heat, the wind, the terrain—it was pretty reasonable. Yet, somehow I’m left feeling that it didn’t go very well.

This past week, I was back to running slow, by feel (well, heartrate), and I was able to do all but my long run totally barefoot. So my weekly barefoot mileage was 20mi (!), which is not only double what I’ve done before, but feels like a breakthrough. I ran Friday, Saturday and Sunday in a row and by Sunday, my feet were feeling tender, so I only ran the first 3 miles bare (though this may have been exacerbated by the heat of the tar road), but Saturday felt like a perfect run.

I went out at 8am and there was a nice breeze coming off the river. The day before, I had read something on Ken Bob Saxton’s (the grandfather of barefoot running) Yahoo group about running form. He’s always talked about “leading with the hips” which is an instructions I’ve sort of ignored because years of poor posture mean that my hips are thrust too forward anyway. This has caused all sorts of problems and I am currently trying to learn to not thrust my pelvis forward. But in this message, Ken Bob also said something about having your feet “go out the back” (or that is how it stuck in my mind). Somewhere early on this run on Saturday, I had a powerful body insight that seems to have greatly improved several small issues that I knew were form-related. For weeks, I’ve been concentrating on my feet which hasn’t been terribly successful. A couple of weeks ago, I started to think more about lifting my torso—standing up straight—and this did help and I had a sense that the key for me was in my hips, but it seemed my feet were still scraping the ground.

The insight I had on Saturday was so subtle, yet so powerful. I first realized that, for me, I need to tip the TOP of my pelvis forward (this is how I think of it). And then there is a slight adjustment of tipping the top just little further which has my foot land about an inch further back—when I think of it going out the back, behind me—and then it is not landing in front of me. I could almost feel less of a stretch on my hamstring. And I could definitely feel, over the course of the run, that I was not having problems with the tip of my 3^rd toe scraping or the outsides of the balls of my feet getting sore or my big toes blistering. Yeah!

This was such a subtle adjustment, and yet I could feel it so clearly. The run felt so effortless—I stayed perfectly within my heartrate goal and just zoomed along. Then I would start to feel some soreness or scraping, I would focus on my pelvis and when my foot went out the back, I realized it had been reaching ever so slightly in front of me.

The other great experience on Saturday was running with some local boys. About a mile into my run, there were 3 boys on the road and the tallest/oldest one started to run with me. Oftentimes, if I run by a group, even of grown men, there’s some guy who has to goof around and pretend like he’s running or something stupid. But this boy wasn’t doing that, he actually came up alongside me and was running with me. His friends tucked in behind us. I didn’t have any idea how far they were planning to come, but it was nice to run along with them at my nice easy pace and they seemed happy to be trotting along. I would guess they were 10-12 years old and they, like me, were barefoot. One was Simaata and another Prince (“Prince! Does that mean you are going to be a King someday?,” I asked him. He smiled a bit bashfully, “Yes!”). Unfortunately, I didn’t get to ask the third boy his name. I wish I could have filmed this part because their form was, naturally, flawless. (They reminded me of the two boys who ran with me in Kindu, DRC with total ease and perfect form.) After about a mile, we came to another set of houses and a group of kids, so the boys left me to go off and play with them. Thanks guys, that was really nice.

Another Smiley Run!

The one thing I want to share about Sunday’s run is that I ran in my new Bedrock sandals. These huarache-type sandals are like my original Luna’s except that the straps they use are nylon webbing (like the straps on Chacos, for example). This is wonderful and solved all the issues I’ve had with rubbing and blisters caused by the sandals. There’s no bump under the toes. It did take me walking around in them all week to realize how tight I needed to tie them so the heel didn’t fall off. When I first slipped them on 3 miles into my run, they seemed very tight, but after 5 miles, they had actually loosened up, so starting out tight was the right way to go. They performed beautifully. The only issue I had was that my feet got sore by about 9 or 10 miles. I realized that I’ve only run this long in the Luna Catamounts which provide more protection (the sole is thicker and a bit more rugged—made for trails—and has a leather top). The Bedrock sole is quite thin and didn’t provide much extra protection or cushioning. It is very interesting to me to see how sensitive my feet are—how much of a difference I can feel between millimeters of rubber. The Bedrock’s, along with my SoftStar Moc3 shoes, provide the closest thing to bare foot, when I need a little protection or warmth (but as I learned Sunday, not a LOT of protection). The Catamounts provide considerably more protection (though my feet got sore after two fast and rocky hours in those during the WWFoR half-marathon, having been fine previously for 2 slow hours on the road). And something like my VFF Bikila LS now feel like a cushioned shoe to me. When the rains really come (soon, I think), I’ll have to take my Merrell Lithe Gloves out for a spin and see what I think. I haven’t worn anything even remotely like a “real shoe” for a long time—not for running or walking or cycling or anything. I’m afraid I’ll hate it. . .

Why barefoot running? Part III: Spiritual aspects

2011-09-29T18:21:00.000+11:00

Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5)

We will recover our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves and our role in the universe. (Thomas Berry)

We have the most fun when we are the most dirty. (Caity McCardell, www.RunBarefootGirl.com)

For me, engaging with these outward manifestations of barefooting was the first step. One of the primary aspects of walking and running barefoot are the sensations. We have millions of nerve endings on the bottoms of our feet and part of the benefit of barefooting is that we become aware of all these sensations. At the beginning, it can be quite mind-blowing. Later on, it can be somewhat annoying (like when I am feeling impatient and want to run faster but my feet are loudly telling me that no, they cannot do that!) As I glance at the pile of shoes I know I will never wear again, I am led to ponder the ethical implications of this choice.

However, recently my exploration of barefooting and living a minimal life has begun to show its spiritual significance. On some level, this didn’t totally surprise me because running has always been a spiritual experience for me and, more generally, my whole life is a spiritual journey. But it has come in small experiences here and there with subtle meanings slowly unfolding. I cannot say that I am clear at the moment about the purpose of this movement towards minimalism, although it makes sense in my life for purely practical reasons. However, it is the deeper, spiritual significance that I find most compelling, though it seems that this is being revealed to me in the doing of things, not necessarily as the primary motivator.

Going barefoot started out as an idea of being more “natural” and exploring what was really “necessary”. What I am discovering is that it is teaching me what it means to be a human animal. It is showing me that all the earth is holy ground—here and here and even here. It is teaching me to be mindful of my “footprint” on the earth much more literally than is usually meant by that phrase. And from it, I am receiving nourishment and a more daily sense of my place in the universe.

I recently read an article about using walking in nature as a tool in spiritual direction. The author shared an exercise that comes from the Franciscan tradition which she found in the book Christian Meditation and Inner Healing by Dwight Judy. As I was reading, I was particularly taken by this instruction: “Consider how nature speaks to you about your spiritual journey.” Within the next few days, I was running barefoot along on one of my favorite local paths—a dirt (well, sand) road that runs by the Zambezi river. I’d reached the halfway point and had turned back toward home and was probably 2/3 of the way finished with the run when I thought, “what is this run telling me about my spiritual journey?” I realized that all my attention was on the ground in front of me—and not very far in front. In fact, I was so focused on this that I really saw nothing but the piece of ground roughly ten feet out. It took a bit of an effort to raise my head and look around but as I did that, I became aware that I do this all the time, not just while running. I look down at the ground and essentially withdraw into myself. Just picking up my head and looking around felt like sweeping the cobwebs out of my brain. I immediately became present to my surroundings and it was as if my whole universe opened up and became much bigger. I realized that this powerfully paralleled the way I have been living my life—with all my attention on what’s in front of me, what’s next, what should my next step be? And very little awareness of where I am now, what is here, what’s around me, of the universe in which I live and breathe and have my being.

I honestly don’t think I could have come to that awareness directly, that it had to come to me as an analogy while running. And because I was running barefoot and hyper-aware of my sensate feelings, it was quite a profound awareness for me, not simply to lift my head and look around, but to experience in so doing that it became easier for me to run. My feet and legs relaxed more and it became easier to feel and respond to the terrain below my feet, even without staring at the ground to be sure I didn’t step on something. Such a perfect analogy because I was staring at the ground out of fear of making a misstep just as I was constantly thinking about what’s next out of fear of making a misstep.

For me, taking off my shoes is not a response to a command that God says this is “holy ground” but rather my own statement that the place on which I am standing is holy ground—wherever I am. For I consider the whole earth holy. And it is a practice that reminds me that I am an animal, an earthly creature, part of God’s creation. As I run in my bare feet, I see a dog over there, “I am just like that dog, running along!” I see cows moseying along. “I am like those cows foraging for their food.” I see a lizard enjoying the heat of the hot asphalt, “ah yes, Mr. Lizard, I, too, am soaking up the warmth of the sun.”

Learning to run barefoot has forced me to slow down. I tried to do it without slowing down, but I kept getting devastating blisters and sore calves. Now that I have decided to focus my training on learning to run completely barefoot (that is, to be able to run barefoot all the time, on all terrain, and use shoes only when needed for protection from the elements), I am running very slowly. Based on the success of some other barefoot/minimalist running friends, I decided to start using a heartrate monitor (which I have never done before) and follow Phil Maffetone’s advice to build my aerobic base. Similar to Arthur Lydiard’s LSD method, Maffetone recommends running at a rate which is, for me (based on my age and fitness), no higher than 136 bpm. At this heartrate I can breathe through my nose or hold an entire conversation as I run along. Currently, it has me running between 10:30 and 11:45 minutes per mile. The heartrate monitor keeps me honest, which means slow, which also means that I am fully able to listen to the feedback I am receiving from my feet. And it is a very different experience to run this slowly. I think I did run like this when I was a teenager, but I certainly haven’t done so in the last six or seven years since I revived my running habit this time around. I don’t need to be so focused. I can look around. I have much more of a sense of “being here” wherever I am rather than running past the scenery.

I can get very wrapped up in my thoughts about work—am I doing what I am meant to do? Am I doing it well enough? Will we receive the funding we need? Am I meeting expectations? Am I making a difference? But then I’m running down the road, looking around, and I see a hawk just floating in the air. I doubt he (or she) is fretting over whether he is fulfilling his calling. He spots a mouse or a lizard or some other delicious morsel, swoops down to grab it and either succeeds and feels satisfied or doesn’t and moves back up to keep looking. And I am running barefoot and right now there is nothing else to be doing.

And I begin to recover my sense of the sacred.

Run Smiley Virtual Race

2011-09-26T18:29:00.000+11:00

Lucky for me, this weekend was the Run Smiley virtual run. I don’t know if the Run Smiley Collective is at all hooked into the Running Podcasts community, which hosts the Worldwide Festival of Races (now for the 6^th year I think), but the Run Smiley virtual run is the same idea—we all (hopefully all!) ran Smiley and barefoot this weekend. This was lucky for me because I had been feeling a bit under the weather this week and had not been out for a run since Tuesday. But I’d decided that I was going to get out and Run Smiley, even if I only got out to the road (about 200 meters)! But it seems that taking my Yin Chiao “at the first sign of a cold” pills all day Friday did the trick and I woke Saturday feeling just fine, though perhaps a bit lazy.

After listening to an episode of NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” and “This American Life” while drinking my coffee, I finally got dressed and got out at 10am. My pace was a bit slow (in order to keep my heartrate in the right range), which makes sense since I’ve been fighting something off, but this just gave me more time to look around and say hello to people and smile. There aren’t that many people around my area (honestly, there aren’t that many people in all of Namibia), but it being a Saturday morning, and a bit later than I usually go out, there were quite a few people scattered here and there who were heading to town or to fetch water. I had one boy run with me for a few meters, but though I invited him to continue, he went back to doing his chores. By the halfway point, I was quite aware of the heat of the pavement underfoot and decided to return on the sandy path off the road. For the most part that was a bit cooler, though there were a few spots that were quite hot. So, I’m going to have to get out earlier now that we are heading into summer. Everyone tells me that October is the hottest month. Then the rains start in November. I’m not sure what to expect then, since I arrived here at the end of the rainy season and it only rained a few times, and always in the afternoon.

Of course, the most difficult part, as ever, is having someone take my picture. I’m usually the one behind the camera! But my friend John, who takes care of the building where I am living, gladly obliged me. So here I am – shoeless, braless, and smiley (just imagine two dots for eyes above my head – see? My arms are a smile ;-) )

Why barefoot running? Part II: Ethical considerations, the sin of consumerism

2011-09-21T18:10:00.000+11:00

I said that the next thing I would talk about with regard to barefoot running would be the spiritual dimension. However, as I began to write about that, I realized there was another aspect which I needed to address—the ethical.

When I started to move to more minimal footwear and to walk and even run barefoot, most of my focus was on the physical experience and benefits. I was (and still am) inquiring into my own felt experience—am I more or less comfortable, can I do this barefoot or that barefoot, what are the sensations on this terrain or that, what are my feet capable of? Simultaneously though, I started to confront ethical questions having to do with what I really need and the materialism and consumerism both within my own assumptions and beliefs about what is necessary and within the marketing hype in the running and fashion industries.

Living in Africa, one of the things I have become very present to is the constellation of beliefs about what is “necessary” to live. When I lived in the United States, I had a lot of ideas about what is “necessary”—everything from certain types of furniture to special shoes for running (and several pairs) to special clothes for everything to a certain amount of space. The list goes on and on. But then I started traveling to Africa regularly and noticing that people could live just fine without the things I thought were requirements. When I lived in Cameroon and was President of the Mezam Stars Athletic Club, my fellow runners wore whatever used running shoes they could find in the 2^nd hand clothing market. They were particularly pleased if they could find a pair of shoes that were the proper size. And they ran just fine. In fact, they ran very well. And they were professionals, or at least semi-professionals. Lots of casual runners, and even contestants in the famous Mt. Cameroon Race ran in flip flops or “jellies” (plastic sandals that pre-dated Crocks).

This past December, I did a series of spiritual retreats during which I kept getting, in stronger and stronger terms, the message that I need to pare down my material possessions in order to be mobile. “Really? What are you saying? Everything? Down to nothing but a backpack?,” I thought. And the feeling that I had was, “yes, as far as you can go.” I’m not sure if that is just a romantic notion, but given my lifestyle (I’ve moved every 4-8 months for the last several years) it certainly made sense to let go of a lot of things. And the longer I sit with this idea, the more I am drawn to “going all the way,” as one might say. I recently read a blog by a guy who got down to having 100 things and I find that idea very intriguing. I am planning to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela after I am finished here in Namibia and I want to do that as minimally/lightly as possible. (I have never been in to “backpacking” and the idea of carrying 30 or 40 pounds on my back for a month sounds horrendous.) In my first minimal experiment, my pack was 14 pounds. Not bad, though I think I can do better.

We shall see how far I really do go. But I bring this up to say that there is a background context, a movement of the spirit in me, of which being barefoot is a part.

We humans are smart and creative. We love to make stuff. And a lot of that stuff is very useful. But not always necessary. Airplanes are very useful if you want to travel across a continent or an ocean in a short period of time. But they, of course, have their drawbacks, one of which is missing being with, learning about, knowing that continent or ocean you just crossed. Cars can get you from here to there pretty quickly. But do I need to travel in a car the 3.5mi to work? No, actually. And with a bicycle, the time it takes is the same (given that I have to wait for a taxi).

Further than that, however, are the things we have been convinced are “necessary” which are, in fact, harmful to us. Processed food is a good example. “I am very busy, how can I possibly find time to cook?” is the necessity argument. And yet processed food is full of sugar and artificial ingredients that are linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and all sorts of other things. “If you have low arches, you need motion control shoes” is one of the necessity arguments for running shoes. Yet, there have been studies showing that wearing a shoe “designed” for your type of foot does not prevent running-related injuries any better than wearing a general neutral shoe. (The Army did a study of 500+ soldiers, both genders, showing this.) And I think there is a growing body of evidence showing that shoes, particularly supportive or cushioned shoes, cause as many, if not more, injuries than they prevent.

When I was young, we only had “nice” shoes and “sneakers.” I remember the late 1970s when there started to be distinctions among sneakers—“tennis” shoes and “basketball” shoes and “running” shoes. But then it really took off within the running shoe category. Even now, as far as I know, tennis shoes are tennis shoes and basketball shoes are basketball shoes. Within the sport-type, you would select your shoes based on comfort or fashion. But within running shoes, we have been taught to believe that we need “technology” to “keep us” from getting injured. As if injury were inevitable without the “right” shoes.

Not so.

It is a basic principle of marketing that your purpose is to convince your target audience that they need your product. Simply wanting the product is not enough. In the “developed” world, most people live far beyond the real necessities of life. However, if your society is built upon consuming, you need to convince the population that their job is to consume. If times are good and people are feeling flush, then you can get them to consume things because they “want” them. But when times get tougher and people are feeling pinched, they will pare down to consuming what they believe they “need.” Hence, if your product is a “need” you are going to make more money. This has been going on for long enough now (50 or so years), that it is pretty automatic for marketers to be able to come up with a “need” that their produce fulfills and it is pretty automatic for consumers to believe that they have this “need.”

For me, there are two basic issues with all of this. The first is that I am not a “consumer.” I am a human being, I am a woman, I am a runner, I am a Deacon, I am a citizen. I gladly take on a variety of roles and identify myself as such. But I do not choose to be identified as a consumer. I think one of the fundamental problems with the Western world, particularly the United States, is that the population has been defined as, and have now taken on the identity of, consumers rather than citizens. (Takers rather than givers, relatively passive rather than active.) Notice the difference in the response to 9/11 vs. Pearl Harbor. In response to 9/11, our President told us to go out and shop. In response to Pearl Harbor, the President told people to pull together and sacrifice for the war effort.

The second major issue is that the consumption of the “developed” world, and again, particularly the United States, is unsustainable and is ruining the planet. I am shocked when I see people say that population growth is the problem (so easy to say when you are already born and living!). It is not population growth that is the problem, it is consumption.

So, for me, pulling back from that marketing hype, running in minimal shoes (which don’t have to be replaced every 500 miles) or barefoot (no shoes at all), helps me to regain my identity as a RUNNER rather than as a CONSUMER of running-related paraphernalia.

By Western standards, I probably live a very minimal lifestyle. I can definitely say that living in Africa will likely reduce your carbon footprint more than most measures you can take while still living in the US (though I realize this is not for everyone). Yet, by African standards, I still have an astounding amount of stuff. Not just “nice” shoes and “sneakers”, but several pairs of each! When teenagers here go off to boarding school (very common since secondary schools are only in towns), they go with a suitcase the size of a carry-on plus a blanket. All their worldly possessions. I am definitely not there yet.

For years now, I have been a “shoe hound.” There was a time in my younger, poorer days when I had one pair of “work” shoes, one pair of running shoes and maybe one pair of casual shoes. Then I needed two pairs of running shoes, because it is better to switch them. Then there were winter shoes and summer shoes. Then there were shoes to wear with a suit and more casual everyday work shoes. And there started to be shoes on the market that I loved. Somewhere along the line, I totally gave up the idea that a pair of shoes should “wear out” before they are “replaced.”

So for me, a big part of barefooting is being confronted by my consumerism. I do also have some attachment to material things, but not that much. I do like and appreciate many of the things I own and there are a few things which I would feel quite devastated about the loss of. However, that is not my primary sin. I am much more guilty of the sin of consumerism—of wanting to have/buy/try this or that because I think it will fulfill/satisfy/solve some “need.”

But if I don’t need shoes to run, or a running bra, or special shorts or shirts (I am reminded of the guy who showed up at the recent 12K I ran here in Katima, signed up, took off his shoes and socks, and ran in his regular pants and shirt) or any of the other paraphernalia that I have thought that I need, then the only reason I buy or have those things is because I want them. Okay, that’s not necessarily bad. But it puts them on a different level. Then, when I am looking at paring down my life so that I can move anywhere, anytime I want to, it leads me to ask, “do I want that enough to carry it around? Or pay to put it in storage somewhere?” How much of my life—my time, my energy, my money, my thought-processes—do I want to spend on these wants? And what is the impact of my indulging my consumerism in this way—what is the cost to the planet, to other human beings, to the soul of the planet, to my soul?

Frank Forencich: Don’t we want more from the Paleo than diet?

2011-09-14T19:19:00.000+11:00

This is the from the MovNat website. I wanted to share it with you because I am totally with Frank here. I came to the Paleo way of eating FROM barefooting and MovNat--from wanting to find more natural ways of movement. That led me to exploring more natural ways of eating (and subsequently of sleeping, washing, traveling. . .) For me, this was never about a diet. Oh sure, I had those persistent 10lbs that I could never lose, which did come off right away when I improved my eating, but I'm not going back to the way I ate before because I lost that weight. It was never the point.

Guest Blog Entry by Frank Forencich: Don’t we want more from the Paleo than diet?

For me "Paleo" or "Primal" or "ancestral" or whatever you want to call it, is about learning what it means to be a human animal and how to live naturally in the world, on this planet. Yes, I find it a bit sad that I have to learn this, but such is our predicament as modern-day human beings.

The earth is a wonderful place, full of beauty and places to explore and I want to feel it, touch it, sense it as deeply and closely as I can. Won't you join me?

The Maple Grove Barefoot Guy: Soft Star Moc3 Review

2011-09-13T00:44:00.000+11:00

I wanted to share this review of the SoftStar Moc3 minimal shoes because I, too, love these shoes. I think he does a good job of reviewing them.

The Maple Grove Barefoot Guy: Soft Star Moc3 Review: I rarely use overly strong language when I do shoe reviews. I don't want to use words like "ultimate", and "best" because I'm worried tha...

Why barefoot running? Part I: Physical evolution & benefits

2011-09-12T18:19:00.000+11:00

I have been running in more and more minimal shoes for the past couple of years and experimenting with running completely barefoot. This started when I had a video analysis of my running gait at the Running Revolution in Santa Cruz, California back in 2009. Although I have had folks in running shoe stores tell me previously that I had a neutral gait, I always ran in stability shoes and found that I got injured if I tried to run in neutral cushioned shoes. However, the video analysis made it very obvious that I do not overpronate.

The primary reason I ran in stability shoes (my favorites were Brooks Adrenaline) was because they were “harder.” That is, not so cushioned. And it was, in fact, the cushioning that caused me trouble. I didn’t need the cushioning and it made my footfall so unstable that my IT band and hamstrings would have to compensate and that’s when I would get injured. However, now armed with this new information, I began to experiment with new shoe models. I tried Brooks Trance which were pretty good (a new category for Brooks, called “guidance” which was between stability and neutral). I tried Nike Lunars whose neutrality was great, but whose cushioning (way too much) was horrible. I didn’t even put 200 miles on them. Then I tried a pair of Newton Gravity’s which I quite liked as shoes and definitely increased my pace with no extra effort on my part. Unfortunately, the underforefoot piece that stuck out caused some serious falls (see May 2010 when I was living in Lubumbashi) on the uneven terrain I had to navigate. Then I tried Brooks Green Silence which are both neutral and “hard”—they are marketed as a “performance training” shoe and have little cushion and little extra support. Those were quite good and eventually became my main shoes. Throughout this experimentation period, I also bought Vibram FiveFingers and later a pair of VivoBarefoot Evos (both very minimal shoes-little or no padding, no support). Actually my first pair of Vibrams were bought when I was in the Solomon Islands in 2008 and I have run in them off and on since that time, but always thought that I needed “real shoes” for long runs. Simultaneous to my own experimentation, the running shoe industry has been changing and this past winter/spring several companies came out with minimal shoes. Before leaving the US for Namibia, I got a pair of New Balance Minimus Road shoes (those did not work for me) and a pair of Merrell Trail shoes (first the Pure Gloves which injured my Achilles tendon and then the Lithe Gloves which I haven’t run in much yet, but I think may work out).

I started to notice something during this period of experimentation. When I ran in the Vibrams or Evos, my back didn’t hurt. I have had an off and on chronic lower back issue—the flaring up of an old injury. It is often resolved by getting some deep tissue massage or physiotherapy, but it will come back when I increase mileage or overdo it. But even when it was flared up, if I ran in the Vibrams, I had no pain during or after the run.

Last year, when I was living in Lubumbashi, I would try to run all my shorter runs in the VFFs. The roads were horrible—rocky, full of holes, etc.—so I thought I couldn’t run barefoot. I ran barefoot on the beach when I was on vacation in Zanzibar and again in Diani Beach, Kenya. I really liked it but felt my feet were so tender! When I was back in the US last winter, it was very cold for my feet, but as Spring started to peek out from under the cold, I again was using VFFs for shorter runs. By the time I was getting ready to come to Namibia last March, the Brooks Green Silence had become my “long run” shoes—a far cry from the Adrenalines!

The big advantage of these more minimal shoes for me is that they give me the firm feel I have always been wanting without the unnecessary support. So I am able to get back to my natural gait and, it seems, this is resolving the issue with my lower back. As I’ve mentioned on this blog, I’ve been wanting to go completely barefoot, but was training for a marathon and dealing with winter here in Katima, which was cold enough in the early mornings to make running barefoot very uncomfortable. Why bare feet? In part, because all of the advice I have read says that the best way to perfect your form is to go completely barefoot. I know that now I can really feel how much padding the VFF Bikilas have compared to some other more minimal shoes I have (Luna sandals and now my new SoftStar Moc3s). When I have experimented with running barefoot, I have to run more slowly and mindfully than when I wear the VFFs. This means that the VFFs are not only protecting my feet, but they are allowing me to run less attentively, less naturally. Now that the marathon is behind me, I’m committed to running as often as possible completely bare. This past week, this meant on the weekends, when I can run later in the morning when it is warmer. If the temperature is in the 50s F in the early mornings, my feet go numb and this is not good. When it is too cold to go completely bare, I use either my Luna sandals or my Moc3s, which are the most minimal shoes I have and seem to change my form the least.

I also now walk barefoot or in minimal sandals as much as possible. This helps condition my feet and muscles. I no longer have any calf pain and my feet, ankles and legs are quite well conditioned. Also, the bottoms of my feet are getting less callused and more leathery and padded/fatter. My proprioception is very good just from living and running on trails and in Africa where the road is not smooth and predictable, but it has definitely gotten better through barefoot running. I don’t always know how to change my gait, but I am keenly aware of exactly what my feet, ankles and calves are doing. These are very good developments.

So that has been my physical evolution—from stability shoes to very minimal shoes and soon bare feet. My current goal is to build up to be able to run a half-marathon in bare feet. Perhaps after that, I will shoot for a marathon, but we shall see. On a related note, I am also using Phil Maffetone’s MAF method (maximum aerobic function) and running with a heart rate monitor for the first time in my life—to run much slower than usual. My range should be 126-136 bpm which looks like it will be between 10:30 and 11:30 min/mi pace at the moment. Maffetone’s idea is that you will start out quite slow, but as you increase your aerobic conditioning, your pace at the same heart rate will increase. This will make me more aerobically efficient and, hopefully, faster. The added benefit is that slowing down helps me stay more mindful as I run barefoot.

In the next post, I will write about the spiritual aspects of barefooting.

I contributed to a Podcast!

2011-09-07T18:25:00.000+11:00

Hey folks. My friend, Steve Runner, produces a podcast called Phedippidations. It is a podcast for runners and quite popular, though of late he is following a more philosophical path (so it’s not about how to run better or how to fuel for marathons or stuff like that). His most recent episode “In Vino Veritas” is about truth and I, along with two others, contributed some thoughts on the subject. I encourage you to take a listen.

http://steverunner.blogspot.com/2011/08/fdip275-in-vino-veritas.html

Shoeless, braless, SMILEY!

2011-09-05T18:32:00.001+11:00

After my marathon, I decided I would start running again when I felt like it. And I want the focus now to be on running barefoot and building up my barefoot mileage. The key to this is, I believe, going by feel—running when I feel like it, going how long or far I feel like going, and having fun! In other words, running smiley. I must admit however, that this is quite a challenge for me. I almost always have a plan that I am running to. “Do I run today or not? Let’s see what my plan says.” Now, I keep thinking, “oh I need to create a plan for transitioning to total barefoot running.” Even though all the advice I’ve read and received from those who are successfully running barefoot much longer distances than me is that I need to play, feel it out, follow my body, NOT have a plan. Oy! It’s insidious. Wish me luck.

By Saturday morning, I really had no more residual aches or pains from the marathon. Also, the heat has returned to Katima rather suddenly and I was looking forward to getting out in the heat. I really do not like running when my feet are numb. No, not at all. So, after enjoying a tall cup of coffee, while getting dressed, I recalled a conversation I had with Caity McCardell of Run Barefoot Girl (www.RunBarefootGirl.com) about wearing bras. Do we need sports bras?

Well, when I was on the cross-country team in high school, there were no such things as sports bras. We wore our regular bras – nasty things for running with metal hooks and things that caused bad chafing. And there was no Body Glide back then either. Several of my friends and I stopped wearing bras while running. And it worked fine. And our boobs did not fall down (neither then, when they were young and perky, nor as we grew older—at least mine did not). I went back to wearing a bra shortly after that when a) sports bras were created and b) I was living in cities where men were obnoxious jerks. Most of my 20s were a time of buying into, or at least conforming (as best as I was able) to, societal expectations. Then I went to Africa where a lot of women, probably the majority (all those in rural areas and some in urban areas), do not wear bras. And because breasts are viewed as baby feeding mechanisms rather than sexual objects (and I’m significantly less well-endowed than many of my African sisters) my going braless drew no attention. So I stopped wearing a bra. I never found them comfortable and the less I wore them, the less comfortable I was whenever I tried to wear one. But I continue to wear sports bras and am always on the hunt for one that is comfortable and does not chafe—a seemingly endless chase.

So there I am about to go out and run barefoot, remembering this whole conversation about bras. Could I run without a bra? Wouldn’t I bounce? Would it hurt? Would I feel self-conscious? This would be a good day to try. I had no agenda. It would be fine if I just ran a couple of miles. I ran in place a bit in my room and it didn’t hurt. I ran in front of a mirror and it didn’t look too bad (Lord knows I did NOT want to look ridiculous!). Okay, let’s try this. I set out in nothing but shorts and a tank top (with my watch, sunglasses and iPod—I do still have my attachments).

It felt great to run barefoot. The ground felt neither cold nor warm and I felt my posture & form were good. (I used the Shelly Robillard test—my necklace wasn’t bouncing around. Another benefit—neither were my breasts!) I had decided that I was going to run totally on the road, on the asphalt, which is new for me. I’ve run as much as 6 miles barefoot, but 5.5 of those miles were on the sandy trail. I had some fear of the road—that it would be too hard, there would be too much impact, but all the barefoot experts said the best way to learn good form and the right way to run was to run on the road. After half a mile or so I noticed how light I was running, how I felt no impact. I was just rolling along. And I felt so free, so relaxed. I was just there, everything was as it should be, I didn’t need this or that to be able to run. There was something about running without a bra that felt so liberating. I was not expecting that. I felt more present, more confident, more open (and less anxious, cautious, guarded). And my feet felt totally fine.

I decided to run 4 miles, though part of me thought, “oh, or maybe 5.” But I turned around at 2 miles and changed to the other side of the road which is rougher. I started to feel a sort of pain on the outside of the ball of my right foot. I knew that this was a contact spot when I walked as well because it was one of the places on my feet that gets dirty. I tried to change the way my foot was landing and think more consciously about lifting my feet (rather than pushing off). I was doing okay until about 3.5 miles when clearly I was starting to get a blister on that spot (and on the top of the 4^th toe on my left foot). All the advice says I should have stopped right then and walked home. I did in fact stop once or twice and feel around (to make sure it was a pebble or something) and I walked a few paces which didn’t really hurt at all, but then I ran because, well, I was out for a run. Besides it was only a half mile more to go.

In the end, my feet were a bit sore for the rest of the day and I was thinking I was stupid. (I don’t think of myself as particularly stubborn by nature, but I certainly can be about running.) The spot didn’t turn into a big blister I could pop, but the skin is tender. The general rule of thumb is to run barefoot every other day if everything is working well, so I resisted the urge to run today, even though I think I could have. I’ll see how the feet are tomorrow, but I think I dodged a bullet. Lucky me.

The World Wide Festival of Races is in 5 weeks and I would LOVE to run a half-marathon that weekend totally barefoot. That could be way too ambitious and it could be possible. We shall see. Stay tuned. . .

Victoria Falls Marathon Race Report

2011-09-05T18:32:00.000+11:00

The 26^th of August was Heroes’ Day in Namibia, so my friend Janice and I headed down to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to run in the Vic Falls Marathon (I ran the marathon, she ran the half-marathon) which was being held Sunday the 28^th.

After a lovely Saturday being tourists and an early evening, we woke before dawn to prep and walk down to the start of the race. I thought (hoped?) it would be cooler and I would need to bring my jacket, but I felt fine in just a shirt and my MoeBen sleeves. It was dark at 6:00am when we left our hostel, but it gets light pretty quickly this close to the equator, so the 6:30am start time was well-timed. There were a few hundred people milling around—for the marathon, the half-marathon, a 5k fun run, and about 6 or 8 guys in wheelchairs for the half-marathon. We found the starting banner and I tried to breathe and not be too nervous. The marathoners would start first, 30 minutes ahead of the half-marathon, so Janice wished me luck and I looked around at my “competition”. Soon enough, they announced “5 minutes to go” over the loudspeaker and then, we were off.

For the marathon, we would run two loops – with slight variations. The race began by going down and over the bridge over the Zambezi River, with Victoria Falls on the north side and the gorge to the south. We climbed a hill after the bridge, ran all the way to the Zambian border and turned around, crossing the bridge again, passing through the Zimbabwean border control and providing much entertainment for the border agents who were just arriving for their workday.

Around 5K, the course followed a road/path around the Vic Falls Park and I started to see regular km-marker signs. They seemed very frequent, but that was because there were signs for the first loop and the second. This part of the course was very nice—pretty flat, scenic, bushy and mostly vehicle-free. We passed “The Big Tree” (see my Flickr page for more photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlongacre) and soon after turned onto a major road headed north towards Zambezi National Park. By this point, we were all spread out and settling into our “spots”. There were two guys ahead of me who were walking and I passed them, thinking perhaps they would pass me back when they began running again, but that never happened. We climbed a hill, at the top of which an enormous valley opened up before us and I had a tremendous feeling of spaciousness. As I started to descend, I could see the frontrunners coming back towards me after having turned around inside the Park. Other than those at the water stops, there were not many spectators, particularly those cheering, but at the bottom of the hill, before entering the Park, there was a guy standing by his pickup truck who cheered everyone on. That was great! I thanked him. Also on this stretch, I saw the first three women, who were young Africans. The first was a Zimbabwean who had shared our dorm with us last night. Then I saw the first white women. There were not many ahead of me at this point, three for sure, maybe 4 or 5 (there was a portion inside the park where the return is split and so we do not see each other). I was pretty sure the first three were veterans (over-40) though, and they were all within 10 or so minutes of each other and easily 10 minutes ahead of me.

Inside the park we got to run on a trail for maybe a kilometer, which was really nice. And there was a water station sponsored by FedEx in there which was great. (There were the official water stations and then at least an extra 4 or 5 sponsored by specific groups which seemed to set up wherever they wanted. This made the distribution not very even. However, the last, unexpected one, sponsored by Botswana Tourism, 2K from the end after a long drought was very, very welcome!)

Coming out of the park, I was smacked by the headwind and had to fight that for a couple of kilometers. By this time, I could see half-marathoners on the other side of the road and as I reached the bottom of the hill, the lead pack of the half-marathon swooped past me. Boy, that was a bit disconcerting! As I climbed the hill out of the valley, I heard my name and looked up to see Janice happily running along taking pictures. (Her goal for the race was to take it easy and take photos, not run for time, and she seemed to be doing well.) After cresting the hill, the course turned right into a very hilly, barren section called Elephant Hills. At this point there were two other guys in my vincinity—1 passed me, I passed 1, then on the hills the other passed me and I passed the first. Suddenly we could hear drums in the distance. We turned a corner and climbed the last steep hill to the entrance of the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge whose security guards directed us, drummers entertained us and staff plied us with water and energy drinks. Good advertising!

It seemed this might be the end of the hills, but it was not so. They were more gradual now, but they persisted as we made our way through what they call the “low density area” and you or I might call the “high rent district.” As we reached the main road back into town, we had to go out a bit further to a turn-around. Just when I wanted to grumble, “why can’t we just turn towards town?” I was met by a family of spectators cheering and assuring us that this was the end of the hills. How nice of them! And right before the turnaround there was a little shop, in fact, “Little Harrod’s” as it proudly announced in letters perfectly painted in the Harrod’s font! (In many ways, Zimbabwe is very British colonial.)

The route to town was a wonderfully slow-sloping downhill and fortunately I knew the way because as I ran through town I found myself totally alone without another runner in sight and no police or water stations to provide direction. Finally, as I passed the Kingdom Hotel and climbed the hill to the start of the second loop, another running caught up with me and we navigated the last bit together.

At the turn on the road by Vic Falls Park there was a water station and I decided that, even though I wasn’t the least bit hungry, this would be a good time to take a gel. So I started walking, grabbed some water and tore open one of the Honey Stinger gels I brought. I sucked down the whole thing (mostly so I wouldn’t have to carry an open one) and tried to drink enough water so my mouth didn’t feel sticky. About a kilometer later, I was already dreaming of the next water stop, however, because I hadn’t taken quite enough water.

So the first half went very well for me, actually. I came through 13 miles at 1hr 52min, which is darn close to my half-marathon PR and I was still feeling strong. I decided that for the second half I needed to take more water and walk through those water stations. A couple of miles later, as I came out to the major road towards Zambezi Park, they were offering a blue drink. I asked what it was, and they named a local Gatorade-type of drink, so I took that hoping for a sugar boost. The taste wasn’t too bad, but it was really sweet. I was starting to slow somewhat and my spirits were beginning to lag a bit because the section from here to the park was rather desolate, but I didn’t feel at all like walking, so that was good. Somehow in my head I decided that if I made it to the 30K mark in good time, it would all be great.

Once I hit the park, however, I was feeling very tight. I walked some and then stopped and stretched. My thighs were already shouting pretty loudly and my lower back and hamstrings were predictably tight. I looked up and someone was coming, so I got back underway. Up a hill, then down a hill, turn right onto the trail and then downhill to the FedEx water stop. I didn’t need water, but I thanked the guys ‘cause they’d been out there for hours and they were still cheering us and directing us and lying that we looked good ;-)

One guy passed me and then I passed him back and as we came out of the park we both passed two other guys and the four of us sort of jockeyed back and forth all the way up the hill out of the valley and through Elephant Hills and past the VF Safari Lodge. By now, though, the hills were really, really killing me. There were still some half-marathoners on the course, but they were the only ones I passed. After the Safari Lodge, I had one of my worst miles as I realized that my quadriceps were in a lot of pain. I hadn’t seen another woman since the first 10K or so, but as I passed the turnaround by Little Harrod’s, first one, then a second, young woman passed me (both Americans, I think, as they both had extremely short shorts and red, white and blue ribbons in their ponytails). I kept trying to run, but stopped at one point again to stretch (squatting down was simultaneously very effective and intensely painful). A couple of guys caught and passed me right as we were back out on the road to town, before turning onto the last leg which was unknown territory through the “high density area”. We had about 6K to go.

It was in the high density area that I started to walk more and more. It was a bit of a strange experience. Up until now, the course had been pretty empty of people, but those we saw were there to cheer us or support us with water, drinks, etc. Now we were running through the residential part of town filled with people walking to church or from church and going about their business who mostly looked at us wondering what on earth these weird white people were doing. Luckily, I kept those two guys in my sights and after a few turns, I noticed strategically placed arrows showing us where to go. I ran up a hill and at the top was the last water stop and a film crew who stuck a microphone in my face (I shudder to think what I looked like), but I ran on. Running up hill didn’t seem to bother me much, but I could get no relief running downhill because that was when my thighs really hurt. This section of the course didn’t look very hilly because I could never really see very far ahead (there were many turns), but I think it was just as hilly as Elephant Hills.

Then we were out of the high density area and on the highway, then back in to run by a school. As I came to the corner by the school, I was walking, but a marching group of some sort (it didn’t look particularly military, though they were in uniforms) was coming up the road behind me, so I tried to run a bit. The thing I hated about these final two miles or so was that my energy was fine. It was just my legs that were totally shot. It was 10:30am or so by now and getting hotter, particularly since we were away from the river and couldn’t really feel the wind anymore. After this school we were headed back out on the highway again. Just before turning onto the highway, there was another cameraman asking me, “how is the final leg of your marathon going?” “Not very well, as you can see,” I replied, thinking that was obvious since I was walking, “but I’m going to finish, so that’s great.” Then I looked forward and there was the 40K sign and the Botswana Tourism water station—hallelujah! (Later, I talked to the woman at the Botswana Tourism tent, got some information about Chobe park, which is quite close to me and the best park in Botswana, and scored a really nice Botswana tourism polo shirt!)

Walk, walk, walk, run a little bit, ouch. Then there was the entrance to a private school and people were pointing me in. A few more yards? I could run that! There was a sort of chute which made it clear where to go, but then it became unclear – I was on the outside of this tape and on the inside were all these tents/booths and people. Not knowing where I was supposed to go, I asked a guy at one of the booths who directed me to follow the tape all the way around. Aargh! But I was running and my feet kept moving, so okay. I got to the end, crossed the line and they tore off my tag. Walking a bit further, I was greeted by woman handing out our t-shirts, water bottles and water. I made it!

I wandered around looking for Janice but didn’t find her. I sat and took my shoes off which felt good, but was difficult—it was very painful to get down to the ground to sit and very painful to get up from sitting. I wandered around looking at all the sponsored tents (by hotels for their guests, by some companies). ShopRite was there and tons of people had ShopRite bags. That would have been very handy, but I got there too late for that. The Kingdom Hotel had a tent that was serving food. At first I thought it was only for guests, but then I saw some people who clearly were not guests going there, so I followed them. The food serving guy asked us for our tickets, so I wandered around to see how to get a ticket. I asked another food serving guy who directed me to a drink serving guy who pulled a book of tickets out of his pocket and just gave me one. Score! So I got a few meatballs and a couple of little drumsticks and a bottle of cold water. I found a chair and sat and ate. It was a little heavy on my stomach, but I knew I needed real food—protein & fat. After eating, I succumbed to my tanking blood sugar and drank my annual Coke which definitely hyped up me up. Then I wandered over to see if they had announced the winners. When I saw the list of women’s veterans, they all came in between 3:24 and 3:45 or so. Way before me. There was no visible clock, so I wasn’t totally sure of my time—I forgot to stop my Garmin until several minutes later, but I knew I was just under 4:30. Later when I saw one woman with the prizes (all the veteran winners were given walking sticks, so they were easy to spot), it was the woman I had last seen as the 3^rd white woman, so I wondered if I had been right all along and those three had stayed pretty close throughout the race.

Shortly after this, I was thrilled to find out there was a shuttle bus back to town because the only route I knew was at least 6K back to my hostel and I really could barely walk. The shuttle driver asked for vouchers, but didn’t even notice if you didn’t give him one (thank God). There was a nice Italian guy who was also staying at our hostel and when the shuttle dropped us off, there was Janice sitting in the Reception lounge chair in the shade!

Final result (according to my Garmin Foreunner 410): 4:24:36 for 26.22 miles, a PR!

Lookin' extra fly

2011-08-22T02:24:00.000+11:00

I gotta testify, come up in the spot lookin’ extra fly

For the day I die, I’m gonna touch the sky

This weekend’s runs brought to me by Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco and MoeBen sleeves. I finally received a package sent from the US in early July which contained all sorts of awesome stuff, including my new Merrell Trail Lithe shoes (ran 6 miles in them today, Sunday, which went well), StarSoft Roo moccasins (so far only worn inside which gave me this odd, rare experience—warm feet!), StarSoft Moc3 running mocs (ran my 7 mile Tempo run on Saturday—beautiful—just like barefeet, but warmer!), and my MoeBen sleeves which look so totally, completely cool I can’t wait to wear them in the marathon next week. Almost like Christmas!

Scenes from a long run

2011-08-15T18:00:00.001+11:00

I needed to do a 18-20 miles -- the last long run before the marathon on the 28th -- enough so that I would be able to gauge whether I could actually run the whole 26.2 miles (42.2 km). Happily, I actually felt up to it (which has been a bit of a problem over the last month or so). I was up at 5:30am as usual, but knew I wanted to wait for it to warm up, so I made a cup of coffee, got my Kindle to do some reading and listened to one of my favorite podcasts (RunRunLive: www.runrunlive.com) of which I had two episodes I had not yet heard.

I had thought I should get out at 8am, but it takes me awhile to drink coffee and then I had to prep -- get dressed, grease up bra straps and feet with BodyGlide, fill my Camelback, grab a banana & a Honey Stinger gel, etc. So it was a bit after 9am when I got out the door. I had a moment of concern about how hot it might be at noon or 1pm when I would still be out there, but I told myself it was just about time on the road and if I had to walk, that would be fine.

I tried to start out slowly -- focusing on relaxing my shoulders, my calves, going easy -- but the first 3 miles were quite fast (about 9:10/mi). I decided to go over to Zambia and wondered what the route would be like after 7 miles, which is as far as I’d gone on that side previously. Around 3 miles, looking ahead, there was another woman runner coming toward me. Was that Janice? She had a hat on so I couldn't see clearly what color her hair was. It could be a tourist, I suppose. Or maybe another white resident whom I'd yet to meet, though that seemed unlikely. As we got closer, yes, it was Janice! What a perfect coincidence as I had been thinking of texting her all week so we could plan the trip to Victoria Falls! Janice is a Peace Corps volunteer -- a physiotherapist and a triathlete from Hawaii -- working at the Mainstream Foundation, the other organization in Katima (besides Cheshire Home) working with people with disabilities. She's the person who told me about the Victoria Falls Marathon. We stopped and caught up -- she'd been down in Windhoek for meetings for nearly a month -- and discussed our plans. And I told her I was on a 20-miler, which really committed me (someone else now knew!). When I started up again, my pace was easier, which was good.

After leaving Janice, I passed the long empty space between the Vocational School and the border -- nearly two miles along a large corporate farm. Reaching the border was a quarter of the way and I was feeling good. The terrain changes as well, with a bit of elevation change (barely recognizable as hills, but at least not pancake flat). Going over the river, it was very remarkable how much rougher it was now than it had been a month or so ago, the last time I crossed. When I arrived in Katima, the water level was so high that you really had to look hard at the river to even see the flow. Now, so many rocks were visible and creating rapids.

The road dipped down after the bridge and then rose up and leveled off and somewhere on the level part I surpassed my prior routes. There seemed to be a lot more people around. Perhaps it was because it was a bit later—after 10am by now—or perhaps just a function of the greater population in Zambia vs. Namibia. I passed the Sesheke Secondary School up on a hill and the road curved and I could see ahead that traffic, buildings, and people were getting much more dense. On the edge of town was Sesheke Basic School and then rows of shops on either side of the road and, amazing to my eyes, at least two large shops selling used clothes. Wow! I am now in “normal” Africa. Sesheke is the closest town in Zambia to Katima in Namibia (it is, actually, directly across the river from Cheshire Home, where I live), but it felt so different. It reminded me of every place else I’ve lived or visited in Africa. Two long rows of cinderblock shops selling everything a person needs. Shops, from what I could see as I ran by, that were owned and operated by Zambians (rather than, as in Katima, Chinese or Egyptians or Indians or large South African corporations). Used clothing stalls caught my attention because they are ubiquitous everywhere in Africa, except they do not exist in Namibia, at least not in Katima. Oh, and churches. There were churches. I passed several. Churches right out on the main road with people in attendance. There are a few churches in Katima, but they are (with the exception of the newly built Apostolic Church) small, inconspicuous and not heavily attended.

I think that was Sesheke, but I am not sure, because it appeared on the road much sooner than the sign at the border said it should. So either their kilometer measurements were off or that was just a little suburban trading area.

On the other side of the shops there were several government buildings – the office of this or that Ministry – including the prison. No, I did not take a picture of that. But there was this tree which had quite a huge nest in it. I wonder what kind of bird (or other animal?) lives in such a large nest? And it sort of amazes me that it doesn’t fall down.

Reaching 10 miles, I turned around confident that one way or the other, I was getting the miles in because the only way to get home was to go back the 10 miles I’d just come. I drank some water for the first time and ate my entire Honey Stinger gel pack. I’d never eaten an entire one at once (usually I take half at a time) and my stomach was a bit sloshy as I started up again because I had to drink a fair amount of water to get the gel down. Interestingly, though my mouth had been very dry and I’d been thinking since about mile 8 that maybe I should take some water, I had been fine. But once I drank, it made me much more aware how dry it was out and I ended up stopping nearly every mile after that to at least wet my mouth.

So the second half my pace slowed considerably. I also stopped, walked and took photos on the way back. For the most part I was feeling okay, but somewhere around mile 15 or so, sometime after passing through the border, my lower back and legs felt “weird.” Sort of tight, but not really sore from strain. I wondered if I my sciatic nerve was getting squeezed—it was an odd kind of nerve pain like that I think. Between the dry mouth and the odd feelings, I lost a bunch of momentum, particularly on that long stretch between the border and the Vocational School where Katima civilization starts up again. A long, vast expanse of brown bush.

Ah, but here’s where the other photo comes from – an electric pole not long for this world as it is quickly being transformed into a termite mound. Untreated wood does not last in this environment.

Once I got back to a bit of “town” it was easier to pick a goal (I’m going to run at least to the Police Station) and keep going. And I also decided that 18 miles would suffice. It wasn’t pretty, but I felt confident enough that I could finish the entire marathon. Of course, by the time I got to 18 miles, there weren’t tons of taxis driving around! But my legs were really beat, so I just walked. I even walked backwards which seemed to help as I was using either different muscles or the same muscles in a different way. Several pickup trucks (bakkies) were going by and I waved my hand for a ride. It didn’t look like a proper taxi was ever going to come and I was still more than a mile from home. Finally, a bakkie driven by a nice older man with his grandson stopped. I climbed in the back and it felt so good to sit down. 18.7 miles or so. Fine. They dropped me at the end of my road and I thanked them profusely since I didn’t have any money to offer.

When I got home, I was really wiped out. I lay down on my floor for a bit but I was covered in salt which started to run into my eyes, so I got up and showered. That made me feel somewhat better. I ate the banana which had gone on my run with me. It looked pretty awful but tasted fine and I didn’t have enough energy to cook yet. Finally, after an hour or so, I cooked up a nice big plate of eggs with tomato and onion and spent the afternoon resting, reading and listening to podcasts while wearing compression sleeves on my legs (do they “work”? I dunno, but they made me feel better.)

Won a local 12k!

2011-08-01T18:30:00.000+11:00

Well, well. Yay for me –

Last Thursday, we (Caprivi Hope for Life) rented the conference room at the Katima Youth Center to hold a training with our field promoters. While I was there, I met Ben, the Regional Coordinator for Sports in Caprivi Region. I met him because he was wearing quite a nice looking track suit which I was admiring and Clara, our Finance Officer knows Ben and introduced us. He then introduced me to the woman who is the Deputy in charge of Namibian Women in Sport Association (NAWISA), whose existence was a revelation to me. And then, somehow in the conversation, he mentioned that there was going to be a 12k race on Saturday, put on by some local school as a fundraiser. A race! How exciting. I hardly ever get to race. When was the last one? Oh yeah, the New Year’s Day 10K (also run in Vibrams) where I won my age group. Ben was a bit vague on details (at least for what I am used to), but he said it was going to start at 7am in town, near the market.

After our meeting, I saw Ben talking with Peggy, one of our promoters from Liselo. He called me over to tell me that Peggy was a great runner, one of the best women in the region. As we walked to town, I spoke with Peggy a bit and she said she would come Saturday morning for the race. Great! We promised to see each other there.

I didn’t expect an enormous crowd – the population of Katima is pretty small to begin with and I only knew of two other runners – one Chinese guy I’d see on the road in the evenings a few times and Janice, a Peace Corps friend who is down at Windhoek now for a conference. But I thought, oh maybe there’d be a hundred people or so.

Wanting to make sure I had time to find the start, get registered and not miss anything, I left the house at 6:30am. It was COLD. Cold enough that I jogged out to the road and kept moving so I wouldn’t freeze. I had on shorts and a long sleeve running shirt with a pair of light track pants and my Katima Mulilo Town Council track jacket. There was no one out on the road and only one truck went by going the other direction. I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t get a ride. But soon enough a taxi came by, just when I thought my feet would go numb from the cold. When we got to town, we went by the market, but just saw a few people there setting up a brai (barbecue), so I didn’t think it was there. I asked the driver to take me to the Youth Center, but that was closed, so I said to take me back to the market and drop me there, figuring I would ask around. When we got back to the market, I saw Peggy and a couple of other people who looked like runners, plus a few children running around. By now, it was minutes before 7am and it was clear that things weren’t going to start right away. There was some commotion, though – one man was clearly in charge, I later heard he was the principal of the school – and there were two police there who were our safety escorts. Apparently the brai was part of the fundraiser and so parents of the school’s children were setting that up and then showing up with pastries and pancake batter and meat and sodas that they were going to sell. A few more people showed up, including Ben, and the women in charge of registration were organized, so around 8am we could pay our $20 and get our numbers. There were going to be two races, a 1-mile race for the younger children and a 12k race which I thought was only for adults, but when the gun went off, it was clear that it was also for the youth (12-18). We got our numbers and still had quite awhile to stand around. This gave us time to size up the competition and for random folks to wander by and enter the race (the guy who got 3^rd place was coming to open his shop, saw the race was happening and decided to run!). A bit of sun finally came up and we would huddle in the spots where it was shining to try and warm up.

I was wearing my Vibram Fivefingers (Bikila LS) which engendered quite a bit of interest. I considered running barefoot, but I didn’t know what the route was going to be (and therefore the conditions of the road/path) and 12k is about twice the distance I’d ever run barefoot and I knew it would wreck my feet. With a marathon in a month, that didn’t seem wise, so I opted for the VFFs. There was quite a variety of footwear among the runners. The shopkeeper had a pair of spikes (without the spikes in) that he wore. Quite a few people were in the Converse knock-offs that are quite popular around town, some had knock-off brands of “regular” running shoes. One guy showed up at the last minute wearing dress shoes, but as he passed me (having gotten off to a bit of a late start) he was barefoot. Quite a few of the kids ran either barefoot or in their socks, including two boys carrying their shoes, which apparently did not work as well as they had hoped.

When we started, there were less than 20 adults, with Peggy and I the only two women, and another 15 or so youth. There was no starting line, but everyone pretty politely lined up next to each other and the principal said “go” and shot something or other and off we went. Since my toes were actually numb, I started slow and just decided to “run my own race”. Slow is relative, though, as my first mile split was 8:15—I just didn’t go like a bat out of hell like everyone else. About 10 of the girls pooped out after ½ a mile and started walking, but I have to give them credit because they did it—they ran the whole 12k race.

As things shook out, I could see Peggy ahead of me—far enough that I couldn’t reach her, yet within sight. I think we were probably going about the same pace, because she always seemed to be about the same distance. Around 3 miles, I started passing people. First the two boys carrying their shoes and running in their socks, one of whom had music playing from his phone—they would run, walk, run, so we placed leap frog for about a mile, but then they couldn’t keep it up. I caught up with two girls and a boy who were plugging along pretty well, but started to lose steam. One of the girls ran with me for awhile, but then faded. Then I caught a boy who had been running with Peggy, and we went through the turnaround checkpoint together where we had to pick up a “wooly” – a colored piece of yarn that would prove we made it to the checkpoint and was necessary to qualify for prizes. The nice thing about the out and back course was that I could cheer on folks who were way ahead of me. After the turnaround, the boy I was with kept having trouble with his shoelaces. They were quite long and didn’t stay tied, so he dropped back. I think caught up with the first girl, who was so far ahead of the others that even though she faded near the end, she won handily. Then, suddenly, Peggy was reachable and seemed to be slowing down, while I just kept clipping along (my splits for the race were 8:15-8:30 per mile, with the last mile a bit faster at 8:08). We passed an area which had shops, a bunch of people (including a boy who shouted at each of us “how much did you pay?” which seemed an odd question) and little piglets crossing the road!

By the time we got to the intermediate water stop (without about 2 miles to go), I caught up with Peggy. With me there for a bit of competition, she rallied and we ended up running side by side, alternating fading a bit and rallying.

At the beginning of the race, a police bakkie (pickup) had escorted us out and along the route (though it was quickly too far from me to be considered an escort). It came by at least one more time and another time a police car came by, both with sirens blaring. However, by the time we reached that intermediate water stop, there were a LOT more cars on the road and they were rude and somewhat aggressive. We had been running with the traffic, but Peggy and I decided to cross over. I was hoping that if they saw us with numbers on our shirts, they would understand we were racing and not run us off the road. We could see two of the guys up ahead of us.

When we turned onto the road going back into town, it was quite a zoo. Now we not only had cars, but also people walking or standing, bicycles, etc. to deal with and we had to cross the road to get back to the start. Finally, at one point, there was a break in the traffic and I looked back and was glad to see Peggy was right behind me. I signaled to her and we crossed over and then I picked it up as we were about a block from the finish. I thought she’d come after me and probably catch me. The main intersection in town, 200 meters from the parking lot of the market and our finish, was crazy. There was a huge truck trying to turn and a bunch of taxis honking, so I hopped up onto the sidewalk in front of the bank and cut diagonally across, whipping my head from side to side to check for traffic—no use getting killed when I’m this close to the finish! Peggy didn’t catch me, which meant I won! In fact, she was at least a full minute behind me. I hadn’t realized how close to exhaustion she was. My time was around 1:01:00 (according to my Garmin—there was no clock for the race).

The post-race waiting period was even longer than the pre-race wait. First, we sat around for quite awhile – cooled off, swapped stories, and found out that the two lead men had missed the turnaround checkpoint because they were literally following the police bakkie and turned when it turned, never seeing the water stop and not picking their woolies. So they were disqualified. Then there were two guys who ran very well (they may have been 3^rd & 4^th) who never registered, so they were also disqualified. I took off my VFFs which gave many folks a chance to pick them up and give them a good look. By this time, we were getting antsy but learned that we had to wait for the last finisher of the 12k to come in. Finally 3 of the girls who had pooped out right at the beginning came running in followed by a police car and we were hoping they would do our award ceremony. By now it was 11am and all the shops in town close at 1pm, so people wanted to get on with the day. However, we were told that the children had not yet run their race (on the roads now very crowded with Saturday morning shopping traffic). As they lined up to run their mile, I decided to go to the market, since I clearly had at least 30 minutes before the awards ceremony.

When I came back, it was hard to spot my compatriots among the market-goers, brai patrons and onlookers, but I found a couple who said they thought things would start soon. Sure enough, within minutes, the principal called for us to gather around. The prizes weren’t bad. For the 1-mile--$600 for first place, $300 for second place, $200 for third place girl and boy. For the 12k--$800 first place, $300 second place, $200 third place male and female in 3 categories: 12-17, 18-49, 50+. I was hoping they would use the standard definition of veteran (40+) as that would have put Peggy and I in different categories. Ben, being the only veteran, won his age group. I won the women, with Peggy second. The boy who won the 12-17 group was a 15 year old sprinter who was actually third overall (and actually, first not disqualified). When you convert $800 Namibian into USD it doesn’t sound like much money (~$120) but at nearly ¼ my monthly stipend, this was quite a great boon! To celebrate, I spent more than half of it on a Namibian Schools Sport Union track suit like the one I saw Ben wearing that Thursday. A fine souvenir, I think. Here I am sporting the jacket:

Registered!

2011-07-26T21:57:00.000+11:00

Okay, I did it. Registered for the Vic Falls Marathon. Yikes!

http://www.vicfallsmarathon.com/index.php?q=con,1,%20Home_Page

Coming down to the wire

2011-07-26T18:39:00.001+11:00

Okay, I have learned a few things the hard way, so you don’t have to!

First off, though I am continuing on this path, I would not recommend it. That is, it is not really smart to try to learn to run barefoot while you are training for a marathon. This is not smart. The two goals require nearly diametrically opposed approaches. But I’m a Pisces, so I persist.

I got what I thought was a blister on the bottom of my foot – right at the top of the arch on my right foot. I have been getting quite a few blisters from running and even walking barefoot because much of the ground here is quite soft sand. This means that you need to push off to move forward (or certainly so I thought) which causes friction, which causes blisters. However, this blister did not behave as the others did and when they had healed, this one still hurt and started to hurt more and more. I had to travel to Windhoek for a couple of days for work and when I got there, the foot was now quite swollen and red and it occurred to me that it was infected. And it was getting worse. I went to the doctor there, but she was booked, so I thought I would just wait until I returned home. But the next day I could barely walk, so I went to the doctor again and begged her assistant to fit me in.

Oh yea, it was infected. So badly that it had now evolved into blood poisoning. She prescribed a strong full spectrum antibiotic, an anti-inflammatory pain killer and probiotics (which is standard procedure here in Namibia – thank you! Since I have enough problems with my gut as it is). 5 days later, things had improved slightly, so she prescribed a different, stronger antibiotic. 10 days of no running with a marathon less than 2 months away. Not the ideal situation.

So, this past Sunday’s long run was the test. I needed to run 16 miles (and then 18 this coming Sunday and 20 the week after) if there was any chance I’d be in shape for the Vic Falls Marathon (28 August). Otherwise, I’d have to drop back and run the half-marathon.

I had done all my other runs in the week and a bit of yoga, though no other workouts, so I thought it was possible. I let myself lay about a bit and drink coffee. Normally this is after the run, but it is still quite cold in the early morning here and I wanted to wait for it to warm up. I had this crazy idea that taking some straight coconut oil might give me fuel that wasn’t just sugar, so I ate a tablespoon of that. This was a bad idea and yet something else that you can learn from me to NOT do.

It was a nice day – sunny, clear sky and few cars on the road. I took the road south and then turned off toward Kalimbeza which is a road I’ve not been down before. It is not paved and there must be a campground or several down it because I’ve never actually seen so many shiny new cars with South African plates. They sped down the road and kicked up a ton of dust which was considerably less than pleasant.

But most of the run was about my body. My stomach, or rather my gut, started to feel painful within 3 miles or so. Gas, pressure, like that. I ran off into the woods, but was disappointed. By mile 9 I was again in agony (it would come and go in waves) and I ran off into the woods again. That provided some relief, but not total. I had another disappointing appointment in the bush around mile 12.

Learning – no, straight coconut oil is NOT a good pre-run food.

The other interesting news from my body was about my back. Since my 10-day layoff, I’d only run either barefoot or in Vibram Fivefingers or Luna Sandals. For the 16-miler, I wore my Brooks Green Silence which are billed as racing flats (pretty minimal shoes), but are substantially more shoe than any others I own.

Within 400 meters of leaving my house, I could feel that this place in my right sacrum was annoyed. That kept me hyper-aware of my form throughout the run. I really concentrated a lot on trying to run in the shoes the same way that I ran barefoot or in the Lunas (which are the closest to barefoot of my other shoes). Because in the entire previous week, I had had no back pain whatsoever. By the end of the run, I was a little sore but the next day I seemed pretty much fine again. But this was a revelation. I had this thought that I really should only run in “zero drop” shoes (shoes with no difference between the heel and the toe – the Brooks have about a 4-6mm difference I think) and this really confirmed it. And it motivated me to keep learning to run barefoot with the idea of actually being able to do that full time for all my runs. I simply have no back pain when I do. None.

Despite the “visit from the gingerbread man” as the guys on the Marathon Talk podcast would say, the run was a victory. I hadn’t lost all my fitness. I could still run long and I think I have enough time to build up more to run a decent marathon. So, onwards and upwards!

Downtime is over

2011-06-27T18:40:00.001+11:00

After my stellar half-marathon performance, I figured I deserved a week off. Then the next week, when I knew I need to get back into my training plan, the warm coziness of my blankets in contrast to the cold morning air, sucked me back into bed too many mornings. But finally this week, I got back on the plan. This is quite critical because I didn’t run the Safaricom Marathon in Kenya this weekend. That was dependent on me getting to Kenya for other reasons, which didn’t pan out, but in addition, I kind of gave up on the idea a couple of months ago when I figured out that it would have cost me at least $450 US, even with someone else paying for the ticket to Kenya. Woo wee, too rich for this volunteer’s blood. So that one stays on the bucket list. I intend to be living in Kenya in the near future, so I’m sure I’ll have another chance.

And I totally lucked out. The Victoria Falls Marathon is happening at the end of August. There is a Peace Corps volunteer here in Katima who also runs (she’s really a triathlete) who told me about it. So we’re both going, and maybe some other Peace Corps and VSO vols if we can get them inspired. There will be a full marathon, which I am planning to do, a half-marathon which she is doing, and a 5k. I’m trying to get Peter, the Nigerian volunteer who lives here at Cheshire Home also to think about the 5k. He doesn’t run, but he does long walks and plays football, so he’s thinking about it. I think it will be fun if there are a whole bunch of us.

But the marathon is now only 9 weeks away, so that scared me into getting my butt out the door this week, even though it was coooold. I’m also working (virtually) with a personal trainer in the UK who is giving me two workouts a week that work all the rest of my body – core, arms, back, etc. It’s great because he’s done MovNat and the workouts he gives me are very much like MovNat and get me moving in different ways and using different muscles. And they are pretty short – 30 minutes or so – and intense, and somehow knowing it will be short makes it easier for me to both fit them in and actually do them. That’s good because they are mostly way out of my comfort zone – a lot of movements and stuff that I am not used to doing.

Today’s long run was 12 miles, but now I’ll be building up again in preparation for the marathon. I ran in my New Balance Minimus shoes which did keep my feet warm (for the first time in weeks), so that was nice. But I noticed after the run that my feet really hurt. First of all, my calves are super tight (leftover from doing my tempo run on Friday in VFFs, I think), but it is more than that. The outside near my toes is achy. I think it is because the shoes have some sort of ridge there. I have felt it before, but either it didn’t bother me as much or I zoned out and didn’t realize it. Hmmph. It could also be that my feet are starting to spread some from walking and running barefoot and in really minimal shoes (like the VFFs or my Luna sandals).

Brooks, whose shoes have always worked really, really well for me, is designing new shoes with Scott Jurek (who advised them on the Green Silence shoes, which I have and like a lot). Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen, they will NOT be zero-drop shoes, but will continue to have at least a 4mm differential between the toes and heel. This is very frustrating for me. I wish I could just run totally barefoot, but so far my feet aren’t tough enough to do that all the time. I love the Luna sandals, but they still give me blisters between the toes if I go too far in them (like 8 miles the last time. . .). And the biggest problem is that my feet get cold. Really cold. Like they go numb.

In fact, if anyone has any ideas how to remedy that problem, I would love to hear them.

It seems a bit crazy to me that I’m so cold. I mean, the temps in the morning are probably between 45-50 Farenheit, which doesn’t seem all that cold (intellectually). But to me it’s freezing.

My hands get cold, too, but I can just wear gloves or socks or pull them into my jacket or shirt. Honestly, even the Green Silence don’t warm my feet up because the tops are so meshy, though I haven’t broken down and worn wool socks yet. I may have to do that. I have at least another month of cold weather – maybe even colder than it has been because the wind has just started. I was talking with Dickson, the Cheshire Home handyman who is helping get my bike working, and he told me that July is the coldest month because that’s when the wind comes. The very next day after that conversation the wind came! It comes off the river and is chilling. The biggest difference is that it does not warm up in the middle of the day the way it did in June (when it was cold in the morning, but as the sun came, it warmed things up – usually causing a 40 degree difference between the temperature at 6am and noon).

Since Brooks doesn’t look like they are going to deliver for me, I’m now on the hunt for some zero-drop road shoes that aren’t squishy cushioned (that’s the thing I really like about Brooks – they tend to be “hard” which feels better to me) and are warm enough to keep my feet warm. I am getting a pair of the new Merrell Lithe Gloves which I am looking forward to trying out. They are zero drop trail shoes. I had a pair of the Pace Gloves, which have this funny elastic heel counter which tore my ankle so bad it cut into my Achilles tendon. After wearing them twice, I gave up. But a big shout out to Merrell Customer Service – I posted my bad experience in the Huaraches Google group and one of their reps saw it and told me who to contact, which I did, and they offered to send me a pair of the Lithe Gloves, which are similar, but have a softer, more normal heel counter like the men’s model. I have great hopes because otherwise, the Merrells fit my feet very nicely and they soles have great grip without having lugs which would make them hard to use on the roads. Since I have a mile or so on asphalt before I get to dirt/sand roads, that makes a difference. Given how long the mail takes, I’ll probably get those around the beginning of August. I’ll let you know how they work out.

So, three runs this week which is one short, but I’m back in the routine now. Next week calls for four runs including a long run of 14 miles.

Review of Luna sandals and a contest!

2011-06-17T01:03:00.000+11:00

http://bourbonfeet.blogspot.com/2011/06/words-from-lunatic-comprehensive-review.html

Here’s a chance to read the most in-depth review I’ve ever seen of Luna sandals (my favorite footwear, when I must wear something) and a chance to win a free custom pair.

Enjoy!

R4TW Half-marathon Race Report

2011-06-03T18:08:00.001+11:00

Last Sunday I ran my solo version of the CUSO-VSO (www.cuso-vso.org) Run for the World/Courir pour le Monde Half-marathon here in good old Katima Mulilo, Namibia. Here’s my race report.

The morning was cold (in the low 50s F) but I knew it would be hot within an hour, so I didn’t want to dress too warmly. What to wear? I finally decided on a short-sleeve Gore shirt which has a zippered neck and windstopper fabric. Then I went back and forth and back and forth about which shorts because I thought I should take a gel with me, just in case my energy dipped, but I didn’t need to wear my Camelback for just a 2 hour run. That meant the shorts had to have an appropriate pocket for a gel. Conveniently, the shirt had a pocket on the sleeve which was perfect for my iPod, and a hole for the headphone wire, so I chose a pair of North Face shorts I have which have these stretchy pockets on the hips perfectly designed to hold gels. They also happened to match the shirt color, so I was much more fashionably dressed than usual for a run J

I had only run twice during the week, and not for two days, so I was raring to go when I stepped out. Besides, it was far too cold to stand still. I started out slowly (or what felt like slowly) and I was thinking about how the run would go. I had a vague, perhaps vain, hope that perhaps I could run close to 2 hours which was my half-marathon race time a few years ago. My best time ever was 1:55 in San Jose in 2005, that was 6 years and an entire age group ago.

The weather was cool enough that I was happy every time I was in the sun and looked forward to the sun coming up high enough to be above the trees. Yet, I also knew that this was probably “perfect” running weather.

Being a Sunday morning, there were few cars on the road and even few people because I was running at the time of most church services. I thought of perhaps getting off the main road, but I wanted to run for time, so I didn’t want to get down into the sand which, though easier on the joints, would have slowed me down to some extent. Not having cars to deal with made this an easy choice. The long stretch from Cheshire Home to the Ministries district went by much faster than usual and then the next thing I knew, I was approaching the Total petrol station after which came the University of Namibia campus. Shortly before UNam, I heard my watch beep and realized I had already covered 3 miles (5 km) and I was feeling very good. My time, at 25 minutes, was also surprisingly fast.

After UNam and the Vocational Training school, there is another long, rather empty, stretch to the border. On a bad day this stretch, particularly on the return, can seem boring and endless. But this day I was just there, just present and the road rolled by. I waved to the border guards on the Namibian side and enjoyed the one sort of descent in this very flat region. Now I could tell I was running pretty fast, but I felt good, smooth and filled with energy. At the bottom of the hill, there was a closed gate before the truck stop area which I’d never seen before (I suppose the gate has always been there, but it has been open every time I’ve come through, so I hadn’t noticed it). The guard there saw me, ran to the gate and opened it with perfect timing so that I didn’t even need to slow down – with a big grin on his face (oh, I fear I may be the most exciting thing in his day). I ran through the trucks and then up to the bridge which crosses the Zambezi and links Katima Mulilo to Sheseke, Namibia to Zambia.

It is interesting that when I run at this pace, most of my attention is on my body, my breathing, my pace, how I am feeling. I see what is around me as it goes by, but I do not retain much. I am looking for obstacles. There is a bit of descent on the far side of the bridge and I am very aware of the series of speedbumps there – they are the kind where there are a group of 10 small humps together, sort of like a cattle guard – and I need to be careful about how I place my feet. There is a corresponding uphill after the descent and where the road levels off, I see that I’ve gone a bit more than halfway and it is time to turn around.

Now I am astounded by my time and realize that if I can keep this up, I will not only reach 2 hours, but come in significantly below that. I am still feeling very good. I think about taking the gel, but I don’t really need it and since I didn’t carry water with me, that would mean hunting around for someone with water. I’m feeling so good, I really don’t want to stop.

After passing over the bridge again, I get some hoots and comments from the truckers, but I have my earphones in, so I don’t really hear them or pay any attention. My friend the gate guard whips open the gate for me again and I thank him with a smile and a wave. As I round the corner and start up the hill to the Namibian border there seems to be commotion ahead of me. Are those dogs? And what? Yes, a couple of dogs and. . . monkeys! Big, huge monkeys. Actually, they were baboons, and they are huge. At least one of them was the size of me. Whoa. Fortunately, by the time I reach them, they are off the road and running back into the bush. I wonder if I am putting myself at risk by running through them (there are a couple on the left, and most on the right – probably 8 or 10 in all), but I get up to the border gate with no incident.

I run through the border, waving to the guards (it’s always good to be friendly to officials in uniforms, especially when they are not making me stop and show papers!) and pass the taxi rank on the other side. Then I am on the long stretch toward UNam and checking my watch. I’ve slowed down a bit, but I’m still clearly on track to beat 2 hours. The road curves a bit and I think I am at UNam, but no. I am looking at my watch too often, gotta stop that and be with my surroundings. Finally, there is UNam and the Total station soon after. Less than 3 miles to go and now all I can really think about is my time. I’m still feeling pretty good and even if I slowed down to 10 minute miles, I’d hit 2 hours. Wow. I can hardly believe it. I didn’t think I was in this kind of shape. Maybe those tempo runs I was doing actually made a difference?

I pass all the Ministry buildings and come to the final long stretch before home. Now I am getting anxious to see just how fast I am going to be. It feels like a real race now. The last mile or two are rather excruciatingly long because I keep checking my watch every couple of minutes, even though I know exactly the landmarks along this stretch of road, I keep hoping I am closer than I am. And right as I reach the turn off to home, I’m at 13.12 miles. In 1:51:43! Woo hoo!

After uploading my watch info to my computer, I check my records and realize this is my Personal Best! My previous PR was 1:55:58 in the Silicon Valley Half-Marathon in 2005. Excellent.

After 35+ years, Runner's World doesn't want my money

2011-05-20T21:36:00.000+11:00

Actually, I think I am being kind in framing the situation that way (in the headline).

I didn’t receive my April issue of Runner’s World. Looking at my March issue, I see that the expiration date is Feb 2012. However, I don’t remember paying for the renewal, which they usually ask for in December or so. Thinking I renewed expecting a follow-up asking for payment that might’ve gotten lost, I headed to their website. For the last couple of years, at least, I’ve paid my renewal on their web page. Having been through this before, I knew it was going to be difficult to get to that page, but I found it after all.

[Since I am signed in to the web page, why on earth could they not have a “Renew here” or “Your account” page or something easily accessible? Only one of many queries which add to my astonishment that this company somehow is making enough of a profit to stay in existence.]

Once I wind my way through to see the status of my subscription, I get conflicting information. On the top of the page, it shows Feb 12 as my expiration and says no payment is due. Yet, just below that, it says “Awaiting Payment” in red letters. Unfortunately, it is only in that top section that there is (or could be) a button to press to actually make a payment.

So I hunt around for how to contact them. I fill out my info and send a message through their online system. I don’t get any reply. After a couple of days, I do the whole thing again. This time I get the automated “we have lots of e-mails” message. Okay, at least they got my message. I wait a couple of more days. Nothing. So I go through the whole process again and send another message. Several days later, I get a reply saying that my subscription is through some other service and I have to call some 800#. I reply that this is untrue, I paid my subscription right here on this page just last year and besides, I’m in Africa and cannot afford the phone call (a 30 minute call would cost $50 USD, or 10% of my monthly allowance). No reply. I go back to the website and send a message again. Automated reply, then nothing. I go back to the website and send a message again. Several days later, I get the exact same message I got before. I make the same reply (perhaps with a bit more snark this time around).

The third time we go through this routine, I ask for my message to be passed up to someone who can actually do something. No reply.

I go back to the website and try a couple of more times. Nothing.

I have been a Runner’s World subscriber since my father first gave me a subscription when I was 12 years old. That was a long, long time ago. Do they care? Nope.

Now I understand why some (many?) in the RunNet community believe that RW is just a mouthpiece for its corporate sweatshop overlords.

It’s too bad, too, ‘cause I’ve always loved the human interest stories in RW and I was really into the new series by Marc Parent and loved, loved that one of my favorite people, Peter Sagal, was a regular contributor. Oh well, at least I have podcasts. And I might check out Marathon & Beyond magazine. . .

Reminder: Run for the World!

2011-05-07T16:58:00.001+11:00

I’m about to head out for my weekly long-run. I’m in Windhoek today and I’m scheduled to run 18 miles. I may do less than that because, frankly, Windhoek is not a great place to run (kinda like LA – all highway). So I was thinking of all of YOU who have not yet sponsored me in my effort to raise money for CUSO-VSO. So far, I’m about 20% to my goal, which isn’t very far since my run is happening in THREE WEEKS! Please, if you haven’t sponsored me, head on over to either the US$ page: : http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1121606 or the Canadian $ page: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1120311, and show your love!

I’ll be running a half-marathon (13.1 miles/21 km) on my own along the byways of Katima Mulilo and if you sponsor me, not only will you be supporting an excellent organization doing work that is making a sustainable difference, but I promise to dedicate a kilometer to thinking of you!

Thanks.

Of becoming animal, audiobooks, honey, Egoscue and 16 miles

2011-05-03T18:16:00.000+11:00

“For too long we’ve closed ourselves to the participatory life of our senses, inured ourselves to the felt intelligence of our muscled flesh and its manifold solidarities. . . Only by welcoming uncertainty from the get-go can we acclimate ourselves to the shattering wonder that enfolds us. This animal body, for all its susceptibility and vertigo, remains the primary instrument of all our knowing, as the capricious earth remains our primary cosmos.” David Abram, Becoming Animal

This week, I started reading David Abram’s newest book, Becoming Animal. This quote comes from the introduction. I’m sure I will be sharing more as I go along. I love his exploration of knowing through “this animal body”—not just knowing the world, but knowing God through our senses as well. I find it very easy to look at children/babies and animals and trees and plants and all of nature and see God manifest. I feel God in the wind and the rays of the sun. I see God in the moon and the stars. But for me personally, all those things are “out there,” “not me.” And so I am interested to explore with Abram becoming more of the animal that I am, and perhaps in this way discover an avenue to knowing God in a much more real, palpable and lasting way.

I successfully completed my scheduled 16-miler yesterday and I think I found the road that I had gone looking for a few weeks ago. As you can see from the photo, it is a nice sandy road that goes on and on (though I did get to the end of it and found a couple of other roads). This is such a typical scene here in Caprivi—sandy road, scrub and trees lining both sides. As you might imagine, sandy soil is not great for growing many things, so vegetables are not very plentiful here. We have tomatoes, squash/pumpkins of various kinds, sweet potatoes and leafy greens, but the terrain seems to be pretty good for cows and this week again I had the chance to share the road with a herd, though this did not involve a direct confrontation, for which I was quite glad. The other photo is me at about 10-miles, all decked out and sweaty. Like the shirt? I love this shirt—the graphic (hopefully you can read it by enlarging the photo), the material (soft, but still technical, very wicking), the fit. It’s Oiselle and it was shockingly expensive. I never would have bought it except I really liked the graphic and the fit. But I think it may be my absolute favorite shirt.

Since I was running on Sunday morning (rather than Saturday), there weren’t many people about, but three times during the run, I met up with kids. Twice it was smart-aleck boys who just played at running to imitate me, but once it was a group of girls who actually did run with me for 800 meters or so until one of them lost her shoe. I’m happy to encourage them and particularly to model for the girls a grown woman being this physically active and doing something fun. Depending on their income level, their mothers are likely pretty active or extremely active, but it’s all work.

I’m still not able to sync my Garmin, which is quite frustrating, though I did actually get an e-mail from support. They told me to un-pair and re-pair the watch with the computer, which of course I’ve already done several times. . . But I replied, so maybe they’ll get back to me with something more useful. Nonetheless, I did my full schedule this week – 6 mi on Monday, a 6 mi Tempo run Thursday, 5 mi on Friday and then 16 on Sunday. I also did a bit of yoga and did my Egoscue exercises all but one day.

Egoscue exercises? Ah, my lower back has been bothering me. It got quite better when I was sleeping on a very firm mattress, but my mattress now is much softer and so it is hurting again. So I was looking for a more permanent solution. I had a couple of sessions at the Balance Center in Palo Alto when I was in the US, working on my posture and I learned that my pelvis tips under in an abnormal way. It’s disconcerting, however, because when I stand the way I should, I feel like I’m sticking my butt way out. A check in the mirror shows clearly that this is not even remotely the case, but it still feels funny to me. At the Balance Center I got good instruction about how to stand, sit and lay down, but no exercises to help my body get back in balance. The lower back (right side) issue clearly causes tightness in my glutes and piriformis and hamstrings (oy! During my run, my glutes got so tight they started to really ache). A couple of weeks ago, I saw an article about the Egoscue method and checked out a website which led me to Amazon and several books by Pete Egoscue. I downloaded and read one of the books available for the Kindle and it was perfect for me. It was very clear how to analyse my situation and he gives a series of exercises to do, based on your condition. Of course, he says that, at least as long as you are in pain, you should stop running (if you have my condition) and only do his exercises, but that’s not gonna happen with me. However, I’ve decided to commit to doing the exercises for at least 30 days (or 25 out of the next 30 days) and see if they make any difference. If I feel they are helping/I am making progress, I’m happy to continue. It’s interesting because there are 7 exercises in my series (or actually 11, since one exercise is actually 5 exercises) which sounded very doable to me. No problem, I can do those when I get home before I cook dinner, I thought. It felt, in my head, that they would take 20-30 minutes. Ha! Actually they take nearly an hour, I realized after doing them a couple of times. But I’m quite hopeful. Some of the exercises don’t feel like much, but a few of them really reveal my weaknesses (like severe hamstring weakness).

After the run, I was quite wiped, but I could feel myself stiffening up. So, I put on my compression calf sleeves, did some yoga (focusing on lunges, which was good) and later did my Egoscue exercises. The truth is that when I run most of this stuff doesn’t bother me. Yes, on a long run, I get a bit achy in the lower back or glutes these days, but for 6 or 8 miles, I have no problems. Even my Achilles tendon problem (caused by the Merrell shoes) is tight and sore for about 5 minutes or so until it warms up, then I have no trouble at all. This is why I keep running. When I am in the office, I notice that sitting for a long time hurts more than anything. This makes me grateful that I am forced to walk 20 minutes to town to get something to eat at lunchtime (and 20 minute back). I can get very sucked in to whatever I am working on and not even get up to pee for hours on end. Not good for the back, hamstrings, etc.

I had a great new experience yesterday—I listened to an audiobook while I was running. I’ve never done that before and always thought that without the beat of music, the sound would drag me down. But I have been listening to “Switch” by Chip and Dan Heath and it has been quite interesting, so I thought I would give it a try. It was great! I wasn’t really fond of the narrator, I wish it was the authors, but the book was very interesting and made the long road go by fairly easily.

And finally, I had bought a couple of Honey Stinger gels before I came over to Namibia. I had tried some of the Honey Stinger chews, which were awesome (though I didn’t try them while running, just as candy). I’ve never been a gel fan, but I liked the honey idea and these are pretty “clean” as fake food goes. I’ve tried Clif Bloks but, though I find them quite palatable, they stick in my mouth more than I like. When I was in the DR Congo, I used to take small mandarin oranges on a run, which work quite nicely, but they don’t have those here. So I thought I’d give these Honey Stingers a try (though I also brought along a banana, in case it was horrible). I have one regular, one with Ginseng and one with Chocolate. I took the Ginseng one. After an hour, I stopped to drink a bit and took half the gel and it was not bad at all. The best part, aside from the flavor (honey basically, though not as sweet as regular honey) was that it was more liquidy than gels usually are. So it went down very smoothly. In fact, I didn’t even need water, though I made sure to drink some because I know that is necessary to get it into the bloodstream. Forty minutes later, I took the rest of the packet. I had no GI distress and I completed the 16 miles with very little walking, so I think that was good. I’ll try the regular and the chocolate and let you all know how that goes. But I think I’m a fan.

Sponsor me in the Run for the World!!

2011-05-02T02:52:00.000+11:00

REMINDER and update to fix weblinks.

Hello everyone!

Did you know that CUSO-VSO (http://www.cuso-vso.org) and I are the same age? Neither did I until last month. But it’s true. In 2012, we will both be 50 years old. Amazing!

As part of the festivities, CUSO-VSO has created the Run for the World – an opportunity for people to run and get sponsors to raise money in honor of the 50^th anniversary of sending volunteers to share their skills with people and organizations in the developing world. Run for the World is focused around Ottawa Race weekend which is 28-29 May, 2011, when there will be a series of races in the city at its most beautiful time of the year.

Of course, I’m not in Ottawa, but I wanted to participate. It is, after all, the Run for the World, and I’m in the world, aren’t I?

So, I am going to run a half-marathon here in Katima Mulilo that same weekend – my very own personal Run for the World! Since there won’t be crowds lining the streets here to cheer me on, I am really hoping YOU will take on that challenge and cheer me on by sponsoring me!

My goal is to raise $3,000 which will support another volunteer to take the leap to share her/his skills with brothers and sisters here in Africa or in Nepal or in Papua New Guinea or in Honduras or any of the many countries around the world where CUSO-VSO works. As you know, I love CUSO-VSO and really believe that we are doing great, sustainable work in the world, that’s why I am on my second assignment with them.

To sponsor me, you can visit my personal page – I have two pages, one for US donations and a second for Canadian donations because I am lucky enough to have friends all over! Please visit the page appropriate for you where you can make a secure online donation using your credit card or paypal. Click on the link below:

If you are in the US or want to contribute in USD: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1121606

If you are in Canada or want to contribute in CDN: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1120311

You can leave me a message and make a gift. To get more information on how YOU can participate in Run for the World, please visit www.runfortheworld.ca.

Thanks for your support!

Sponsor me in the Run for the World!!

2011-04-26T01:39:00.003+11:00

Hello everyone!

Did you know that CUSO-VSO (http://www.cusco-vso.org) and I are the same age? Neither did I until last month. But it’s true. In 2012, we will both be 50 years old. Amazing!

Of course, I’m not in Ottawa, but I wanted to participate. It is, after all, the Run for the World, and I’m in the world, aren’t I?

If you are in the US: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=2964983&Lang=en-CA

If you are in Canada: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=2967910&Lang=en-C

You can leave me a message, make a gift or get more information on how YOU can participate in Run for the World - Friends of CUSO-VSO, please visit www.runfortheworld.ca.

Thanks for your support!

Adventure running in Katima

2011-04-26T01:39:00.002+11:00

This was a “low” week – just 5-6 milers each day for a total of 22 miles or so for the week (though you may not see this in my workout history yet because for some reason my Forerunner 410 is not able to sync with my computer. . .). Also, this was a 4-day weekend: both Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays here in Namibia. I don’t have any money to travel, so I just stayed close to home, but that was fine because Friday I moved into my “real” apartment and it’s been nice to be domestic. I finally unpacked everything and it was almost like Christmas – running shoes I haven’t seen in a month! Even a new pair of shorts I realized I’d never yet worn!

Sunday morning I went out for a 6-mile run and felt bored when I turned east on the B8 highway, just as I had the last time I ran. So, this time I decided to go down the dirt road that passes Zambezi private school, the Caprivi Houseboat Lodge and heads toward the now defunct Hippo Lodge. The last time I ran down this road, it was flooded where there was a bit of a bridge over the river. This time was no different, but I didn’t feel like turning back and being on the same old road. So I just went for the adventure. That meant sloshing through no less than 5 river crossings, though happily the first was the deepest and only came up to my butt. I hemmed and hawed for awhile, looking at the family ahead of me who had just walked through the water themselves. Do I go for it or don’t I? Finally I plunged in and, of course, it wasn’t that bad. Once your feet are wet, they’re wet!

After the first two crossings, there was a path that wound around behind the houses and avoided another flooded area. That was appreciated. But of course, there was another flooded area. This time, I followed two boys who were following another sort of path (very tall grass that had been recently walked on). That one didn’t pan out and we had to backtrack and just plunge into the water. One of the boys said he had gone down this way yesterday and this was the end of the flooding (or that’s how I interpreted what he said), but this was not the case! The fifth crossing wasn’t very deep, but by the time I got to the sixth, 2.25 miles into the run, I was a bit fed up. And this one made a river of the road that stretched as far as I could see – at least 400m or more (the road curved), so I turned back at that point, though the boys went on, sure they would get somewhere.

But the run certainly wasn’t boring! I don’t think I ran more than a quarter of a mile before needing to cross a flood or find a path around. On the way back, behind those houses again, I was happily running along the path when I came face to face with a gang of cows. The path was not wide enough for both me and the cows and I have to admit that I don’t really know how to manage cows. I shooed the first one, a heifer, off the path, but then I was confronted by a couple of bulls with horns who were guarding a calf between them. Maybe the locals would think I’m an idiot, but I didn’t think my chances were good, so I decided that, 6 against 1, I would be the one to get off the path and go around. . .

As I passed through the first flooded area again, 4 helicopters flew overhead. At the other side, there was a guy on a bike hemming and hawing about crossing. I asked him what he thought of the helicopters, but he had no idea. 4 white, unmarked helicopters flying over the middle of nowhere. A few minutes later, there were another 3 white and 1 blue helicopters. It struck me that this guy had no idea whose helicopters they were and I realized, like crossing the border to Zambia, this is probably a symptom of living in a peaceful society. When I was in the DR Congo, anyone on the street could identify any airplane or helicopter that flew overhead. They had to – their lives depended on it. Planes and helicopters brought soldiers or food or weapons or aid. Here, who knows? But it probably doesn’t affect my life.

Back on the paved road, there was a gaggle of small children who were beyond excited to say hello to the “mukua” (white person). I waved and asked “how are you?” (the typical greeting) and a few of them replied “fine” (the typical response). They were happy and their excitement gave me a boost. Otherwise, it was a sleepy Easter Sunday morning.

I wore my Vibram Five Finger Bikila LS shoes. I think they are my favorite “minimalist” shoes. Easier to get on and off than the original Bikilas. My feet have taken a bit of a beating this week. I have some funny sort on the top of my right foot, just below my pinky toe joint. I’m not sure if it is being caused by the New Balance Minimus shoes or by my Olukai sandals. It only seems to hurt when I touch it, though, not when I’m actually walking or running. The other day I ran in my Luna Sandals (http://www.lunasandals.com) which was wonderful. I really, really love them. Just a thin piece of rubber between me and the road. Unfortunately, they gave me a nasty blister on the inside of my left big toe, which I didn’t even realize until it popped of its own accord when I was walking back to the office after lunch the same day. Then today, I wore my Merrell Pace Glove trail shoes. The first time I wore these shoes, I wore them sockless and ran in Wunderlich park and they gouged the back of my heel so deeply that it caused me ongoing Achilles tendonitis, so I haven’t worn them in a couple of months. I did go out again without socks (largely because they are advertised to be for minimalist folks and to be worn sockless), to my detriment. I didn’t reinjure the Achilles tendon again, but they rubbed me raw under my left ankle bone. Why always the left while the right is fine???

Though I love the fit and feel of the Merrells and it was actually great to wear trail shoes, I’m really disappointed with the design of the women’s shoes. The men’s version are soft and sweet on the inside, but for some reason, the women’s model has a sort of elastic heel counter and there are seams with stitching and much less soft material on the inside. Why? If I could have found a pair of the men’s in my size, I would have bought them before I left the US. Now, I feel like demanding my money back from the company. . .

Scenes from a run

2011-04-18T02:45:00.000+11:00

I took my camera with me, again, for my 14-miler on Saturday morning. Last week, I was never particularly inspired to take photos, and I thought the same would be true this time, but as soon as I was up on the bridge crossing the Zambezi, it was so beautiful. So here's a treat for you all, some scenes from my run!

My route was pretty boring – straight out the B8 highway from Cheshire Home, where I live, to the border. I run past one area with most of the local Ministry offices and past the Zambezi Waterfront Development project (oh, that’ll be another post – a project which has been under development for many, many years) and past the Total petrol station. But there are some vast stretches of not-much-ness. The last photo is the final 1.5mi/2.5km stretch near Cheshire Home, which can feel pretty desolate at the end of a long run.

I had this idea I my head that I would try to cross over and run in Zambia. I thought this would require some border negotiations. (I had heard that a Peace Corps used to cross over and run over there.) But when I got to the border, I ran into the border post, through to the other side, looked at the guards, said, “Hello, how are you?” and they didn’t wave me over or give me any signal or anything. They looked bemused/amused both at my running and at my taking the time to say hello. A few feet later, there was a small sign, “Welcome to Zambia”. Hmm. Could it be that easy? Shortly after, I came upon all the trucks waiting in the Immigration/Customs area on the Zambia side and the approach to the bridge. But no officials anywhere to be seen. So I just kept going.

The breeze on the bridge was beautiful. It wasn’t very hot out, maybe 65-70F/18-21C? But the sun is very strong and gently moving air is always appreciated.

When you look across a wide river, it’s pretty impressive, but being up on the bridge and being able to look up and down the river really shows its strength and magnitude. The Zambezi is in the same class as the Mississippi, I would say. They definitely feel similar to me. And the Connecticut. When I was standing on the bridge taking this photo – seeing the river with the tree-lined banks – I had a moment of space/time shifting and felt for a moment that I was standing on a bridge somewhere looking at the Connecticut River. I almost expected the trees to start changing colors!

The Zambian side is a bit hillier than the Namibian side. The land rises away from the river (though we’re talking an elevation of what 50 feet, 100 feet?) which means that all the water that rains onto the Zambian side flows into Namibia. We get flooded, they don’t. Katima hasn’t been too badly affected by the flooding, yet, though there is a camp not too far from Cheshire Home with about 50 or so tents for flood refugees. Also, I was speaking to a woman at the taxi stop the other day who said that near her home a bit further east, there has been a lot of flooding and now the town population has ballooned with flood victims.

Because the road for the bridge was built up, as I approached the river on my return, I could see this lovely swampy area down below filled with snowy egrets. You can see a few in the photo, but there were probably 20 of them there, but just walking around getting some food, so in a photo, they just look like little white slivers! You can really tell that the river has greatly overflowed its banks. On the Namibian side, the water is now about 200m from the B8 in a lot of places. But the rains have now ended, so perhaps we will be okay.

My return through the border post was equally as uneventful as my departure. It sure is nice to be in a peaceful country, bordered by peaceful countries with whom it has good relations.

As I was getting near home, I saw this rather bright green spot on the road. Approaching it, I realized it was this totally cool lizard! I approached him carefully, thinking he would run off as soon as I got close, but he didn’t move an inch. He seemed to be rather frozen in place, though he’s clearly alive. Maybe he was just really grooving on the heat. I got a bit worried though, because he was sitting literally in the middle of the road. It was amazing that he had not yet been run over. After taking his photo, a small truck came by and then turned around and stopped. A stocky Afrikaaner guy got out and picked up Mr. Lizard and moved him off to the side of the road. I thanked him, then he asked why I hadn’t done that. “I’m new here. I didn’t know. They don’t bite?” He responded, “aw they bite, but only softly.” So now I know. In all my experience in Africa, my general stance has been to not touch wild things, but maybe now it’s time to learn to be with the wildlife more closely. . .

My long run was quite slow for me, but that’s probably good. It’s hard for my head to believe, but logically I know that the point of a long run is not to go fast. Unfortunately, I’m not exactly sure of my running time because I stopped a lot and when I got back to the house, I realized that I couldn’t find my connection cable (for a Garmin Forerunner 110). So I know the total time, but I can’t connect the watch so SportTracks can calculate the actual run time vs. stop time. I don’t know what happened to cable, but I’m afraid that it fell out of my bag into the rental car that Otilie had last week. I thought maybe it fell on the ground, but I asked around and no one seems to have seen it. Fortunately, I have another Garmin, ‘cause it looks like the Forerunner 110 will be useless in about a day when the battery runs out. I’m really sorry about that because I find this one most comfortable on my small wrist, even if it doesn’t have all the functionality of the 405/410. Of course, I just saw that there is a new watch coming out – the Forerunner 610 – which looks beautiful and perfect for me – all the functionality of the 405 (maybe even of the 205/305!) and smaller with a more flexible band. Ah well, there’s something to look forward to in a year or so when I’m back someplace where such things are for sale.

Unfortunately, I got a splitting headache after the run, and this “cotton in the head” stuffed up feeling that I associate with allergies. This actually happens quite often after a long run (not so much during the week). I’ve always attributed this to something like hayfever – that I must be allergic to something in the air, but it’s odd to me that it only happens on long runs. And I wonder – this day, after the run, I drank fruit juice which is something I haven’t done in a couple of months on the “don’t drink your calories” principle of Paleo eating. But I’ve been reading The Paleo Diet for Athletes, by Joe Friel and Loren Cordain and Friel basically recommends some straight fruit sugar right after a workout for recovery (with protein -- I ate 3 scrambled eggs, too). But I wonder if I’m having a reaction to the fruit juice. Anyway, as I write this, it is Sunday morning and I still have the headache, even after drinking a cup of Traditional Medicinals Breathe Easy tea which usually makes a difference in sinus pain for me. I may have to pop some paracetamol.

One more thing to share. When I left the US, I weighed about 133lbs/60kg, which was down from a high of 141lbs/64kg in December-February. This was the beginning of results from starting to eat Paleo. Now I am down to 125lbs/56.5kg which has always been what I consider my “ideal” weight, though I have been down to 120-122lbs/55kg from time to time. This was not only totally effortless, but while eating food that has been so much more satiating than what I have been eating for 35 years. Many folks who move to eating Paleo are primarily interested in lowering their bodyfat, but I’m a bit addicted to the scale, so that was my first focus. However, last year I bought a skin caliper fat measurement device (FatTrack II by AccuFitness, www.accufitness.com) mostly because one time a few years ago, I got a body fat test at a race which indicated that my body fat was much lower than my fancy Tanita scale was telling me. At any rate, I just used the calipers, after reading and rereading the instructions to try to be as accurate as possible. My body fat came in at 15.7%. That was actually the highest of 4 measurements (3 out of the 4 were 15-something). Holy cow. I do have to say that the only place I see any fat on my body is my triceps (eegads, I hate that. The worst inheritance I have from my mother and my least favorite thing about getting older. . .) and my “love handles” which actually are not nearly as visible as they have always been in my adult life. 15.7% for a 49 year old woman. Pretty awesome. Ha! Just wanted to do some BSP there (blatant self-promotion).

Finally, I have a question, in case anyone actually reads this blog (I have my doubts). I am a big fan of many podcasts. There are several running podcasts I listen to regularly plus a bunch of health/fitness ones and then a bunch of NPR shows. Now I am sort of kicking around the idea of starting up a podcast myself and so I was wondering what might people be interested in hearing about? If I were to do a podcast, what would you like to hear me talk about? Give me your feedback in the comments. Thanks.

From the hills to the flats

2011-04-11T22:16:00.000+11:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had started marathon training back in California. Menlo Park, where I was staying, is flat enough itself, but the Peninsula south of San Francisco is lined with a range of mountains between the coast and Silicon Valley and many of my runs, particularly long runs, included trips into the many parks in those mountains. The Menlo Marathoners are in training for the Big Sur marathon, which has some significant hills on the course (or had – due to a massive mud slide in February, the course had to be changed), so we intentionally headed into Wunderlich, Redwood, Windy Hill and the Stanford Dish, to ensure we were in shape for that.

Now I find myself on the other side of the planet between the hilly copper belt of Zambia and the Kalahari Desert and it’s nearly flat as a pancake. (I have noticed, as is often the case, that “flat” from a driver’s perspective often includes gradual inclines and descents that are easily felt by a runner, but honestly it is pretty flat.) I haven’t seen the approach yet, but I think the bridge between us and Zambia, 5km from where I am staying, does have a bit of an ascent, and I have found a nearby neighborhood (called a “location” here) that has a 20 ft “hill”, but that’s about it. For reasons of staying in shape and wanting the change of gait and pace that hills provide, I intend to look around for where I could at least simulate hill work (there is a stadium in town, which I haven’t yet visited, which might have bleacher-type seats, I hope).

So, I’ve gone from very hilly and very wet (and cold – at least to me) to very flat and very dry (and blessedly warm). Even though the rainy season is just ending (and it actually rained in April for the first time in people’s memory), the terrain here is all sand – a fine white sand – and the water just disappears within hours, except for a very few places right near the river, which has greatly overflowed its banks.

Also as I mentioned, my first week running here in Katima was difficult – anything over 4 miles felt like pure drudgery. Doing some reading and podcast listening on various Paleo sites, I thought maybe I either wasn’t eating enough generally or maybe I wasn’t getting enough carbohydrate energy. So I bought some sweet potatoes – abundant here – and made sure I ate at least 3 meals a day. (When I started the Paleo thing, I had about 10 lbs I wanted to lose which I gained while in the US, but by the time I arrived in Katima, I clearly had lost those pounds.) And it worked! Now I feel back on track and things are humming along.

I also stepped back and reworked my training plan since I’m not going to run a marathon on 1 May and I really lost momentum in the whole moving across the world thing. So, now I am focused on the Safaricom Lewa Conservation marathon which takes place at the end of June in Kenya. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to go – I can’t actually afford the plane ticket and the registration fee is very steep – but there is a chance and I would LOVE to run this marathon. It is run in the Lewa Conservation area and in past years, they’ve had helicopters fly over to keep animals (elephants, giraffe, zebra, etc.) clear of the running route! It’s supposed to be quite a tough course – trails, hilly and under the sun with little shade. But it is definitely on my “must do” list. So now, it is at least my training impetus.

Yesterday I ran 12 miles, for a total of 28 for the week, and it went pretty well. I had wanted to run on a road I saw on Google Maps that runs south out of Katima but is a secondary (and I think sand) road, rather than on the B8, the tarmac highway. However, I missed the place I should have turned to get on that road, so I ended up circling around town and meeting up with the B8 and needing to run a couple of miles on it. It wasn’t too bad, though because there weren’t many cars.

Namibia has a very sparse population – between 2 and 2.5 million people in the whole country. So, even though many people have cars, and the B8 is *the* road between Caprivi and Windhoek (and therefore, from Zambia and Botswana and points beyond), it’s not even as busy as a typical street in an American suburb. I do appreciate the fact that the paved roads here, particularly the highways, are wide, because the cars and trucks drive very, very fast.

I headed out for my run wearing my Camelback. In the press to pack up and leave the US with a limited baggage allowance, I somehow left behind any water bottles that could be carried. I can run 10 miles without carrying water, but not further, so I donned the Camelback. Overnight the wind had been quite fierce and as I started out at 7:30am, it was pleasantly cool and still very windy. The wind was at my back as I headed out (which I didn’t really realize until I was coming back and had to run into it) until about mile 2 when I turned off the highway and headed down the road that forms the eastern border of town and goes past my office. All the locations (neighborhoods) in Katima Mulilo have names and I am beginning to learn them because this is how you tell a taxi driver where to go. I am currently staying about 5km out of town in “Mission” – so called because it is the location of a Catholic mission, a Catholic school, a hostel for girl students, a parish church, a convent and Cheshire Home – a home for children with disabilities – which is where I am staying. When I turned off the highway, I ran through Boma (the “nice” part of town), then New NHE (Namibian Housing Estates, I think – a development of houses built in the last couple of years), NHE (20-30 years old, I think), Choto (a poorer location of mostly self-built mud houses) and Greenwell. It was there at the border of Choto and Greenwell that I should have turned and found the other road, but I missed it. Altogether it was quite a pleasant run. The sun was out and strong, but my eyes were well-protected by my Livestrong Oakleys and it wasn’t very hot (maybe upper 60s, lower 70s). I had to run probably 3 or 4 miles directly into the wind, which was a bit tough, but at least it wasn’t cold or rainy. I got a lot of strange looks, of course. So far, I’ve not seen a single Caprivian running, though one guy I ran past said hello and said next time, he’s going to join me. <g> Several taxi men called comments – “run, run” and such – which seemed benign and even encouraging.

This kind of run is both typical of my experience generally in Africa and quite comfortable for me. I have to say that it was odd for me when I was back in the US and everybody and their dog was running (I was in San Francisco, Ashland, and Menlo Park – maybe not indicative of the entire country, but places where running is extremely popular). Runners don’t even get a second look, unless an angry driver is taking aim at you and people didn’t even greet as they passed each other. I had to suppress the urge to say hello to everyone I met. . .

I’m loving the warmth. I was miserable and very whiny the whole 4 months I was back in the US. I would never have chosen to visit the US in winter. Uggh. It was so hard when I was packing to come here to figure out what sort of clothes, particularly running clothes, I needed to bring. I had accumulated quite a collection of warm clothes and it was hard to believe I would not need them. Now, I am in the southern hemisphere and we are actually moving into winter, when it does cool off here (though not as much as down in Windhoek or South Africa), particularly in the early morning, but I doubt it will match the low 30s F that I met in Ashland. I did bring a few warm tops and jacket, though. In the meantime, however, I am thoroughly relishing the big decision of whether to wear a tank top or short sleeves!

Oh, the other thing I’m quite chuffed about is that the training plan I’m following (from the RW iPhone app) calls for Tempo runs and Speedwork and I have actually done those workouts! My pace is much faster than what was programmed (based on my last marathon time of 4:30 – confirming to me that I have a much faster marathon in me) – about 1 min/mi faster – but I’m keeping the differences the same (that is, my easy runs are 1 min/mi faster than Tempo and 1.5 min/mi faster than Intervals). I’m sure this is all due to the confidence I got from the Menlo Marathoners Yasso workouts – the first “speedwork” I’ve done since leaving Cameroon.

This week, I have 30 miles on the schedule, including a 14-miler over the weekend. I’ll have to figure out when I’m doing that because I think I’ll be going down to a meeting on Friday and then possibly to Windhoek Saturday morning to shop for a few things. That involves a 12-15 hour drive and a the moment transport hasn’t been figured out yet, so I need to stay both flexible and committed to getting the run in.

Blog Revival!

2011-04-11T22:05:00.000+11:00

I think I would have to say honestly that my lack of activity on my blogs (both of them) was a pretty good indication of my happiness and general sincere engagement in my life (or lack thereof). Though I am sorry to not have kept my blog updated over the last few months – months when running was the one thing that I could grasp to maintain my equilibrium and my sense of self – I can certainly see, in retrospect, why I wasn’t able to don my blogging personality.

Brief update – until the beginning of November, I was living and working in Lubumbashi (DR Congo), at which point I very abruptly lost my job and returned to the US. I spent four pretty miserable months in the US where I was at times so cold that I went to the local YMCA and paid $10 to run on the treadmill. Finally, in mid-February, I chose to re-volunteer with CUSO-VSO (www.cuso-vso.org) when I was offered a great post in Katima Mulilo, Namibia. In mid-March, I boarded a plane for Windhoek, spent a week there and now I’ve been up in Katima Mulilo for the past couple of weeks. There’s a little bit more about all this, if you’re interested, on my other blog: http://tlongacre.wordpress.com.

Katima Mulilo is in the farthest northeast corner of Namibia, in a region called the Caprivi Strip. I encourage you to look it up on Google Maps or Google Earth. I think it will be obvious why it’s called a Strip. Caprivi was some German guy apparently involved in the negotiations to secure this strip, in exchange for Zanzibar, as a transport route from the Zambezi River, upon whose banks Katima Mulilo rests.

While I was in the US, I joined a marathon training group, the Menlo Marathoners, through my local running store – Fleet Feet Menlo Park (www.fleetfeetmenlopark.com), absolutely one of the best running stores in the Bay Area. Jim Gothers and Lisa Taggart, the owners, are doing wonderful work creating a running community on the Peninsula, and it was such a great experience to be part of that for a couple of months. The Menlo Marathoners are a fantastic group of people, training for the Big Sur International Marathon on 1 May, and I miss them. I’ve never been part of a marathon training group and it was extremely supportive and motivating. If you have an opportunity to do this where you are, I would highly recommend it.

Then I moved here and in the transition, I’ve had to step back and review my own plan. The week I spent in Windhoek and the first week I was here in Katima, every run over 4 miles felt like such an enormous effort. While the Menlo Marathoners were running 21-milers, I was feeling wiped by 6. At first I thought it was the altitude in Windhoek, then the heat in Katima, but in the end, I actually think I wasn’t eating enough, and probably not enough carbohydrates. Another big change I’ve made in my life is that I’ve started (about 2 months ago) to eat “Paleo”. If you haven’t heard of this, basically it means eating no grains, no dairy, no legumes and little or no sugar, focusing on eating real, high quality food: vegetables, fruit, with a focus on “good” fats (avocados, olive oil, coconut oil) and quality meat (grass-fed) and fish (wild). (Some resources: www.robbwolf.com, www.everydaypaleo.com, www.balancedbites.com, and you can Google Loren Cordain)

For me, the biggest change here is adding meat and poultry. Shortly before I went to Cameroon, I went through a battery of allergy/sensitivity testing which showed me that I was sensitive to most grains and in Cameroon I mostly stopped eating them except for corn and rice, which definitely made me feel better. The naturopath with whom I consulted didn’t tell me to cut them out altogether, and of course, as time went by, and particularly when I was in more “developed” contexts, more and more grains came back into my diet. It is hard to change a lifetime of believing, as the Food Pyramid tells us, that grains should be eaten at every meal. I’ve never been a big bean eater, though I’ve always liked peas and lentils, so legumes have not been difficult to leave out. In “going all the way,” I thought it would be quite easy in Africa because eating vegetables and meat is (sans their staple “white” food) the basic African diet. However, I was quite surprised to find that this is one of many ways that Namibia is very different than other places I have lived and visited in Africa. One basic fact about Namibia is that it is dry. It is the driest country in sub-Sahara Africa and is basically a plateau between two deserts (the Namib and the Kalahari). Because of this, there is very little food grown here and most is imported from South Africa and is bought in western-style grocery stores. In Windhoek, I tried to ask around to find out where “real people” shopped, but everyone I talked to mentioned only grocery stores. “There’s no open market?,” I said. “No!,” they would respond. There is only ShopRite and Pick’n’Pay. . . And, as an example, the most prominent brand of eggs in the shops are proudly advertised as “grain-fed” which is actually the exact type of eggs a Paleo eater wants to avoid.

Caprivi, being surrounded by Angola, Zambia, and Botswana is much closer, culturally and in lifestyle, to what I recognize as generally “African,” but it is still very dry here (relatively speaking – compared to the rest of Namibia, it’s practically a rainforest) and though “downtown” is basically a T-junction, we have both a ShopRite and a Pick’n’Pay as well as numerous new “China shops”, a big shop owned by Egyptians and another big shop owned by Indians – all full of packaged foods filled with sugar and grains. But there is an open market filled with fish from the Zambezi, various dark, leafy greens, tomatoes and the very southern African pumpkins (“squash” in American) of every size and shape. I have learned that the best meat is bought fresh out in the village and I think I have a potential source (one of my fellow volunteers regularly goes out to villages to do field work). The things that are quite rare are chicken and eggs. That is, local/fresh/naturally free-range chicken and eggs. All of the eggs or chicken I have been able to find is imported from South Africa.

I’m really feeling a bit like a modern-day hunter/gatherer, which is kinda the point of the Paleo approach.

I’ll finish this post here and write another about this week’s long run. In reviving my blog, I will be talking both about running and eating Paleo in Africa, and how the Paleo experiment is working out for me as a distance runner. As I settle in here, I’m sure my mind will begin to engage with issues of vocation and what I want to be doing with my life long-term, which have come up out of the events of the last few months, but at the moment most of my wrestling is at a more fundamental, self-care level.

Welcome back!

And now a run back at home

2010-08-09T01:57:00.001+11:00

After the biking adventure yesterday, I felt emboldened this morning and decided I would actually get out and run. It took a bit longer than usual because when I woke up, as has been true for the past week and a half that I’ve had this cold, there was lots of sneezing, blowing and coughing to be done to clear things out.

Yesterday, I had thought of biking to this place, Cité des Jeunes (city of youths), which is supposed to be beautiful, but to get there you have to go through one of the busiest areas of town and I wasn’t interested in fighting with cars and matatus on my bike. But I was pretty sure Sunday morning would be relatively calm, so I decided to go out that way, even though I doubted I would far enough to reach the place.

So the run took me downtown, almost to the central market and then a turn south on a road running along the railroad tracks through the quarter called “Kenya” because a lot of Kenyans live (or used to live) there. This took me past the fish markets (where I was glad I wasn’t able to smell very well) and the wholesale veg markets. A train actually passed by moments before I had to cross the tracks, which is a pretty rare sight. Although there is a rather formidable fence along the rail line (made of pieces of the railway) there were spots at rather regular intervals where the fence was broken and people crossed the tracks at will.

It was 9a or so by the time I got to Kenya and even though it was Sunday, there were quite a lot of people out and working. In fact it was quite easy to distinguish between the workers and those on their way to church. Those on their way to church were mostly either groups of women or families and one could smell the Palmolive soap a good 200 meters away. Cleanly scrubbed, wearing their best clothes, fathers walking hand in hand with small daughters in frilly dresses and patent leather shoes – yep, they’re on their way to church.

The run went well. I was tired when I got to the long hill at about 5 miles and even more tired when I turned the corner and there was another hill, but I managed both and in the end did 7 miles. I could feel the congestion in my chest when I finished and I have had no voice all day, but it felt good to actually get out and move.

RevBikes, too, though not without incident

2010-08-09T01:34:00.001+11:00

A week and a half ago, I came down with a wicked cold (which I’m not yet recovered from). This is the second one I’ve gotten this year (the last one being right before Christmas). If anyone has any clues or tips how to prevent this, I’m all ears.

Anyway, after lying around for a long holiday weekend and then working through the week, but not running, I finally got the energy to go for a bike ride yesterday afternoon. It was a nice day – sunny but cool – and it was a nice ride up beyond the University of Lubumbashi. I was on a well-graded dirt road for quite awhile until I turned into the wind for the 3^rd time and was coming to the entrance of a factory, so I decided to turn around. Something felt funny and looking down, I realized that my rear tire was completely flat. I got off the bike and pumped up the tire (with some help from a couple of small boys). But no sooner had I gotten on the bike than the tire was flat again. Uh oh.

By now several young men were ambling by and offering advice. There was really nothing to do but walk the bike somewhere – home? The nearest market? Somewhere where the tire could be patched. Because, despite the fact that I own two little patch kits, I had neglected to put them in my little underseat pack. Fortunately, though, I did have in my pack my all-purpose multi-tool. Two of the young men offered to walk me to the closest market (or that’s where I thought we were going). As it turned out, we went to the house of one of their brothers and they (Doris and David were their names) said they would fix the tire. I gave 1,000 francs (about $1.10) and David ran off to buy “solution” and some rubber.

It was quite a production, with one guy from the house coming out with a radio to entertain us and Doris applying the first patch, but not covering what turned out to be two holes in the tube and then having to redo the whole process outside a clinic a bit later (when the tire had gone flat again) with a rather obnoxious guy looking on and saying how he should have my bike.

One thing I learned from this was that you don’t have to remove the tire to fix the tube! Also, this multi-tool I have is a beautiful piece of work and has everything I need to do anything on the bike. And I’ve now put my little patches in my underseat pack. I have these pre-glued patched that I can just stick on, as well as the tube of (Indian) innertube solution that David bought and some pieces of rubber we didn’t need. So if anything happens again, I’m all set. And I had an adventure, had the chance to explore a neighborhood up behind the University where real people live and had some amusing conversations with these young men. Doris is studying political science (and wants to be a politician and improve his country), in the striped shirt. David is in the green (didn’t get a good picture of him) and is studying sociology. He was either a bit drunk or just generally a bit more obnoxious, but Doris kept him in line. (While they were walking me to the main road, after the fix, they were having a whole conversation in Swahili that was clear enough that I understood that David kept saying he should ride the bike and Doris kept telling him no. . .)

Kind of a fun Saturday afternoon, actually.


The tube out, awaiting the arrival of rubber & solution to patch it

Doris, one of my heroes

David returns with supplies


The work in progress

Update on US trip with photos

2010-08-09T00:53:00.001+11:00

Sorry I haven’t updated the blog. I really should have because I was back in the US mid-June to mid-July with plenty of running adventures. I participated in the Shambala Moutain Center course “Running with the Mind of Meditation and Yoga” (which I found out at the course has recently been written up in Runner’s World, June 2010). Early one morning a bunch of us went for a gorgeous run in the mountains around the center. It was a great run up until I twisted my ankle bad when we were still 2 miles (straight down) away from any sort of road. It was a bad sprain, though I think having to walk two miles on it might not have been such a bad thing. Definitely was a great exercise in being present.

A week later I was in Portland, OR to run the Foot Traffic Flat marathon on Sauvie Island (4 July). I am very pleased to report that, despite the sprained ankle, I finished the marathon in 4:32. The whole race went really well and now that I’ve accomplished this, I’m psyched to train for another, maybe in March or April in France. I also got to meet my coach Tory Klementson, for the first time, which was great.

Also, I got all kitted up while I was back in the US. Got a pair of the new Brooks “Green Silence” which are my favorite, favorite shoes. I think I’m in love. In addition, I have several “minimalist” shoes to try out. Terra Plana Evo’s (which I quite like), Feelmaz Osmas (haven’t run in them yet) and the new VFF Bikila’s which I like and find much more comfortable than my VFF classics. I also got a pair of VFF Treks for the rainy season. Yes, yes, I can be a bit Imelda Marcos-y when it comes to running shoes. . . I also picked up some new running bras, including 2 Champion bras that have hooks at the back. After horror stories in my youth, I swore I would never wear a running bra with hooks or anything plastic or metal. However, this bra has a padded cover and because I bought it at Title9, I was able to try it with the promise of being able to return it if it didn’t work. Well, I loved it so much I bought a second! Kudos to the manager of the Palo Alto Title9 store who has converted me. One of the most comfortable running bras I’ve ever worn.

Seriously falling, what the ?

2010-05-17T01:37:00.002+11:00

So, for the third week in a row, I’ve fallen while running. Serious falls, two of which (including this one) have led to visits to the Emergency Room. Each time the fall was between 13 and 14 miles. The first time I was only 3 blocks from home when my foot hit a rock and I literally flew in such a way that I landed on my bony shoulder. No break there, thank God, and it doesn’t interfere with running. I got some good anti-inflammatory painkillers which really helped. But two weeks after, it still hurts in this spot in the middle and the two things that hurt the most *are* running related: taking off my sports bra and tying my shoes.

Then last week, I fell again, but on the other side of my body. Except for inflaming the already hurting shoulder, that fall let me off lightly with only a hold in the palm of my right hand. I was graciously cared for by the women in front of whose store I fell – she gave me water to wash at least the top layer of muck off and some tissues.

Today I was having a great run. Mostly on the road because the marathon I’m training for is on the roads and I thought I should test and see how that felt. Around 12 miles in, the outside of my right knee was hurting some, I’m sure it’s my IT band. So I got off the road. I was moving my leg around, playing with my foot placement. The pain in the knee went away, so that was good. Then, as I was passing the Gecamines Mine, the road started to descend and I was even looking at the ground. Next thing I knew, I was *on* the ground. Whack! Oh, my head hurt. Oh man. I laid there and some guys came by. They tried to make me get up, but I told them to leave me. I hit the right side of my head pretty hard. After a minute or two I was able to sit up and I could tell the head wasn’t concussed (having done that several times in my life, I know how it feels. . .), but I was still pretty dizzy.

For the first time ever, I had decided to throw my phone into my camelback that morning. Geez and now I needed to use it. So I called the driver and told him where I was and decided to get up and start walking. That was when I looked at my hand and saw my pinky bent at more than a 45 degree angle over my other fingers. While I was walking, I was joined my a young man, a woman and a boy. The young man spoke French, so we talked about what happened. And I was able to look a bit at myself and see how filthy I was (it’s dry season, so the dirt is about inch-thick dust and I was now covered in it). So far, I was still in shock and nicely distracted by my companions, so I wasn’t yet feeling the pain except for a bit of a headache.

Met the driver who took me, once again, to the Don Bosco clinic emergency room. Embarrassingly, everyone remembered me. . . The x-ray technician came from church and took an x-ray which showed a complete break of the pinky at the knuckle. They put a popsicle stick splint on it (after straightening it out – aaaaahhhhhhhh!!) and, despite their worries about my low blood pressure, let me go home.

Fate? Fatigue? My shoes (Newton Gravity’s)? Running form? Freak accidents? Low blood sugar? Blood pressure? Gotta say that three falls in a row is kinda freaking me out.

I wouldn’t have ever expected this in Lubumbashi (where I moved mid-March). It’s much flatter than Bukavu. All the major roads are asphalt. The dirt is mostly sandy (not red and slippery). And we are in the dry season now, so no mud or moss to slip on. I used to pride myself on my ability to “catch myself” and stop a fall. I’m pretty light and nimble on my feet. But this is mighty discouraging.

And now it matters, of course, because I’ve registered to run the Foot Traffic Flat marathon in Portland, OR on the 4^th of July. I’m scheduled to run 20 miles next Sunday. Thank goodness my legs are still in great shape and I’ve had several massages from the Don Bosco kinesiotherapist which seems to have completely resolved my lower back issues.

Sheesh.

Wherein Tracy learns a lesson, the hard way of course

2010-02-18T18:53:00.002+11:00

Soooo, this was a "low" week and I was scheduled to run only 6 mi on Sunday, but because I didn't do my 5 mile Tempo run (a whole story I won't bore you with), I decided to do at least 8 miles. The running itself went pretty well. It hadn't rained for a few days, so it wasn't too treacherous getting out of my neighborhood to the paved road and I decided to just run the main road to the other end and back. Wore my Newton Gravity's -- awesome shoes, btw. I like them a lot.

One of the best things about the run is that I ran the whole thing -- all the hills -- which is saying something. The hill that comes out of the "centre ville" is at least 800 metres and pretty steep. But I just plugged on and told my mind to shut up when it wanted to start the whiny "but look at it, it's a BIG hill. And who's gonna care if you don't run the whole thing? and aren't your legs tired, so tired?" rant. It is always my mind rather than my body that gets me on that hill. So yeah for a victory!

But, well, uhm, there was this little incident halfway into the run. . . See, I came to this barrier -- literally a branch across the road held up at each end, about knee height. Behind the barrier were two soldiers and there was a small space to the right where a guy was walking past the barrier. So, in a vain attempt to be cute and have a little fun, I jumped the barrier. In my defense, I must say that 90% of the soldiers I have encountered on my runs have been either indifferent or amused by this white lady running around, so I wasn't quite prepared for the level of offense taken by one of these two soldiers when I "disrespected the Congo" by jumping their barrier. Ooh la la. After trying to say I was just doing it for fun (which did *not* go over well), I resorted to profuse apologizing and admissions of guilt. But I think the guy was, at the very least, tired after a long night and possibly even under the influence.

Finally after about 15 minutes of him saying the exact same thing over and over and over (my first hint that perhaps he was not completely sober) and my apologizing over and over and over, it looked like I was finally being allowed to leave (though, disappointingly, he wouldn't let me cross, but was making me turn back). Then something happened which I didn't really understand and another soldier who was walking towards us stopped me, turned me around and started pushing me, saying "he's calling you." But I was not particularly interested in going back to the crazy guy since I'd heard his speech about a thousand times. So, I resisted, but this soldier was quite insistent. Finally, I realized that someone *else* was calling me. And then someone else said it was the "commandant." Ah, okay, clearly this is not over.

I was escorted to the commandant, but then walked right past him because, this being Sunday morning, he was standing there in sweatpants and a t-shirt. He turned out to be quite nice and kept saying he hoped I wasn't traumatized by the guys at the barrier. He said he wanted to record my identity info, so we waited for another guy to go run and get his register book. I gave him my info -- my name, who I worked for, etc. He wanted the number for the office, and he didn't really believe me when I said we don't actually have a receptionist (that's true). I knew I should probably give him Billy's number -- our Admin/HR Coordinator -- but I didn't know his number off the top of my head. In the end, he let me go and, nicely, let me continue the way I had wanted to go in the first place, which I really appreciated because it meant that I could avoid the guys at that barrier.

So that was all about a 30 minute pause in the middle of my run. And what did I learn -- do NOT jump military barriers! Even if they are only knee height. Even if you think the soldiers are nice enough. Listen and learn children, do not repeat my mistake. . .

Lest you think I might have actually been in any danger -- when I got home, my phone said I had 3 calls from Billy, the first one surely while I was still talking with the soldiers. How on earth did he know? Apparently, a friend of his was going to church, saw me, knew I worked for IRC and called him. Are you kidding? So much for my belief that I am anonymous. Ha! I was on the other side of town and someone knew me. And Bukavu is not a small place.

Lac de ma Vallee

2010-02-08T03:27:00.004+11:00

Went running this morning at Lac de ma Vallee which is about an hour from where I am staying in Kinshasa. I'm here for some meetings and as a place to run it sucks big time. We are under very strict security measures which I personally think are absurd -- we are not allowed to walk, we can only be driven around in cars. The only exception is the 2.5km loop around the British Embassy near the river. So during the week, I go over there very early in the morning to do several loops.

But today was Sunday and I needed to run 9 miles, so I went out to Lac de ma Vallee, where the loop is 4km (2.4 mi) which is a bit better. Besides it's beautiful there. Very much like a New England x-country course in August (with humidity and bugs to match!). I did four loops, which ended up being 9.5 miles, which was good. It was sunny by the time I got there, but it must have rained recently because it was less humid than it was last week when I went there.

I have a coach now which is good. She's building me back up slowly now and so far my energy is really good. I keep wanting to run more -- farther, more days of the week -- so that is good. I did a 10-day meditation retreat in December and had a nasty, nasty cold right before that, so I went 15 days without a run, which I think may have been my longest layoff since 2004.

I've been traveling a lot. The retreat was in Nairobi, then I went to Benin with a friend, which was great (warm, flat and mostly dirt/sand roads). Then two days in Bukavu and I went to Kindu which is in the interior of Congo, directly west of Bukavu on the Congo river. In Kindu, I actually ran a couple of times with a friend, Rob, which is something I rarely ever do. Had a good 11 mi run out there which was quite amusing to several villages I passed through. I'm sure I was THE topic of conversation all Sunday afternoon.

Was back in Bukavu one day, which was long enough to fall while running and get some nice road rash on my leg, before coming here to Kinshasa. Tuesday (hopefully -- it's a MONUC flight, so never sure) I head back to Bukavu for a couple of weeks before I'll head to Kindu again for a conference.

I'll try to post some photos as I go around and write more about my runs.

One thing about all this travel is that I'm in different climates and terrains all the time. Here in Kinshasa, it's flat and paved and my pace is faster than it has been in a year or more. Bukavu is hilly, rocky and like running on rough trails all the time. Kindu is pretty flat with a couple of gentle hills and sandy enough soil that one can generally run in the rain okay (something which can be quite treacherous in Bukavu).

I'm hoping to run a marathon in late June or early July, but first I have to figure out where I'm going to be then. Maybe the Seattle Rock n Roll marathon, though that conflicts with Pride weekend. In April, I'm doing a running holiday in Scotland through Running the Highlands. I'm really looking forward to that. I've never been to Scotland and it seems like the perfect way to see the place!

Heartbreak and mud

2009-11-23T17:34:00.001+11:00

Well, it’s my own fault. I knew I should have sent a message or two to check on the progress of my Garmin 405, but it kept slipping from my mind. Katie did give it to Laetitia and Laetitia did bring it to Paris with her. But then she forgot about it and brought it back to Bukavu in her bag. Arrgghh.

So now what do I do? My choices – either try to find another way to send this back to the US. It’s coming on Christmas and several people are going back there for the holidays, so that’s not impossible, but no one will go back soon enough for it to get fixed and sent to Peter before he comes to Congo. I heard that one person is actually going to be in the US (and it sounds like in one place) for 3 weeks, so that is a definite possibility, although I’d have to rearrange things with Garmin. But that also means I won’t have it back until the end of January.

Other options? Buy a new one and get it sent to Peter or maybe even to someone in Nairobi where I’ll be around Christmas or to my friend in Cameroon who I will be meeting up with in Benin at the new year. But $370 plus shipping for an extra month? It sounds crazy, but I hate not having it now and that month I’m going to be in some cool places that I could get recorded if I have the Garmin.

We live in a very well-connected world. Even here in Africa, you’d be amazed at how well-connected we are. However, when electronic things break here, repair becomes very difficult. I already found this out when the power supply of my netbook got burnt out. I tried everything – Bukavu, Kinshasa, Kigali, Nairobi, Germany, Amsterdam and finally had to buy a new one in the US and have it sent to me via DHL (we have no postal system here in the DR Congo). My last Garmin, a 205, was mine for 3 years and then I gave it to a Cameroonian friend and it is still going strong, so I certainly expected that I’d have no problems with the new one.

I know I could use this as a lesson in detachment, but I don’t wanna.

I’m back in Bukavu now and went out for an 11 mile run today, but of course, without my Garmin I have no idea the distance. So I planned to run for 110 minutes (1 hour and 50 minutes). I think I did actually run around that, but my Timex watch said 1:37:14. However, I know this has to be wrong because it is not humanly possible to get from where I was at 66 minutes to my house in 30 minutes, so I must have pushed the stop button and not pressed it on again for about 15 minutes or so.

It’s raining a lot in Bukavu now and obviously has been doing this for awhile, because everything is wet and even looks wet when it hasn’t been raining for hours. It rained yesterday all afternoon, but not overnight, so I got up and went out thinking it wasn’t going to be too bad. I wore my trail shoes (La Sportiva Fireblades) because I’ve been wearing my Brooks Trance everyday for the last month and my other shoes are Nike Lunar Trainers which are really useless when it is the least bit slippery. The road I live on was not bad at all, not too slippery, not too wet, but when I got up to the more “main” road in our quarter it was almost all mud. Then, when I got to the road that goes around the Bay and meets up with the paved road, that was pretty bad. Huge puddles without even an edge to run on; dry portions that had been walked on by so many that they were slick as ice; and a nice couple of inches of watery mud everywhere. By the time I got to the pavement, I was so happy that I preferred going up the endless hill. I made it all the way to the top without stopping, which felt good and then cruised along for awhile, relieved to be able to relax a bit and not have to be careful with every step.

I stopped at 49 minutes and ate my Clif Blok and drank some water. I was not at all hungry or thirsty, but my coach told me to, so I did. Then I went up and over the little hill before Nyawera market, through a stretch of mud and started ascending the hill to “Centre Ville”. It’s a long hill, but quite gradual, so if I just pace myself it’s not too hard. On the other side, it descends and descends and descends and I started to just zoom down it, made all the more fun because a young girl (in her Sunday dress and flip flops) joined me. I knew that I would have to turn around and climb up the hill, so I decided to really enjoy going down and we were really flying. We went a bit on the flat part, then I stopped and started to turn. I asked her name (Doras) and told her mine and shook her hand. That was 66 minutes and I was 20 minutes from the roundabout that is 12-15 minutes from my house, and I walked up the steep section of hill I had just come zooming down. (That’s why I know the watch was wrong.)

On the way back, I was facing traffic, which I actually think is not such a great idea because it just makes me nervous or annoys me (when I see how close the cars and motorbikes come to me). Either way, I simply have to trust that they will not hit me and if they are coming from behind, I don’t have to know how close they are. . .

The La Sportiva’s were rubbing on my right Achilles tendon a lot and then it started to hurt on the outside of my right ankle also. My left foot was completely fine. All I can think is that they are so built up in the heal area that it is too much for me. So I may take some scissors or a knife and cut them down or something. I’ve never been one to modify my shoes this way, but I’m not getting any different shoes until the end of January, so I have to use these and I’m *not* interested in getting injured. I had an Achilles tendon injury when I was a teenager (tore both of them when I went for a 12 mile hike in the snow in new hiking boots – the old-fashioned kind that were hard leather and very heavy). That was horrible and took me months to recover from and I was only 16.

Thinking about modifying the shoes actually came to me because I remembered meeting some guy (and I can’t at all remember who this was or even where it was) who had cut the toes out of his shoes because the shoes were a bit too small. I remember being a bit shocked at the time. The shoes looked like they belonged in the trash heap. But now I think that made a lot of sense. Why waste an otherwise perfectly good pair of $100 shoes if you can modify them to work for you?

Running all over eastern Congo

2009-11-20T19:24:00.000+11:00

Sorry I haven’t written for awhile. I’ve been traveling for the past month and running in some very different places: Kalemie, Kabalo, Lubumbashi, Goma. I am very much looking forward to returning home to Bukavu tomorrow, even if it means running in mud.

Kalemie was great. Much warmer than Bukavu and drier, though it has daily whopping thunderstorms. Fortunately, those storms came rolling through around 4am and were gone by the time I wanted to go running at 6am. But it is quite an experience to see the thunder and lightning rolling across Lake Tanganyika and coming right at you! Kalemie is also very flat and the road that isn’t paved is sandy, so running there was quite easy. I even ran barefoot on the beach one morning. That was interesting because it meant running through what are essentially people’s bathrooms. There is a women’s section and a men’s section and as I ran along people were washing their dishes, their clothes, their children and themselves – jump in the lake and get wet, come out and soap up (Dettol soap is great for this, it really foams up and sticks to you), then jump back in and rinse off.

I was in Kalemie over a few weeks and so got to do a few long runs. On one I ran along the northerly road through village after village, past markets and schools and churches. The sandy road and lack of rock meant I didn’t need to keep my eyes on the ground all the time and could look up and ahead, which was great. Another long run was straight east out of town and that road was much more red, clay dirt and small rocks. It also was straight into the bush. After a mile, there were few, if any, houses and rolling hills. Very nice and very solitary.

Kabalo is a small town on the Congo river which also has very sandy soil with no rocks at all. I ran one day in shoes and then one day in my bare feet, which worked really well, except that the ground was very hard packed, so four miles was as much as I could do.

Lubumbashi was a whole other ballgame. Flat, nearly perfectly paved roads moving out of the city like spokes. I ran a different direction everyday and only a few times did I make it to the end of the paved road. It was so different than the terrain I’ve been running on for months. It was so much more like running in the US.

The bad news is that during my first week in Kalemie, my Garmin 405, the love of my life, died. No manner of resets or recharges or anything would revive it. Luckily, one of my colleagues was heading back to Bukavu and another colleague was heading to Paris. So I reluctantly turned over my baby and hope that it is by now on its way to the service center in the US where they will bring it back to life. Then it will get sent to another colleague in New York who is coming to Congo in January. That is a long, long time (end of Oct to end of Jan) without my Garmin and it is rather disorienting. I don’t even have my Timex Chrono watch with me, just an analog watch. So now I can only run by time and even that is an estimate. I have no idea my real distance or pace. You may all sympathize! ;-)

Ups and downs

2009-10-19T18:40:00.001+11:00

I seem to be in a “motivational trough” at the moment. The week after my last post, I went up to Goma for a meeting and while I was there, I ran in my Vibram FiveFingers for the first time here. It was great – 4 miles – but my calves! Oy, they hurt like. . . for more than a week. Why did it they hurt so much from running on the lava soil of Goma when this didn’t happen (not to this extent) when I ran on the beach in Zanzibar?

When I returned from Goma, I got a cold. Too many sleepless nights, too much sugar, too much beer and too much stress. Not a big surprise all in all. But something about the cold really sapped me. Even now, though I have few symptoms, I often feel like I am not getting enough oxygen and I’m tired as a result. And then I just don’t feel like running. So I ran a few times last week, but haven’t run since Thursday (today is Sunday). I’m heading to Kalemie on Tuesday and will be “on the road” for the next month. I’m hoping that will re-motivate me. We shall see.

It is interesting, though. I really feel like God is trying to teach me to be nicer and more forgiving to myself. So, I’m trying that.

I tried, again, to look for an online coach. But every time I post to any runner’s forum anywhere, I either get no response at all, or someone is snarky with me. I don’t really understand this. I know there are lots of online coaches. But maybe they really aren’t interested in helping fellow runners but just want to post some generic plan and make lots of money? I’d hate to think that, but I’m surprised that no one seems at all interested in working with me. I mean, I can pay a reasonable fee. I just need a personalized approach because I run on what are essentially trails (not a lot of pavement here in the DR Congo) and I have some food allergies that mean I can’t follow most of the advice in Runner’s World. But I’m not *that* weird. . .

If anyone has any ideas or recommendations, I’m interested.

The rainy season begins!

2009-09-21T17:58:00.002+11:00

And my lesson for the day is, don't believe what a non-runner tells you.

This morning I went out for my scheduled 12 mi run. I really wanted to run up the hill and into the neighborhoods -- Kadutu and Panzi and beyond -- rather than going to the border, then Centre Ville and then out by the port. Mostly because although the second choice is paved, it also means dealing with a lot more cars and trucks. But it started raining (finally!) this week and I was afraid that Kadutu and Panzi might be one big mud slosh. Thousands of people, motorcycles and cars and large trucks, and one of the major routes into and out of town, all on a dirt road seemed like a formula for seriously slippery mud to me.

But, on the other hand, we had driven to Kadutu market yesterday and didn't find much mud, mostly nicely hard packed and rocky dirt with the dry season dust washed away. So, I had a conversation with our guard about what he thought the road conditions would be like. He said, no there won't be any mud there now. It rained overnight when no people were walking on it and not many cars. No problem.

Oh, oh, oh how wrong he was. View the photo -- my once white-ish Brooks Trance, my foot even under the muddy sock was full of mud, and that went all up my legs.

Otherwise it was a fine run and I did, finally, do 12 miles. But next time I am definitely wearing my trail shoes. There were spots where I simply had to walk because it was so slippery it was treacherous. Other places, I tried to run delicately in muddy sections where there were some rocks underneath to provide some traction, but on more than one occasion I upset a few people as I passed because I must have splashed some mud on them. (Africans' ability to navigate through mud so that the tops of their shoes and their pants & long skirts stay clean is absolutely amazing.)

The mud was really pretty incredible. It is not the sticky red stuff we had around Bamenda. It is darker brown and slippery. Running through some of these areas today, it is hard to imagine that they will ever again be dry. The mud was easily several inches deep. Maybe they won't ever be dry again until the next dry season. Scary thought. It's not just that people walking (and running) risk falling, but there are cars and minivans and rather large trucks that slide around in the stuff and could easily hit you. It takes a lot of focused attention to run in these conditions, particularly in regular running shoes. I do hope the trail shoes help with the slipping, though I bought them when I was in the Solmon Islands and have never tried them in mud (La Sportiva Fireblades).

I have to give credit to the Brooks, though. They did good work. They have good traction, just not sticky soles.

Next week, I think I'll stick to the tarmac. . .

Barefoot on the beach

2009-09-14T06:43:00.001+11:00

I'm in Zanzibar for a week of R&R and having a great time. I spent the first half of my time in Stone Town -- a town of narrow, narrow "streets" (too narrow for any kind of car), tall buildings and (mostly) Muslims observing Ramadan. It is also completely paved and flat, which was a distinct change from the conditions I'm used to running under in Bukavu. I ran north one day, south the next, each around 10K, and the third morning I did a fast 5k loop around town (which required adding on a bit because the perimeter of old Stone Town is only about 2 miles). So many sights and sounds! Women in everything from Western dress to bhurkas; lots of people riding bicycles; dalla dallas (open sided busses); gazillions of mosques, a couple of churches and several Hindu temples; beautiful architecture everywhere; the ocean and palm trees and boats. . .

After 5 days in Stone Town, I hopped a dalla dalla and went to Matemwe where I found powdery soft white sand beaches, palm trees swaying in the sea breeze, bungalows with grass thatched roofs, and resorts from the ultra-economical to the ultra-luxurious. The beach sand was so awesome I was clear that I had to run barefoot. Anything else seemed a desecration. When I got to my room, I took of my sandals and haven't put anything on my feet since. Now *this* is a vacation! Here's a photo of the beach I ran in, so you can eat your heart out. :-)

When I arrived, it was afternoon and low, low tide. There was about a 1/2 km shallow area before you saw the waves from the ocean. So, I was a bit surprised when I awoke the next morning and there was barely enough beach to run on! But there was just enough. I ran two miles south down the beach, turned and went back, for a total of 4 miles my first time out. South from where I am staying is predominantly a string of other resorts, so there are few boats on the beach to block the way and not very many locals hanging out. Running in bare feet was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I felt no aches and pains afterwards, except. . . aach! I got a blister on the bottom of my right big toe. It wasn't too big, so I sterilized a pin and popped it and figured it would just roughen up.

Let me tell you about this sand. . . Wow. It is white, white, white which means it is cool, even at the hottest time of the day. There is some yellowed sand around the bungalows where I am staying and that can get pretty hot, but not the white sand. In some places it is literally like powder, but on most of the beach it is pretty hard-packed. There are places where it looks firm but is quite soft, so as I ran I had to "pick my line", but it was really easy to run on. There was one section that was canted toward the ocean, but since I had to come back the same way, I figured it would even out. And it is clean -- no glass or metal or rocks to worry about. There are pieces of coral, but even when I stepped on a few of these, they just sink into the sand, so it didn't hurt.

The second day, I first went north for a bit (there are cliffs that start after about 3/4 of a mile, so I could only go that far) and then went back south, covering about 5 miles for the whole run. It, too, was a good run although there was some occasional stabs of pain from the blistered toe, but it didn't seem that bad. However, I did discover that there is one hazard I had to watch out for -- shit. As in human. All the locals apparently do their business right down on the beach (yes, the beach that they will later come out to work on and play on). Sheesh. At least in the Solomon Islands they would go into the water. And they're not even as sanitary as cats. Just like dogs, they go out, leave their business and walk away. I was beginning to see why the higher end resorts protected the beach in front of them. So for the whole first 1.5 miles or so (as far north as I could go and back), I had to keep one eye on the beach to dodge piles of poo and the other eye up to dodge boat masts (which stick out from the front of the boats about 2 feet and are thin enough that you cannot see them until you nearly run into them). It was much nicer once I passed that area.

When I got back to my room, however, the blister on my toe had doubled in size and was now red. Hmm, not good. I went snorkeling and hoped the salt water would do it some good, but it hurts. This morning I did yoga (which actually hurt the toe more than running did, but maybe just because I was more aware of it!). Tomorrow I want to run longer -- 8-10 miles if I can -- so I may put on shoes and go run through the local villages and onto the paved road.

I wanted to start to try barefoot running and it was a great, great experience. I used to run a bit on the beach when I was a teenager and never felt any ill effects from it. But in Bukavu, it seems like it would be quite difficult. The roads are mostly dirt, but there are lots and lots and lots and lots of rocks. However, when I get back, I think I may just go out and try it with my Vibram Five Fingers. I've walked around in them there with no trouble at all. Now that I know I don't have to start with 1/4 mi run, I'm up for trying it out there.

And for my next pair(s) of shoes, I'm quite interested in finding neutral, low profile, not very cushioned shoes. I ran in stability shoes for ages because I thought I over-pronated and I knew I didn't like heavily cushioned shoes. But after developing pain in my feet in the Solomon Islands, I went to a podiatrist who informed me, basically, that my shoes were causing the problem. I also went to a running store that had a treadmill and a video camera that did gait analysis and it was really clear that I run just fine in totally neutral shoes. In fact, the more neutral, the less I pronate. So now I have Brooks Trance, which are "slightly" stability ('cause I just bought them new two days before I went to the chiropractor) and Nike Lunar Trainers. But I wear my orthotics with both of them, particularly the Lunar
Trainers, because they give me arch support and a firmer ride. When I ran in the Lunar Trainers out of the box, they were so soft (and wide in toe box) that my foot swam around I got blisters on the insides of my big toes. The orthotics helped with that and then I switched to a pair of green Superfeet that I had and they work even better. The Superfeet have a plastic heel cup and a plastic arch, so the ride is very firm.

What I really want is a pair of neutral shoes that aren't so soft. I don't like all the cushioning. That's why I've always liked Brooks (Adrenalines, Axioms and now the Trance), but neutral shoes are heavily cushioned. Hmm, I just remembered that I have a pair of Nike Frees back in the US that I never ran in. I just wore them to walk around. Now I think they might be quite good for running. They are much less cushioned than the Lunar Trainers. Wish I had thought of that a month ago when I had a friend send me a bunch of stuff. Harrumph.

Ah well. At any rate, I'm not due for new shoes for another 6 months probably, so I'm keeping my eye out. Maybe I should try racing flats? Except I don't think they give any/much arch support. . . If anyone has any recommendations, let me know.

Weight down, Running up, Yea!

2009-08-16T03:04:00.000+11:00

Yes, indeed, I am running pretty well these days and since I’ve come to the Congo, I’ve nearly lost all the weight I gained after leaving Cameroon. Sometimes the universe just makes it so abundantly clear where you are meant to be. If only I would always listen!

So, I’d like to lose about 5 more pounds (about 2kg) and then I’ll be “perfect”, but I’m pretty darned chuffed (as my British friends would say) with my body even now.

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to run 12 miles for the first time in a long, long time. But I think I’m ready for it. I’ve run 10mi each of the last two Sundays. Two weeks ago, the “easy” 10 – most of it on our one paved road – and then last week, the “hard” 10 out through Kadutu which included more hills, nearly all dirt road, and dodging crowds of people. So, tomorrow, I’ll do the “easy” 12 – extending the paved road route as far as possible in all directions and then next week either do a shorter run to recover or do the “hard” 12. The paved road is pretty limited unless I go down through the port and head north. There’s a Chinese company that’s been extending the pavement that direction. I haven’t been out there in 6 weeks or so, so I don’t know how far they’ve gone, but the part of the road from the “centre ville” down and past the port is massively crowded with cars and so not terribly inviting.

Today is 15 August which means it rains. And it did. Not much, just a bit. But apparently it’s a signal. Every year it rains on 15 August and then we have 2 more weeks of the dry season and then the rainy season starts for real the beginning of September. Today a couple of my colleagues were telling me that it really rains. Very hard and all day long. Oh joy! Thank goodness I have a pair of trail shoes because my entire neighborhood is now under about 3-4 inches of dust which will pretty instantly become mud when it rains. As long as I don’t kill myself slipping and falling, and I can keep the right frame of mind, it might be fun.

I’ll keep you posted.

Africa can be awfully cold

2009-07-19T19:01:00.000+11:00

This week I went out into the field to meet some of our partner organizations and observe two of my staff lead an orientation for them. This took me to the hill towns of Kaziba and Luhwindja. During the day, the weather was quite pleasant – a bit cooler than Bukavu at noon, but sunny and somewhat warm. But at night, holy cow! Literally as soon as the sun started to descend, the temperature plummeted. I slept deeply buried under a wool blanket. And getting out of bed in the morning to go running – soo difficult! I brought a good windshirt so the top of me was warm enough, but I wished I had brought my Capri running pants rather than just shorts. And GLOVES. The second day I went running, I wore socks on my hands so they wouldn’t become totally numb. Don’t be fooled, Africa can be awfully cold.

Running around Kaziba was nice, though. Oh, well, except the other thing was the dust. The first day I went up to the village of Lukuba and there wasn’t as much dust. In some places, the road was very hard packed and smooth which was really nice. But the second run, I went the other direction and went through dust that was easily 6 inches deep in places. I shudder to think what the rainy season must be like there.

It’s beautiful up in the mountains. Kaziba is actually in a valley, surrounded by hills and even in the dry season, things are quite green. The altitude is pretty high, though, as the tops of the hills were treeless not from cutting but because they were taller than the tree line (that’s what we call it in the US – the altitude above which trees can’t grow). And I was quite the amusement for everyone. I intentionally wore my IRC cap rather than my generic grey one (which I would never do in Bukavu) because I knew I would be the talk of the town and I thought I’d just let everyone know why I was there. The older women walking to their fields in the morning were the most astonished, I think, to see a woman running, and a white one at that.

Saturday I went for my “long” run. 8 miles which is long for me at the moment, but it still feels odd to call that long. Next week, I’m going to up it to 10 miles, which really seems like the entry point for “long” to me. The great news about Saturday is that a) I ran the whole way, including up, up and up the hills and b) I did NOT get lost. Victory! Ah the simple joys of life. My route was safe and boring – straight up and into the neighborhood called Kadutu and out the road we had gone on to Kaziba. The road is pretty busy in one section – there’s a big roundabout that seems to primarily function as a truckstop, and just beyond that is a fork in the road known locally as “Essence”. This is the fork where last week I turned right and got lost, because turning right avoids the thickest part of the crowd. But this time I barreled on, happy that something rather loud was playing on my headphones to at least modify the many, many comments I got from onlookers. I really had to be nimble on my feet to avoid running into people, but it was fun to be able to move at twice the speed (or faster) of any vehicles. Oh, why is it called “Essence”? Because there are about 50 guys there selling illegal petrol/gasoline (essence in French) in plastic bottles. Reminded me of Maroua.

The whole first 3 miles of this run is mostly uphill, with some flat parts for relief, which I didn’t really register until I was coming back and got to just fly downhill. That was great and very relaxing! And I really noticed the difference in running on pavement. About 1/3 of this route is on pavement. It is so nice to not have to keep my focus on the ground the whole time and my pace was faster. Maybe next week I’ll do the local traditional “border to Governor’s office” route which would be tarmac the whole way once I get out of my neighborhood.

This week I did all the runs on my schedule (though Friday was a bit short ‘cause I was late and had to get to work) and it feels really good to put in a good solid week and not feel exhausted. I’ve lost some weight since I got to the Congo and want to lose another 10lbs (5kg). I can already feel the difference, though. Things are definitely looking up!

Wherein Tracy gets lost yet again

2009-07-12T23:23:00.000+11:00

Okay, so every week since I’ve been in Bukavu, I’ve gotten lost on my Saturday morning long run. This week was no exception and it was a doozy. I really, honestly meant to do out and back, the same route, but somewhere I turned wrong and way overshot my return. So, I was out there, climbing and descending hills for a good 45 minutes longer than I expected. Bukavu is just a series of hills, some of them incredibly steep – at least the walking paths that everyone uses are very steep. I was really feeling it in my knees, though I’m happy to report that my knees feel fine today. So maybe this is really good training.

So, the plan was to run 8mi and to go up behind Nyawera market toward or to the neighborhood known as Kadutu. I did fine going out, though I did walk up 1.5 of the 3 sequential hills. It was nice that the shops weren’t really open because Kadutu is a very crowded area, but it wasn’t yet when I was running through there. (This is all relative, mind you. There were still plenty of people yelling out “mzungu, mzungu”, children running after me, etc. But I went back there later in the afternoon to visit the Kadutu market – the largest in Bukavu – and then it was wall to wall people. Literally there would have been no way to run.) I ran up and up and up, then down and up and down and up and many times came to roundabouts or intersections with 3-5 roads. I thought I kept going straight, but when I saw my route mapped out in SportTracks later, it was clear that I turned right at some point. My watch had given me the “low battery” warning before I left, but it still had 20%, so I was hoping it would last. At 4 mi I turned around (and the watch was still working).

After climbing the first hill on the way back, I got a bit confused and took the road to the right which I thought was a road I had seen from the *other* road when I was coming down and I thought they met at an intersection not very far away. But when I got to the next intersection, nothing looked at all familiar. Because I thought I had run straight out, I thought I could just “feel” my way back. After awhile, thinking several times that I knew where I was and then realizing that I had no clue, I came to a woods and had the choice to either keep moving forward and level or taking a deep descent. Totally baffled, I finally asked some guys (since, frustratingly, men generally speak at least some French and women rarely seem to and I do not speak Swahili. . .) and they said they would accompany me. I said I wanted to run, but that turned out to be folly as we were descending so steeply that it would have been unsafe. At some point I ended up ahead of them and almost went the wrong way (since I kept wanting to follow what looked more or less like roads whereas everyone walks on these sort of “back alley” paths that wind between the houses), but they called me back. Somewhere around there I lost track of them, but that was the last part of the descent.

Shortly thereafter, I was again confronted with a choice – this nice wide road that veered left which seemed to be away from where I should go vs. a footpath that went to the right, but where? Again, I asked a man (and then was joined by a couple of others). I had the great advantage of knowing that all I needed to do was get back to Nyawera market, which is a landmark known by all. This time, when I asked which way to Nyawera, they asked me if I wanted to go by car or foot. I looked at them oddly and said, “hmm, by foot, thank you.” “Would you be okay taking the footpath?” they asked. “Is that shorter?” I replied. “Yes,” “Then that’s the way I want to go.” Rather amazed, they told me to take the footpath and that would lead down then up to someplace, the name of which I didn’t really catch, from where I could descend to Nyawera. Going down was really quite easy and I got to run again for awhile, but when I crossed over a main road and started to ascend, I was back on a steep, narrow, rocky (and dusty) footpath. At one point I passed an older woman climbing up with a bundle of something. Awesomely strong the women are here.

I get to the top and there is a main road. I only have a vague idea where I am, so I don’t know if I should go right or left. There weren’t any people standing around except for 3 policeman in their bright yellow shirts and hard hats (they are quite cool looking, the traffic police uniforms). Taking the decision that they are supposed to serve the public and therefore would be sympathetic to me, I went and asked them which way to Nyawera. They said go left and turn right at the intersection that was about 50 yards away. I did that and voila! I recognized that I was at the top of the first hill above Nyawera. It was so nice to feel asphalt under my feet again that I decided to stay on the main road and not take the flatter dirt road.

Returned home almost 2 hours after I left and I have no idea how far I really ran because the watch conked out at 4.47 mi which was about 10 feet after I took my first wrong turn. . . I tried to map out where I think I went (there’s a big gap in the middle where I have no idea how I got from where I knew I was to where I ended up) and it looks like I probably covered 8.75-9 mi, though a heck of a lot of that was scrambling up and down hillsides, not running.

Another Bukavu adventure!

Dust!

2009-07-01T02:39:00.000+11:00

Well, in fact it rained last night (which I was clueless about until one of my roommates told me, must have slept well), which greatly lessened the dust this morning, but still, it has been DUSTY. When I get into the shower every morning, I have to rinse myself thoroughly even before soaping up.

I have a few established routes – the tour of our peninsula is 5k; if I add on the road that goes around the bay, that makes it about 4.5mi. Then I have ventured to the other side of the main road into neighborhoods where they are quite surprised to see a “mzungu” running on the morning. Yesterday I wanted to do my longer-ish run which I wasn’t able to do Saturday since we headed to the field at 6am, so I decided to explore a bit. Roger told me that the road to the right at the intersection at the end of my road led past the Governor’s mansion, so I took that and the Governor’s mansion was definitely worth seeing. Quite nice grounds. Then, I went up hill and came out by Nyawera market. I thought I’d go by the market back toward my part of town, but somewhere I stayed right when I should have veered left. It wasn’t until I returned home and could look at my route in SportTracks, on a satellite map, that I saw where I went wrong. In the meantime, I was running along, mounted a hill (where I realized I wasn’t where I thought I should be, but was still curious about where I was), and ended up deep inside a neighborhood packed with people (since it was only a holiday for IRC and it was around 8:30am by this time). I reached the end of the road, turned around, and got back to an intersection, where I saw a nice wide deserted road going around a hill. That seemed nice, so I took that road. It wound around the hill on the top of which was the military camp. I had seen this from a distance and as I rounded the bend I realized why it was there. Across and below me was the border with Rwanda. There was the bridge over the river, across the way was a Rwandan military camp. I followed the road down, hoping it would actually circle this hill. But it went down to the dam – where our electricity comes from – and ended there. So I had to climb yet another hill and backtrack. This was a nice part of the run, however, except for the fact that for the whole 2 miles or so I saw only one other woman on a very deserted stretch.

Back at the intersection, I tried one road briefly until I realized that it only went up to the camp. I returned to the intersection again and went back down the original road I had come up on. When I got to the bottom, I found a well-traveled alley which climbed up one hill, then another, where I found myself on the road I had originally meant to be on. Surprise, surprise! Winding my way back home, my run was exactly the 7 miles it was supposed to be, according to my training plan, even though a thousand times along the route, I decided I was too tired and wanted to cut it short. Ah well.

Exploring Bukavu

2009-06-22T00:36:00.000+11:00

Part of me likes exploring a new town and part of me gets annoyed that I don’t already know where to go to cover a certain distance. So, we are in that beginning phase now where I’m getting to know Bukavu as a runner. I have heard that Sunday early mornings are when all the weekend warriors are out – running from the border (w/Rwanda) to the Governor’s office – about 14km round trip that includes no less than 3 killer hills each direction. This habit of going out for a hard run once a week seems to be an African pastime (at least in Bukavu and Bamenda). Interesting. I’d be afraid of getting injured or sure that I wouldn’t have the stamina, but that doesn’t seem to faze them. Anyway, I didn’t get up this morning to partake in the festivities, but maybe next weekend. The problem is that there is a sort of standing date every Saturday night among the ex-pats that work with me at IRC and their friends which rarely ends early and the English-language church service on Sundays is at 7:30am. So that leaves little time to get a run in.

But my explorations have uncovered some good routes. There is the route within my neighborhood which can be configured several ways to make about 5k or a bit more. If I extend that and run up to our office, I can get a 5-miler in and I’ve found a nice path that curves around the bay that sits between the peninsula on which I live and the peninsula on which the office is situated. Yesterday morning, I ran down to the border and decided to take the paved road up past the office, which led to the discovery that the hill from the border up to the office is long and steep! I was feeling all good about getting back into shape and getting my times down under 10 min/mi and then I couldn’t even make it up the hill without walking. Hmmph. We still have a ways to go.

Since I get regular R&R breaks as well as vacation days, I was thinking about the possibility of training for a marathon. There are now quite a few marathons around Africa, some of which actually sound fun and interesting (though some just sound grueling and lonely). Thinking, thinking, thinking.

At any rate, Bukavu is a nice place to run. It is cool enough now that I usually wear a long-sleeve shirt to run, though I don’t need gloves or anything that severe, thank goodness (at least at the moment). There’s really only one paved road, so most of my running is “off road” which is good for my joints I’m sure. And I’m not the only person who runs, though I’ve definitely discovered neighborhoods that, judging from the responses of those I pass, are not frequented by expats.

More adventures to come!

Kinshasa, not an expat runner's paradise

2009-06-22T00:18:00.000+11:00

I spent a week in Kinshasa before finally moving to Bukavu and was able to run four times there, which was nice. However, the ex-patriate community there is currently living under fairly restrictive rules – certainly restrictive if you are a runner. We are not allowed to walk on the streets. We must be driven (or drive, if you have a car) everywhere. The one saving grace is that someone has decided that it is safe to run this one loop along the river around the Embassies. So, in order to get a run in and get back before the drivers changed shifts, I awoke at 5am, and was sitting in the car by 5:30am. It was barely dawn when I started running 15 minutes later, but that also meant it was cool and quite pleasant. White man’s loop is a bit more than 2.5km and by 6am, there was quite an international crowd of us walking and running around. One thing I appreciated was that it was relatively flat, so I began to feel like a runner again for the first time in months.

The nice thing about the run was the river – the Congo river – and looking over at Brazzaville on the far shore. It reminded me a lot of running on the banks of the Nile in Jinja, Uganda.

Off to DR Congo

2009-06-02T03:30:00.001+11:00

Well, I haven’t written in awhile because I haven’t been running much. And mostly I’ve been cold and miserable and whiny about it and I know you don’t wanna hear all that.

The good news is that I got some much needed medical attention during my sojourn in the US – several high quality massages, great core training advice and diagnosis and treatment of adrenal fatigue. So I feel like I am in good shape moving forward and looking forward to getting back into shape and a good solid running routine.

Today I board a flight to start the long trek to my new life in Bukavu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I am taking up the position of Partnership Coordinator for the International Rescue Committee and will be there for at least a couple of years, if not many more. I fly to New York, then Brussels, then Kinshasa where I’ll be for a couple of weeks of orientation. So, stay tuned for dispatches from a country rebuilding after a long, hard civil war.

Looking for a coach

2009-05-17T04:58:00.001+11:00

I am looking for an online coach. Someone who can work with me over e-mail or the web. Here’s a bit of a profile. If you have any leads, let me know!

I’m a 47 year old woman and run about 9-10min/mi pace. I’ve done some stupid things in my day, though I try to not make a habit of it anymore. My mileage is way down in the past couple of months. Something (under-nutrition?) really sapped me when I was in the Solomons. I’m down under 20 miles a week now, though I run 4-7 mi at a time.

The half-marathon is my best race, although I continue to harbor marathon dreams. I ran the Chicago marathon in 1985, but nothing since. Whenever I’ve tried to train at that level, something happens – I hit a wall, either physical or psychological, I’m not sure, and can’t seem to get past it and then can’t see any reason to try.

What I’m looking for is someone to help with motivation and accountability and to help me learn to read my body and my response to training and respond appropriately. I can’t seem to figure out when to push through and when to step back. I’d like to have someone set me up with a program to build up from where I am now and then be able to check-in via e-mail once a week.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Last Buala long run

2009-04-13T11:21:00.000+11:00

Sunday was my last “long” run here in Buala. Surprisingly (to me), I covered 7.5 mi, although I did a fair amount of walking. In part this was because I was tired. I sort of overdid it, but I was so excited by being able to get past the mud to the flat section, that I went out further than I should have. But in part, I walked and stopped just because I wanted to savor the experience. We had one heckuva tropical storm on Saturday – it rained 11 hours straight and the water just poured off the tops of houses like a river. It was pretty amazing and made it clear just who is in charge here (the weather!). This made it even more amazing to me that my path wasn’t completely flooded out. It’s all about drainage I guess. But Sunday morning, Easter, began bright and sunny (though it did cloud over and rain more later). It was beautiful – that fresh, clean after the rain feeling.

Rather than going up and over the killer hill after Kubalota, I decided to go over the rocks on the path I discovered the other end to last week. That was an adventure – real scrambling, and trying to be very aware because the rocks were wet and very smooth from all the foot traffic. This is one of those times when I really wish my feet could handle the terrain without shoes, as the locals do. I’ve watched them and they walk completely differently than I do, particularly when they are going over rocks. They can use their feet to curl over rock corners and grip things that I just slip off of.

I saw a few pigs along the route. One which was quite big and caused me a bit of pause, but they really are much more afraid of me. Since they expect all humans to be coming after them to turn them to dinner, I don’t think they realize the damage they could do if they decided to. Lucky me! I also saw a beautiful flock of red birds fly overhead, but I didn’t get my camera out before they settled onto the tops of the trees. I waited for a bit in the hopes that they would take flight again, but no luck.

I’ve just read Running: the sacred art by Warren A. Kay and I would highly, highly recommend it to anyone interested in how to encourage more spirituality in their runs. Kay teaches a course called “Spirituality and Running” at Merrimack College in Massachusetts and the book is really quite good. He is a Christian, but he writes from a broader perspective and the message and exercises in the book are definitely not specific to any particular faith.

http://www.amazon.com/Running-Sacred-Preparing-Practice-Spiritual/dp/1594732272/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239581348&sr=8-1

Tomorrow I fly to Honiara for a week and I am really, really looking forward to running on the roads!

New path found

2009-04-09T15:03:00.000+11:00

I've been able to get back to running 4-5 times a week, though my mileage
isn't very high. Last Sunday I thought I'd go 7-8 miles (I'd done a little
more than 7 the week before). Although it rained on Saturday, the rainy
season is definitely petering out now. Thus, when I set out, I had great
hopes of being able to cruise on that nice flat section past the river. I
was a bit surprised when I started down the far side of the killer hill past
Kubalota and the mud was very, very sticky. But when I got to the river, it
was lower than I'd ever seen it, so I was anticipating a great run.

But then at 2.5mi out, I was stopped in my tracks. The path was totally
flooded out (see photo). I looked left and right, and there was water as far
as the eye could see (see next photo). Oy.

Now, it could be that it wasn't that deep (it was at least 6 inches and
maybe up to 12) and if it had been a moving river, I would have just crossed
it. However, this filthy standing water on a flooded path is pretty gross.
First, chances are good that I'd just sink into the underlying mud and maybe
even lose my shoes. I've come close many times. And this water makes all
sorts of gunky junk end up in my shoes, causing irritation and blisters. So,
phewy, I turned around.

After re-crossing the river, I noticed a path off to the side and thought
this must be the route that people from Gnulahage take when they walk in to
Buala. I ran past, then ran back and decided to pursue that path and see
where it leads. Coming from the other direction, I've stayed on the beach in
Kubalota (rather than going behind the village and up and over the killer
hill that is part of the "main road") and come to a rocky outcropping. I've
gone up the path, but never followed it all the way to where it meets the
"main road" though I knew they must meet somewhere. So, now I'm thinking
this is the other end.

The path led through the forest and past some sort of storage shed and then
dumped out on the beach. There was a path to the right that ran along the
beach for a bit and then I was standing on the beach looking at what must be
the other side of the rocky outcropping. That was what I would have to climb
over. The path went straight up the rocks and on the top there was a very
narrow muddy path that undulated along the top for awhile. I mostly walked
since any misstep would mean a 20 meter fall into whatever lay at the bottom
of the rocks. But soon, I recognized the path I had come to from the other
side and climbed down to Kubalota beach. A new path found! It always makes
me feel like and "insider" when I discover the paths that the locals take. .
.

Doing what I can

2009-03-27T10:50:00.000+11:00

After totally tanking a few weeks ago and taking 10 days off totally, I’ve been able to run 3 times this week. I meant to run yesterday morning – it hadn’t rained in a good 36 glorious hours – but I had some sort of stomach trouble and didn’t want to risk being far from my bathroom.

But it seems to be working to just tell myself I need to get out and run, just do what I can. After all, 4 miles 3 or 4 times a week is better than 5 miles once. And tomorrow I’ll go at least 6 and maybe more, depending on how “gung ho” I feel. There’s this point after crossing the first river where the path gets flooded. Some days I’m up for getting through it, some days, aack, it just gets me down. But living within a circumference of 3 miles definitely makes me stir crazy. I remember the day when I was in Cameroon that I realized that one thing I value very, very highly is mobility. The ability to get around. When I moved from PRTC out in the village, where I was 5k from the road, to Bamenda town, one cause of intense relief for me was that I could get around. I could go anywhere I wanted to. I could catch a cab or a bus or a moto and go wherever. When I was coming to the Solomon Islands, one friend warned me that other friends of hers had felt claustrophobic on a small pacific island. At the time I thought, “claustrophobic? With the entire Pacific Ocean right there?” Yea, well, the ocean requires a boat which I don’t have. And hiring one is very expensive. So, now I know.

The rain is now having an impact on the island in some striking ways. The ground is so saturated that trees – even some rather large trees – are falling. A mango tree fell sometime Sunday night around the government houses. It completely blocked the path and took down power wires, but amazingly it fell straight between two houses, hitting neither. In Buala village there was a large landslide on what had been a vegetation covered hill. And yet, it can rain all night, be hot and sunny during the day, and then many places can be bone dry by the end of the day. I’m becoming quite aware of the difference between different types of dirt. Grey sandy dirt dries very quickly, particularly with heat. Red, claylike dirt never seems to dry. Then there is the swampy, bog-like black dirt that falls somewhere between those two.

I’ve signed up for the World Wide Festival of Races Half Marathon yet again: http://www.worldwidefestivalofraces.com

I am leaving the Solomon Islands mid-April and intend to be back in Africa somewhere by the beginning of August at the latest. I’m not sure what is next yet, though. So, I don’t know where I’ll be running the Worldwide Half, but wonderfully, I don’t need to know that now!

Help me win by dream photo assignment

2009-03-05T12:03:00.003+11:00

I've just entered a contest to win funding to do my dream photography assignment -- documenting the lives of LGBT Africans. Part of the criteria is how many votes your idea gets. Please go vote for me!

http://www.nameyourdreamassignment.com/the-ideas/tlongacre/revealing-the-lives-of-lgbt-africans/

Videos posted

2009-03-04T10:03:00.000+11:00

I’ve just posted 4 videos I made from here in Buala on my Flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlongacre/

Check them out!

You'd think I was falling apart

2009-03-02T11:46:00.000+11:00

Well, I only ran twice last week. On the up side, my feet are hurting less, so maybe running is a factor. And I did do 4 sessions of yoga, so I wasn’t totally out of touch with my body.

But I was having a very bad week and then Friday morning, when I was going out to get some water from my tank, I slipped on the stairs and fell pretty badly. I thought I might have broken my arm. Thought it enough that I walked over to the hospital after a morning meeting and got an x-ray. But no break. (Slightly disappointed, like I was in 4^th grade or something. . .). So my right arm is badly bruised and hurting as is my right calf (every time I go downstairs, I feel it – very tight). Because of that, general laziness, agitation leaning towards depression, I didn’t run Friday, Saturday, Sunday or this morning (Monday). Hmmph.

I need to get out there tomorrow, though. I know where this sort of thing leads and it ain’t pretty. Not pretty at all.

I didn’t do any yoga over the weekend either, so I’ll try to do some of that tonight, just to test and see what really hurts and what is healing.

One thing to share: I have a Nintendo DS Lite which I haven’t really used much. But I was inspired to pull it out the other day and really look at the programs I have. One of the programs I have is Let’s Yoga! And I’ve used it 3 times now and it’s actually quite good as a yoga program. It gives me lots of options, let’s me create my own sequences, and even has a teaching module. Except for the fact that each session begins with “Time to start Yoga!” and ends with “Good job!” (rather than Namaste), it’s pretty good.

My Feet Hurt

2009-02-23T10:50:00.000+11:00

I don’t usually cross post to both my blogs, but I’d like the most people possible to see this:

My feet hurt. This has been going on for awhile, but it seems to have gotten worse over the last few months. I have a hard time describing the pain, but I’ll try. I’m hoping someone else has had something similar or maybe heard of this and can tell me what it might be or give me some idea where to look. I don’t even know what kind of doctor would deal with this.

First, if I am sitting or laying down (sleeping), there is only pain if I flex my feet outward. The pain is on the outside/top. Otherwise, they feel fine. But when I get up and stand on them, it is quite painful for the first few minutes – the pain diminishes over time as I move around. The pain runs from just below my ankle, maybe a little in front to before my small toe. It is mostly a dull achy sort of pain, but when I first wake up or get up from sitting, it is quite sharp – but the sharpness may be my surprise that my feet hurt.

The pain doesn’t seem to increase or decrease in relation to what sort of shoes I wear (mostly I wear flip flops except to run). I haven’t done systematic research, but I think it might be somewhat worse if I run without the Amfit orthotics I usually wear. (I know this seemed to be true once or twice here in Buala, although I don’t think it was true when I ran without them in Honiara – the difference? Buala is rough, rocky trails, Honiara is roads.)

I don’t think the length of my runs makes any difference, but I’m not totally sure about that. I ran a nice 9 miles yesterday, out to Guguha Community High School. The feet never heart while I’m running, nor while I’m walking. But afterwards they can.

If anyone has any advice, tips or resources, I’d surely appreciate it. This is really starting to bother me.