Arrival

We are now in Chipulukusu outside of Ndola. Unfortunately internet access is very spotty so there is less opportunity to share with all of you.  

When we arrived at the Ndola airport, I was amazed out how small this international airport was. 

After we collected our luggage, we were waiting for our ride when suddenly the rain started. I was amazed at how quickly it came and we had to scurry to get under some shelter.  So far the theme of this trip has been rain!  It has rained hard everyday that we've been here and even during our layover in London. 

Once we arrived to our lodge, Sherri and I set out for our schools and Kafwe center. 

The walk is about a mile and you can see how wet and muddy it is. 

When we arrived to the school, I was struck by how nice it is and how busy the community is around it. 

I also saw came across a familiar name-

The desks in the school were donated by the rotary club of Blue Springs which is my hometown. 

There is a lot of pride in this school and as we met with some of the Kafwe (health workers) and the head teacher.  You can tell how much ownership everyone here takes in running the school  and the community center. These are mostly volunteers who find time and energy to improve their school. It's truly inspiring. 

Last full day in Lusaka

This will be a quick entry as I'm pretty exhausted. Two cool things happened today.  We had lunch with my college roommate Michael Morain's friend from French camp.  She's been living in Lusaka for the past eight years and has been super helpful in connecting HealthEd Connect to various organizations and contacts over the years. It's super great when your circle of friends connect you to their friends who end up knowing other people who can be helpful.   This world is a pretty small place when you start to build relationships. 

We also had dinner with the medical director from CHAZ - Churches Health Association of Zambia.  They do a lot of work to provide health care services in Zambia as the government hospitals are inadequate to meet the needs of the people. The doctor we met with was born in the Congo and moved to Zambia at a young age. He's a fascinating guy with many big ideas.

 We spoke for a bit on how both of our organizations are working to provide palliative care.  One if the things he talked about were a couple of hospices in the country where some people go to be cared for when they cannot be cared for in the homes.  One hospice is potentially near Ndola and he suggested I go visit. We're hoping to work this into our busy schedule.  It would be wonderful to meet with the folks at the hospice to get their ideas on how to provide palliative cars in the home of people dying from AIDS so we can give our health workers more tools to enhance the care they already provide. 

Tomorrow we leave for Lusaka. We've been preparing our Ebola education event and our strategizing how to facilitate the sessions given the five languages spoken by our health workers.  I can't wait to meet with this rarkablr group. 

Networking in Lusaka

We had a very productive day today in Lusaka.  It started with a nice, light breakfast at the guest house.

 

I was grabbing my bag to leave, I noticed that I had a visitor waiting for me on the porch 

From the picture, it's hard to tell the size but I can assure you that the snail's body was at least four inches long and the shell was an inch and a half tall. I figure a big slimy snail visitor had to be good luck!  

Our first visit was my favorite of the day.  We met with folks from room to read, an organization that focuses on improving literacy and supporting girls as they pursue secondary education. 

What impressed me most was the passion and vision of the head of their Zambian program.  She is a woman who thinks bigger than just the task at hand.  Initially one of the main focuses of room to read was to build and support libraries in the government schools. While libraries can provide access to books, there needs to also be a cultural change that embraces and supports reading those books, otherwise those books stay on the shelves. Room to read has worked over the past few years to change that culture which is much more important than just building libraries.  

The amazing thing that I learned today is that the libraries at our Health Ed Connect schools are being used by the kids and even the adults are wanting to learn to read.  Our work in these communities is transforming the culture which is a key step in lifting a community out if poverty.  

We also learned a lot about room to read's work with supporting girls in their education.  Traditional Zambian culture does not typically support girls and women in pursuing education and in fact there is still the common practice of marrying girls off at a young age.  We also know from development research that empowered women are key to raising communities out of poverty ( sorry guys).  We too are beginning our Girls Achievement Program (GAP) program to provide extra support and encouragement to the girls in our schools.   

What I appreciated most was the importance we at HealthEd Connect place on networking and building relationships with other organizations working on similar things. The willingness to learn from others and share our own experience is vital when you're tackling some of the major problems associated with poverty. 

The excitement I felt from the people I met today was inspiring.  It made all the walking around through streets and sidewalks that looked like this

No big deal.   

It did, however, wear me out and I think I'm ready for bed.  Time to retire to my bed complete with requisite mosquito net. Good night!

London ... in four hours ... In the rain

I had a really nice flight from Denver to London. I was lucky enough to sit by a 7 year old girl and her mom.  Her short legs didn't take up much space giving me plenty of room to stretch out my legs.  She did her own stretching out, however. You can imagine my surprise when I woke up with her feet in my lap and her head in her mom's.  Her mom was so embarrassed when she discovered her daughter invading my space.  

After I arrived in London we took the tube out to see some of the sights.  I've only been in London when I was in transit. Today was no different with one exception.  This time it was a cold, wet rainy day.  I grabbed a couple of pictures, some tastey fish and chips and now I'm ready for flight number two. 

Heading out

My entries will probably be short after this one as I'm not sure I'll have reliable internet going forward and I'm not sure how annoyed I'll get with typing on my phone.

 I'm sitting at dia waiting to board my plane. There's all the feelings that come with traveling abroad - excitement to see a new part of the world, sadness for saying goodbye to my young family, anticipation of what I will learn, fear that I forgot that one important thing or that I'll have a snafu in my connection in South Africa, hope that I'll have something to offer the women who work tirelessly to boost the health of their communities.   Regardless of the experience I know I will be forever changed. 

I have to admit that I'm a little rusty when it comes to traveling abroad. It's been 11 years since I've had my passport stamped.  I'm happy to be traveling with Jac and Sherri who have so much experience, but I'll admit I've run over my packing list probably twenty times in the last two days.    Here's hoping no big misses. 

Ok. Time to board.  Will try to keep anyone reading this updated as we move along.   Warning, I tend to get philosophical when I travel so beware. 

Here's the plane!

Race day recap

Race time - 1 hour 48 minutes 13 seconds (or something like that) - Pace 8:17 per mile

I finished . . . I survived . . . I crossed the finish line . . . barely.   I'll give you the recap below.


Race prep - 

As you all know, I promised that I would run the race in a mustache, so last night I did the deed.

Race day:
It was a beautiful morning for racing.   The sky was blue and there was not a cloud in the sky.   As we gathered around Georgetown lake an hour before the race, the sun had not yet peeked over the mountains.  It was definitely brisk at about 48 degrees.  It was the 35th anniversary of the race and there were between 4 and 5 thousand people running.  We all crowded onto the two lane road by the lake and waited for the gun.

pre race smile

First Half:
When the gun went off, it was definitely slow moving to begin with.   Unlike the bigger city runs that span large streets, we were all funneled into the two lane country road.  This ensured me not going out too fast and I felt really good.  At mile 1, I was greeted by my cheering section and I stopped to give my two kiddos a kiss on their head.

look at how chipper I look early in the race

a stop for a kiss

Right after these pictures, we turned a corner and the sun came out.   We spent the rest of the race running into the sun.  It felt a lot warmer than the 50 degrees that the thermometers read.  Despite that I was feeling good.  I was averaging close to 7:30 pace for most miles and despite feeling super gassed on the uphills, I felt really good and was becoming optimistic that I'd make my time.  I even took some time to look at the beautiful scenery that was all around me.


Second Half:

Then came mile 8.  I've had this problem before when I try to run fast and far.   I begin developing some cramping in my anterior shin.  It's hard to describe but I have difficulty raising the front of my foot off the ground.  Usually it gets better after about half a mile.   The problem this time is that it moved down to my feet as the race wore on.   At about mile 9 my toes begin cramping and getting stuck in a curled position.   Let's just say it's pretty hard to run fast (or at all) when you're landing on curled toes.   I also quickly began developing blisters on my toes as they rubbed together in ways they hadn't before.

It got so bad that I had to walk for a bit.  When I tried running again it seemed to be better.  I still felt physically able to run fast so I started up again.  About a quarter of a mile later the cramps came back!  I began muttering fun phrases under my breath and started walking again.

Look at my cheering section - they were probably wondering why I was walking instead of running when I passed them.

Brooks had a great time!

So for the rest of the race, I alternated between walking 0.1 miles and running 0.3 miles.  Each time I would slow down to walk, I was passed by many folks who offered encouraging words.  They said, "we're almost there, don't stop now."   I wanted to scream out, "my toes are cramping, I would be running if I could!!"  But I just kept moving.   I had to at least make my goal of finishing, and I didn't want to let all of my blog readers down!


Finish:

The last 0.5miles went through Idaho Springs.   By this point, I couldn't run at all without cramping.  So I walked the final 0.5miles.   At the final turn, Karyn and my Mom were cheering me on.  I think they were surprised to see me walking.  Karyn yelled out, "Run! So I can take a picture."   I yelled back, "I can't!" Here's the resulting picture.

                                     

                                          Me as I hobble down the last 0.3 miles

I lunged across the finish line, about 8 minutes slower than I wanted to.   But I did it!   I finished . . . despite my toes betraying me.  It was a little frustrating, given how good I felt during the race . . . but I finished.   

After the race, there were activities set up for the kids.   Grayson and Brooks had a blast.  

Can I do it again dad?

Checking it out

As I reflect back on the race I will say it was a tremendous success!   I raised over $4500 for an organization that I care passionately about; one that is doing good work in this world.    It's still not too late to donate if you want.

It also got me back into running.  I definitely feel so much better when I'm running.  I have more energy and feel less stressed with what life sends my way.   And the funny thing about racing is that even though this was a super hard race . . . I want to do it again.  I know I can run faster than 1:40 for a half marathon. I just might choose an easier course (at sea level) next time.   

Thanks to everyone's well wishes, your support helped through the last, tough miles.

Getting Ready for the Run

Tomorrow's the big day.  The race starts at 8 AM and I'm getting pretty jazzed about it.  I'm also getting a tad more nervous than I have for most of my races.   I'm not sure if it's because of the added pressure of having blogged about the race for the past few weeks or because I've intentionally tried to get faster this time around, or because of all the wonderful support you all have given to HealthEd Connect.   Regardless, it should be a good time.

Our family is staying in Georgetown tonight at this really nice vacation rental.   We took the long way up over Guanella Pass and saw some spectacular views and experienced some spectacular hail!  It was a stormy day today and it looks like it's going to be a chilly 48 degrees at the beginning of the race!

The night before the race, I usually look over the map of the race and go over my game plan.  I'm already clear I don't want to go out to fast.  The only thing I'm debating in my head right now, is how fast should I take the downhills.

Here's the map:

The green graph in the middle shows the elevation change.  It's not completely a straight down hill but it is definitely mostly down hill.  I'm hopeful that the downhill will make for the harder run at altitude.   We'll see what comes on race day.


I feel like I'm rambling tonight, so I think I'll stop now.  I plan on posting pictures and giving you all the play by play tomorrow.   Now I'm off to shave a mustache!  The latest tally is $4504.18!  So close to the shaved head . . .