Running in the Mud

Rina is now officially on the road to fitness. Not only did she work out for an hour yesterday without me, but today she worked out for ½ without me and then went for a run with me and Kristin. She has gone from being a tyro to asking daily if we could do gymnastics together to her working out by herself.

After language I tried to go running with Kristine but it was still sprinkling and really muddy out so I figured I’d go home early and workout with Rina. Normally, rain does not deter me from my normal activity but as it is I am a novice at running and running is excruciatingly hard here. The only road here is the National Road which cannot fit two cars on it width wise 80% of the time without one having to go off the road into the shoulder. That wouldn’t matter if there were a shoulder - but there is not. In reality, the shoulder is the mud that people walk on to go to the store, furgon, school, walk their wheelbarrows down and guide their donkeys, cows or sheep along. Even the ubiquitous chicken crosses the road. So, when a car passes you, the driver honks. Pretty much a driver will do this no matter what unless he (it is almost always a he) physically sees you move out of the way in advance. This can be a bit jarring at first, but it is really meant to protect pedestrians and warn those walking on the National Road that a car is coming.

So, being as it had rained all day, this shoulder was filled with mud. I was worried it would be slippery. I really don’t want to get hurt running. It would suck to get hurt here because it would be hard to get the proper medical attention quickly. Ambulances are still somewhat of an anomaly here. In the words of our PCMO if you’re in a car accident here you’ll probably be thrown in the back of a Mercedes and taken to the nearest hospital. Also, if I’m going to get hurt it should happen during a sport I have always loved playing like tennis, softball or hockey. Not running. Who gets hurt doing an activity she doesn’t particularly like and didn’t want to do anyway? Exactly. Plus, any car passing me and Kristine would most probably splash us with manure filled mud. There are so many pot holes here that even when there is only one car on the road it has to go into the shoulder to avoid getting a flat. With that in mind, Kristine thought she’d find Albi who had been left with Katie and walk home with me to bring Albi home.

By the time we found the Katie and the puppy the rain had stopped. We figured we should try to run, despite all the aforementioned objections because at the end of the day running provides the exercise and outlet that really nothing else can match.
We ran on the road to Blat (my very small village) not the National Road. It intersects the National Road at the Don Café. This is the road from that connects Blat to the village. It is not paved at any point which is good for running. It is just mud and rocks. It happens to be challenging with a steep hill on either side and provide exceptionally beautiful vistas. So, we ran it, clocked, played a bit of football in between and then went to my house. The idea was to grab some water and run back so we could clock the mileage from my house to the village. It was about 1 mile.

We got to my house and found my host mother and Gjusha outside filling up the water barrels. Thirsty from running, I asked if I could drink the water and was handed a bottle. As I drank form the bottle, I looked in the barrel and saw a roach. Now, this roach truly and utterly looked like the fake ones you get at Ricky’s or any Halloween store, but it wasn’t. I pointed the road out to Gjusha who laughed and the grabbed it. She jokingly tried to put it on me or Kristin and we squealed and ran away. Then she tried to run with us. She only made it down the walkway, but I gave her credit for trying since she was wearing house slippers and a skirt.

Rina finally appeared and told us that she had done ½ of gymnastics today. I was so happy. We asked her if she wanted to run and she agreed. But she refused to run to the village. When we asked her where we were going to run and she pointed to a place far, far away where we had never been. We were going deep into Blat. Thought we really wanted to start running we agreed because we were so excited that she was going to run with us. She took us behind the house, through the yard, through someone else’s yard, until we hit a dirt road. We kept going until that road merged with the main road, and then went off on another dirt road. As the houses started to thin we asked if we could start running, no we were told. Finally, there was a huge hill on our left and fields on our right. No houses were in sight. Now can we run we asked? No. There are people grazing their animals on the hill and they will watch. We kept walking until the animal’s companions could not see us. Then we ran for about 6 minutes.

Ostensibly we had to stop because the road literally turned to water, but I think we could have pushed on. I had the minority opinion. We turned back, and Rina pointed to the pretty steep hill. Let’s climb it she said. OK I agreed. Kristine did not look thrilled. Rina lead the way. As we struggled to keep up, she turned to Kristine who was in back and said “I’m not tired. I’m fast because I do gymnastics with Molly