[THis is at the top of the Sange Falls in the Udzungwa Mountains in Tanzania. IN the valley below is a lot of sugar cane plantations and some small holder farms. Great hike with Aggrey, Matt, and Karen. Consider this cross training day]
Okay so it has been a while, but I have been hitting the roads,paths, etc. Here's a quick update since the 21st of January.
Jan23rd - ran 5 miles it was fun.
Jan 27 - In Tanzania. Ran through the streets of Dar es Salaam at 7 am. It was like 140 degrees (okay about 90 degrees) but it felt like I was running in soup. Could only muster about 3 miles before I couldn't tell whether I was swimming or running. Had to call it quits and drink nice African coffee.
Spent the next 5 days in a National park (Mikumi for those who care). Would have gone for a run, but this isn't the kind of park with fences and white tail deer. Day one there were 2 juvenile (mo-hawked) lions about 300 yards from my cabin. Elephants pass by my cabin at night and Cape Buffalo roam free... a la not the kind of place you go out for a quick jog.
Jan 30 - 3 mile hike to the top of Sanje Falls in Udzungwa National Park. (awesome pic above, but see also http://www.tanzaniaparks.com/uzdungwa.html). Ran down, passing about a dozen of the endemic Iriniga Red Colobus Monkeys.
Feb 4 - Back in Princeton and found a nice 6 mile loop running around agric. fields and an old cemetery. Saw some kind of sparrow hawk. Ran hard in 29 degrees with winds, ran about 8 minute miles, but was trying to make up for lost time in Africa. It was a tough day out.
Feb 5 - 3.2 miles. Damn treadmill (15 inches of snow on the ground).
Feb 7th - Snow on the ground. 37 degrees, sunny. Alright, I haven't been too adventurous with my watch, but my brother-in-law-Doug told me to set up 'virtual partner' and run a slowish 12 miles. I thought I knew what I was doing, but after being out for over an hour my watch read 3.1 miles. I thought I was going cry. Turns out that when I turned off said 'virtual partner' I had run 7.5 miles. Praise the lord. That virtual partner was really holding me back! I jogged past my house where I had some potato chips, animal crackers and apple juice waiting in the wings for me (I was also told to practice eating and drinking... no problem there). Fueled up, hit the streets again. 12 miles was really tough after the time off. I ate my body weight in snow along the way. Ran through Mountain Lake State Park and all the x-country skiers thought i was an idiot running on the snow in shorts. But it was fun and beautiful. I stopped at exactly 12 miles, not a foot more. Took a snow bath (shoes off an everything, felt great, until it felt freezing cold - between great and freezing was about 6 seconds). Then had a long hot bath, consumed about 12,000 calories, and then Leigh and I watched the Bridgestone/Doritos SuperBowl brought to us by Comcast and Geiko. We saw the Frito-Lays Saints of New Orleans defeat the BudLight Colts.
Yesterday, sat on a bike in the gym, read a few nerdy academic articles.
... and today, well.... we have a state of emergency blizzard, roads closed, gym closed. So it was indeed time to update my blog. I consider that a cross-training day.
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