Feel the rhythm

It´s been a pretty quiet week. I guess that´s to be expected with the only other English speaker gone from our house. Not a bad quiet, just quiet.

I think it´s good to because Benedicte leaves in a week or so and at least now I´ve had some time to get used to the quiet. Maybe someone new will come or maybe not, either way is okay with me.

October has been off to an interesting start. Yesterday, I had a great run. Really top notch. It was my first real ¨long run¨ that I´ve done in 8 months. I say it´s the first real long run not because of distance but because of how I felt. It was actually my third run over 10 miles since I´ve been here, but the first one that didn´t feel either like I was going super slow and not working that hard, or just an extended moderate run.

I set out to run 20k faster than the last time I had run 20k (early January). This run, at sea level, was paced around 7:30, so I figured sub 7:30 was do-able. In general, I really like long runs. I love being able to lock into a rhythm and just go and go and go seemingly forever. However, there´s a big difference between the long runs I did back in Concord and those I do here. My long runs in concord were usually one big loop. Out to Carlisle, to Bedford, and then back to Concord. This was my favorite loop and it worked so well for me as a long run because it was so simple. I only had to make three turns in the whole run, so I was really able to just get into that rhythm and forget about what I was doing.

My long run route for Wednesday was: run to the Parque Carolína. Run around the park. Run aroudn the park. Run around the park. Run around the park. Run back a slightly longer way. Personally, I really hate this kind of looping. For me, having to run the same are twice (or in this case four times) makes it seem infinitely longer. Especially when you have to constantly duck around people and stray dogs, it makes that rhythm really quite ellusive.

But somehow I managed it. I was able to really sink into it for the first time since I´ve been here. I was able to really get out of my body and just sort of watch myself run from above. The results are always tremendous when you have a breakthrough like this. At the halfway mark (10k) my time was 42:04, well under the 7:30 pace that I was aiming for. After my last lap of the park, I was under 7:00 pace, something that was far beyond my expectations. Unfortunately, there are a couple of stop lights between the park and my apartment, so my rhythm was gone. Suddenly I felt the pain of 11 sub seven minute miles and the stiffness and the cramping. Suddenly, I remembered what I was doing and my body wanted no more of it. I ran the last mile in 7:52. (N.B. there is a really long, pretty steep hill, so my last mile is always 30-60 seconds slower than it ought to be, but still, no excuses).

I think that the longer I stay here, the more the little things start to bother me. Things that I used to just brush off as different culture or no big deal, suddenly really piss me off and are incredibly frustrating. One of these things, which I think I´ve mentioned before here, is the people here and their conception of sidewalk ettiquite - or lack there of. I can´t believe it´s that complicated that when you are looking straight ahead and you see someone coming, especially a runner, that you move, just a few feet, you alter your velocity vector just a few few degrees. How fucking hard is that people? The worst is when there´s a group of four or five people, and instead of walking in a clump, they walk in a horizontal line. Why peolpe? ¿Por que? And, similarly, when you run towards one of these lines of people, do they take the half a second to move out of the way or split down the middle? No, they look you right in the eye and just keep on fucking talking to each other.

At first, I felt bad, and I would run around, but now I´ve just gotten sick of it and have no qualms with running right through a group of people. I have a higher velocity than you. You are going to lose this one. People here...

Maybe I´m just in a bad mood now thinking about people who don´t move when I´m running, but I´m honestly not a big fan of the Quiteños. I must first say that everyone that lives in my appartment is incredibly kind and sweet. But outside of those people and a few people from the hospital, most people I´ve had any sort of contact with here are not very friendly.

I honestly think it´s a good thing that I´m so paranoid or I´d probably get a lot more of my stuff stolen. I don´t like it; I don´t like having absolutely no trust for the people here, but that´s what I was told and that´s what I´ve learned is necessary. At first, I thought that people might be exagerating, but then my watch got stolen and my bag almost got stolen. Now, I feel like I´m a stereotypical white person who´s scared of foreigners. Honestly, though, I think if you´re not then you´re going to get walked all over, ripped off, and robbed.

Anyways, I hate to be a negative-nancy, but sometimes I can´t help it. I think I´m going away this weekend and I have my first interval workout on Tuesday. I also have a tempo run tomorrow, so hopefully there won´t be as many people for me to run into...

Ok, it´s time for me to get out of here and finish my yogurt.