300

As of yesterday, I passed an important mark that has made me think a bit about this trip in terms of numbers. About halfway through my seven-miler, I ran my 300th mile in Ecuador. That´s averaging about 38 miles a week for about 8 weeks.

So, with this relative milestone, I´ve been thinking a bit about my trip. It seems like an awfully long time ago that I was sitting in the Miami aiport waiting for my flight to Quito, but it was actually less than two months ago. Here´s a short list of things I´ve accomplished (that I think are worth mentioning) in those two months (in no real order):

Climbed a 20,000 ft volcano

Traveled out of the country on my own for the first time

Spent a lot of time volunteering

Became (relatively) fluent in another language

Ran a 16:07 5k, 4:40 mile at sea level and a 17:38 5k at 10,000´

Trained sucessfully without getting sick or injured for 8 weeks

Became much more self-sufficient

Realized I really like beans and lentils

Read an entire book in Spanish

Kept in decent contact with friends and family

Gotten plenty of sleep

7 runs of 10+ miles

Traveled the farthest South in the world that I have ever been (Cotopaxi)

Got Phish tickets!

Written some decent music

Survived (almost) getting mugged/beat someone up

Updated this blog (somewhat) regularly

Made friends

Realized I actually am inerested in learning, specifically in math, science, and economics

Read a lot

All in all, I think it´s definitely been time well spent. As much as I have realized that I do need some intellectual stimulation, I can´t see myself sitting in a lecture classroom taking notes right now. This time, so far, has actually made me much more excited for college and has given me a lot of ideas about what I do and don´t want to do there.

Either way, I still have a good 8 months until I have to start thinking about college too seriously, anyways.

I only have 4 (3.5 really) weekends left here, which is really strange. My parents come down to Ecuador on the 22nd of November (I think) which is a Saturday. At that point, we´re doing some traveling around Ecuador and Peru and then flying back together. It should be nice to show them around my now stomping grounds.

But that leaves me with only 3 full weekends! Oh dear! There´s so much traveling around here that I want to do. So many hikes to hike, so many mountains to summit, so many runs to run. I think I´m going to try and do one more mountain with my new flatmate, Carla. There are a few smaller (but still 5000+ meters) mountains that you can do in a day, so I wouldn´t have to miss any training.

This weekend, I´m hiking the Quilotoa loop, a 4 day hike around the Andes centering around a huge volcanic crater and a big lake. Apparently this is also a good way to see some indigenous Andean villages and meet some people. I´m pretty psyched about it.

Other than that, I´m going to try to get down to sea level once more before I leave to get in one more good time trial. Hopefully Jon´s interval workouts have been paying off!