Creepers

Run: 4.25mi /41:20
(1 mile warm up, 2 miles at 9:09 half marathon pace, cool down. I actually hit those paces today! It was only 2 miles, but that felt nice.)

I can't help but post these pictures. As a mission, we do a lot of different things. Our main mission, and the reason we exist, is to provide Christian daycare to children who are mostly from single parent households. Having this daycare means the children get two good meals (breakfast and lunch), a snack, Christian preschool education, and a love environment. The reality is that a lot of these kids would be left at home with (slightly) older brothers and sisters to take care of them, and possibly a pot of beans on the stove. We have a wonderful staff that dotes on these children and treats them like their own. Our staff are absolutely amazing. You can imagine with some of the backgrounds these kids have how much this means to the kids and their families. You could probably also imagine what tough little kiddos these are to deal with sometimes. But, our staff continually loves them, and I have the utmost respect for what they do, day in and day out.

My parents host short term missions groups who come and build houses and/or other structures that benefit the community. We do a lot of building of houses for moms from our daycare, or other especially dire cases. For example, this summer we built a house for a family with a son who had been a burn victim as a baby. He had had (and I think continues to have) many surgeries, and their living situation before was really too dirty for his healing process after surgeries. We use contacts in the community to find these families.

Very often we have people who come to our door and ask for food, which usually means leftovers from our kitchen, as we don't always have extra beans or rice or other staples to hand out. People also come looking for clothes, and we keep a clothing room that sometimes has clothes and sometimes does not. This usually depends on what we have donated from visiting groups.

Now, I don't know if you've ever worked in charity before, but we get a lot of weird stuff donated. We get a lot of really great stuff, but some stuff is weird, and sometimes it can be an adventure going through donations. Well, these glasses ended up on our table the other night. I don't know where they came from, but Stevie and I had a lot of fun with them. Creepy, no?

 They aren't prescription glasses. They aren't sunglasses.

 They're just creeper glasses.

'70s politician?

Stevie was here for four and a half months and went home to Washington on Monday. She pretended not to like me, but I know she did, and I know I liked her back. Good thing I get to see her in 4 weeks!

Hey - I added something to my blog. On the left are "My Favorite Places", the websites I like the most. On top are my three favorite running blogs. Even though Janae (hungry runner girl) hasn't run in 2 months, I still read her blog 'cause I'm nice like that. She just got the okay to run again, and she's super speedy. Actually, all three of those ladies are speedy. They have rocket jet packs. I have a wind-up motor.

Also on the list are:
**Powell's Books, my supplier of used books (Portland, heee--eeyy)
**Slate.com where I get all of my sarcastic news
**The US Track and Field website which I use to map runs when I'm in the States
**Google Earth, which I use to track runs in Mexico
**Switchfoot, my favorite band since I was 14 years old. I can't quit them.

By the way - yesterday, for the third time, someone whistled at me from inside the tortilleria. Mom says I have an admirer. Maybe the tortilleria could sponsor me. I love tortillas. 

Christmas

Run: 5.25 mi/52:55

I feel kinda like a chicken with my head cut off, but not quite. I'm still a few activities away from that, but somehow I've got a lot of things on my mind all of a sudden. Christmas presents to make, organizing Sunday School lessons for while I'm gone, numerous activities to fit in, and planning English class and my English tutoring. It seems like so little, but every once in a while something comes to mind and I think "I have to remember that". We leave here on the 19th, so everything has to be done before then.

A friend posted a link to free Christmas on facebook. Sam Billen was in a band that had a great CD a few years ago, so I was excited to listen to his Christmas music. It is available here. Just download for free!!

Weddings and Goodbyes

Yesterday's Run: 9mi/1:31:00

One of our teachers, Saidel, got married yesterday, so we put on our best clothes and enjoyed her wedding.

And the food. Homemade mole has my heart.

Yeah, I kinda destroyed that plate of mole.

 

 Yeah, that's right. She's eating mole.

Stevie is leaving us tomorrow, and I won't get mushy on this public internetz page, but I'm going to miss her. And what would a Mexican goodbye be without a mordida? Yeah, they shove your face in the cake. Fun times.

 

 Genoveva is a sneaky one!

 Then we had some friends over last night for food and games. I made homemade spaghetti, homemade bread, and homemade apple crisp. Did I take a picture of any of it? No. Oops.

We also played Pictionary.  Our team let Stevie's team win.

Ferocious

Run: 4.25mi/43:00

I wish I could tell you for sure how cold it is in the morning when I run, but these days it takes me so long to pull myself out of bed and convince myself to put on my running clothes, that I'm in too much of a hurry to walk across the parking lot to check the temperature on my parents' thermometer. How's that for a long sentence?

I should probably be more scared of things here, but the thing that scares me the most on my runs is the crazy dogs who inhabit this town. There are the scary dogs who wait until you are right in front the gate, and then bark and lunge, but those are the least scary, considering they are still behind a gate. The worst ones are the street dogs, who insist on following me, barking at me, and trying to attack/make love to Lucy.

So I've always had the habit of carrying rocks in my hands. Now, most animal lovers would agree that this is a horrible practice and I shouldn't be able to own pets because of this. But, when it's the dog or my ankle (and I've had a few come very close to my ankles), the ankle wins, and my arm lodges a rock straight at that dog. The beautiful thing, however, is that usually all you have to do is raise your arm to a dog, and they get the picture. Trained, they are.

The sunrise was beautiful this morning, and I was listening to Switchfoot sing "In this life, You're the one place I call home. In this life, You're the feeling I belong", and it was wonderful.

Baby Class

 Jose, our littlest :)

 Maricela

 Yoseline

 Andrea

 Diego

 Andrea

 Yulisa

 Yoseline

 Esteban

 Jisel (this is what I got when I said "smile!")

 

Valeria

 Edgar

 Ruben. It took some convincing to get him to pose.

And for funsies:

 Excited Ruben

 Maricela

 Yoseline

Energy Void

No run today. I was at a friend's house too late last night and opted to sleep in an extra hour and do some weights instead. I am a weenie. I'm switching my short, easy run from today to tomorrow.

Speaking of energy, I've been consulting my running friends on how they fuel themselves during long runs. Whenever I've run 8, 9, or 10 miles, I don't do anything - I don't feel a need to drink water, eat anything, or inject chocolate into my bloodstream. However, I know that longer runs are coming up, and I'm curious if eating something during a run, or just drinking Gatorade, will help long runs end better. Who knows? It's something you have test to find out. Nobody works the same, and it's all just one big trial and error. Kind of like my life :)

Luckily for me, SkinnyRunner is giving away energy supplies from ClifBar! This is exciting for me, because the prize package includes one thing (the shotbloks) that I really want to try. I never win giveaways, but this sure would be a nice one to win!

Settling In

Run: 6 mi/57:00

These tempo runs are killing me.

In happier news, it's nice to get so familiar with a town. I live in a small, agricultural town, and you see people you know everywhere. This is quite different from growing up in Portland. Stevie said to me the other day "it's like when you saw your teachers outside of school" (referring to something that happened). Well, no, because I never saw my teachers outside of school. Ever.

So it's a pleasant surprise to see people you know around town. It's a nice constant to say hello to the church's worship leader as you run in the morning, or the man I don't know, but who is always out walking his Schnauzer. Or the two ladies who run together.

To run into ladies from church at the globos (flea market), to see people after church at the papas restaurant. It's a new discovery, and I think I kinda like it.

It is incredibly cold here, but I'm trying to be thankful for the number of blankets I have on my bed and how many sweatshirts I own (that I can layer on top of each other). I'm also trying to think warm, happy thoughts about what it was like to be sitting in 98 degree weather, as demonstrated in my profile picture up there in the corner. Oh, summer in the States.