"Running 26.2 miles from their problems" - The Onion

Anyone read The Onion? I used to, then I got busy. Today, I learnt (thanks Mike) that they had an article about Kenya entintled "Running 26.2 miles from their problems." I guess Kenya is the country of the week and they have "factoids" about the country. All is about running and is untrue but really funny. The stuff they have on the clickable onions on the map of Kenya is hilarious. I was in tears ... you click on the title above or here http://www.theonion.com/content/atlas/ and see it for yourself.

Quick note

Yea Ya, its been a while. I bet you missed me. I have been busy.

I thought I would share something with you. A story about an evolutionary biologist being kicked out of a creationist film ... one of the guys with him was Richard Dawkins. I thought that was interesting. I also added this guy's blog, Pharyngular to my bookmarks. I'll let you find out who those two are.

Columbia 10 mile race

Last week, I wrote about trying to take the "express lane" to getting in a good racing shape. So, I feel like I should tell you that I did what I usually dont do again today. I raced ... no, not a 3.1 mile/5K race or 10K, but ... a 10 mile race! I raced without any base milage, without any workouts under my belt, without warming up, without pants or long tights and it was some 30 degrees Fahrenheit! I did the Columbia 10 mile club challenge.




Honestly, I did not think I was going to race until about 5 minutes before the start of the race although I was prepared to race. I had a million reasons NOT to race but since it was a team event, I really did not want to be that guy.

I was really unprepared for the race. I did not even know where it was (had a general idea). I usually look up where my races are and do some homework on how the races had fared the previous years. I didnt do that for this race.

My friend, Ryan a.k.a Elf (the one guy who has really made a positive impact in holding Baltimore running in one piece) warned me that the course was tough. But I was not prepared to climb all the mountains they had there. You know how they say that for every uphill there a downhill?I dont remember seeing any downhills. I am sure they were there but I was probably busy recovering from all the torturous climbs that came prior to them. I was able to hold myself in one piece and ended up running about 6 minutes faster than I thought I was going to run. I did it in 54:34. I promised myself to be in a better shape in four weeks. Ryan wrote a race recap.

Traveling the Americas with an ass?

(Picture courtesy of NYTimes).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/world/americas/23tinaco.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

I just finished reading a story in NYTimes about this guy, Jon, who is traveling the Americas with nothing but an ass. The ass is named Judas and no one seems to know how that name came about. I have seen and read crazy things, but this one is new. I would love to meet this guy.

Apparently, he started from Portland, OR, walked south. Ended up somewhere in Tamaulipas state in nothern Mexico. Here, he learned how to milk and was given a donkey. He and the Judas the donkey have been travelling for the past two years heading South and are now somewhere in Venezuela. He is a biochemist (a crazy one nonetheless, I think this makes me look saner?) and has been mistaken for an athlete, a missionary and ... a spy! I am surprised no one has robbed his ass, all pun intended! But one thing I noticed is, Mexican people are nice. I agree.

I'll never run that long again

Have you ever pushed your body to the limits? That point where you are almost surpassing your tensile strength? Depending on how you look at it, there are tons of ways you can answer this question. Maybe you have been pushed to some emotional limits or physical limits or intellectual limits or xyz limits.

Many a times, such events are a consequence of our quest for superiority over something. For example, maybe you just want to prove to yourself that you can get that which you want, regardless of what it takes.

Why am I saying this? Let me tell you about an experience I had recently.

At this time of the year, I usually run moderate milage in preparation for the upcoming season. Since graduating from the NCAA type of seasons (cross country in the fall followed by indoor track in the winter and then outdoor track in the spring), I have adopted the single season mentality. I just get myself ready for road races and anything that has $$ and fun. Road racing "starts" (there are always road races all over the US) around March for me.

The Mexico saga threw my schedule off. As such, I did not really train much for about two months which means I am out of shape. At the time when I was dealing with my visa issues, I never really thought of staying in running shape. Well, except that one time when I took my running clothes to Ciudad Juarez, only to be stuck there without a visa. That "strangled" my attempt to maintain my running shape.

You might be wondering what I meant by moderate milage. Let me clarify that a bit. Last year at about this time, I was averaging about 50 miles per week. My longest run was 19 miles. This year, my average milage is 5 miles per week and my longest run had been 8 miles. I call what I did last year moderate milage.

Well, I need to get in shape quick. There are so many upcoming races that I want to do but for those of you who know me, I dont just go to races to run. I go to compete. It is fun that way. This means I have to be in shape or I cant compete.

This past Saturday, I decided to take the express lane to getting in shape. It also happens to be an express lane to getting injured, depending on what you do during and after your run. I decided that I would increase my long run from 8 miles to ... take a guess ... 2 hours. Two-hour runs usually range from 17-20 miles depending on what shape I am in and what I am trying to accomplish from the run.

I was a little skeptical of my run and I was afraid I wasnt going to finish it. But I did convince myself that I would not run any faster than 7-minute pace and that I would slow down if need be. I hit the first mile in 7:20 and was at mile four at 28 minutes. I wasnt feeling great, but I knew it usually takes me about that long to warm up especially when it is cold. For the next 50 minutes, I felt like a champ! I was cruising and feeling great. At this point, I had an option of heading home which would have taken me 15 minutes. This would have put me a little over 1.5 hours total. Since I was feeling good, I decided to add a 25 minute loop. Finishing this loop and heading home would have given me exactly two hours of running, just as I had planned.

I finished the loop feeling like I owned it. I almost did some sprints in between my run just to celebrate how I was feeling.

Turns out, my body could only handle 10 extra minutes. I didnt know this then but I could tell going slightly uphill that things were going to be rough at some point. For those of you who know where I live, you have seen that there is a 1-mile climb to my house. It is not that big of an elevation but it is one that will deliver the final punch when it needs to.

I only made it two minutes into the hill. It usually takes me about 5-7 minutes to complete it. I couldnt move my legs, my head started spinning, I started swaying to the sides ... I had never really hit the wall in my life.

(For those of you who dont know what hitting the wall means, watch the video below. Even elite athletes, like marathoner Kayoko Fukushi of Japan hit the wall).



Finally, I stopped. I walk home. For the first time in my life, I walked home from a run. No, I did not jog, I WALKED. I a little over a half a mile to go. I couldnt imagine myself face planting and possibly inflicting more harm than those I had already caused. My total milage was 17.26 miles for the 1 hour 55 minutes that I was out running. I swore never to run that long again but as I write this, I know that in two weeks I will be doing the same thing. Only this time, I will actually go for two hours non stop.

Here is a Google Earth capture of my long run route. Can you see the disconnect from the start point and the finish point? Click on the image to see the route I followed.

Long time no see

Hey. Its been a while. I am still alive!

The artwork above is by my favorite Kenyan cartoonist Kham. It doesnt have anything to do with the ongoing crisis, but it speaks loudly about it. It reads ["Welcome to Kenya, No worries ... (but we might choke you? or we choke chicken? Well, the government does choke everything)]

I have been meaning to write something here. I am thinking of doing a weekly type of thing. My friend Kevin said I should have a weekly write-up where I present life through my eyes. He called it kipservations. I doubt it is going to be anything exciting on a weekly basis but there are some things that happen in my presence that I usually dont tell. But now that you (the blog) are my best friend, I will tell you some of these things.

Anyway, life after Mexico has been good. The entire Mexico trip turned out to be almost pointless since I am cancelling my homecoming a.k.a surprise family visit to Kenya. I cannot afford to be a victim of police brutality and all the hatred going on there. My younger brother has already been victimized. We still havent recovered from that and I think that is enough for now.

Yea, so all's been well, except soon after I got back from Mexico, I got a cold that was followed by an ear infection. I am finishing my atibiotics dose in two days time. It wasnt that bad, but I should tell you that if you yell out really loud (do it now) I cannot hear you. But its getting better, except I got every single side effect mentioned in the package. I never take drugs, so my buddy must be pissed off about it.

I have also converted to Linux operating system and soon getting rid of Windows XP. Linux is entirely free/open source. The learning curve is steep, but no one ever said learning was easy. Its like learning a new language, except there is no one to talk to but yourself. Yea, I am nuts. I like soliloquy ... but this involves a keyboard and a terminal. What type of soliloquy is this?

I also wanted to post a link to Thao Nguyen's podcast of my last trip to Mexico. She takes great pictures. She converted some of the pictures into a video type of thing with me narrating a few things here and there. Check it out here http://thaophotography.com/portfolio.html. I had never heard myself speak ... what an accent!

Kenya is ... Hell

Kenya needs help. I just talked to my family not too long ago to find out how things are going. I had been refraining from doing that for fear of hearing the worst, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

Two Members of Parliament from the Opposition Party were killed within days of each other. One of them was caused by the police and the other, the police are calling it "murder," but the opposition is calling it an attempt by the government to reduce their number in the parliament.

The situation is so tense there. I remember when there was some tension in 1992 and 1997. Houses were burnt then and people were shot with arrows. There was not so much hacking and stoning since every tribe was against the other. Now, all the tribes are against the kikuyu, the president's tribe. The kikuyus are now retaliating against the kalenjin, the luo and the luhya who are the large supporters of the opposition.

A patient, with an arrow lodged in his head, awaits treatment at a hospital in Kenya. (Picture Courtesy of Reuters)

The one place that hasnt seen such chaos is Kitale. Thats where my parents live. I dont know how long this will last. It seems as though the calm there is due to the fact that there is a mixture of almost all the tribes. There is not a place with one-tribe concentration ... that is a stretch though because concentration is a relative term.

Eldoret is a different case. That is where one MP got killed today. My grandmother and my extended family live around there. I wasnt too far from the 1997 chaos. But I hear that was nothing compared to what is going on now.

More Photos

Boundary of the United States of America and Limite de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Ever noticed how other countries have signs that say "Please come again" or "Thank you for visiting" or "Country X welcomes you?" Yea, I didnt see that when I left America, when I came back, then left again, then came back ... they dont care whether you leave or not, but they will try to keep you out! (Picture Courtesy of Thao Nguyen)

I had never seen Mexican Homer. I was so excited that I really wanted to watch The Simpsons in Spanish. When I got a chance, they had regular Homer who was talking in Spanish. I understood nothing even though they had English captions. That wasnt as exciting as I expected. The Mexican Homer does not sound anything like the Homer I know. He didnt even say "doh!" unless there is a Spanish version of that?

Flying over Dallas Fort Worth at night. I tried to take a picture and got this ...

So I took a video.

Visa Photos

Here are some photos of my visas. I promised I was going to post them.


This is my old F-1 student visa. It expired in 2005, but since I maintained my student status, the expiry date did not matter. You have to renew your visa when you leave the country and need to re-enter. You also need to go out of the country to renew your visa. Some people have been asking me why I couldnt just go to Washington DC and renew it. That is not the case.

In this blog ((Barely) Coming to America ...), I did mention that my visa was "CANCELLED WITHOUT PREJUDICE" as you can see in the picture above. I also mentioned that they had the wrong cancellation date of Jan 08, 2007 instead of Jan 08, 2008! That indicated that I had been in the country illegally for one year! It is probably going to give me some problems in the future too.

Here is my new F-1 student visa that the US consulate at Ciudad Juarez issued me. Notice how it says I am from "Baltimote, MD." It sounds like a cool city, but I think I'd rather just be in Baltimore. I hope this doesnt give me problems in the future. Also, notice that it is only valid for two years as opposed to my old visa above which was valid for five years.

Am I back?

Alvaro was 15 minutes late! I wasnt in a hurry, but the wait seemed a little too long. The trip to Zaragoza Bridge wasnt unique except the meter in Alvaro's taxi read $32.xx. That is the most I have ever paid for a taxi and the knowledge that I had to pay that same amount on my way back was ... well, lets just leave it at that.

I have stopped expecting people at the DHS to be nice or even anywhere near that. The first officer that called me to the window was really nice, but then he had to leave for a shift elsewhere. The guy that came in after him was from another world. I forgot to get a copy of my parole/deferred inspection Form I-546 and had gotten an OK to get a copy from the first officer. The guy that came after he left for his shift did not even want to listen to why I needed a copy, but atleast he gave me my passport back. He then said, "You know you cant come back without a visa, right?"

Thao was with me, so we called Alvaro from the other side of the Zaragosa Port of Entry. He showed up some 10 minutes later and drove us to the US Consulate in Juarez. It was quite far judging by $$$ displayed on the meter. Well, I was also anxious to get there and get things over with.

Since I had done this before, it was easy finding my way to the non-immigrant visa section. I was in there for less than 15 minutes. They gave me a green piece of paper that told me to come back at 2:00pm. It was about 10:45am. By the time I came out, Thao was gone for a walk or something and was going to show up some 45 minutes later as we had agreed.

I decided to take a walk ... there was not much to see around the Consulate. I had seen everything three weeks ago. So I came back to wait for Thao. Soon, she showed up and we decided to look for a place to eat. Some guy pointed a general direction to "The Mall." It turned out to be some strip mall and it wasnt what I expected.

Soon afterwards, we were sitting in some place eating a burrito. I have eaten burritos for five days straight now ... I am maxed out.

At 1:45pm, I was standing at the Consulate's gate. The security guard turned me away and told me to come at 2:00pm. So I crossed the street and waited from the opposite side. At 1:57pm, I was standing at the gate again. He had closed the gate as there was no one waiting there anymore. So he signaled me in, but I waited until he came a slid the gate to the side. I didnt want to do that.

Some 3 minutes later, I had my passport back with a two-year visa and my Form I-20 attached to it. The wait is over. I have my "student status" documents back!

I am currently editing photos of these documents and will post them soon.