Swazi Running Club?

It's been a little over five months since we arrived and just barely three since we were deposited at our site and I have finally started running! I decided, for motivational purposes, to follow a half marathon training guide that was given to us in our pile of Peace Corps manuals. I've never used a schedule before while training, relying primarily on my own ability to push my self when needed, however this wasn't working here and I needed some assistance. The schedule is 14 weeks long at 6 days a week. Four days are normal runs, one is sprinting and the other is cross-training. This is my second week. I am mostly using it to get me back into a routine, but it's been fun to change it up a bit and have days of just sprinting, etc.

Our neighbors weren't sure what to think of me running back and forth in front of their houses and never really going anywhere. I tried to explain to them that I was practicing speed.

Everyone comments on me running now and I have even had some requests from a few young girls to take them out for a run.

Yesterday evening, once it started to cool down, I headed off to find them and go for our first group run. It was hilarious. They were so excited that it took them 20 minutes to get dressed in, what looked like toddler clothes - just a little too tight around the bums and barely coming down far enough to cover their tummies - and find a handful of tattered shoes that they passed around until everyone was happy with how their pair fit. In the end, I had a good crew of four girls and two boys.

We hurried up the hill from their homestead to the main dirt road to begin our run. We had decided to run down the hill to say hello to 'Mandla' (lewis) and then back up the road to their house. It was probably only a mile +, but I was scared the really skinny ones might not make it. They loved it! They wanted to race me, they made sure we RAN back into the homestead so Gogo (grandma) could see them, I showed them how to stretch, we made a date to go again on Wednesday and when I was leaving they said "Ncobile, thank you for coming to exercise us". I think I might have started a new running club! Next time I'll have to have Lewis take a picture.

PS.....FORGOT TO ADD OUR READING LIST.

Ruby is reading: The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (not what it sounds like :)

Lewis is reading: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen