Running Wild

Running is popular in Santiago. Every day you see people running from traffic, pushy street vendors, and, on occasion, the law. Considering they all stay up so late, I’m sure everyone is running behind.

I love that I have the opportunity to run. I feel safe jogging on the beautiful tree-lined paths that stretch down the middle of the busy, polluted roads. There are plenty of stray, flea-infested, rabid dogs to protect me (perrovagos). Stopping every 500 feet to cross another street gives me ample opportunity to rest, retie my shoes, and write a few postcards. The tree limbs are all manicured so that an average 5’4” Chilean can confidently walk underneath. Despite the crick in my neck, I haven’t run into any problems.

I also found two friends with which to run: littlecathytalksalot and lookslikebarbierunstoofast. Both are Norteamericanos who keep me on my toes. While they could never replace my friends back home (shewhorunswithoutpartner, onewhorunswhennotinjured and doesnotchatpat), they do feed my addiction.

We all have a lot to keep us moving here. I ran my mouth off about wanting to do a race and am now committed to doing the Buenos Aires Marathon at the end of October. Running through Ciervo’s mind is which triathlon he will do here in 2007. Margarita has started running her mouth, a lovely pre-teen trait for our 7 year old. Sarafina had the runs but seems to be better now.

To train, Ciervo and I joined a triathlon group called FullRunners. With all that I am eating, the term describes me perfectly. I chase them on Saturday mornings and Ciervo keeps his tires pumped up for Sunday bike rides. They smile at us when we arrive and seem to say kind Spanish things. But again with the language barrier: perhaps they are not a training group at all, but are just running to get away from us.

Sisma