Running in Tegus

Last weekend, Marvin said, "Hey, I heard about a road race in Tegucigalpa next weekend. It's 13 kilometers. How about you spend this week training, and then you can go run on Sunday..."

I was instantly in, though my exercise routine my first five weeks in Honduras has consisted entirely of using an old stairmaster, playing soccer, and doing yoga. There is really no "good" place to run here...the town is small and the highway can be pretty dangerous. And did I mention it's ridiculously hot?

They found me a running partner for the week though, and we did the best we could in terms of training. One day we took a loop around Pespire, twice we ran alongside the highway to the bridge shortly before Flores, and we took a trip running up the river washout to get to El Terrero.

Needless to say, I was totally not in shape to run an 8-mile road race, and i missed out on my typical pre-race oatmeal and peanut butter breakfast, but I did finish, and i did run the whole way. The race was in a very nice part of town, the area (finishing near Santa Lucia), being big on tourism, had great scenery.

The event was unorganized, not surprising, but cost the equivalent of $1 to sign up, justifying a splurge on a strawberry protein shake at the end to bring my weekend entertainment expenses to a total of $2.50 (that's the one thing I don't miss about being in New York right now...). There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 participants from various parts of Central America, aaaaand me.

There was no pre-race aerobic class, like the race I ran in Argentina last summer (well, it was winter there..ummmm, last June!), but it was still an experience. Volunteers handed out the infamous plastic water bags at various intervals; we ran along the highway, and they didn't stop traffic, so at times it felt like another warrior dash route (the dash we did a couple years ago in Minnesota had a car junk yard where you had to climb/jump over cars). The one thing that everyone neglected to tell me was that this was more than a road race, this was literally running 8 miles straight up a mountain! Overall though, it made for an adventure this weekend...and it's something I'd definitely check out again next year.