After today, I am convinced I have a loose screw somewhere. I decided to run a 10K this morning. First 10k race I have ever run, although surely not my last! However, this was not your normal 10k. No, this race was mostly through the jungle. And I am not talking path through the jungle, I am talking rocky, twisty, vine-covered jungle. At one point, I grabbed a branch two seconds before my head would have gone smashing into it. and it has been raining so much here that it was slippery. But boy was it a fun race! and it ended pretty well too!

So here’s out the morning went. Woke up at 4:30am. Ate breakfast. A wonderfully amazing couple named Ben and Rebecca picked me up at 5:30am to take me to the race. We get there, get signed in, and then the announce starts giving instructions. First thing he says is, well, it is definitely longer than a 10k. Great, I think..not only am I running through the jungle, but now I am running more than 6.2 miles. So we start at 6:30am and run uphill for the first 30 minutes. Literally straight up a hill. But trust me, that was the best part of the run. We make our first turn and I get lost! Leave it to me..thank goodness I only got lost for about 2 mins and turned around and found the correct path through the jungle. I would say half the course was through the jungle. It was tough-and so slick I walked quickly through most it. Then a gravel path that was again straight uphill. More jungle, only this time going downhill. Only thing worse than running uphill. Running downhill esp. when its wet. You have to tiptoe down to avoid slipping and falling flat on your back! When I finally made it back to the road I have never been more happy to run on concrete in my life! Finally something I could pick up some speed on. However, I was also very tired at this point. But I eventually found and passed the one runner I had been pacing with and ended up coming in second for the women!! Best part about it-I won $50! and I have never felt better about accomplishing a race.

I did it! I ran over 6 miles through the jungle and while it was hard, it was BEAUTIFUL! I will have to try to find some pictures so you can see exactly what I am talking about!

So one race down, many more to go! Next weekend-easy 4.7 mile run up and hill and back down!! My new friends Ben and Rebecca are going to pick me up and we are all going to do it!

I spent part of the day Saturday at a resort for training for this YEAH program I am the advisor for. I got to bring my 8 students with me and Anna, the third grade teacher came along as well. My students did excellent. I was SO proud of them! They had some really really good ideas for how to improve the health and fitness in our school. And they got pretty excited about the project. Not to mention they fed us some amazing food and gave us some really good information. It was one of the first days I can say I truly am starting to love my job. Yes, I have always liked it, but Saturday was just a cool opportunity to see some of my students in a different environment and to get to do something a little more fun! As much as I enjoy planning lessons and writing tests, I think this project will be a nice break and give me a chance to really mentor and work with some of my students in a more one-on-one basis. Plus it will benefit the school as a whole because being healthy is always a good thing!

I have wanted to run one for awhile. I started training before I left for Saipan, but sorta fell off the course in the midst of moving and settling in here. But I have been running almost everyday and have gotten to the point where I can run 4 miles easily and ran 6 the other day. So I found a training program and started yesterday! I don’t necessarily have a specific race in mind, but there are half marathons every other weekend here so it shouldn’t be a problem to find one to run when I am finished with the training. I plan on doing one in early January-they have a winter festival of runs. Which makes me laugh because there is no winter here..although I have heard that by January the rain has stopped and the weather is beautiful. Sunny, not so hot, and perfect I have been told. Seems like a good time to run my first half! And Saipan just seems like the perfect place to do it..so much of this experience has been about getting out of my comfort zone and trying new things..why not tackle 13.1 miles? 🙂

Never a dull moment in my life-even when I move to the other side of the world on a small island, I can always find plenty to do! So I have been named supervisor for a project called YEAH-Youth Engaging in Advancing Health. I will be in charge of my school in promoting healthy activity and eating. The project is being funded by the Public School System and I am pretty excited about it. I have gathered myself a little team of 10 5th and 6th graders to help me and we will be working all year on this. First order of business, I get to go to training! I will be spending my Saturday at a resort eating and learning all about this project. It will be fun to meet some more people and get some tools to help my students and school. I have to admit I am pretty excited. I think it will be a very fun project to work on!