patagonia rocks

The day after the marathon Tom, Patrick, Kirby, and myself headed south to Patagonia and the lakeside town of Bariloche, Argentina. It is beautiful.

We spent the next five days playing in the mountains and lakes of Patagonia, ate our share of delicious Argentinian steaks, drank a few bottles of their excellent wine, and even made it over to Chile to see the Pacific.

After Pat and Kirby flew off to the states, Tom and I headed for the mountains where we've been camping for the last week. More awesomeness. It's spring here and snowy still, and we're, as normal, mildly underprepared in terms of gear. No worries though, we've kept warm enough and have been living high on the fresh air and spectacular scenery that surrounds us.

Sorry for the lack of genuine photos -we don't have the camera/computer hook-ups here to let you see all the fun we've been up to. Soon enough.

Here are some of the views we've been looking at (thanks to others' websites).

the mountains around Bariloche.

and the lakes. So perty.

We spent last night in this little haven in the mountains. Snowy and cozy and could've stayed for a month, but we've got friends to meet up with and so much more to see.

Tomorrow we're headed to Mendoza, Argentina, land of cheap and excellent wine and more pretty mountains. From there we'll head back into Bolivia to play with friends we left behind and see the western side we've yet to see.

holy $@#% we ran a marathon

Who woulda thunk that Anna would ever do something so crazy. Tom, sure, but me? Phew. I can't even believe it. But we did it, all of it, and it was awesome.


Here's a play by play of how it all went down:


7:00 am, Sunday morning. It's raining and 55 out. Perfect for a long run. 5,000 athletes gather, cheering, pumped, ready to race. We count down from ten to one in Spanish and then cross the start line in a crowded pack.


Mile 1: Energized, feeling the thrill of starting something magnificent.


Mile 2: From the mile markers, realize our nike+ipod pedometers are mis-calibrated. Laugh about it for a minute, then realize this means that all through our training we've been running a lot shorter runs than we'd thought we'd been (they're about 20% off), and that our times are about a minute longer per mile than we'd thought. Oh. That means our longest training run was actually only about 16 miles, instead of 20. Hmm. This could be hard. Whadya do.


Mile 3: Tom rolls his ankle in a pothole. He limps for a while, but he's okay, keeps trucking.


Mile 9: One-third of the way, feel awesome and am enjoying the race and smiling all the way. Think to myself, I'll look back on this and remember this part the best. Buenos Aires is a beautiful city, and the energy of the runners is contagious.


Mile 13: Half way. We've been running 2:20, longer than we thought the first half would take. Of course our ipod said we'd already done 15, in which case our times would have been pretty good by our standards -a personal best for me at least.


Mile 14: Tom speeds up and pulls ahead of me. I think he's slightly crazy but am filled with admiration.


Mile 16: I slip on a banana peel at one of the water and fruit stations. Almost pulled a hammy, but did no harm, and had a good laugh with some nearby runners about slipping on banana peels.


Mile 18: Start to feel my legs. Not bad, but I know that they're starting to get tired. Eight miles to go yet, but with eighteen behind me, I know I'll make it.


Mile 20: Fight the urge to eject fluids from both ends. Feeling a little queasy.


Mile 21: Catch up to Tom again, he's gimping but still rockin.


Mile 22: My ipod says, "congratulations, you just completed your goal of 26.2 miles!" Want to stomp on it, but don't have the energy.


Miles 23-26: Pure hell. At least we were in hell together.


Mile 26: The finish line is in sight! We give it our all, sped on by the crowd's cheers.


Mile 26.2: Tom and I cross the finish line together, hand in hand. 4:49:57. Done. Thank god. My ipod tells me I just ran 31.4 miles. Sweet.


Overall, the race was awesome, and I'm so glad we were able to do it. Kirby and Patrick ran all over town to cheer us on at various points and take our pictures. They are so cool to be here for this, and their support meant so much. Now done, I'm feeling 20% proud, 30% grateful, 10% sore, and 40% glad it's over. It was great. I'm not sure I'll ever do it again, but it was really something special. My legs are so tired, but my eight toenails held up like champions, and only one ankle bothered me a little bit in the middle of the race. We both came out in good shape, no chaffed nipples or thighs, no knee problems, not even a blister. Granted, we have to use our hands to climb the stairs up to our hotel room, and we're walking kind of funny, but I feel great overall. I didn't even do my signature post-long run barf. Amazing.


An enormous thanks to all of you who sent us your love and energy during the race and sponsored us with Karma Miles. I thought about each of you through the miles, recalling the good times we've had together and thinking sweet thoughts about your awesome contributions to your communities. You were my inspiration, and you rock. Keep up the good work.


Now we will reward ourselves with delicious Argentinean steaks and good wine and beer and a week or two in Patagonia, the prettiest place I know. I hope we can will our legs into doing some good hikes. Those mountains are calling.

we're doin it!

We said adios to Bolivia yesterday afternoon and flew into Buenos Aires, city of thirteen million and host of the marathon that we have been training for and looking forward to/dreading for the past four months.

It's on.

This morning we picked up Kirby and Patrick, Tom's dad and brother, at the airport after their thirteen hour flight. They came down to Agentina to cheer us on for the race and join us for a week of adventuring in Patagonia. We just picked up our race numbers, and Pat brought us some gu to eat during the race and body glide to rub on our toes/thighs/nipples. That's all you really need to run a marathon, right?

Our training schedule was fairly disrupted by the evacuation out of Bolivia, so I don't think we're in quite as prime condition as we could be, but we're both feeling good about it and looking forward to tackling this beast tomorrow. Tom's goal is to finish in four hours. Mine is to finish. If I can beat Katie Holmes' time of 5:30, I'll consider myself a super star.

I've gotten so many supporters for the Karma miles -an awesome array of commitments from friends and family members to do something that will help their communities. I love it. Thank you, all of you, for supporting me through this and stepping up to make this world a sweeter one. You are my inspiration.

Well, off to eat an enormous plate of pasta and drink another liter of water. Wish us luck!

so long, oki

After three weeks in Peru, we were really fortunate to get to go back to Okinawa for one last week. It was hard, but not so hard as I thought it would be. Seeing friends one last time, getting some closure on our projects, and saying a proper farewell just what i needed.

Here's how we spent our final days in Oki:

we squeezed all our loved ones

had one last great afternoon with my mom's club

threw some good hoe downs with our catholic buds (this one was an old people and infants party)

spent a lot of hours with friends, enjoying their company. It was tough explaining why we have to leave early, but everyone was so understanding

did everything we could to wrap up our projects

(Tom, on our very last day in Bolivia, bought the lab for our water cooperative -yippeeeee!)

spent one lsat hour waiting outside the mayor's office, then an hour in it wondering, as usual, what on earth he's talking about

gave our friends our bikes and furniture and clothes and forks and spoons and books and everything else in the house that could be put to use

burned all the papers we'd collected over the last year and a half (the peace corps doesn't skimp on manuals)

had our last supper with our japanese mom and dad, Tomoko and Gorge

i will miss these feasts!

threw another party to celebrate marie's 27th bday, my thirtieth, and my and tom's fifth year anniversary

emptied the house and piled up all the things to take with us or ship home

And off we went.

And so begins the next adventure. . .

Back in Oki

Beivenidos a Bolivia

Two days ago we arrived by crossing the Bolivian/Peruvian border at Lake Titicaca. A good phrase to sum up this border crossing experience would be “goat rodeo” with multiple police, guards, and army peoples directing us to several buildings where we were lectured on how we didn’t have the proper stamps or paper work and how we couldn’t enter the country wearing baseball caps and how we shouldn’t of elected bush etc… but we made it across (all that good karma paid off) and now we are in Okinawa with beautiful weather, our friends and a whole house worth of stuff to pack, sell and give away.

This is Birdy with all of our luggage, now imagine about a three hundred of these things trying to move around in a space the size of a tennis court. Lots of fun.

This is such an odd chapter in our story. It is a plot twist I always thought might happen since our arrival to this turbulent country but a twist we were not prepared for. We are still planning on what to do with this recently acquired “free time” and some great ideas have taken shape. In no specific order: hike the AT or PCT, travel South America, work on sail boats in the Caribbean, become a pirate in the Caribbean, start that baby thing that most of our friends seem to be doing, stay in Bolivia and finish out our projects. My personal favorite is traveling and making it back to Charlottesville for Christmas. Ho ho ho.

We are still doing the marathon in Buenos Aires on October 12, 2008. Anna is missing two toenails from previous training and we are a bit out of shape but with any luck we will finish the race under eight hours and with all eighteen toenails intact. My dad and brother Pat will be at the race and will undoubtedly take a wonderful picture of Anna and me crawling, walking, and or limping across the finish line

Vamos a ver. Paz y amor por todos, tomas.