8K Mercado Regional

Yesterday I ran a race in La Plata, Argentina. It was my first race in a few months and my first one in the southern hemisphere.

Pre-Race
While I have not been training for any particular distance, I have been running more regularly in the last 2 weeks since we got into our own house. I learned of this race just a week ago and was not sure I could still do a good 5 miles. I went out last Tuesday at an easy pace to test the distance. I enjoyed a nice casual 6 mile run and knew that a 5 mile race would be something I wanted to do. On Thursday I just did some shorter intervals. That was my specific pre-race training.

Circuit
The race was held at a large fruit and vegetable market. I thought we would just start there and then run through the neighborhood. But we actually did the whole race right on the market grounds. They set up a 2 Km track that wound back and forth through the huge quonset hut type buildings. We did 4 laps. This was not my first time to do a multi-lap race, but this one doubled back on itself so often it was pretty easy to watch the front pack as they fought for position. The track allowed the runners to also be spectators.

Times
The winner finished the race in 25:20. That is not a screaming fast pace, but at 5:06 per mile, that is a lot faster than I was running. The last runner finished in 54:46, which is still a very respectable 11:02 per mile. I remember when I started running that 11 minutes per mile was a goal to be achieved.

Not knowing the running community here, I was concerned when we got started that I would be the last runner. It seemed like there were some very serious competitors in the crowd. I was pleased when the race started to know that there were some people behind me and I passed a few on every lap of the course. I ended up in 127th place out of 152 runners.

My time was 45:03, which is a PR. I was in 11th place for the 40-44 year old men. With the exception of the first and last kilometers, which were my fastest and second fastest respectively, my split times were almost identical. They only varied by a few seconds from one Km to the next.

Observations
The race was held at 3:00 in the afternoon. That was an odd time. I am not sure if it was because the market area was busy until then or because they just wanted an afternoon race.

Because of the timing of the race I was able to stick around for the awards which I have rarely been able to do. The winners got a nice fruit and vegetable basket (plus some cash I think). These weren’t your typical little fruit baskets though. They were about 2 foot by 4 foot at their base and packed full of things for the winners. I guess that is one of the perks of having the race sponsored by the fruit and veggie market.

At the end of the race there were bananas and oranges available. In Mexico many of the races would have fruit after the race too. But there I almost always had to get my race bib marked in some way to show that I had already gotten my food. The concern (a very real one) is that not just the runners, but the spectators would come over and fill their pockets full of the “free” food. When people were not guarding the tables closely enough I have seen spectators filling up purses and bags of food that was reserved for the runners.

However, at the race yesterday you were free to take as much as you wanted and there was nothing to prevent a spectator from taking food from the runners. No one was loading up their pockets to feed their extended family. I also did not see any spectators taking from the food that was obviously for the runners. The difference between the way the food was handled here and in Mexico is a difference in mentality and level of respect for others.

I enjoyed my introduction to racing here in Argentina. I am afraid I won’t be able to do as much racing here as I did in Mexico though. Like Mexico, most of the races I have seen advertised are on Sunday. It is a rare treat to have a Saturday race. But in Mexico we would run races early to avoid the heat. That is not as much of a concern here. On Sundays in Mexico our church services started at 11 and most races were at 7 or 8 in the morning. It was easy to be done by 9 and cleaned up for church. Here in La Plata most of the races I have seen advertised start at 9 on Sundays and church starts at 10. I will take part in all the races I can, but I just won’t be able to race as much as I have in the past.

My bike is a tax write off

A wrecked bicycleOne of your first big purchases when you reach the mission field is your vehicle. Well, we have dropped $450 Argentine pesos ($120 USD) on 2 bikes to get the family from point A to point B. I was pleased to find out that these purchases are tax deductible. Of course, these are not high-end new bikes. There are repairs that will be involved. Fortunately they are cheap, and deductible too. I wonder if I can write off my food because that is the fuel that makes my bike work.

Along with the neighborhood markets, we also have neighborhood services available. Just 5 blocks from the house is a bike repair place. We are already on a first name basis in there.

So far the repairs have been:

  • Flat on my wife’s bike patched
  • Axle on my bike rebuilt
  • Wife’s rear wheel straightened (after she spent time riding through a rough ditch)
  • My brakes adjusted
  • My axle adjusted again

Repairs that are imminent:

  • Wife’s front tire needs to be replaced
  • Her front wheel has 2 broken spokes as well as several loose ones
  • A need for carrying bags/basket on my bike

I will get some tools and do most of the work myself. I have a nice spoke wrench sitting in the drawer of my room in Florida. But that does not help alot here. The pastor we are working with recommended a place that will have a good selection of bike specific tools that I may visit tomorrow.

The next big adventure is to take my bike on the train to get myself downtown with the bike and then I can get anywhere I need to go. The buses don’t have a way to tote your bike with you, so you either have to ride into town (we live outside of town by a couple of miles) or take the bike on the train.

We will keep looking for bikes for our kids, but so far we have not found any good deals. I am nervous about our daughter (6 years old) using a bike to actually go anywhere, but it would be a great help if our 120+ pound son had a bike of his own to ride instead of riding on the back of mine.

The Argentina Chronicles

We have finally gotten settled into a house. Now I have no excuse to not generate some content on the blog and in other spaces. I had been using the excuse that I didn’t have a routine time to work on the blog. But all excuses are out of the way. It is just a matter of doing it.

Fireplace

We have moved into our new house for the next couple of years. It is a nice place. Very rustic feeling. There is a huge fireplace that I just can’t wait for it to get cold enough to use. The stairs are made from rough cut wood, but sanded and waxed to a nice slippery shine. So slippery that our daughter lost her footing on the last four steps and landed smack on her back and slid the rest of the way down. When she hit the bottom of the stairs her legs crumpled under her and she immediately fell forward doing a faceplant right onto the tile floor.

We are getting around with bikes, taxis, buses and shoe leather. It is nice living in a place that has good, cheap public transportation. We may eventually get a car, but at this point I think we are going to be just fine without one.

There are neighborhood markets for just about anything we need on a regular basis. Wal-Mart is also just a 5 minute bike ride from the house. But if the Wal-Mart trip is going to generate more bags of stuff than will fit in the basket on front of the bike, we have to walk 10-15 minutes to get there and take a cab back home with the loot.

We can be in downtown La Plata in about 20 minutes for $0.50 on the local buses.

We really enjoy the church we are working in. The pastor will probably become a lifelong friend. Even though he is about 10 years younger than we are, we have learned quite a bit from him and his preaching. It is an honor to be able to assist him in the ministry God has used him to start.

We are still getting some basic things together. Trying to get all the utilities worked out has been my big challenge this week. One of the terms of the rental contract was that we would put all utilities in our name. I still have one more to go. When I was at that office the other day there  was a line of 58 people which caused me to walk out the door and try again when I can get there first thing in the morning. Friday will be the day I attempt to make that trip.

So it has begun, our life in Argentina. I look forward to telling you all about it.

Missionary Talks 73: Travis Snode

Missionary Talks 73 is an interview with Travis Snode, missionary in Northern Ireland. Travis is a missionary I met through Twitter. I am not sure how we got connected originally, but Monday I was thinking out loud on Twitter about how I have 4 potential interviews in the wings, but no one had confirmed a time to actually record a phone call. I figured I would look through my Twitter followers/followees and see if I had a missionaries I could interview from there. Beings that they are on Twitter I figured they would be the connected type of people who could do an interview quickly.

I found Travis’ name and looked up his website. Come to find out, while I did not know him personally, it seems that we had a lot of mutual friends in the ministry. I sent him a quick email and he replied positively about doing an interview. When we got on Skype together I asked him what he knew about Missionary Talks. Turns out he had never even heard of Missionary Talks previous to my email. That is not unusual for the missionaries I interview, but the fact that he was gung-ho about doing the interview with me made me think he probably was a listener.

We are in the middle of trying to get ready for our move to Argentina while also being involved in a pastor’s conference this week, traveling to a church in Kentucky this weekend and spending most of next week in a mission’s conference in Tennessee. I am trying to do anything I can to distract me from the fact that I should be packing for a major move in 13 days. So, I spent all morning yesterday recording an interview and editing it. Seemed like the responsible thing to do.

As an added bonus to this episode, if you go to the Missionary Talks fan page on Facebook you can listen to a clip of the interview that did not survive the editing process, but was a very interesting section of our conversation. Don’t forget to become a fan if you go there.

Yes, the above linked Twitter account is the account where I say more mature type things as opposed to my other Twitter account which is the real me.

Mary or Judas

Last Wednesday I was in a church service where a visiting pastor was speaking. His sermon was a comparison of Mary and Judas in Mark 14 verses 3-11.

Mary:

  • Focused on the most important–worshiping God (Christ). Luke 10:38-42
  • Faithful in trials. John 11:21-40
  • Forsook her greatest possession. Mark 14:3

Judas:

  • Criticized intimate worship. Mark 14:4
  • Complained about God’s work. Mark 14:4. 5
  • Confided with wicked people. Mark 14:10, 11

What struck me is that while many look at missionaries and think that we are willing to give up many things to go live on a foreign field, most of us don’t see that as a hardship. However, we struggle with giving up some things. Maybe your struggle is the thought of giving up regular electricity, or moving away from family. We do give up those things, but personally my struggles are in giving up things of even lesser value.

I don’t think I fall into the category of a Judas, but I am not sure I am a Mary either. Sure, I am willing to give up some comforts to be a missionary, but am I willing to forsake what I see as materialistically important? I am not sure I am there yet.