Hit the Road!

Some of the Nanubhai Teaching Fellows are hitting the road, literally, in hopes of earning money for rural education. A group of 6 Fellows have set their sights on running a Half Marathon in January with the hope of earning money for every kilometer ran on race day.

After running my first marathon in 2006 I decided that I would either run one Full or two Half Marathons every year. I’m not sure how to explain my attraction to doing something most people would consider a punishment, but nonetheless, I continue to run even here in India. My roommates call me a masochist, and maybe so, but misery loves company and so I enlisted them to join me.

Training for a major race in America can be hard enough; running in India sometimes feels impossible. As we have already experienced, the obstacles can be great. Earlier in the year we were faced with extreme heat, punishing humidity, and finally, mass amounts of rain during the monsoon season. It has also been difficult to find good places to run; there are no jogger friendly trails here. The main roads are extremely dangerous and so we started scouting good routes on less traveled roads that cut through the thick sugar cane fields. Nutrition is now becoming a problem as our mileage increases. We are on vegetarian diets that don’t provide us with enough calories or protein to sustain all that we demand of our bodies. I am starving one hour after eating breakfast!

The idea of raising money through running has been in my mind for a while. When I traveled through Indonesia I met an English teacher who asked me if I could send his school some books in English. I promised that I would, but at that time I was living in China and it wasn't possible for me to fulfill my promise. When I returned to America in July of 2008 I vowed to make good on my word and I began to send boxes of books to Indonesia. I felt great about being able to help, but this was very costly for me during a time that I was unemployed. It was also during this time that I was training for the Seattle Marathon and an idea popped into my head; what if people donated money for every mile I run, and that money could finance the postage of books to other countries? I was really excited about this idea, but it never got further than my mind. Until now.

So here we are; 6 of us in 3 different cities in rural India. We are all training for the same race, all with the same hopes that running a few miles can make a difference in the life of at least one student. We have our own blog spot where interested people can follow our training, feel our pain, and hopefully get involved in our goal of providing assistance to a well-deserving student. Just like our students, we will keep our eyes on the future and continue to work hard despite all the obstacles and pain that we face.

Please visit www.21k4kids.com