Run Through the Jungle

                Last Saturday, the 15^th, I ran a half marathon out at Santa Mission. Santa was the site of one of our volunteers, Kelly, who was instrumental in the planning and execution of the race. It was a lot of fun, just running on a trail through the jungle. It was tough, the heat and humidity were worse than any race that I’ve run before and the hills and valleys were a little undersold.

                It started with a meeting at the brand new Marriott in Georgetown. Kaylee, Jeremy, and I left a screening of the new Bond movie, Spectre, to the hotel where we registered and picked up our numbers and packets. I was 21. After that we hung around for a little bit and ate at the pasta dinner in the dining room of the hotel. It was a nice little ceremony then we got on the bus to Santa Mission. Well, let me rephrase. We went down downstairs and waited for the bus to arrive. Like all things in Guyana it was running on Guyanese time which, in this case, was about 30 minutes late. So we left the Marriott about 6:30pm and made it to the dock about an hour later.

                After another half hour the boat showed up and about 20 of us got on and took the boat for a nice little night time cruise under the stars. After arriving on the sandy shores of Santa, we climbed up to Kelly’s old house where we were staying the night. On the walk up I noticed a few new pieces of infrastructure that hadn’t been there the last time I’d visited when John and Scott were here. There were lights strung all over the place making the climb much easier than the first time I’d visited. There was also a small stage area that I didn’t remember being there before and the trail was marked by flags all the way out of the village.

                The next morning people bustled around putting the finishing touches on the course. There were people from all over there, Guyana, the US, Canada. Some people had come all the way to Santa Mission just for running that race which was cool. More Peace Corps staff and volunteers streamed into the village and gravitated towards Kelly’s house.

                The marathon started at 8 so we all went down to watch that. After a little bit of ceremony the marathon started and then in an hour it would be my turn with the half. I meandered around a little bit lined up at the start then we were off! Even though it was only 9AM when we started the days heat and humidity was palpable. The sections of the trail enveloped by canopy were nice and cool though and luckily it was like that most of the way. And that’s how it went for a while then I crossed the finish line after 2:31:49 which was the second best half marathon of my life. And not only that, I came in 3^rd place and won a sweet, handmade basket!