Update on India 1

I haven't been able to post every night I am going to post by days. I have been keeping up in my journal so this will be a reflection of my journal entries. I hope you enjoy. Our first night in Chennai we were all so exhausted but as we got off the plane it was so surreal to know that we were actually ere. We each partner up so that all the unaccompanied females are walking next To an unaccompanied Male for safety. Then we head towards customs.get our passports and visa's checked. We get out bags an as we start towards the door we see a guard there with an AK-47 standing at the door. We exit and as soon as my foot hits the outside air I start sweating. It's only 3:30 am but it's hot and humid. As we walk towards the bus we are moved down a narrow walkway with crowds of people on either side of us. You can hear them talking and yelling for people. It's pretty intimidating. You also hear horns, and traffic noises. Wager to our bus, which is very small. All our bags are loaded on the roof and we are so close to each other your practically connected. With our backpacks on our laps. Our guides from Harvest India stood infront and directed. Driving here is WILD!!! Bikes, motorbikes, little taxi's( like the one above), cars, bicycle drawn carts, and busses zip around wildly. It seems that traffic lights are just a suggestion. Once we got to the hotel we were able to rest, but I slept on both trains and I was not tired at all. Deborah, Leeanne and I were in 1 room. We reorganized luggage, showered and got ready for breakfast. After breakfast Brian T, Leeanne, Deborah and I were escorted by Keeshore( our Harvest India guide) to the mall. We got to ride in the taxi's. WoW. What a ride they are!! Again zipping around and between everything we possibly can. It's a little terrifying at first!! Lol but I figured God dis not send me all this way to let me die by taxi accident :) the mall was good too. We went o a few stores before we found what we wanted. I found the most beautiful embellished orange material for a saree!! I'm so excited I can't wait to get the tailor! Before we left we stopped at the pizza hut. We got coke! As we left go back to the the hotel hotel, there is a woman stiiting crowss legged on the ground with her infant sleeping on a mat infront of her and she was asking for money. So sad. A few feet down we see an elderly woman who is nothing but skin and bones curled up and sleeping in the dusty dirt.
We got back in the taxi and headed to the hotel. Our room isn't too bad. It has an air conditioner which is nice. We eat lunch, and repack. We head to the train station to go to Tenali. The train is very interesting. It's a sleeper train, so there are compartments and each compartment has 6 beds. 3 on the left wall an 3 on the right. Across the walkway are 2 seats on the bottom, and a bunk on top. In 1 compartment was myself, Ryan, Brian T and 2 Indians, and across the hall were Brian and Tara and Deborah. The rest of the group was in the next compartment. Me, Deborah and Ryan were on top bunks. Looking up at it I thought it would be terrible but it actually wasnt so bad. We joked and talked for awhile and and took some pictures of an adorable indian baby who came by in her mothers arms then we all fell asleep for the journey. It was supposed to be 6 hours but we had to stop for 2. Originally we thought the train had broken down, but we found out the next morning that a person had fallen on the tracks and was hit by the train. We hardly even knew we'd stopped we were all sound asleep. Kind of an awful thought to think we were all sleeping while they were digging a body if from under our train. When we arrived in tenali we were woken up and rushed off the train. Getting up and down the ladder in such a small space in a skirt is no easy task but I made it without hurting myself or anyone else lol. We got off the train and were greeted by people from Harvest India who hung beautiful strings of flowers around our necks and helped us with our bags.the flowers were heavy, but smelled amazing and that definitely helped us wake up. We got in 1 more bus which brought us to the mission house. We have beautiful little rooms. We arrived at 1:30am and I finished writing my journal entry at 3:56am. *that was our firsts at here. I have much more but it is 9:05 pm and after typing that on my iPhone my fingers are a little numb. I will post again soon! (pictures are backwards train station, us on the train little girl on train and then Jerry and I in Tenali just after we got off the train and then a pic of our room at the mission house!)




















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Well, we are 32 hours into our trip and finally got to a hotel to shower and change our cloths. We are in Chennai, India at a hotel taking a rest before eating breakfast, going shopping, and then boarding the train at 4:00pm to head to Tenali. So far it's been a great trip. I slept almost the entire way from Houston to London and then after a 5 he layover I was asleep before we even took off to Chennai. The smell of curry was everywhere! We are now at the point where we can't drink anything but bottled water, using it also to brush our teeth. I'm so excited to be here and I can't wait to experience everything God has in store for me. Even with all that excitement it's hard to be away from my family. This is the first time I have ever been away and for the most part unreachable for my boys. And being in a strange place without my husband, my protector is a little intimidating as well. Please join us praying for health and safety for all my team members: Leeanne, Debra, Jerry, Tara, Brian W, Brian T, Ryan, Rosie, ad Steve. Thanks! I'll keep you updated as we continue on our journey! (Here is a picture of our pretty visa stamp, them throwing our luggage on the top of the van, and us on the crammed van ride!)








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Slow and steady

Okay, so there a million things I would like to write about right now, but I'm going to keep this post strictly about my training. I typically get my running in at night. I put the boys to bed and wait about 2 hours and then run laps around my cul-de-sac and up to the mailbox with a baby monitor. Tonight when it came time for from my run I was all pumped up and raring to go at 10:55 at night and have nothing to do with all that energy! lol... So I did not make it to 2 miles tonight(I'll explain in just a minute) however I did run 1.5 miles, then I said screw it to the scorpions, and large spiders that come out to roam at night and ran another .25 miles barefoot. This is a big deal for me. I am not a fan of creepy crawly's at all and 4 years ago when we moved to Louisiana I NEVER would have thought I'd do that. I have gotten used to them lately. So in the end I ran a total of 1.75 miles. I have seriously been concentrating on my form and have been walking barefoot as much as I can get away with so my feet faired much better than my last attempt. I stretched for about 30 minutes afterwards and I feel great! Now I am a little bummed to not have done 2 miles today but I was having some calf pain and Monday at the gym I was stretching and made it worse. It hurt quite, a bit even just to walk, and was super tight. So I have been using RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) every night and stretching really well. It helps a lot but after the run I'm still feeling it. I've actually got it laying on ice packs right now. As a new runner it's hard to tell what is my body saying I can go further and what is my ego telling me it wants to go further, so when I find myself at a crossroads i take the long view and the safe choice. Tonight I could have gone further but would rather save it, than push to much and then have to take 2-6 weeks off for recovery!! Between my runs at night, and my hour and a 1/2 at the gym 3X a week I feel great! I'm going slowly but I am on track to be where I need to be, which I am more than happy with.



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Intro

I'm not sure why but suddenly at 1:17 A.M while listening to beethoven's 7th symphony I feel motivated to start my blog. Sometimes in our busy lives we have to take the free moments God gives us and sometimes motivation and creativity strike when we least expect it. With that being said I can tell you that my 6 am wake up call tomorrow will not be a pleasant one.
Let me start by telling you a little about myself. I am a 25 year old full time college student, a mom of 2 crazy young boys; one a loving but needy 3 year old, the other a five year old ball of energy with acute ADHD. I am a proud Army wife(HOOAH!!) I am a doula (a pregnancy and labor assistant) and I have the best job in the world because I get to help women go through the most difficult day of their lives and I get to experience a miracle every time.

I took dance lessons as a child from the time I was 6 years old until late into my teens, I also ran cross country. As I got older I experienced pain in the joints of my legs and was forced to give up the activities that I loved. I recently decided to give running another try and even ran a 5K race but the pain after left me sidelined and doctors told me that running wasn't for me. Not long ago I again felt the itch to stretch my legs and decided to take a new approach. I got rid of my shoes and decided to relearn to run. I started by walking. I had a friend watch me run to help me work on my form. I started small running only 1/4 mile at a time and building from there and I started going to the gym to strengthen the muscles in my legs to support my joints. After nearly 1 month of gym time, and running pain free I have finally made the 1.50mile mark! I feel like I can go farther but I am taking it slow. In October I will run the Susan G Komen 5K again. However, my BIG goal is the tough Mudder which incase you don't know is a 10-12 mile run through mud, ice water, electric shocks, fire and military grade obstacles. It sounds crazy but I can't wait!

The title of my blog comes from my kids. One night as I was trying to get them in bed they said "mommy your suUuper woman!" (yes just like that) well, I thought to myself "hahaha yea right!"and then I started to think about it. I am a full-time student on the deans list, have 2 children, my husband is deployed with the Army, have church a dog and a house to clean. not to mention friends and family to keep up with! After all that i still find time to run even if its endless laps around the circle in front of my house. The laundry may not all be put away, sometimes a dirty pot stays dirty in the sink overnight and I will probably be late to wherever I'm headed but I do it and at the end of the day still have some sanity left! And although I feel like a rambling, ruffled feather mess, that isn't what other people are seeing. Somehow they see a put together, in control woman. Who knows, maybe i am. and I know there are lots of women who have as much going on. Other women who like me, sometimes laugh to keep from crying, women who hope nobody is looking sometimes and hope everyone notices at others. This blog is dedicated to all of us, my kids are right, We ARE super Women!

This blog will cover a lot of topics. This is a living journal of my thoughts for all to see. From information on Doulas and child birth education, to my goal of completing the Tough Mudder on my birthday January 29th in Texas. I'll talk about my training successes, and hopefully not too many setbacks and include things like nutrition, barefoot running and running for women. I hope you will like reading it as much as I love writing it.


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