Working on my fitness - Part 2

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm training for a race at the end of the summer. I'm running or swimming several times a week.

I generally choose to run one of two places: Oroño Boulevard up to Parque España or en Parque Independencia.

I like Oroño for the most part. It has a pedestrian walk way between the driving lanes. It's lined with tall palm trees and benches with lions carved into them. Apartment buildings, small universities, and restaurants sit side-by-side on the periphery. It is, however, paved with tile and littered with community contributions left by dogs. The tile makes my spine feel like a hammer striking an anvil every time my shoes hit it and the poop makes me leave my shoes on the balcony when I get home.

If I run for longer than fifty minutes I make it to Parque España and I run along the river on trails left in the grass. The wind coming off the river is cold, but by the time I make it that far I welcome the breeze.

When I don't run on Oroño I run laps around the paved paths in Parque Independencia. The Newell's Old Boys soccer stadium is right in the middle. All the trees are either covered in gnarly thorns or the branches have been pruned too high for me to reach them. Otherwise I would have taken a tree-climbing break in a least one of them.

I usually go in the afternoon, but a few weeks ago I decided to go in the morning. I could tell that it was fairly cold outside from looking out the window, so I decided to put on a long sleeved shirt instead of a short sleeved one. I pulled on my blue running shorts and left the apartment.

I got those shorts at Target, I'll have you know. They're light and breezy and loose. And as the name suggests, they are short.

On my way to Oroño Boulevard, I noticed that I could see my breath. It was a little colder than I expected, but nothing I couldn't handle. An academic-looking man with longerish curly hair looked at my legs and asked me if I was cold. I was jogging in place waiting for the light to change. "Yeah, but I'm fine," I said.

It wasn't until I had run about seven blocks that I realized that showing so much leg at 40° F was very much out of the cultural norm. Any time I stopped at an intersection, a car would pass and the driver inside would yell something at me (most of the time I couldn't understand what he said). As I turned toward the river on Oroño I passed a group of teenagers and a girl shrieked, pointed, and said, "Why does she do that?!" One man asked me where I was from and then told me I was going to get sick. Doris from the self-reliance group I'm facilitating saw me as she was taking her daughter to school. "Mommy, what is that girl doing?" her daughter asked. Doris was about to explain to her that some people are crazy when she realized it was me.

I had no idea that my choice of leg wear would call so much attention. I kind of felt like I was in a strange, long distance race where everyone was kind of cheering on. Every once in a while, I'd hear a, "Dale! Dale! Dale!" from across the road and I would image myself crossing the finish line with explosions of confetti and posters that say things like, "No pain, no gain." It was somewhat nice to have so many supporters on a Monday.

I don't run on cold mornings anymore. At least not wearing shorts, anyway.

Working on my fitness - Part 1

At the end of the summer I'm running a long distance relay with a bunch of friends. To prepare, I run or swim several days a week.

When we arrived, Becca and I asked Arnaldo if there were any pools close by our apartment. Turns out there is one about five blocks north on the same street we live on. Laura at the front desk explained it all to us. 50 meters, 3 lanes, $30 per month for lap swimming without a coach. Every Tuesday and Thursday I'm kicking off the wall at 11:00 sharp.

This is what I look like in a swim cap and goggles.

Although we initially chose to swim without a coach, I've made friends with all three of them. Damian is tattooed and doesn't say much. He did demand that we try mate. The next coach is also named Damian. In Ecuador, when someone is teasing you, you call them a "malito." So I call him "Damian the Malito." He teaches me words and then tells me not to say them at church. When I told him that I don't drink, he called me "Flanders." Whenever he says something to me in English I laugh. He's corrected my freestyle stroke and he makes fun of me when I run into the wall (there's no T on the bottom of the pool and no plus sign on the wall which makes it hard for me to gauge the distance).

Damian, me, and Mechi with the banner from our pool

Mechi (short for Mercedes) is vegetarian and she has a nose ring. She gives besos to the ladies after teaching them water aerobics, practices speaking English each time I'm there, wants to come to Utah to visit me so we can go camping, and owns a bike but not a bus pass. She has a beautiful soul.

The pool where I did the first relay I went to

At the end of June, the coaches invited me to a relay tournament. Becca wasn't up for it, but I paid the 200 pesos to participate. It was a relay. The team had about 15 people. Each person would swim 50 meters, then jump out of the pool. The team that swam the most meters collectively after 90 minutes won the tournament. We got second place. Damian the Malito gave me the trophy to take home to my country. It sits on top of our fridge in our apartment. I put my phone in it to amplify the audio when I'm listening to podcasts in the kitchen.

We all sat in the pool while we waited for the judges to tell us who won

A few weeks later they invited us to another tournament and Becca came along. This time it was 60 minutes and each person swam only 25 meters. We made friends with Carla, a city attorney that took her turn right before me. There were orange slices, cut bananas, and Gatorade just like at my soccer games when I was in first grade. Our team got second place again. Damian the Malito told me I did great. We ate hamburgers after and made friends with the other swimmers.

Our team with our second place trophy and banner. The pool is called, "Pileta Climatizada Circulo de Obreros del Rosario"

I decided to pay the $7 extra for Damian the Malito to be my coach. He still makes fun of me when I run into the wall, but he also corrects my stroke and kick. I'm much more tired after swimming for an hour than I was before.

Me and Becca at the second trounament

Apartment

We live just south of one of the main streets: Pelligrini. The building is nine stories high. The first night we arrived I climbed into the elevator alone with the bags and Becca, Arnaldo, and his daughter Lola took the stairs. The bottom floor is marked PB (Planta Baja) and Arnaldo hit the 3 before closing the collapsible gate and outside door for me. When it slowed down, I opened the gate. I found myself at eye level with the doorknob with about two and a half feet of brick on mortar wall beneath the bottom of the door. I hadn't quite made it to the third floor before I stopped the elevator. I lifted the four suitcases high enough to get them onto the tile floor as my friends came around the corner from the stairs.

Arnaldo unlocked the door to apartment 3A. He showed us the kitchen and fridge, which he had stocked with a few staples: bread, tuna, milk, apples, alphajors, and dulce de leche. He showed us how to work the water heater and the space heater by turning on the gas and lighting it with a lighter. The stove and oven work the same way. There was a bed we could pull out from under the couch and told us we'd have to decide who got to sleep in the actual bed. I noticed that the color palette of the apartment would match all the outfits I brought: black, white, and gray.

After he and Lola left, Becca and I divided the closet and drawers. She volunteered to take the couch-bed in the kitchen. I messaged a few people to let them know I arrived to Argentina safely and changed into my PJ's. After about 30 hours of traveling, it wasn't hard to fall asleep.

Mate

The first time I tried mate was at the swimming pool. After my workout I was chatting with the swim coaches and they told me they'd bring some the next time for me to try. It was "mate amarga." Which means bitter. Which means they didn't put any sugar in it. Which means it tasted like hot juice made from fresh grass clippings.

The second time I tried it was after observing a self-reliance group in Fisherton. They added sugar, which was nice, and I actually liked it. But I hadn't eaten anything for a while and it gave me a stomach ache.

One person makes the mate and they pass it around to each person in the group, taking turns to drink from the same straw (which is why I generally choose not to participate). I asked once if it was cultural that the women always prepare the mate. The guys answered quickly that men do it too, but I've yet to see proof of it.

I think it's a pretty cool tradition. It's something that brings people together. Kind of like board games or seven-layer dip or great playlists on Spotify.

Don't eat alfajors for breakfast

"Don't eat alfajors for breakfast," I tell myself every morning when I wake up. The circular, cake-like, layered cookies sit in the top cupboard, covered in chocolate and filled with dulce de leche. I keep buying a six pack of them at the Gallega (the local grocery store). The last time I went there I left without them in my bag and I felt like a champion.