The tea party fundraiser

Along with a few buddies, I am heading over to the Grand Canyon this weekend for a trail run. We start at the South Rim, find our way down to the Canyon floor, and up to the North Rim and back all the way. 48 miles of it. Or as much of it as fun, pleasure and camaraderie will allow. The whole thing should be a fascinating experience, visual treats along with extremes in temperature differing by 70F, and elevation changes in many thousands of feet.

This is a simplistic course profile here, but it looks simply beautiful. When I first saw this profile a month ago, I thought it looked like an old tea cup made of clay or of china whose handle had broken off. That simple imagery continues to be a symbol of pleasant anticipation for our trip to the Canyon. So that's what we're headed out there for - we've had all our little parties here, and now it's time for a grand old tea party at the grand old canyon.

photo courtesy: Maneesh Pandey

I got into running several years ago primarily to raise funds for the wonderful schools run by GSK in Rajasthan, India. That was when they had 65 children in thatched structures for classrooms. Today, they have 300 kids with great infrastructure and all of them enjoy spending time at what increasingly feels like a successful movement to restore the joy of childhood. The school's revolutionary alternative methods that attracted much opposition and criticism a few years back are now bearing some fruit - graduates excelling in public examinations, passionate buy-in from impoverished rural communities and more collaborations with mainstream schools.

There's a long haul ahead still for GSK, and funding continues to lag requirements - the Strides of Hope program from Asha for Education is a critical part of fulfilling this need for several such initiatives. My Grand Canyon run and tea party and a $1000 target are all part of this program. Donations made through this fundraising page go to the Austin chapter of Asha for Education. Asha for Education is a completely volunteer-run organization, and all donations are tax exempt in the US.

Thanks for sharing your time; now all you have to do is pay for your cuppa by 5/15 ;)

Links:

1. Donation page
2. Grand Canyon National Park
3. Gramin Shiksha Kendra (GSK)
4. Austin chapter of Asha for Education
5. Strides of Hope program

Nueces Trail Marathon

The Nueces 50 Miler and Marathon race was held on March 6 this year at the Camp Eagle park. This was the first year for this race in this form, and it was very exciting to be a part of the launch.

Camp Eagle is a gorgeous park. This is beautiful, rugged Texas hill country, with steep hills and a spring-fed river. I'd visited the park earlier for a few days in fall 2009 when I volunteered to help create, measure and map the trails here for the race. I was so impressed with the park and the facilities there that I felt like I'd stumbled upon a hidden treasure in my backyard! It wasn't the best time to visit the park for me though, as most of the hills are covered with cedar trees, and bush-whacking through the trees just puffed up clouds of pollen that didn't do my cedar allergies any good. It was all good though, I really enjoyed hiking and running on the trails, learning about how Joe Prusaitis, the race director, maps out the race courses and meeting all the friendly folks at Camp Eagle. It was no surprise then that I decided to run the race...

I selected the Nueces marathon as my target race for Team Asha and I pledged to raise $100/mile for the Austin chapter of Asha. At Asha, I have been working with 2 projects for children in Rajasthan (India) for a few years now:
(a) GSK, an education project that provides very high quality education to about 400 kids this year.
(b) RMKM, an education and rehabilitation program for about 375 mentally challenged children.

The race
I hadn't trained specifically for this race, but I had been running and keeping up with my fitness generally. But I'd flared up my hip flexors a couple of days before the race, and I was worried about having to run through pain and having a miserable race. My anxieties lifted though even as I drove into the park the previous night, and met all my running buddies. I decided that I'd have fun at the race - and the attitude change helped with my run the next morning.

It was a wonderful day to run. It was cool, in the 50's, cloudy, and we had challenging trails in beautiful hills to run on. I started very slow and it took me nearly 2 hours to complete the first 9.5 mile loop. And from miles 8 through 14, I struggled through with pain in my right hip flexor. The worst part of having the pain was that I couldn't run all those long delicious downhills! Even as I was starting to contemplate dropping out of the race, the aid station at mile 14 came up and I was supplied with some ibuprofen. That saved my race, and my next 12 miles went much better than my first 14 miles had. Surprisingly, I finished rather strongly and managed to pull in to the finish chute in about 5:50. I was happy with the time I made, especially with all the low expectations I'd set through the previous day and the race.

It was a good race to be a part of - the race organizers, the volunteers, the camp staff and the scenery were all wonderful. I'd definitely go back for this race next year!

Links
My Team Asha fund-raising page
Gramin Shiksha Kendra (GSK)
Rajasthan Mahila Kalyan Mandal (RMKM)
Nueces Trail Marathon (Tejas Trails)
Pictures from my Camp Eagle visits

Why am I running?

I am training to run the Rocky Raccoon 50 Miler race as part of Team Asha. My target race is on February 7, 2009, in the Huntsville State Park, Texas.
This is my first 50 miler ever! Infact, it is way longer than anything I have attempted so far. Training has been fun but hard, and has involved a lot of commitment in time and effort for my first 50 miler. I am doing all this, as I keep reminding myself on runs that keep getting longer and harder, for a cause I absolutely love and support. I am running as part of Team Asha this year to raise funds for the wonderful and deserving schools run by Gramin Shiksha Kendra in rural Rajasthan.
The schools provide a high quality of education thats relevant to the local community in order to bring about meaningful socioeconomic change. It is a very thoughtful effort by a few committed and talented educators to make a real and qualitative difference in the lives of the impoverished rural community. They promote learning based on fun and child-centric activities. Teachers employ innovative teaching techniques and educational materials tailored specifically for every child to learn effectively and thoroughly. Local knowledge and cultural expertise is incorporated into the syllabus so that the children have a broad curriculum that they can relate to easily. More importantly, it also grounds the education of the children to the success of the local community. I passionately believe that the success of this initiative can provide a good model of education that can be replicated across various rural and urban communities all over India!
For this initiative to succeed, it needs your support! Learn more about this exciting project here.
I have pledged to raise $100 for every mile I run in my race. All the proceeds from my runner page go towards supporting Gramin Shiksha Kendra. Please contact me to sponsor my race and help me reach my fundraising target as I strive to reach my 50 mile distance.

My runner fund-raising page where you can DONATE is here.