Note: In case you missed my last post, I decided to run 100 miles in 3.5 wks in the month of January, taking 2 days off/week. As of today, I’m at 80 total miles since January 5th, and I plan to finish ahead of my goal sometime this weekend

A common complaint about running long distances is that it gets “boring” after the first mile or two. I can honestly say I don’t relate with that sentiment. Rather, I find in long runs a feeling of solitude and a sort of meditative state of thought I’ve not been able to replicate any other way. I suspect many runners share in this sentiment; it’s what keeps us putting one foot in front of the other, right?

Perhaps it’s helpful that I got my start in running while living in arguably one of the most uninspiring/unmotivating cities on earth: Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Sorry, GF…what you lack in aesthetics, you make up for in…party rockin’?

party rockin' at Springfest 2011 in GF, ND

I used to run the same square-shaped loops from my apartment, past the foul-smelling Simplot potato plant, around campus and back, venturing as far as downtown GF (slight scenic upgrade) or along the river path (nature? what?) for longer runs. And let’s not forget the freeeeezing temps! I ran my very first long distance runs in the dead of winter, trudging through fresh snow with negative-degree winds whipping past my face. I’m not trying to sound tough—plenty of runners do this all the time—I’m just saying it’s a small miracle that I got into running in the first place, considering I started in less-than-motivating conditions.

So clearly, living in a big, bustling city surrounded by mountains and ocean has really added a lot of excitement to my running life. I remember my first run in the city back in October: I busted out the door of our apartment building into the warm fall air and immediately fell into a brisk, steady pace. I was using Google Maps on my phone to navigate as I wasn’t very well-oriented in the new neighborhood yet, and within a couple of blocks I realized that order to get down along the river, where it’s a lot more “culturally appropriate” to be running, I would have to take one of the narrowest, busiest, steepest streets of Bilbao: Calle Iturribide. Iturribide begins with a  descent of 6 flights of stairs (about 60 total steps), followed by a 300-foot downhill 3/4-mile plunge into the old quarter of the city. And what goes down…must go back UP on the return trip! Hills were a pretty foreign concept for my flat-lander self, so I became very quickly overwhelmed. On the return trip, I’d have to take on that elevation change in reverse…every time.  Not only was it really steep, it was full of people and cars and dogs and…jeez, how was I gonna do this on a regular basis?! Overwhelmed, I halted to a walk in order to navigate through the mess of crowds and traffic until I reached the broad river promenade. I remember feeling really discouraged and almost wishing for the boring but open, unobstructed running paths I knew back home.

Calle Iturribide:

If there was any hope for me to keep up running, I had to change my perspective.

So I’ve made it a game. An obstacle course of sorts.

In this game, the people in crowds become the moving walls of a maze. You musn’t make eye contact with any of them, as their looks of confusion and/or disapproval in your running can be distracting, but you must be keenly aware of what type of wall they are. Are they a predictably-moving and relatively forgiving wall (teens through middle-aged people)? Are they a miniature, erratically- moving, delicate wall (small children and dogs)? Are they an equally delicate, but slow-moving, taller wall (elderly people)? You need to remain very focused for the crowd-weaving stage of the game, always aiming for maximal speed with minimal crowd disturbance.

Then there are the inanimate obstacles—some are stationary and can be used to spring off of or jumped over just for fun (steps, benches, street performers’ money buckets), and others are mobile and range from mildly to extremely dangerous (cars, taxis, buses). There are other walls on wheels (cyclists) which are also sometimes found weaving through crowds, but they’re usually pretty safe to get close to as they’re likely playing the same weaving game as you, often with even greater agility.

Once you hit a wide open path, it’s time to kick back and relax into your steps until the next set of obstacles.

This game is exhilarating and rewarding: like games should be.

So, whaddya say? Why not get out there and play the running game?

I worked as a fitness instructor at the UND Wellness Center during my college career, and through that experience I gained keen insight into the most notorious of New Year’s trends: the super-swelling of gym attendance during the first month of the year, followed by a sharp drop-off as early February. As someone who maintains a relatively consistent activity level throughout the year, I just see January as the time of year when going to the gym can be more stress-inducing than stress-relieving.

So my “anti-resolution”, for January at least, was to NOT purchase a gym membership (I pay month by month) at the fabulous Gimnasio Alhóndiga, but instead to run outside more (ironically during the coldest and rainiest month of the year) and become more creative and resourceful with home workouts.

To have something more specific to work toward, I rather arbitrarily decided that I want to run 100 miles (or 161 km for those of you from countries which have more sensibly adopted the metric system) by the end of January. I truly don’t consider this a particularly impressive goal, but it will be a PR for me I suppose. If you think I’m just being modest, you need to read Born to Run (hugely inspirational for me), and then my piddly 100 miles will seem trivial to you as well.

I started this venture on January 5th, and since I usually do my longer runs on the weekend, I’ve decided that I will polish off the 100 miles on Sunday the 29th, probably with some sort of epic odyssey run to break my PR of miles run in a day (currently 13.1; a half marathon.) I’ve decided to take two days off each week, so that gives me exactly 19 separate runs to total 100 miles–an average of 5.3 miles per run. As you can see from my low-tech tracking method below, I’ve got some work to do before the 29th:

mileage tracking, low-tech version

*Note: I also use MapMyRun.com as a more”high-tech” tracking method to ensure distance accuracy and to plan my routes. This calendar simply serves as a visual encouragement (it’s taped to my closet) to get out and hit the pavement so I get to use my über-cool hot pink pen to record my accomplished mileage.

You can also see that I’m tracking hiking miles as well, but that’s just for fun–the only miles that will count toward my 100 mile goal are those that I run. I’ve also recently decided to track the amount that I walk each day for commuting, errands, meeting up with friends, etc. I already know that the average is somewhere around 3 miles per day, but I’m curious to monitor it more closely and get an accurate total.

By a very conservative estimate, after adding up 100 miles run + X miles hiked + X miles walked, I will cover over 200 miles on foot in the month of January. That works out to an average of 6.7 miles (over 10km) every single day.

I’ve run in a few half marathons over the past couple of years, and I’m excited to have another one lined up for this March in Santander, Spain: a coastal city just a bit west of Bilbao. I’m also flirting with the idea of running my first full marathon at the end of April in Madrid.

What goals do you have for staying active in 2012?

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. I thoroughly enjoyed 17 work-free days (spoiled, I know) during which I rambled all around this fine country–literally from the northern-most extremes (home sweet home, the Basque Country), to mmmarvelous Madrid in the middle, and then 1,500 miles down to Spain’s southernmost properties, the Canary Islands. I took an outrageous amount of photos and videos, so I’m going to let those do the talking for this post.

For starters, I enjoyed 3 action-packed days of island adventures in Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands off the northwestern coast of Africa:

fantastic island colors

Did some whale-watching...another thing to check off the bucket list!

Soaked up some warm sun...they call them "the islands of eternal spring" for a reason!

feeling on top of the world at 12,200 ft: Spain's highest peak, Mount Teide

Here’s the short version of our very long trip up to the top of the very tall, aforementioned mountain:

And here is the rest of the island goodness I captured (winding roads, whales, sunsets on the beach) condensed into a few minutes for your enjoyment:

I got to experience New Year’s Eve in Puerta del Sol of Madrid: Spain’s version of NYC’s Times Square:

I put some miles on the new hiking shoes discovering some new places close to home, such as this sweet castle tucked away in a forest right here in Vizcaya, the province in which I live:

Butrón Castle

It was a fun-filled couple of weeks! I’m back to work now, but already thinking ahead to the next vacation…as one of my coworkers said today, it’s just “seis semanitas (six short weeks)” until our next big break: “Carnival“, for which we’ll have 10 days off at the end of February

2012 is going to be another exciting year. One of my resolutions is to dedicate more time to my blog, and with that you will be seeing some exciting changes in the near future. One exciting change is that I will soon be incorporating a couple of my greatest passions (right up there with traveling, of course!) into meggrblog: specifically fitness and tech.

As always, thanks for reading!

¡Hasta pronto, chicos!

Plaza Indautxu

I’ve coped with being away from home during the holidays by embracing the experience of Christmas in a different culture. Much is similar, of course, but there are a few differences. For example, here in the Basque Country, the children prefer the fictional character called Olentzero to Santa Claus (coincidentally, Olentzero does EXACTLY the same thing that Santa does, but he lives up in the Basque Mountains, of course )

There is no shortage of Christmas goodies, and they’re delightfully different than the ones I’m used to. The most popular Spanish Christmas goodies are polvorón and turrón, both of which come in endless varieties and are really unlike anything I’ve ever eaten:

turrón

polvorón

Tonight, I get to experience a Christmas Eve dinner with a Spanish/Basque family here in Bilbao (the host family of one of my good American friends here.) Then it’s home to open presents with my family via Skype at 5:30pm CST (so 12:30am for me!) Then I have a week packed to the gills with exciting travels to Madrid, Tenerife (one of the Canary Islands) and then back to Madrid for a Nochevieja (New Year’s Eve) to remember

I’ve been shooting some videos all around Bilbao over the last several weeks leading up to Christmas with the main purpose of putting them together to give my family and friends back home and idea of what Christmas looks like in Bilbao.

Fam, friends, and faithful readers: this one’s for you!

“Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow. So have yourself a merry little Christmas now!”

Hasta la proxima vez….¡Olé!

my parents' backyard in ND

It’s certainly the Christmas season here in Bilbao; the city is beautifully decorated (more on this coming soon in another post!), but it’s definitely not “winter” by my standards.

an oxymoron for me: palm tree and flowers in full bloom in the foreground, christmas lights in the background. Where am I??

Aside from actively trying to get myself in the Christmas spirit, I’ve just been in the usual grind (er…actually, what’s the opposite of a “grind”?) of the life of an auxiliar. We worked long, hard full 12-hour workweeks for the entire month of November, but this past week we’ve all gotten a big break–some for the whole week, and others of us for half the week because a couple of random Spanish holidays happen to fall on the first week of December: yesterday was Spanish Constitution Day, and Thursday is the Day of Immaculate Conception.

Due to our plethora of vacation days, everyone is taking pre-Christmas vacation vacations this week. That way we can be refreshed enough to power through to our two-week break coming up in just 17 days! Hah.

I’m taking advantage of this pre-Christmas vacay by heading tomorrow to the charming cultural capital of southern Spain: “Seville” for you americanos. Here, this gem of a city is called “Sevilla” (say-vee-uh)–usually heard easily rolled off the tongue in an affectionate manner, indicating the seemingly ubiquitous love for this place. A few friends and I selected this location based on the ridiculously low cost of flying there this week (50€ round trip!) and the fact that you just can’t go wrong with a trip to Seville. I’ve been there once before with my parents. We saw the main attractions and attended and absolutely breathtaking flamenco show. I’m excited for my second go-around: to be re-united with the sultry, laid-back land of Andalusia, and to dig deeper into the ample and varied goodness this city has to offer.

My dad and I in front of Spain's largest cathedral in sunny Seville in April of 2010

Flamenco is a must-see in Seville. Check out the feet:

To all of you back home, I send my love and warm, happy thoughts.

Mantengas abrigado!

“I am thankful for…

My family

My friends

My cat/dog

My girlfriend/boyfriend

My iPhone/Xbox/Playstation/etc“

Pretty standard for teens, I suppose.

So yeah yeah yeah, the history and purpose of the holiday are nice, but what the kids really wanted to know was this: what do we actually do on Thanksgiving Day, hoy en dia (nowadays)?

Well uh, haha…good question. My favorite stand-up comic, Jim Gaffigan, sums it up pretty well:

I literally gave them this breakdown of a typical Thanksgiving Day in the lives of an American family: wake up, watch the Macy’s Day Parade on TV. Help prepare/wait for the gigantic meal. Consume your daily caloric allowance in a matter of minutes. Feel miserable. Take a nap and/or watch the Thanksgiving Day NFL game.

It never really seemed so pathetic until I said it aloud to several groups of kids who grew up in a place where holidays seem to have a lot more tradition and meaning, and during which families still go out and do things in order to celebrate.

I was asked just this week to talk about parades in the US, since we have a few that are kind of a big deal. I guess you could even say I have inside info about these parades, since my high school marching band is nationally recognized for having marched in the Rose Bowl Parade, Orange Bowl Parade, Hollywood Christmas Parade, Target Thanksgiving Parade, in Disney World and others (it’s true, check out Jamestown’s Wikipedia page!) :-p Anyway, when preparing to talk about parades, it occurred to me that the majority of them actually revolve around NFL football games. As in, that’s the sole purpose of having the parade/celebration in the first place. As I am not a fan of this sport that is so near and dear to my fellow Americans’ hearts, I think this is a bit sad. But I know many would beg to differ.

Explaining both Thanksgiving traditions and parade culture in the US was a humorous and thought-provoking experience. It’s funny how things that have seemed so commonplace all your life can suddenly seem so strange.

For better or worse, we Americans celebrate our holidays just the the way we like, and I suppose that’s just fine. A few of us expats even managed to scrap together a pretty decent Thanksgiving feast here in Bilbao–complete with a very hard-to-find turkey (“what do you mean, you don’t eat HAM on a HOLIDAY!??!” -all Spaniards), mashed ‘taters, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, mac ‘n cheese, and stuffing. The bread and wine were Spanish….forgive us.

¡pobre pavo!

Vinos de Rioja: a splash of Spanish excellence for our American feast

pretty impressive spread!

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone! I am thankful for YOU!

And, as it turns out, some of her song lyrics are just purrrrrfect for ESL lessons.

I remember when the song “If I Were a Boy” came out. I heard it on the radio, didn’t listen to the lyrics very carefully, and quickly dismissed the song as “lame.” Then, I saw the video. Boom. Crying. Pitiful girly tears.

Is the song sexist? Yeah, probably. Girls can be just as shady and treat guys like crap too. But the lyrics bring up some things that I’m betting most people, perhaps girls especially, can relate to from past or current relationships.

This song uses a number of beautiful examples of a grammatical joy known as the “second conditional.” This refers to the verb structure used when referring to impossible situations. For example:

“If I WERE at my house in North Dakota right now, I WOULD BE stuffing my face with Thanksgiving goodness with my parents.”

I cannot possibly be at my house with parents at this exact moment (*tear), therefore this is an impossible situation and a classical example of the “second conditional.”

(Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving BTW!)

I can personally attest to the fact verb structure in the second conditional is one of the trickiest facets of grammar in both Spanish and English, and I’d imagine it’s difficult in other languages too. And what better way to learn a difficult grammar topic than to dissect the lyrics of a Beyonce song?

This has been my most successful ESL lesson to date. I’ve used it in 3 classes thus far, all with students age 16-18, and it has been a big success every time. I have them listen to the song twice to complete and check the first 4 exercises. Then we watch the original video and do the last section of the worksheet, which is a discussion of whether the song is sexist and whether they agree or disagree with the differing perception of boys and girls in relationships, etc. It has made for an interesting discussion/debate to say the least!

Here you go, people: watch, listen, and flex your “second conditional” muscles (the exercises from my worksheet are below the video):

1. Listen to the first part of the song and fill in the blanks with the words in the box

If I were a boy
Even just for a _______
I’d roll out of_______in the morning
And throw on what I________ and go
Drink ________ with the guys
And _________after girls
I’d kick it with who I _______
And I’d never get ________ for it
Because they’d ___________for me.

2. Put the verses in the right order

3. Put the verbs in brackets in the right tense

If I were a boy
I__________ (turn off) my phone
Tell everyone that it’s broken
So they _________(think)
That I ___________(sleep) alone
I___________(put) myself first
And _________(make) the rules as I go
Cause I know she __________(be) faithful
__________(wait for) me to come home

4. Fill in the missing word.

It’s a little too late for you to come _____
Say it’s just a _______
Think I’d ______you like that
If you ______ l would wait for you
You thought wrong

5. Read the following verses and say or write if you agree or disagree with the notion that boys and girls feel and behave in a different way in relationships. Do you think the message of the song is sexist?

But you are just a boy
You don’t understand
How it feels to love a girl
Someday you’ll wish you were a better man
You don’t listen to her
You don’t care how it hurts
Until you lose the one you wanted
Cause you taken her for granted
And everything that you had got destroyed
But you are just a boy

This weekend, we hopped a bus to Bakio, got off and walked along the highway until we got a tiny island called Gaztelugatxe (gahz-tell-oo-gotch-ay), one of the coolest things to see in all of País Vasco. Then we hiked down the cliff and up the hundreds of stairs to the beautiful 10th century church atop the tiny, rocky island.

We finished the hike by continuing east along the highway down into the quaint town of Bermeo, and treated ourselves to some hard-earned vino and pintxos.

Bermeo

The hike totaled over 10 miles, a lot of which was up and down steep hills over rocky terrain, but it was more than worth it. This compilation of video that I shot showcases some of its awesomeness:

Hasta pronto!

The “hike,” which was really more of a climb (for which we probably should have had actual climbing gear…), was both way more intense and way more awesome than I had anticipated. To say it was worth it is an understatement.

I whipped up this compilation of the video I took on our excursion. I wasn’t skilled/daring enough to film during the actual climbing part, but I got some footage of the beautiful Urkiola park, the peak of Anboto from afar (you will see it at 2:45 of the video…the high peak on the right) and of the views from the top of Anboto. Enjoy!