Bromo Marathon 2015!

Vallen and I signed up a few weeks ago to run a 10k at the Bromo Marathon. It was a great time! I met new PCVs, old PC staff, and a new friend from Surabaya ran, too. 

Vallen's results: 210 out of 400 men, woo! 

My results: 50th out of 200 women, not bad! 

While I remain quite impressed that my fellow PCV Shane created the Bromo Marathon in 2013 with his local counterparts, I recently found out there are other marathons that take place at Bromo. However, these are ultramarathons. An ultramarathon is anything longer than a regular marathon (as if that isn't enough already!) It is news to me that a run longer than 26.2 miles exists, but it seems it does. There will be an annual ultramarathon at Bromo in November, in which participants can run a half marathon, a full marathon, or for those uninterested in a mere 13 or 26 miles, one can run 43, 63, or 105 miles. I'm not sure if the 46-hour cut off time means 46 straight hours (as in 2 days), or if it means you are given about 4-6 days to run all this, and you only count 46 hours as the time in which you are running. Either way, this is ridiculous, but a real thing. There is a famous ultramarathon in the Sahara Desert too...what?!

Anyways, back to the mere 10k. 

Getting ready the Friday night before with some selfies! 

Power pancake breakfast the day before the race. 

On the way there (a three hour motorcycle ride is a feat in and of itself!), there were billboards welcoming the participants. 

We arrive after getting lost only once. Google maps suggested the back way, which turned out to be a scenic village route with no paved roads. We stopped after about 10 minutes to ask for directions back to the paved road. It was well worth the stop!

This map, to be honest, doesn't really show much of anything. I guess it informs us that we'd be  running in a loop! But no elevation or terrain information...

 We booked our accommodations weeks in advance. We first drove up to the check in in Tosari. When we road 5 km back down the winding mountain road to check in, they apologized, saying they'd given our room to someone else. So we hopped back on the motorcycle to ride 5 km back up the winding roads to meet a random Pak Giono on the side of the road. He was to escort us to the next homestay location, which turned out to be someone's living room. I forced Vallen to refuse this place, as we paid for a hotel room homestay, not a bedroom in someone's house. Pak Giono seemed unfazed. He hopped back on his motorcycle and roared up the hill. We waited on the side of the road for about 10 or15 minutes while he made some calls. Then he jumped on his motorcycle again (smoking and with no helmet, mind you), and took off down the hill. He showed us to another homestay, which was worth the money we'd paid. While no hot water in 65-degree weather is brutal, it all worked out in the end!  

A very tired 6 AM selfie before the race, despite sleeping 10 hours. We were sleeping by 7:30 PM because it was pitch black outside and cold. Nothing to do but sleep!  

We lined up with all the other 10k runners (700 people) all at once. Who needs waves!? I whispered to Vallen that my goal, like the Bolder Boulder 10k, was to not walk at all. Once the gun went off, I was shocked that everyone in front of me was walking! At the start line! Was this a race or a 10k walk?! I kept up my slow jogging for about 10 minutes, weaving in and out of walkers. I even kecp up my slight jog as the incline went straight up. We were dripping sweat within 6 minutes! Everyone (with the exception of few real runners and me doing the slowest jog ever) was walking up the incline. After about 10 minutes, it became apparent that this was a never-ending incline. To Vallen's delight, I slowed to a power walk. We finally reached the top of the incline at 3 km (we walked most of it with everyone else!)


The next section was the downhill. In our race packs the day before, we got about 100 advertisements for Garmin products, a bottle of water, a notebook, and a face mask. We didn't think we'd need this face mask so we didn't bring it with up. Unfortunately, this 2 km downhill was 100% dust! We made it past that part, however, to the next 3 km, an easy run through the villages. 1k of straight downhill on the pavement proved painful on Vallen's knees and my ankles, so we walked a bit. The final 1k was a slight uphill, filled with traffic and car pollution! We weaved in and out of cars that were lined up down the hill (returning from an early morning at Bromo volcano), and finally made it to the end. Huzzah!

Finisher medals! Great souvenir from this event!

About 10 minutes after we finished, Vallen turned to me and said, "Maybe we should run a half marathon next time." I promptly told him I'd fully support that...from the sideline!

With Puji from Peace Corps!

Weekend Getaways

While I spend my weekdays in Surabaya, my weekends are happily spent visiting those I love in Mojokerto and Jombang. Here are a few things I've been up to: 

The Mojokerto Independence Day Parade

When Vallen invited me to a "carnival" 2 weeks ago, I said sure, I'd go. A few weeks ago, we'd gone to a carnival with a little haunted house, bumper cars, ferris wheel, etc, so I figured that one more in his city would do no harm. 

About 2 days before my arrival, Vallen clarified that I was going to be in the carnival, right? I said asked what he meant, since you can't really be "in" a carnival. He clarified: in the parade. Wow, buddy, that was not what I signed up for! As if the attention from walking down the street by myself is not enough, did I really want to relive this?

Ponorogo parade of 2013

Well, actually, yes, I would relive the makeup and dress up part, but the parade part? With over 2 hours of people screaming "Bule!" and "Picture Mister!" and staring at me? No way. At least I had those three for moral support, not to mention we were 10 feet off the ground on a dragon. The Mojokerto parade 2015 would have been me, alone, walking amongst the wild onlookers. No. Thank. You.  

So it was decided that I'd stay at my friend's house while Vallen was at the parade for 3 hours or so, and then we'd hang out together. 

Upon arriving in Mojokerto, Vallen took me to "meet some friends" at his gym. The 5 friends I envisioned meeting involved, in reality, me walking through a small house filled with about 20 men in matching black beaters with with words, "Pakde's Gym: There are no friends here. We are family" splayed across the chest. You can imagine my surprise to find myself walking through the midst of all of these guys, smoking, chatting, and so excited to be in this parade. 

Vallen is the modest one in the black t-shirt, to the right of the red t shirt guy. 

Vallen told me his niece and parents would be going to watch the parade, so I decided to put in some time with the fam and hang out with them while Vallen was in the parade. He left at 12 noon. While I envisioned him home again around 4 or 5 at the latest, the reality was that this parade took forever. He walked from about 2 or 3 PM until about 6 PM, then finally got home about 7 PM! Good thing I am an expert chatter!  

The good news is, I got to hang out with his family, and even managed to take a nap in the non-air conditioned home! His family is really welcoming, and I find his brother (24) and sister (21) great people to talk to. 

Here are some parade shots: 

Mayra, Vallen's niece, knows who I am, but she's still a little shy around me. After all, we've only met in real life twice, but we have been sending each other voice messages for over a month now! 

No parade is complete without the drumband! Mayra freaked out when they started playing and basically didn't stop crying for the next 20 minutes. 

Javanese extravaganza! This float is from Vallen's university. 

This is what I can only assume was a representation of each of Indonesia's 6 religions...Here you can see the pope, a priest, and a Buddhist monk. There was also a bishop with the bright pink hat! 

The Return to the Village

I've also had time to catch up with friends! The weekend prior to this parade, I went back to my village for the first time in about 14 months.

The weekend started off with Bu Lilik, my counterpart from Peace Corps, picking me up and going out to eat the most sugar I've ever consumed all at once! Chocolate milkshakes and waffles with vanilla ice cream at A&W, because there was a coupon. 

Then my crazy friend Rois picked me up and we visited his house. 

Steven, an old friend and PC volunteer, was there, too! This is Rois' wife and my good friend, Linda. Steven doesn't always walk around with balloons...it was "healthy walk" day with the village! 

Turnin' up for the healthy walk (which was a "grueling" 1/2 mile walk that over half of the Indonesian participants did not finish).  Here's a great shot of the height difference surrounding Steven!  

Bu Yastri, a counterpart with other PC volunteers, stopped by to say hi, too! 

Azam, Rois' son, is the youngest baby I've ever held, at 2 days old. Now he's 3! 

After that, I went to Murukan. This is my host sister-in-law's baby.

One of my best friends, Lilik, got bunnies a few weeks ago. Sam and Forrest, you have competition for cute bunnies! 

I visited Teguh, my cultural facilitator from PC training in 2012, in the Peace Corps office, where he just became full time staff. Hooray! 

Rachmad, the technical trainer of PC, just moved on to another job, but I snatched a moment to hang with him right before he left for Jakarta.

No weekend is complete without a visit from this guy! 

It has not been hard at all to introduce Vallen to American food. Here's a Pizza Hut shot! 

Some questionable cheesy bread at Pizza Hut

Party all week long! 

Since party weekends are not enough, I go out during the week, too! Hahaha. This was the first time, actually. Some new Surabaya friends and I went out to eat and watch Mission Impossible 4 last night. 

Miss Nensy, a Bahasa Indonesia and German teacher

Mr. Frans (physics) and Mr. Yan (Geography)

Food shot, because you can never have enough rice!