¡Vamos! ¡Corre, ¡Corre!

I expected to have to take a break from racing during my semester in Ecuador. However, the first week I was here, some of the other U of I kids told me that they had signed up for La Ruta de las Iglesias, (The Route of the Churches), a 10 K race that began at 7 p.m. on September 1 and went through the El Centro, the Historic District of Quito.

With the help of my host mom, I found a TVentas store and registered. It was a really good thing that Patricia was with me, because she understood that I had to go on a separate day to get my timing chip and racing number.

I completely took off running the first week I was here. However, by the second week, I realized that my new running shoes smelled way too good, and I needed to put them to use. So nearly everyday, I try to take the Ecovia bus to Carolina Park, a huge park in the north part of Quito with a bike path about 2 miles long surrounding it. There are lots of walkers and runners in the mornings and there are lots of walkers, bikers, and soccer games in the afternoon!

Running at this high altitude is definitely different than running in the oxygen-saturated air of Illinois, and I trudge along, gasping for air as runners that have lived here all their lives easily do laps around the park.

I was a little nervous for the race because it was at a high altitude and I heard it had a lot of hills, but I had heard it was a gorgeous route and we all just wanted to run it for fun.

So September 1 rolled around, and at 5:30 I took a taxi to the race’s start and met up with Pedro, Malorey, Megan, and Megan’s Ecuador sister-in-law, Veronica. Usually I hate the time right before a race because I feel so nervous, but waiting for this race to start was pretty fun. The 4,500 runners were all crammed into an area behind the starting line, and there was a live band playing.

Nearly all of us runners were jumping up and down and flailing around trying to stay loose, and we all looked like we were trying to do some weird dance. It was pretty cool, because I realized that no matter the country, runners have the same habits and mannerisms right before races. Everyone is slightly giddy, excited, and nervous. There are runners with the highest-tech running gear, and there are also runners in crazy costumes. Each race is like a giant party for people with no fashion sense (unless spandex is coming back in style). If it wasn’t for the Spanish everyone spoke around me, I might have thought I was about the race the Turkey Trot.

So anyway, 6:55 p.m. rolled around and the band broke out into an Ecuadorian song that all the runners joined in and sang. Well, most of the runners. I had no idea what the words were, so I just kinda continued dancing around and enjoying the music.

Finally, the clock hit 7 p.m. and we were off. It was kind of funny, because a lot of the runners put their finger tips on the backs of the runners in front of them as if to give a tiny push. However, there were so many of us, that none of us were going anywhere very fast. After about 2 and a half minutes of a funky shuffle, we crossed the starting line!

The first part of the race was absolutely packed with runners as we headed through the narrow streets of Historic Quito. The historic district is filled with gorgeous old churches that are incredible in the daytime, and look amazing at night when they were all lit up. Even though there were some ridiculous hills, there was tons of stuff to see, from the awesome architecture to the hoards of people lining the race and cheering for us.

Usually I’m used to hearing, “Let’s go!”, “You can do it!”, “You go, girl!” during races. During this race I got to hear “¡Vamos chica!”, “¡Corre!”, “¡Si, se puede!” (Yes! We got the same cheer the Ecuadorian soccer team gets!) It was also different because instead of mile marks, there were marks every kilometer. I thought this might be discouraging because after 1 kilometer I would still have 9 to go (as opposed to after the first mile I’d only have 5.2 more to go), but the kilometers went by really fast.

It was by far one of the most fun races I’ve run. I got separated from the people I started with, but all the spectators were lively and the runners were in good spirits. I almost took a couple of quality faceplants as I tried to avoid bricks, holes, people, and other obstacles, but that just added another level of excitement to the race. I’ve never run with the bulls in Spain, but I think that La Ruta de las Iglesias might feel kind of like that because you’re surrounded by people running and you couldn’t really slow down or speed up if you wanted to.

After about half-way through the race, the streets widened and the runners spread out. By this time we were out of the Historic District and into the main streets of Quito. It kind of weird running down some of the busiest streets of Quito, but in some ways it wasn’t weird at all since I have to run across the streets quite a bit, trying to dodge cars.

Every few kilometers they handed out Gatorade and water. However, instead of water being in cups like they do in races in the States, the water was in little plastic bags. This actually worked incredibly well, because runners could just take a bite out of the bag and squirt as much as they like either into their mouth or over their head.

The finish line came up pretty quickly, and we all were ushered through and given Gatorade. Then I trade in my chip for the best race goody bag that I’ve ever gotten- it was a draw-string bag filled with a race T-shirt, a medal, an apple, pear, and orange, a Gatorade water bottle, a running shawl thing, and a sticker. Actually useful stuff!

Then I wandered around like a clueless maniac, trying to figure out whether I should look for the other U of I kids or get my bag to use my cell phone to call them. As I wandered, all of the sudden Veronica, Megan’s sister-in-law, came up to me, so we started looking for her family. Mom and Dad called from Hilton Head, and I got to talk with them!

I’m still not very good at Spanish so I didn’t really know what was going on, but somehow I ended up riding with Veronica and her family to a pizza place. Poor Megan was searching the streets of Quito looking for her family after being given the wrong directions by a police officer, but eventually they found her as well.

So somehow I got to join Megan and her extended host family for pizza at an “American” pizza place. It was all decked out like a diner and blasting American ‘80’s music (“Uptown Girl” is still in my head). The pizza was absolutely delicious, though it didn’t exactly taste like the “American” pizza I’m used to; it had an Ecuadorian twist of flavor, but I don’t know what. The food here definitely has distinctive tastes, but it’s all good. (Except papaya juice; I’m not really a fan of that).