Video Night in Kathmandu

Namaste and Tashi Delek to all,

We have so much to share with all of you who followed our blog and supported our cause. Bear with us here as we try to upload a slideshow of the race... as no captions have been added here's a brief synopsis of what you'll see:

• the banners
• press conference in Kathmandu
• prizes donated by friends and businesses
• pre-race carbo-loading favourites (including momos!)
• rickshaw rides
• the chaos in Nargakot, the starting point of the race
• meet the runners
• snippets of the race in action
• finish line stairs (who's idea was that???)
• finish line celebrations with flags at the Changu Nayaran temple
• awards ceremony (that went on longer than the race!)
• post-race celebration

We tried to get a picture of everyone's bib but you can see how difficult that was! We have a list if you'd like to know which runner wore your bib number (post a comment and we'll do our best to find it for you). If you look closely you'll see that so many of the names are the same... that is because most are named for the day they are born or something precious or important. So, there is no end to Nimas, Dawas, Lhakpas, Pasang, Dolmas, Karmas, Pembas, Tsherings, etc. Their last name comes from the ethnic group they belong to (and often named for the area where their group lives) so you'll see many Lamas, Sherpas and Tamangs too! That is why so many have a third (or qualifying) name so everyone knows who they are talking about. Hence, "Running" Tshering was our host and "Husband" Karma was our guide.

There are many individuals, schools and businesses to thank for making our race successful. We'd like to begin with Eric Vanderkruk (A & W Invermere, BC), Peggy and George Sarson (of Run for the Toad), Jason at Adventure Guide, Ultimate Direction, Runner's Chioce in Waterloo, M & T Insta Print, Webco, Waterloo Sports Medicine, Caesar Martinis, St. Clair Catholic District School Board, Research in Motion, Saucony Inc., and, of course, all of our friends who supported runners and our spouses and partners who let us have this great, guilt-free 3 week adventure!

Special thanks go to Eric for being the official photographer and to Mads for her tireless efforts to keep you in the loop by posting on the blog from the slowest computers in the world!

By the way there will be an update on the simultaneous Run on the Hills Eh? Here's a shot of those crazy friends!

Thanks again and enjoy.
Jude and the Run for the Hills Team!

We're back.

Hello everybody!

Thanks for following the blog. We all made it home in one piece. Lots of people came to say their Good-Byes at the hotel in Thamel. There were tears. Lots of them. In fact they are still coming up while typing this. We had a wonderful time and met wonderful old and new friends.

The flight back was rather uneventfull, no broken planes, no missed connections... just Air Canada managed to mess up again. They gave us a smaller plane which resulted in us being shoved in the back. Adam, Jon and I met everybody on the plane. We had the last row in the middle with the washrooms right behind us. People were lining up for those whenever the seatbelt sign was turned off. I think that Adam and Jon had never seen so many midsections of people before. I was the lucky one sitting in the middle, I did not get hip-checked.

I have added some pictures to the posts below. I will add some more on the weekend.

Stay tuned. More to follow.

Mads - very sads.

same same - but different

Dearest Friends and Fellow Runners,

What a day! It all started that the bus who was supposed to come to Thamel to pick us up was a no show. After a bit of waiting around and a few phonecalls at 6:30am real time, we figured we somehow had to get to the stadium and hop on a bus there. Easier said than done, but with our locals in tow, no problem. We all got on Rickshaws, 3 people per Rickshaw, piled on top of each other. Rickshaws are made for 2 people max. Great fun. Wait for the pictures! I will post them when we're back in Canada. The buses at the stadium were there, we met with the Nepali Elite Athletes and our favourite Nepali Olympian and off we went to the start line in Nagarkot. That bus ride was not as bumpy as our other rides. When we arrived there were already crowds waiting. Registration/bib pick up had not started yet as the bibs were on the bus with the YESS volunteers who were running a little late. Registration and bib pick up here is nothing like anyone of us has ever experienced. It was pretty chaotic but the volunteers managed to get people to form lines after all. The race started at around 10:30am real time which compares to about 9am Nepali time. So everything was on time. The course was tough. It was super hot. There was one killer hill, worse than skeleton hill in the Run for the Toad. Super steep, super long. Beautiful countryside and clean air made up for the hard work. Some of us fell down the hill, some of us fell up the hill, there was blood. But we all made it to the finish line eventually and had an awesome run. Well the finish line was a bit difficult to find. The race ended in a village and there were flags but we had to go all the way up to the top and finished with a killer set of stairs. Running a race in Nepal is pretty exciting. I think apart from the Elite Athletes we were the only ones who did not hop on the back of a passing truck or motorbike for parts of the course. I wanted to try but chickened out. We saw Yolmo women in their traditional clothes doing the race, girls in slippers running past us.

The after race celebrations took forever, comparable to the celebrations at the school opening in Sermathang. Jude was an honored guest and had to sit up front and again we were making escape plans. Dave, Jude and myself with the help of Russ did all the handing out of the medals and prizes and certificates. It was hot. When that was done, we escaped and hopped on the bus, got excellent seats and waited for about 1 hours for the bus driver to show up. Never were so happy to see a bus driver when he finally decided to drive. We were home at about 6pm, starved and dusty. We went to a lovely place for dinner and celebrated. Tonight we'll go celebrate some more with the volunteers from YESS.

That's it. Last blog before we head home tomorrow. There will be tears. I'm sure.

Thanks for listening, See ya'll back home.

Mads - from Raju's place

Are you ready?

RACE DAY TOMORROW

We just went over to the YESS office this morning. Race preparations are going very well. Bibs are printed, runners signed up, Nepali names are on the bibs, banners are all over town, buses rented to bring everybody to the start line tomorrow morning, food is ordered and the weather will be cooperating. We had a press conference yesterday at the Nepali Tourism Board. There were articles in the main newspapers of Kathmandu and we have a famous TV star and singer lined up for the opening ceremonies.

Just a quick Thank You to all our sponsors and supporters. It will be a great event and we are looking forward to a great run/walk from Nagarkot to Changu Narayan.

I would add a picture from the press conference right here, but haven't been able to figure out how to reduce the pixels in the pictures to make them small enough for uploading. Again - I will do that when we're back in Canada.



(We're back now and here is a picture. More to come: )




To all of you who are running in the middle of the night at the Run ON the hills: Have tons of fun and don't wait for a text from me to start. There is no data service on my BB in Nepal. The race is scheduled to start at 9am Nepali time. That means it'll start at 10am real time, 9hrs 45min ahead of you.

Happy running!

Mads - still at Raju's place

near - but not so near

Dearest friends,

We're back! In Kathmandu that is. We actually came back 2 days ago and we are terribly sorry for having let you wait that long for an update. We were busy getting cleaned up and move to a different part of town, got swept away in the streets of Thamel and are now fully recovered and ready to race.
But before you get an update on the race preparations, you'll have to read through stories from the mountains:

We started out with a killer bus ride, dusty, winding, bumpy roads, all the way up to Dunche at an elevation of 1960m or so. We did not hike that first day, our internal organs had first to be rearranged after that ride. On day 2 of the trek we hiked up the mountain to Singompa at 3300m in boiling heat.

Who would have thought that it's really hot up that high?!? We passed a military post in the middle of nowhere, where we had to sign in and had our permits checked. We arrived at our first "real" destination in light rain. The place was lovely. Day 3: Laurabina at 3900m, short, nice hike up, breathing got a little harder. But nothing could stop us from playing a round of our favourite card game and eating chocolate cake which was made for us right there on a wood fire. Delicious. Day 4: another short hike up another couple hundred metres, all the way to Gosaikunda on 4385m. It was a little chilly up there, but the beautiful landscape made up for it. We went on a little hike around the sacred lakes and built a ginormeous Inukshuk:

Great fun. Amazingly sleep came and none of us got really sick. Thanks to Tanya and her non-drowsy Ginger Gravol, we all made it over the pass on the next day at 4620m. We were at the right place at the right time. The cloud cover opened up and we had amazing views.

From there on, it was relatively easy. Mostly downhill and/or 'nepali flat'. We had to cross another pass at 3600m and then descended down to this village called Sermathang. That is the place where the Yangrima School is, which had the big reopening ceremonies while we were there. We had a day off and helped carrying benches and other things up to the school grounds - a 20 min hike up the mountain on single track.

That great and very touching event kinda marked the end of our trek. In the late afternoon, we rushed down to our 2nd last night in the mountains and more rounds of card games. Our guides and porters got pretty good at this game too and one of them teamed up with Danger Dave and got nicknamed Trouble. The very last day was again a bit exciting as when we arrived in Melamchi to catch our bus back into town, we were informed that there is a strike at the crossroads just outside Kathmandu and no buses can go through. So we hung out in this little lodge in the back alley and played some more cards. Karma, our guide managed to arrange for another bus to take a different route up to that village to come get us. We were only delayed by about 4 hours or so. Some of us got to ride on the roof of the bus, but that was only short lived fun. The bumpy roads made us beg to be let inside after about 10 minutes. The bus driver was amazing. The roads were so super narrow and sandy that it is a miracle that we did not fall off the mountain.
A big THANK YOU goes out to our guides Karma and Pemba (missing in this pictures as he was running ahead arranging for our accomodation) and our porters Urgen, Kansha and Ram. Without them we would be still somewhere up there.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading. And always remember: Don't fight the liner.

Mads - from Raju's internet place.

why not - coconut

Hi again everybody!
Day 2 in Kathmandu: After a nice breakfast we quickly walked over to the YESS office to drop off the race prizes. Tshering will sort them and decide what racer gets which prize. We then hopped in 3 cabs to go to the tourist part of town to collect the rest of our gear, sleeping bags and other necessary things like that. We visted Nima and Karma for a cup of tea and last instructions on where and when to meet tomorrow morning. We did a little shopping at the Everest Hard Ware store and to get back to our part of town, we took one of those little blue busses where they usually fit about 20 people in but we had it all to ourselves. Nice ride! tThen went off for a late lunch in a very quiet place - until the generator came on and we couldn't hear our conversation anymore. But what to do - Kathmandu? A short walk took us back intop our Stupa, where some wandered off for more shopping, some for food shopping and others for internetting. Tonight we'll light a whole bunch of candles around the Stupa for good luck for our trek.
My friends, this is the last blog entry until we come back to Kathmandu from our adventure. We will take lots of pictures to share with you after. And we will miss you all terribly. Thanks for following our blog and here is a picture for your entertainment:

Mads - from an internet place down the back alley

what to do - Kathmandu

We all made it here now.
The group of five got into Kathmandu on Thursday at around 2:30pm and our fearless tourguide Jude was there! She actually was there 4 or 5 times before and had to leave again without us. We met Karma, our guide, and some others and hopped on a very cool bus - chartered for our group for the pick-up. We got taken through crazy traffic, lots of honking, motorbikes everywhere, monkeys here and there... to this lovely little hotel called Padma Hotel, located in the Boudhnath Stupa circle. We freshened up a bit and Jude and I went back to the airport to pick up the others who were coming in from Bahrein after all.
Turns out they had to go back to Bahrein from Doha in Kathar to catch a plane to Kathmandu. They had to buy new tickets and in order to do that they had to trust some stranger who took their passports and their money to leave the airport to buy tickets. The guy came back with valid tickets and they went on their way. The problem in Doha was that evrybody got grounded, no one could leave the country, no one could leave the airport.
What a reunion it was when we got our fab four back! They were in one piece, a little tired and without luggage, but they were here.
Back to the hotel we freshened up and then went for a lovely meal and had a beer - also lovely. Tshering (the race director), Karma (our guide) and Nima (his wife) and their sweet little girl Yanjum joined us.
We had an early night and a good sleep on very comfy beds.

Today, Friday, we went for a bit of sightseeing. First we went around the Stupa (a few times), did some shopping (just a wee bit). Then had lunch in this little cafe next door (where they have wireless internet so we can blog from the BlackBerry) and then went to visit a Hindu Temple. Actually it was a huge area with lots of temples in it, it seemed. We got to watch a burial and visited an old folks home. We again lost parts of the group and got reunited again.
Done with the temples, we split again - this time on purpose - and the fab four went to the airport to pick up their packs (the second time today btw) and the group of five went back to the hotel and for another round around the Stupa.
The bags are here now, just one is missing and will arrive tomorrow. Thankfully it's one with race prizes so everybody could change into clean clothes.

Btw the weather here is lovely, just a few drops of rain. We see lots of colours and smell lots of different smells - not all of them are good. We are a very happy bunch and are off to dinner now. Check back for more news and some pictures tomorrow. We have one more day in Kathmandu and then we go on the trek. The power in Kathmandu is limited, only on for a few hours a day. We need to use a computer to upload pictures. I have not been able how to post pictures from my BlackBerry.

Bheri Betaionla!

Mads

...in transit...

So. Looks like eventually we all will get to Kathmandu. At least that's what we hope for. Our little group of 5 (Adam, Jon, Liz, Eric and me) made it to Delhi after a fabulous day in London.

After a good breakfast with aweful coffee at the hotel, we went to the airport to get our boarding pass for the next fight. Then went straight into town and hopped on one of those red double decker busses and took a tour through town. We did not see Obama but saw lots of police and some blocked off roads. Halfway through the tour, by the tower of London we got off the bus. The tour guide was expecting bad traffic because of the riots for the G20. So we boarded a little boat and went down the River Themse all the way to Big Ben. A short walk to Buckingham Palace, through the park and onto the tube and off to the airport again. Everything went very smoothly for us there.
And now we're in Delhi waiting for our connection to Kathmandu. We were hoping to be able to use the 6 hrs layover for some sightseeing in Delhi - but no such luck. We are in some special area and eventually someone will come and reunite us briefly with our luggage to make sure they pulled the right ones. And hopefully our flight will not get further delayed and we will be able to hop on the short flight over to Kathmandu.

Our fab four are still nowhere near where they are supposed to be. Their flight from Doha in Katar got cancelled. They are rebooked on Gulf Air to Bahrein and then Kathmandu and will hopefully arrive at 5:55pm today. That's exactly one day late. Looks like we will beat them after all.

Feels a bit like the amazing race.

Posted from my BB at Delhi airport - Mads