{"id":24304,"date":"2018-04-20T22:20:07","date_gmt":"2018-04-21T02:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=24304"},"modified":"2018-04-20T23:38:41","modified_gmt":"2018-04-21T03:38:41","slug":"life-lessons-in-nepal-by-the-dawns-early-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=24304","title":{"rendered":"Life Lessons in Nepal – By the Dawn\u2019s Early Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few \u201cwarm tips\u201d from my early morning in Kathmandu:<\/p>\n

1) Just because you\u2019re up and awake and you\u2019re trying not to make too much noise in the room as you found out upon checkin you\u2019ve got a roommate, does NOT mean going for a run at 4:30 am on the darkened, labyrinthine streets of Kathmandu is a good idea. It turns out not be a bad idea, but it\u2019s not necessarily a good idea.<\/p>\n

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2) If someone advises taking the time to acclimate to the altitude, do not shrug this off as \u201ceh, I\u2019ll be fine.\u201d \u00a0Such arrogance (pant, pant) is the sign (gasp, gasp) of a foolish \u201clittle engine that couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

3) The streets are akin to running a Spartan Race or an Obstacle Course Challenge Run. \u00a0Sidewalks and roads are often collapsing or under repair… or both in a never ending loop, like when my mom handed me a bucket of water as a kid and told me to paint the sidewalk… just as I would finish a part of the curb, the beginning would have dried and needed a fresh coat of water. \u00a0I was and remain a gullible kid I guess. \u00a0But I also remember it was super fun, Tom Sawyer!<\/p>\n

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4) Besides the road conditions, pedestrians, mopeds, rickshaws, cars, trucks and roving bands of dogs provide added \u201cPaperboy\u201d style duck and weave challenges. \u00a0The dogs by the way are more scared of me than I of them. \u00a0I gather it\u2019s not typical to have folks out running in the streets at 5 am before sunrise.<\/p>\n

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5) Offline Googlemaps downloaded to one\u2019s phone over WIFi\u00a0will work if you preprogrammed the destinstion for walking whilst still on that WiFi. \u00a0Putting in a return\u00a0destination\u00a0at your turnaround whilst in airplane mood and offline (to avoid the $2\/mb data roaming charge) will tell you there\u2019s no walking directions available… but you CAN get driving directions.<\/p>\n

6) The reason everyone… and especially\u00a0the traffic cops… are all wearing bandana masks is that there\u2019s a fair bit of dust and grime and pollution. \u00a0The garbsge\u00a0strewn into the streets at odd intervals also has a unique smell one can discover.<\/p>\n

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7)\u00a0Pashupatinath Temple Is about 5km from my hotel so that was my destination for a 6 mile morning shakeout run. \u00a0I arelived\u00a0there just about at sunrise and was going to go in but hesitated. \u00a0I obviously was cool with their request about not taking photos\u00a0but the \u201cno concealed carry\u201d of phone threw me for a loop. \u00a0I figured I\u2019d be fine as it probably meant not to have them out and be checking the latest news\/sports scores but I also didn\u2019t want to chance it and cause an international incident. \u00a0We Americans have enough global political image problems at the moment.<\/p>\n

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8) It\u2019s\u00a0a universal truth – on any given weekend you\u2019re probably able to find a race to run. \u00a0I came across a KASBM Marathon and wished I could\u2019ve signed up. \u00a0Sadly there was no spot registration… and I wasn\u2019t carrying any rupees anyway. \u00a0I thought about banditing but that\u2019s not who I am.<\/p>\n

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I hate when I\u2019m that Mr. Know-it-All runner guy (Hey,\u00a0Rocky! \u00a0Watch me pull a stat out of my hat! \u00a0AGAIN?!). \u00a0But they billed their event as a \u201cmarathon\u201d and then offered distances of 4K, 10k, and a half-marathon. \u00a0Historically I know the\u00a0marathon distance was arbitrary and fluid for a long, long while. \u00a0But in the early 20th century, after the annoying British royalty insisted on adding a bit for an Olympic Finish in front of their box, and after that race became\u00a0a global press\u00a0sensation, well, we\u2019ve kinda agreed a marathon distance is 26.2 miles (or 42.195k). \u00a0So, ya know, now I\u2019m being an awful\u00a0\u201crun-splainer\u201d and grousing about this \u201cmarathon\u201d event having to be described with \u201cAir Quotes\u201d (or as this is printed then literal quotation marks).<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, it was fun to see a race started… and funny to have course marshalls trying to direct me onto the route as I was running in shorts and a blue shirt and apparently looked the part. \u00a0The huffing and puffing only added to the verisimilitude.<\/p>\n

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And now to breakfast, perchance to hear the itinerary for the day. \u00a0I hear there\u2019s monkeys in my future…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few \u201cwarm tips\u201d from my early morning in Kathmandu: 1) Just because you\u2019re up and awake and you\u2019re trying not to make too much noise in the room as you found out upon checkin you\u2019ve got a roommate, does NOT mean going for a run at 4:30 am on the darkened, labyrinthine streets of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}