Every Breath You Take; Day One of 40 Miles in 48 Hours

When I was in my teens, my mom was an ultra-marathon runner. She ran 30-plus mile trail races and paced for people who did the Western States 100. She got up at five in the morning every day and ran ten miles on dark country roads before I even woke-up.

My mom, back when you had to develop photos!

A "good time" for her was going out into the hills to run all day long with a group of girlfriends, mountain lions be damned. I watched those strong women return with salt crusted to their brows, a muddled white line drying on the backs of their shirts, at the scoop of their necklines. Their calves were dusted brown, and when they took off their socks the line left at their ankles was as precise as an architect's pencil mark. They organized benefit fun runs, trained for 50-milers together, and laughed over post-run coffee and apple fritters. My mom ran 20-mile sections of the Western States trails at night to guide exhausted (and often delirious) competitors towards the finish line.

This was before Gu packets, Camelbaks, and specialized electrolyte replacement tablets. Your options were Lemon-Lime Gatorade and oranges. I remember when a small, start-up company named "PowerBar" asked if they could put their product in the goodie bags of the fun run she was organizing.

I watched her go for those long runs and thought she was nuts. Running for fun? I could not wrap my brain around it. I preferred soccer and basketball, writing and swimming.

At some point, for kicks I hopped on the stationary bike she had bought for cross-training purposes. I started setting goals for myself about how long I could stay on the bike. I didn't always love it, but I liked how it made me feel: strong and capable, and I found I liked the challenge. Soon I started running with my mom, and then on my own.

When my mom dropped me off at the starting line for my first marathon, she had tears in her eyes. I don't remember seeing her cry when I graduated from New York University, but she cried when I opened that sedan door in the predawn dark to run 26.2 miles by myself. Years later I asked her why she cried that morning. "I just knew the challenges you were about to face and I wanted to make them easier," she replied.

And herein lies the blessing (and sometimes curse) of parenting... your kids are always watching you. You are always teaching a lesson through your actions (and you thought "Every Breath You Take" was about former lovers). So what my mom couldn't see that morning was that she already had made it easier. I wasn't going out on my own that morning, I was running with a tool box in my back pocket of all the things I saw those ladies exemplify: that it isn't about how you look, or how fast you are, or what anyone else says about you. You run for meditation, you run for camaraderie, you run for the sheer joy of pushing yourself past self-imposed limits.

I saw them feel uncomfortable... and keep going.

I saw them want to stop... and keep going.

I saw them treat their goals with respect, their desires with importance.

And that's why, standing at the dusty start line to this fundraiser run, I knew there was no chance I wasn't going to make it to mile 40. I would endure, just like my mom.

I still smell good in this photo.

We started out late in the day because we wanted to watch our son's first soccer game of the season (this year-long challenge IS still about being a good mom while reaching for goals, after all). The temperature was set to reach 101-degrees that day. I didn't get to start running until 3:30. I sweat so much that it puddled in my ear canal, making my breath and words reverberate in my head as if I had been swimming for hours.

The first part of the trail is high and curves around promontories of igneous rock. The heat emanates from the plutons in thick waves. At one of the springs along the trail, handfuls of butterflies congregated in the cooler air, fluttering around me when I stopped to watch them.

Somewhere around mile nine, my abdomen started to cramp (damn you, Lady Time!). I am not a woman who gets cramps. But there they were, a little sinister snicker in my gut. I had to stop a few times, bent over in pain. Another challenge within the challenge.

I ended up making it to camp before Sky (he was rowing the support boat on the river while I ran the trail). I jumped into the river and stretched my limbs as tiny fish nibbled my toes.

Nature's laundromat

I don't think I've ever wanted a cold beverage more in my life. The liter of ice-cold sparkling water was unbelievably perfect. I drank the whole thing in about ten minutes.

13.2 miles done.

First day section complete.


P.S. As of this writing, we only need $400 more to be able to build the 6th grade classroom at Buiga Sunrise. Add your brick to the building!
https://www.crowdrise.com/40milesin48hoursforeducation/fundraiser/amystewart1

Join Me in My Greater Purpose

Now that I'm seven months in on this 40th year project, it's a good time to review the underlying premise of this challenge year:


The whole idea is to create for myself a life I am excited about and proud of, a life I am purposefully cultivating, a life that builds upon each year by aiming higher and trying more.

 A very large part of that vision for myself is something we'll call Greater Purpose. I refuse to believe the whole point to my existence on this planet is for me to do nothing but assure my own well-being and happiness.


That just doesn't pencil out for me.


Being a mom is a part of that Greater Purpose. So is being a good partner to my husband and being a stalwart pal to my friends. Sometimes it takes the form of giving a cold apple on a hot day to someone on the street; sometimes it's just a smile to the old man walking his dog on the bike trail.


I truly want to end up on my death bed--or my death skydive when I'm 90--thinking that I used my life to bring about a better, more caring, world. I intend to wring this sucker of all the good it may hold and let it sprinkle on a much bigger plot than just my garden.


So, with that in mind, imagine for a moment...


You are a parent in Uganda. Your child is lucky because for the last seven years, she has been able to attend a very special school--Buiga Sunrise School-- in your home village of Banda Kyandaaza.

You and other parents helped to develop and run this school. The
student-to-teacher ratio there is 20 to 1, and with your participation in their volunteer program, the schooling costs your family nothing. Your daughter not only received an amazing education there, but also got important immunizations at the school's medical clinic and two nutritious meals per day cultivated from the school's gardens.

But now your daughter has reached sixth grade, and the school in your village does not yet have a sixth grade classroom. For your daughter to continue her education, she has to go to the school in a neighboring village. You must pay the equivalent of two month's of your family's salary for her to attend, and your daughter must travel for miles on dangerous roads to get to the school (roads made all the more dangerous because she is female). When she gets to this new school, she'll share one teacher with as many as 100 other students, sit in rooms with crumbling walls, and likely not even get to look at a textbook as there aren't enough for everyone.


What would you do?


I know what I'd want to do-- I'd want to build a sixth grade classroom. That's what the folks of Banda Kyandaaza have decided to do. And we're gonna help. Here's how:


Me, you, and my rickety knees are going raise the $6,000 that will build and outfit the classroom and pay for the teacher's entire first year of salary.


Yes, I said $6,000. That's all it will take.

In order to garner your donations, I will run the Rogue River Trail in 48 hours, starting on September 20th. That's 40 miles total-- one mile for each of my years on this planet.


Your part is to dig into the lint in your pockets and donate what you can, ask your family, friends, and even your employer to donate, then sit back and soak in how good it feels to be a part of something huge. Something that will ripple out in gorgeous undulations for years upon years.


You can do that. You can be a part of it. Right here, right now.


(Plus, your donation is tax-deductible!)


Visit this page to donate:
https://www.crowdrise.com/40milesin48hoursforeducation/fundraiser/amystewart1


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About Buiga Sunrise School:

I have been helping Sunrise with grant writing for almost two years. I am constantly amazed by what they are able to accomplish with such limited funds. Their operation is unique because instead of coming in with an agenda in mind, the community drives their own development. All of Sunrise's projects have grown out of a need the community has recognized first.

They have no overhead costs-- everyone in management donates their time-- so 100% of donations goes to Sunrise programs. And they are moving toward self-sustainability on all levels:

--The school's garden is cultivated by the parents and feeds the students

--The school's board positions are held by parents

--In 2011, they established a 2-acre coffee plantation which will provide coffee they can sell on the open market in order to further assure Sunrise's financial stability for years to come

This is truly a community-led, community- sustained endeavor.

Buiga Sunrise was started by Nicole Van Seters, her husband (Michael Mugerwa), and the villagers of Banda Kyandaaza. Michael was born in Banda Kyandaaza but has lived abroad for much of his life. On Nicole's first visit to the village, she was moved by the deep sense of community. Grandmothers and neighbors cared for orphans, and those with few resources willingly gave them to those in need. Yet people were dying of easily treatable illnesses and most families could not afford to send their children to school. She asked the community what they thought they needed to solve these problems, their answer was unanimous: help us send our kids to school.

With the help of donations from friends and family, Nicole and Michael built Sunrise School and enrolled sixty preschool students in 2005. Since then Sunrise has grown to include a primary school, a health clinic, adult literacy programs, job skills training programs, and income-generating projects for community members. They also perform health outreach services to more than 1,500 in the greater Mukono District.

Sunrise believes in nurturing a sense of local responsibility and providing people with the resources they need to make their own positive change.