Marathon training in Montevideo

Monday November 5th, 2018

Google sent me for a 7 mile run when I had about enough fuel in me for three and I thought I might die if it weren’t for serotonin overwhelming my system. I returned to the apartment, my apartment, sweaty, starving, shakey and dripping in delicious satisfaction. Knowing I had a shower upstairs, I had solitude, Internet, food. Lacking in sleep from the night before after discovering the show “The Good Place”, and filling up on Netflix after a month without, I was groggy but determined to get a morning run in. I knew Montevideo had a beach and I yearned for the combination of beach and sun, something we had not experienced much on our South American road trip that had largely been plagued by endless rainy days.  Playa de los Pocitos is Montevideo’s main, and largest beach. Something you can tell by opening up Google maps, as I was doing, drooling over the thought of warm sand and ocean swimming. Although Montevideo itself is surrounded ¾ by ocean, much of that is bordered by a big morro, or wall that acts as a barricade, and introduction of the expansive ciclovia (walking/running/cycling track) at its edge.

The giant wall in some areas bleeds down onto massive rocks where fisherman boldly go, and in other area seems to be hugged tightly by the crashing waves leaving you wondering, “how many times has the city flooded?” It all reminds me of Havana Cuba, and walking along the expansive Malecón. Not plagued by capitalism, the Havana promenade is flanked by ocean on one side, and sweeping romantic colonial housing on the other, falling apart in most cases. Walking along the tip of Montevideo’s old town you gives my American mind the same puzzled sensation of questioning why marketers and design firms haven’t yet tried to gobble up this real-estate and make a destination area at the waters edge. Instead you have the giant crashing waves, expansive walking path, and four wide lanes of car traffic on the inside. It astonishes me how unwillingly capitalism has seeped into my subconscious and the way I appreciate or criticize spaces. This is a byproduct I’d like to shed on these travels that inch me closer towards letting go of things and grasping on to experiences.

That day though I wouldn’t be heading in the direction of the giant morro in Old Town, I would be seeking the part of the city that touched the ocean with a wide sandy kiss, in the opposite direction of coastline. Or at least that is what I imagined staring at the Google map image of tan against grey. It would be a 1.5 mile jaunt there, then I figured play around on the beach, then run back, total of three miles. I inhaled a banana, and breathed into the nervous excited energy that comes with running a new city for the first time, and left the comfort of the city center apartment.

9 am foot traffic filled the streets, Business men and women, macha thermoses in-tow. Parents grabbed the hands of their tiny toddlers and walked hurriedly towards school, or day-care, or work. I feel privileged to run at this time of day. The familiar feeling of rushing, and sucking down caffeine, and sweating off lotion and overheating from the morning commute was tangible. Who was I to be able to go for a run at 9am? Without a care.  Without a job. I felt like a privileged housewife and this scared me; because I don’t think housewives or either privileged, or who I am.  I liked the rush of going to a job you love. So maybe I thought that others, thought I was a privileged housewife, and this bothered me most.

There were days in this roadtruip where I struggled with this idea of not having a “job”. It is something I still struggle with as I am now in Brazil “working” at an organization that is a struggling start-up and still unable to pay me anything except free rent. For years I had hustled working a 9-5 (which I loved) and volunteering at a handful of organizations. It had taken an equal amount of years to un-latch from all of these commitments to be exactly where I was today. Running at 9am, in Montevideo, to a beach, to play.

The run to the beach itself felt longer than expected weaving through rolling city streets, with construction, and pot holes and sidewalk inconsistencies that kept me on my toes and in a steady jog versus a full on sprint. But the adrenaline was filling my veins and the thrill of being unleashed from a truck stop and imminent threat that traveling in random parts of Brazil brought was soothing.  I felt safe and independent and strong and inspired. Montevideo was a mix of early 20th century Parisian architecture, and respectable conservativeness. Montevideo did not feel like Brazil, Mexico or Peru, the other Latin American bars of which I tried to compare it against. It was unique, and refined and I felt good.

Then I saw it, the palm tree that jetted out into the blue sky. The closer to the beach I got the more women I saw. I assumed that they were all privileged housewives, whose husbands had gone to work leaving them the time and space to jog on the beach at 10am.

“Maybe Uruguay is a male domineering society in which women are expected to stay home and not work outside of the home”, I thought.

Sometimes I wonder if I will be totally free of self-judgment, that in turn project upon the world. According to the World Bank data the US and Uruguay are almost equal now in percentage of women in the workforce at about 45.5%.

The beach was expansive, serene, and relatively empty. It had regal wide staircases that led you down from the ciclovia to the sand. Like a puppy I bounded up and down the steps contemplating where I would put my shoes if I took them off to get sandy toes. I took a selfie and sent it to my mom.

 “Look where I am!” I said then forwarded the selfie to three more close friends. I was free.

I ran along the beach then back up to the ciclovia and continued running. The wide pedestrian only path curved and arched around buildings that reminded me of Miami with grand palm trees that begged me to stop and their picture. Once the ciclovia rounded a corner it extended to a straight line that took my breath away because of its muti-use path, being fully used. There were roller bladers, dog-walkers, mom’s running with their strollers. Hard core cyclists, beach cruiser cyclists, all spotting the tracks between the ocean expanse, and the palm trees that dotted the street.

By the time I got back to the apartment (which was an uphill jog from the ocean back to the city center) I was physically spent. The shakiness had set in of being almost entirely depleted of glucose, and experiencing extreme joy. I bounded up the four flights of stairs and into the Airbnb where I inhaled a loaf of frech bread and some juice, sweat pouring from every pore in my body. The emptiness of the apartment was comforting.

I scrolled through the news feed on my phone trying to get a grip on the results from the midterm elections from the night before. As clipping, after clipping unfolded a list of remarkable women, any sort of exhaustion evaporated into more amplified joy. Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Minnesonta’s Ilhan Omar were the first Muslim Women elected to Congress. Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids were the first Native American Women elected to Congress. And (yes it continues to get good) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Abby Finkenauer were the youngest women ever elected to congress.

 I texted my mom, I texted in my girlfriend group chats, I celebrated with a mini dance and scrolling through more news feeds to cross check all the information that yes, did confirm all this to be true. It was only a week ago that I had been surrounded by truckers in the middle of nowhere Brazil receiving the news that Bolsonaro had been elected the President of Brazil. And now in the confines of a  private Airbnb, surrounded by my own courage and determination, I honor women.

We honor women, we honor change, we honor Time’s Up.

I took my long precious shower, made myself a delicious breakfast, and recharged all of my depleted batteries. This was marathon and not a sprint, and I was training hard.