our lives are very routine here and center around one building where we live and work and spend every second of every single day.  as you can guess, after nine months of being here, boredom has taken over more than one of us, which then means that we end up doing crazy things to entertain ourselves.  dares and challenges are common and unfortunately, most of us crave newness in our lives enough that we are ready to take on anything.

at some point during my time here i was inspired to start running but by february i was still only running a dinky little 2k and pretty soon afterwards stopped altogether because i don’t like running, knee problems, and everyone left and there was no more pressure to continue. 

so all this to say, today i was “man challenged” to run four kilometers in thirty-five minutes.  for those of you who might be reading and are familiar with running, you’ll realize that thirty-five minutes for such a short ways is rather generous, but what can i say?  even though my life is non-stop being picked on and having things thrown at me by these silly boys, sometimes they can be rather sweet — like giving me the extra time.

i didn’t think i’d make it close and they didn’t think so either.  they gave me 35 minutes and i was back in 40.  i know that’s still ten minutes per kilometer and completely pathetic, but i surprised them and being able to do that was the best feeling in the world.

and now the challenge has been placed and i’m going after it.  thirty-five minutes, you’ll be mine.