November 6th
For those of you in NYC, please cheer for our friends who flew all the way from Ethiopia to kick our American asses in the marathon. Ian sent in this article on the challenges these runners face from the NYTimes.I wish you all could see where these people train. There isn’t a training facility, officially speaking. They run in the mountains along goat paths (like where the Hash goes) and on the ring road around Addis in the very early morning, before the smog kicks in. The children and youth in training run along the long steps in Meskal Square, which is sort of like a stadium in the middle of the biggest intersection you’ve ever seen, over and over and over again. One can only imagine what sort of athletes Ethiopia would produce if they had decent school programs (or schools, period,) track teams, coaches, and of course food and shelter in general.
posted by Margot @ 3:07 AM
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