Run Across Haiti 2018

Ok, this is happening:

8 days, over 200 miles, one rest day, with daily distances of 13-50+ miles!

I’ll be running with Team Tassy, an organization with the following mission:

We accompany families in Haiti out of poverty through good, dignified jobs.

Additionally, “we run to show that Haiti’s not a place to be feared or to be pitied.”

Last year, my friend Jason, participated in the 2017 version of , and convinced me what an amazing opportunity it was. (Remember Jason? — I got to pace him the last 25 miles of his Umstead 100 win.) I’ve never run anywhere near the kind of distance over a week that this will be, but I’m ready to embrace the challenge.

Jason came to HRCA last year during the athletic banquet, and talked about his love of running and love of mission work, and how this run enabled him to combine the two. Kelly and I want to explore the world of mission work outside of our own community, especially as we approach the day when the kids are out of the nest, and while this is not a hands on mission trip but instead a fundraiser, it will allow me to see a common destination for mission trips. In fact, Kelly and Riley are going to do a real hands on mission trip in Haiti next summer, and I hope to do the same at some point in the not too distant future.

My coach, David Roche of Some Work All Play (SWAP), questioned why I wanted to do this. I gave an answer that didn’t satisfy him, and he challenged me to read “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” the story of Paul Farmer and his medical “mission” work in Haiti and other places around the world. As I read it, I became more and more inspired. (I think if I was not 47, I’d go back to med school!) 🙂 David’s recommendation to me to read this book reminds me of Phil Jackson, the basketball coach, and how he’d pick a different book for each player every season… There’s some real insight there beyond running that David had, which made me dig deeper, and I really appreciate it. Now when I’m really suffering out there, which I know I will (probably many times!) running across Haiti, I’ll be able to dig that much deeper and persevere.

I highly recommend the book!

Here’s a quick video of the run from last year:

Now, this is a fundraiser, and I’ve committed to raising $5000 to support Team Tassy in meeting their goal of accompanying families in Haiti out of poverty. If you feel inclined to support me in supporting Team Tassy, here’s a link to my Crowdwise site:

Sean’s Run Across Haiti

Thanks!

AT: Family backpacking trip

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For my birthday, I wanted to do a family backpacking trip. We opted to do nearly the same exact trip we did with the HTC men’s group in early June, documented here, here, and here. As the trips were almost identical, I’ll not go into the details of the journey. I’ll just say that the kids did very well in the 20 miles and nearly 4000′ of climb that we did, and post some photos.

Day 1

We stopped for a “coffee break” for me and a rest stop for everyone else. Reece threw up the hammock and chilled while Kelly got some sun in the back.

Here’s the kid’s tent site near Wise Shelter (just on the other side of the creek):

Mess hall:

Day 2

Heading out:

(a bit of a joke as we had only walked about 5 minutes!)

Rock climbing:

Lunch break

Evening camp site:

Our site was invaded by ponies… Some editing done by Riley:

Day 3

2017 East Coast Magical Mystery Tour Day 6

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Day 6 we saved to just explore Pittsburgh. I went out for a short run and then took the kids to breakfast. On the way we saw “Mass Yoga:”

Later we took the Duquesne Incline up to the far side of the river and just explored around there…

After some rest and pool time, Reece and I rented bikes and rode around.

2017 East Coast Magical Mystery Tour Day 3, 4, 5

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The next 3 days were the annual ACCS conference, which filled our days. I won’t write here about all the great sessions and plenaries, others than to copy in a snippet that George Grant used about “The Long Explore…”

Rabbit:

I’ve got a splendid idea! Now listen: we’ll take Tigger for a long explore, see, somewhere he’s never been before. And we’ll lose him there!

Winnie the Pooh:

[awakes] Lose him?

Rabbit:

Oh, we’ll find him again next morning, and mark my words, he’ll be a humble Tigger, a small and sad Tigger, and a “oh, rabbit, am I glad to see you” Tigger. And it’ll take the bounces out of him, that’s what! Now, all in favor, say ‘aye’.
Piglet:

Aye. [Pooh falls asleep again] Pooh. [shakes Pooh awake] Pooh!
Winnie the Pooh:

[waking up, then raising his hand] Oh, here.
Rabbit:

Oh-ho-ho, good. Just good. Motion carried.

Why include this? It reminded me a lot of why I tackle some of the adventures I do — to be humbled, to be reminded of how small I really am. I don’t get sad, though, I get excited! It’s a beautiful world, meant to be explored!

After the conference was over around noon, we drove up to Grove City College to get a guided tour of the campus. It’s a great little school and a wonderful campus.

And that night Kelly and I went to a fantastic restaurant (Piratas) while the kids stayed back — they were full from lunch and didn’t want dinner just snacks.

2017 East Coast Magical Mystery Tour Day 2

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A long car ride, packing for multiple trips within a trip (DC, Pittsburg for school conference and exploring, NYC, DE (beach)) and this is what you get:

On the trip to Pittsburg from DC, we decided to stop by and see the United Flight 93 National Memorial in PA. It was amazingly well done, and very much worth the time.

I really had no idea how emotional I’d get at the memorial. It started at the overlook, but inside the Visitor’s center as I was reading the minute by minute account of the day, it got worse. I lost it when the TV clips they were playing replayed the Today Show footage of the 2nd flight hitting the Trade Center — I remember that exact clip as I was watching it live as it happened, and that brought the memories flooding back. For those of you that don’t know, Danny Lewin, the co-founder of Akamai, was on American flight 11, so 9-11 has always been a very emotional memory for all of us that knew him and were working there that day, and I still get so sad when re-living it. 😦

Once we got to Pittsburg, I got out for a quick run along the river(s):

And then we went to Burgatory for dinner, and I got this fortune:

This looks like a great place for a conference and to explore post conference for a couple of days…

2017 East Coast Magical Mystery Tour Day 1

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This year we won’t be heading to a national park out west 😦 — instead have quite the itinerary planned on the east coast with stops in DC, Pittsburg, girls to NYC and boys to DE, etc.

Day 1 had us drive to DC to the National Cathederal and then see U2 with our friends the Martins in seats next to us, and other friends from PBO and Chapel Hill in attendance but not directly with us.

Photos of the day below.

A golden opportunity to mention quantity missed?

The National Cathedral had damage in an earthquake a couple years back that they will be working of for quite some time.

Stained glass depicting NASA’s trip to the moon:

After the Cathedral we got a taste of DC traffic — about an hour to go just 13 miles to get to the hotel! We had a quick turn around to get a quick bite to eat and to the stadium for the show. We got an Uber Black but on the way to dinner changed plans and had him drop us off at Chinese, and then walked to the stadium.

After ticket resolution, we finally made it in and got see the Lumineers play a couple songs!

U2 was pretty amazing, as always.

AT: HTC Summer backpacking trip day 3

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I slept much better on the 2nd night, as per usual. I was a bit worried about the cold, but it ended up not being as cold as the 1st night. Sometime just before 6 a.m., though, I was woken by sounds that are very hard to explain. In hindsight, it’s easy to call them “aggressive munching sounds.” This was right next to me on the right side of my tent. And then something was making noise on the upper side of the left tent. I quickly looked up, and saw the shadow of a head of some kind of animal poking its snout all over my tent! Based on the way the light was behind it, and not being fully awake, it was not a shape that made sense to me, but my 1st guess was baby bear. I sleep with my hiking poles in the tent, so I “gently” tapped the top corner of the tent a couple times to get it to move.

Once that was done, I could hear munching all around the tents. I poked my head out and could see lots of animals — adult and baby horses! I couldn’t get my phone camera to work for a bit, and all I got was this crazy video:

Well once the animals cleared out, there was no getting back to sleep. But being awake did allow me to watch an incredible sunrise:

After we had breakfast and packed, we walked down to a nice site for morning prayer. This was the site on way down:

The altar:

During prayer:

During prayer there were horses all around us, and some kept going after various packs — trying to get inside, etc. During the NT reading, there was literally a stampede right through the middle of our group, and Shea had to jump out of the way, while I had to jump behind a tree. I have a little video of the aftermath where they were running back through:

Eventually the horses let us be and we were able to complete a wonderful morning prayer service, including communion.

As the last day we just had a 5 mile hike, mostly downhill;

All in all another great trip. I hope to take some of the 2sparrows clan out on this same loop in July. But every time I am on the AT, I can’t help but thinking about thru-hiking. I’ve done close to 500 miles on it now, but spread out over many years. I really would like a crack at doing it in one go someday!