(India) Week in Review

50 miles

9.3M long run with tempo workout on treadmill

0 days off

5 runs with Katie

2 runs with Nick

1 trip to the Taj Mahal

This week can best be summarized by photos and a few quick bullet points on what I learned

• Indian weddings are beautiful celebrations.  I wish I could have had one!
• The people in India are so inclusive, nice and accommodating.  I had pleasant experiences with every single person I encountered.  I loved the people and their attitude.  The chef every single day at the hotel came to check to make sure I was getting enough lential daal and steamed vegetables.  We became instant friends. :-)
• The pollution is 100x worse than China, but running is totally possible.  The India gate and the presidential palace have some great stretches of land to get miles in.  
• The food here is the best food I've had in any other country.  At Bukhara (my favorite restaurant), it was totally acceptable for me to do what I always do - eat with my hands!  It will be hard to go back to states because there is no way I will find this quality of Indian food and spices!  
• The country is so colorful.  Even if some of the women are covered head to toe, they are doing it in such style and with such...happiness!  The colors made me happy.  
• Indian men are much more open-minded about human touch than westerners.  Guys hold hands and cuddle and they are not gay - they're just loving! They are comfortable with who they are and showing their affections for friends, regardless of whether they are male or female.  

At the temple

Taj Mahal - photo by Nick Alcantarra

Taj Mahal entrance

quite a celebrity at the Taj Mahal

Bukhara - the best India food I've ever had in my life

A Punjabi India wedding - groom on a white mare

Camel Cab at Taj mahal

Running at the India Gate

Nick ran with me!

Jamie and I are the waterholics of the class

Kishor with his favorite ladies

Class Prez and Section leader!

Class leaders prepping for student town hall

(Dubai) Week in Review

43 miles

24 hours of travel = 1 Day off from running

4 nights in Dubai

3 nights in New Delhi

So with the launch of every term, I always try to see one other country since I'm paying all of this money to fly all the way across the world for school.  This time around, I was fortunate enough to have a trip planned for me and 25 of my classmates to visit Dubai.  Sara and her husband were kind and gracious enough to put together a full itinerary of two days full of fun:  dune bashing and riding a yacht!  I kicked off the trip with a nice run in the morning with Katie and Claire around the marina, where tons of stay-at-home moms from an assortment of countries were walking their babies in really fancy strollers.  Dubai features a diverse mix of people, with some women wearing the traditional hijabs and others wearing European styles.  I was completely fine running in a sports bra and shorts and I don't believe I offended anyone.  Dubai is a place where the East meets the West, and where the Sheikh has made tremendous progress bringing wealth and prosperity to a tiny country.  It was eye-opening to be in a country in the middle east and see so much success.  All of my runs in Dubai were hot and I eventually got a sore throat and cold from the cigarette smoke.  Other than that, I really enjoyed my time there.

The fun eventually had to come to an end, so my classmates and I packed up our things (including our books and laptops) and hopped on another plane to Delhi.  For the first two days, we didn't have as many activities planned just in case some students had difficulty arriving from flight delays.  We participated in a rickshaw tour, attended a welcome party where we got to dance to traditional Indian music and  kicked off our fourth term with new professors.  Overall the food was absolutely amazing and the people were so nice and inclusive!  

Group in Dubai!

Claire, Katie and me after dune bashing in dubai desert

Burj Kalifa - tallest building in the world!

Dubai from the yacht

Pre-reading period on the yacht

jumping off a boat is always better holding hands

ready for the rickshaw tour 

walking through old delhi was the highlight of my trip in Delhi!

the welcome dinner to delhi

Before Kris and I decided to hop off and walk through Old Delhi

Duke Fuqua MBA Residency Week(s) in Review

Week of August 4th:
43 miles
1 day off
200m on / off @ duke track
8.5 mile "long" run

Week of August 11th:
36 miles
1 day off
8 mile "long" run
1 Accounting Midterm

I was hoping that once my MBA started I would be able to keep up with my blog, but I think that is going to be really tough over the next 1.5 years.  I stepped into my Fuqua Cross Continent MBA residency feeling bright eyed and confident.  I stepped out of it feeling dreary eyed and dejected.  But even with those feelings, I absolutely love it!  The program is set up like this:  each term starts off with a reading period, where we have to read materials to prepare for three classes.  Then we head off to an intense "residency" in another country (or, in this case, at Duke) where we go to class, eat, go to class, eat, go to a speaker, eat, talk with a career coach, go to sleep, repeat.  After that, we have 6-8 weeks of classes at a distance and we must rely heavily on our teams to get assignments done.  During residency, there is literally no break; it's nonstop.  There are 15 minute breaks between classes and speaker events and the only down time you really get is when you eat in the cafeteria with your classmates.  It's challenging both intellectually and emotionally, but totally worth it.  I became a marathon runner for a reason - because I love a good challenge and the journey it takes to properly prepare for the challenge.  Similarly, I am approaching the journey to achieving my MBA in the same spirit.

Somehow in all of the madness of residency, I was able to get in some runs every morning.  Quite frankly, these runs were what kept me sane! I managed about 4-8 miles most days and finally caved on the 7th day of residency after I went to bed at 12:30 and decided that sleep was more important than a run.  The hardest adjustment during residency was getting five hours of sleep instead of eight or even ten hours.  All in all, I know that I will eventually adjust to this new routine that is called my crazy, busy life.