Team America

When I got the Fulbright fellowship I decided that I wanted my first marathon to be in Latvia..well fate and a bad fall skiing in Switzerland intervened and I was relegated to the 5K race of the Riga Marathon. Luckily I got some of my friends and fellow Fulbrighters to run it with me! We decided that since we were not all Fulbrighters but all Americans that we should be called Team America and even invited some of the Embassy people to participate. This was race was quintessentially Latvian and I enjoyed every hilarious minute. People were wearing the craziest outfits completely inappropriate for running and there were so many people that we had to weave through puddles and the masses of crazy Latvians for the first 3 K. I was laughing so hard at my friends singing pump me up American songs and the people running that I thought I was going to have an asthma attack. In the end despite the soreness I had so much fun and did get a good time around 31 minutes (my goal was under 35 so I was pleasantly surprised). I even got a medal as a souvenir for running and (slightly more difficult) braving the crowds of smelly Latvians at the completely unorganized finish line.

Team America with our 5K medals
Jelena Prokopcuka, two time New York marathon winner and Latvian medaling the 5K winners.
Me and the finish line waiting for the marathoners