In the jungle

One of the benefits of living on Guam is getting to run near the jungle, where green stretches to the horizon like the ocean. Yesterday afternoon, six middle schools met up to run at Okkodu High School to compete. This is a great course. 4 years ago the Middle Schoolers ran at Tyjan, which had sharp metal poles hiding in the overgrowth and Continental 747 planes overhead preparing to land-- which is what Trevor did when he ran for Anderson AFB Middle School at the North end of the island. Natalie is running for the "rival" Navy as she attends McCool school at the Southern end of the island.

I know that nervous look on Natalie's face. My mom took a few of those fretting/anxious photos of me before my races. I think Natalie has learned to calm herself better than I did.She looked like such a natural when she was running. I knew she'd be a strong runner.
She is right behind the 3rd runner in the gray shirt. Takes after my own heart-- overtaking people on hills.
When she hit the straightway on the last 300 yards, she dug deep and gave it all she had. Despite the noise, she said she could hear us in the background yelling for her. I've always hoped that in times of trials and exhaustion, my kids could hear their earthly and heavenly cheering section encouraging them to press on.
Her goal is under 12 minutes for the 1.8 miles. She ran a 13:30--which is a great starting place.

The sun always starts to set around 6 pm year round, and the runners had a nice sunset over the jungle to enjoy while they waited to turn in their race numbers.

Everyone was accounted for and loaded up on the school busses before the 10 foot monitor lizards, wood spirits (duendas) or wild boars came out of the jungle. Locals will always laugh at their superstitions and fears, but then they get serious and say "it's always good to have the children in out of the jungle before dark--just in case." Oh the fun of living on Guam :0)