The Sabeda Bagan (Garden) Club road race becomes an international event!

A couple weeks ago Brent spotted a sign for the “Peace & Harmony” road race—12 k for men and 6 k for women. He’s been running pretty regularly since we’ve been here and so was excited about the possibility of the prospect of the “Peace & Harmony” race.

I, on the other hand, have not been running (it’s relaxing and a stress reliever for me in the States but here—what do I wear? stretching in public seems obscene, the stares are exhausting enough when I’m just doing regular, daily activities so imagine the spectacle of running in whatever I decided to wear…) and certainly would not have considered a road race but somehow last night after one of the organizers of the race called Brent to see if he would participate (saved his number I guess from a previous inquiry call), Brent convinced me that I should do it instead. We called the guy back and confirmed the specifics and I set my alarm for 6 am.

So, this morning, I jumped in a taxi at 6:30 am and made my way to the race (with the cell phone and a some money in a little purse hanging around my neck)—“Peace & Harmony 6k here I come!” It was such a fun experience for so many reasons—let me see if I can recapture some of it :

I arrived in the taxi to the intersection where we were told that the race would be, but I got out of the taxi and didn’t see any signs of a race. Hmmmmm…..this was not really surprising (for nothing is quite that simple here). So, what to do? The organizers phone number was still in the phone so I called him to try to get more specific directions. His English was as limited as my Bangla so I handed the phone to the newspaper hawker on the side of the road hoping that he could get the information and point me in the right direction. Worked like a charm! He pointed me to the road across the street and I was on my way.

I only made it a few hundred yards before a white jeep pulled up in front of me and 2 men jumped out and said, “American?” It took me a second to figure out that as soon as the organizer got off the phone he sent a car to look for me and bring me to the race. Quickly trying to analyze the situation and feeling pretty confident that this would not be the beginning of the end I got in the car we drove to the starting line.

The race would not start for another hour or so, so there was lots of time to be showered with offers of tea and crackers and candies and bottled water (no matter how much I tried to insist that these were not necessary) and to chit chat with the very kind retired men of the Garden Club—the proud organizers of the road race which was now in it’s 16th year! and international for the first time (thanks to me and one other Japanese fellow)!

My favorite interaction of the morning was with the announcer who looked like he must be the president of the club. He was very interested to know where I was from and how I had heard about the race. I told him that my husband had seen the signs and that we like running very much. “For peace and harmony?!” he said as a rather emphatic question. “Absolutely!” I said.

The race was great! It was so well organized with streets and traffic actually blocked off (quite unbelievable really when you’ve seen the traffic here), people handing out water bottles all along the way, crowds that cheered…..and in spite of the fact that my arms and legs felt numb and I could barely breathe after the first minute of the race (trying to keep up with the 20 or so Indian women and girls who took off in a dead sprint at the start and left me in the dust) I finished the race so thankful for the chance to do something I really enjoy and to feel so genuinely welcomed in the process. How’s that for a little peace and harmony?!