We Are All The Same

I have just finished this book by Jim Wooten and it was definitely an eye opener as to how life is so different in other parts of the world. It is about a young boy, Nkosi, who came to this world infected with AIDS. He is from a place in South Africa which was known as Zululand, his mother had the HIV virus and when she was impregnated passed the disease to him. He was only supposed to live a few years but because of all the love given that was given to him he became a role model to others living with this disease.

This book also talks about the history of South Africa and how the government helped or rather didn't help this boy or the other millions of infected people, but rather ignored the issue. It really touched me and made me truly thankful that I am living in a place with such freedom, love and help. I do hope that there will be a lot more positive changes for the people in Africa and that the government understands the full meaning of it all.

Barbara

I have just finished reading this wonderful book. It is a memoir of Barbara Walters. It showed how she began, some of her personal life and the many many interesting people she met/interviewed. I enjoyed watching 20/20 and learning more about these interviews she did was like a sequel to the show. She has come so far and is still going far with the many tasks she is accomplishing even now.

What I enjoyed the most was the chapter on The View, all the different roads they took in finding the right combination for their panel today. I don't always get to watch the show because of my job but when I do I am not usually disappointed. It is like a calmer kind of debate than the political ones.

Definitely a book I was looking forward to reading and was not disappointed.

Toronto Waterfront Marathon

Last Sunday I ran my first Marathon, that's right all 42.1km of it. I met up with a friend of mine that I have been training with and we decided to run together as much as we could. I didn't want to hold her back if she was having a good run and I wasn't. We started off well in the big crowd of people, for some reason they wanted the half marathon and full marathon runners to start together which was very busy and difficult to maintain a pace as we were dodging around some of them. I felt good and took all my 10 and 1's religiously, for those that don't know what that is, it is running for 10 minutes then walking for 1 minute.

My first 10km was right on track for my pace. I continued to feel strong and run through it all. When we reached the halfway mark things got more serious for me as some of the runners were finishing and I could focus more on the other 21km I had left. At that point I noticed that I had lost track of my friend and so I carried on alone. Because the race had a lot of turn around marks I was able to cheer on the leading man and the leading woman as they went past me and eventually found my friend.

At about the 40km mark I noticed my calf starting to cramp up but remembered there were only 2 km left and so I pressed on ignoring the pain. It didn't take long to forget about it because the adrenalin kicked in and it was so nice and helpful hearing the crowd cheering me on. I felt strong right to the end and pushed it right over the finish line. No hitting the wall for me.

My gun time was 4:01:07

And my chip time was 3:57:40

I came in 37 out of 154 in my age/sex category and 891 out of 2532 over all.

I guess I am bound for Boston one of these days. My next marathon won't be until May 2009.