Ambition #2: Machu Picchu

Do you remember early January, when I mentioned that I was going running every once in a while? Luke & Brian (two of the Bird People) even came over so we could begin running. The reason I started running again, and was excited about it, was because we had spent the prior evening drinking Woodchucks (erm, well that was just me) and looking up both Mayan and Incan lore and history on Wikipedia (don't make fun, this is what the Bird People do on a Friday or Saturday evening, especially after an exciting recent visit to the Field Museum, which had featured a monumental exhibit on the Ancient Americas). As we all have dabbled in some form of running, and have all at least accomplished a 1/2 marathon, our discussion reasonably shifted to the altitude of Machu Picchu, and how Inca runners transferred information between posts. Or something to that effect.

We stumbled across this. That is, Inca Runners, a service that offers altitude training in the Andes on the Inca Trail. The Machu Picchu trail offers a week of runs at up to 7 miles daily-- at Andes altitudes, this is only for dedicated athletes. But we're all like, "Hell, yeah! Let's run this bitch!"

Okay, so my post a few days ago got me thinking about the obvious quick dissolution of this ambition. We trashed the goal within the month. It was treated as ridiculous, a joke, from the beginning. Certainly we're all pretty busy. I don't know what Brian and Luke are doing now in terms of running (they're more serious runners than I am), but I got busy.

But hey, the sun's out, the sky's blue, and it would be a really good day for running. Maybe I will lace up this afternoon, grab my iPod, go and dream again.