5 With Noelle! (In Spirit)

Noelle and I both ran 5 miles for each other yesterday! Although hers were through Central Park, and mine were through Somerville. My route was very stop and go, because it involved running to meet up with Back on My Feet (0.85 mi - I've clocked that a lot), my run with them (2.4), a brief stop for our monthly Dunkin' Fridays, and then the remaining 1.75 (0.75 was with a teammate who lives near me, and the last mile was solo).

By the time we were finished, the sun was up. While it's hard to get up while it's still dark to run (especially when you stay up until 1am doing homework...), I LOVE seeing the sun come up. Since I only had a little bit of time by myself I only listened to a little bit of music. But in Noelle's honor I made sure to listen to "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. Every time I hear this song, I think of Noelle, since we saw the video for the first time on spring break together in San Diego and I think we both did one of these:

BUT WAIT IT GETS BETTER! Yesterday evening I actually went down to New York to see some other friends, so today we actually got to see her and we walked through Central Park...

and went to an exhibit of hats at a gallery at a graduate school were our friend Goose works. They had some really sweet hats that Lady Gaga would probably like.

Seriously, there were five SHOE hats. This place was legit. Then we ate Chinese food. It was a lovely trip, and I got to see some very excellent people, but now I am back in Boston and heading to bed early... long run tomorrow!

Also a quick PSA: I am currently on taper so need to start being careful about when and how far I'm running. So please don't take it personally if I do someone else's run before yours! I promise I'll get everyone's in!
And if anyone wants to donate $262, I can do Boston for you :)

Some Quick Epi on HIV in Tanzania

Because I had my epidemiology midterm right before my run on Thursday, I had epi on the brain, so bear with me (or skip this entry) while I do some quick calculations.

According to this study by Hallett, et al,, the incidence rate for HIV in Tanzania (from 2004 to 2008) was 3.37 cases per 1000 person-years. The calculation for this is a bit complicated, but for simplicity's sake, we'll just say that over the course of a year, 3-4 people out of a thousand in Tanzania will contract HIV. This does not take into account those that already are HIV+ (which was about 7% of the population, according to this study). According to this study by Prejean, et al., the incidence rate in the US in 2008 was 0.19 per 1000 person-years.

So looking at the rate ratio (3.37/0.19), people in Tanzania have 17.7 times the rate of contracting HIV than those in the US.
And with the rate difference (3.37-0.19), there were 3.18 excess new cases per 1000 person-years. (The word "excess" does not mean that the 0.19 is an acceptable amount, it's just the terminology used in the field.)

This means that if you follow 100,000 people in the US and 100,000 people in Tanzania for a year, there will be 337 new cases of HIV in Tanzania, 19 more in the US, for a difference (excess) of 318. And these numbers, remember, do not include anyone already living with HIV.

I am not downplaying the issue of HIV/AIDS in the US. I'd like to prevent those 19 new US cases just as much. In the summer of 2007, I volunteered at Don Miller Homes in Baltimore, and saw first-hand the effects of HIV/AIDS and realized while major progress has been made in the US, we still have a long way to go to battle this disease. I'm just trying to demonstrate the magnitude of the problem in Tanzania. We're going to be up against a lot in this fight, and hopefully our efforts, and the efforts of the community, will start driving down these numbers.

T(h)ree for Tara!

Tara, in my humble opinion, is a rock star. She doesn't even know me, and she still donated. She's a friend of my mom, who says nothing but great things about her. I also know that she is from Ireland, so she must have a sweet accent (which is why this is titled "T(h)ree"). And I hope she enjoys the little joke, and doesn't think I'm making fun of her, because I most certainly am not! I was lucky enough during my undergrad career to study abroad in Dublin (at University College Dublin - where Tara went!) for a semester and loved it.

The weather... not so much... but very similar to yesterday in Boston! It was kind of chilly, a bit windy, pretty cloudy (although the sun peeked out for just a bit towards the end!), and I very fortunately found a time between the rain showers to run.

Since I overslept and missed my run with Back on My Feet (sad!!), I logged my miles after my Epidemiology midterm in the afternoon. I was running through Jamaica Plain and Roxbury (which are every bit as exotic as they sounds), while rocking out to "Africa" by Toto and "Keep Your Head Up" by Andy Grammer (our official BoMF Boston Marathon theme song). I had really wanted to listen to "Galway Girl" by Steve Earle, specifically for Tara, but apparently messed up trying to transfer the music so no dice :(. I will probably listen to it about a thousand times now though.

Nothing super exciting happened during the run, except I think some kids yelled at me (I couldn't tell with the headphones), and I had to do a bit of jaywalking when the sidewalk suddenly was closed. I saw a sign similar to this:

Unlike this man, I did not walk in the street. I ran as fast as I could in the right turning lane. So I didn't really break any rules. I always was not sporting a sun's out guns out shirt, so I didn't break fashion rules either.

I fought the temptation to swing by the Sam Adams brewery while in the neighborhood. I was unable, however, to resist the temptation to run a few extra miles. But for you, Tara, they are on the house!

Slán go fóill!

Natalie

Ten Miles for Mom and Dad!

I have incredibly supportive parents, so it's only appropriate that my first run was for them!

Today I did 10 miles around Somerville and Cambridge, including parts of MIT's and Harvard's campuses. It was about 40 degrees and sunny and windy. I found myself near the Charles River, but decided not to venture too close to it, for fear of blowing in.

For most of the run, I listened to "This American Life" which was a rerun of a story about two women who find out they were switched at birth at age 43. One of the mothers knew all along too. I thought it was cool that I happened to pick this podcast for my run for my parents because:

1. My mom loves NPR (especially "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me") and I used to tease her mercilessly about it. Until I got into it and had to shamefully admit that, once again, she was right.
2. There is absolutely no way I was switched at birth. Not only do I look remarkably like my parents and siblings, but every day I think becoming more and more like my parents (in a good way). So whether nature or nurture is more important, it doesn't matter. Those two made me who I am, and now they must face the consequences of their actions and genetic sequences. They are stuck with me.

the dream team

the end result

So thanks, Mom and Dad, for everything you have taught me and your continued support. I think a fair amount of parents would freak out when their daughter quits her job to go to grad school full time in an unrelated field, and then decides to go to Africa to do an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign in a rural village instead of finding a summer job or paid internship of sorts. You even put up with my frequent rambling, stress-filled phone calls while I was deciding to do this, and really reassured me that I was making excellent choices. Although Dad might just want me out of the country for a couple of weeks... And Mom, I sincerely hope you were joking about your request that I listen to "Friday" by Rebecca Black for all 10 miles...

Natalie

I'm Going to Tanzania!

As you probably know by now, I'm going to Tanzania this summer to volunteer with Support for International Change in an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. I'll be staying in a with a local family in a rural community, and educating the community on HIV/AIDS, while training peer educators, so that our intervention can have a sustainable impact there. Today, one in twenty people in Tanzania are HIV+. I want do something about that.

I'm very excited (although so far all of the Swahili I have learned is "Hakuna Matata"), but I need to come up with about $3000 plus airfare to cover all the costs. To help do this, I have set up a fundraising site, and for ever $10 donated, I'm going to run a mile. So the overall purpose of this blog is to track my fundraising and my running. This way you can be sure I'm actually logging the miles you paid for! (If you really want to be sure, feel free to bike along side of me.)

For each sponsored run, I'll give a shout out to whoever donated, and a brief description of the run (where I went, what the weather was like, who I was with, music I listened to), and anything interesting that happened (dog bites, tripping, running into trees, almost getting run over, finding $5 - all of which have occurred in the past month or so). 

I'm also more than happy to take special requests such as running in memory/honor of someone, taking pictures of where I go, listening to requested songs, doing hill workouts, wearing specific apparel (that I already own - if I was made of money, I wouldn't need to fundraise!) such as this great shirt created for our Ragnar Relay team: 

I also would not be opposed if you request that I eat cookies and watch TV instead...

Aside from a donation and running log, I'll keep this up to date with what I'm learning in my Pre-Field training and other relevant (or irrelevant) topics that come up along the way. 

Always feel free to contact me with questions, requests, suggestions, etc.

And thanks in advance for your support!

Natalie