Megan Gash travels to third world countries looking for women to help by providing them the means to better their lives. The work she does is partly funded by the Bill Gates Foundation.
It is world travel in no way easy, glamorous or remotely safe.
Yet Megan loves it.
Megan is a Team Lucca Runner. It is an honor and a pleasure to have her as part of our Team.
Per my asking, here is her running story.
Hi Terri,
Sure! I’m flattered you asked. Here’s a bit about myself and then the answers to the questions about running (your questions are inserted in the text).
I live in midtown Sacramento and I work in Davis at an international non-profit organization named Freedom from Hunger. freedomfromhunger.org
We assist local organizations to deliver education and small microfinance loans to women in developing countries. I work as a research specialist, studying whether our programs have impact. Naturally, my main hobby is traveling, and my job fortunately allows me to do a lot of it.
So first Megan some running questions. What got you started?
I started running because of a desire to feel better physically and also to lose some weight. A good friend, Emily Schile, had been encouraging me to run for a while and I finally decided to give it a try. I started out really slowly, by running for a couple of minutes and then walking a few minutes. I slowly worked my way up, and felt good about it both physically and simply having a sense of accomplishment, and I kept up with it.
Running has been very positive for me. I lost the weight I wanted to, and I’ve kept it off. I have more muscle definition than I’ve ever had before, I have more energy, I don’t need to sleep as much, I am more fit and alert overall, and it’s really helped with dealing with daily stress.
What are your current running goals?
My current goals are to keep up with my regular running and eventually do a half-marathon. Travel for my job often makes it difficult to find a solid few months to train, mainly since it can be hard to run while traveling. I like to increase my speed, too, but I don’t have any specific goals for it. I am not very competitive athletically and I find that I feel best when I sort of stumble into a new speed instead of planning for it and pushing myself. I ended up running a 9:34 mile average for the Feed the Hungry run last November, which was not planned, and a great improvement from my 11:27 average at the Zoo Zoom the prior April. The cold temperature really helped, though!
What are some of the countries you travel to?
I travel to wherever the project takes me, but the trips in the past year or two have been to Mali (in West Africa), India, the Philippines and Ecuador. My next trip is to a conference in Tanzania in October.
Any wonderfully memorable runs while traveling?
On a trip to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), I went for a run one early morning around 5:30am. It was in May, and very, very hot. I went running early to avoid some of the heat and humidity, and because I had jet lag and was wide awake at that time. I ran from my hotel to a park where a lot of local residents were taking their morning walks. Although I didn't stand out because I was a runner - sometimes you really are the only person out there running, and local residents think that you are running "from" something instead of just running for exercise - I did stand out because I was one of the few who wasn't doing morning calisthenics during the run. While walking in their traditional long tunics and thin pants with white tennis shoes (I was in my running capris , long tee shirt and running shoes), they were throwing their arms up over and over as the walked, almost like doing a walking jumping jack. A lot of people were doing this! It kinda of made me laugh, but also felt good to see others were out and about getting their exercise publicly, like me. It felt like I was part of a community, but doing things just a little differently than them.
What if anything is difficult for you about running ?
I’m a pretty slow runner, and I find that it’s hard to improve quickly. It’s also hard to have good runs consistently. Some days I have a great run, some days a crummy one, and I can’t do a lot to control that, a good run seems to just happen or not.
I’m just really proud I’ve stuck with running. It helps tremendously to be part of Team Lucca and know that I should participate in runs; it’s a positive kind of pressure that encourages me to stick with it since I know people will notice that I’m not there. It also feels good to continue improving. I have always felt from other Team Lucca members that although it’s great to be a fast runner, there is absolutely no pressure to do that, just show up and finish. It’s a very supportive environment. I’ve also found that running with others on a weekly basis is a great motivator to keep it up, and keep pushing myself to improve bit by bit.
What do you enjoy the most about those weekly runs?
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