Inspiration

I know you are all anxious for my Rickshawing adventure news -haha! So sorry, I have been a bit behind on blog posts this week. I keep sitting down to write and the inspiration seems to fade away. Some weeks I find it hard to be inspired about anything, even our amazing journey across India. Life's minutia can be a drag attimes, and I am certainly guilty of allowing it to take over. As I sat and thought about inspiration or, better yet, my current lack thereof I figured now would be a great time to share my inspiration for The Rickshaw Run.

Last year, I stumbled across a video of a group of three individuals who drove a rickshaw across India. I watched the video, and I felt those anticipatory butterflies in my stomach. I watched it again, and knew in my heart I had to do this. Immediately afterward I sent Mike a text, "Check out the Rickshaw Run. We have to do it." His response: "What are you talking about"? When we were both finally home from work I sent him to The Adventurists website.

"This. This is what I am talking about! Are you up for it?"

He pursued the site for a few minutes. {Literally he watched the highlight video and read the introductory paragraph}

"Um, yeah this looks amazing."

Then we started watching videos. The inspiration flowed through us both and we were so happy to make this a part of our lives. I felt as if my body could not keep up with my joyous heart and racing mind. We found our next grand adventure - it feels like a cool salve on the the wounds of life.

The cool thing is that many of the Rickshaw Runners create videos of their adventures after they complete the Run. So, YouTube is full of videos that continually inspire me for the journey. There are short videos that just begin to paint a picture of the experience, and also videos that go on for several hours and provide epic details of all of the ups, downs, and in-betweens. Sometimes Mike and I will watch these long videos instead of going to see a movie. Below are a few of the more popular videos, including the original video that inspired us to take on The Rickshaw Run.

This video was our original inspiration. We met and worked out with Dave in Bali and are Facebook "friends". So really our first trip to Bali in 2013 was the catalyst that led us here. The video is about 15 minutes long.

This is a four part series, each video about 15 minutes long. JacksGap are YouTube stars {apparently}, they participated in The Rickshaw Run. You can tell their adventure was highly supported, but they still got into the gritty. Amazingly they raised over $100,000 for their charity!!

This 5 minute video was created by one of the JacksGap Runners. It is a beautiful visual representation of India.

These a just a small sampling of the many Rickshaw Run videos that are out there. If you google "YouTube Rickshaw Run" several other videos will come up. I sometimes get lost in the glory of it all. And, it brings back the inspiration.

This is a rich and friendly universe and I dare to accept it riches!

P.S./Edit: Make sure you keep tracking the April 2016 Runners, most the Teams have made it Shillong!