khumjung and the mountain marathon

because as you ascend and gain altitude, it's very important that you go slowly and allow your body to adjust to the change in pressure and oxygen, we were told to hang out in the namche/khumjung area for 3 days. we spent one night in namche and then hiked about an hour and a half up to khumjung as we had heard there was a half marathon and festival up there. curiosity got the best of us and thankfully, because as we strolled into town with a bunch of tibetan women, the runners were soon approaching. in the first video i try to explain what's going on, but as you can see, an older gentleman quickly takes over the camera duties! he was so funny and genuinely was trying to communicate with me. the runners arrived shortly thereafter and the third video shows the winner. what was so fun for us to observe (i was hanging with 2 german trekkers...and choesang) was all of the older people mixed in with the young. this was a community event and people came up and down from villages all around to observe this event. typically at a marathon in the states, you don't see too many older people just hanging out...well, here, the elderly tibetan women were so enjoyable to watch. they were having so much fun absorbing the environment and their enthusiasm was contagious. we hung out in khumjung for the afternoon and spent the night. the next day was the sherpa festival, but it got started so late that we had to go. by 11:00 they were still doing 'introductions' which in nepali culture, can take hours! so, up the trail we went heading for dole (doh-lay).