{"id":390,"date":"2016-07-17T13:10:42","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T13:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/?p=390"},"modified":"2016-07-18T09:32:40","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T09:32:40","slug":"running-with-a-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/2016\/07\/17\/running-with-a-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"Running with a champion"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I often run in the\u00a0Germia Park<\/a>\u00a0which is right down the street from my apartment and RIT-K. Today was a little cooler and a beautiful day for a run so after a visit with Beki in the lab I started running to the park. It is basically one long slow hill up to the park and then some steeper hills. So as I am slowly hauling myself up the hill, I look to my right and a spritely, gray haired man comes blowing by me. I thought to myself, “man that is so lame, you really need to get back to where you used to be” and watched him fly by waving at me with a smile and a “mirdita” which means good day in Albanian. A few minutes later, down the hill he comes on my left side and all the sudden, he is running next to me! We run for a few minutes and I think he asks me if I’m German and I said “American” which is always the right thing to say here. I get a huge smile and a handshake in full stride. As we run in perfect sync at a much slower pace closer to mine than his but still a challenge for me, I notice people smiling. This is a big park but everyone seems to know my companion and I could hear an occasional shoutout..”ehhh, Bravo Muhamet” and he skips and continues to run alongside me. I realize after a mile or so that he is wearing professional clothes and shoes which is not always common here, and I start to wonder if the shirt he is wearing is actually from a team or if he is part of a team so I am not surprised when he whips out a laminated paper that announces that he is\u00a0Muhamet Rama Vusshrria<\/a>\u00a0an athlete who has broken two Balkan records in the veteran who ran 1500 meters (very close to a mile) in 5 minutes and 16 seconds. Ok people, I could not run that when I was 16 much less now! Muhamet and I ran about 3 miles together and it was pure delight to run beside him and will be one of the highlights of my time in Prishtina.<\/p>\n

\"Meredith
Meredith Davenport and Muhamet Rama Vustre in Germia Park July 17, 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Muhamet
Muhamet Rama Vustre in Germia Park July 17, 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I often run in the\u00a0Germia Park\u00a0which is right down the street from my apartment and RIT-K. Today was a little cooler and a beautiful day for a run so after a visit with Beki in the lab I started running to the park. It is basically one long slow hill up to the park … Continue reading “Running with a champion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,15,5,14,16,6,17,12,13,18,3,2],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-best-photojournalism-program","tag-best-photojournalism-school","tag-documentary","tag-great-photojournalism","tag-international-study-abroad","tag-kosovo","tag-rit-kosovo","tag-rit-photography","tag-rit-photojournalism","tag-ritdocprojects","tag-ritphoto","tag-ritpj"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}