All weather, fair weather, ill weather...

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and general Festivus all round.  Mr Lapin and I flew into London last weekend to spend our first Christmas in 10 years in England (oh bah humbug - why would you deliberately leave a tropical clime for cold damp England in December if you did not need to?)

Ill weather.....
I am all set to start my half-marathon training; running in the park, beginning to put some core exercises into my post stretch routine and building the focus I know I am going to need to push past my 11K maximum.  Not to mention the anticipation of wearing my presents, because an interesting discovery is that once you have become a runner you need never struggle to answer the question "what do you want for Christmas?"  The easy and truthful answer now can always be "oh running kit please."

The Half-Marathon Has Begun

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an aspiring runner in possession of a goal, must be in want of a few races to run.  And so it is that having run two 10K races this year I have signed up to run the Georgia half-marathon next March.

As some of you will know I ran my first race in February; I trained hard and ran a very respectable time of 1:10.  OK Mr Lapin (aka The Fitter One) verily sprinted away once the race began; but I remember having a lovely race, running around parts of Bangkok; across bridges and through old parts of the city.  I vowed then and there that 10K was going to be 'my' race.  It was a doable distance.  One that didn't necessarily demand too much of my time or a single minded and focused training plan.  It was a distance I could work towards running in under 60mins.

Hills, Thrills and the American Way

Well how y'all doin'?   Welcome to Hotlanta! You're gonna' have to get a car.

Mr Lapin and I have been in the United States for two months now, Atlanta to be precise.  The last couple of weeks in Bangkok were so incredibly stressful that I had just about enough time in the day to get the relocating stuff done let alone trying to contemplate running.

Needless to say I arrived in a very hilly city very unfit.  I am not kidding the first few weeks here it seemed that whatever direction I was walking in I was always walking up hill.  Big hills. I am beginning to think this is why everyone drives.  Oh, my legs ached and my heart thumped.  I huffed and puffed and thought how the hell am I going to be able to run these hilly streets?

The solution was to get all American and take my 'sneakers' to work so that I could join my ladies walking at lunch time.  Now don't be fooled, when I say walking I am not talking about a gentle lunch time stroll to 'stretch the legs'.  I am talking FAST walking.

Bangkok: It's been nice but now it is time to go.

Things I will miss when I go:

1. Life on the streets:  Bangkok is one of the most vibrant cities there is.  Everything happens on the pavements here.  Food stalls and market stalls.  Motorbike taxis idle while waiting for fares.  Dogs, cats and people jostle for space.
2. The eternal sunshine: Pretty much every day for 12 months of the year the sun shines.  Even when it doesn't it is only cloudy for a while.  It is perpetually sunny in this country and that is nice.
3. The colours:  Thailand is full of colour.  Perhaps it is the Buddhism, perhaps it is the perpetual sunshine, but people wear colours with abandon. 
4. Double think:  The concept that allows people to hold two opposing ideas and treat them as equal.  This means that you can be the  President o
   f a major Thai corporation and still visit the fortune teller to ensure that you do important things on auspicious days.

Blogging: It's a bit like bank statements

While speaking to my mother the other night she gently chided that I had not posted anything on this site since 27 May and she was left to tracking me through my twitter feed and the photographs of what I ate.  I proffered such excuses as "been really busy", "never quite got back into the rhythm after injuring my foot" and my killer "well I am trying to relocate myself and Mr Lapin to the other side of the world in four weeks time".  All of which are true but it got me thinking about why something I started (running and writing) as a way of relaxing and opening up my horizons has become quite quickly the first thing I drop when life piles up.

The low-fat foodie

I like my food.  As Mr Lapin will attest I enjoy great food with a glass of good wine - the latter unfortunately difficult to get here in Thailand. And while I like to think I eat well my recent medical showed to the contrary and that I need to become more focused about what I eat, erring perhaps on the side of the low-fat end of the dietary scale.

At the same time as my Doctor suggesting I go low-fat, he did remind me that I am still out gunning the bad cholesterol with high good cholesterol numbers - this I put down to regular running, olive oil and garlic.  For the last two, I thank my mum who brought us up on what is now termed a Mediterranean diet, but to her was just how you cooked and ate food. Lots of vegetables, garlic and herbs, fish and olive oil. So eating well for me is not about a radical change of life long habits but is about becoming more intentional on what I cook and how much I am eating.

Being lapped by a Lady Boy...

My first week back to picking up running seriously again went pretty well; as did the dive into exploring a more low-fat diet.  Now I am not going to sit here and boast that all was a cracking success.  A month off running and in fact any training of any kind whatsoever clearly revealed itself to me within the first ½ km of my Monday evening run.  It was hot - I know, I know a reoccurring theme that I am sure you are getting fed up with.  But in the absence of any comment available to me about the terrain or even changing weather patterns you just have to give me the one constant to my running at the moment – it is hot here, hot and humid and about 35C.

Heath Warnings Now Apply

As most of you know I turned 40 last year, I began to run, found I really liked it, ran my first (and so far only) 10k and have been on the fitness motorway ever since.  Since turning 40 I have also started to consider my health a lot more seriously, as in, which parts of me are likely to fall to bits over the next few years, and which bits of me should I start to get checked out on a regular basis?

The past year of self-monitoring has not yielded any useful information other than me wondering whether the slight ache in my wrist meant something other than a side effect of having slept on it awkwardly.  The past year has however seen me become more intentional with nutrition, supporting my diet with vitamins and other supplements as well as trying to understand the best approach to sustaining a healthy lifestyle despite constant travel with the associated hotels and restaurant food that goes with business trips.

Runners strife

As you know I am currently in London enjoying the cold spring weather and the tree blossom that is starting to burst.  The cool weather has prompted me to dive back into regular runs and on Tuesday I ran my fastest 5k ever - 27 minutes.  It was 27 minutes of pure joy running through Kensington Gardens; the morning sun low in the sky that made running past an iron fence like dancing in a disco with a strobe light.

The park was full of other early morning runners, walkers and their dogs and cyclists making their way to work.  A London park is so utterly different to a Thai one that I had to remember to keep running and not stop with the shock of seeing a park being used rather than revered.  Sometimes Thai parks want to make you feel grateful for being allowed in them - not always, but sometimes.

Some of my favourite places

Not running today but I have just got back to London for a short trip home for Easter.  So as I am feeling a little whimsical I thought I would share some of my favourite places that have nothing to do with running.

I don't consider myself particularly sentimental but the following have a special place in my heart for a variety of reasons.

The Palm House, Sefton Park Liverpool

I first visited Liverpool in 1997 with my boyfriend (now Mr Lapin). As a  proud Liverpudlian he was keen to take be me back to visit his childhood and spiritual home.  So one cold winter's night I found myself on the last train heading north from London taking a circuitous route via Manchester finally alighting at Liverpool Lime Street.  And there he was, Mr Lapin, just before midnight waiting for me on the platform.

Too Hot to Run?

I have been contemplating this question for the past week - is it ever too hot to run?  I am not talking about the Olympic marathons runners or those who take part in endurance races in the desert, but I am talking about runners like me who are just starting out or those that run shorter races most weekends.

Here in Thailand the hot season has suddenly ramped itself up and last week saw the temperature hit around 37C (falling only slightly to 35C in the evening).  Along with the rising mercury the humidity has also been going up.  The combination has made my last three outside runs feel as though I am running in a sauna or at any rate having to fight my way through something heavy that is trying to drag me backwards.  The air has been thick and sultry and most certainly tropical.  And while this is to be expected in April in Bangkok it has made me wonder whether it is ever too hot to run outside?

Flooding not Running

A couple of weeks ago I cancelled my evening run (I know I was complaining in the previous post about my lack of running time - but I'm human what can I say?)  Instead Mr Lapin and I made hasty arrangements to meet at Siam Paragon, a gargantuan monument to high end materialistic consumerism that is all the rage in Thailand, to go and see John Carter at the pictures.  Despite us both loving films we seldom manage to get ourselves to the cinema so this was a treat for us.  We splurged the extra Baht and paid for the luxury screen which seemed to enable us to watch John Carter on Layzboys.

All was going well, we had time to spare so we headed to the bookshop to browse before the film.  Then my mobile rang, it was our neighbour with the words "you have to come home now, your flat is flooding." What the f%*k?

Running hills and the hamster wheel

A few weeks ago I found myself in Atlanta, Georgia for a conference.  It proved a good time for catching up with dispersed work colleagues and all of us valuing the face to face time that is all too rare in the budget tight world of an NGO.

One of the great things about being in the United States is that this is where (modern recreational) running was born.  I mean the ‘jogger’ came from America. While the rest of us in Europe looked dismissively at those crazy Americans and their running.  Those crazy Americans had discovered something that the rest of us would soon catch on to – running is fun.  Seriously, it is.

The 10k race: a story in two parts

PART ONE
Once upon a time a slightly overweight and depressed woman wanted to make a change. She had had enough of feeling the way she did and something had to be done.  So she decided to start running.  Not in a Forrest Gump type of way but in a 'one day I'm going to run a race' type of way.  She found a friend who ran, and together they ran around the local park a couple of times a week.  Surprisingly this woman discovered that she enjoyed running.  It made her feel good, less fed up and blugh like.  In October of last year the woman signed up for a 10k that was part of the annual city marathon later the following month.  A 10k race seemed a reasonable distance, something attainable.  By that stage she was regularly running a steady 5-8km each time she went out.

Race shirt and bib

The woman continued her regular training.  She got into her running and began to read running blogs.  She enjoyed her running and her blog reading so much that she thought she would start a blog of her own.  It would be fun she thought.  I can write about my running experiences and keep track of my progress.  Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get a few followers and others will enjoy my journey too.

A runner's little helper

It was like Brief Encounter but without the repressed English emotions or perhaps it was more like the song Strangers in the Night except we were not exchanging glances.  In fact we resolutely kept our gazes forward.

The other night I ran with a stranger and it was a brief but extremely welcomed encounter.  I was heading into the last 3k of my 10k circuit in the park.  It was hot and humid and I was tiring and overheating.  I was determined to finish it running not walking when quite by chance I fell into step with another runner.  We were roughly the same height and build and it turned out a matching pace.  So for the next 2k we ran together.  Not looking at each other or acknowledging that we were but we knew we were running together.  We held back if one of us got caught behind people and we sped up to avoid obstacles.

What I have discovered about running

As you know I started to run seriously last August.  This was when it all fell into place and I realised that running was something that I both enjoyed and could probably be good at if I applied myself.

Since then I have been running regularly and outside and on Sunday I made one of my more startling running discoveries.  I hate running on a treadmill.  I really do.  I ran on one for an hour because a: I needed to get a ‘long’ run in (T-6 days until my first race) and b: the weather wasn’t sympathetic to me running outside (too hot) so Mr Lapin (aka The Fitter One) and I went to the gym to pound the treadmill together. 

What I discovered was that running on the treadmill really did not seem like running at all.  Yes I had chosen one of the machines that had a fan to try and give the illusion of movement.  Yes I had brought headphones to watch television but even season 2 of Hawaii 5-0 wasn’t distraction enough from the realisation that running on a treadmill isn’t really running.  You are moving but you are not really doing anything…

Run soul girl, run.

On the 22 August 2011 I ran 3.27k in 22mins 18sec at a pace of 6’48” per kilometre.  How do I remember this momentous day?  Not from some dog eared notebook but from my shiny Nike+ gadget that sits on my iPhone and the 22 August was the first time I used it.  I am unashamed to say I love my Nike+ it has been a solid motivating tool that has helped me to keep focused on my running. For example today as I sit here writing I know that I have only another 28k to run to reach the goal of completing 249k and thereby conquering the second level on the programme, level orange.  I can track my runs, see my times and trace when in a session I speed up and conversely slow down.  I also love the way I get shout-outs from either Lance Armstrong or Paula Radcliffe congratulating me on running faster, longer, stronger.  If I keep this up I may turn into the Bionic Woman!

The Nike+ is not all perfect though.  Like all love affairs what started out in a giddy appreciation of the miracles it could perform is at the moment leaving me feeling somewhat deflated at its lack of accuracy.  I have a horrible and growing suspicion that it may be a good 1km out in its tracking.  I am making very different distances when I train in the park to when I run on various treadmills.  I am investigating.  I don’t expect the application to be perfect, but a 1k error is kind of a big thing.*

Barefoot in the park but not a Redford in sight

The blogging and running took a serious hit over the Christmas and New Year break.  However, I am back with a committed mind-set and posting and running much more regularly.  This radical promise has mainly come about because  in less than three weeks I will be waking up at an unearthly hour to get to the start line for my first 10k road race at the Standard and Charter Bangkok Marathon (the catalyst for this blog in the first place).

While I might have been tardy with writing and running that is not to say I have not been thinking about all things running!  I have been building up the running twitter posse. Some of whom I am stalking (ahem following) and have also been kind enough to follow me.  My tweeting has mostly been focused on trying to get @johnprescott  to retweet my bad film titles along with the odd pithy reply to a couple of tweets .  I will endeavour to be more “running focused” in daily tweets.

Burma on my mind

I have been horribly remiss with my blogging (and running) over the Christmas and New Year period, but today marks the return to the web of my musings.  As I said in my last post before Christmas, I was going to be spending it in Burma with my mother and her partner (my husband, due to work and last minute injury stayed at home).  I had planned an ambitious nine day trip for us, visiting Rangoon, Inle Lake and Bagan.

How can I best describe the experience?  It was at once beautiful and sad, energising and exhausting.  Burma held so many contradictions that it at times blew me away.  Rangoon is a dusty, sleepy town of crumbling grandeur, sandy streets and people who are probably the nicest I have met in a long, long time.

My travelling companions