Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

My sister sent me a book for my birthday this year "What I talk about when I talk about running" by Haruki Murakami.  As the title suggests it is about running.  Mr Murakami has run a marathon every year for the past 23 years and in 2008 he published a book about his meditations on his running journey.

I have not read any of his other works but I started this one last week and the phrase in the title of this blog was what jumped out at me when I read the preface.  A simple yet effective mantra that I repeated to myself several times on Saturday during my first training run for the All State half in October.  It was billed as an "easy 4 miles" and while it was not terrible, I don't know whether I would categorize it as "easy"...

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.

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.