The runners around me

As we know female runners are different to male runners - there is always a new article in a running magazine or website that tells us this. Our bodies are different and therefore our training and injuries tend to be different. I have been living in the United States for one year now. That is one year of running amongst the American female runner and I can report that in the USA the female runner comes in many forms and varieties. Below are just a few that I have spotted out and about these past 12 months.

1. Super Mum Runner

There she is, wonder woman in the perfectly laundered running kit pushing not one, not even two but three children in a buggy up a hill and holding a conversation with them all the while. I am never sure whether I should be jealous or impressed when I see here and so I veer between the two whenever I see this specimen of runner. Now I know that her life is just like mine, full of things she has forgotten to do and complete exhaustion come Friday night.  But when I see her out running, I think of her as the woman who doesn't have "can't" in her vocabulary.

Where's Lara?

Like the eponymous character in the Where's Wally? cartoons - north American readers will know him better by the name Waldo - Lara Lapin has been somewhat hidden these last six months.  Despite my signature red running face but unlike Wally's red stripy jumper hiding slyly in a crowd, I have been nowhere to be seen in any Atlanta running crowd.  My running in 2013 has been sketchy to say the least.

Where's Wally? Where's Lara more like

Harder than you think....

Is this month over yet?  Happy new folks.  I can tell you right now that my first two weeks of 2013 in terms of running have been utterly, utterly crap.  I started off all hopeful, positive and full of the new year zeal.  I went out for my first run on 3rd January - crap.  Heavy legs, heavy lungs and an even heavier sense of failure.  My only consolation at the end of that run was that with the first one of the year being that bad things could only get better... right?

Wrong.  It seems I started 2013 with a second indication that I am a runner - I lost all motivation to run.  Every run I went on during the first 10 days of the year was worse than the one before.  It did not matter whether I was looking forward to the run or I had dragged myself out despite my better intention.  Every run was heavy on my legs and lungs, mind and motivation.  I thought perhaps I could leave the funk in London but no even when back in Atlanta those early January days were tough.

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.

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.

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?

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.

On the path to speed

On Thursday I ran my fastest mile, 9mins 27sec; however I didn't manage much else having run so fast that I tired myself out at 3.45km.  This got me thinking about speed training - everything I read about running talks about the need to speed train to increase your strength and times.  Speed as well as hill training, but with the absence of anything approaching a serious incline in Bangkok I think I am going to have to focus on speed while running here.  My conundrum is how to increase speed without flaking out with my first attempt and getting discouraged.

Why I run

I hit an age last March; an age when if you were a man it was said that your life was just beginning, but if you were a woman, you were ‘over the hill’.  Or, that is what society used to dictate.  In 2011 however, a women being 40 is meant to have everything going for her; a great career, a caring partner, perhaps kids but most importantly a fantastic figure.  Somehow, getting older has not proven to be any easier.  I dread to think what 50 will bring.  What ‘ideal’ will be being peddled in 2021?  So in August this year, fed up of, well being fed up, I started running.
 

I have tried to run before, I have had several failed attempts over the last 15 years but I never became comfortable, it never felt natural, never simple.  If I am to be honest, what drove to me run all those years ago was jealousy.  Jealously of my husband who, besides being caring and wonderful, is probably one of the most beautiful runners you can watch.  He glides, effortlessly.  It may not be the best reason to start something but that was what compelled me to try to run back then.