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…