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.