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That Awesome Moment When...

5/31/2014

...you realise what was once your long run, is now your shortish/medium run. I tell ya: running a couple of 30kms+ runs recently makes a Sunday 17km run seem like a breeze.

I hope this is a good omen for Saturday's trail race! I feel like I have put in enough training (hopefully), so that's all I can do. I read somewhere the other day re: the importance of being mentally ready as well as physically. So, if you have trained as much as you wanted to and feel physically ready, the only thing that may let you down come race day may be your mental readiness. Apparently, it's a case of mind over matter. If you've trained your body enough, all you have to be is 100% mentally ready and you know you will succeed. So, hmm, the big question is do I feel ready for it? Are we ever really 100% ready? I think we're all as ready as we'll ever be and in every race: the time is NOW.

Come at me 50km trail race! I am ready.

Unbelievably it's somehow gotten to JUNE already. Have a Super Sunday and 1st of June everyone!

Doing any special/fun today? (Think we're off to go to a long lazy lunch now.)

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Gonna Miss These Guys

5/30/2014

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Said our goodbyes to the happiest, loveliest, funniest bunch of kids yesterday. They are our last class on a Friday afternoon, and just the best, happiest students we've had the pleasure of teaching. After other, more challenging classes throughout the week, they never fail to make us smile and forget any troubles. We will miss them a lot! Word must have got around that we will be leaving soon and thus not teaching them anymore after today, as there were shouts of 'no! You can't leave us!' as soon as I entered the room, and mock crying as we said our goodbyes. One girl gave us the loveliest, beautiful handwritten card/letter telling us how much she likes us and how much she will miss us. I am so touched:

No running or working out today: official rest day. Phew. Apparently I needed it - slept in til the grand old time of SEVEN o'clock this morning! This is something of a rarity hey. Maybe all the 4am and 4:30am starts have finally caught up with me.

Any rest days out there for you today?

Do you sleep in at the weekend? (I try to but fail apparently.)

Enjoy your weekend!

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The Best Time of the Day...

5/29/2014

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…is without a doubt early morning, just on first light. Ahh, green tea, sunrise, then a nice, easy riverside run (just over 12kms). Most of the city must share my sentiment as it was a busy little riverside park this morning: walkers, joggers, TaiChi’ers, hula-hoopers, ballroom dancers, you name it, they were there. Just one of the many, many aspects I’m going to miss about Yiwu when we leave (in just about 6 weeks now!): the beautiful parks and the active park-goers.

It’s been on our minds a lot lately, I suppose, the whole ‘we’re leaving’ thing, as we’ve started to say our goodbyes to some of our students as after the final exams we’ll give them next week, we won’t see them nor teach them again (and are, effectively, finished up for the year). I was getting a bit choked up on a couple of classes hey! I will miss the students, and the other teachers here. We often comment that it’s ‘the best job in the world’, or ‘good gig’, and we will be really sad to say goodbye. However, we came to explore China, and not just one city or part of it, and so, after almost two years here in this lovely, friendly, ridiculously laid-back city, it’s time to move on.

But (in no particular order) we’re also going to miss:

Our friends. But we will keep in touch with everyone, and our best friends here are actually going to move to Australia soon! (One of their family already has.) So, I know we’ll see them in the near future, which is awesome.

The people: the local shopkeepers and restaurant staff, some amazing chefs, people we meet at the parks etc. Some of the friendliest, warm-hearted people we’ve come to know.

The food. I’ll leave it there with this point, or else I could ramble on and on about the amazingly delicious, fresh, tasty food we’ve had the pleasure of living on for the last couple of years.
The lush trees, plants, flowers. This city is amazingly colourful and GREEN, with such a massive array of different plants. I’m no botanist, but the many different trees/plants/flowers are pretty impressive and beautiful. Maybe making it worth it for all the rain that occurs here.
The relaxed, chilled, completely stress-free lifestyle.
The short distance to bigger cities, and transport hubs like Shanghai and Hangzhou (by bullet train).
Cycling around on our ‘workdays’ (and weekends) and exploring yet more and more of this city and its neighbouring villages and countryside.

I think the only thing we won’t miss about this place, is the occasional apocalyptic style pollution. Oh, and maybe the traffic sometimes.

Is it REALLY Friday already?? This week has flown by, truly. It’s a holiday for us over the weekend (well, it usually is, but hey-ho) as it is Dragon Boat Festival here over Saturday, Sunday and Monday. So, that long weekend that many of you had that I was coveting last week? Amazingly we get ours here this week instead. What a wonderful universe we are a part of: put it out there and it happens yeah?

Have you moved house/towns often? (Think the longest I have stayed in one place since leaving home back in the day has been 4 years in Newcastle, Australia, but I moved house several times there.) Recently?

Do you like moving to a new place? (I love moving to a new place, but don't like working out the logistical 'stuff' issues with moving. )

How long have you lived where you are?

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Zongzi-Making Champions!

5/28/2014

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What a fun Thursday morning we've had here in China! We got a call late last night telling us: 'good news! You don't have lessons tomorrow. BUT, you are going to a zongzi making contest and please be ready at 7:30am'. Hmm, our usual lessons would start at half nine, was this really good news??

Yes, it turns out it was. We took part in the annual zongzi making championships, where a local zongzi champ and a foreigner get partnered up and it's a 'zongzi off' to see whose sweet little packages the judges like the best. For those unaccustomed with zongzi, they are: "an essential food of the Dragon Boat Festival. In early times, it was only glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in reed or other plant leaves and tied with coloured thread, but now the filings are more diversified, including jujube and bean paste, fresh meat, and ham and egg yolk". Luckily they kept it fairly 'simple' for us I guess, as we stuck to just two fillings: rice and a small dried fruit (zongzi) or two in the centre.

It was a pretty intense competition, and those zongzi are fiddley little buggers to tie up with string! Especially when there's a camera or 10 in your face, capturing your awkward and fumbley attempts. We can't have done too badly though, as me and the lovely zongzi champ who I was lucky enough to be partnered with (team 12 pictured above) came in first place! This was quite a shock to me, as I was pretty sure mine were fairly inferior, sub-standard zongzi, but there you go. Woohoo! So, as Husband pointed out, I am now the 6th Zongzi Foreign Champion for Yiwu (our city here in China) so I'm quite stoked about that. Husband did awesomely too (better than me, I thought), so I'm surprised he didn't get first, second or third place himself. However, we both got some excellent certificates, a cash prize each (one for taking part and one for winning first place), and some tasty lunch, along with a great morning of bizarre zongzi making fun with some wonderful, warm, friendly people.

Here are some pictures of the event to give you a better idea:

Ok, and onto the running bit: This morning (early early early morning due to our change in schedule - yes, I managed to switch my workout to a 4:30am start in honour of said zongzi event) I was down at the track completing my speed session for week. This was: 1.6km warm-up, then 4x 3.22km at threshold pace with 3 minute rests in between, and ending with 1.6km cool-down. I changed this slightly: instead of the 3 minute rests I carried on running but at a much slower/easy pace for three minutes, and only did a couple of laps of the last set, as I was worried about making our trip in time. All good though. A great, sweaty morning workout, and due to the obscenely early time of the day (which was actually really nice and peaceful, and only slightly unbearably humid and heavy) I had the whole track to myself. Win.

Ever eat zongzi? Have you ever taken part in a food contest? Either making food or eating food?

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Nervous

5/27/2014

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As promised, here is Husband and I hard at ‘work’ being the voices of the English oral exams yesterday. Loads of fun. Hmm, I wonder if we could do this professionally and get paid for it? Oh yes, that’s right, we kind of do at the moment. But I would love to do this on a more regular basis, not just every couple of months. Anyone out there looking for a voice-actor? Who specializes in having a half English/half Aussie accent?? I am available.

Today I’ve got some yoga and a stair session on my schedule, as it’s really NOT. LONG. NOW. Eek… Got another slightly confusing email from the race organizers again, complete with directional signs, course map, and an elevation chart. Shit’s about to get real hey.

Here’s a snippet of the detailed email (translated using Google translate again, so maybe not the best):

“Prior to the beginning and end of the game are located in the Five Sacred Mountains Scenic Village Hotel in clear water, the track length of 50 km, the track surface types include: cement roads, dirt roads, gravel, board the oil, gravel, grass mountain Austin, deciduous jungle road, boardwalk, stone staircase, wild dirt roads and so on. The race track located mainly between the mountains, the highest elevation of 2281 m, the lowest elevation of 553 meters, with an average altitude of 1233 meters, the cumulative climb 2605 m."

The ‘grass mountain Austin’ and ‘deciduous jungle road’ sections sound fun, don’t they? Hmm, there is a fair bit of elevation too.

Nerves are setting in now. For two main reasons: nerves about the course (I am aiming just to finish and not get lost); but also, nerves about going and meeting other seasoned trail runners and ultra running superstars. I will be going sans-Husband (my usually excellent companion/coach/support team/photographer), so will be sharing a room at the hotel there with another runner. Let’s hope there’s no see-through glass bathroom wall that many of the Chinese hotels favour over here. Nothing says ‘hi, nice to meet you!’ like waving at your new room-mate from the toilet.

Do you get nervous before an event? What do you do to calm or get rid of your nerves?

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Feeling Like A Thespian

5/26/2014

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Hello hello from another humid, polluted day in China! 12kms this morning, done and dusted. It was an easy paced run, free from Garmin or a watch or music. Just me, myself, and I. Oh and all the other runners and Tai Chi’ers down by the riverside.

Yesterday, I DID manage to get my strength training in, so I felt great about that. I did a kick-boxing workout courtesy of Hasfit (a great website where you can pick and choose different workouts: www.hasfit.com) and then some free weights and strength moves. Burning burning legs by the end of it, but I think this was mainly due to the long run the day before.

So, it’s back to another busy Tuesday of teaching, but we also get to do my FAVOURITE part of this job over here today: voice acting work. Haha, sort of: we go into a studio and read out dialogues for the official oral English exams, over the school’s loud speaker system. So, I act out the woman’s part and Husband acts out the male part. I really LOVE doing this hey, for some reason I find it really fun. (That is not me in the picture by the way. Maybe I'll take a sneaky selfie of us 'acting' today, if I can.)

What are you up to today? What will be the ‘best’ part of your day? (So far, mine has been the run, but I’m looking forward to the acting later on too.)

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Monday Musings

5/25/2014

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A very warm welcome to you all on this magical Monday morning. Ahem, ok, on this humid, overly polluted Monday morning here. But I hope wherever you are that you’re having a beautiful morning; one that’s hopefully sunnier and clearer (and cooler!) than here.

No post yesterday, as times just flies so fast after a long run. Somehow the day got away from me, and once I’d returned home, eaten breakfast and showered etc, there may have been copious naps throughout the day, punctuated with more meals/snacks whilst reading and watching some pretty mind blowing stuff (mainly Santos Bonacci yesterday: Australian dude, look him up on youtube, he is very informative and enlightening).

But, YES, got the run in, and it was great! 32km exactly, with the last 2kms spent running up and down the hill at the front of our school (about 100m up to the top; a gentle hill). Felt great to finish strong. Those jelly packs are fine as fuel (the squeeze pack is really handy and easier than fiddling with packets of sweets) but they are SO sweet and leave a nasty, sugary aftertaste in my mouth. So, will probably limit them and use them with other food and drink during the main event.

No running for me today, but I will aim to get some strength training in later today.

A few posts ago (last week maybe?) I wrote about the horror of too much cardio leading to fat gain. As David from Captain Speedy Pants (http://www.captainspeedypants.com/) pointed out, I should have posted the links to the articles too. So, sorry for the belated nature of these, but these are two of the links I found in the history (I read a lot more, but I have no idea where they went to?). Take them with a pinch (or handful?) of salt, as they are not specifically tailored to runners, nor to distance or endurance training, but can make for an interesting read nonetheless:

http://www.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/1138/Does_Cardio_Make_You_Fat.aspx

http://blogs.denverpost.com/fitness/2013/11/23/is-your-cardio-routine-making-you-fat/13461/

Has anyone else seen Santo Bonacci’s work? Anyone experience gaining weight during training for a race?

So, that’s all form me today. Short and sweet. Have a very funday-Monday one and all!

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Long Run Fuel, and Jee, Em!

5/24/2014

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Today is my official rest day of the working(out) week, and I've been following that pretty much to the letter. It is hot, hot, hot here (like a Balinese, super humid, sweaty kind of heat) today, so after a few quick trips out into the oppressive heat, I'm relishing being back in the beautiful air conditioned apartment, ice-cream soon to be in hand.

I've just been planning what I'm going to take on my long run of the week tomorrow morning, and I found these awesome looking tubes/squeezie packs of what I THINK is some kind of fruit jelly in the local shop. Check them out:

So, if all goes well with them tomorrow, these could be my very-non-technical substitute for Gu or some other fancy gels. We'll see! So, these two small packs together with some water and a sports drink will form my 'fuel' during tomorrow's 32km run. Runners, what do you think? Is this on the money? Too much, not enough, or about ok fuel for said distance? I still feel my fuel and eating/drinking while running is somewhat lacking (and I'd prefer not to until I finish a run, but I know with a 50km trail race, or even a long training run, this will not be possible.)

Speaking of fuel, or, FOOD, here's a question for you: What is your take on GM (genetically modified or engineered) foods? Do you live in an area where they are banned? Do you read/see much about them in the news? I'm curious to know, especially as today marks the date for a massive international march/protest against infamous chemical company Monsanto (and their recent foray into pushing GM foods in a bid to 'save the world', hmmm...).

For those having a long weekend (everyone in America and Australia I think, you lucky buggers, haha), have a wonderful weekend!

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One Step At a Time

5/22/2014

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This morning I FINALLY made it for my track session. Hallelujah! It's only taken me 4 days... (I know, I was going to do it yesterday - instead I went for a beautiful run in the peaceful drizzly afternoon followed by 15 sets of our apartment stairs = job done.) So, this is what happened early this morning: 1.6km warm up/easy pace, 9.66km at threshold pace (yep, you read that right - 9.66 fricken kilometres!), then 1.6km cool down/easy pace. Phew. I did it! This is the longest I have run at this quicker pace (between 4:07-4:18) Feel awesome that I completed it.

Not gonna lie - the first 7-8kms or so were tough. Really tough. Maybe from the not-much sleep I've had this week or maybe from some really rubbish womanly pains or whatnot, but whatever, I digress and ramble... So, I had two choices: I could do maybe half of my planned session, or just stop and call it a day early, OR, I could keep going, focusing on ONE kilometre at a time (and at times, one hundred metres at a time, or even one step.) I am so glad I chose the latter. And with each kilometre closer to the end of the faster threshold pace section, it got easier and easier, and I felt miles better. I am feeling pretty confident about my improved pace now, and have shown myself that I can run faster for longer. So, am giving serious consideration to running most of my next half marathon at threshold pace, with a 1.6km ish warm-up and a kilometre or so, in between each 9.66km at threshold, at an easy pace. Something along those lines anyway.

This is my plan for my next half marathon, which is: the Gold Coast half marathon!!! Yes, it turns out I can make it after all. I am pumped! However, I now have a 50km trail race to run exactly one month prior to the Goldy race, so I hope my legs recover quickly enough for me to put this new plan into action. Watch this space.

In other news: it's FRIDAY! Kind of ecstatic about that. Hope you all have a blinder. Tell me something you are doing today / over the weekend!

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Too Tired Thursday...

5/21/2014

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This week has been fairly hard thus far (both physically, and emotionally, due to some bad news we've had.). Each workout or run a struggle, and almost feeling like a chore to try to fit them in. The two runs I've managed to get in so far have both been fairly non-descript runs of 10kms and then 8kms, with the view to get my 'real' run or workout later on in the day (which predictably never happened due to the lure of watching documentaries / eating / chilling with Husband). Both these runs were spent during the hottest part of the day on my lunchbreak and I've got say: running in the hot sun is not the best! Running when dehydrated = not the best either. Lesson learnt. Must get back into early morning sessions, or the run I'm intending on is unlikely to happen.

So, as I'm sitting here writing this, my current aim is to get a quick stair workout in during my lunchbreak today, and yes, aim for the track workout run (the one that's been niggling at me since Tuesday) sometime this evening. I'll be rereading this awesome post from Kristina over at Blog About Running: http://www.blogaboutrunning.com/ultrarunning-inspiration/. Awesome motivation, and such a lovely shout-out to me too. Surely this should help to perk me back up again?? (Seriously, I was so chuffed to read this post on Kristina's wonderful website, not just because I'm in it but because there are heaps of great ultra running links and motivation too - but yes, I might have called Husband into the room and said, 'Look! I'm famous!' lol...)

Is anyone else having 'one of those weeks'?? Do you know what I mean? Do you get weeks where you're too tired to bother with much??

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That Awesome Moment When...

Gonna Miss These Guys

The Best Time of the Day...

Zongzi-Making Champions!

Nervous

Feeling Like A Thespian

Monday Musings

Long Run Fuel, and Jee, Em!

One Step At a Time

Too Tired Thursday...

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