Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2014 is a wonderful year filled with many more ups than downs for all.

We're off to Xiamen this morning, to pick up my race gear and check-in pre-marathon tomorrow, bit excited! Love Xiamen - beautiful beaches around the island and mountains/hills in the centre. Here's a couple of shots from our time in Xiamen last February:

Ok, better go and pack. Enjoy your day everyone and have fun!

Been a bit busy and distant lately, i.e not been writing on here much nor have been reading other runners' blogs, but hopefully I'm back now and ready to catch up on what I've missed and all your stories and holiday posts.

Haven't been running much either, but maybe this is my natural taper before the marathon on Thursday, rather than have just been too busy or travelling around showing my mum China? Nope, it was the latter, but hey-ho, it can surely act as a taper yes?

So, yes, the marathon (the FULL marathon) is only two days away, and I am quite unprepared for it hey. Or so it seems. Also, think we may have eaten some dodgy (but so delicious at the time) sushi on Sunday arvo which we're paying for now. So, fingers crossed am back to good health by Thursday morning.

One thing that will definitely help in my full marathon quest is THIS:

Oh yes, that IS a Garmin/running watch! Courtesy of my excellent brother and sister-in-law (and Husband for putting the idea out there) - sooo chuffed! I will now join the ranks of 'proper' runners, and will no longer be a vague or zen runner (well, sometimes anyway).

In other exciting news: I finally gave my English/Chinese speech about running to the whole school yesterday morning, after weeks of it getting postponed (which was fine by me - I kind of thought they would just forget about it eventually). It wasn't too bad, I think, but I was very tired and had sort of just rolled out of bed, so am sure my well rehearsed speech of a few weeks ago would have been much more coherent. Hey-ho, apparently they could understand it, so all good.

Amazingly I wasn't nervous, maybe this was helped by being forced on stage in front of approximately two thirds of the school a few days prior to this, as part of a 'program' they wanted us 'laowei' teachers to perform as part of the Grade 7 and Grade 8 end of year show.

Last minute as ever, they told us that morning, then we ran around tyring to get some music sorted, but the internet had problems, then when we eventually thought it was all good, and music was in hand on our USB, turns out, oh no, it wasn't there and we had to go out sans-music and perform. Oh joy. Husband was singing, bless him, with me and my mum waving an Australian flag, as he belted out the traditional 'Waltzing Matilda' to the happy, encouraging faces of our students:

And, phew, that other performance or 'program' we were told to prepare for? That has since been cancelled. Good news for us. This on-stage performance malarkey gets a bit exhausting.




I'm off to pack and organise some things for our Xiamen trip tomorrow morning. Happy New Year's Eve everyone!

It's Christmas morning here in China, so Merry Christmas everyone! I kicked off today with the annual Christmas run, a tradition started by my dad and his good friend Bob Smith, and one that I hope to carry on every year, even though I am running solo. (Let's pretend that I wore this santa hat for today's run, rather than my usual cap - it just didn't work with my hair in a ponytail though...)

Then a mini feast of some of the leftover huoji (turkey) and Christmas cake from last night's banquet put on by the school, and fruit and toast.

Last night we were invited to a dinner in a special private dining room here at school, and they went all out and produced a HUGE turkey complete with stuffing and vegetables, many different Chinese dishes, red wine, and Christmas cake. Awesome! There was the usual 'gambei'ing and people trying to get us to skull our full glasses of red wine, but have learnt my lesson with that one, and now just do sneaky sips when they ask for me to 'down in one'. Surely girls can get away with that, yes?

We're working today, but hopefully will celebrate properly this arvo or tonight. Merry Christmas everyone!

May have to change the name of this blog soon, as lately life's been mainly about eating amazing things as we attempt to show my mum around a small part of this wonderful (but huge) country, rather than running too much. Hey-ho, maybe you could have guessed that, what with the sporadic nature of this blog of late. BUT, did manage to get out there for about an 11km ish run this morning, in the crisp, refreshing, (and would love to say clean) air. Great start to the day. I plan to do the same tomorrow, and carry on my dad's tradition of the Christmas morning run, before the festivities (ok, 'work' for us) begin.

And back to the FOOD. Here's a few pics of some of the awesome fare we've had in the past week and a bit, look away now if you're one of those who can't abide food porn photos:


Yum, jiaozi! (Dumplings). This was in Shanghai on my mum's first night here.

A mini-feast in Hengdian after walking around the exact replica of the Forbidden City for a few hours:

A bigger feast in the beautiful town of Longyou to kick off our Sunday-Funday, followed by visiting an ancient part of the town, and then a snack-crawl/snack-tour of the centre of the city, including chilli-coriander-wheaty-thing-type-soup, fried stuffed pancake things, and sugarcane to gnaw on:

In case we weren't feeling absolutely baole (full), we then went round to these lovely people's place for freshly made hand crafted jiaozi:

This post, not the run, that is. Keeping it very brief today. Here's what happened: about 20 ish km long and slow run this morning. Riverside. Bit smoggy. Awesome run. Drank cold sugary lemon tea as 'fuel' along the way.

Quick question for those long distances runners - how often do you fuel during a long run, and by how much? Trying to work out what to do on race day, aka, the long distance of 42.2 kilometres, which I've only previously attempted once, back in 2008 (back in the day).

Cheers!

Frosty this morning, but still no snow. Booo... Weather report lied to us. BUT, no rain, and there was blue skies and sunshine late yesterday arvo.

This morning's run was an easy usual riverside route, shorter route than on Tuesday, but bliss just the same. Yesterday was a cross-training day and I did some strength training. Nothing much to report other than STILL haven't started that ab work I was on about last week, and this week is now shaping up to be busier than previously thought, what with a still-ill husband layed up in bed, a visiting mother to introduce to the students and centre the lessons around her visit, coaching some students for the finals in an English contest, preparing our performance or program for next week, trying to show Mum around town in between teaching and planning weekend trips while she's here, AND a call late last night for some last minute translations/proof reading of about 8 essays for today's coaching of said students. In the words of this awesome little parrot dude, WTF?!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbfzahtZsN8

Maybe we'll see this view tomorrow morning, c'mon the snow!:

Pissing down rain here at the moment, so had a wet/slippery, but awesome, run this morning. One of my usual routes down by the riverside. Just under an hour's bliss to start the day. The weather forecast said it was going to snow, so I was looking forward to a white, picturesque run, but no such luck yet. It's cold enough to though, so if it's going to be this cold then it may as well be beautiful and festive feeling!

So, bit apartment-bound at the moment, which is such a shame as we want to be showing my mum all the beautiful parts of our city, rather than just the school grounds. Hey-ho, only day 2 of her trip to this city, so fingers crossed the weather sorts itself out this arvo.

Got a question to pick your brains with this morning: Husband and I have to perform a 'program' soon (get up on a stage and make 'laowei' fools out of ourselves for the amusement of the government people hosting an end of year party). Something like this:

Last year we performed that Aussie classic 'Waltzing Matilda', and when I say 'we' performed it, it was really Husband singing and me waving the Australian flag. But, they have said we cannot do the same program this year! Nuts. So, any ideas for songs we could sing? I am thinking some kind of duet - I like the idea of Human League's 'Don't You Want Me', as it's kinda more spoken than sung and we both have our definitive man/woman part to sing.

Any good duets that you can recommend? Cheers!

Morning! (Or evening depending where you all are). I'm still on the face on this planet, just haven't been able to log on and write on here due to Shanghai shenanigans and welcoming my mum to China. But she has arrived! Just got back from this beautiful city yesterday:

I will post more pictures soon (this was taken two weeks ago when we were there for the marathon, but hey-ho, pretty similar still).

So, my posts may be few and far between, or maybe just short and sweet but will try my best to keep you updated during this month. Got a shortish, easy run in yesterday, along the riverside / The Bund in Shanghai. Love that city, but not the smog.

Now we're back in our own city - pissing down rain and windy! Nice welcome for Mum hey :) Oh, and the speech has been postponed AGAIN due to weather (will it ever happen?). No run today doe to weather, and not sure if tomorrow's the go. May have to focus more on cross training this week.

Ok, must go and sort some things, but I hope wonderful weeks are on the cards for you all.

Ok no messing with the date today. Weird stuff - I posted a post yesterday (which I will copy and paste below, as per the link on facebook), but which does not exist here anymore? But exists on the link from facebook? What happened? Did changing the date make me go back ./ forward in blogging time? No idea. But anyhoo, here's the post from yesterday:




So, predictably did NOT do any ab / core work yesterday. BUT, I have received some excellent suggestions for doing so, and will be putting these into practise soon, I hope. I did plan on doing some abs at some point in the evening, but then somehow a long puppy-walk, shopping for toasty warm pyjamas to lounge about in (never to sleep in! You crazy pj-wearing-to-bed-folk you), eating too much dabao (takeaway), and lounging in said toasty pyjamas, all took a precedence. Plus, once those padded/quilted/feels like wearing a doona/duvet/quilt (take your pick depending on your cultural preference) babies were on, there was no way they were coming off to do a few minutes of abs. I would post a picture of these amazing pjs, BUT, I am hoping that Husband is going to get a similar, yet a bit more manly, pair today, fingers crossed that the Chinese's large size fits him (we have trouble getting normal 'larger' size clothes here - we don't know where they buy their clothes?! As there are loads of tall men here!). They are quite comedy, and the most unsexy, unattractive things you could imagine (stay tuned for that pic), but are so warm and so comfy. Sadface that I can't wear them to teach in. Although I do see people out in the early morning walking their dogs whilst wearing them, so maybe this would be ok?

Ok, that's enough pyjama talk yes? On with the post. Not much to report running wise today, as it is a cross-training day for me. I did these workouts: http://hasfit.com/workouts/home/advanced-high-intensity/advanced-workout/ (a 30 minute 'Warrior' workout - a mixture of strength, cardio, plyometric, ABS, and mixed martial arts), and http://hasfit.com/workouts/home/cardio-aerobic/cardio-kickboxing/ (30 minute fun kickboxing workout).

So, got some ab work in, BUT will attempt to get some more in this evening, in between some more cleaning (it is a daily battle here - you clean, the next day it's dusty again, grrrrr), organising some things, practising for that postponed speech, and coaching/teaching some students. Poor Husband has come down with a bad ganmao (cold/flu) so plenty of rest, TLC, and hot toddies for him today. Plus PJS! The healing power of toasty warm pjs hey.

OR, maybe Weebly was censoring me? As there may have been swearing in the title, as I enthused about those awesome pjs.




Now, here's today's thrilling instalment:




This morning's run was my long run of the week. About 20kms ish. Which I took nice and slowly, and used this as my opportunity to try THIS as fuel:

Yes, that is a Snickers bar. Yum. Still seemed slightly wrong to be eating chocolate at half six in the morning, but hey-ho. It's not junk food, it's FUEL. Seemed to work alright and didn't make me want to vomit on the run, so that's a bonus. Still prefer skittles though, as easier to eat those while running.

Ok, got to rush back to work now for a couple of lessons before we head off to catch a train to Shanghai this afternoon ready to meet my mum at the airport tomorrow morning. Excited!

Have a GREAT weekend everyone!

Hmmm, just noticed my calendar on this blog was out by a day?! Not sure how or why, or if I f*&ked it up now, but have changed it back to being today, 11th December 2013... AND, on with the post now:



This morning's run was an easy recovery-ish pace run, about 8km ish. Not sure how long it took as I stopped in a shop to look at some comedy Chinglish emblazoned stationery for a good ten (or more?) minutes when I got back to just near school. They have some excellent stationery and gifts with phrases and sayings that must have got lost in translation along the way, and make no sense, but look very cute and all. I have a friend in London who loves this shizzle, so am always on the look out to add to her collection.

Cold and slightly less-smoggy again today. Could even see the mountains behind the river again! Beautiful.

I read somewhere the other day re: the importance of ab work or core work, whatever you want to call it, and how strengthening these muscles can actually improve your race times. I have always shied away from this hey. Have reluctantly done it as part of longer workouts, or if in a class or if its part of a workout challenge (i.e. as part of Hasfit's 90 day workout challenge there were various core workouts, entitled '6 minutes to a 6-pack', or '8 minute abs' etc), but it is my LEAST favourite thing to do workout-wise. How to change this? How to grow to love doing core work so that I can become a better racer/runner, and so I can develop abs that look like a little like this:

Not that my bare midriff is likely to see the light of day, and particularly not here in China in Winter. However, come summer time it would be a plus, not to mention it will apparently help my running form and times too. Win-win.

So, I will be making a conscious effort to incorporate some ab workouts into my daily exercise. Any workouts you know in this area would be welcome. I know I should be planking or doing things like this to see results:

So, I guess, I've just got to fucken DO IT!

Have an ABS-olutely CORE-ackin day everyone!