I’m back from Australia. The last week has literally flown. I had an awesome, wonderful time and now it seems like a vivid dream of sorts, so quickly it felt like it went by.

I will talk about the race a little bit (as that’s maybe why most of you are here?) and then will possibly bombard you with photos of my best friend Annie and I, thoroughly enjoying our long overdue catch-up.

So, firstly – the race. This was the BEST and most well organised race I have ever taken part in. Everything was seamless and smooth, from the race bib pick-up to the shuttle bus transport to the race, to the different corrals and starting zones. As it’s their 36th event (I think) it seems they have definitely got it down pat. Unusually (or so I thought), the timing chip was actually part of the race bib and not a separate one worn on your shoe. Also, this was the first race I’ve ever run where you don’t get your t-shirt until the end of the race, just after you’ve crossed the finish line, so it means you know you’ve earnt it, lol…

The race started at 6am, but they instructed us to get there at 5am. Yep, that’s a very early start, and a fair bit of waiting around. However, this time also flew by, and after some wandering around to find my starting zone (different zones assigned by your last race time or your intended time for this one; there was zone A, B, C, and maybe D? Not sure… I was luckily in Zone A, which was perfect as I was surrounded by other runners aiming for the same pace and time as me, and so, far from the other runners being a hurdle and aiming not to trip over feet and around people in the first few kilometres, they were all on the same mission to get out there and into their race pace it seemed, and everyone flowed nicely), drinking coffee, and using the portaloos a few times, before we knew it the race had begun.

The first 10-11kms went perfectly – exactly how I’d wanted to run, although maybe even a little bit faster than I’d planned for my first 3 kms, however, this was again due to the other runners in my zone as I naturally joined pace with them – not uncomfortably fast though, just a little bit quicker than in practice (so, was 4:30 rather than the 4:45 I thought I’d go at). It is a very beautiful course, and I got to run past my new apartment after the first 3 kilometres (and again on the return at about 17 ish kms).

At about 13 kilometres in though, things were suddenly not so good. It’s hard to describe but I couldn’t keep my pace up, things felt a definite struggle, and I had gone freezing cold/cold sweats/shivery type feel, where I was thinking, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to curl up under a blanket on the side of the road right about now’. Noooooooo! What was happening?? I kept going, but couldn’t keep my pace up for the last tempo interval. So, instead of running at 4:10 ish, I was running at 4:35-4:40. The mantras were helping (particularly ‘you’ve done it before, you can do it again!’), as was the image of seeing Annie at the finish line, but I just couldn’t get my speed back up and felt very strange (I think maybe I was dehydrated, despite trying to be well hydrated, or the recent long traveling was in hindsight not the best approach pre-race?). I just wanted to finish and thought I’d not care about my time or a PR anymore – just finish. I didn’t even look at how long it was taking me and thought for sure I’d be something like 10 minutes slower or more than last time. Before I knew it, the finish line was in sight and I tried to run faster and stronger over the line, as they called out my name and commented on all the race gear I was wearing (I did take my camelback after all, with the intention of not having to slow down at the drink stations – an idea that was working fantastically until I started feeling weird and slowed down to grab extra water anyway). That was it, I’d done it. As I focused on not vomiting and collapsing (managed not to! Success), I checked my time. Wow, I HAD done it after all! A new ‘official’ pb (as in, a race pb, even though I’ve got another pb in training). It wasn’t the 1:30 I was aiming for, but was a whopping EIGHT seconds faster than my Shanghai half in December. Haha, but a pb is a pb right?? So, my official time for this one was 1:34:23. Yes, every second counts, I suppose. Hmmm, months of training and achieving a ‘training pb’ of 1:31 all added up to me getting pretty much the same time as my previous, not-so-trained-for half marathon where I wasn’t focused on my pace or looking at a watch? I think the next race I’ll run I will run ‘naked’ and not focus on a time. I know I can do it theoretically and in training, and maybe I will try and beat my time again in the future, but for a while I may just get back to having fun while running. This race was a struggle, but I tried my best and did the best I could do on the day.

When the race was over, there was a smiling Annie waiting for me, amazingly she’d managed to spot me and we met up as planned, and I then followed the lead of some other runners and went for a 15 minute ‘ice bath’ in the beautiful early morning, winter ocean water. This was a first for me, but I am quite sure it helped – my legs recovered pretty fast and well, albeit with a touch of quad soreness the next day when walking around shopping and looking for restaurants. It took us almost two hours to make it the 5km back to our apartment!  And almost another 2 hours (once showered etc) to order, wait for and enjoy our breakfast after that. I suppose thousands of people in town for the races adds up to a lot of queuing for taxis and food and everything. After that, we relaxed and rested for a while (courtesy of copious cups of tea on the sofa together), and eventually ended up going out for celebratory drinks and, of course, more food, a fair bit later than planned. The next day was spent doing yet more eating in wonderful restaurants (there will be a fair few food-on-a-plate pictures, sorry if you’re not into that, but I was very excited to eat some awesome Australian fare that I’d been missing, so loads of fish/seafood and avocado, yumm…), shopping and walking around, and drinking. Oh and taking lots of pictures of ourselves to remind us of our trip, haha. And all too quickly somehow it was Tuesday early early morning and I was getting my taxi back to the airport to commence the looooonnnnng journey back to Husband and Puppy in China. It went something like this: taxi, plane no.1, walk through airport, plane no.2, taxi, train, bus, walk…. (over 1.5 days).

Here is my holiday in pictures, to give you a better idea of this race weekend and holiday with my bestie:

Tick, tick, on both counts. Legs feel fine and shoes went well. Oh yeah – absolutely NO pain or problems with my legs during the race in the end, phew… And I don’t think I even thought about them during, I was just focused on my struggling pace and labouring breathing instead, lol…

So, to sum up: I had an AMAZING weekend in Australia with the Beautiful Anne-Marie, I ran the Gold Coast half marathon (a beautiful, flat course, that I would love to run again), I achieved an official pb, AND upon checking my results a couple of days later, I found out that I came 110th woman (out of approx. 5000 – I will check again), and 26th in my age category too! Not too shabby.

Now it’s back into the packing and cleaning before we head off early Saturday morning on our amazing caravan tour through China! Now, if only there was a dimmer/slow switch for this time business. It really is going too fast. (I also need to catch up on all the things I’ve missed on various other running blogs since I’ve been gone, however this access to the internet will be short-lived, and during our caravan tour I don’t think we’ll have any internet access. So, it will be a whole month’s break from blogging and emails etc soon.)

This will be my last blog post for a week. Don’t miss me too much! Haha… The reason being, is that tomorrow morning I leave for my ‘quick trip’ back to Oz. Hmm, when first working it out and booking flights etc, it seemed a quick 3 day visit back to the land of Oz, to run the Goldy half marathon and see my bestie. Turns out there is THREE days of travelling, one and a half ish either side of my actual time in Australia, courtesy of us not living in bigger city or a transport hub. So, tomorrow morning I will make my way up to Hangzhou (the capital city of Zhejiang province) and stay the night there before checking into my flight on Friday morning. I arrive into Australia early on SATURDAY morning though, due to a long (cheap) flight. Oops… (The return journey is equally a mission, but I prefer not to think about that right now…)

So, today is the day for packing, organizing, and then stressing about how much STUFF we have accumulated when attempting to do some more of the bigger packing, for our impending leaving of this school when I return from the Gold Coast.

This morning I completed my penultimate training run: an easy paced 6.4km run, in the STINKING heat and humidity! It was a particularly sweaty affair, but no leg pain dramas or otherwise. Phew…




Kristina over at Blog About Running (http://www.blogaboutrunning.com/7-things-about-me-you-might-not-know/) gave me a shout out for this Very Inspiring Blogger Award/Game (thanks Kristina!), so I’ll be passing that on to THESE fellow (and awesome) bloggers. You’re up! Kim (http://day-with-kt.com/), Amy (http://runwritehike.com/),  Karen (http://moreclutterfromkaren.blogspot.com/), and Kristen (http://www.glitteranddust.com/)!

Enjoy. So, the ‘rules’ are to share seven things with your readers that they don’t know about you, and then pass it on and nominate other bloggers who can then share their seven things.

Hmm, so for those of you who know me in the flesh, these may not be that surprising or new information, but hey-ho, here are my seven things you may or may not know about me:

1. When I was about 11 or 12, I won first place in the Kent Championship Fencing competition (under 14 female category), held, not surprisingly, in Kent, UK. En garde!
   
   
2. I think I am very dichotomous in the way that I love to be SUPER healthy and into fitness one day, and then would gladly be heavily into all kinds of partying and debauchery the next day. It’s good to have balance I guess?
   
   
3. I can speak French (but I am quite rusty).
   
   
4. When I was younger my ‘hilarious’ (ironic) running joke was to tell people of my plan to migrate to America and find a rich husband to settle down with. Hmmm, yeah, I know, missed my stand-up comedy calling with that one. However, I did start a 4 year degree reading American Literature at Sussex Uni in Brighton, UK, where the 3rd year was to be spent in the states, so this gave a lot of weight to my ironic ‘joke’. (In the end, I quit this course two years early and went back to work/live in London for a bit while I figured out what I want to ‘do’ with my life. Still figuring it out today, haha…)
   
   
5. I would love to go back to Peru (and other parts of South America) and have a few ayuhuasca experiences (again, with the figuring out life malarkey…)
   
   
6. I am very clumsy. No glass, cup or plate is safe in my hands. Husband has a special, affectionate term for me in this sense. Now, I hope you don’t take offense at this, and he says it in a completely loving, jokey tone, but he calls me Edward-Penis-Hands sometimes, as I, ahem, f*&k everything I touch.
   
   
7. In about 5 to 10 years time, I hope to be living in an Earthship home, off the grid, and self-sustainable, growing veggies, making wine, writing trashy novels etc… I would love this be in Australia or Bali, or both, ideally.
   
   

So, that’s all from me for now. The next time I write here will be after the Gold Coast half and when I get back into town next Wednesday. Wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week and weekend ahead, and I can’t wait to tell you how it all went (successfully I hope!)

 

Tell me something I may not know about you!

The humidity here in Yiwu this morning is insane. Just saying. Out of control humid. So, I’m sitting here with a face that’s covered in sweat as I write this, nice…

This morning’s scheduled run was a speed session down at the track, which it seemed I’d not long ago left (I went for a quick 6km run last night seeing as I’d missed the early morning slot). On schedule was: 1.6km warm-up, then 4x 3.22kms at threshold pace (4:07-4:18) with 3 minute rests in between, then 1.6km cool-down. This day calls for a double up run with an 8km run scheduled for later, however, due to already being drenched and soaking wet and not wanting to relive the similar feel of last night’s humid/soaking wet run, I decided to tie these two together and just keep on running and get it all done and dusted for the day, and so, once I’d finished the speed workout, I had a drink of water, a banana, and set off on the 8km recovery run.










A Few Things Re:These Runs:

• The humidity caused my speed intervals to be extremely tough. It seemed it was a battle between me and the humidity. Sucks to say but the humidity eventually won out and I cut the last interval short by 1.2km. Booo humidity…
  
   
  
  

- I was absolutely drenched not long after I began the track run. Soaking wet. Which is not too fun to run in. I think I was getting extra strange looks this morning, not only for being a running laowei but for being a soaking wet/drowned rat kind of running laowei. Check it out, I tried to capture just how wet I was when I got back: the first one will give you the idea of the weather conditions over here and in the second one I was trying to show that it looks like I’ve been in a shower fully clothed. Ohwell…

• My feline friends were back at the track, but this time there was an extra tabby and tortoiseshell one. Cute.
  
   
  
  
• During the recovery 8km, something worrying happened from kilometer 3 to 7. Knee pain. Uh-oh. WTF?! Very random knee pain in my left knee, and only very slight. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it. It felt kind of like if I had screws around my kneecap, that the ones on the outer side of it were being tightened or screwed in further, if that makes sense. Now, I’m not sure if I spoke too soon re: being fully recovered after the ultra race, or if this is a completely unrelated (one-off) random pain. I hope the latter! I’m supposed to be getting back into things hey! And building my speed back up for the half marathon in less than 3 weeks time! Noo… So, I’m not sure what it was, but it seemed to disappear again by the last kilometer. Strange hey? I will keep an eye on it (and maybe not run tomorrow, not sure), and will be trying out some of those joint capsules that the wonderful Runner’s World folks gave me as part of my prize. Haha, maybe they know something I don’t (more than likely). Can’t hurt anyway, so will give them a go.
  
   
  
  
• My shoelaces came undone during the track workout. TWICE. Kind of annoying and put me off my pace. The second time it happened I was wavering anyway with feeling the full extent of the heat and humidity (it felt like running through a heavy, warm cloud) so I took this as a sign that maybe I should shorten that last 3.22kms interval and start my cool down early. Listen to my body and all that. I hope my laces last the distance on 6th July!
  
   
  
  
• Apart from the not going the full distance in the speed session and the random knee pain during the recovery run, I was pretty happy with my effort this morning. I was able to keep at threshold pace for the distances I had set out, mostly anyway, and felt like my legs can do it. Although it was hard. I guess there’s a reason it’s called speedwork, and not run-at-an-easy-comfortable-pace-so-it-doesn’t-feel-like-work-work. You know your workout is hard and challenging when you are talking to yourself and making deals/excuses, i.e. ‘if you don’t run this last kilometer you will always get it in later in the day’, or: ‘you’ve done extra kilometres walking to the track and during the 3 minute rests, so you can stop early’. Lol…
  
   
  
  A Few Things Not Re: These Runs:
  
   
  
  

  - Our staple go-to breakfast a lot of the time (when we don’t feel like going to the school canteen for brekkie) is ‘Eggy Rice’. I thought I would share the ‘recipe’ here. It’s a good ‘un – very easy: Take any leftovers you may have from the night before (for example, for us today: leftover spicy beans and cauliflower with rice that I made last night). Chuck it in the wok after heating a little oil first. Fry for a couple of minutes:

If you’re like me, the next step is to douse it with aromatic vinegar, et voila: Eggy Rice. It tastes a lot better than it looks, I promise. I guess it’s like a Chinese ‘Bubble and Squeak’?


 -  Very soon, I get to hang out with my favourite girl in the world: Annie. Here is us back in January this year:

• I. Can’t. Bloody. Wait. It will only be for 3 days, but that is 3 days that we will definitely enjoy and here’s hoping we can work out how to freeze time during those days. She is amazing and travelling up from outer-state to meet me at the Gold Coast when I fly there for the half marathon. Amazeballs!
  
   
  
  
• The opposite of this excitement would be the awful, awful pain of seeing the man you love being so utterly heartbroken and shattered, and knowing that you can’t do anything to take his pain away or make it better. All the love/hugs, time spent hanging out with him, nutritious and regular meals, support when he needs it, and alone time when he needs it, are not going to bring his cousin back (she was like a sister to him; they were very close), and it’s so painful hey.
  
   
  
  
• Running (when you’re not trying to keep your speed up at the track and are constantly checking Garmin!) is the best form of therapy and also a great time to meditate on the move I reckon. I. Love. Running.
  
   
  
  
• Yesterday in what was both a crazy hot AND humid day, I decided it would be a good day to do a thorough 3 hour clean of one of our apartments here. You know it’s a good workout/cleaning session when there is sweat dripping in your eyeballs.
  
   
  
  Have a terrific Tuesday everyone!
  
   
  
  Have you experienced the kind of weird knee pain I described above? Do you think I should take some unscheduled rest days or maybe it was all in my head? (I hope the latter.)
  
   
  
  

Yesterday’s run was an AWESOME run! Smashed it! Or, felt like I did anyway. It was as follows: 1.6kms easy, 4.8kms threshold pace, 1.6kms easy, 4.8kms threshold, 6.2kms easy. I stopped running 500m early, as I wanted to buy a drink and some breads on the way home and happened to be coming up to the amazing-crusty-bread stall, and then walked about 1km home from there. Altogether it took 1:27, and my legs felt great. My fastest 5kms from this run was 21:17 and my fastest 10kms was 43:42.

I was pretty nervous about running threshold pace for those two distances (threshold pace being between 4:07 – 4:18 for me and the time I’m aiming for in the big race) but it went fine, and no dramas at all. So, now I’m thinking, what if I do something similar to this on the day of the race? Just do a third extra of what I did this morning plus an extra kilometerish at threshold pace? I.e. 1.6kms easy, 4.8kms threshold, 1.6kms easy, 4.8kms threshold, 1.6kms easy, 6.7kms threshold. So, perhaps I will don Garmin on race day after all.

This run left me feeling pretty confident and kind of on top of the world, and it just goes to show, that you CAN do hard things! Or things that you find the idea of quite daunting at first. I think most things, before you try them for the first time, can seem daunting and a lot harder than they actually turn out to be. Case in point (recent examples):

-          Speaking loudly/teaching/aiming to keep control of 50 kids at a time = pretty daunting before we began this job here. Now = piece of cake (haha, although ‘control’ isn’t a word I’d use in this case).

-          Giving a speech to hundreds or thousands of people = super daunting and ‘scary’ before. After having done it = not so bad, and I can do it.

-         Running/climbing/crawling up and down the Great Wall of China = extremely daunting at first look. After the race = exhilarated and ecstatic at having done it.

-         Speaking Chinese = very hard and a challenge. Now = very hard and a challenge. (Haha, ok, this one will be a work in progress…)

 

I was inspired the other day (thanks Kristina!) to rifle through all my old photos (ones on the computer anyway) for a good ole’ nostalgia session. Didn’t think I had any digital ones from 2003 but surprised myself and found some (shockingly bad) photos from my days at University down in Brighton, England. Here’s a not too bad one from then, this is me with my old housemate Matt and lovely friend Sarah:

Is it weird that I can pinpoint which year (and probably which month too) by my hair at the time? Other than the hair occasionally changing colour, I don’t think I’ve changed too much? What do you think? This is me in 2004 in Hastings, England. Arrghh – used to love this skirt way too much. Haha, must have loved the way it made my legs glow luminously white or something:

Fast forward to 2007 to Australian life where I was going through a platinum/bleached blond coupled with a spray tan look. Winning yes? Haha. This was when I had a mobile spray tanning business, so, hazard of the job?

Aaaand, then I chose to dye my hair super dark brown for a change in late 2008. Hmm, interesting thing, when you dye your hair: complete strangers think it’s acceptable to weigh in on if they preferred your hair blond or brown. The same thing happened when I changed it to red back when I was 17/18 – complete strangers telling me that they preferred it before. Creepy much? Oh, and pretty sure boyfriend at the time told me instantly it was horrible and he also preferred the blond hair I had before the change. Thanks for that!

And another one of my dark hair, complete with my favourite lady! (Also sporting dark hair, Annie! Remember this?)
LOVE Australia Day!

Then, this is where I’m in between brown and blond, attempting to dye it back to ‘normal’ (much prefer having lighter hair, so it seems those strangers were right!). This was my very first  full marathon! In 2009 in the Hunter Valley Australia:

Another one from that marathon weekend. I went with my friend Ruth, who was running her first half marathon, and I was pretty pumped – can you tell?

This is one from a triathlon I took part in, in Newcastle, Australia in I think 2007 maybe? Or late 2006? Hard to tell as I can’t see my hair colour, lol… I only did the run portion while my excellent friend Joe did both the swim and the hardcore cycle section (which was up and down some very steep hills). I think I ran the 4km stretch along the harbour and back in 17 minutes, which isn’t too bad considering I wasn’t really a ‘runner’ back then (yet). I look just a little bit nervous, haha.

Me and my favourite again. Both of us back to blond again (mine still with a hint of brown though, so this must have been mid 2009? Or August 2009 to be precise - was this your birthday drinks Annie?):

Here is Husband and I! Back when we had not long gotten together. This is early 2010, in Newcastle, Australia. I love this photo so much. We used it as postcards for details for our wedding when we got married in 2012. Look at his beautiful blue eyes!

Ok, no running today – it is a day of rest, lol. Long run done and dusted yesterday, and NO achey legs this morning, awesome. Oh, and I think it’s Easter today? So, enjoy that if you are celebrating. Am guessing lots of lovely long weekends for you folks back in Australia and England? Enjoy!

Welcome back! It’s been a while hey. Have well and truly been on a bit of a running/blogging hiatus of late. Here’s what happened: I took an impromptu trip back home to Australia in early January (probably just after my last entry I suppose) to buy an apartment (yay!) and didn’t take my laptop, thinking ‘I’ll write when I get back’, and well, that just never happened hey. If it weren’t for the lovely, caring, and inquisitive Kristina and Annie, then this would probably not be getting written now. So, thanks you two! Here it is as promised…

 

SO, lots to catch up on then. Here are some nutshell points from the last couple of months:

 

-          In Australia I did as many runs (in between house viewing appointments and bank trips) as I could in the early morning sunshine and under those blue, blue skies. LOVE RUNNING IN AUSTRALIA. Namely beautiful Newcastle, which has a lot more hills than I remember.

-          I missed my husband and puppy (who had to stay here in China due to no puppy-sitter being available) A LOT.

-          I got to catch up with my two besties a lot during my quick trip. LOVE THESE TWO:

-          Teaching, teaching, teaching, as usual.

-          Husband and I got interviewed by another journalist, this time from a newspaper from the province, not just our city, who is writing a book about ‘foreigners’ in China and has chosen 15 lucky ‘laoweis’ to be in it. Watch this space for a copy. J

-          I turned THIRTY. (So, really must update my ‘about me’ section hey, still living in the past of 29…)

-          Eating, eating, eating, Chinese food, Chinese food, Chinese food…

-          We accepted a job teaching at a university for next year (term starts in late August) in Inner Mongolia!!!!

 

We are VERY excited about moving to Inner Mongolia!!! I am now picturing me (and Puppy) running through endless grasslands, with those blue, blue skies, and (we’re hoping) fresh air. Mongolian hospitality is famed as being awesome too, and the food (we think) will feature lots of hotpots, strong booze, and yoghurt at most meals. Combine that with loads of happy 18-25 students of ours (instant group of friends yes?), and an exciting, colourful (the traditional clothes look amazing up there) culture and outdoors, back-to-nature lifestyle = one happy husband and wife teaching team.

 

For those who are unfamiliar with where Inner Mongolia is, it is right up the top of China, just next door to Mongolia, but it is a part of China. Most of the people there are Mongolian, but the national language is Chinese.

 

Bring it on!

 

Oh, and in other exciting news (well to me anyhow) – I have registered to run in the Gold Coast Half Marathon in July! So, another exciting trip to Australia (for both of us this time) is on the cards, and in the next few months leading up to this I’m planning to train my arse off and get under that 1:34 time from my last half. Would LOVE a time of 1:30, so I’ll see if I can make it happen. I’ve got another training plan, so I’ll be putting that into action in the next few minutes when I head out into the (getting warmer) morning air. This training plan is much longer than my last 12 weeks one, so I’ve missed the first few weeks of it already (it is an 18 week plan).

 

Lastly, is this the face of the happiest dog in China?? Quite possibly. Here’s our beautiful puppy on her first trip to a further away park (we finally installed a puppy-basket on Husband’s bike), where you can imagine you’re in Bali or somewhere a lot more tropical than our city, on a good, sunny, clear day, which amazingly it has been all weekend.

Happy Monday and Happy Running everyone! xxx

The smog seems much better today, and is even clearing enough for us to see some blue patches of sky. However, I still had another wet-face-masked-assassin run early this morning, just in case. At one point, so cheered was I that I could now see across the river again that I took my mask off for a few breaths. I don't know if it was just in my head, but to me the air had a funny taste (?) so the mask was re-donned tout de suite.

It was great to get out there this morning and tune out and run on auto-pilot. Did one of my usual routes which takes me through a big park nearby and down to the river where I run alongside for a bit then cross it and loop back in the direction that I came. It is about 12km and takes me between 55 mins to an hour. This morning's run was an hour. Cold and dark (for half of it) but it was just what I needed. I'd gone to bed grumpy/frustrated so knew if I didn't get out of bed and run it off this morning then the bad mood may have continued today too. Interestingly enough, whenever my thoughts would stray to some of the less good/troubling thoughts that are on my mind, my running pace would slow quite significantly. Then, when thinking of happier things, or tuning out altogether, my pace picked up again and I found my 'zone'. So, it is really true hey: what we think about creates and shapes our reality: negative thoughts = negative result, so, positive thoughts = positive result! Run with happy thoughts people. :)




It is so fricken cold this morning. Sat here in no less than four layers, procrastinating and putting off the inevitable undressing for a dribble of a shower (water pressure sucks in our apartment). Would much rather be HERE right now (yep, that is another I-miss-being-on-holiday-in-Bali shot. this was taken just near Tanah Lot at a large hotel/golf course with the beautiful, amazing Annie):