Category: Awesome

3rd Best Way to Start the Day?

5/7/2014

Haha, because we all know my first two favourite ways to start the day... So, this morning: yoga and coffee seemed an excellent alternative. I might get in a run later this arvo, who knows. Yesterday after work, I DID manage to go on my run - an awesome, feel-like-I'm-flying 11km run in the late arvo sunshine. Bliss. Thanks to Coach/Husband who reminded me that it's not long til I have to run FIFTY km, so I had better 'just fucken do it'. So glad I did.

I also got in a quick stairs workout yesterday morning before work, and did 17 reps of the full building. Oops, still yet to count how many steps there are. Watch this space...

Ok, this is a super short one today, as have to get to class. Here's to a terrific Thursday everyone!

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Rest Day = Workday?

5/3/2014

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Today is SUNDAY yet we will be at work. Just seems so wrong. Oh well. Lucky it’s work we enjoy and doesn’t feel like work, so all good really. We have three lessons on for today, and I’m doing ‘body language’ with my students this week, so lots of acting and charades for my classes today. Should be fun.

Apart from that, today is my rest day of the week, after meeting every exercise goal and plan that I had for last week. Feels great to complete everything and tick it off (I am old fashioned I guess – use a proper pen and paper system and write what I plan to do in my diary).

After yesterday’s awesome long run, I spent the day eating, sleeping, watching a long documentary with Husband, before going out to eat and drink some more. We went to one of our favourite restaurant and had a few beers to start. Some men from another table came over to toast us and have a drink with us, urging us to ‘gambei’ (down in one) our drinks. It is impolite not to, so, when in China and all that… Anyway, later we headed back over to their table to return the ‘favour’, and sat there for a bit of a chat (half in English, half in Chinese, so probably a fair bit of confusion all round). They had already eaten (a feast it looked like, judging from the many empty plates on their table), so we ordered some food that we asked to be placed back on our original table, and we’d go back when it was ready. One of the dudes we were with had had a skinful it seemed, very blurry, but very happy and chilled, no drunken aggression or anything, so they started to head off. The other one came up to me and was trying to say something about money for the food, or I thought maybe he was trying to tell me that the food had arrived back at our table. No, he was trying to tell us that he had paid for our meal! We tried to say no and that there was no need etc, but he firmly insisted, saying we are friends and it is already done, no arguments. Sooo kind and lovely and generous. And still amazing to me. I don’t think that would ever happen in Australia or England – strangers randomly paying for a couple’s meal and lots of drinks, and a couple who they had only met very briefly too. But, seems this is the norm here, as often we’ve been out with Chinese friends and they have beaten us to the bill or insist on paying, and we’ve seen others at restaurants insisting too - almost violently in some cases we’ve seen, as other patrons have been physically struggling over who gets up first to pay the bill.

This town we live in is so friendly and loving. We are really going to miss this place.

Here are a couple of pictures from one of our other favourite restaurants over here, where the day before yesterday Husband was taken in to the kitchen to be shown by the amazing Chef how to make his favourite dish that we routinely order (a sizzling egg-plant dish – ‘qieze’). He filmed the genius at work before we got straight into the delicious feast he’d whipped up (the egg-plant dish, sizzling tofu (doufu), egg and tomato, and green beans - some of our favourites over here). We were there with our good friend and her daughter Lu-Lu, who will both soon be heading to Australia! (Yunbo, her husband, is already there, and they will go over later to join him and get Lu-Lu enrolled in an Australian school).

Ok, it’s off to work I go soon. So, happy Sundays everyone! Have a Funday-Sunday.

Does anyone else work on the weekends?? Hope yours is a good day all the same.

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Yoga For Runners

5/1/2014

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Instead of a run this morning, I chose to do some yoga instead. I used to do a back and core routine about twice a week, but wanted to do something new, as it had been a while since I last did any yoga. After a quick youtube search I settled on this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of2spyCtUkw. Felt soooo good to stretch. It says it's a 20 minutes sequence but as our internet is still having major issues, I think I got to hold each pose that little bit longer while the page loaded again and again, haha, so was about a 30 minute yoga workout for me. Great way to start the day.

My cross training is usually strength or weights, a kickboxing workout, or cycling and walking, but for some reason I always neglect or forget about yoga until I finally DO it again, then I'm like 'how could I have forgotten how good this feels?' Admittedly, yoga on the floor of my apartment here in China brings nowhere near the happiness levels that yoga in Bali with Annie brought, but it's still a good thing to do to mix it up from running. Ahhh, maybe I can just imagine and pretend that I've really been doing yoga this morning in beautiful Canggu and that now Annie and I are waiting for our awesome food-on-a-plate-breakfasts... Oh how I miss this, wish we were back here now:

Another reason for no run this morning: saving my legs for my long and (hopefully) mountainous run tomorrow morning. Again, hope this sunny, hot weather continues - no rain for tomorrow please China.

Enjoy your Friday people! :)

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Blasts From The Past, and My Hot Date

4/19/2014

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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!

Speaking of Husband, he is away this weekend visiting a friend about an hour’s train ride away from here. I suggested he may want a ‘manly’ weekend away to catch up with his friend (who used to live and work here, but now we don’t get to see him so often). This has given me a whole weekend to myself to: catch up on some writing (yep, the trashy ‘novel’ is getting one-step closer to being finished), rest and SLEEP (hopefully), see a friend and her daughter for jiaozi (dumplings) and pijiu (beer), watch chick-flicks while drinking white wine and eating dark chocolate (yes, I realize how clichéd this sounds), and do whatever else I fancy. Oh, and I might have had a hot date with this little beauty:

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!

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Accidental Naked Run, and Doubling Up

4/16/2014

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Yesterday’s run at the track bombed. I did indeed get myself out there at about half 7 last night, and started warming up (1.6kms). Felt ok. Then, I didn’t even complete ONE of my six 1.6kms intervals at VO2max pace, but stopped after just 800m to walk. WTF?! Yep, some weird, random, intense pain that I get from time to time, and its kind of crippling and agonizing (they have investigated at various hospitals but everything looks normal, so it’s hard to explain when it’s not happening). So, that was kind of (= very) frustrating, and I called it a night there, after oh, maybe just 15 minutes. Went home and ate some amazingly tasty carb-laden food prepared by Husband (who is a not-so-secret, awesome chef, just sayin), surely that counts as training instead? J

So, this morning’s training is an 11km (ish – depends on the route I end up taking) run this morning, and a short 4km run later in the day. Yep, a double-up day. First time I’ve done this or seen this on my training schedule, but it looks like this is to be the norm for Thursdays now. So, I hope I like it! Do you ever run more than ONCE in a day?

Phew, back from Run Number One for the day. Was an awesome run! So, maybe missing the speedwork yesterday (or most of it anyway) was in fact a (painful) blessing in disguise? Anyway, just got back from one of those awesome, feel-like-I’m-flying runs, which turned out to be an accidental naked run (Garmin couldn’t find my location, so after a while it turned to power save and I forgot to switch it back on, oops), but I think it was roughly 11kms, maybe slightly more. A beautiful morning for a run. And now to face those Thursday kids! Hmmm, wish us luck, we’re going to need it. J

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3rd Best Way to Start the Day?

Rest Day = Workday?

Yoga For Runners

Blasts From The Past, and My Hot Date

Accidental Naked Run, and Doubling Up

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