No blog post yesterday – I’m sure you’ll understand and forgive me (hope so). Yesterday was the day of the funeral for Husband’s cousin, and although we couldn’t be there in person (he, very sadly, couldn’t get back in time for the funeral, which happened so quickly after her passing away, it seems) we celebrated her/mourned for her ourselves, just the two of us, by having lunch at a local restaurant and talking / thinking about her. As my best friend (and a very wise human being) said: it doesn’t matter where you are when you say goodbye. So true.




No run yesterday either, as after I posted my entry re: the random knee pain, I kept getting niggling/annoying random knee pains when walking up and down our apartment stairs and throughout the school. So, I thought it best to give it a full day’s rest, running wise, and instead I did some very relaxing yoga in the morning instead.

But thank you for all your comments and helpful advice! I have been trying to reply but there is some sort of problem, whereby this website thinks I am a spammer or a robot and every time I try to post a reply tells me it has been sent somewhere to await moderation – but then I never get told where/why and the comment doesn’t appear – WTF?!? Sort it out Weebly!! Why won’t you let me reply to people on my own website?!? Boo…. Hopefully this will be resolved soon – I’m not ignoring you, promise! J




I got an email from the race organisers of the Runner’s World 50km trail race, and attached to it was my official certificate and time, and this just-about-to-cross-the-finish-line photo (I promise I am running at this point, but it looks like I may not be in the photo):

They also told me in the body of the email that my time was 7 hours 33 (so, I was close enough when I thought 7 and a half) I came 85 overall (out of maybe 500?), and my position was 19th female!! Woohoo! I’ll take that thank you. Not sure if anyone (other than Rach, if you’re reading this?) will get the reference to the song (way back in the day) that I think had the same eponymous title ‘19’, but if you do know it, you will be able to sing along with me ‘ne ne ne ne nineteen – nineteen!’

 

Now, I don’t mean to alienate the guys here at all, but do you ladies ever get the most intense, crazy cravings for things that you don't usually crave like cake/ice-cream/pastries?? Then have a really weird/psychotic moment where the things coming out of your mouth are insane but you can’t stop them?? Then, some awful womanly pains and all those prior nut-job symptoms suddenly become startlingly and patently clear?? And then it’s like, ‘d’oh!!! So that’s why!’ And hey guys, maybe you’ll know what I mean anyway or recognize these symptoms in your partners. Hmm, very annoying but anyway, there you go. Rant over now, promise. Maybe TMI there, so, sorry about that…

On today’s schedule is a 12km easy paced run, and supposedly a second run (6.4km) later in the day. I’m not whether to do both runs at the moment. Will probably see how Run 1 goes first and assess it from there. As the training schedule has decreed that I should cease all weight/strength training until after the race now, I’m not sure what that leaves me as an alternative? More yoga perhaps?? Or maybe a cardio/kick-boxing workout? Would that be acceptable? I suppose if it’s more cardio than strength as the replacement session for the second run then it would be a-ok? Then again, I may get the second run in after all, we’ll see.







Do you try and leave out strength training when you’re getting close to race day?

Do you know what I mean by intense food cravings?? Do you go with them, or have you got any excellent tactics for ignoring them?




ps - I am back from the first scheduled run of the day now, and NO knee pain! Hurrah! I am so happy about this. However, I think I will substitute some pool running or using the gym at that local hotel again instead of the second run, as per the excellent advice in THIS article re: how to PR/get a PB: http://www.realbuzz.com/articles/10-ridiculously-easy-ways-to-beat-your-pb/

I felt pretty happy reading through this and realising that I can tick 8 out of 10 of them off a to-do list, however I will now be adding in some planking each day (I always neglect any core or abs work, oops...) plus some pool running when possible.

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:

Boo... Rainy and cold here today. This means: 1) I did NOT go for my training run as planned this morning, but chose staying put in my warm, comfy(ish, well ok, rock-hard Chinese) bed with Hot Husband (you know I would chose you over a run anytime Lovely, if you're reading this!); and 2) now I will get the joy of a track workout run this arvo/evening in what looks to be an all-day raining session.

However, one big perk of this rainy, average Tuesday, is that now we can stay inside in the warm and dry thanks to a mid-term exam that all the students are having today. I arrived at my lesson this morning to be told this news. Love these surprise holiday/resting days! So, fingers crossed that by this evening it has cleared up enough for me to not pussy out of heading to the track.

What's on schedule for today is: a 2km warm-up, 8km tempo at half marathon pace, and then 2 km cool down. Hmm, now if I had been a bit less lazy this morning, then I could have run the 8km portion outside on one of my riverside routes, as it would have been early enough to avoid the crazy traffic (both vehicles and people traffic), however now I am resigned to the track, especially as it will more than likely be dark for some of my run (and I've well and truly learnt my lesson about running in the dark, after a sprained ankle earlier this year, owing to my stupidity when I thought going for a run in the early morning, in the dark, along a boardwalk on a beach, in a new city, was a good idea. It was a bad idea and I fell off the boardwalk, d'oh).

So, this is pretty much the view here today (yes, not my own picture, but you get the idea):

This change in the weather (i.e. it is now the COLD you would expect from November) has meant that I have rediscovered my porridge (or Oatmeal to those American readers) addiction. Seriously, it's turned into a staple food this past week. Does anyone else go through food phases and have mini-addictions? Am I the only one?? It usually turns me off the food for a while after I've had a few weeks of it though, so maybe my body knows and wants to let me know, 'ok Lou, move along now, nothing to see here, you've had quite enough porridge/toastie sandwiches/cereal/insert addictive foodstuff of the moment here'.

So, back to lesson planning / internet research for me. I know it seems I am very happy to get my lessons cancelled, but actually this is not the case (well, maybe half the case). The same thing happened with the same students last week, so by the time we see them again, they will be two weeks behind all the other students with our lessons. Hey-ho, will they remember our names?!

Have truly terrific Tuesdays everyone! :)