Feeling the cold here now. Wore THREE tops to run in on my long run this morning, plus the usual gloves and long running pants. Still cold now (having not moved much since I returned - trying to psych myself up to get into our cold, uninspiring bathroom). The weather report for the low temperature today says this:

But it feels more like ZERO methinks.

Still, it was nice: crisp and fresh on my run, not wet, which was a blessing, and there was the beautiful, big, orange orb of sun rising up as I ran past the eery, completely still river with its ghostly fog hovering just above the surface. However, it was not my best run. Had a lot of (womanly) pain for most of it (whoever said that exercise made it better??) but those excellent endorphins kicked in at about kilometre 15. An elderly gentleman speeding past me in the opposite direction gave me a hearty thumbs up as he went, to which I eagerly responded with my own thumb of course (the equivalent of a Chinese runners' high-five perhaps?), so this gave me a well needed boost. As did seeing a former student of mine near the end of the run and hearing an enthusiastic 'Hello Louise!'.

So, another week's training done and dusted = feeling awesome. :) Time for zao fan (breakfast) and probably more exploring/cycling, shopping and lots of COFFEE this weekend (once I get back up that is).

Have a great weekend everyone! And all the best to those running in a race tomorrow (i.e. Maggie! All the best for the marathon! What a great birthday present to yourself hey!).

Never again, was one of the phrases I was heard to utter after finishing the Great Wall of China half marathon in May this year. Along with, oh my god that was so unbelievably hard, f&*k me that was insanely hard, wow we did it, that was amazing, etc etc. Don't get me wrong, it was the most amazing experience - running/crawling/climbing/hiking/edging along sheer and skinny crumbly worn away paths up and down the beautiful and majestic section of the Great Wall at Jinshanling (about 2.5 hours drive from Beijing). BUT, I remember feeling SO amazed, coupled with satisfied when it was over, and was so glad that I would never have to go through that again. (Plus, was PSYCHED to have won first place woman too, guess this added to the amazed feeling). The general consensus was that they should really change the title of the race, and instead of calling it a marathon/half marathon/10 km etc running race, they should label as an endurance/ultra hiking/climbing event, as the WHOLE thing is on the steps (and in some cases what's left of them) on the Great Wall. In the sun. On a public holiday (i.e. crowds of Chinese tourists and hawkers offering t-shirts, beer and chocolate when you're just struggling to breathe). Had I known this previously, I maybe would have reconsidered and would have entered the other race that is also run on the Great Wall, but organised by the Danish (I think! Don't quote me on this...) instead of the Chinese, as this one apparently has just 5km on the beautiful wall and the rest through winding countryside roads: ahh picturesque and not crazy-hard. But now that it's been and gone, am super glad for the one that I did of course.

Here are a couple of tamer shots (i.e. those taken by my excellent coach/Husband who diligently played cameraman for almost 5 hours while he waited) from the 'kinder' parts of the course:

So, to sum up = amazing and beautiful surroundings + insanely hard = a once in a lifetime, very glad it is over, experience, right? So, why oh why am giving serious thought to re-entering this race next year?! A friend (who has entered near year's race) asked me if I was going to do it again, to which I thought my response would surely be 'no never! But you have fun now...', BUT, it triggered a longing in me to actually want to go back and do it all over again! Crazy. Oh memory is a funny thing hey. Maybe enough time has passed so that now it just seems wholly nostalgic and a GREAT experience and all the ridiculously hard, painful, dehydrated and delirious memories have faded/been eradicated. So, watch this space. (However, more than likely time/money/life will prevent me from going up again next year to Beijing at that time of year, so may have to resign myself to running the race vicariously through my friend.)

Wow, can't really believe how fast that working week went (again) - got my longer run scheduled for tomorrow (18km endurance plus 4km recovery pace), and got my skittles all ready to go. Today was strength training - I did 10 minutes of legs, 10 minutes of back and biceps, and 10 minutes of chest and triceps (using Hasfit.com - a great website with heaps of different workouts that are all FREE, and you can mix and match depending on what you're after - added bonus is that Coach Kozak shouts encouraging things at you like 'there's no reason to stop'/''Keep going'/'I see you! Why are you slowing down?!'). Then I did 30 minutes of my own strength shizzle (lunges, squats, deadlifts, push-ups, dips) while I did a bit of 'lesson planning' for next week (i.e. rewatching that old classic The Lion King, before I use a clip in my lessons).

Yesterday I did my 12km endurance run in the morning, as planned. It was going great until about 9 or 10 kilometres in, when for some reason, legs felt heavy and things just slowed down altogether. Weird. Not like I'm not getting enough pre-running fuel (copious porridge and toast the night before hey, oh and yes, copious dark chocolate too), so maybe I'm just tired. Oh, and this had to have coincided with the only time a creepy stalker on a motorbike decided to pace me and stare (bore his eyes, very awkwardly) at me simultaneously and repeat (definitely an anomaly here in China, as it is the safest country I've been to/lived in!) - bit of a worry: would I have been able to sprint off if needed to?! Surely, yes? Survival would have to be a plus of marathon training? Anyway, all good. I mumbled a hurried expletive in his general direction and pretended I was going down a street that I wasn't. Win.

Off to eat tasty treats now. Zajian!