So, this race recap is just a little belated, but when trawling through some old photos the other day, when I got to the photos from my first ever full marathon in the Hunter Valley, Australia, I was taken back there and was caught up in my memories from this race. So, I thought it would be fun to go through more of the photos for this race and talk about that awesome (but painful!) weekend, as this race was way back in the day, way before I had this blog (yes, I know this blog is only about 6months old haha).

I went with my good friend Ruth (who sadly, we have kind of lost touch since then, but I hope we’ll meet up again in the future). She was running her first half marathon and I was running my first full. It was an exciting weekend for us both.

It is a great course: it takes you through and around various vinyards, and it truly beautiful. I had run the half marathon there the year before, so I was pumped to be back to do the full the next year. The full is two laps of the same half marathon course, and I think there is 10km race section too, if you are so inclined.

Now, I must have forgotten about how undulating this beautiful scenery was, as it was a surprise to me about those hills, one in particular, where it was quicker to try to walk/stride up rather than run, due to its incline. This hill you had to do twice if you were doing the full. Ouch indeed.

The race started off well, perhaps too well? I kept trying to tell myself to slow down, as I’d feel my pace picking up. I had my dad’s advice ringing in my ears about try to run the first half slowly and then you’ll do fine in the second half. He ran the London marathon back in the day and got a time of 4:11! So, I think I was definitely aiming for matching his time, or trying to get close to there anyhow.

The first half took me 1:46, so much too fast I think, on reflection, if I was aiming to run the first half slower than the second one. Oops. Hey-ho, on with the race. In the second half I was still feeling pretty good and was keeping pace with a couple of women who were incredible! One was running something like 6 marathons in 6 weeks and the other was using this marathon as a mere training run for another event. So, obviously I felt like a ‘proper’ runner as I ran and chatted with them.

Until about kilometre 36 or 37, that is. Hmm, here is where things went wrong. Very wrong. Or perhaps, they actually went wrong a lot earlier, but here is where I felt the effects. My legs kind of stoped working. What the?? Is this that famed ‘wall’ I’d heard so much about? Yup. It is a real thing. Was very frustrated. Had to sort of limp/shuffle/walk for the most of the rest of the way, and people who were running with me at the end where like ‘what happened to you? You were doing so well! Etc.’. Oh well. Wasn’t my day. I finished in 4:35, so if my legs had not given up the fight with just 6 little kilometres to go, I might just have got the time I was aiming for.

I gratefully limped/ran in slow motion across the finish line and Ruth and I found each other and hugged and celebrated, and I then got stuck into the post-race bananas and drinks on offer.

My legs were wrecked for ages hey. Had extremely slow, elderly ladies overtaking me on pavements as I limped along over the next few days. I remember going in to work (I worked in a pathology lab in a busy hospital) the next day and my boss congratulating me but laughing at me, kind of like ‘what are you doing here today?!’

I think a major lesson I learnt from this marathon is this: FUEL. Pre-fuel, and my fuel during the race were completely inadequate for a full marathon. I had run a few half marathons and one ten km race prior to this marathon, where I didn’t use any extra fuel during the race, so I think I wasn’t prepared enough on the fuel side of things. I think I drank mainly water at the aid stations for the first half of the race, and then would alternate water and sports drinks. However, by the time my legs had problems, and I was stuffing in jellybeans like there was no tomorrow, it seemed it was too late. Lesson learnt: re- fuel before you run out.

Apart from the pain and the slight disappointment of not actually having ran the whole way, as I had to walk for a few kilometres at the end, I was still euphoric and ecstatic at the end of the race. I had just ran a full marathon! And then promptly vowed never to do so again. Haha…

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!

So, no blog yesterday as there was no running to remind me to blog, haha. Oops. Did 50 minutes of strength training instead, as the training plan says you can sometimes swap one of the easy runs for some strength or weights, so having run for the last 3 days straight (I usually alternate days), I chose the strength option instead. Felt good, felt strong, so that’s a plus yes?

 

This morning was supposed to be a 12.8km run, but our beautiful but CRAZY puppy did an excellent job of shrieking/barking/going off her head at about 3 in the morning, just two hours before I was aiming to get up and get ready (read = drink coffee) for the run. Husband says she was just protecting us (there was a noise from downstairs), which is very sweet and adorable and lovely, but VERY loud and far too early! So, I then chose to stay in bed a whole while longer this morning. Result = my run has been pushed back to about 3pm instead, where the traffic and the pollution will be heaps worse, but hey-ho, what can you do? I’m pretty sure this is what she resembled this morning:

On a completely different note (i.e. NOT running, puppies, or anything to do with China), when a friend keeps telling you little white lies (which you know are lies) should you call them out on it? Or just accept their version? If they lie about such little things, then surely they will lie about bigger, important things? Maybe I should just let it go, as it’s their prerogative to lie I guess? Hmmm, just a little frustrating…. Ok, random rant is over, now back to running stuff:

 

I read an article this morning about a man in England who ran SEVEN sub 3:25 marathons in SEVEN days. As part of an event called ‘Weak at the Knees’. WOW! I can’t even imagine getting ONE sub 3:25 marathon, and I’m not sure I ever will now, as I’ve vaguely sworn off marathons and longer distances in favour of those much more fun, wonderful half marathons, but SEVEN in ONE WEEK??? Amazing. Or crazy. Not sure which, probably amazing more than anything. I guess it goes to show just how incredible and strong our bodies really are, and that we can usually do much more than we think we can. I know this was true of my half marathon raced on the Great Wall of China last May. At the starting line, looking at what we had to ‘run’ up (extremely daunting and extremely steep towers of stairs and crumbling ledges and broken walls, stretching for as far as you could see in the distance) I was thinking, ‘no way I’ll be able to do this’, but then you start, you continue, you sweat and ache, you feel amazing for keeping going, you finish and discover you were the first female to do so, you feel AMAZING and elated. So, before you know it: the impossible is done, and is not impossible after all; nothing is.

 

What is something you have done that you once wouldn’t have thought possible and that you amazed and surprised yourself with? Or something you are completely proud and excited about having done?

I've been taking it really easy and chilled since Thursday, and apart from one day's initial stiffness, my legs feel fine now and totally back to normal. So, how long are you supposed to leave it between a long distance run or race and your return to running? If I leave it too long, maybe I'll never start again? The habit will be gone? After half marathons, I usually leave a few days, but maybe this full marathon malarkey requires a bit longer?

So, it was not my day for a PB here in beautiful Xiamen, but it wasn't due to my running or of that hitting the wall thing. Many things conspired to me ending up with a good 30 minutes added on to my first half of the race, which was apparently too hard to come back from to get a better time. I know, I know, it sounds like excuses hey, but let me talk you through them, as I ended up really surprised with my time being 3 minutes slower than my first marathon time, when I ran for the whole thing this time, didn't encounter 'the wall' (albeit a wall of people, but we'll get to that), and even finished feeling fairly strong and sped up for the last kilometre, and sort-of-sprinted across the finish line. So, when I crossed the line and then got my certificate printed out showing the accurate chip time of, wait for it, 4 hours 38 minutes, I was a little confused. Oh yes, then I remembered the start of the race.

Here's how it went down: about 80,000 people give or take (ok, not all in the full marathon event, but all squished in together regardless) trying to surge forward and commence a running race. There's music, there's excitement, there are the ever present cheers of 'jar yo!', and then: boom - everyone slows and stops completely and then proceeds to shuffle/walk VERY slowly for the next 1-2 kilometres. Major human traffic jam.

As soon as we were able to feel awesome and actually start jogging / prancersizing, I had my eyes out for a loo. A public one was located in the next 100 metres or so and I unfortunately had to leave the race so early on and join a big queue. Picture ten fun minutes of waiting. (Unavoidable, as apparently still suffering with a bug - almost didn't get up to even start the race this morning, but so glad I did, despite this story.)

So, it's kind of like I started running or the proper 'racing' about 20-25 minutes late. But anyhoo. On with the race. My fuelling strategy was going excellently and I was fairly confident that I was getting enough carbohydrate and water at regular intervals, but hey, you never know, especially with a stomach bug. But today, snickers were my main source of fuel, along with sports drinks at aid stations, and later, some coffee boiled sweets. I felt good running, felt like my pace was good - not too slow and not too fast (now that I could actually run).

So, no 'hitting the wall' as I was worried about, BUT at about 12 kilometres in, when the route takes everyone along an elevated underpass (one way in, no escape off the sides, sort of like a tunnel), disaster struck. Not joking here, was seriously worried for my safety. For some reason the front of the giant crowd had decided they had taken a wrong turn and were trying to force everyone back the other way, amidst more and more runners piling on in. You hear about people getting crushed to death and trampled on in concerts sometimes, and I have a fair inkling of how easily this could occur. Scary shit, I won't lie. But then, one lone soldier proferring a pointing finger gesturing us back into the melee of which we'd just escaped, signalled that we were going the right way in the first place and after some minutes (felt like 10, was prob nearer to five for the whole time, but who knows) we were free again and running along an amazing stretch of road that takes the runners over the sea and around to the Southern tip of the island. Seeing Xiamen from this beautiful angle soon got me over my near-suffocating experience, and it was on with the race.

Until disaster struck AGAIN. Luckily not too bad this time, but was probably worse for the ladies involved: Two women became entangled due to us having run on top of each other because of the numbers and they both went face first on the tarmac. Only ONE other runner stopped and together we helped them up. They said they were ok. Phew.

And then it was on with the race. The rest of the race had no hiccups, albeit my excellent new Garmin ran out of charge at about 30 kilometres. Damn. Must get used to charging it the night before a long run or race. Up until then, it was working like a dream, and it was fun (if a little distracting) to keep checking my pace and finally find what my comfortable pace really is. It ranges between 5 and 6 kilometres an hour, in case you were dying to know.

So, as I said before, I finished strong and felt great about the race, which is why I was surprised at the time, as in my previous marathon I spent the last 9 kilometres in pain and definitely the last 5 in agony and walked/limped to the finish line. So that versus non walking (except in and out of drink stations, oh yeah, and about 25 minutes plus at the start, lol), with a speedy finish? This is why this race is a running PB for me - not in terms of time, but in how I felt strong and good, and DID NOT HIT THE WALL! Yay! It is possible! So, very glad I did get out of bed this morning. Even better, I had this beautiful, amazing man waiting for me at the finish line: my beloved husband, coach and support team, what would I do without you H?! If you're reading this: thank you for all your support and love: I love you so much. (This is entirely appropriate too - all the banners along the route today said 'Run for Love'.)

Seriously, he went above and beyond to help me carb-load before the race last night. Check it out - was considering calling this post 'Fuelled By Jiaozi' (not sure if the photo's clear, but there were something like 64 dumplings that arrived at our hotel door - Champion H!):

The rest of the day pre-race yesterday was spent soaking up the beautiful beach scenes of Xiamen, riding around on a comedy tandem bicycle, and eating lots of rice, tofu and veggies and drinking a couple of carb-loading Tsingtaos of course:

Oh, and I better put a couple of race shots from today on here too, so here you go, enjoy!

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!

Does running around a classroom, dodging errant stools and desks, being chased by a 13 year old as part of 'duck, duck, goose', count as speedwork?? This has been the only form of running I have accomplished this week, but that's ok. Have been relishing this post-race week of resting. However, it is also pre another race, so, time to start training again! Starting tomorrow... Must start getting some longer runs and clocking some more kilometres before the full marathon coming up in just over 3 weeks.

Also, not long til my mum arrives! Very excited! So, this weekend we'll be doing lots of cleaning and sorting out the apartment where she'll be calling home for her month's stay here. (She is staying here on campus with us, in another apartment that is not currently in use - ie. 3 inches thick with our city's particularly heavy form of dust). Cleaning counts as cross-training, yeah?

The pollution (or  the slightly more innocent sounding 'smog' as they like to refer to it on the news) is terrible here at the moment. A total white-out. Think flights and trains have been cancelled too. Hope this sorts itself out and buggers off pronto.

Very sad to hear about Nelson Mandela too. RIP. The world has lost a great person.

Ok, have a great Friday everyone, wherever you are in the world.

Ok, legs are FINE today, no excuses. Will aim to do some strength training later today, and maybe maybe go out for a run tomorrow? Or maybe a long run Saturday morning? Got to prepare for the FULL marathon now, on January 2nd. Any tips for marathon training would be very welcome! (This will be only my second full marathon.)

I have carried on with the eating-heaps-of-food-as-recovery, as well as playing copious games of 'Duck, Duck, Goose!' with my students (do you remember that one? Involves lots of running/screaming/trying to catch each other). A friend's recovery advice (and advice for life in general) is to have plenty of the all-important things in life: bacon, sleep, and sex. Wonderful advice to which I fully agree (minus the bacon bit - sorry Peter, not a convert on that yet! I'll stick to coffee instead) - I would happily do the research and scientific testing of this one, then I could publish my findings in Runner's World or some other sporting publication. Reckon it would beat chocolate milk as a recovery aid hands down.

Any other suggestions for recovering quickly after a hard race or workout?