I went for a ‘test’ run this morning, checking to see if my legs were fixed. Well, yes and no. Yes, I ran with no pain and aches and niggles. Phew. But NO – they felt very very slow, and weak, like I’ve lost any sort of power that I had built up?! I hope this is not the case, and that it was perhaps due to it being my first run back after 3 days sans-running, or maybe the humidity was doing its thang again. Hmm, not sure. It was only meant to be a recovery paced run for me to test the waters, so it was successful in that sense, however my legs do not feel their 100% best. At all. Tomorrow I have my last speedwork session of the training plan: 3.22kms easy, then 4x 1200m at threshold pace with 2 minute rests, and then 1.6kms cool down. So, I will be able to see if my speed is still there. I have an awful feeling that all the speed and strength that I feel I built up earlier in the training period, have been jeopardized by the 50km trail race that I plonked in the middle of my half marathon training program. Oops… (Hmm, and I still wouldn’t change doing that race! I just might plan my races and schedule a bit better next time.)

However, hey - what if I can’t keep to the intended pace during the half marathon? What if I don’t get a new PB and beat my time from the Shanghai half last December? So, what?? The only person who will be disappointed is me. I highly doubt anyone else cares if I manage to complete it in 1:30, or 1:31, or even 2:31 (3:31, people may be concerned about however, namely the race organizers, as there is a 3 hour cut-off time). Sure, friends would be very happy for me if I DO complete the race in the time that I want, but I’m sure they’ll be equally happy for me if I don’t and I run it anyway and am happy with the race. It struck me this morning, as I was lamenting my crappy run, that it is only ourselves who pressure us. We are our own worst enemies sometimes, and if I treated my friends the way I treat myself sometimes (i.e. the pressure I put on myself to meet goals and other things) then I’m sure I wouldn’t be their favourite person to hang out with, if at all. Before I left for this morning’s run, I was deliberating about whether or not to go, and was generally procrastinating drink green tea after green tea (shock! We were all out of coffee, nooooo…..), Husband told me to stop pressuring myself – it didn’t matter whether I went now or later in the day. Hmm, he had a point. However, it already being mid-morning (crazy sleep-in this morning until almost 9am!), and hence a hefty amount of traffic and humidity out there, I knew these two factors would only get worse later on, and that if I didn’t go right then and there, that I wouldn’t go at all and the day would simply get away from me. So, yes, I pressured and forced myself out the door! But then, during the run, his words came back to me, and I thought that yes, as runners, I think we tend to pile on the pressure about certain paces, times or distances we think we ‘have’ to run. I know how awesome it feels to tick off certain goals and to achieve training successes, but when things don’t go according to plan, we really shouldn’t take it so seriously or to heart. I mean, no one else does, right? Your friends and family are just happy if you’re happy, and (should) support you whatever your time or place in a race. At the end of the day, it’s just for fun and it’s a form of playing. Like anything in life, we shouldn’t take it so seriously. I will try and heed my own advice!

And so, for something completely unrelated to running paces, fuel, injuries, or any other running related topic, here are some pictures of a beautiful, playful soul, who definitely doesn’t take life too seriously (although she takes begging for egg yolks or peanuts kind of seriously at times) and would never put pressure on herself for anything, she just goes with the flow. I should follow her example:

Wonderful Wednesdays begin with… a session at the track. Nope, I’m not kidding. Just got back from my final speedy session pre-race on Saturday, and wow, have I turned it around with my attitude towards the track! Was keen as to get out there this morning, and when I got there ran the following: 1.6km warm-up, 9.66km at threshold pace, 1.6km cool down. Had to slow down slightly around 7kms in as the security guard had come to find me and was waving me down with a package that had arrived in the mail for us, how’s that for service?! So, I ran half of my workout holding a small envelope, but anyhoo, a great run nonetheless.

Let me tell you about these friends I’ve made down at the track. They are definitely the silent type, and mostly they like to quietly cheer me on as I pass them, while they sit at the edge of the track in the long grass. One is a redhead and one has black hair, and they are pretty damn cute. Since I don’t take my camera with me when I go for a run, this is a photo I’ve stolen from google images, but you get the idea:

Just call me the Cat Whisperer. (Do you ever wonder if animals that have an affinity with you are maybe past souls/people you have known?) Shhh, don’t tell Puppy. She can be such a jealous bitch when we show love to other dogs, so I’m sure she’d be the same with cute, little cats.

 

Apparently blogging and writing posts on here are a lot like running for me: if I don’t do it bright and early in the morning, then there’s a good chance I won’t get it done at all, or it becomes a struggle making time for it later in the day, as things crop up and get in the way. For a couple who have just over ten hours of solid “work” per week (it’s in quote marks as it doesn’t really ever feel like work) our day can get surprisingly busy (yes, this always shocks me too). Yesterday was one of those days.

It started out all well and calm enough, and yes, although I was dog-tired, I still dragged myself out of bed early-ish (about half 5 I think) and nursed a couple of green teas for a while before heading out (in the already hot, humid day) for a 12km easy paced run. As soon as I got back from this is was rush, rush, rush, as I was trying to get showered, ready and leave it just long enough so as to hit that magical refueling period of time (refueling nutrition nirvana?? From 30 minutes to an hour after working out) yet still make it to school breakfast on time, or at least before they close for the day (there is a daily cooked breakfast as well as a school lunch here. Like I’ve said before: good gig). I made it (just), then shoveled down a breakfast of champions: vegetable noodles with added chilli and chives, boiled eggs, steamed bread, and some hot soy milk. However, this ‘rush, rush rush’ pace was then set in place for the whole day. Or so it seemed.

A ‘quick’ trip to some shops turned into a longer trip than first anticipated as apparently I had to wait for them to even open (at the, what seems, crazy late time of 10am!) so I killed time by mooching around in Starbucks with a strong, brewed black coffee, rather than cycle home again until nearer the time; it is now too hot for multiple, sweaty bike rides – we’re definitely back to multiple-cold-showers-a-day weather here.

From said (annoyingly longer than planned) shopping trip, the day then escalated into a busy day of organizing various things (offficial things to do with our apartment back in Oz, upcoming travel plans and reservations, and getting yet further red-stamped certificates for Puppy for our upcoming July China tour – and hence, an unforeseen afternoon trip to the vet’s yesterday too) before we had four back-to-back classes where we gave each student (about 44 in each class) their one-on-one final English oral exam. All of these exams took place in the hot, outdoor corridors, adjacent to their classrooms. Phew….

So, to now cut myself off from rambling about this any further: the day got away from me and therefore a new blog post just didn’t eventuate.

Not least because of something (which maybe simply by rambling on and having the written form of verbal diarrhea on here this morning, I have overcome anyway before ever getting to the point and writing about it?) which can only be described as ‘bloggers’ block’. I.e. Not having the foggiest of what to write. No inspiration. No original (or otherwise) thought for the day. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Hmm. Maybe some more sleep was all that was needed (finally got some awesome, quality sleep last night – I think due to having a total technology ban on myself from early in the evening – took myself off to a cool, dark room, and boom: loads of sleep ensued = success).

But, seriously. Anyone else experience this? Writers/bloggers’ block?

Sure, I could probably have dashed out a few sentences of how I went for a run / my legs feel great / I’m tired / It’s only two days until I leave for Beijing / yada yada yada…But to be honest, apart from the weirdly busy day that got away from me, I also just didn’t know where to even start with the blog post. So, umm, I didn’t. I left it. I procrastinated. I did other things. Then I went to bed extremely early with neither internet nor even an air conditioner turned on (I clearly wanted NO electrical lights or sounds at all hey. The only sound was a gentle whirring of the ceiling fan. Ahh, bliss…).

Aaaand, low and behold: you leave it long enough and your blank post turns into this: a sizeable chunk of a blog post (who cares that it’s been quite nonsensical for the most part?!) Ok, ok, sorry – I will reign in the weirdness now. The point is that I was drawing a massive blank in terms of writing, and more to the point, was aware of maybe boring you guys with what I had to write about (my run / the weather / our job etc). Surely, it would have been like every other post I’ve put out there thus far, and surely you guys reading it would be bored of that by now?? Hence you’ve got this weird ramble from me instead, oops… (Maybe I should have kept things simple after all, and short and sweet. Something like: Ran today. Tired. Busy. Started exams with students. Not much else to report. Oh: excited for Thursday….)

 

So, tell me (if you’ve stuck with me this far!) do you ever get writers’ (bloggers’) block??

 

Do you procrastinate with things much? (I am a huge procrastinator – very much a list maker and tea-break-er).

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?

Ahh, speedwork. I love it and I hate it. (Hate it when I’m in the middle of it and pushing myself so much that am well and truly out of puff and feeling a bit sick at times / Love it when it’s over and I feel amazing and badass at having done it and showing myself that yes, I can do that.)

 

This morning’s training saw me back at the track doing this: 1.6km warm-up, then SIX times: 1.6km at VO2Max pace with 3 mins rest, then finish with another 1.6km cool-down. According to a pace calculator (where you plug in the time you are aiming for and the length of the race), my VO2Max pace should be between 3:46 – 3:56. This was tough hey, not going to lie. So, most of the time (according to Garmin) my pace crept back up to about 4:05 and sometimes 4:10 (even though it felt like I was running at the same speed). Garmin told me at the end that my fastest km took 3:55, so I guess I kept it pretty close to the target pace. It was tough but I feel AWESOME now. J

 

Yesterday’s run was a nice 10 km (I think – Garmin reckons it is 10, but mapmyrun.com had it at almost 12km?! wtf??) run on a usual route down by the river. Spring has definitely sprung and the beautiful pink, purple, and white flowers adorning trees all around town = a beautiful, early morning run.

 

So, we’ve got the usual four lessons today, but quite frankly, I kind of just feel like staying in our flat and organizing and having a massive spring-clean instead. Better snap out of it, as Tuesdays are great lesson-wise and student-wise.

 

Husband is busy studying and preparing for his Chinese driving test (theory) tomorrow. Wish him luck! He will ace it I’m sure. The only trouble being that most of the questions do not make any sense (very bad translations) and some are completely wrong but you have to put the answer that they say IS correct (even when it’s clearly not). Hey-ho. Positive thoughts he will pass first time, and then we can get one of these babies to tour around China in and to drive up to Inner Mongolia with our puppy:

After yesterday's freezing cold morning (yep, these three layered runs are becoming a bit of a regular thing now), it actually turned into a gorgeous, sunny (almost hot) day here. So, after work we headed out on our bicycles to a local park so that Puppy could run around and we could lay on the grass for a bit (felt SO good hey). We realised as soon as we got out the door and into the glorious sunshine that her newly purchased, super-stylin puppy jacket wasn't needed, but here's a couple of 'just-because' shots of her in it (just because she's so f'kin cute!):

As soon as we could, our respective jacket/shoes/boots came straight off for some prime time feel-the-grass action:

Seriously. Haven't tried just lying on the grass lately? Give it a whirl. Feels pretty amazeballs.

Here is Puppy expressing just how good it feels (we call her the dog of many faces - here's her best 'pissing-myself-with-laughter-as-am-thrilled-to-be-at-the-park' face):

And yes, an extra 'just because' shot of the autumnal colours of the leaves changing colour (had to get this before it is too late and they start to fall):

And back to some running musings now: Today I ran a 9km (ish) endurance pace run. It took 40 minutes. So, think that's roughly the same pace as yesterday's run. Hopefully, I can repeat this on race day. Felt pretty strong today and like I could have kept on running for many more kilometres, so that's a good sign. Also, I read a great quote yesterday, and wish I could remember who by or where I saw it, as my paraphrasing of it here is going to be much less eloquent, but here goes: it was something along the lines of that humans need and love to 'play' and that running is just a form of play, even when we try to be really good at it. This concept really made me smile at points during my run this morning, and I reflected on my 9km of playtime before the day really starts. This is getting added to my mental log of running mantras now, and whenever things seem tough or I get a little tired, I'll try to remember that it's all just playing anyway, and not to take it so seriously.

So, have a fookin fantastic Friday everyone, filled with fun times and PLAYING.