Meet my new niece

I can't wait till I get to a computer so I'm testing out a phone post.

Happy 0th birthday to my brand-new niece, Audrey B.!

No faux heroes

Recently a well-respected local running coach and race director (and general all-round good dude who is a fixture on the local running scene) posted his race report from Ironman Langkawi. And it was a shocker. 

He claimed he hadn't trained for the swim or bike since the Port Dickson Tri in August - a standard-distance tri - and had basically signed up because some friends were doing it, but he expected to DNF. 

What was he doing? Noodling around for six months? I don't doubt that as a seasoned ultrarunner, he has a base level of fitness that allowed him to complete the thing. (Actually, if you REALLY want to be a good friend to your triathlete mates, be an IronSherpa and cheer squad!) But my bigger concern is that so many people liked the Facebook post and called it "inspirational".

I know that in some cultures and many athletic and academic pursuits, there is a fine tradition of casual sandbagging. Oh, I could barely swim when I signed up for this tri, but somehow I finished it. Oh, we're just going to be riding at a rolling average of less than 30 km/h, you should join us. Oh, I didn't study at all for this test, but I managed to get an A. Oh, this climb is only 5.9, why don't you try it? And I know that the people coolly saying all these self-deprecating things are frequently regarded by many idiots as amazing, inspirational heroes. 

Yeah. Don't give me that shit.

And for crying out loud don't lap it all up, you're only stroking their egos. (In his defense he did post later: "Thanks everyone... but in no way this method of severe lack of training should be followed before going for such a challenge. Complacency is highly dangerous. Better to understand our body's signs & responses rather than follow what others do.") 

If you've signed up for an Ironman, common sense says you jolly well ought to train for it. I would (and do) have more respect for the people who show up to training week after week, who smash themselves at the right time but know when to back off when they need it, whose training logs sometimes say "I had the perfect long ride today" and sometimes "I really struggled with that run and my self-confidence is faltering and this has been the lowest point of my training so far". I have more respect for the people who struggled with or stuck to their training plans, than someone who brags about being undertrained.  So I have absolutely no clue what sort of mentality would lead people to say something like this is inspirational! 

(I also realise that yeah, there is a running subculture of people who sign up for multiple, frequent long-distance races without any regard for time goals, mainly as a way of sightseeing and having fun with friends. I get that. Those folks are clear about what they want to achieve and generally go about it quite safely. And they're not pretending to be heroes for achieving all this, nor do most people regard them as more than, um, slightly eccentric.)

But I know a number of people who trained very hard for IM Langkawi and for their other iron-distance races this year. Calling an undertrained sandbagger 'inspirational' does a great disservice to the people who actually work their tails off to get to the start line. (Here is one, she is actually an inspiration when you read what she's been through.) 

The toughest journey isn't the race itself. It's to the start line. People need to recognise that and stop worshipping faux heroes. Or else just shut up and run. 

Monkey wrench

What do you do when a major intercontinental move and work/ life throw a spanner in all your racing plans for the year? (Not that I had any other racing plans besides the aquathlon - ankle rehab, ouch - and the Great Eastern Women's Run in November.)

You keep busy...

- volunteering at another ultramarathon - the Craze Ultra (I was second-shift team lead at the 100-mile turnaround point); alas, between feeding all our runners watermelon, Coke, chips, sandwiches and juice, huddling beneath the tent with the logistics director and runners at midnight when a drizzle turned into a HUGE thunderstorm, and cleaning up after our station closed, it completely slipped our minds to take any photos.

There is one photo I know that exists somewhere out there, and it was taken by Ripley (aka Kelly) of Ripley Runs. She's a local ultrarunner who is very, very tough - she recently completed the Badwater ultramarathon - and at the same time an incredibly nice person. It's such a stereotype, but the ultrarunners I've met here are so much friendlier and more laid-back than the type-A jostler/ medal-junkie/ complainer you get at the average road race here. 

- hanging out with all the little kids at our friends' kids' birthday party last week (their kids are 7, 5, 3, and one month and the older three all had their church/ kindergarten/ elementary school friends over too - oh the cuteness!) 

Out of privacy concerns I won't put up their photos but here is the adorable birthday invitation. Having a soccer coach come over and run games of freeze tag, What's the Time Mr Wolf, and other ballgames for a birthday party attended by 40 kids is a GREAT idea. (If you are an unwary adult, it is also a good way to get beaned in the head with a stray plastic ball or balloon.)  

Please excuse the badly-done privacy airbrush.

- appreciating the local wildlife. This morning there were THREE fat little striated herons on my usual route, AND a baby water monitor lizard, AND I left my phonecam at home because I was just out for a quickie 5km. 

But you can have a picture of this cute little fellow I saw on my run the other day. 

Grey heron, just doing its thing. 

Speaking of monitor lizards, here is a public service announcement: Know your varanid lizards!

(These guys are fairly common in Singapore and can grow to...uhh, unusual size. You'll see them in canals or basking on boardwalks in parks and reserves. And people frequently mistake them for the much more menacing Komodo dragons - which don't live here at all. Water monitors are mostly harmless - don't put your fingers near their jaws, duh - and will generally run away from you when disturbed.) 

Image by Ivan Kwan