Ordinary eating

Chanced upon this recently: about eating like a normal person. Quite enjoyed it.

Here is a list of all the things I have eaten in the last 24 hours. Just so you don't mistake this for a 'healthy living blog'. I had to think really hard to remember this for you. Appreciate it.

Dinner:
- Plate of beans and rice with a dollop of sour cream
- Slice of homemade cheesecake
Breakfast:
- Two eggs over easy
- Three handfuls of almonds
- Cup of iced coffee
Elevenses while working in a cafe:
- Flaky croissant
- Cup of hot coffee
Office lunch:
- Mee siam, two chicken wings, vegetable curry, two fishcakes
- About a jug of water
Teatime:
- A sardine puff and three chicken nuggets

This may or may not be an average day. (Okay, on an average day I have toast or cereal for breakfast and don't run out of both at the same time, and my impression of an average day seems to involve considerably more fruit and veg, and during marathon training, more of everything.)

Of course I don't normally do this ('this' being: write down everything I eat) because food doesn't really stress me out. That's why my impression of an average day is just that - an impression.

I'm not really fussed about it though. I think what I eat has a way of balancing itself out in general so that overall, it's fairly healthy. So...no need to judge myself for it.

Most importantly, I enjoyed every bite.

The Effect of Hansons Marathon Training on a Marathon PR: A Perth Chevron City to Surf marathon race recap

I did say some time ago that this marathon was going to be an experiment. So here you go...

Abstract: This case study is of a female subject, aged 28, running her fourth marathon in four years. Using the Hansons Marathon training method, subject successfully attained her goal time of under 5 hours, produced a 20-minute PR, AND had fun most of the way except for quad cramps as usual right near the end.

Introduction: This is a one-subject case study. You know me. I know you (if I don't, please leave a comment to say hi!) Let's skip the introduction. You can read the rest of the blog.

Race faces - it was go time at 5am! I'm on the right; on the left is Holly whom I talked into doing the marathon as well. SHE had a VERY good run. Read all about it. Photo courtesy of Holly. 

Methods:
- Training:
Starting in April, I began using a variant of the Hansons Marathon training plan (I didn't get the book until about a month ago - READ THE BOOK if you intend to use it). Its most important principle is probably cumulative fatigue: you run six days a week with a speed day, a tempo day, a longer run day (up to 25km), and three easy days. This is to simulate the LAST 25km of a marathon, not the first. Rest between your speed day and your tempo day.
I was able to stick to the training plan, give or take a few km, for the first 10 weeks or so; thereafter, work commitments, illness and slight injuries meant a week of lower (40km) mileage every couple of weeks.

- Other stuff
Nail polish (blue, the usual; assume colour does not affect aerodynamicity and fingernail aerodynamicity does not affect overall speed)

Immediate pre-race inputs: Dinner - pizza, turkish bread with dips and caprese salad. (Photo from Holly.)

Breakfast - coffee and Orgran's Buckwheat Os. The cereal was much like Cheerios but, well, made from gluten-free buckwheat - since I have no gluten sensitivity this was not a concern. These were a brand new (to me) cereal that we'd been eating for the past few days with no ill effects, and since I sometimes have cereal before a race I figured this would do just fine.

During-race inputs:
Hydration - Nuun in the waterbottle, refilled twice with water
Fuel - One pack Clif blocks in 'margarita' flavour from 6-21km; half a chocolate Honey Stinger gel from 28-30km, gave up because too sweet; one chocolate Honey Stinger gel from 37-40km because of hunger pangs.

Garments: Race-day weather was uncertain (rain? yes? no? how much?); the temperature was a balmy 12 to 19 degrees C throughout the marathon - really optimal running weather for me (i have been known to winter hike in New Hampshire winter in a t-shirt). I wore a wind jacket and cotton arm sleeves to the convention centre start, discovered I was warm by the time we got to the start point 1km from the hotel, and took the gamble to leave arm sleeves in clothing bag. Cap, capris and tank top ended up working out just fine and were a great departure from the usual What Not To Wear disasters.

Results: 
I maintained a fairly even pace till the 30km mark, crossing 10km just over an hour, 21km in 2:12 (very nearly pulled off a new half-marathon PR, which should NOT be the case during a marathon), and 30km around 3:30. (There were two fairly big hills between 22 and 30km and much of that portion was upslope.)

Between 6km and 12km I crossed paths with an older gentleman who had lived in Perth for 44 years ("I came on vacation 44 years ago and never left. Been to Singapore plenty of times") who was running his 38th marathon with bells on. Literally - he had them in his hand. Out of curiosity I asked him what time he planned to come in. Five hours, he said to my slight horror (while he was good company, I was not about to listen to jingle bells for 36 more kilometres this far short of Christmas). I ran away. (Later edit: he did remind me to run the tangents. "Cut the corners," he said. "Good girl.")

There were some GREAT views of the Swan River, first as we ran along it, then from the top of a hill in King's Park botanical gardens. Sadly, I never got to see the surf at the beach where the race ended - was just too sore to walk around a whole lot. Also, there was a big ol' downhill right after the finish line, which was quite enough for me.

On-the-run funnies included three cyclists with signs at the top of a hill: "BIKE FOR SALE", "EPO UP AHEAD" - "Do you offer rides?" I said.

Official results and race splits aren't in yet, but I felt like I began to slow down around the 32km mark and cramped at 36km - to the point I had to squat down and stretch out my thighs. I walked about half a km, crunched half a Nuun tablet, drank some water, and kept on going. (At that point I had about an hour left to get in under 5.)

There were not one but TWO hills from 38km, right before the finish. Fine, I understand, this is natural terrain and not the bridges that race organisers in Singapore keep saddling us with.

Oh yeah, and I came in at about 4:53 (race clock minus the extra minute it took to cross the start line). This was a >20-minute PR from my last one, and I'd very much wanted a sub-5-hour marathon too. Winning!

Edit: Official net time was 4:54:18, with the following splits (really just for my own info):
10K - 1:00:08
20K - 2:05:05 (1:04:56)
30K - 3:15:13 (1:10:08) <-- big hills here
40K - 4:35:11 (1:19:58) <-- cramps AND hills here, always a fun combination
Finish: 4:54:18

Discussion:
Would I use the Hansons method again? Yes, it seemed to work. It seems as though there are plenty of believers, too. (Jeano!) I managed to hit and stay at higher mileage, fairly consistently, than in previous training cycles where I topped out at 55+km. Thanks to the increased mileage, I'm in better shape than I was during my previous PR (5:15 at Tokyo in 2011). And I'm now used to running six days a week.

It probably worked for me because I have so much room to improve (my marathons over the years have been 6 hours, two in the low 5s, and now this.) I'm not sure cumulative fatigue and higher mileage alone would work as well for someone who's pushing PRs of a few minutes each time. That one will take speedwork and mental mettle.

Mentally, this was the easiest marathon I have ever done, as the weather was so pleasant. For the last 6km, the motivation was very simple: I knew there were hills, I knew I would cramp, I came prepared for battle.  I simply wanted that sub-5 way, way more than I minded the pain. In all I might have walked a total of 1 or 2 km - at no point did I think 'I want to throw in the towel', it was more like 'well if you want it you're going to have to fight for it'!

Why was I injured in training? That's a mystery but there are a few possible reasons: Hansons does not specifically include strengthening/ agility exercises or a stretching regimen, which I started doing quite late and which often fell by the wayside due to work; I'm also extremely flexible and somewhat injury-prone. I'd definitely recommend doing some strength exercises and much stretching/ foam-rolling in any marathon plan.

Why in the two blue hells do I still keep cramping?
I have very nasty and well-documented problems with leg cramps. The nice physiotherapy student who gave me my post-marathon massage said the crampy muscle was, very specifically, the vastus medialis. That's the lower bit that goes from the inner knee midway up the thigh. I'm glad it held off till 36km, the longest I've gone in a marathon without cramping. Thanks, weather.
I did a couple of things that probably helped: sugarless electrolyte drink and Clif margarita shot blocks with electrolytes from the beginning, and Nuun-tablet crunching (what? haven't you ever had Pop Rocks?) and lots of water the moment the cramping began.
But I don't know why the cramps happen at all. Was I dehydrated? Perhaps, but I didn't want to drink more water because I could feel it sloshing around inside me. Why do those muscles cramp and nothing else (calves hamstrings glutes other quad muscles)? If you have any answers, correspondence is by blog comment please.

Would I recommend this race to Singapore runners? YES. At 1500 runners, this was easily the smallest marathon I have ever run. The 'swag' that Singapore runners are used to in their goody bags (daffy knicknacks, snacks, caps, vouchers) is nonexisistent; you are paying for excellent organisation, abundant water and Powerade and Gu, trucks to transport your baggage to the finish line, portapotties, road closures, shuttle buses to get you back to town, and finisher shirt and medal.

The course has a number of hairpin turnarounds to make up 42.2km so don't expect to be too fast. But spectators do line the streets and cheer. This year, the weather was superb. Just make sure you do a great deal of hill training (you have no idea how many times I've run up those @#(%& Botanic Gardens and Rifle Range Road hills in training). And take it easy on the downhills.

Supplementary materials
Link to obsessively checked Perth weather website
Link to City to Surf website. All I could think was 'Chevron is a sponsor? If you win what do you get? Free gas for a year?'

This is a really hard-earned medal, thank you very much. 

A rather dramatic weekend

A week ago today, right after my last track session of this marathon cycle, there was a minor catastrophe: my trusty little Timex watch gave up the ghost. Right before the marathon, no less.  (Too many sweaty track workouts, clearly.)
It was at least six years old and had had several body parts replaced - the strap, the battery and so on - so I can't say I was altogether surprised. BUT REALLY, WHY DO THIS TO ME? After all the thinking I'd been doing about setting a pace and sticking to it, vs running watch-free and easy...

So I spent Tuesday and Wednesday mourning for my lost love. I wanted to have a moment of silence for Tim II (my second Timex since JC. I'm a serial timepiece monogamist.) but...you know...someone else would have to time it.

Not one to believe in omens, I decided to 1) try getting it fixed and when that didn't work 2) look for a new watch.

Hunting for a new watch forced me to set foot inside TWO shopping malls on Sunday afternoon. I had a minor shopping meltdown at the second one after visiting five shops and discovering that none had any Timexes. Apparently Timexes are out of style - not that they were ever in style in the first place. Finally I managed to find a shop with one solitary watch of the old model - I can't be fiddling around trying to work out how to stop and start my watch on race day.

(I really, really don't like shopping; even less so when there are crowds. In fact, to give you an idea of my relationship to people - one of my friends once suggested having a birthday party on a private island with a group of friends. What? Spend an entire weekend on an island surrounded by a bunch of other people, even ones I like very very much? That sounds like a surefire way to be overwhelmed and eventually have a meltdown.)

Fortunately my efforts paid off and I went home with Tim III, isn't he cute?

---  
Speaking of too many people, I also saw everybody and their brother on the Macritchie trail on Sunday morning, while I was chugging along. Singapore's trails (actually, there are perhaps two that might be considered proper trails, and I think of them as two segments of what's actually the same trail) are EXTREMELY crowded. It's a very small island. It doesn't help that first of all, trail running is a growing pastime around here.

Perhaps to the point that new trail runners have no clue (what to expect). Some simple sample principles:

1. Please don't run with headphones.  (Especially not when I go 'excuse me! Excuse me! EXCUSE ME!' and finally have to bellow SIAM, LAH* at the top of my voice.)
2. If it's crowded, please run on the left and give way to people coming from behind you (and also oncoming runners). I don't care what side you drive on at home. That's the way traffic flows here.
3. Please DON'T walk four abreast.

Yes, the trails are so crowded that traffic control is desperately needed in places. So, not the most peaceful or quiet on the weekend, but it's the best you're going to get around here.

*SIAM LAH - said in loud, derisive voice, most often used by coffeeshop aunties carrying large trays of hot drinks = "get out of my way, you dodo". I draw the line at shoving though, so you're safe from that.
---

And tonight I'm off to Perth to write read chill out cook eat good food drink coffee and finally run a marathon. Wish me luck...

Slow? So what?

Huh (she said incredulously). This time last year, 4:10 was a difficult 800.

Last night's track session involved 5 moderate 800s. Which turned out to be 4:10, 4:07, 4:05, 3:58 (?!), 4:02. With room to chat with my friend J. (Followed, of course, by 4x400 'hard' which I promptly floundered around on: 1:47, 1:52, 2:05 - my shoulder suddenly spiked with pain, who knows why - and 1:59. Yes, my body still rebels during short intervals.)

In this -- my hardest week of marathon prep, mentally even if it physically isn't much, involving a nasty bout with self-doubt -- my body springs a lunatic surprise like this. THAT'S IT, BODY. NO MORE SURPRISES. I can't deal.

There are good track sessions, and there are absolutely lousy ones. There are good runs and terrible ones. Two steps forward, one step back.

Although last night's track was probably the effect of the present I bought myself (along with the husband's set of birthday presents - shirts that practically glow in the dark because he has the terrible habit of running home from work, at night, clad in black).

The downside is, luminous purple makes it harder to hide from your coach on the other side of the track.

--

Which brings us to this lovely post from The Wannabe Athlete (don't mind her moniker, she is very much a real athlete).

She wrote it as a follow-up to a hilariously nasty comment someone left on her post, 'On behalf of all the 10+ minute mile runners'. That's 6+ minutes per km.

It has honestly never crossed my mind to feel ashamed of the pace I run. Frustrated that that IS my fast, sure. But shame, no...

If you look at my race times today, you'd think, oh, she doesn't really take these races seriously. But my first marathon three years ago took me just over six hours. My first 10k took me at least an hour and ten minutes. My first 5k --  I don't even remember my first 5k, but if I did it'd probably be 'let's not even go there'. So things HAVE changed. But it has taken me a long, long time to get there. Life. You know. It happens.

So I might be one of the unlucky genetically challenged*; I may be good for nothing at all except fidgeting relentlessly. (I am an incorrigible fidgeter. Hey, I'll take whatever superpowers I can get.)

Still, there's a silver lining. My heart and lungs are almost certainly healthier than before, and I'm probably at less risk now from the chronic liver condition I was born with. My blood pressure is entirely healthy - running probably saves me from the stresses of work life. And exercise seems to help maintain cognitive function - at least, it does in this study of masters athletes. I like to think it makes me younger (totally why people still mistake me for an intern, right?) No reason to stop now just because I'm not getting a whole lot faster.

All that is why I never ever, ever judge anyone for their speed or their finishing time in a race. How do you know for sure whether someone has put in the work and is giving it their all, or is on a run/walk plan, or is undertrained because they don't respect the distance? Everyone's got to start somewhere. And honestly, you never know how far each person has already come.
---

*A note for science nerds. Science nerds who may or may not have read The Sports Gene. I'm looking at you Jeano.

How much difference is there between different ethnic populations? If different populations have longer, thinner legs  or more fast-twitch muscle fibres written into their genetic code, would it be implausible that different ethnic populations have different levels of trainability on average at the population level? Are these things that vary more WITHIN populations than BETWEEN them?
---

In other news, after this marathon, it'll be time to evict the spiders and their cobwebs from my bike and dust off my goggles. I've signed up for the sprint Cold Storage Singapore International Triathlon at the end of September and would rather not be the resident Metasport embarrassment.

Here's a discount code - TRITSIT1309 - in case any of you want to try a thlon. That gets you 20% off race entry (have not done this one yet, cannot attest to quality of organising). Found on the web via Trititude.

And here's a picture from my favourite run last week, more to motivate myself than anything else.

Is this not enough?

I'm still cranky because my long run yesterday was completely rained out, on the only day this weekend I could've done a long run. (While the rest of Singapore had a long weekend, many of us media folks were in the newsroom; while we do get days off in lieu, I don't get a break till this coming Saturday. Saturday cannot come soon enough.)

I woke up at 5am and spent three hours in running clothes, waiting for the rain to stop; when it completely failed I hopped on a bus to do two Zumba classes in a row. Which, thanks to long-run endurance, doesn't feel like any sort of workout these days. (Why Zumba? Why NOT Zumba? Hey, I'm coordinated when no racquets/ sticks/ balls are involved - why waste it?)

This week I'm on the night shift, which simply means that I wake up and start working from home at the usual time, then go into the office at 2 and am physically there on call till 11pm. (No, that's not what it's supposed to mean.)

I've had it, mentally and emotionally. Not even the marathon training plan will get me through this one (been having doubts about that too - I've been running for so many years and I'm still slow, so why will this time be any different?).  I've run right out of motivation. I've just about had enough. 

Trail weekend

This week I'm on STRICT orders again to dial it back due to a janky knee (feels like the medial meniscus if anyone's asking - yes I've been icing and now I am finally in possession of a foam roller.) When your knee starts making alarming clicky noises - LISTEN TO YOUR COACH. Oh, and bargain with the running gods to get you to the start line healthy, I guess.

So what's a girl to do? Hit the trails, of course.

On Saturday I took my friend Lin out for her first-ever Macritchie trail loop.

At the end - should be 'You are leaving a nature reserve'. Photo courtesy of Lin. Or should I say Linstagram.

Of course I didn't know it was her first time there until about ten minutes into the run, to which she added, to my horror, 'Oh, I haven't run in a couple of weeks.' (My immediate reaction: 'Oh no, I've killed her!')

(*Later edit, to assuage concerns - I did not, in fact, kill Lin, and there was no whining from either one of us. Just to be totally clear...if I invite you to run, it's not really a serious run for me. I'm expecting a social run at a pace that both/ all of us can handle comfortably, and no one gets left behind. Well, unless it's me, anyway. I'm constantly getting left behind.)

So we took it easy, power-walking all the hills (this works even better than running on steep slopes) and saw what was either a rooster or a red junglefowl - could've been either - near the ranger station. The weather was absolutely brilliant for running, and a wonderful time was had by all.

On Sunday (today) Mr GCA and I went out to the Green Corridor. We basically live right atop it. I try not to run it alone except on weekends though - it's quiet enough as it is and because there aren't a whole lot of entry and exit points, there isn't anywhere else to run should anything happen.

But you have to admit it's gorgeous. Particularly at 7am. 

Today we went a little beyond the Bukit Timah train station, end point of the Green Corridor Run, and turned around after half an hour. Rain has collected in the ditches along the sides of the former railway line and they're pretty full of water now - the perfect environment for white-breasted waterhens (we saw two - good grief, they're getting to be like weka) and I heard a rustle and splash that could've been a monitor lizard. Or a stealth kaiju that was going to pounce from behind and gobble me. You know. Not nervewracking at all.

When we got to our neighbourhood, husband went home, and I continued down the road to Kent Ridge Park, which has these delightful views of...ah...land reclamation and oil refineries at Pulau Bukom off the southern coast. Right.

I promised myself today's easy run would be exactly as fast and as far as I wanted - getting into the flow is after all the point of an easy run, isn't it? Holding back the pace or pushing hard takes too much mental energy. The whole point of an easy run is that it should feel easy - mentally as well as physically. An ample supply of easy runs - that's how you run forever and love running forever.

Neither holding back nor pushing hard was a problem for me today, so I made it 14km to HortPark and headed home. The knee didn't complain. And some bad news in my work email was immediately offset by the coffee cheesecake the husband just took out of the oven...

This week's workouts:
Monday - 10km
Tuesday - speedwork (about 6km - apparently I am not getting slower, just been running in place for the past year.)
Wednesday, Thursday - insane workdays, cranky knee; off
Friday - 5km
Saturday - 10.6km, one loop at Macritchie, felt terrific
Sunday - 13.9km, up and down the Green Corridor and then up to Kent Ridge Park - those hills hurt, but in a good way.
Total: 45.5km with coffee cheesecake

PS: I really, really want to read and review David Epstein's 'The Sports Gene' (Amby Burfoot review here). Can't call myself Genetically Challenged Athlete without at least some discussion of genetics. 

Blasts from the past

So I thought I'd treat you to some old photos...

My best marathon, Tokyo 2011 

Unfortunately there's no actual action shot from Tokyo, or if there is I can't remember where I put it. 

I run exactly one marathon per year, which explains the enormous time lag in between these things. My first marathon was in December 2009; my second (which I don't even count as a marathon because it was an enormous mess) was in December 2010; my third was in February 2011. Between 2011 and 2012 I decided to enter the fun-and-pain-filled world of triathlons, so my last marathon was in December 2012. 

For Tokyo, my goals were

- finish

- finish without injury

- finish under 6 hours

From 0-4km: We were very early, so we stood around in our respective holding pens freezing our butts off. But the weather was absolutely perfect for running - 10 degrees C and sunny and warming up. 

At precisely 9.10am the horn went off; so did fireworks..it was mildly confusing for a few minutes. We started walking forward and it took me about 15 minutes to reach the start line. After 4km, my rain jacket came off and went around my waist.

In a long and honourable tradition of wearing completely the wrong thing for races, I wore: thin running gloves, a sports bra, a long-sleeved polypro shirt, a rain jacket, thermal tights because I did not own any full-length running tights and do not now, shorts, running socks, and sneakers. I bet you're REALLY sad there are no photos. 

From 4km-25km: i had planned to take little walk breaks every 5km, but just felt so good I kept right on running. If I had kept up this very, very even pace, I would have made it in under 5 hours. 

A lot of people run Tokyo in costume, and it's around here I was passed by Darth Vader ('may the force be with you'), Michael Jackson, a guy running with a webcam on his head, Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, Keroppi, a Pokemon or two, and oddly enough, the 5:30 pacers. This stretch was pleasant and uneventful, but beginning to slow down a bit from 21km onwards. My nose got sunburnt. 

From about 9km onwards i would think 'Trudy, Trudy, Trudy' to myself and imagined my favourite coach  at the back of the pack on her bike, bearing down on me and yelling nasty things - but this always made me laugh and kept me going. In real life Trudy is a fun and pleasant person COMPLETELY unlikely to yell nasty things at anyone, ever. Which made me laugh harder when I thought about it. Which means those race photos probably feature a ridiculous grin on my face. Bet you're REALLY, REALLY sad there are none. 

21km - at this point I was still on track to finish under 5 hours, which to me was kind of amazing. Tokyoites were lining the streets and cheering everyone on. There was ample water and food from organisers even though we were in the middle/ back of the pack, but even if there hadn't been, people were just handing out chocolate, candy, fried chicken (!), etc. 

30km-36km: leg cramps struck, despite several salt capsules and sports drinks. I started walking a bit ('run until you cramp, walk until you uncramp, rinse and repeat'). at some point I ran out of water and there were no more water points for another km or 2, so I broke my rule about accepting candy from strangers. The Sour Lemon bomb i got from a little old lady was only the best thing I've ever tasted, but other people were handing out things like miso soup, if that's more your...cup of tea. 

Things begin to go downhill from 27+km onward...or more literally, uphill and downhill and uphill... 

36-42km: I did the 'run until you cramp, walk until you uncramp, repeat' thing. While checking splits on my watch, I realised I would go under 5:18 (my previous PB was 6:18) if I could finish the last 6 km in an hour and 15 minutes. I miraculously uncramped 2km from the finish line, and ran for my life ('I want my PB, I want my PB dammit'). got to the finish line, checked my time, broke previous PB by more than an hour (don't think I'll ever do THAT again), cried tears of joy. 

After the marathon I remember waddling back to my hostel and falling asleep for four hours, then going out for dinner (okonomiyaki!) with a couple of friends. I very distinctly remember the restaurant had no elevator. 

My first marathon, December 2009

"What Not To Wear For A Marathon": nylon shorts that became soggy and immediately chafed. No cap on a very hot day. My nose got sunburnt. (See a trend?) Yes, that's the same Nathan handheld bottle strap I used till last year, when I mysteriously lost it after last year's Standard Chartered marathon. 

I'm flying here, but (as usual) cramped and walked along the way. I don't know if that means I could've pushed harder! 

My first half-marathon, December 2008

I look extraordinarily serene, probably because I am running about two km per hour, but still having a much better time of it than the guy behind me. 

What Not To Wear: Do not, under any circumstances, steal your little sister's Nike shorts while she is away at university and wear them for the first time during your very first half-marathon. (If I recall correctly this was due to spectacularly poor laundry planning, and all my non-ratty shorts were in the wash. This was when I was still using the same shorts I'd used in high school.) Because while you are theoretically the same size, you two are also completely different shapes and your thighs will not be happy. 

This was before I discovered the existence of Bodyglide. 

Also before I ever kept a training journal, so I'm afraid I have no idea what to tell those of you who are training for a half-marathon how I did it. I finished in 2:43:31. It's funnier now that I'm trying to bust 2:10. 

---

This morning's 'long' run was terrible and literally a wash. I don't know what I ate last night that did me in, but I had a stomachache when I woke up, felt like throwing up for the first 10K of the run, and when I finally stopped feeling nauseous the skies opened up on me. For the last ten minutes before the downpour it was very breezy though, which was terrific. 

On the bright side, it's only just occurred to me why I like margarita Clif Shot Bloks -- they taste nothing like margaritas and everything like sour plum candy. I bet they're more of a hit in Asia than anywhere else. 

Marathon training: the good, the bad, and the tragic

There are now just four weeks to the Perth City to Surf marathon. HOLLY ARE YOU EXCITED YET?

The good: This is probably my most consistent marathon training cycle to date. Except for a couple of weeks in the middle when I was sick/ injured, most weeks have been in the 60km range and have involved running 6 days a week. Past marathon training cycles have NOT been consistent, 60km and five days a week was somewhat optimistic.

Here's a typical training week from last year, a month before the marathon.
Sunday - 6km easy run
Tuesday - Track: pyramid 200/400/600/800/800/600/400/200 = 4km
Thursday - 4km
Saturday - 25km.
Total: 39km.

And this is my week so far:
Sunday - 10km
Monday - 7km
Tuesday - a couple of strength circuits; track: 4(400 and rest), 1200, 3(300 and active recovery), 1200, cooldown = 5km
Wednesday - 8.4km tempo run (A PROPER tempo - 10.4 to 10.8km/h)
Thursday - AM 5km, PM 10km
Total so far:  45.5km.
That doesn't include tomorrow's workout and I haven't even got to Saturday's long run yet.

I'm more comfortable with a double-digits run midweek now. And doubles. And strength training. And running six days a week (I had a little trouble wrapping my head around that one at first).

Except this morning. I set foot on my usual canal path and the sky poured a bucket of water on me. So I did just 5km of a planned 14.5. It actually crossed my mind that I should've worn my goggles...

this is what comes up when you do an image search for "running in goggles"-i have no idea.

(UPDATE: had a very nice run around Bishan Park this evening - ran from work and back.)

The bad: I think 60km is still too low mileage-wise to make a proper dent in a marathon, but it's what my work schedule can deal with. Just in case you think I have commitment problems - my 5.30am phone alarm says PERTH CITY TO SURF. SUB-5. YOU HAVE TO EARN IT. That usually gets me out of bed... (I mean, you try being a slow-as-molasses runner who works as a daily news journalist and trains for a marathon at the same time, and then let's talk...)

The slightly worse: I added all this up and all of my training takes me roughly ten hours a week. I have no idea where the other 158 hours go.

The it-would-be-funny-if-it-wasn't-so-sad: I think I've gotten SLOWER as a result of longer slower runs. (Ya think?) At Tuesday track this week, I ran the 1200s with a friend who claimed that when he started at track earlier this year he was trying to keep up with me. He might be right, but he is now MUCH faster than I am on sprints. Ouch. And I've been doing my speedwork and strides. That's why I'm genetically challenged...my body goes 'I see your measly hour of speedwork and raise you some turtle pace'.

I'm quite happy to accept that I will never be FAST fast even if I work twice as hard. And I'm not really going to beat myself up about it. Not while I still enjoy running and if it gets me to the finish line of a marathon in healthy-but-genetically-challenged-molasses-goal-time.

Here is possibly the world's best running tank

It's the Under Armour Women's Victory Tank, which wicks like a dream, is hip-length on my hilariously long torso, fits skintight so it doesn't flop around uncomfortably when soggy, and you should probably size down from whatever you usually wear. You're welcome. (I have two and they're XS. Sizing - it basically means nothing these days so just wear whatever fits.)

My friend A. told me about these and she swears by them. Apparently an added bonus is they stretch and still fit if you're pregnant, or so she says. (She is due at the start of August.) Haven't really tried that myself.

I would really, really like to get more, but I don't think I can justify that right now. Uh, so my birthday's in November. Husband? Are you reading this?

Back in the land of the living

Iiiiiii'm back! 

This morning I had my first run in nearly a week, after being out of commission due to
- your everyday garden-variety generic cough/ sore throat/ cold that would not go away
- a wonky knee
- a janky hip

And. It. Was. Fabulous.
I didn't take my phone with me and still, after a decade of running, own no Garmin. But it was about 15km at what should be roughly marathon pace; I quit while the going was good. But it's too soon to celebrate. Let's get another consistent week or two of runs in and then talk.

I do a lot of runs, or sections of runs, on a canal path near my house. If I cross the road to run along the canal further down, and come all the way back to where I started, it's about 10km. The sun was shining, the birds were singing. I felt like singing and skipping down the path but didn't want to inflict that on anyone else. And I was - and this is very important when your run is at 7am in Singapore - in the shade much of the way.

After the 10km canal section I turned out and ran to the Botanic Gardens - another 5km or so. After which I came home, showered, did some work, and went to the Botanic Gardens AGAIN - this time for lunch at Food For Thought  with Mr GCA and a friend. I love FFT - it's down-to-earth and decidedly unpretentious and just has really good food. They must be doing quite well because they just opened a new outlet at the National Museum - so now there are three.

We had:
- mozzarella-stuffed meatballs with linguine and roasted tomato sauce (someone suggested an alternative. 'Does it involve cheese?' 'No.' 'Then you know which one to pick.')
- two orders of fluffy pancakes (mixed berries and dark chocolate raspberry, with fresh cream and gula melaka syrup)
- bacon
- garlic mushrooms

Marathon training

Today is all about lists, and I might as well share my weekly training for the Perth City to Surf Marathon (in five weeks!) as a list.

- One to two strength and core workouts a week
- Two to three times: 6-10km
- One Tuesday night speedwork session (about 6 km)
- One to two times: 10-15km
- Once a week: 16-25km
- Total mileage (ideally): about 70km
- Total mileage (realistically because let's face it, I don't have the most elastic schedule, or rather it's stretchy but only elongates): 50-60km
- About a cumulative half hour of stretching, tennisballing, and icewaterbottlerolling (WHAT. Those ARE verbs) each week
- If I find myself feeling under the weather from lack of sleep + stress + running, I have a multivitamin and more fruit and veg
- If I find myself tweaky, or injured in any way, I head straight to the pool and swim, about 1-2km at a go (hey, cross-training)
- This regime takes me way too long each week

Surviving the long run 

Now, even though what I did today wasn't, strictly speaking, a long run, I did think about ways to survive a long run. My long runs are up to about 25km, which sounds short for marathon training, but the whole weekend usually involves 35 to 40 km (it's all about tiring your legs out - and I am a wimp. A tired wimp).

Sometimes I have a really good long run or the beginnings of one - like this morning, when I could probably have run another hour and been quite happy about it. But more often than not, I barely want to get out of bed; when I do I barely want to get ready; when I do that and start running I'm tired when I start, or bored in the middle, or tired and slowing down near the end.

So here are my favourite strategies for surviving the long run:

- Call a friend. Someone to run with you for a section or two. Better if they live near you and make you laugh.
- Mantras and head games. Train hard, race easy, right? Or, when the going gets tough, 'you have to earn it'.
- I like the canal path, as routine and boring as it may be, because I don't have to stop and cross too many streets. If I stop I have a hard time getting going again. So my long run has sometimes been a couple of laps on the double canal - 2 x 10km. Treadmills are also good for this. If you stop you fall off.
- Distract your body. When I did that long treadmill run I had a Shot Blok every few km in the last hour and a half, simply to keep my mouth sufficiently distracted.
- Play head games: what is the most ridiculous thing you can see on this run? I have seen the same older gentleman on a unicycle at least thrice. I also once saw a man out walking his African Grey parrot (no, he did not have an eye patch and a peg leg). And the other evening I saw a car drive past with a bunch of balloons sticking out the back window and flapping merrily in the breeze. I must live in an odd neighbourhood (clearly I fit right in).

What are your mantras for getting through a tough run or race?
What, indeed, is the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen on a run? 

The peasants are revolting

After my last crabby post, it strikes me that what actually annoys me slightly about yoga, and Zumba, and (also! sorry I'm not sorry) pilates*, is that the poses or the steps or the equipment or the entire franchise gets trademarked and named. Because of course it wouldn't be possible to make any money off 'dancing', or 'stretching and strengthening' or 'cycling on a stationary bike', or off training instructors to do non trademarked versions of the above.

My beloved RAD (Royal Academy of Dance) Ballet is of course guilty of the same thing, as is its main 'competitor', the Vaganova school. Except it's a style of performance art, much like the difference between Impressionist painters and Surrealist ones. The difference has a purpose...

Anyway, away from all that. that's what I like about running. Running's running. It can be as no-nonsense as YOU want it to be. Shorts, shirt, shoes, out the door. Running's a broad church. There's no trademarking running. (Except sometimes I worry that one day, someone is going to come up with a trademarked, franchised 'running class' that takes place in a studio full of treadmills. I'll take Prancercise.)

*while in a contemporary dance group in college I took a lot of pilates matwork classes and was also annoyed by the New Age jargon, except there's less of it in pilates. Yoga and pilates would probably help about equally with stretching and stability, so I endure. Also, my mild annoyance at the trademarking of Zumba fitness classes doesn't mean I can't find them fun...

--

In other news, my body is still revolting.

So the last time I ran...was on Sunday. This week and a half has been quite a change from six days a week.
Yesterday I was about to go for a very short run, but my knee hurt in a place that it has essentially never hurt before: the inside front of my left knee (that's the medial bit, right at the bend, worryingly near the medial meniscus for all you anatomy folks). So instead of running, I was so good. SO WELL-BEHAVED. I did 41.5 minutes on the bike trainer*. This morning, my right hip seizes up and sends spasms of pain shooting up and down my leg when I walk. My glutes and piriformis are punishing me for something I either did or didn't, except I have no idea what it is.

*41.5 minutes is the exact length of one CSI:NY episode, without ads.

Worse still, this morning I woke up feeling EVEN WORSE than I had the previous few days. The cough still hasn't gone away. Nor has the interesting neon green phlegm (sorry TMI). There's only one remedy for this: CALL MY MUM. Antibiotics, I can haz.

Things had better start looking up real quick: Perth is 6 weeks away now...

The accidental cutback week

Hi kids,

My immune system has taken an unexpected and VERY unauthorised vacation so I'm actually taking a rest this week. By which I mean 'not running', not 'calling in sick'. (Deadlines.) Honestly, I'm not really super sick - I just feel wheezy and fatigued and addled enough not to run. If I wasn't so obnoxiously healthy from regular fresh air and running, I think I'd be a lot more incapacitated than I am right now.

On Tuesday I was sore all over but couldn't tell if that was from my once-a-week strength routine or actually falling sick. So of course I went to track. On Wednesday night I did try to swim and made it about half a mile -- chlorine kills germs, right? And it's just a teeny tiny sore throat? That showed me on Thursday. Serves me right.

Anyway I have to think up ways to entertain myself and you while I languish on the sofa, so here goes. My life is average.

Things I do when I'm not running:

- Read
I'm currently very much liking Cheryl Strayed's 'Wild' (too long, didn't read? woman loses her mother, family falls apart, marriage falls apart, decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Bonus: Strayed is not her original birth name, in case you were wondering.) Tom Rachman's 'The Imperfectionists' about a dysfunctional newsroom in Rome made me twitch, it hit so close to home.  Also looking forward to reading Chimamanda Adichie's 'The Thing Around Your Neck' (short stories).
The other day at track a teammate said, you must be tired of reading because you have to read and write so much for work. What? No - I chose this job because I like it. Never trust a journalist who doesn't read. It's not a vacation until I'm on the plane with my Economist and my Cosmo at the same time.

- Invent new slushy flavours in my pocket-sized miniature blender. Seriously. Thing has about a two-cup capacity. It's cute. Watermelon and blueberry, anyone? How about some dragonfruit, fragrant pear, and honey? Were you wondering how rambutans would fare when frozen? Strangely Mr GCA tends to decline my more interesting experiments. I have no idea why...

- Listen to music. I've already written about my undying love for fun. One of the highlights of my life was watching Nine Inch Nails live on Trent Reznor's "final" tour. He lied though and Came Back Haunted:

And then made up for it by giving us the definitive list of NIN singles.
Another one was watching Metric live. It cost me $80 (but what to do, I've liked them since 2003). Singapore is one of the most terrifyingly expensive places in the world to be a live music fan. Something to do with schlepping all of your gear and your roadies around Asia, whaddya know.
Other things I will pay good ca$h moneys to watch live include: Matthew Dear, MGMT whom I've also loved since they were a little baby band, Daft Punk with or without any of their collaborators, and Of Montreal.
Of COURSE none of these is any good as a running playlist (Matthew Dear and Daft Punk work but I also need me some Mika, Little Boots, and, quite unabashedly, the unholy trinity of Madonna, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga.)

- Work, kind of a frack-ton.
Or at least, think about work a lot even when I'm not doing it. I cover environment and science, so you'll also find me on Twitter talking to total strangers on the Internet about shale gas exploration in China, palm oil in Indonesia, and biodiversity, land use conflicts and transport planning in Singapore. I like what I do (except why is there so MUCH of it?).

Things I don't, at all, ever:

- Accept promo freebies for reviews
So in J-school they teach you a little thing called journalism ethics. Most inconveniently, this leaks over into my personal life, up to and including this blog - I'm pre-emptively stating site policy here before I ever (ha ha) develop a large enough readership to be worth sending free stuff. I promise you!! that I have paid/ will pay for everything I review on this blog. Sure, I've will gladly review races, running stores, shoes, tank tops, shorts...but you can be certain that's just my own opinion. I won't turn down a good sale, but if your company sends me free socks, I appreciate the notion very much but will send them right back.

- Snack. True, I eat all the time. When I'm hungry. What is this oddly American (? I may be wrong, correct me) obsession with having snacks on hand all the time in case of a sudden hunger attack? Especially on planes? (Sorry Holly. Er...I may or may not have been carrying the same squashed Soyjoy in my purse for three weeks.) Related to that, I tend not to take pictures of my food and certainly not Instagram them. Everyone and their sister has seen oatmeal before regardless of whether it's made with Greek yoghurt and chia seeds or not. I am a product of a time B.D.C (Before Digital Cameras) and still do not think most of my food is spectacular enough to warrant wasting film (or phone battery) on. Unless it's a GC experiment. Then I have to document it as evidence in case someone gets food poisoning.

- Do yoga (I have tried. It never took. Your mileage may vary, I have nothing against people who do like yoga.) I do stretch and am very stretchy and enjoy stretching. It's the people saying things like 'today we are going to do this with Intention' to me while I try to have a good stretch, that I don't much like.

- take ice baths (bathtub? what bathtub), watch TV (except Community and Archer, but I have the attention span of a gerbil...it's just not a huge priority in my life)...

...or sleep enough, apparently. (She said, before passing out.)

Channelling Carrie Bradshaw

I'm not really a tutu girl but some time ago I made a bunch of very special tutus for a bunch of very special women.

My friend S has been a running/ triathlon nut for longer than I'VE been serious about running. She has a couple of Olympic distance triathlons under her belt and is much braver on the bike (hello clip pedals) than I will ever be (I am glad to not crash while u-turning).

And of course when she got engaged, she decided - what better than to have a chicken run hen party race at the Pocari Sweat run with a group of close girlfriends? Running can be a very solitary activity but it can also be a great means of fellowship and connecting with others.

Of course, we had to have costumes. I went to Spotlight and got many, many metres of purple tulle and elastic, and a couple of us spent a happy Saturday knotting away.

Here is a sample.

The whole gaggle of us met up the morning of the race. Most were doing the 10K (and it was S's sister's first 10K!) while a few did the 5.

We even got this for S:

There's a lady running while carrying a henbag, said the announcer as we crossed the start line. Ha ha. "SHE'S GETTING MARRIED," we yelled to anyone who asked.

Sadly there wasn't enough material left over to make her a veil, which was probably for the best because that sh*t is itchy.

The chickenbag went on a relay amongst us - carrying a stuffed rubber chickenbag for a kilometre on a sticky day is no joke.

Of course Holly was there cheering her head off.

I had really, really wanted to surprise S with a whole series of signs dotted along the route but all our other halves were busy sleeping in, so no go:
- KEEP ON CLUCKING
- SMILE, YOU'RE GETTING CHICKED
- SHAKE YOUR TAILFEATHER
- WHY DID THE CHICKEN RUN ACROSS THE ROAD? ...TO GET TO THE CHURCH ON TIME.
It would have been pecktacular. (I'm done now. Don't kill me.)

Chickens on the run

After the turnaround we met up with the 5K runners and sang the Wedding March (la la LA LA, la la LA LA) all the way to the finish, linking arms for the last 100m.

Chicken brigade

That was June 16. Yesterday, though, was the real finish line: S got married. (I couldn't be there because my sister was busy getting married on the same day...alas.)  Congratulations S & E!!!

#fastfriday: first running steps

Last week, running-gear company @Oiselle asked its usual #fastfriday question on Twitter. This one was: When were your first running steps?

I thought about answering, but the 160 characters that Twitter gives you just wasn't really enough for the whole story.

Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy defines flying as 'learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss'. When you're really tiny, running is throwing yourself at the ground and catching yourself on your feet. You could say we all start running before we learn to walk - lurching from the arms of one parent into the outstretched arms of another.

So, my dad's always been a runner. On Sunday mornings, back when we lived in Marine Parade, he would lace up and go to East Coast Park nearby for a run. When I was about five, I started clambering out of bed just as early and asking to tag along, while my mother looked after my little sister. I probably ruined many a run, but how could he say no?

When I was seven the 1992 Barcelona Olympics took place. My cousins and I watched Linford Christie and Gail Devers and had sprint races all around the neighbourhood until we nearly threw up. My grandmother would watch us, laughing, recalling how she too, at twelve or thirteen, would run at school sports days, long skinny legs flashing, pigtails flying. There aren't any pictures of us, alas. We were a motion blur.

When I was ten we moved to an area that had a 400-m loop and a roughly 600-m loop, undulating up and down over hills, and my mother started doing laps on these because she could stop at home any time.
The same year, I had my first school fitness test which included a 1.6-km (1-mile) run. I went out fast on the high school track next door to our primary school, tripping over someone else's feet or perhaps just my own, taking a tumble, and finishing the run near the front of the pack with blood running all down my leg from a scraped knee. So yes, I've been a klutz my entire life.

In Secondary One, the tryouts for table tennis and cross-country/ track just happened to be on the same day at the same time slot. My family played ping pong, but I'd never run competitively, so I went for the table tennis tryout - better the devil you know, right? It was a move I'd regret for years afterwards. I spent four years on the table tennis team warming the bench. I still hate playing table tennis. I would probably have spent four years on the cross-country team warming the bench (or maybe not because they needed every single point they could get including participation points), but at least I'd have had fun.

In secondary school, the fitness tests went up to 2.4km: twelve minutes around and around the school field.   I'd go for the occasional run with my mum, or on my own. Not often, because I was still doing plenty of ballet and dance, but perhaps once or twice a week.

In junior college (that's high school to the rest of you) I joined the outdoors club. Its members were retired athletes who wanted to enjoy playing outside rather than give their lives to the pool or gymnastics hall (or in my case spend Saturday mornings scurrying around picking up table tennis balls); Boy Scouts and NPCC cadets tired of regimentation; and students looking for adventure. We ran for training. You can't climb mountains without some sort of basic fitness. Some of my fellow club members have gone on to do great things (my classmate is the super smart one working towards the PhD).

Back then there wasn't the huge selection of running events there is today. In 2002 my mum and I signed up for a 10km organised by the Singapore Armed Forces on the sidelines of its marquee Army Half Marathon, and I lost her after a few km and waited on the steps of the national stadium for her at the end. (On my second 10km Safra run, years later, I boggled at the superhumanly-fit men and women who'd just run...a half marathon!)

I was lucky enough to attend university in small-town New Hampshire, a place with stunning trails and perfect running weather for about half the year. But it wasn't till I came home to work that I began entering local road races for fun and t-shirts. First it was a 5K. Then a 10K or two. I had fun and put in OK times just jogging around the neighbourhood thrice a week and began to wonder: what would happen if I actually worked at this?

Two years ago I set foot on a track for the first time since those school fitness tests...and you know the rest.  ---

I might as well put it out here then. I'm working towards a sub-5h marathon in Perth in August. Whenever I finally make it there will be whooping and hollering. Either way, there will be crying.

There'll be plenty of crying this week too. First my little sister gets married to her best friend, who is just an all-round excellent fellow, on Saturday (tears of joy), and then on Sunday I have 25-30km to run (plain old tears).

Sorry for the complete lack of photos. To make up for it I give you this:

U of Oregon runner Alexi Pappas cheering for her teammate Jordan Hasay: YOU ARE A MERMAID. I don't know how the runners didn't just double over and fall around laughing. If I were Jordan I might have run a couple extra laps to see what she came up with next. At my next race, please tell me I'm a unicorn.

It turns out Ms Pappas was a Dartmouth undergrad. I am so proud of my school.
----

What's the best cheer or sign you've ever heard or seen at a race?

What I think about when I think about running on the treadmill

My Singapore readers (yes, all three of you) may know that Singapore has recently been through its worst period of haze ever recorded.
I won't really talk about it except to say that we've been working anywhere from 11 to 15 hours a day covering this. And that marathon training while working wackaloon hours is somewhat difficult.

As you may have guessed I'm doing my marathon training Hansons-style, which is intended to simulate the fatigue you feel at the end of a marathon. You rack up lots of slow miles over the course of the whole week. Because of my flaky schedule I've had to adapt the standard plan, but am still running six days a week. Even better? I'm already tired. All the time.

Last Sunday I had a 24km long run planned. It started really well: on Saturday night I worked till 1am (when does that ever go well?), went home, slept 4.5 hours and went to the gym (it was both hot and hazy outside) to bang out my 24km at speeds between 8.6 and 9.2 km per hour. I was armed with a phone, some ebooks loaded on said phone, water, energy chews, a gel, Nuun, and a sport towel.

According to the gibberish I posted on Facebook and sent to friends during the run, this is what I think about when I think about running on the treadmill.
- 4km into a 24km run on the treadmill at the office gym. Entertain me or come say hi. (No one did, except virtually.)
- Mr (not-so) Genetically Challenged (obviously I married him for the genetic boost he will one day give our future children): "Hi beautiful. You're insane." Me: "And you married me! *beams* "
- My mouth has no idea what to do with energy chews. Spent the last 2 km with Clif Shot Blok stuck in my teeth. (Mm, caries.)
- Conversation with Holly about pregnant women wearing N95 masks: "A meta-analysis I read said there wasn't really any good evidence for pregnant women not to wear the masks because of increased respiratory burden." (Yes, I typed this out on a phone touchscreen while running.)
- Hooray, 8km down.
- Hooray, 12km down.
- That's a funny-looking sunbird in the plants outside the gym. It's not a common olive-backed one. (It turned out to be a very pretty brown-throated sunbird.)
- Only 8km left! I can do this. I eat 8km for breakfast. (Then I thought about breakfast.)
- Hooray, I've just done a half marathon in less time than it took to do my first ever half marathon.
- You'll feel this tired at 35km in Perth and you'll still have to run. So run.
- Why is it that Australia is full of things that will gladly kill you, while New Zealand has not a single one, even though they used to be the same continent? (The answer probably has something to do with them evolving after the continent split apart.)
- I wonder what Tyler Cowen thinks of Singapore's food landscape. (I was reading 'An Economist Gets Lunch' on my phone at the time - a very bad book to read if you happen to be hungry. I was hungry. I did not find out what Prof Cowen thinks of Singapore's food scene until about chapter 11 while on the same treadmill today.)
- Hooray, I'm done. (I am so done.)

I leave you with blurry treadmill photographic evidence.

I've been forgetting to post the weekly workout log and also forgetting to post in general, but since nobody reads it but me and I already have a notebook full of workout notes, my total for the week of June 17 to 23 was 57km of a planned 62. Either I have to get a lot faster or there need to be more hours in a day in order for me to fit everything in.

New Zealand Week 2: The Lazy Week

See, the time elapsed between Part 1 and Part 2 didn't even take that long. I didn't even end with a throwaway dramatic cliffhanger! (However, as there were only 2 weeks of our NZ trip, this will be Part 2 of 2, not a trilogy.)

You may recall some time ago, in a galaxy far away, I took a hike in New Zealand. In the interim, life and work intervened. Well, here's Week 2 of that much-anticipated adventure.

Should I be recovering from an 80km hike in the middle (Week 5 of 18 to be precise) of marathon training?
Whatever.

After the Walk In The Park, we took (just the one) van to a medium-sized town, Nelson, on the north end of the South Island, where we stayed the night at a backpacker hostel...with pudding.

From Nelson, we took the world's littlest passenger aircraft, a Cessna 208 Caravan, to Wellington, which is North Island's southernmost city, and drove over to my friend Nick's place.

I met Nick years ago while travelling in Ecuador (that is yet another story for another day) and he is a great world traveller and eco-activist who is taking the scenic route through university and just finishing up.

We spent a terrific day in Wellington - a good chunk of it was in Zealandia, a wildlife sanctuary that people have worked very hard to restore to its original condition - before all the invasive species invaded. It being a Monday, admission price was just $10. What's better than visiting a really high-quality wildlife sanctuary? Visiting a really high-quality wildlife sanctuary for $10.

New Zealand has terrible problems with rats, possums and other invasive species, which eat the eggs of native birds or compete with them for food, and in some cases have driven them extinct.

People don't help much either. Once upon a time they used to hunt weka and these wacky-looking flightless birds, closely related to swamphens, called takahe.

that's a radio transmitter, not a silicon-based mutation

What Zealandia has done is to restore a good chunk of outer Wellington to a slightly more pristine state, and has built fences and other protections to keep the rats out. There was a tuatara section, a couple of huge eels slinking around in a stream, finger-length insects called weta, and I spent at least forty-five minutes entranced by a small grey North Island robin.

The next morning we set off for Napier where my grandmother's youngest sister, sixth brother, and niece and nephew (grandma's second sister's children), live. (are you confused yet? I have a large, complicated, stubborn, and bossy family - and that's only one quarter of it - I have three other grandparents you know.)

driving into town - isn't it gorgeous

There, we spent four days just completely relaxing, being fed vast quantities of very fresh food at the various wineries in and around the Hawke's Bay area...

l to r: grand-uncle, his wife, and you know whom - at Elephant Hill winery.
thinking about this makes me hungry again... 

 and also food made by my grand-aunt and uncle, who are both fantastic cooks: lamb roast, laksa, tom yum mussels, or luak, panfried salmon... as well as cakes by my grand-uncle. (In return, I baked sticky date pudding with caramel sauce on our last night there).

And I might've even run once or twice.

New Zealand: A Much-Expected Journey - Part 1

And a much-overdue blog post. We in the Chua-Bramante ('Team Chuamante') family like to do certain things in supremely scrambled order, somewhat late. I got back from NZ at the end of May, and promptly 1) hosted friends 2) had a nightmare week at work 3) had another nightmare week at work that ate my life. Indeed, I joke that we'll finally have a combined bachelor/ette paintball party (stag vs doe, of course) after the birth our firstborn. (No save the dates for THAT yet - sorry parents.)

So of course we finally went on honeymoon in May, after squirrelling away a few dollars each month for this trip and using my parents' frequent flyer points which we got as a wedding gift. Why yes, it's been 1.5 years since we got married...

Ah, New Zealand. The land of hobbits and wacky animals. All of them are so marvellously tame (except for the orcs). There are no seriously wild creatures in New Zealand. At least none that can kill you.

This here is a weka, about the size of a large chicken. They are technically a vulnerable species, but on the Heaphy Track they are a menace. One ran away with a fellow hiker's Ipod Shuffle. Guidebooks tell you not to chase them as they'll only run farther away - just watch where they stash your stuff and go and retrieve it later. On the track, we saw a good 25 of them, just hanging out. 

Don't fall off or into any mountains though, that's a different story.

Week 1: The Active Week

In May, New Zealand is not quite in the depths of winter, but it's getting there. It was rather chilly when we landed in Christchurch, a city that crumbled under the force of a major earthquake two years ago. Christchurch is still being rebuilt, and there's plenty of work for builders and architects - including a couple of friends who moved there from Singapore. We stayed with one of them to relax for a couple of days.

The upside to a major earthquake is that you get to rebuild your city from scratch. There are some interesting things going on, including the Re:START container mall and Gap Filler, as well as some rather stupid-sounding planning decisions.

We spent some quality time there, then in one very long blitz, travelled from Christchurch to Nelson to Collingwood to the start of the Heaphy Track on a series of smaller and smaller buses until finally we were going down a dirt track in a van with a trailer. Side note: Every small town in New Zealand has its very good cafe with very good coffee and what are perhaps the best chocolate caramel slices in the world.

The roughly 80km Heaphy Track is a Great Walk, meaning it's designed to provide tourists a pleasant introduction to New Zealand's wild places. And how pleasant. There were some seriously luxurious huts (four walls, gas stoves, running water, and even LED sensor lighting in one of them!!). We'd planned meticulously for a four-day trek. Dehydrated meals, snacks, hut bunks, bus pickup at the end. Only trouble was, the weather forecast on day 2 of our trek was for heavy rain. And it was supposed to be our long day (24km)...

We got to the trailhead at 7pm and stayed the night at Brown Hut. The first morning was bone-dry and lovely. We were supposed to walk 17km to the next hut, but ended up walking 30km to the one after that to eat 13km into Day 2's walk. With full packs (about 1/3 my body weight). Ouch.

"We're doing this! We're doing this FOR REAL!"

now imagine like this, but wet

But that was nothing compared to Day 2.

We woke up to a massive storm outside. There didn't seem to be any lightning, so we (wo)manned up, raincoated up, backpack-covered-up, and marched on. (Mind you, at this time of year it was about 7 degrees Celsius when we started in the morning.) If I kept my raincoat hood up, my glasses fogged up. If I kept it down, water streamed down the back of my neck. I had my arms across my chest for warmth, and when I dropped them to my sides again, icy water streamed out of my sleeves. It rained sideways, from all directions, at the same time. By the end of our 11+km walk - across squishily exposed territory - there was nothing that was dry. Thank goodness for Ziploc bags.

At Saxon Hut, we changed out of our soggy clothes and tried to warm up. Puddles everywhere.

All of a sudden, there was a knock on the door. And then another. And then another, till a quartet of friendly, woolly-hat-clad, bearded...mountain bikers barrelled into the room. This year was the third and final year of a pilot trial - mountain bikers were allowed to bike the Heaphy in winter, during its less crowded season, so they were out in droves.

biker (L) and the husband (R) trying to start a...coal-fired stove. 

They were just stopping over for a few hours, so after they left, we sat by the fire trying to dry our things. The general rule of hiking is that you have just two sets of clothes: one to walk in and one to sleep in. Maybe some spare underwear and socks, and another shirt if you are very dainty and want a clean shirt after the whole hike is done. So the next morning, there were more than a few yelps as we struggled into our less-soggy, but still-cold gear. I could swear that my boots had frozen overnight...

The next two days (20km and 16.2km) were much drier and less eventful. On the last day we went down South Island's north-western coastline, facing the wild Tasman Sea, and were treated to some spectacular scenery.

Okay, fine, here is a picture of my gourmet trail lunch.

And some nikau palm forest.

Now you're jealous, right? 

Finally we ended up back in Nelson, at a cute hostel called Tasman Bay Backpackers.

And that's all we did for the first week - walk a lot.

Mind you, we did walk 80km in four days over interesting terrain and all kinds of weather, so we could use some sleep.

At this point I could use some sleep too so I'll stop here. I might split the NZ blog posts into three to make more money attract more hits. What's that you say? Oh, too soon.

Double points if you got all the Hobbit references.