Now entering terra incognita

I hear visualisation is a great tool for athletes, so here's a short but totally realistic daydream:

"What do I WEARRRRR," she wailed, sitting on the floor clutching handfuls of quick-dry polyester and nylon. It was a moment of indecision unrivalled by any date night or job interview. Each time she glanced at the weather forecast the numbers and cloud cover icons seemed to shift - or was the scene swimming through tears? She settled on one outfit, with a backup for colder weather.

That night, her son woke up just twice and went right back to sleep straight away. At 5am, she stumbled to the AirBnB kitchen to gnaw on a cold bagel and rummage through the cabinet for something caffeinated. A warmup jog took her the mile and a half to the subway, and she emerged next to her race corral and got in line behind only two people for a clean porta-potty.

For once she refrained from starting too fast, despite the icy tickle of worry - every time! - that her legs would lock on to the pace and manage nothing more than snail-paced miles the rest of the way. As the course wound through the streets of Pittsburgh, she was entertained by a BLURP from a horn here, the crash of a steel-drum there, and for the final mile, an entire acappella chorus singing 'Rolling In The Deep'. 

The race plan went perfectly: slow for the first half, medium for the next quarter, and speeding up to outkick people at the end. She thought of it as Goldilocks pacing - not too slow, not too fast, just right...And with her finish time, she qualified for the Singapore Olympic Trials*. Best of all, the race photographers managed to snap photos of her between Shot Bloks. 

* There are no Singapore Olympic Trials for the marathon.

In three days I'll be running the Pittsburgh Half Marathon, entering completely new territory for me.

- First half marathon for which I explicitly trained, or at least had a mental training plan tucked into one of the dusty drawers in my head. 

- Instant postpartum half-marathon PR. (My silly Type-A self is a little gleeful about this one, not gonna lie.) 

- I've never been to Pittsburgh (PGH native Amy is doing the full marathon and we have plans to meet up for all the food - YUM). 

- This will be my first half marathon in the US. (!)

- The weather forecast changes every time I blink. 

I'll be honest - I hit about 40% of that training plan and 60% was a trainwreck (I haven't done any speedwork or weights in weeks). My primary goal is to give it my best shot, finish happy in about two hours, based on long-run paces, and not blow up. My old half PR is 2:11 and dates back to 2012 because I just haven't run a whole lot of halfs, so I have no clue what to expect. 

I'm seriously flirting with the idea of running sans watch, to get that competitive goal-oriented monkey off my back. Part of me thinks that's radical; the other part of me thinks that's radically daft, to pay good money for a half marathon and then not check the time - what?! Plus I want to know my splits. Plus I neeeeeed my watch in order to be on time to the race start. Argh. 

Looking forward

Hello again! I've been AWOL...let's see: 

- Making all the cookies and treats. (When you decide to stay up late and make four large boxes of jam thumbprint cookies, batch by batch, mixed by hand, you suddenly become very thankful for your TRX workouts.) I decided to bake most of my Christmas gifts this year. You get cookies! And you get cookies! Everyone gets cookies! 

- Down with a mystery illness that may have been a mild case of HFMD (a nasty coxsackievirus that mainly affects small children). I had a dreadful fever one day, a sore throat with myriad little ulcers the next, and a bunch of mystery blisters on my fingers and toes appearing on the second/ third day, which was what eventually tipped me off. I was never formally diagnosed but I self-quarantined for a few days anyway just to be a responsible human being. (My sister and niece had the exact same symptoms, so I don't know who got it from whom.) I didn't even think adults could get it. My immune system disagreed. 

- Catching up on Coursera data science coursework and wrapping up some work projects for the year. There was a minor emergency on Saturday as my laptop decided to go on holiday as well and have some cooling problems; with several deadlines looming I had to go out and get a new one. The weekend before Christmas is not the most wonderful time of the year to go and brave shopping crowds. 

- Running in the second trimester has been interesting. Much better than the first trimester, in that I'm not as fatigued or breathless all the time. 

I'm not supremely motivated though so I've been plugging into a podcast or two and running a few miles, or going for an hour's walk around the neighbourhood, or hooking up with friends for the occasional social trail run. For the first time in about three years I haven't got any sort of running schedule, which is quite liberating. And then I spent the first half of last week being sick so I'm just getting back to it.

I've put on about 8 to 10 (?) pounds at this point (20 weeks this week. I don't own a scale; the only time I get weighed is at my doctor's, as I consistently forget to get on the scale at the gym), and can distinctly feel it as extra burning/ fatigue in my legs when I run. The breathlessness is still there a bit but I'm chalking that up to being out of cardio shape - nowhere as bad as first trimester. My occasional 'speed' work on the treadmill in the nice air-conditioned gym is 10 min/ mile! 10 minutes at a time and then I walk or jog for five minutes - rinse and repeat. On the up side this works to my advantage during body weight exercises. 

Also, I am now getting kicked from the inside, which is kind of cool. There is definitely a very active, spirited small person in there (along with a tiny post-it that says 'kick me'?). Prior to this I had merely felt like I was smuggling a pumpkin - now it's a pumpkin with sharp knees.

* * * 

Now that we're getting to the end of the year, I thought I'd have a think about the year to come. So here are a few (deceptively) simple goals for 2015:

1. Produce, love, and look after a healthy, happy baby.
2. Keep up my work projects and find a job in our new city.
3. Reconnect with friends there.
4. Slowly ease back into running by the end of the year; do at least one postpartum race of any distance.
5. Complete my Coursera data science specialisation work, and actually practice it. 

6. Learn to make something that isn't food. (Actually - food too. I've been watching a lot of Masterchef Australia reruns...) I was the kind of child who would fail the craft portion of arts and crafts by gluing my fingertips together instead of the ice-cream sticks. Pinterest was apparently created to torment people like me. Fortunately the good people at One Maker Group have agreed to take pity on me and teach me things like how to use a CNC machine and do interesting things with Arduino.

* * * 

When I tell people we're expecting I frequently get asked: are you having a boy or a girl? Well, we know what we're having, and it's a...surprise. I've recently realised that a LOT of my high school classmates are starting families around the same time. We went to a magnet girls' school whose alumni are known for being strong, intelligent, professional women. And to a woman we all share at least one concern: oh god, gender stereotypes! That start even before a kid is born and then get reinforced by toys! The world is so effed up! 

Regardless of whether you share this concern to the same level we do, there is so much stuff to worry about when you're a parent. Infancy: don't drop the baby. Crawling: towards the electrical socket of doom, the wastebasket of inevitable cholera, the shelf of imminent collapse. Learning to read. School and all its attendant social and conformist pressures. And that's not even accounting for a child's own personality and preferences. 

Now, I'm generally a fairly laid-back person - I will plan and plan, but I'm not a massive worrier about things beyond my control. And of course we all know what happens to the best-laid plans. So I'll just roll with it, I guess. It'll be an adventure to look forward to. 

Tri training, week 1, and a mid-year check-in

Some time ago I read this from the Telegraph, that bastion of liberal gender equality (/sarcasm cos it don't translate well on the internet) and was mostly baffled by the entire thing. Sometimes the stupidity is not worth getting worked up over. 

Anyway, it reminded me that the secret to a happy athlete marriage is that only one of you can train SERIOUSLY for a thing at one time - and you take turns and SHARE. Umm - I learned this in kindergarten, didn't you? Husband is training for the North Face trail 50K in October (I'll be there cheering, with gummy bears) so right now I'm taking a step back. (He has his own training plan - I'll leave him to it!)

I know it sounds like I have a funny definition of 'taking a step back', but the Tri-Factor OD tri in September isn't really a goal race. It's my first Olympic Distance tri, 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10km run, so I'm happy to complete it - even DFL. But since I'm used to a nice little six-day-a-week marathon training routine I figured I might as well carry on. Fortunately it's literally a change of pace from marathon training.  

Some people can believe six impossible things before breakfast. Here are all the short-term and long-term thoughts about training I am capable of having on any given morning before breakfast. There is way too much to think about: Ugh, am I going to be too late for swim? I'm already late, is it worth running for just 20 minutes? Am I running enough? Should I do more swim intervals? Should I add another bike ride?

But marathon training has given me a couple fine pieces of wisdom. Especially for something that isn't a goal race:  

a) don't think - just go 

b) trust in my training

c) ENJOY YOURSELF 

And so I'm trying not to habitually-overthink things. running late? DON'T THINK - JUST GO. Is my training going to be enough to get me through this tri? DON'T THINK - JUST GO. TRUST IN YOUR TRAINING. 'Ok brain, whatever you say.' 'Go enjoy yourself, Pinky.'  

...Not gonna lie, the thought of doing my first OD scares the crap out of me.

In case you were wondering, here's my basic routine. 

Mondays - 45-min to 1h solo swim (this sounds substantial but it's not - usually 2km or so) (and yoga?) 

Tuesdays  - bike for an hour, run 20-30 minutes, glute & other strength exercises - I really miss AM track so I may just try to hit them up once or twice. For purely social purposes.  

Wednesdays - swim in the AM with my tri club  

Thursdays - tempo run, glute & other strength work  

Fridays or Saturdays - rest, yoga/ strength, or longish easy run (I can comfortably run up to 20ish km relatively easy as my long run for the OD tri, and not have it be too taxing) 

Sundays - long easy bike or bike/run brick with friends (accountability FTW!) 

And that's pretty much how it played out this week. This morning I checked off one of the items on my list of Things for this year: 

- go on a bike ride longer than anything I've ever done before. Enjoy it.

Lin, Boya and I rode about 40km along the East Coast Park/ Changi park connectors. Which is a minuscule distance, but I am a total n00b and it took us two hours with breaks. By the time the tri rolls around I would like to not take two hours to go 40km, thanks very much. I foresee checking off that list item several more times over the course of the next few weeks. 

I fell off only once, 

Please don't tell my mum. 

and that was a mis-stop (stopping too fast to avoid crashing into large group of cyclists that had inexplicably halted, couldn't dismount in time so I tipped over into the grass). I am fairly tough and chewy, so in general after the first fall of the day I'm good. 

I am also the world's slowest cyclist. People on foldies were passing me. If nothing else this tri is my way of entertaining myself! 

Here's something I need help with though: where did you learn bike maintenance and etiquette and the basics of how to be a cyclist? Not how to ride, that's simple enough. How to be a cyclist.

Daily entertainment

What is it about Queensland? Both days I've been here have been endlessly amusing. 

Yesterday I took a quick day-trip to Brisbane for some museum-hopping and churros - both terrific. On the way back, a man got on to my bus which was about halfway back from the train station. 'Do you mind if I sit here?' he said. Sure, fine. Nice of you to ask. I was engrossed in my book anyway. 

I don't mind chatty strangers but this one seemed very eager for conversation, which put a full stop to my reading. In the first two minutes it emerged that he knew Japanese (when a non-Asian male stranger drops knowledge of [random East Asian language] into a conversation with me it is occasionally a hallmark of yellow fever - DING, on went my warning light) and how long had I lived in Australia? When I said I was from Singapore - oh they don't speak Japanese there do they - and in town to do the marathon, we talked about running. 

- Which one are you doing? The 10k? The half? 

- No, the full marathon.

- How many km? 

- All 42. *polite smile* 

- How did you get into running? Stole a wallet? 

- Ha, no I'm not that fast. 

Now he could just have been chatty, but it's not really promising when someone asks you 'So if you're doing the marathon then I guess you won't be having a drink' in a tone that suggests they'd like to buy you one. 

Eventually I re-engineered the conversation over to Japanese. 

- Did you live in Japan? 

- Oh yes, five years. Teaching English and then running a small business.

- Wow, that's amazing. Teaching English? Oh, JET? My husband did that for a while. 

Finally we got off - at the same stop, which was a stop or two late for me because 1) it was dark and I couldn't see where I was, gee thanks winter and 2) frigbiscuit if I'm going to let a total stranger know where my stop is! I paused to get my bearings and he'd gone off in the opposite direction. 

And then I fast-walked all the way back to my apartment. 

Ultra volunteering, tri spectating

A couple of weeks ago I volunteered at the Twilight Ultra Challenge organised by the Running Guild.

If you remember this was on my list of 2014 Things To Do. I'd never volunteered at a race before, but I picked Running Guild because I LOVE their small community-focused events - those events are really well-organised, by runners for runners, and they really do know what runners need. At Twilight, most of the volunteers were high school kids who needed to get community service hours, but quite a number were runners themselves.

So, I signed up back in January, and we got our briefing packets through email. I was assigned to the 'special needs table' - if you're not familiar with ultras, those that come in the form of multiple laps typically have a spot where you can drop off stuff you might need over the course of the race, but that you don't want to carry with you. People stash food, extra gels, a spare shirt, phone chargers, and in the case of one runner, an entire set of shower stuff so she could take a shower and change mid-run! (It worked - she ran 100km...) Another runner had a pack of cigarettes and would go for a smoke every lap or two (!...) . Another one chatted on the phone with a series of friends overseas nearly the whole time.

For the first hour or two we were super busy just taking in people's drop bags and labelling them with masking tape and marker pens (should just get sticky labels next year - save on masking tape).

At 7pm the runners were off! The race course consisted of a 10km loop, with a main aid station in the middle and one at each end. Race format was as many 10km loops as you could run in 16 hours (!!!).

We spent another half hour arranging the special needs bags by runner bib number. For the first couple of hours, as people came in, we directed them to their bags; by about 11pm most people had a pretty good idea of where their stuff was. I feel like I could have been redirected to labour-intensive stations that really did need more volunteers, like the food station (they were kept busy boiling hot water for coffee, cooking hotdogs, slicing watermelon, and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all night).

At 1am I took a tiny nap because we weren't needed that much, then alternated between directing people to their bags and handing out gummi bears and biscuits. At 4am I took a slightly longer nap (it was supposed to be half an hour but it inadvertently turned into an hour and a half, oops).

Runners sprawled all over the place - about 3am

And then, sunrise!

As the morning wore on, the special needs table team took turns manning the spray bottle to spritz runners with ice cold water - by about 8am, they really, really needed it.

Photo credit - Dave of PictureArt

Finally, at 11am, the ultra was over. The eventual winner ran 145km. In 16 hours. Let's just say that's faster than my long-run pace.

The medals are the size of your face, just in case you need bragging rights.

A few of the volunteers. Photo credit - Ben Swee (race director!)

I don't feel any urge to do an ultra in the near future, but if I did, it would be with these guys. And would I volunteer for another Running Guild race again? You betcha.

---
Gold Coast training log, week 6 - April 7 to 13 

Monday - 6km to gym, yoga

Tuesday - 16x400 leaving every 2:30 - this was a tolerance set, so 400s at moderate pace, about 2:00.

Wednesday - a true rest day

Thursday - AM: tempo - 1.2km warmup, 7km at 6:00/km, 2km cooldown. PM - 5km easy with coworkers after work near the office, chatting all the way.

Friday - 'GRIT strength' class at the gym -- half an hour of high intensity interval strength workout that is way tougher than it sounds + 1.2km cooldown. All I can say about this one is, burpees are the exercise from hell and no one should ever do them. It's Sunday night and I'm still sore.

Saturday - 10.3km to and around the Botanic Gardens

Sunday - 25km from downtown to Changi Beach for more tri spectating. Once you get on that Changi park connector, you really have to commit because it's the middle of nowhere and there is no turning back. I ran a little bit longer than expected because I suck at estimating distances - I'd thought it was 21k from downtown to my destination. Also, one of my water stops was simply not open at 8.30am when I got there, so I arrived at the end point ABSOLUTELY STARVING and Shirlene had to feed me a Snickers bar to stop me from tipping over.

Shirlene and I are rapidly becoming Super Tri Spectators. This morning we chalked up some more tri spectating points by cheering our heads off at the Metasprint sprint-distance tri at Changi Beach Park. Her husband and his friend were racing each other - I mean, they were racing, but the actual race doesn't matter as long as Eugene beats Aylwin. Or vice versa. You know. Boys.

Total: 64.5km + yoga + GRIT + tri spectating

From the department of sensible decisions

Some facts:

1. I woke up on Monday with pain - everything sore to the touch - across the top of my right foot near the outer toes. And a line of pain that follows some muscle or tendon all the way down my outer lower leg. And a tight calf and ITB. I suspect extensor tendonitis. Bizarre. Bodies are like voodoo. (Maybe it is time to invest in that gait analysis after all.)
2. The pain continued till Wednesday so I haven't run since Sunday. I type this sitting on the floor and foam-rolling while having my morning coffee. Except I don't know what portion of me to foam-roll first. I'm going to try running later today.
3. My right foot is not the foot that I semi-sprained on Sunday while running to the end point of the 2XU half marathon to meet my dad. That's my left one. I am supremely sprain-prone (despite a lifetime of desperate stability exercises). If there is a hole in the pavement, my ankles are guaranteed to find it.
4. On Sunday I had my last successful run: 13 easy km to and around the 2XU end point...and then went home and hauled my husband out of the house to run 5 tempo km with me, which hurt and was hot but went by much faster with him than without.
5. Here is a picture of me with SuperDad, who ran the 2XU half. Remember how my parents are my running role models? When I am 58 I want to still be running, too.

6. Unfortunately I am supposed to race a 5K this Saturday (don't know if that's happening, gah) and a half marathon in late April (probably still happening; I have six weeks to train for it).
7. I leave you with a picture of a Trojan Horse.

YES THAT IS A HORSE ON WHEELS.
It was just sitting along the 2XU route, about 2km from the finish. At this point I was running with a friend for the last few Ks, trying to drag her to the finish line in one piece, and I just had to run across the road and take this photo. I didn't want to get too close though, just in case hordes with swords came swarming out of its belly.
I'm pretty sure it's just left over from Chinese New Year though. I hope.

Update: Thanks guys! I ran four tentative km this morning and the foot + leg were fine, if a little tight. I'm going to keep on foam rolling, icing, and stretching prophylactically, and Saturday afternoon 5K will probably be all right. Phew.

After my run, I also did a 'HardCore' class at the gym, which seemed to be a general bootcamp-style sort of fitness class that included lots of agility exercises like box jumps and burpees, and core exercises like planks. Hilariously, the warm-up consisted of running in circles around the studio for five minutes. It wasn't a terrible class - I probably need to be doing some of those things anyway -  but not my cup of tea; I don't really have patience for general fitness classes and I would like to be doing runner-specific things for runner-specific reasons.

Another year, another age group

This year is a bit of a daunting year for me.

Why? It's the year I move up into the dreaded 30-34 age group. There may be eleven months to go before I turn 30, but triathlon directors don't care. (So heartless. Those women are fast.) That may or may not be part of why I haven't decided on the annual triathlon yet. I'm not a real triathlete, just a runner who pretends to be one now and then.

Either way, it got me thinking about a few other things I'd like to do this year - both running- and non-running-related. Some of them are realistic. Some of them are more aspirational.

I'd like to...
- volunteer at a race - YES! If you're running the Twilight Ultra Challenge, come and say hi. I will have gummy bears (not these ones don't worry)
- race a distance that I've never run before (that can be 6k, 12k, 15, 30...50???). Instant PR!
- trail run at least once a month
- run Punggol Waterway again! - DONE! Fine, that was last year on Christmas Day. It's still pretty.
- run my first ultra (any distance longer than 42.2...and I have a particular event in mind!)
- run a 25:00 5k
- run a 55:00 10k
- commit to one strength/ conditioning class and one pilates/ yoga/ other 'body awareness' class at the gym once a week (it's like medicine for me - I haven't the patience to do this on my own and therefore need a class to kick my butt)
- go paddleboarding more. I tried this last year and it's great fun. ('Learn to surf' is on my not-so-secret adventure bucket list, and I figure getting used to standing on a floating board is a good place to start.)
- go on a bike ride longer than anything I've ever done before. Enjoy it.
- hike in Hong Kong again
- swim with the whale sharks in the Philippines
- visit Italy
- try five new foods or restaurants this year (visiting Italy might help with this...)
- keep a log of the books I read all year - and yes, that includes the trashy mysteries. YES! Inspired by Angela over at SF Road Warrior, I'm actually doing this. You'll get the occasional book review here, too! I'll also be rereading Annie Dillard's 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' and reading all of the 2013 Booker Prize shortlist.
- finally complete the Udacity course I'm taking, in very, very basic Python. (No, 'basic Python' was not a bad nerd pun.)
- make some progress on one of the passion projects I have for work
- complete two more Coursera or Udacity courses (please recommend!)
- camp out on a beach and watch the sun rise. While not moving. Usually when I see the sunrise it's because I'm running towards it.
- learn to be still.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

Year-end reflections, or just week-end ones

- I thought I'd better put up this post while it's still 2013.

- 42! It's the meaning of life. It's also the number of kilometres in a marathon (give or take a bit) and the number of kilometres I ran this week (give or take a bit). It's a good number.

- Christmas came and went. I worked on Saturday and will be working New Year's Day, but Christmas Eve was spent with family, Christmas Day with friends and family and board games and long run and pie. Quality time.

I ran 14++km with Rachel (+1 if you count sprinting to the MRT station and THROUGH the MRT interchange to get to Sengkang on time because I live on the other side of the island) and it turned into an impromptu road+trail run because part of the Punggol park connector is being resurfaced. Ridiculous. I loved it. At the end I got to see Pixie, Rachel's Pomeranian who is just a fluffy, flirty little ball of adorable.

path resurfacing - note sudden trail run segment!
you know you're a runner when yours are the muddiest shoes in the gym. oops.

- This year I ran a marathon in a time I didn't think I would ever see when I ran my first marathon four years ago. A time that starts with a 4. Rachel is training for the Tokyo Marathon and I told her what I think is the real secret (for a baby marathoner) to upping the mileage. Don't think, just run. Don't overthink it. Don't think, 'I'll be too tired for tomorrow morning's track workout or Thursday's tempo if I run tonight'. Don't think, just run easy (and the secret is to really run easy - something I'm working on myself).
For regular people with full-time jobs, this will hardly result in overtraining. Unless you're obsessive about it.

- On Sunday morning I started out running my usual canal route.

ZEBRA EXCAVATOR 

(Also for anyone who's counting: 2 grey herons, 4 striated herons, 4 little egrets, and 1 kingfisher. Yesterday was a good day for grey herons.)

 At the turn-off to Pandan Reservoir, I decided to go the other way instead on a whim, and found myself running to and through West Coast Park! I'm not really sure why it never occurred to me before. I run to West Coast Park. I run to the reservoir. For some reason I've never thought of connecting the two on foot. I am an idiot.

- On Sunday afternoon I was exactly five minutes late for a strength class at the gym (for very good reason: lunch and hanging out with a couple of friends) and, well, decided to do a short sharp run instead. (I'm allowing myself to do this because, remember, I have no training plan right now.) I found myself holding a pace, for a quick 5k, that five years ago I'd thought unimaginable but is now my happy tempo run pace. I've been running this for months now but the actual speed didn't occur to me until I saw the numbers on the treadmill.

Who is this person? I thought to myself. How did I get here? It was an important lesson that improvement takes time. I'm always impatient, always wanting to accomplish this or that, expecting to PR every goal race. It doesn't work that way.

- And what of this year's resolutions? The most important one, the one at the top of my list, the one about changing the ratio of positive thoughts to terrible slowpoke negative ones, that's doing fine. That's a work in progress.
The 5k PR didn't happen (not enough 5ks), nor did the 10k one or the half. Doesn't matter, they'll come. The tri and marathon PRs did; I spent a big chunk of the year focusing on City to Surf and I'm happy I did. Marathon training has completely broken my perspective on the definition of a short run and I'm quite glad for it. 

Left Behind

When you're one of the slowest members of the running group you train with, you try to stick to intervals. No one gets dropped when you're running laps around a track! I obediently stuck to intervals...until this past weekend.

One of the group members had semi-organised* a road-and-trail Christmas 'fun half' (*i.e., we had a rough idea of a route) - 21km or so up Rifle Range Road, a loop around Macritchie, and back down Rifle Range. Sounded fun, so I signed up.

Except. Only the fast people showed up on Saturday morning. Itsuko. Susan. Mark. Nynne. These are people with marathon PRs in the neighbourhood of 3 and a half hours. And me. I. Am. Not. A. Fast. Person. I think you can guess what happened next.

Can I just say - trying to do a long run with a group of people whose long run pace is an entire minute per km faster than yours is a terrrrrible idea.

Almost immediately, the group dropped me. Ten minutes later I spotted two of the other women in the distance and sped up a bit to catch up. Then they dropped me again. I gave up for a few minutes to take this photo and text our coach: "This was a baaaad idea."

20 minutes later I found the whole gang standing around at the end of the Rifle Range trail into Macritchie waiting for me to catch up. (I was trying to catch up, I swear. My knees are a mite annoyed at me now for sprinting every downhill and my left calf is upset with me for the uphills.) We ran a bit more with me at the (increasingly longer and longer) tail end. Then everyone stopped at the ranger station and I barely caught my breath before we were off again.

Nynne asked: 'Are you all right?'
I wanted to say, physically, yes; mentally, not so much...but I didn't have enough breath left to say much of anything.

After an hour of trying to catch up by desperate fartlek, I finally lost everyone altogether and lumbered away into the forest like a dying elephant for the benefit of the herd. I felt like a dying elephant too.

I don't blame the herd; I know it's very difficult to run slower than your natural long-run pace to wait for someone. And I felt awful for making everyone stop and start to wait for me. I'm sure real elephants have all sorts of rituals around a dying member of their herd, like covering them with leaves and stuff, but that'd just be mortifying.

In the end I wound up running a little bit more, clockwise around Macritchie, and sneaking out the Lornie Road trail exit to jump on a bus home - maybe 14km in total, I never really checked.

This isn't the first time I've been dropped, or DFL (dead _ing last) on a group run, and it's pretty depressing. I'd rather do a long run on my own than go out for what ought to be a social run and be left behind. I know the theory is that running with people who are faster helps you get better, but I think the idea is to run with people whose pace is in reach, not 'in your dreams'. And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find people whose natural long-run pace is a middling ten-minute mile.

And what of those track sessions? I am getting faster...imperceptibly. It's just that everyone else is getting faster faster. Who knows, maybe I've reached those limits I keep trying to push. HELLO, ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD.

How do you handle getting dropped? Really, is there any way to make it less demoralising? 

Here, have some chocolate chip cookies. After my disastrous fartlek of a run I made these and took them to a friend's housewarming/ Christmas party. Mmm.  

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. 

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.