It's a month away from the next race - Amsterdam Half-Marathon (for me) and Marathon (for Seng).
and How is training going? Hmmm...after the hard work towards spring marathons in April/May in the last 3 years - I'm ready to conclude that Autumn races are not easy to train for. Especially when one is situated in places where there are REAL summers (unlike the UK, which 25 degrees celsius is a very hot day). However, I've tried to make the best that I can given my nomadic life. Some of the more interesting training sessions (very few of them serious unfortunately) are as below:
Paris (July 2011)- a motivating session (for Eleanor who initially thought she cannot do 30 mins of running!) from Galleries Lafayette area to Jardin Tuileries, glimpse of Avenue des Champs Elysees, then across the river along Rive Gauche, to Jardin Luxembourg , rewarding with purchases of Pain au Chocolats to take to the hotel via RER.
Hong Kong (August 2011) - in the heat and humidity of mid-summer, where the mercury climbs to 30 degrees celsius if one doesn't step out of the door before 8am. And where to run with all that traffic? My family's new home in central kowloon have put me very close to some very good athletic tracks managed by the Government's Leisure and Cultural Services Department (ie what used to be called Urban council (市政局)). I didn't mind so much having to share the tracks with people who were not using them properly (eg women holding a radio and taking strolls on the slower lane), and at times, I have had to overtake runners on Lane 1. Or having to ensure I don't 'run over' Tai Chi class participants outside the track, or wait until schools that have booked the track for their PE lessons finish, before I can go in. The quality of the track was very good, if one had spikes and wanted to train properly - these are the places where dreams can be realised :)
What was a milestone for me was revisiting Kowloon Tsai Park , an old favourite of my dad that we used to be taken there for jogging on sundays. In the mid 80's , I struggle to complete even the 550m loop outside the athletics tracks (back then the tracks were not available for general use), let along the greater '8 loop' that would roughly equate to 1 mile. Almost 25 years later, I am glad to report that this was no longer a problem - only that if the humidity was reduced, I could run faster.
[no wonder there are many who choose to run at 11pm in the evenings on the streets, not a desirable option for me at all]
Sydney (August/September) 2011 - going back to my second hometown where spring has just sprung, and with the access of a car, presented me with lots more options (and of course, more options than I have enough time to fit in!) Here's what I have managed to do:
Balmain Bay Run - a 7km loop around Iron Cove. One that I had probably not so seriously attempted in my training for the Sydney City to Surf years ago, however, I was ready to give it a good try. Gave myself a late start at around 9:30am and parked near the Leichhardht Rowing club. Thought I'd give myself some bonus miles by going along the canal, however, I couldn't find another crossing after one that was a new bridge being built! and to find that it was not all flat around the cove as one thought. Did try to go fast but then, I was interrupted by a phone call from a friend who wanted to meet up that day!! Oh well, that was a good hour spent around here. Reward: an Italian Doughnut from Sulfaro's on Ramsay street in Haberfield, as recommended by ex-local Louiza.
Centennial Park - the place where I go for a 'safe bicycle ride' and again a full 3.5km loop was virtually impossible to complete even in my uni days (running that is). This particular sunny monday morning I parked along Grand Drive near the baby cycle tracks to find a steady stream of prams passing by me. Eastern Suburbs Active Mothers galore! Glad to see although it meant I had to be careful overtaking some of them. Armed with a 'cross-country' map (yoohoo! Cross country sounds adventurous and unachieveable in my school days) downloaded from the website , I did the usual loop as well as attempting to do the lakes loop. Unfortunately I got lost and had to revert to the Grand Drive loop onto softer ground (another trial run to soften impact) to retrieve my car. What I manage to see in the middle of Centennial Park was rewarding - Black Swans! Along with Balmain Bay Run, this is all starting to remind me of Perth ...hmmm. I must admit that Perth has more of its share of great places to run, Sorry Sydney.
Across the Harbour Bridge to Crows Nest - of course I cannot miss the opportunity of running across the famous Coathanger and the chance to catch up with my first 'coach' Calvin - a before lunch catchup from Wynyard across the bridge and up on Pacific Highway. This is just a stretch that I know so well but never ever thought of running the Pacific Highway as from driving, it was always uphill, and from the North Shore line - it's quite a few stations to get to St Leonards from North Sydney. But then Route 1 did provide a more direct alternative to one presented by City Rail. Again I wouldn't call that proper training and I was quickly running out of time on the cooler stretch of the round-the-world trip. What can you do but make do?
San Francisco Bay Area - September 2011 my first stop across the Pacific was the Bay Area, and we landed ourselves with hosts that basically has the best recreational area on their back door (we would suggest their boys get on their bikes as soon as they are old enough :P ). The initial suggestion was : there's a track behind where we live, it's pretty flat. The cooler Californian Fall morning enticed us to believe in all this, and started on a 'Ten Hills trail' around 10 mins away from where we were staying in Castro Valley. Hmm. one should believe that this name was descriptive. It was a very Hilly run, however it was rather run towards the end, when we met a guy with a dog who gave us good directions to head back onto the main road without negotiating 10 hills again. We then followed this Proctor trail running downhills (lots of fun!) and ended up near the driving range. Wow. that was my first 'non scary' attempt at Trail running.
Lake Chabot Loop The next day we came back for more - and better equipped, and got corrected instructions from our host - this time we parked at the Lake and started on the 'right hand side' of the trail. The whole trail was ups and downs (not as intense as 10 Hills), but we had very good views of the lake from all around, and it is lots more efficient than hiking when one was in running gear :) One also learnt a bit about Yema Po (wild horse slope), a chinese labor camp that was in the area when the dam was constructed. This all in all took us about 2 hours, was lovely!
Houston September 2011 - well now, I'm back. no new pictures as I've done most of it before, except not as early as 7:30am and still feeling very humid and hot after being out for 2 hours! I cannot imagine that there are so many running groups out and about even way before then! I'm hoping that training in heat will leave us better prepared for racing conditions which hopefully will be another 10 degrees lower than what we currently experience over here. We can only hope.
