I haven’t biked much, but I ran on Wednesday and Friday last week, and Sunday morning, after a shitty sleep, after clearing my eyes of the lovely pink eye crusties, and with a sore throat, I set forth in the pouring rain and ran longer than I have in seven years — for 60 minutes. And it was twice around upper Thetis so it wasn’t a mamby-pamby flat run either.
I rock.
Let me preface this post by saying (for those of you who don’t know) that “bopp” is Amy’s blanket, and she loves it dearly.
I didn’t have the greatest day yesterday, and right before dinner Amy and I took a quick trip down to the grocery store to pick up something we needed for dinner. As I was backing out of our parking spot I heard and felt a loud crash, and I realized I’d hit a concrete light post that I had parked beside. That’s never a good thing, but it was the last thing I needed yesterday. I took a peek and for some odd reason I couldn’t see any damage, which was great, but I was shaken.
As I drove home I explained to Amy that I might cry when I told Daddy about hitting the post. I was near tears at that point and I knew telling him would be my turning point. I was trying to reassure her that I was fine, but just feeling a bit sad. There was a pause, and the next thing I heard from the back seat was: Mummy, you can borrow my bopp, but I’ll need it back before bedtime.
It’s nice to get reminders of what matters in this life, and the fact that my daughter was aware of my feelings and willing to lend me her most prized possession to help me feel better matters a lot to me.
Saturday I went for my longest run in a while — 7.5 km — and Sunday afternoon I rode the trainer for 30 minutes (even though I would have MUCH preferred to have a nap). But I’ve done nothing since then. It snowed. I got a cold. Work was busy. School and daycare were cancelled. I still feel sick. There is still snow on the ground.
It’s only a few days missed, but I was doing so well that I feel a bit disappointed in myself. I guess in a way it’s a good thing that the snow coincided with my cold. Next week there will be no snow, I should be feeling better and I’ll get back into it.
12 days into January…so far I’ve done two rides, four runs (one of which was in the pouring rain, and two more of which were in sub-zero temperatures) and one swim. I’d say things are going well.
All of my runs have been with a woman who lives in my neighbourhood, and I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t have run four times in the last week had it not been for her. When my alarm goes off at 6:10 in the morning the LAST thing I want to do is get out of my warm bed, go outside and run. Ick. But knowing I have to meet someone gets me moving, and once I start I enjoy it. She’s a slow runner like me, and much as I say I like running alone, it’s been great having company.
On Tuesday night I woke up with some pretty severe pain just above my right knee, enough pain to wake me up. Wednesday morning we had planned a run so I dutifully got out of bed and limped downstairs. And still went running. This is how I’ve dealt with all my running injuries over the past few years. None of them are major and I just run through them. It’s probably pretty stupid but it seems to work. By the end of Wednesday’s run it was feeling better, then I ran again this morning. It was still a bit painful, but it gradually got better throughout the day and I don’t feel any pain now. One day this method’s not going to work, but I’ll keeping doing it until that day comes.
I’ve got a ride planned for Sunday and I should get a run in as well, but we’ve got a pretty packed weekend so I’m not sure that’ll happen. Just the first weekend of many where I’ll have to juggle a few too many things and something will fall. Makes me feel even better about how much I’ve done in the past 12 days. There will be good weeks and bad weeks, and that’s okay.
This morning as we were eating our boiled eggs, Amy’s hard-boiled and mine a bit softer, Amy pointed to my eggs and said: “You like snotty eggs, right Mum?”
I’m calling soft-boiled eggs “snotty eggs” from now on.
Last year I briefly contemplated doing the GoodLife Fitness half marathon here in Victoria. Several friends were doing it, I haven’t done one for a while (6+ years), and I was fresh off my high from completing the Tour de Victoria. Then I started training. Very lightly. I don’t know if I was tired of training, just not into doing any runs longer than 30 minutes, or if I was too busy with life, but whatever the reason I was not enjoying it. At all. And during one morning run I just decided to screw it and be a (really good) spectator. Yes I exercise more regularly with a goal, but I’d just achieved my Tour de Victoria goal and I wasn’t really into doing anything else at the time.
Actually, after re-reading the previous paragraph I think I remember the real reason. I hate doing half marathons. It’s a freaking long way to run for me, I’m a slow runner so it takes forever, and every one I’ve done has been very painful. After I completed my last one, I told myself the only reason I’d do another is if it were a destination race. And doing Victoria for a third time certainly didn’t fit that bill. So I continued through the summer running once or twice a week, riding occasionally and keeping in moderately good shape. In October I proudly watched my friends do the half and had no regrets.
But then these same friends started talking about doing another race, the Rock ‘n’ Roll half in Portland in May. And I found myself seriously thinking about it. It’s a destination race (no, it’s not exotic, but it’s still not a bad place to visit) and there is live music every mile. My kind of motivation. A complicating factor was that I’d already signed up for the 2012 Tour de Victoria, but that almost made it more appealing — training for both at once would be a great goal for me for 2012. So I took the plunge and decided to go for it (theoretically, any way…for the record I haven’t actually signed up for the race yet).
There will be some barriers that I need to navigate around, time being the biggest. I’ve got this mother gig going strong and taking several hours out of each weekend to train for both a ride and a run is going to take some work, especially when Greg is also training for the Tour. My ideal schedule will probably not be feasible and I’ll have to accept what I can do. I also have another two week Saudi trip tentatively planned for the end of March, and I’ll have to figure out how to do some significant exercise in the confines of a hotel room. But the point isn’t to win, the point is to have some fun, get back into shape and feel challenged.
And I’ve started the year off right. On January 1st I went for an hour ride, and this morning, having slept only four hours due to a sick dog, I dragged myself out of bed and went for a 30 minute run in the PISSING rain. And enjoyed it.
As I was finishing my run, I had a surge of positive energy, and I had the thought (as Elliot would say): I’m SO going to do this. Let’s see if I can hold on to that for the next five months.
Written on Nov 25, first day in Jeddah.
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2:36 pm
Last night the two guys were are traveling with (Mohammed, an IBM employee from Dubai and Phil, and IBM employee from Victoria) decided to go into Jeddah for dinner. Tracy wasn’t feeling well and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go without her, but I went ahead and did it. I wanted to see the actual city and Mohammed is a very easy person to travel with. So off we went.
We ate at a seafood place, my first seafood since arriving here, and when we walked in the restaurant we were greeted by a display full of ice and fresh fish and shellfish. You picked the fish you wanted, how you wanted it prepared, and then went to your table. Mohammed ordered for us – we had calamari, huge prawns and I had fried hamar (not sure of spelling). It was excellent.
We got back to the resort at about 10:30 and I slept soundly until about 7:00, then snoozed until 8:00. My first sleep in. It was lovely.
I ventured in for another snorkel this morning and got up my nerve to go in the deeper area. More fish, and more colourful coral. Mohammed came with me and he said the sea life was as good as the dive they’d done yesterday.
We have a few minutes before we are leaving the resort. The plan is to have dinner in Jeddah and then head to the airport.
I have really enjoyed the leisure time, but it gives me more time to think about Greg and the kids and how much I miss them. I’ve still got five more long days before I head home. This morning I pulled a hair elastic of Amy’s out of my pocket and it almost made me cry. It will be good to be home, no question.
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This was the last post I wrote while I was away. The problem with posting after the fact is it seems like a long time ago, and with the time of year I’ve since got caught up in other things. I will see if I’ve got some content for a wrap up post.
I think if I go again (there is a tentative trip planned for March), I will post while I’m there.
Written on Nov 24, first day in Jeddah.
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6:49 am
It’s my day off, it’s not even 7 am and I’m showered, dressed, and ready for the day. I guess my sleeping schedule is still a little off. I am tired, I just couldn’t sleep past 6. I am hoping for a nap this afternoon.
5:38 pm
I just watched the sunset on the Red Sea. I took a couple of pictures, but I know they won’t do it justice.
It was a bit of a slow start this morning. The Saudis are a late-rising people. Things open late and stay open late. Tracy and I took a walk to the resort beach this morning at 7:30 and it was completely deserted. We had a breakfast of cold pancakes and eggs — all of the food was cold. Not intentionally as there were candles burning under the hot plates but there was one candle for each huge plate. Ah well, I was hungry and it filled me up.
We waited a long time for the dive shop to open. We were told “9 or 10” in typical Saudi style, but the guy didn’t show up until well after 10 and then he couldn’t find his key. I finally had all my snorkeling stuff ready at about 11:15. And then I started to lose my nerve. I was the only one of the group snorkeling and I havent done it for years.
There is a pool dug out of the coral that looked ideal for snorkeling, but the access to it is awkward. And there are signs everywhere warning people of the extremely venomous sea urchins, stone fish and scorpion fish. Couple that with my general fear of doing anything remotely exciting and I realized I wasn’t sure if I could do it.
There was a German guy sitting near me with snorkel gear so I asked him if he’d snorkeled here before. Turns out he’s a flight attendant with Lufthansa, he comes here all the time, and he was scared the first time he went in. He gave me a few pointers and then we went in together. And I was fine. I didn’t go too deep, but I saw some beautiful fish. Not the kind of volume we saw in Mexico, but amazing variety. I think I saw at least 15 different kinds. And I can’t put in words how beautiful some of them were.
I ventured deeper a couple of times, but then I’d turn around and there’d be 20 fish right on my tail and it freaked me out a bit. Not sure what I thought they’d do to me, but like I said, I wasn’t in my element. But I’m so happy I had the courage to do it.
The sun has now gone away and it’s getting dark sitting here by the Red Sea. Plus I’m hungry so I’ll sign off for a bit.
I am writing this down because I don’t ever want to forget that Amy calls rings “ringers” (with an emphasis on the “g”, so it rhymes with finger). I’ve never corrected her, and I find myself using the term when we’re talking about ringers together.
Written on Nov 23, en route to Jeddah.
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5:22 pm
Sitting on a plane (my favourite thing to do), waiting to take off, on my way to Jeddah for the Saudi weekend. It’s freaking hot on the plane and I’d love to take my abaya off.
I hate flying, and I feel even more uncomfortable when I’m surrounded by people who don’t speak my language and who are so…foreign. I have spent so little time in other countries and I’m not used to mixing with other cultures. In my own defense, the Saudi culture’s a hard one to crack. They are very private and I am so obviously Western. I am very aware of doing something culturally incorrect. (I am flying with Tracy and a couple of IBM folks, but we are all sitting separately.)
Anyway. I’ve got a book, I’ve got my music and I should just sit back and relax.
It’s a huge plane. I’m in row 46 and I think there are at least another 25 rows behind me. 10 seats across. They started boarding 45 minutes before scheduled take off and I can see why.
Now to my book…
9:51 pm
Survived the plane ride. Had to stop reading my book because there was a plane crashing in it. As I said, easily the biggest plane I’ve ever been on and we off-loaded directly onto the tarmac.
Jeddah’s more humid than Riyadh. We arrived at about 7:30 pm and the temperature is perfect. Well, perfect if you are not wearing a black polyester cloak. We are pretty sure we don’t have to wear the abaya within the resort compound, so Tracy and I just had a late dinner on our patio, abaya-less. It was beautiful.
It was a bit of an adventure getting here. We took a rickety old shuttle to Avis, where Mohammed (one of the IBM-ers) rented a car and we made our way using his GPS. But the Sheraton has no sign out front. Just a wall and a gate. We ended up phoning them and we were told to find the brown and white gate by the line of six trees. We found it after counting sets of trees as we drove by each compound gate.
The resort is beautiful, at least by night. The rooms are separate ground floor villas with patios. It’s walk in access and the walk way is lined with short palm trees and lights. Very nicely manicured. My dinner was delivered to me by a guy on a big trike with a basket at the back.
Tomorrow I’ll see the Red Sea for the first time. I really cannot believe I’m here.