Romney Rally April 25, 2012
5 days ago
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Not So Strong ;)
Yesterday I posted some pictures that I found from one of the photographers at the finish of the Thailand International Half Marathon. I also ran across a couple more on their site from the Standard Chartered Bangkok Marathon two weeks prior.
As promised, here they are. These pictures are taken right near the finish, so you get the full feeling of the runner's "situation" from body and facial expressions.
These photos say it all as far as our race experience goes! I actually appear to be in more distress after 42 kilometers than deathbed man Eric next to me haha!
It was an experience lacking a lot of smiles in the final ten kilometers, but one that neither of us will ever forget!
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Finishing Strong
I found these photo sets online on a Thai running site. These were taken at around the 200 meter to go point of the Thailand International Half Marathon.
I was pretty focused on the finish line. The dude behind me was giving it all he had as well! This is why, no matter your time or ranking, running is a competition with yourself...how much are you willing to push and how much pain can you handle?
Here is a picture of the girl in green who ended up crossing the finish line 27 seconds ahead of me; the girl who I tried to stay with for the last couple kilometers, but she was just too strong for me!
Here is Eric's shoe and right shoulder. Hahaha, I remember this guy was blocking Eric from the picture I took of them crossing the finish together, Eric a mere step behind him. But, Eric is blocked out in all of the pictures because of dude here!
I actually found some photos of us finishing the Bangkok Marathon as well...looks like we were just finishing running 42 kilometers for sure! Post those later, bell just rang, off to teach fourth graders.
I was pretty focused on the finish line. The dude behind me was giving it all he had as well! This is why, no matter your time or ranking, running is a competition with yourself...how much are you willing to push and how much pain can you handle?
Here is a picture of the girl in green who ended up crossing the finish line 27 seconds ahead of me; the girl who I tried to stay with for the last couple kilometers, but she was just too strong for me!
Here is Eric's shoe and right shoulder. Hahaha, I remember this guy was blocking Eric from the picture I took of them crossing the finish together, Eric a mere step behind him. But, Eric is blocked out in all of the pictures because of dude here!
I actually found some photos of us finishing the Bangkok Marathon as well...looks like we were just finishing running 42 kilometers for sure! Post those later, bell just rang, off to teach fourth graders.
Monday, February 27, 2012
1st Thailand International Half Marathon 2012
Okay, so Eric and I are running our races kinda backwards. I'm assuming that people start out with running a 5K or 10K (run, race, fun run, walk) and gradually challenge themselves with longer distances such as the half marathon (21K) and full marathon (42K). Well, for me at least, I'd never run in a competitive or organized road race before. My only competitive race was the Vertical Marathon which only lasted for like 10 minutes.
So what was my first actual road race? Yup, a marathon. Smart? Probably not, but hey, it's done! Next on the list of races to run, to get it done, to record a time as a "personal best", something to aim for and try to equal or beat in future runs; half marathon.Eric, after recovering mentally from the trauma of running and finishing the Standard Chartered Bangkok Marathon with the flu, decided to indeed NOT throw in the long distance running towel, but to pull my butt into running The First Thailand International Half Marathon with him a mere 14 days after the marathon...I was like "okay" after looking at my training schedule and seeing nothing of note coming up. Couldn't be much worse than a marathon right, even though my sister Naomi told me that it was the ideal distance to challenge your body and mind. As she probably most of the time is, she was right. LEt me just say, if you want to skip all of the meaningless details of the race below, WE DID FINISH FASTER THAN THE CAPED CRUSADER, SPIDEY AND THE MAN OF STEEL!! Take THAT Marvel!! Seriously, these three guys run, and cycle, for a great cause.
I dragged poor Pae with me to the race. She had just gotten in off of flying the past week and was feeling under the weather and leaving home to meet Eric by 4:00 AM wasn't exactly what she should be doing in the middle of only two days off heading into a two week flight schedule! But she insisted that she be there to support me in the race, to my delight ;)
So, we did all of the trying to eat well, trying to sleep before the race and all of the things that I don't do in a normal daily routine, "Satur-Day" and Saturday night. The last thing I wanted is to have to stop and use the toilet buses again along the route. I figured 21 kilometers is a distance where that poo break would really affect my time, adding at least a minute or two. With a goal of finishing under two hours, something I've never done in training, I didn't know where I could make up those two minutes if I had to go. So, I had to skip the yummy normal Thai food that Pae and I would eat on a normal day and just ate fried rice and non-spiced food all day and drank lots of coconut water, Gatorade and bananas.
We got to the Rama 8 Bridge (pictured at dawn above) start/finish line, right on time for some stretching and pre-race bathroom visit. Nervous stomach makes everything just come right out! I stood, stretching and fidgeting while talking to Pae, trying not to get the jitters. I felt for Pae that she had to sit around in the mosquitoes and wait two hours for us to finish. I knew that the 10K race would start an hour after the half, so at least there would be a lot of people milling around waiting for the start of that one. She wished me good luck, I told her I'd probably be crossing the finish line somewhere around 1:55:00 to 1:59:59 so she would be able to get some pictures of me (us) crossing the finish line and meet me for a sweaty hug ;) Also she should be able to see the Kenyans sprinting across the line around the hour mark, wow!
The MC called the runners to the starting line and I got a little good luck kiss from my sweet puppy girl and it was off to the line! So good to have Pae there! We stood around nervously at the start line waiting for the starting horn. After some important guy welcomed us and read something about the King, they started us. Eric and I were probably 20 rows back and shuffled our way to the start line in about 15-20 seconds maybe. CROWDED! At one point I felt Eric, or somebody, holding onto my shirt as not to get separated. I had to put my hand on several peoples' shoulders just to keep distance and prevent being pushed into them. As we started under Rama 8 Bridge and the majority of the race was on the elevated freeway, we ran about 500 meters before hitting the onramp...incline...horrible way to warm up the legs!!
Going up the on ramp we passed this 40+ guy already having breathing difficulties...2km into the run, from behind us we heard the same guy (probably) heaving violently, still on the uphill...Not sure the dude made it 19 more kilometers.I felt that our pace was pretty quick but Eric and I were still together, having finally freed ourselves from the main crowd. The first two kilos we were picking off runners in front of us slowly one by one. Felt good.
Prior to the race, we had been Facebooking back and forth talking about our running strategy. The contingencies were 1. Run together like the Marathon two weeks before and finish together or 2. Run together until about halfway and if one still had some kick, just go, if the other, just go, if both were hurting, we would just run together as long as possible.
I fully expected to finish together this race because we have run so many training races together and we pretty much know each other's pace and running style, etc. I had run only 4 runs over 21K prior to this race, Eric, a whopping 13!! As long as we were running comfortably at a sub two hour pace I figured we would run it like a training run. Eric had finished his 21K training runs right under two hours, I never had. We never actually finished a 21K together!! Weird now that I think of it...we did a 25.5K, 30K, 33K and 42K together, the other 9 he had previous were runs where I either dropped out, met him halfway through the run or we hadn't started running together yet. So technically, I didn't even know my half marathon time...I just knew that I had hit the split in like 2:07 before during a longer run. I was pretty confident that I could run a two hour half marathon! Plus Pae was waiting for me at the finish line, so I couldn't very well limp over at 2:05 and be too happy about it ;)
So, at about 6km we were getting caught up by a group of runners to our rear, stragglers speckled the road ahead of us, and about 40 meters up in front was a larger pack that we had started in. I hate getting caught by another pack, because something happens where you just start running with them rather than slowly trying to get back to the pack in front. They're running the same speed, they're just ahead of me!!
It was warm, even at 5AM but not as humid as marathon day. There was a little wind at our backs on the way out, but pretty brisk coming back in. All water stops were one over the head and shoulders, half cup for hydration and the other half down my front (Water points about every two kilometers, watermelon and Gatorade at 12km, and that was it for the electrolytes). We were both afraid to drink too much water cuz we didn't want to have to have to pee during the race.
As we pushed through 6-8km, I tried to stretch my legs out a bit and Eric would fall a tiny bit behind, never more than like 3 meters, but normally we run shoulder to shoulder. After one water stop, near 8km maybe, I turned around and we basically shook hands and wished each other good luck. He said he wanted to see my time, I said that he'd probably catch me. I told him that I needed to run a longer stride for my knees, he said he was gonna stay at his pace and push for the final three kilometers.
I took off, trying to catch the groups in front of us, hoping not to burn myself out, expecting Eric to pace his way back to me by the last kilometer or so. In fact, at the halfway turn, I turned and passed Eric probably after only 50 meters, so we were still pretty close. I think either that 12km marker or somewhere around there was the watermelon, water and electrolytes...I only had two hands, I wanted water over the head, Gatorade down to the stomach and watermelon to wash it down...so I took three or four melon slices, and a water, poured the water and picked up a Gatorade. I tried to run but every time I drank, it would pour all over me...so I walked until I finished my Gatorade and a slice of melon. Probably walked for a good 50 meters then ran again, almost choking on a watermelon seed. It would be my only walk break of the race...something I'd never done in training. We'd usually walk for about 400 meters while drinking a bottle of water in the park about every 6-9 kilometers.
The mileage markers started to pass very slowly and the water stations started coming between markers rather than right on the 16 or 18 kilometer signs. Weird only because when you are looking so forward to ice cold water over the head, and it never comes, it puts you in a grrrrrrrr mood!
Another thing that bothers me is when people pass me...girls, women, old guys, people smiling in general!! I feel like crap and you're smiling??? Grrrrrr!! Hahaha. Just some of the things you think while alone with your thoughts, yet surrounded by people. I guess my only real complaint about the event was that they had the half, 10K mini marathon and 4.5K fun walk all staggered start with gaps of like an hour and half hour. What this meant was that when I was getting to about 16km, there were 10K runners making their turn and running the rest of the way in with the half runners. Did I mention that I don't like when people pass me?? These people had been on the road for a half hour and 5 kilometers, smiling, chatting, running hard, disappearing in the distance...I had run triple the distance so far, triple the time, and they were leaving me in their dust. Understandable, but a person in shorts, running shirt, race number, sneakers and glistening of sweat, to me, is someone who I don't want speeding by me like I'm stuck in the mud!
I had enough of them passing me by the time I hit 17km. A school girl passed me, her short hair bouncing around her neck with every step...every step putting considerable distance between her and me...I tried and tried to stay with her, but she was just too fast, too fresh. I think she would go on to finish a good minute ahead of me. I then let this short but stout middle eastern guy with a big beard break the wind for me, kinda ghosted him for a half kilometer as there was a stiff crosswind coming from the right front. He was a 10K runner and I actually spotted him going the other way probably at his 4.5K mark and he caught me and passed me! He would eventually pull away from me and also finish probably a half minute up on me.
As I had drafted off of him for a few hundred meters, there must have been people pulling behind me too...after 19km suddenly this girl in a green shirt sprinted past me, but she was a half runner. She's the only half marathoner who passed me in that last 3km of the race. I had never seen her before and we had been pretty spread out since about 10km, so it wasn't like there were giant groups of runners with a bunch of anonymous faces.
Anyways, I had no chance of keeping up with her, way too fast, even though I could see the Bridge in the distance to my right. I tried to speed up but I couldn't do 2km at a super high sprint...instead I just kept picking people in front of me that I wanted to pass, passed them and then chose someone else. Around this same place on the course, probably about 18.5km the fun walk people started to show up...standing in the middle of the course, taking pictures, spread out linked arms walking in groups of six across the entire width of the road...oblivious that there were runners who aren't participating in a "fun" run of any sorts! I excuse-me'd and pushed my way through groups and groups and groups of fun walkers and chased my way back through even the half runners.
I felt good, just tired legs. No significant pain in the joints, not hungry, no digestive problems. With one kilometer left, I tried to kick into treadmill mode...just one foot in front of the other, treadmill pace set at 13kmh and just finish up strong. Other than the police officer slowly crossing the road right in front of me, the run in was smooth, and I benefited from the off ramp back down into the park under the bridge....The up was a pain, the down was a relief!
I pushed the police officer off to the side with a little passing nudge yelling "Go, go, go, go, go!!", he yelled "sorry" and I sprinted towards the finish line, not able to see the clock time as they were turned towards the photographers so they could get pictures of each finisher and their clock time. I passed several photogs and thought I'd smile or chaka or give them the peace sign, but I could only run. Crossing the finish line I wanted to do something goofy (you know me) but I just didn't have the energy and I thought if I jumped, there would be no telling how I would land, not feeling so graceful after 21km! I did look for Pae right away, walked a little, then looked back to the clock...It read 1:45:?? something...I was like "WHATTTTT???"
I don't wear a watch while running so I had no idea of my splits after Eric and I split at 8km. I would have been ecstatic with a 1:59:59 dude!! 1:45?? I think being able to lengthen my stride and not drinking a lot of water helped me. Pae wasn't even expecting me so fast and she had to run over really fast before I got to the end of the finishing chute. I was happier to see her than I was to have finished the race and in that time. The remainder of the day we would go shopping, have a nap, eat Korean BBQ and basically have a great "date day" together.
Don't ask what my body is doing in the picture above, even I can't explain it. I'm sure I was shifting my weight as the photo was snapped. (My legs felt like jelly, perhaps that's what jelly legs looks like!) I am not so photogenic but hey! I grabbed Pae's camera and waited for Eric to arrive. He did so at 1:56:02 (chip time). I believe Eric's previous personal best was a 1:58 in the distance and a 1:57 split during a 30km run. He was a healthy boy for this run, a great improvement on his condition leading up to and during our marathon!
When the chip times came out online I actually improved to 1:44:52. I ran the first 10.5 in 51 minutes, meaning that I ran the final half of the race in a bit over 53 minutes! I never thought I could keep up that pace over that distance. It was good to have targets on the road in front of me, footsteps behind me and Pae at the finish line! It was nice to run another race with Eric and nice that we were both healthy and could give it a good go!
Two weeks and I think we're gonna ratchet it down (in distance but up in puke factor) for a local 10K. Eeek! Oh, how could I forget- I puked in my mouth at kilometer 14 but was able to gulp it right back down...very acidic throat until the next water station at 16km!!Stats-
Guy
Overall Finish: 205 of 707
Age Group 40-49: 45 of 173
Finish time: 1:44:52 (Personal Best!)
Eric
Overall Finish: 308 of 707
Age Group 30-39: 59 of 129
Finish time: 1:56:02 (Personal Best!)
Thanks to everyone who, over the past months, through my knee injuries, etc., have piled on heaps of encouragement and kind words. All motivating and appreciated! Love to all!
p.s. If you read this far...did you see the little bit of basic photoshop I did in one of the photos? Hahahaha!! Envy!!
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Post Race
So there was actually one more photo taken after our race after all. This one is of Eric, my back, and Malcolm, a Scottish teacher who teaches at my school and ran the 10K at the marathon. I was gonna just throw it up here for tomorrow's Friday Foto, but I figure I can find something else for that ;)
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Crime and Punishment
Sometimes I wish I could tape the mouths of certain students, but of course I can't and don't and wouldn't actually do it. I WOULD however tape them to their seats. Lots of the younger kids have the bad habit of just getting up in the middle of class and going walkabout.
Unlike the foreign teachers, Thai teachers have all the tools of "discipline" at their disposal ;) This kid spoke badly about a teacher and was overheard. I think he called one of the fat teachers "fat" and it didn't go over well. Today is his first day of a two day sentence. Punishment- she taped his mouth shut.
Unlike the foreign teachers, Thai teachers have all the tools of "discipline" at their disposal ;) This kid spoke badly about a teacher and was overheard. I think he called one of the fat teachers "fat" and it didn't go over well. Today is his first day of a two day sentence. Punishment- she taped his mouth shut.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Wardrobe Malfunction?
Eric sent me a photo of our marathon finish that his wife took as we crossed the finish line some five hours after we started. Pae thought it was pretty odd that we didn't have any photos of us before or after the race, but Malcolm (ran 10K) came alone and I came alone. Eric came with me, but his wife showed up around 7:00 AM expecting us to be finishing just above 4 hours. This photo is one of the only pieces of evidence that we were actually there, other than our finisher shirts (long sleeve, still don't understand that one with the climate here in Bangkok!)
One funny story that I failed to share about the marathon was the following. The weekend prior to the race, Pae and I took her mom and dad to Hong Kong using some left over vouchers that Pae had from flying with Royal Jordanian. Basically 90% discount vouchers for Bangkok to Hong Kong (We have four to JFK in NYC as well, but we don't have the time off to fly back to the States for a visit, even though the tickets are paid for!).
Anyways, in Hong Kong, we took a shopping detour to find a sports supply store so I could try to purchase some running stuff. I was especially looking for running socks, non-cotton, so that I could stop giving myself huge blisters on my toes while running. Found them and bought them at the Nike factory outlet at 1/3 the price that they sell them for in Bangkok, if you can find them at all! So I got like 6 pair, 4 pair of support socks that have extra strong and elastic material diagonally across the arch of the foot and 2 pairs of blister proof socks that have padded areas on the toes and heel, etc. The thing about them is that the socks are made for left foot or right foot, because obviously, the big toe padding on the right sock wouldn't fit on the left foot! Same with the arch supports. They are marked "L" and "R" respectively.
So, I usually would wear socks right out of the package, without washing them. Pae happened to be in town for the day after we returned from Hong Kong, so she washed the socks for me, so sweet of her!! After the socks dried in the hot Bangkok sun, she took them down and put them into pairs and tossed them into my sock drawer.
I told Eric about my new high speed socks and told him that I'd bring him a pair to try out during the marathon. He was like "cool". Packing my small plastic bag with bananas and coconut water I ran over to my drawer and grabbed a pair of arch support socks for Eric. Arriving at the start line the morning of the marathon, I handed him the socks and he sat down on a lawn chair and took off his normal running socks. From across the grass where he was changing socks I heard, "You gave me two left socks!" Hahahaha!
I looked at him and thought "What is he talking about?" Then it struck me suddenly that when Pae had folded my socks into nice little balls, she didn't notice that the pile of 12 individual socks, although the same color (black and orange), were actually individually marked with medium-size "L" or "R" indicating Left Foot or Right Foot! She must have just grabbed two socks at a time and folded them up, hahahaha. I just smiled and laughed and told him that he could try them out next time. He was like, "It's cool, I'll wear these" and his white socks went into the rubbish bin and he put on two left socks! I thought it was funny actually...until just now, HEY...I just realized that at home, in my sock drawer, I must have one pair of TWO RIGHT SOCKS!!! Hahaha!! Good times!
One funny story that I failed to share about the marathon was the following. The weekend prior to the race, Pae and I took her mom and dad to Hong Kong using some left over vouchers that Pae had from flying with Royal Jordanian. Basically 90% discount vouchers for Bangkok to Hong Kong (We have four to JFK in NYC as well, but we don't have the time off to fly back to the States for a visit, even though the tickets are paid for!). Anyways, in Hong Kong, we took a shopping detour to find a sports supply store so I could try to purchase some running stuff. I was especially looking for running socks, non-cotton, so that I could stop giving myself huge blisters on my toes while running. Found them and bought them at the Nike factory outlet at 1/3 the price that they sell them for in Bangkok, if you can find them at all! So I got like 6 pair, 4 pair of support socks that have extra strong and elastic material diagonally across the arch of the foot and 2 pairs of blister proof socks that have padded areas on the toes and heel, etc. The thing about them is that the socks are made for left foot or right foot, because obviously, the big toe padding on the right sock wouldn't fit on the left foot! Same with the arch supports. They are marked "L" and "R" respectively.
So, I usually would wear socks right out of the package, without washing them. Pae happened to be in town for the day after we returned from Hong Kong, so she washed the socks for me, so sweet of her!! After the socks dried in the hot Bangkok sun, she took them down and put them into pairs and tossed them into my sock drawer.
I told Eric about my new high speed socks and told him that I'd bring him a pair to try out during the marathon. He was like "cool". Packing my small plastic bag with bananas and coconut water I ran over to my drawer and grabbed a pair of arch support socks for Eric. Arriving at the start line the morning of the marathon, I handed him the socks and he sat down on a lawn chair and took off his normal running socks. From across the grass where he was changing socks I heard, "You gave me two left socks!" Hahahaha!
I looked at him and thought "What is he talking about?" Then it struck me suddenly that when Pae had folded my socks into nice little balls, she didn't notice that the pile of 12 individual socks, although the same color (black and orange), were actually individually marked with medium-size "L" or "R" indicating Left Foot or Right Foot! She must have just grabbed two socks at a time and folded them up, hahahaha. I just smiled and laughed and told him that he could try them out next time. He was like, "It's cool, I'll wear these" and his white socks went into the rubbish bin and he put on two left socks! I thought it was funny actually...until just now, HEY...I just realized that at home, in my sock drawer, I must have one pair of TWO RIGHT SOCKS!!! Hahaha!! Good times!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
School Valentine's Culture
I remember being in elementary school back a hundred or so years ago, and passing out Valentine's Day cards at school to every student in the class. Boys and girls. Flintstones Valentines, Smurf Valentines, Care Bear Valentines, My Little Pony Valentines, etc.
Here in Thailand, there is no such tradition. Instead, the students buy heart-shaped stickers the day before and on Valentine's day they stick them to each other's school uniforms. Eventually, throughout the day, a student will go from nothing to a shirt full of hearts. I'm assuming that the more stickers you have, the more loved you are by your classmates. I did see one girl this year stick her stickers to her own shirt though, so that probably doesn't hold for all students!
Here are some pictures of my sixth graders messing around near lunch time. Stickers all over them. The teachers will generally let the kids stick them but will not stick stickers on the kids. It's an interesting difference in cultures perhaps, or traditions...or just Valentine's Day is not as commercialized here...
Friday, February 17, 2012
My First Marathon Experience
I took a while to sit down and type a little out about the marathon I just finished on the 12th; The Standard Chartered Bangkok Marathon 2011. School has been busy, of course, and Pae has been home. I tend to spend less time in front of a computer when we have time to be together.
Another reason I have delayed my writing, a quick and incomplete summary of our race, is because it turned out to be a little anti-climactic for me. I want to type a positive version of the marathon and our experience, but there are also a lot of negative points. I want this to be a factual representation and not some sugar coated happy ending story.
I've had a few days to relax, post marathon, and just ask myself how I feel. I guess I am comparing my feelings about our marathon performance to what I had envisioned prior to running the race. The picture of the race I had imagined while putting in the miles and miles of training the two months leading up to the race was a lot different!
We met at Eric's house at 1:00 AM and headed straight over to the start/finish line, really close to Wat Prakaew here in Bangkok, a major tourist attraction. We brought with us a bunch of bananas, bottles of water and some coconut waters to drink right before the race. I had eaten some white sauce spaghetti and lots of corn the evening before the race. I also downed a can of baked beans...mistake. I was going for the slow release carbohydrates of the CAMPBELL'S BAKED BEANS!!! Yeah, hindsight, don't eat baked beans before a 4-5 hour running activity. Lesson learned.
Eric was in bad shape from the moment I picked him up in the taxi. He had been fighting the flu for a week and was just getting over it. Still weak, dehydrated from vomitting for several days and hadn't been able to eat or keep things down for the days leading up to the marathon. Another thing that was affected by his illness was his motivation/confidence, very important emotional things that you must not forget to pack on your way to the race! We both knew that we were in for a very long day. We had known for several days that it wasn't going to be the marathon that we wanted to run, but the day was upon us and we had to run it. I had mentioned to him that it was cool if he did what was best for his health, and just not even start the race, but he probably never considered that (we paid for the thing dangit) and decided to start despite being in absolutely no condition to be out of bed much less run 42.195 kilometers!
I think that, although our spoken goal of this race was "just to finish", we both knew realistically that we would be finishing closer to four hours than five. Maybe between 4:15 and 4:30 for our first marathon, but we made a conscious effort of not letting ourselves get pulled into the race against the clock, and just trying to get through this one, both of us, our first marathon. Another agreement we had from when we first started training and got a feel for each others' ability level, was that we would run the race together, start to finish, regardless and finish together. This was key for our marathon.
We got to the start line early and were in the second row back, Kenyans and Ethiopians actually behind us. These folks would be finishing the marathon right around the time that we were approaching 21 kilometers, the half way point! After a lot of introductions of sponsors and "grand marshalls", it was time for the start. It was 3:00 AM minus twenty seconds, and I had sweat running down my back and off of my face already from the stuffy humidity. Three in the morning!! The race has to be run early here as daytime temperatures are not suitable for a healthy race.
Eric and I shook hands as the countdown reached ten, nine, eight, seven...We didn't exchange excited or anxious looks, but looks knowing that something bad was about to happen. We had prepared well and now it was just down to trying to beat the intermediate time cutoffs and to finish (alive) in less than 6:00 hours. Runners are actually pulled off of the road if they do not reach an intermediate checkpoint in the allotted amount of time.
The intermediate time cutoffs were put in place because the police closed the roads for the race, but have to open them at a reasonable time for big city traffic. Less than normal early in the morning on a weekend, but still, Bangkok is huge and there is always traffic. Probably another reason for the three AM start time also. When training we always made sure that we were faster than the cutoff times. They seemed very ominous when we first started working up to distance and were a source of stress, but as we became more seasoned with our long runs and running in general, we knew that we would breeze through each checkpoint with plenty of time to spare...if healthy.
Here are the published intermediate time limits.
15 km (9.3 mi.) = 2 hours
18 km (11.1 mi.) = 2 hours 20 minutes
28 km (17.3 mi.) = 3 hours 30 minutes
34 km (21.1 mi.) = 4 hours 20 minutes
42 km (26.2 mi.) = 6 hours
We started at the starting horn and felt the rush of 50-60 fast runners sprint past us towards the first turn out of the starting chute. We didn't get jostled around too much although we expected to be pushed around as we were content with just starting at our pace immediately and not straying too much from that. After two kilometers, we were drenched in sweat already...at like 3:10AM!! We immediately left the center of town onto a bridge over the Chao Phaya River and onto an elevated freeway. Yeah, didn't train for any change in elevation, so this got us running a little harder to make up for what we felt was going to affect our time.
We were going at a pretty good pace and started finally passing water points at around 6-8 kilometers. The water went straight over the head, one cup poured on the head, another cup down the gullet! The odd thing is that the cups of ice were 3/4 full and had ice in them...I never imagined the water being iced during a race, I wonder how many people choked on medium size pieces of ice those first few water points!
Undistracted and feeling those baked beans starting to talk to me, I was happy to see a bus-turned-rolling-toilet at 10 kilometers. I ran in, no line, did my thing, and ran out and caught up with Eric really quickly. By this time Eric was starting to feel the flu and had to walk...the pace was high, granted, but he was just so pale and gaunt and it didn't look good for him. We walked several hundred meters and then started back up again.
For me, for both of us I'm sure, it wasn't fun hearing the footsteps behind us and then having a large group of runners pass us by. We couldn't do anything about it and if I could keep my mind off of the timed part of the race, or off of the positions overall and age category placements, then just jogging and walking the rest of the way would have been fine. I had to fight that emotionally the rest of the race, while walking and watching grannies pass us. Eric looked at me before 15 kilometers and told me to go ahead and run my own race, but I reminded that this "wasn't my race or his race, it's OUR race". When training, prior to the race, we reminded each other on several occasions that Marines and soldiers (we're both prior military) don't leave their fallen on the battlefield, no man left behind...and that was the way that we would approach our race. For a long time I thought it would be my knee that held us back, or something like that, but it was the flu that got us instead.
We chugged up to the first intermediate checkpoint at 15 kilometers in a quick 1 hour and 30 minutes, which was pretty perfect as far as the pace we expected to race. Eric was starting to struggle more and more, but he was determined not to be pulled off of the course by missing a time cutoff. So far we had a half hour in the bank and a good 50 minutes to reach the next checkpoint in a mere 3 kilometers. What we worried about the most was the checkpoint at 34 kilometers...that was the important one. After the 15 km check, Eric stated that if he could make it to the 34 km checkpoint in time and be safe from disqualification, he would be happy just to walk the rest of the way, in effort not to die along the route. Dude was really feeling it.
He told me that we passed 15 km in 1:30 hrs and I felt like turning up the pace a tiny bit to pass the half marathon point in an even 2 hours. I think I did push for a few steps and Eric was like "Dude, we gotta keep the pace down or I won't finish". Over the course of the race you kinda just start thinking about all kinds of things, and forget about the race strategy, hahaha, so I had to slap myself and pull it back a little. I was still feeling fine. We both prepared two Powerbar gels that I picked up in Hong Kong because I always see my sister Becca drops one at about 16km and 32km, so I was like, what the heck! We had never trained with them but we knew that we would need the extra energy source later, especially Eric. Yeah, would have been nice to know what to expect when sucking the thick goo out of the package...and nice to know to do it before the water point rather than after...the gooey Powerbar stuff was hard to swallow and there was no water to wash it down, so I felt like i had heartburn for the next two kilometers, until we made another liquid point.
We passed 20 km (no timing point oddly) and walked through the water and Gatorade. I'm pretty sure the electrolytes started at 18 or 20 kilometers. As soon as we started to jog again, Eric pulled off to the side of the freeway and vomitted a nice big puddle of liquid and oatmeal. I knew that it was coming and was actually glad to see him be able to relieve his stomach...I know it always feels better after puking. I stood a good 15 meters away as he was down on one knee going his deal.
My knee had begun to hurt at 20km, so I used the time to stretch my left leg. Over the remainder of the race, I would stretch often as the knee tightened up. Had me worried for about a kilometer, but I adjusted my stride a little bit and added the stretching. The elevated freeway had a pretty serious tilt to it and running on the slant didn't help the outside left knee any at all. We tried to run where it seemed the flattest, but there was really no flat section of the road. The slope was visible, and even when you couldn't see it so clearly, your foot higher up the slope would scrape the ground and you'd have to adjust your form to compensate...odd and probably didn't help with knees or hips much.
25 kilometers and we had been walking through ever water point, longer walks each time. Eric stopped for another vomit, losing his cookies a second time. 33 kilometers another puddle of puke for fellow runners to avoid! I feel mean, but it was motivating to see him putting so much effort into the run, so much that he just couldn't hold down anything. Eventually he was just dry heaving on the side of the road. I know he must have felt like absolute crap at this point. But he knew that we were almost to our checkpoint at 34 kilometers and that it would be almost over.
We reached the 34km checkpoint right before 7AM or after 3:58 hours of running. On our ideal day, we should have been nearing the finish line by this time, but we'll save that challenge for the 2012 marathon in November! We had made the final intermediate checkpoint with 20 minutes to spare, again, not ideal, but in line with our goal of finishing a marathon!
At this point they started handing out banana halves and even had a watermelon stand giving out watermelon slices. I started drinking only Gatorade and using the water to pour over my head. The sun was starting to intensify by this time. Eric was wasted and for the final 8 kilometers of the marathon we walked. He tried several times, but eventually his calf cramped up so badly that it curled his toes up in his shoe and he could only walk. I did try to keep the pace high during the walk, so we could do about one kilometer per 10 minutes, to get us home in about five and a half hours. We would walk the final 8 kilometers, passing through historic Bangkok and even some less desireable parts as well.
This is the point where I would complain about the race organization, traffic, police, etc. but I'm gonna really try to leave a lot of that out. Suffice it to say that once we got off of the closed elevated freeway and were running (walking) on city roads, it wasn't perfect, the organization, but they did pull off the event, even after having to postpone it for several months due to the flood in late 2011. Kudos for that.
We rounded a large temple where we knew the finish line was, but it seemed to go on forever...how many walls did this square temple have? 4 presumably, being a square, but it seemed like every corner we turned it was just more wall! Earlier I had told Eric that no matter what, he was not walking over the finish line. He probably thought bad things silently to himself when I said that, but when we finally hit the final corner, and had a good 200 meters to the finish, we worked our walk up to a jog. We saw my friend and coworker T. Malcolm around the finish as he had ran and finished the 10K race earlier. Eric's wife was waiting at the finish line. We crossed and didn't even look at the timing clock off to the side of the finish line. Didn't care at that point, I just remember that Eric said something like 5:15 as we were approaching the line.
I would later email Eric and ask him if his wife had taken a photo of us crossing the finish line. He replied the following:
I gotta take my hat off to Eric, the dude finished a marathon in that condition. It's hard enough already! While walking the last 8 kilometers he had told me that this was certainly his first, only and final marathon. I responded with a taunt, "There's no way you're gonna be happy with a personal best of 5+ hours". At the time he was like "Whatever!" He has since seen the truth in my taunt and is looking forward to something more like a 4 hour 15 minutes marathon in November!! Good stuff!
For me, I feel like I ran a 20 mile race (32ish kilometers) and cooled down with a 6 mile (10 kilometer) walk. I know that sounds negative, but when envisioning the running of a marathon, I saw a physical challenge, I saw pain and suffering, I imagined hitting and busting through "the wall". This was none of those, but it did present it's unique challenges, and both of us dealt with them as they came, even if it wasn't the way we had drawn it up. We had a goal to finish and we finished, regardless of time. Oh! Our finishing time was 5:17:16...stats and other observations below.
This post is way too long to have any type of flow to it, so I'm just gonna keep putting whatever thoughts that come to me below the previous thought, rather than go back to form the perfectly constructed paragraph or story ;)
At one point around 34 kilometers, Eric lamented, "Dude, I think we're last." Haha, great quote, but it did actually feel like that at times.
Eric: Finish time = 5:17:16
Age/Sex category: Male 18-39
Category finish: 164th of 228 finishers
Overall finish: 692nd of 1106 runners
Guy
Finish time = 5:17:16
Age/Sex category: Male 40up
Category finish: 456th of 721 finishers
Overall finish: 691st of 1106 runners
So there were only 1100 total marathoners. I think the event lost a lot of international runners and even Thai runners when it was postponed after the floods.
Old people made up the majority of the runners!! The 40++ runners made up the majority of the field, amazing!
We saw a big formation of about 20-25 African runners pass by the 20 kilometer point (they had doubled back on the freeway) at a little over 1 hour!!! The Kenyans and Ethiopians are Amazing!! I believe the winning time was just over 2 hours 18 minutes.
I'm looking forward not only to running the same event later this year, but also to training for it as well. Let's see if we can convince some other people to run it! One week until the First Annual Bangkok Half Marathon...Eric asked if we were running it! The man is a glutton for punishment! My shins hurt, not sure if I can run again any time soon!
Another reason I have delayed my writing, a quick and incomplete summary of our race, is because it turned out to be a little anti-climactic for me. I want to type a positive version of the marathon and our experience, but there are also a lot of negative points. I want this to be a factual representation and not some sugar coated happy ending story.
I've had a few days to relax, post marathon, and just ask myself how I feel. I guess I am comparing my feelings about our marathon performance to what I had envisioned prior to running the race. The picture of the race I had imagined while putting in the miles and miles of training the two months leading up to the race was a lot different!
We met at Eric's house at 1:00 AM and headed straight over to the start/finish line, really close to Wat Prakaew here in Bangkok, a major tourist attraction. We brought with us a bunch of bananas, bottles of water and some coconut waters to drink right before the race. I had eaten some white sauce spaghetti and lots of corn the evening before the race. I also downed a can of baked beans...mistake. I was going for the slow release carbohydrates of the CAMPBELL'S BAKED BEANS!!! Yeah, hindsight, don't eat baked beans before a 4-5 hour running activity. Lesson learned.
Eric was in bad shape from the moment I picked him up in the taxi. He had been fighting the flu for a week and was just getting over it. Still weak, dehydrated from vomitting for several days and hadn't been able to eat or keep things down for the days leading up to the marathon. Another thing that was affected by his illness was his motivation/confidence, very important emotional things that you must not forget to pack on your way to the race! We both knew that we were in for a very long day. We had known for several days that it wasn't going to be the marathon that we wanted to run, but the day was upon us and we had to run it. I had mentioned to him that it was cool if he did what was best for his health, and just not even start the race, but he probably never considered that (we paid for the thing dangit) and decided to start despite being in absolutely no condition to be out of bed much less run 42.195 kilometers!
I think that, although our spoken goal of this race was "just to finish", we both knew realistically that we would be finishing closer to four hours than five. Maybe between 4:15 and 4:30 for our first marathon, but we made a conscious effort of not letting ourselves get pulled into the race against the clock, and just trying to get through this one, both of us, our first marathon. Another agreement we had from when we first started training and got a feel for each others' ability level, was that we would run the race together, start to finish, regardless and finish together. This was key for our marathon.
We got to the start line early and were in the second row back, Kenyans and Ethiopians actually behind us. These folks would be finishing the marathon right around the time that we were approaching 21 kilometers, the half way point! After a lot of introductions of sponsors and "grand marshalls", it was time for the start. It was 3:00 AM minus twenty seconds, and I had sweat running down my back and off of my face already from the stuffy humidity. Three in the morning!! The race has to be run early here as daytime temperatures are not suitable for a healthy race.
Eric and I shook hands as the countdown reached ten, nine, eight, seven...We didn't exchange excited or anxious looks, but looks knowing that something bad was about to happen. We had prepared well and now it was just down to trying to beat the intermediate time cutoffs and to finish (alive) in less than 6:00 hours. Runners are actually pulled off of the road if they do not reach an intermediate checkpoint in the allotted amount of time.
The intermediate time cutoffs were put in place because the police closed the roads for the race, but have to open them at a reasonable time for big city traffic. Less than normal early in the morning on a weekend, but still, Bangkok is huge and there is always traffic. Probably another reason for the three AM start time also. When training we always made sure that we were faster than the cutoff times. They seemed very ominous when we first started working up to distance and were a source of stress, but as we became more seasoned with our long runs and running in general, we knew that we would breeze through each checkpoint with plenty of time to spare...if healthy.
Here are the published intermediate time limits.
15 km (9.3 mi.) = 2 hours
18 km (11.1 mi.) = 2 hours 20 minutes
28 km (17.3 mi.) = 3 hours 30 minutes
34 km (21.1 mi.) = 4 hours 20 minutes
42 km (26.2 mi.) = 6 hours
We started at the starting horn and felt the rush of 50-60 fast runners sprint past us towards the first turn out of the starting chute. We didn't get jostled around too much although we expected to be pushed around as we were content with just starting at our pace immediately and not straying too much from that. After two kilometers, we were drenched in sweat already...at like 3:10AM!! We immediately left the center of town onto a bridge over the Chao Phaya River and onto an elevated freeway. Yeah, didn't train for any change in elevation, so this got us running a little harder to make up for what we felt was going to affect our time.
We were going at a pretty good pace and started finally passing water points at around 6-8 kilometers. The water went straight over the head, one cup poured on the head, another cup down the gullet! The odd thing is that the cups of ice were 3/4 full and had ice in them...I never imagined the water being iced during a race, I wonder how many people choked on medium size pieces of ice those first few water points!
Undistracted and feeling those baked beans starting to talk to me, I was happy to see a bus-turned-rolling-toilet at 10 kilometers. I ran in, no line, did my thing, and ran out and caught up with Eric really quickly. By this time Eric was starting to feel the flu and had to walk...the pace was high, granted, but he was just so pale and gaunt and it didn't look good for him. We walked several hundred meters and then started back up again.
For me, for both of us I'm sure, it wasn't fun hearing the footsteps behind us and then having a large group of runners pass us by. We couldn't do anything about it and if I could keep my mind off of the timed part of the race, or off of the positions overall and age category placements, then just jogging and walking the rest of the way would have been fine. I had to fight that emotionally the rest of the race, while walking and watching grannies pass us. Eric looked at me before 15 kilometers and told me to go ahead and run my own race, but I reminded that this "wasn't my race or his race, it's OUR race". When training, prior to the race, we reminded each other on several occasions that Marines and soldiers (we're both prior military) don't leave their fallen on the battlefield, no man left behind...and that was the way that we would approach our race. For a long time I thought it would be my knee that held us back, or something like that, but it was the flu that got us instead.
We chugged up to the first intermediate checkpoint at 15 kilometers in a quick 1 hour and 30 minutes, which was pretty perfect as far as the pace we expected to race. Eric was starting to struggle more and more, but he was determined not to be pulled off of the course by missing a time cutoff. So far we had a half hour in the bank and a good 50 minutes to reach the next checkpoint in a mere 3 kilometers. What we worried about the most was the checkpoint at 34 kilometers...that was the important one. After the 15 km check, Eric stated that if he could make it to the 34 km checkpoint in time and be safe from disqualification, he would be happy just to walk the rest of the way, in effort not to die along the route. Dude was really feeling it.
He told me that we passed 15 km in 1:30 hrs and I felt like turning up the pace a tiny bit to pass the half marathon point in an even 2 hours. I think I did push for a few steps and Eric was like "Dude, we gotta keep the pace down or I won't finish". Over the course of the race you kinda just start thinking about all kinds of things, and forget about the race strategy, hahaha, so I had to slap myself and pull it back a little. I was still feeling fine. We both prepared two Powerbar gels that I picked up in Hong Kong because I always see my sister Becca drops one at about 16km and 32km, so I was like, what the heck! We had never trained with them but we knew that we would need the extra energy source later, especially Eric. Yeah, would have been nice to know what to expect when sucking the thick goo out of the package...and nice to know to do it before the water point rather than after...the gooey Powerbar stuff was hard to swallow and there was no water to wash it down, so I felt like i had heartburn for the next two kilometers, until we made another liquid point.
We passed 20 km (no timing point oddly) and walked through the water and Gatorade. I'm pretty sure the electrolytes started at 18 or 20 kilometers. As soon as we started to jog again, Eric pulled off to the side of the freeway and vomitted a nice big puddle of liquid and oatmeal. I knew that it was coming and was actually glad to see him be able to relieve his stomach...I know it always feels better after puking. I stood a good 15 meters away as he was down on one knee going his deal.
My knee had begun to hurt at 20km, so I used the time to stretch my left leg. Over the remainder of the race, I would stretch often as the knee tightened up. Had me worried for about a kilometer, but I adjusted my stride a little bit and added the stretching. The elevated freeway had a pretty serious tilt to it and running on the slant didn't help the outside left knee any at all. We tried to run where it seemed the flattest, but there was really no flat section of the road. The slope was visible, and even when you couldn't see it so clearly, your foot higher up the slope would scrape the ground and you'd have to adjust your form to compensate...odd and probably didn't help with knees or hips much.
25 kilometers and we had been walking through ever water point, longer walks each time. Eric stopped for another vomit, losing his cookies a second time. 33 kilometers another puddle of puke for fellow runners to avoid! I feel mean, but it was motivating to see him putting so much effort into the run, so much that he just couldn't hold down anything. Eventually he was just dry heaving on the side of the road. I know he must have felt like absolute crap at this point. But he knew that we were almost to our checkpoint at 34 kilometers and that it would be almost over.
We reached the 34km checkpoint right before 7AM or after 3:58 hours of running. On our ideal day, we should have been nearing the finish line by this time, but we'll save that challenge for the 2012 marathon in November! We had made the final intermediate checkpoint with 20 minutes to spare, again, not ideal, but in line with our goal of finishing a marathon!
At this point they started handing out banana halves and even had a watermelon stand giving out watermelon slices. I started drinking only Gatorade and using the water to pour over my head. The sun was starting to intensify by this time. Eric was wasted and for the final 8 kilometers of the marathon we walked. He tried several times, but eventually his calf cramped up so badly that it curled his toes up in his shoe and he could only walk. I did try to keep the pace high during the walk, so we could do about one kilometer per 10 minutes, to get us home in about five and a half hours. We would walk the final 8 kilometers, passing through historic Bangkok and even some less desireable parts as well.
This is the point where I would complain about the race organization, traffic, police, etc. but I'm gonna really try to leave a lot of that out. Suffice it to say that once we got off of the closed elevated freeway and were running (walking) on city roads, it wasn't perfect, the organization, but they did pull off the event, even after having to postpone it for several months due to the flood in late 2011. Kudos for that.
We rounded a large temple where we knew the finish line was, but it seemed to go on forever...how many walls did this square temple have? 4 presumably, being a square, but it seemed like every corner we turned it was just more wall! Earlier I had told Eric that no matter what, he was not walking over the finish line. He probably thought bad things silently to himself when I said that, but when we finally hit the final corner, and had a good 200 meters to the finish, we worked our walk up to a jog. We saw my friend and coworker T. Malcolm around the finish as he had ran and finished the 10K race earlier. Eric's wife was waiting at the finish line. We crossed and didn't even look at the timing clock off to the side of the finish line. Didn't care at that point, I just remember that Eric said something like 5:15 as we were approaching the line.
I would later email Eric and ask him if his wife had taken a photo of us crossing the finish line. He replied the following:
My wife took a video of us crossing the finish line, but I'm too embarrassed to share it with you because there are so many women, children, and elderly folks sprinting by us. She also took one photo of us after the race where I am sitting down asking myself why the hell I just did that and you and Malcolm are frolicking about like we're at a carnival.Haha, crossing the finish line I did hear Eric's wife congratulate us...followed by "Is he okay?" After getting our finisher shirt and medal, we hopped into a taxi back to the area where my school is, home for the three of them and a mere bus or taxi ride 10km home for me. Eric left no mystery for any of us in the taxi as to how he felt, post marathon, as he started scrambling around for a plastic bag, into which he puked his guts out one last time for good measure. Again I smiled a motivated smile!
I gotta take my hat off to Eric, the dude finished a marathon in that condition. It's hard enough already! While walking the last 8 kilometers he had told me that this was certainly his first, only and final marathon. I responded with a taunt, "There's no way you're gonna be happy with a personal best of 5+ hours". At the time he was like "Whatever!" He has since seen the truth in my taunt and is looking forward to something more like a 4 hour 15 minutes marathon in November!! Good stuff!
For me, I feel like I ran a 20 mile race (32ish kilometers) and cooled down with a 6 mile (10 kilometer) walk. I know that sounds negative, but when envisioning the running of a marathon, I saw a physical challenge, I saw pain and suffering, I imagined hitting and busting through "the wall". This was none of those, but it did present it's unique challenges, and both of us dealt with them as they came, even if it wasn't the way we had drawn it up. We had a goal to finish and we finished, regardless of time. Oh! Our finishing time was 5:17:16...stats and other observations below.
This post is way too long to have any type of flow to it, so I'm just gonna keep putting whatever thoughts that come to me below the previous thought, rather than go back to form the perfectly constructed paragraph or story ;)
At one point around 34 kilometers, Eric lamented, "Dude, I think we're last." Haha, great quote, but it did actually feel like that at times.
Eric: Finish time = 5:17:16
Age/Sex category: Male 18-39
Category finish: 164th of 228 finishers
Overall finish: 692nd of 1106 runners
Guy
Finish time = 5:17:16
Age/Sex category: Male 40up
Category finish: 456th of 721 finishers
Overall finish: 691st of 1106 runners
So there were only 1100 total marathoners. I think the event lost a lot of international runners and even Thai runners when it was postponed after the floods.
Old people made up the majority of the runners!! The 40++ runners made up the majority of the field, amazing!
We saw a big formation of about 20-25 African runners pass by the 20 kilometer point (they had doubled back on the freeway) at a little over 1 hour!!! The Kenyans and Ethiopians are Amazing!! I believe the winning time was just over 2 hours 18 minutes.
I'm looking forward not only to running the same event later this year, but also to training for it as well. Let's see if we can convince some other people to run it! One week until the First Annual Bangkok Half Marathon...Eric asked if we were running it! The man is a glutton for punishment! My shins hurt, not sure if I can run again any time soon!
Friday Foto - February 17, 2012
Taken from the bus I was riding. This is a coffee shop, on wheels. When people here complain of almost being hit by a store, this is what they are talking about ;) These kind of food vendors love to block traffic, the bigger, clumsier looking ones with bike pedals instead of motors are especially guilty. You find them parked on the edge of the road selling anything from coffee to fruit drinks, omelets to shishkabobs, popcorn to coconut ice cream on a hot dog bun. They sell papaya salads and meat salads, desserts like cake and mango sticky rice, steamed corn on the cob and crepes. You'll never have a hard time buying mops and brooms, stickers or inflatable beach balls being hawked by a passing by vendor.
Right outside of our apartment, the same vendors set up daily, almost a territorial type thing where nobody else has encroached on the area in a long time. Many of them are supposedly controlled by the mafia so it makes sense...to avoid broken knee caps. We have Fried chicken, fried bananas and sweet potatoes. There are two fruit carts competing regularly across the road from each other, a coffee man (his drinks are not so good, but he's been there forever!) and a man who sells grilled pork tails, intestines, grilled skin/fat and pork neck. I used to eat the pork neck, all the time. Chicken man has long disappeared from our soi. He used to be my favorite!
These vendors are an important part of the environment, the culture of an area. As they sell and move, move and sell daily, they are part of the communities which they serve, interacting with regulars and motorcycle taxi drivers. Watching people pass by, noticing their habits, remembering the company local residents keep, etc. Perfect police informants if you ask me. There's always someone who saw something with the vendor carts floating around everywhere.
Right outside of our apartment, the same vendors set up daily, almost a territorial type thing where nobody else has encroached on the area in a long time. Many of them are supposedly controlled by the mafia so it makes sense...to avoid broken knee caps. We have Fried chicken, fried bananas and sweet potatoes. There are two fruit carts competing regularly across the road from each other, a coffee man (his drinks are not so good, but he's been there forever!) and a man who sells grilled pork tails, intestines, grilled skin/fat and pork neck. I used to eat the pork neck, all the time. Chicken man has long disappeared from our soi. He used to be my favorite! These vendors are an important part of the environment, the culture of an area. As they sell and move, move and sell daily, they are part of the communities which they serve, interacting with regulars and motorcycle taxi drivers. Watching people pass by, noticing their habits, remembering the company local residents keep, etc. Perfect police informants if you ask me. There's always someone who saw something with the vendor carts floating around everywhere.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Hong Kong Skyline
Ah, one of my favorite things about Hong Kong is it's iconic skyline! Hong Kong's skyline is unique in that it has so many tall modern buildings, is along the water and has mountains in the background as well. In the daytime, it looks immense. At night it glitters and shines up into the night sky as well as shimmers downwards on the choppy harbour waters. I challenge you to find a list of the world's top skylines, most beautiful skylines, most iconic skylines or any top ten list that excludes Hong Kong's! In fact, you may find it difficult to find many list that doesn't put Hong Kong's skyline as it's number one!
The atmosphere, surrounded by hundreds gathered to partake of perhaps the city's top attraction (outside of eating and shopping), is unique. There is music on the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade and Avenue of Stars (our chosen viewing point). I wonder what it would be like sitting on a small "junk", all alone in the middle of the harbour, sharing the sight with fewer people, just the sound of the small waves crashing against the hull and perhaps the distant grumbling of a hard-working tug boat?
What's even cooler is that you can also view the skyline from the other side AND from above, if you make your way up to The Peak, on one of the previously mentioned mountains that provide a background on the island of HK.
From The Peak, you get the skyline from a higher vantage point with the Kowloon waterfront also visible. The day we went up to The Peak was very smoggy and hazy, but we still got the experience of seeing Hong Kong from the alternate angle. Priceless.
So, we did the skyline at nighttime from Kowloon, late afternoon from The Peak, and saw in as we left Hong Kong on a trip over to Macau in the morning from our high speed ferry. Other than seeing it from space, I'm not sure we could have seen in many other ways!! Looking at it cross eyed is double the fun!
I have never made a "bucket list" of things I want to do or see in my lifetime, but Hong Kong harbour has always been one of the things that I've seen and wanted to experience. I was not disappointed, and what is even better is that Pae and I were able to share it with Mom and Dad ;)
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
My little leafy vegetables
Fourth graders worksheets are always a transition from the easier third grade classwork with lots of pictures and matching pictures with words (English as a second language mind you) and fifth grade where we include less pictures and more reading and critical thinking. That's how I see it at least ;)
Yesterday we were nearing the end of a chapter on plants, plant parts and photosynthesis and after ten drill questions on what plants use to make their own food, dormancy, transpiration and all of the various varieties of leaves, stems and roots, I gave the kids a fun question: Imagine your hair was a plant. Draw yourself.
After putting a couple examples on the whiteboard, all of them understood what was required of them and they got to work, laughing as they showed each other their self portraits. They had fun with it and it was a chance for me to have a little fun grading their papers!
Here are the results, in collage form. Thought I'd share ;) As you can tell by some of the black and white drawings, we have several lazy kids who NEVER complete their work, even when given more than enough time to finish it. Interesting to see how they see themselves, not including the plants sprouting out of their heads!
Yesterday we were nearing the end of a chapter on plants, plant parts and photosynthesis and after ten drill questions on what plants use to make their own food, dormancy, transpiration and all of the various varieties of leaves, stems and roots, I gave the kids a fun question: Imagine your hair was a plant. Draw yourself.
After putting a couple examples on the whiteboard, all of them understood what was required of them and they got to work, laughing as they showed each other their self portraits. They had fun with it and it was a chance for me to have a little fun grading their papers!
Here are the results, in collage form. Thought I'd share ;) As you can tell by some of the black and white drawings, we have several lazy kids who NEVER complete their work, even when given more than enough time to finish it. Interesting to see how they see themselves, not including the plants sprouting out of their heads!
Monday, February 13, 2012
Hong Kong Eats
As one of the first posts on our little trip to Hong Kong, I thought I'd get the mouths salivating at the sight of some of the food we encountered while there.
I guess you'd expect plenty of "Chinese" food, but there was perhaps only like one thing I ate that reminded me of anything "Panda Express" hahaha! Everything else was basically different slants on much of the stuff we are able to eat here in Thailand.
We get a steady diet of deep-fried pork belly, char sui port and crisp duck here. The one thing that stood out and seemed to be at most of the bbq joints was the crispy goose. Even when we asked for duck, they said they only served goose. Pae and mom got goose several times. I had my usual pork and pork!! I did actually taste the goose, although Pae said I cheated cuz I dipped it in the sweet plum sauce, which overpowered the flavor of the meat.
Noodles and rice, staples in Hong Kong. The noodles were pretty normal and kinda hard to compare to Thai noodles, Thai noodles are just THAT good. The spice involved was totally different. The one thing cool about the Hong Kong noodles was the crispiness of the noodles, boiled yet still a little crisp, not al-dente...but they kinda popped when you git them. Not too soft, not chewy, just crispy!
The portions of everything we ate was absolutely "western" size...I'm so used to getting a small bowl of rice and just enough of whatever I order to be able to change the color of the rice...Hong Kong, they fill the whole plate with rice and pour just as much food right on top!
Clay pots were cool to see, even if they were a little bland. They just fire up the burners on the outside of the store and take orders. The cook throws whatever meats and veggies on top and they quick cook the rice in the clay pots. lots of the rice sticks to the bottom of the pot. One time I had the burnt rice Korean style, burnt yet still edible (nurungji). The second time I had the dish, it was actually burnt black and didn't taste so good! They used the parts of the chicken like the back and neck more than other larger easily chewed pieces. I had to take a lot of time to get all of the bones out of my chicken. Otherwise, I think If I knew how to use all of the spices properly, the clay pots would have been pretty good. Dad had a really nice looking one with char sui on it, raw egg aside.
Dim Sum, okay, we had some pretty awesome dim sum for breakfast! Pae and I had watched "The Layover- Hong Kong" and saw a dim sum restaurant that looked pretty good. we googled the address and made our way to its location early in the morning. We arrived before 10:00 only to find a line about 30 people or so long...restaurant still not open. We got menus and waited for the place to open. Everyone in line was raving about how good the place was so we waited. It took us a while to figure out that we weren't really waiting in line, but just waiting for our number to be called...NUMBER?? Yeah, so I belatedly went and put our name on the list and we got number 11. An hour later we were in and ordered WAY TOO MUCH. Even people outside still waiting in the cold were amazed at how much food was coming to our table. Got a little carried away when looking at the menu!! It was pretty good, two of the dim sums weren't so great, but the other ten were real good. Well worth the wait!
One thing about Thai food is that it's difficult to get an actual serving of vegetables. Veggies come mixed with most dishes, but other than corn on the cob, getting a dish of peas, beans, carrots, broccoli is very rare. Seemed similar in Hong Kong, although we did order a plate of Chinese broccoli at almost every meal.
Another thing that we saw on "The Layover" was that the Hong Kongers comfort food of choice is macaroni soup...described as "throw everything in your fridge into a pot with elbow noodles and boil", Mom, Dad and Pae all enjoyed it's hearty carbohydratedness (I like to make up words). I'm guessing this is one of the dishes influenced by the British presence in Hong Kong for so long.
One of my friends who lives in Hong Kong said that there is one eating establishment for every four people in Hong Kong! Amazing...and we only hit about 8 of them!!
I guess you'd expect plenty of "Chinese" food, but there was perhaps only like one thing I ate that reminded me of anything "Panda Express" hahaha! Everything else was basically different slants on much of the stuff we are able to eat here in Thailand.
We get a steady diet of deep-fried pork belly, char sui port and crisp duck here. The one thing that stood out and seemed to be at most of the bbq joints was the crispy goose. Even when we asked for duck, they said they only served goose. Pae and mom got goose several times. I had my usual pork and pork!! I did actually taste the goose, although Pae said I cheated cuz I dipped it in the sweet plum sauce, which overpowered the flavor of the meat.
Noodles and rice, staples in Hong Kong. The noodles were pretty normal and kinda hard to compare to Thai noodles, Thai noodles are just THAT good. The spice involved was totally different. The one thing cool about the Hong Kong noodles was the crispiness of the noodles, boiled yet still a little crisp, not al-dente...but they kinda popped when you git them. Not too soft, not chewy, just crispy!
The portions of everything we ate was absolutely "western" size...I'm so used to getting a small bowl of rice and just enough of whatever I order to be able to change the color of the rice...Hong Kong, they fill the whole plate with rice and pour just as much food right on top!
Clay pots were cool to see, even if they were a little bland. They just fire up the burners on the outside of the store and take orders. The cook throws whatever meats and veggies on top and they quick cook the rice in the clay pots. lots of the rice sticks to the bottom of the pot. One time I had the burnt rice Korean style, burnt yet still edible (nurungji). The second time I had the dish, it was actually burnt black and didn't taste so good! They used the parts of the chicken like the back and neck more than other larger easily chewed pieces. I had to take a lot of time to get all of the bones out of my chicken. Otherwise, I think If I knew how to use all of the spices properly, the clay pots would have been pretty good. Dad had a really nice looking one with char sui on it, raw egg aside.
Dim Sum, okay, we had some pretty awesome dim sum for breakfast! Pae and I had watched "The Layover- Hong Kong" and saw a dim sum restaurant that looked pretty good. we googled the address and made our way to its location early in the morning. We arrived before 10:00 only to find a line about 30 people or so long...restaurant still not open. We got menus and waited for the place to open. Everyone in line was raving about how good the place was so we waited. It took us a while to figure out that we weren't really waiting in line, but just waiting for our number to be called...NUMBER?? Yeah, so I belatedly went and put our name on the list and we got number 11. An hour later we were in and ordered WAY TOO MUCH. Even people outside still waiting in the cold were amazed at how much food was coming to our table. Got a little carried away when looking at the menu!! It was pretty good, two of the dim sums weren't so great, but the other ten were real good. Well worth the wait!
One thing about Thai food is that it's difficult to get an actual serving of vegetables. Veggies come mixed with most dishes, but other than corn on the cob, getting a dish of peas, beans, carrots, broccoli is very rare. Seemed similar in Hong Kong, although we did order a plate of Chinese broccoli at almost every meal.
Another thing that we saw on "The Layover" was that the Hong Kongers comfort food of choice is macaroni soup...described as "throw everything in your fridge into a pot with elbow noodles and boil", Mom, Dad and Pae all enjoyed it's hearty carbohydratedness (I like to make up words). I'm guessing this is one of the dishes influenced by the British presence in Hong Kong for so long.
One of my friends who lives in Hong Kong said that there is one eating establishment for every four people in Hong Kong! Amazing...and we only hit about 8 of them!!
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Pre-Marathon - Can't Sleep
Less than nine hours until the marathon and I can't sleep. It's such an early start time, 3:00 AM, that it makes planning food and sleep difficult, especially after working today...I did take half day off though, so I was able to relax a little. But still, I can't sleep...The plan was to leave school early, sleep from 1:00 PM to 9:00 PM and then wake up, eat a good meal and prepare for the marathon.
Meeting Eric at his house at 1:00 AM in order to make it to the start/finish line by 2:00 AM. Stretch, warm up, eat a banana, drink some caffeine, a couple trips to the toilet...then we should be off. Maybe I'll be able to get a small nap between now and then. I know every little thing will add up during the course of 42 kilometers to make you suffer! I thought the heat, my conditioning, my knee, my digestive system, and my nerves (basically the overall mental and physical challenge of running a marathon) were gonna be plenty to allow me to suffer! I guess we can add in "lack of sleep"! Hahaha! I guess if it don't hurt, I didn't try hard enough!!
It's all good. By November's marathon we shouldn't be working Saturdays anymore...unless we have another three month long flood...knock wood.
Meeting Eric at his house at 1:00 AM in order to make it to the start/finish line by 2:00 AM. Stretch, warm up, eat a banana, drink some caffeine, a couple trips to the toilet...then we should be off. Maybe I'll be able to get a small nap between now and then. I know every little thing will add up during the course of 42 kilometers to make you suffer! I thought the heat, my conditioning, my knee, my digestive system, and my nerves (basically the overall mental and physical challenge of running a marathon) were gonna be plenty to allow me to suffer! I guess we can add in "lack of sleep"! Hahaha! I guess if it don't hurt, I didn't try hard enough!!
It's all good. By November's marathon we shouldn't be working Saturdays anymore...unless we have another three month long flood...knock wood.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Pre Race Goodie Bag Pickup
Today I took an extended lunch break (luckily my schedule permitted it) and went into town to pick up my race number and "goodie bag". Took two hours all together, but you have to add the time we stopped at the market to buy mashed potatoes!
On the way to the Army Club where the registration was taking place, we got pulled over at a police "dragnet" stop of sorts. The Thai police, three of them, ordered us out of our taxi (Eric and I) and started grilling us, IN THAI:
"Where are you going?"
"What are you doing in Thailand?"
"What business do you have here?"
"Where do you teach?"
They were triple teaming the two of us and asking pretty quickly, as quickly as we could answer and with attitudes. Luckily we had our passports and work permits with us as we needed them for the marathon registration. There were another 10-15 cops in the same intersection pulling over other taxis and mopeds as well, so it wasn't just us. We had an answer for each of their questions, answered with a little less attitude and thrown right back at them, in Thai, just as fast as they could ask. It was a first but we were back in the taxi in under two minutes.
I'm gonna be nice and assume that this stop was because there is a heightened terrorism level in the city since the Lebanese dude with the bomb making material a month ago and since there is a big event Sunday (THE MARATHON!) that would be an easy target for any would-be bad guys. I'm sure this wasn't an attempt to extort money from unsuspecting foreigners, which is common here, especially by those who are supposed to be here to protect us! I digress.
After instructing our taxi driver in the fine art of map reading, he figured out that I was right and he was wrong concerning where we were and what direction we needed to go. Come on! I just got back from navigating the streets of Hong Kong and Macau using tourist maps and landmarks, bro, I KNOW (kinda) where we are! He got us to where we were going, nice guy really, and he told me that he had picked me up at my apartment and driven me to my school before and that he recognized me...He knew way too much about me! Coincidence to have the same taxi driver twice...the city must have 10,000+ taxis!!
Arriving We found Eric's number but weren't able to find my name on the list of pre-registered runners. I had to go through another process of "adding" me to the race, meaning that I am now a number and not Guy Uda ;) Here is my race bib, oddly made of paper!! Huh?? A race bib for a 42 kilometer (26 mile) race made of paper??? Aren't they usually made from some type of sturdy fabric? Well, I took a picture of it now, cuz I'm certain that after 42 km of pouring water over my head, sweating and puking on myself, that the race bib is gonna be thrashed, bleeding green ink and pretty much illegible!
I like the bib though because it has a little spot on the left where the race coordinators can check off when you get your finisher medal, fruit pack and McDonald(s) post meal. The parts that I don't care too much for is the "40++" signifying that I am racing in the 40 years old and above category...Yay, I'm old! Also, we were hoping to get a 2:00AM start time for slower runners, especially since Eric is suffering from the flu right now and we might have to take every one of the six hour time limit to get him to the finish line!! (We were aiming for below 4:30 but this is our first marathon and what can you do when you're puking and weak from the flu??) But yeah, we got the 3:00AM start...early because running here in Bangkok at any other time of day is like running on the Sun!! No joke!!
We also got this very very pink running shirt to wear during the race, I'll probably wear it only at home or out in the park for a run when we train for our next marathon or half marathon or trail run ;)
Outside, before getting back into he taxi to home, we took a couple very back lit pictures of us and the marathon sign...I had to adjust the lighting and color on them a little so you could see our faces. I actually picked up the sign and cement blocks and stones started falling out of the bottom, hence the ding dong face I'm making as Eric snapped the picture! But hey, that's pretty much me!! I jammed the rocks back in the base of the sign to keep it from blowing away in the wind, then we were back in a taxi.
Yes, yes...we decided to skip the free coffee and drinking water even though they were "FREE OF CHARGER" hahaha ;)
We're both pretty excited about our race. Again, we have a little health problem right prior to the marathon and we know it is gonna slow us up a lot. We agreed a long time ago when we first started training for this marathon that we would run together since we had trained together and our abilities are pretty much even. So, if I lose a knee or if Eric needs to run at a slower pace because he is still struggling with his flu, we're gonna start together and finish together!! That's the plan!! Goal = Finish not "finish fast", we'll save that for the marathon in November!! We've got 6 hours to finish, we'll probably use most of that.
Teacher Malcolm is gonna run the 10km run in the same event on Sunday, so there are three of us from this area that will be out there leaving the sweat on the pavement! Represent!!
I still owe you Hong Kong photos...They're coming, I promise. Been kinda busy eating mashed potatoes and drinking fruit smoothies and anything else high in carbs!!
On the way to the Army Club where the registration was taking place, we got pulled over at a police "dragnet" stop of sorts. The Thai police, three of them, ordered us out of our taxi (Eric and I) and started grilling us, IN THAI:
"Where are you going?"
"What are you doing in Thailand?"
"What business do you have here?"
"Where do you teach?"
They were triple teaming the two of us and asking pretty quickly, as quickly as we could answer and with attitudes. Luckily we had our passports and work permits with us as we needed them for the marathon registration. There were another 10-15 cops in the same intersection pulling over other taxis and mopeds as well, so it wasn't just us. We had an answer for each of their questions, answered with a little less attitude and thrown right back at them, in Thai, just as fast as they could ask. It was a first but we were back in the taxi in under two minutes.
I'm gonna be nice and assume that this stop was because there is a heightened terrorism level in the city since the Lebanese dude with the bomb making material a month ago and since there is a big event Sunday (THE MARATHON!) that would be an easy target for any would-be bad guys. I'm sure this wasn't an attempt to extort money from unsuspecting foreigners, which is common here, especially by those who are supposed to be here to protect us! I digress.
After instructing our taxi driver in the fine art of map reading, he figured out that I was right and he was wrong concerning where we were and what direction we needed to go. Come on! I just got back from navigating the streets of Hong Kong and Macau using tourist maps and landmarks, bro, I KNOW (kinda) where we are! He got us to where we were going, nice guy really, and he told me that he had picked me up at my apartment and driven me to my school before and that he recognized me...He knew way too much about me! Coincidence to have the same taxi driver twice...the city must have 10,000+ taxis!!
Arriving We found Eric's number but weren't able to find my name on the list of pre-registered runners. I had to go through another process of "adding" me to the race, meaning that I am now a number and not Guy Uda ;) Here is my race bib, oddly made of paper!! Huh?? A race bib for a 42 kilometer (26 mile) race made of paper??? Aren't they usually made from some type of sturdy fabric? Well, I took a picture of it now, cuz I'm certain that after 42 km of pouring water over my head, sweating and puking on myself, that the race bib is gonna be thrashed, bleeding green ink and pretty much illegible!
I like the bib though because it has a little spot on the left where the race coordinators can check off when you get your finisher medal, fruit pack and McDonald(s) post meal. The parts that I don't care too much for is the "40++" signifying that I am racing in the 40 years old and above category...Yay, I'm old! Also, we were hoping to get a 2:00AM start time for slower runners, especially since Eric is suffering from the flu right now and we might have to take every one of the six hour time limit to get him to the finish line!! (We were aiming for below 4:30 but this is our first marathon and what can you do when you're puking and weak from the flu??) But yeah, we got the 3:00AM start...early because running here in Bangkok at any other time of day is like running on the Sun!! No joke!!
We also got this very very pink running shirt to wear during the race, I'll probably wear it only at home or out in the park for a run when we train for our next marathon or half marathon or trail run ;)
Outside, before getting back into he taxi to home, we took a couple very back lit pictures of us and the marathon sign...I had to adjust the lighting and color on them a little so you could see our faces. I actually picked up the sign and cement blocks and stones started falling out of the bottom, hence the ding dong face I'm making as Eric snapped the picture! But hey, that's pretty much me!! I jammed the rocks back in the base of the sign to keep it from blowing away in the wind, then we were back in a taxi.
Yes, yes...we decided to skip the free coffee and drinking water even though they were "FREE OF CHARGER" hahaha ;)
We're both pretty excited about our race. Again, we have a little health problem right prior to the marathon and we know it is gonna slow us up a lot. We agreed a long time ago when we first started training for this marathon that we would run together since we had trained together and our abilities are pretty much even. So, if I lose a knee or if Eric needs to run at a slower pace because he is still struggling with his flu, we're gonna start together and finish together!! That's the plan!! Goal = Finish not "finish fast", we'll save that for the marathon in November!! We've got 6 hours to finish, we'll probably use most of that.Teacher Malcolm is gonna run the 10km run in the same event on Sunday, so there are three of us from this area that will be out there leaving the sweat on the pavement! Represent!!
I still owe you Hong Kong photos...They're coming, I promise. Been kinda busy eating mashed potatoes and drinking fruit smoothies and anything else high in carbs!!
Friday Foto - February 10, 2012
Here is a picture taken of me, Pae, Mom and Dad with the absolutely awesome Hong Kong skyline in the background. This view just shows one fifth of the skyline looking from Kowloon (mainland part of Hong Kong) towards the actual island of Hong Kong. Kinda like saying you're in Hawaii, but being on the island of Oahu and talking about the Hawaiian big island of Hawaii ;) The skyline was pretty spectacular if you ask me. One of my bucket list things was to see the skyline of Hong Kong at night, as I'd seen before in photos...It was pretty cool, made better than expected by being able to share it with Pae and family! I told Pae that perhaps the only skyline that I'd seen that even compared was that of Manhattan, from an airplane circling the island trying to get to LaGuardia. That was five minutes of holy crap amazing also! Very lucky to have a window seat on the left (port) side of the aircraft that morning going to work!! Hong Kong skyline, awesome, try it! p.s. It was cold!
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Making Ice Cream
Today at school, the sixth graders made chocolate ice cream with the Thai science teacher. They have me seven periods per week and the Thai science teacher once per week. Today they "experimented" with ice cream! Yay!!
I took a couple pictures while the kids were stirring away, adding more ice, adding more salt, etc.
The funniest part was at the end when the kids got to taste the chocolaty ice cream, it was super salty! Hahaha, they tried, I think a couple batches came out yummy yummy, but the one these girls (Tomm and Pear) got was saltilicious! Fun times.
I took a couple pictures while the kids were stirring away, adding more ice, adding more salt, etc.
The funniest part was at the end when the kids got to taste the chocolaty ice cream, it was super salty! Hahaha, they tried, I think a couple batches came out yummy yummy, but the one these girls (Tomm and Pear) got was saltilicious! Fun times.
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