Final Running Journey Thoughts

On another note, when I moved away to Rome, I became part of a very closed and friendly running family, a family which I hope to stay in close contact with and run with them again after I have moved back to London. I met the Tiber Runners the second day I have moved to Rome and I am so thankful they have included me with such welcoming charms. Although I didn't speak Italian and only some of them spoke English, we were able to connect without problem because we all shared a great passion for running. Through something as simple as putting on shoes and heading out onto the streets, parks or river banks, I have made a solid group of friends, which I thought I would never get to experience in my short amount of time in an alien country. And these people run hard! They really put in the miles and handwork and they really inspire to become a better runner too. I am extremely thankful for Coach Alessia, who takes the run every thursday from Nike in Rome. She is a runner. She is a competitor and she races in the regional races, winning one after the other and it is such an honour to be able to be coached by her. She really made me believe that I could get faster and better. I also have my Roman family to thank, for starting to appreciate my calves a bit more. I mean, like I said before, I still really don't like them and wish they could be smaller, but, when I am always surrounded by them discussing about my 'Polpacci' (calves in italian), one starts to blush, and I am beginning to try and see the appeal in them.

I mean, I have to thank my huge calves and my thunder thighs, I genuinely believe that it is the existence of these humungous body parts that have helped me in avoiding some running related injuries (I hope I haven't jinxed myself now). I have also adopted the whole running on the ball of my foot ever since my dad's teaching, taken in running posture notes from Born to Run, and other sources. Also, looking at instagram photos of Elites and runners in general and how they tend to land and position themselves in a run. Combine all the information together and I think I have came up with quite a good pose that lasts throughout the run without becoming too rigid or too exhausting. I have also started training. I don't really have a plan, other than trying to fit in a short tempo run, a long run and a training session with some core work and yoga throughout my week. My workout does not consume my life. I am a designer that is currently working so I cant just dedicate all my time to working out (although in the past month it must seems like thats all I have been doing but I blame that to #Chasesummer! By the way, go #crewwasabi!). All in all, I like to enjoy my exercising time and never really put too much pressure on myself. The last thing I want to happen is for me to start hating this healthy lifestyle and slum back to what I was like when I first moved to London.

But I believe that wouldn't happen. Mostly because of the great spirit of the running community and family I have made. I actually feel like anywhere I go now, I can enjoy the city with a run, I can meet like minded people with a run and I can relax myself after a long day of sign seeing with a run. All of these must be doing something good for myself.

Now, back to the original topic, from god knows how many entries ago.

Marathon.

I have finally decided to take the plunge and do it next year, in the year 2015. Why, because I am currently having some major FOMO. Actually, no, I just think that may be, perhaps, I am kind of ready for it. Even though it has only been one year since I started running half marathons.

I look at all my running friends around me and a lot of people started running way after I have but have already complete one or two or three or even more marathons. I am starting to feel a bit like a failure. What has taken me this long to compete in one? What am I so afraid of? Why don't I just do it like everybody else is doing?

To answer that, it is because of myself. It is precisely because I will judge myself to harshly about it that I am really afraid to make that jump in distance. I have said previously, when I don't complete a run in a certain time I really beat myself up for it and get very upset about it.

Another reason is that I feel I am not prepared yet. I want to reach a certain time in my half marathon and possibly a 20 mile before proceeding onto a marathon. My current PB for a Half marathon is 1:38:00 and I have yet to run in a timed 20 miler. I would like to bring my half marathon time down to 1:35:00 before even considering a marathon. 

But In the past year, I am starting to feel that in order to get faster at my half marathon, I need to start training for an even longer distance and testing my endurance, before I can bring up my speed for a shorter distance, like how I have done with my 10k to half marathon jump.

Also, for this, I have Ade to thank. He is one of my very good friend from RunWest and in 2014, he went and did the London Marathon and I am so extremely proud of him to have done that. I am even more honoured to have been part of his training journey and was able to do a few long runs with him before I left the country. On one of those training run I managed to do a marathon distanced run, without originally planning to do so. It was after this amazing experience (my legs were fine the next day, what?!?!) and able to do this training run in a humble 3:51hr that I feel, may be, perhaps, I am kind of ready for a marathon.

Currently I am trying to bring my pace down to a 7.30min/mile on a 12-15 mile run, while focusing on some Yasso 800 track work out. I believe if I continue working on this, I will be ready for my road to marathon in 2015. I know people always say, enjoy your first marathon. As this is your first race, it will always be a PB. But I don't think I can live with myself if I went by that. I am very competitive when it comes to running and many other aspect in my life, and I am the most competitive against myself. This is exactly what gets me down sometimes. I am so competitive that I beat myself down and I feel terrible about myself and my not so great achievement that sometimes, I just think, what's the point?

But I think everyone has those moments and they come and go. So now, I want to be able to prepare very thoroughly. But I want to be really prepared. I know there are days that you don't know what might happen and may be on race day you wake up and you have diarrhoea or that stupidly I have decided to get really drunk the night before and wake up hungover. Whichever situation I might be in I want to be really prepared because I don't think I can live with myself if I chose to do a marathon and I didn't get the time I really want. Again, this is probably why I still haven't done one, is because I am so afraid of the could have, would have, should have. I need to just grow a pair, and accept all the possible scenarios and be as prepared as I could be.

Also. I want to start travelling to places and different countries and meet like minded people. I want to meet all the crews around the world. I want to meet all the runners around the world. I want to meet all these crazy people that think running 26.2 miles is a great idea on a sunday morning when you could be lying in bed with breakfast. And I think even though running a half marathon is still a great distance to travel for, to run a marathon is an even better reason to travel for.

Running Journey Thoughts #5

Then something unfortunate happened. I had quarrels with some people and it made me feel very terrible. I was soon to be leaving the country and it has left me feel like I can never return to it again. For those of you that know, thank you so much for being there for me and listening to all that I had to say, comforting me and helping me feel better. For those that don't know, this is the past and it taught me to bite my tongue sometimes, and just learn to observe a situation rather than be so hot blooded and speak my mind all the time.

When I went back to Hong Kong this year in February, I took part in the Standard Chartered Half Marathon, a race that meant so much to me because in my mind, this was my dad's race. He is getting old now, passed 60, and slowly he is declining in his running abilities. Also it does not help that with this race, the entries are filled up within the hour of registration opening. My dad could not really be bothered to enter it anymore. So this year, I took his place (metaphorically). It was also my first time participating in a Bridge The Gap event. What an amazing experience. Not only was I able to see all my friends from Harbour Runners again, I made new friends with running crew around the world. I even had the pleasure to meet Cedric, one of the two founders of Bridge Runner and the BTG movement. What an honour. Although I did not had the opportunities to fully soak up the whole BTG week, as I was living with my parents, so therefore I had to at least give them the respect that, we have not seen each other for a year, and therefore I would spend the majority of my time with them; I was still able to meet most people in the meet pre race, and after party. Once again, my international circle of running friends has just expanded again, immensely this time.

I have also started going back to RDC West more often, as I said, I was leaving the country (for an unknown period of time) so I wanted to soak up as much positivity as possible. I had made great friends while I took part in their sessions and wanted to rekindle these friendships. I also went over to RDC for the first time in my life. I could not move away from London having never been to RDC. I knew quite a few people there already so when I first attended I did not feel out of place. In fact, I felt very warmly welcomed even though I was introduced as a visiting runner (Cynthia from Harbour Runners). I made even more friends and I was able to run again freely, without worrying about leaving anyone behind (in terms of a pacer, not in terms of a fellow runner). This might have been quite a selfish thing to do, but I felt my running abilities slightly went downhill after I took up the part of a pacer. I wanted to help others to get better but in the time of doing that, I have slowly let down on my own training and therefore not been able to improve on my running. Once again, one could argue no one ever asked you to do this for other people or that I brought this upon myself, but I genuinely enjoyed helping others and seeing their progression, so yes, I guess you could say I only had myself to blame and no one really ever asked for the help. But I enjoyed it, so I am not blaming others. I am simply going to say, my decision to not be a pacer anymore was an act of selfishness. But when I ran with RDC, it felt slightly different, it felt like everyone was looking out for everyone and there was no one person that solely had that responsibility. I know that by saying this, I could be offending OH SO MANY people and clubs right now, so please refer to my first blog entry, and accept my apology in advance. I guess I am just to selfish to completely give up on caring my own time for others, or that I am in no position where I have enough time to do both.

Anyway, on a lighter note, my last run in London was very enjoyable. I did it with RDC and it was a great route. Charlie ran with the Cheetah Elites and I managed to have a few words with him. This movement is growing and going stronger and faster everyday. and I am so proud and glad to be part of it. Needless to say, I am also very excited to be going back to London and be part of this movement once again.

Running Journey Thoughts #4

Then in the year 2013, I ran a total of 9 races. Serpentine's New Year 10k. Easter 10k. We Own the Night. Bupa 10k. Harry Hawkes. Wimbledon Half. Run to the Beat. Richmond Running Festival. MoRunning.

Another change happened after starting to run with a group. I stopped relying so much on music to fuel my run. Before if my iPod ran out of battery, I lose all hope to run. I thought to myself, I can't run without music. There is no way I could run without music. Then on the start line of the Serpentine's New Year 10k, my iPod blinked and turned off on me as we were about to start. I wanted to die. But I was in the company of Charley and we have always ran together in Run Club and she has also ran without music and we have chatted while running before. So I thought, I will just take it easy and not worry about this. After not training for 3 weeks (the two of us, I was ill and she had a serious medical problem which actually, she should not have ran that day) we came home at 46min15sec. I was extremely proud and this was one more barrier I broke.

Then, at We Own the Night, I broke the 45min barrier, when Charley and I chased Mark (one of our friend and pacer at the event). He was the 45minutes pacer but really, we were running faster than a 45minute pace, I am sure of that! When we finished, I turned around and saw that I have just ran my fastest 10k yet, 44min18sec. I could not believe it. In less than a year, I have managed to shave 4 minutes off my 10k time. That is an average 24seconds off every Km, and in my opinion, that's quite a lot. So I decided to take the plunge and move onto my next distance. I did a warm up with Harry Hawkes 10miles, where I did a 1:20:00. Wasn't that fast, but it was ok. When I did my Wimbledon Half, I got my first ever Half Marathon time, 1:42:10. I was quite happy because I wanted my time to be under 1:45:00 and I did that.

When I went home in February that year, I ran with a running crew the first time ever, the Harbour Runners in Hong Kong. Through miscommunication, they thought I ran with Run Dem Crew in London but really I ran with a Nike Club. But I have heard of RDC at that point, just never participated. The two runs I did with them in Hong Kong was so fun that I made sure to keep in touch with as many runners I have met as possible. They have just expanded my running circle of friends internationally. In the summer in London, after much persuasion from Mark and Richard, I went to RDC west and see what all the crazy fuss was about. Wow. If only I have discovered them faster. That day, I met Cory and Ellie, the founders of RDC West, I met Jeggi, who was so patient with us girls attending our first ever track work out, and I also met incredible ladies, like Anika and Sorrell. Then I started my affair with RDC West behind NRC White City's back. Switching between the two (they both had sessions on Monday and Thursday nights!!)

It was also in the summer that I started to take more responsibilities with NRC White City with another fellow runner and slowly we took part as the pacers for the groups. I have never had this type of responsibilities before so this was very fun. My goal was to welcome all the new runners, made sure everyone felt comfortable while integrating workouts I have researched about or took part in that I genuinely believe that will better any runners. I wanted everyone to enjoy every single moment of the work out no matter how gruelling it could be. I took it upon myself to try to play a part within the group that kept up with people's progress, especially newcomers. I tried to take part in organisations for runs, races, as well as social events that would bring the group closers. I will apologise now, for those time if I ever came across bossy, take things way too seriously and just overall too much to bear. I can really get quite intense sometimes without knowing and I do feel bad for those that have to endure it. Thank you if you did and please accept my apologies.

Running Journey Thoughts #3

So I stopped doing these exercise so much and switched to swimming. I made up a plan for myself and it was freestyle 4x25m, then without arm 4x25m, then without leg 4x25m and then back stroke 2x25m. Increasing the reps as I improve my endurance. 

However, money was a bit of a problem back then, I was an oversea students so I had no loans, my parents paid for everything and even though I had a part time job it did not allow me to live lavishly, or that I did not feel right to. So at one point, I reduced my membership to only swimming. This is when I started running. I lived extremely close to Hyde Park, and it would be silly not to take advantage of this beautiful running location. So I went into Nike Town, bought a pair of cheap running shoes on sale. This is how I started my running journey.

I had such a provisional way of calculating my mileage. I go by how many songs I have listened to on my iPod, and then calculating my distance by inputting my route onto Google Map. I have a general idea. After a few months running like this, I took part in my first 10k. It was the After Adoption 10k in Hyde park. Two laps of it starting from near the Gazebo, and ending there. The exact route I can't really remember. It was a very last minute entry and I had no idea what to expect. It wasn't hard but it did not go great, in my opinion. I had stitches, I started off too fast, I pushed on but it was the part of the park that I haven't really ran in. I think my time was 51 minutes and some seconds. When my mum came to me with a banana and water in hand, all I could do was huffed and puffed and got extremely self critical. How could I have done 10k in 51 minutes. I thought I would go home with a good 48-49 minutes. I was running at a pace like that in my practice runs (or so I thought). What went wrong?

After my first race and receiving my first running medal, I went back to Nike and this time, purchased one of those clever Nike+ device which you put in your shoes. I still don't quite understand how they worked, apart from guessing that it has something to do with your weight, the amount of time your feet were in contact with the ground and how heavy your feet touched the ground as the means to calculate all relevant informations.

As I said early on I was still running on my own and racing in only 10k, sparsely throughout the years. When I started a relationship with my boyfriend we went running together also for the period between 2011 september and 2012 april/may. We never ran together that much though especially when he had a different time table to me. Also he is much much faster than me. He really had to pull himself in to be able to run with me and thats not fair on him.

But everything in my running life changed when I joined my first running club, Nike White City Running Club in September 2012. I was in the store shopping for a new pair of frees when I saw their leaflet about a running club. I asked about it and decided to join them for a run a week later. When I attended my first session it was quite intimidating. Everyone looked really proper and fast and everyone knew everyone. But I will never forget how great that run felt. There were people faster and slower than me and I was able to mix in with the group speed wise better than I thought. I don't think I spoke to anyone really that night but it made me wanting to go back and run more with them. Another significant thing was when I went into the store looking for something else, after attending Run Club once or twice more, Mike the run leader remembered me and said Hi to me. I haven't felt part of something other than my university class for quite some time and this really made me feel accepted. I feel like I have now made a new bunch of friends. I started to integrate with the runners more and slowly opening up myself.

Up to this point, I had no idea about my progress in running, speed wise. Yes we were out running and I feel like I was running at a faster speed than I used to be when I was running by myself but I never compared. I was struggling a lot to achieve a better time, in my last two Bupa 10k. The one year between 2011 and 2012 Bupa 10k, I really thought I had improved, I thought I ran faster and I thought I have lost weight and therefore allowing myself to be speedier, I only took 10 seconds off my time and this really really frustrated me to no ends. So my big shock came when a few of us signed up for the South London 10k which took part in Wimbledon, and I came home with 46min and some seconds, shaving a good 2 minutes off my Bupa 10k time which only happened 6 months ago. I essentially reduced the same amount of time in my 10k race in half a year this time, rather than the 2 years before when I progressed from 50min to 48min. I could not believe it, I thought something was wrong with my Nike app. I thought this can't be right, there must have been something wrong.

Running Journey Thoughts #2

Since I was young, I have always ran. Shorter distance though. I remember my first ever race was with my primary school in Hong Kong, the last leg of the 4x100m relay. I trained 'hard' for it and we took home gold. But I never ran much. I specifically remember the running track in Victoria Park in Hong Kong, 600m long and I would complain I was feeling dizzy about may be a lap, or even less. Then I would wait slightly impatiently for my parents as they were completing their multiple laps. I always admired how my dad was able to run 20+ laps. To me, that 600m distance was like a marathon.

Then secondary school came and we were all made to do athletics. Out of 30 or so students, I was second in both 1500m and 800m, for all the years we had to run it. I was quite proud of my results. I was quite proud of most of my results in school when I took part in athletics. I was never the best, but It made me feel good that I was at least in the top something percentage when I really tried.

When I would travel home for holidays, I still tried to go to the park with my parents and run with them. But often I would give up after about 2 or 3 laps. The best I did was 5. But I really really really made myself do it. It was a, it can't be that hard right?

My running life never really took off. I had great time participating in all the other sports available to me in school. I really enjoyed playing team sports. I was extremely competitive and wanted to be a chinese that did well in sports. Even though I took lessons in table tennis and badminton and swimming, I should have known my favourite sport was running. I mean, I was probably the only one kid that got excited whenever I found out we had to do the 'bleep' test. How I loved that test.

After school, when I moved to London I pretty much gave up sports in exchange for dancing in high high platforms until 3 or 4 in the morning, fuelled by mix of alcohol and fried chicken. I guess this is a common rite of passage for anyone moving into the big city (I was in a girl boarding school until the age of 19, with a curfew at 10pm on a friday night in Bristol). My body took a turn for the worse. I lost a lot of weight but that was not healthy. I was eating terrible frozen and takeaway food. I wasn't living an ordered life. There were times when I have a photoshoot coming up (Yes, people wanted to shoot me before, for some reasons…) I would basically starve myself for a couple of days to a week. Then I would binge thinking I can reward myself. I lost a lot of weight, and then I put on a lot of weight, way more than I lost.

At one point, I was looking at size 14 and large size clothing in shops.

I thought, I really needed to change. So the second year I was in London, I joined a gym after I moved to my new home for the next 3 years. I started off by running my butt off on a treadmill (often racing the guy next to me in terms of, who can run the longest). Then I transferred those energy onto those stepping machines that is meant to be better for your knees than treadmills. After that, I started looking at classes. At one point, I was doing Body Combat 3 times a week, Body Pump once and LBT twice. I started to feel better about myself. However all these intense exercise starts to create muscles in unwanted places in my body, more specifically my calves.

I am going to say this now, I STILL HAVE MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH THE SIZE OF MY CALVES.

Running Journey Thoughts #1

I have decided. I will finally take the plunge. Next year, 2015, I will complete my first marathons. And if things go well, I might even do my second one too.

There. I have said it. I have posted this on public domain and therefore cannot go back on myself anymore.

I have been running since the end of 2009. Having just discovered some new nike running shoes and the Nike+app. However, the main reason I started running was because I no longer want to pay the odd £36/month for my gym membership (which thinking about it now, why did I not?) I completed my first 10k, I think in March 2010, when my mum came to visit, I threw a bit of a fit when I finished over my desired time by over a minute or so. Sorry Mum that I took it out on you, when you stood in the cold cheering and waiting for me.

Then in October 2010, I did my second 10k. Time only improved by a few seconds.

In May 2011, I took part in my first ever Bupa 10k (which I would go on to complete, hopefully, every year - apart from 2014 where I was away working in Rome).

Then a year went by without any races, until May 2012, I took part in the Bupa 10k again, and this year my mum came and saw me again. Although my time has improved since my first ever race, it was still no good. Luckily this time I appreciated the fact my mum came and supported me so I did NOT throw a tantrum. I just sourly accepted my not-so-great time and moved on.

Throughout these time, I have always been running, mostly twice or three times a week. Shifting from a pair of not so famously named Nike shoes with supports, to a pair of Nike Free Run when I was introduced to them. I had no idea about running forms or which part of the feet to land.

Actually, I lied. I did know some. Because of my father.

He has been running since the 90s and had built up his distance and endurance. He didn't compete in a lot of races, as there weren't many in Hong Kong, but for 6-7 years consecutively he ran the Standard Chartered Half Marathon in Hong Kong and my mum, once again would stand in the rain, in the sun, in the cold and in the dark, cheering and waiting for my dad. His best time was 1:33:05.

My dad's only sport was running. He could not swim, he did not have a bike, he never joined the gym. His only activity was pounding the pavement for 30 years or more. I hope I do not jinx it by saying this now, but he has never had an injury. Sure he might had cramps during races or something, but he had never had any other types of runners' injuries. He never really cared much about his footwear either. The cheaper they were, the better. He never really calculated the miles he ran in them either. Only when the sole starts to wear away to the point where you can no longer see the pattern carved in, or that the sole has started to blend in with the rest of the shoe because of how often they were pressed against the pavement would he consider changing his footwear. I admire my father extremely for this. And I listen to him all the time when he is giving me advice about running forms.

Since I was 14/15, he always said the following 'Don't land in front of your knee, always pull your stomach in, bring your buttocks up, and rotate your waist while running. Land on the balls of your feet and now the heels.' 

I never really understood how my dad knew about these, I just presumed that he discovered them through trial and error. I am extremely thankful to him for these tips and to these days, he still goes by them and I can see the a lot of the running communities also.

First post test

It has been such a long time since I wrote a blog post. This blog will mostly serve with the purpose of me writing and expressing myself. I don't really think my life is very interesting and don't really expect anyone to be interested about it. This blog is not a platform for me to show off my life (as I have nothing to show off about). I am more keen to write again.

I have enjoyed writing since an early age and I used to write in chinese. Then after I moved country I started exploring my options with all the english vocabs available to me. I wrote short stories, long stories, fictions, fan fictions, scripts. All sorts. At one point, I really wanted to become a writer or a playwright.

Then I got distracted with art and design.

In my opinion, literature and design goes hand in hand. They have influenced each other since the time began but for me, literature is more for reading.

Because I have found another outlet for self expression I have slowly shifting my attention solely to drawing and making and don't write anymore.

I have picked up my pen a few times to write some diary entries here and there, or that I have wrote letters for my family and friends, or very short essays, just to keep the fluency of my writing skills, mostly with my chinese (I do not want to become one of those that forget how to read or write chinese just because I have been living overseas)

Having a blog will allow me to pick up my virtual pen again and write more freely, without worrying about my terrible handwriting which leads to essays never to be read again. 

I understand the internet is a place as anonymous as you want it to be, and I am not very anonymous. People will know what I wrote and will judge and comment on what I write. So I want to say in advance that these are some very personal thoughts that I do share, solely based on the fact that I hope it will only be mostly my friends who read this and therefore will overlook some contents as my personality flaws and not judge me by it.

Also, I hate proof reading. This is a blog, not my thesis. I will make mistakes, mostly grammatical mistakes as that has never been my strong point, but I just want to type these words as they flow into my mind freely and not have to worry about going back on my thoughts and checking on every single small details.

I look forward to filling this blog with words and sometimes photos of knits and runs.