Balancing Priorities: Sport and Socializing

Joy here...Well, I've been travelling again, and I've been faced with working out less and being frustrated with myself as a result.  And no matter how many times I throw my hands up in the air and blame my lack of focus and dedication to my workouts on a straightforward lack of time or on scheduling and travelling woes, I can't escape the sinking feeling that really the flaws are mine and mine alone.

Another day, another airport...

And I hate that feeling.

I hate feeling like my failures to appropriately organize and prioritize my time so that I can hit my workouts as planned and be prepared for the next two races (gulp!) that I've signed up for are a reflection of my failings as a person.  But no matter how much I hate feeling like a failure and how much I hate having to face the fact that it's not the big, bad world's fault that I can't seem to be organized enough to work out as planned, I can't escape the fact of my own failings forever.

So I've had to do some tough love with myself lately.

I've had to face the fact that while other people are able to prioritize their workouts, and let other things slide, when it comes to balancing socializing with sport, I choose socializing over sport every time.  You see, I remember when I was in Ottawa, and The Man and I were heading out with some of our running friends for dinner.  One of the girls was late for dinner, and as she showed up - flushed and breathless - she said, "Oh, I'm sorry to be late, I had to fit in my run before coming."  It was no big deal, and we had a great dinner.  But I thought about that, and I think in a similar situation where I had a scheduled run and a dinner planned, I would automatically choose to skip the run and be on time for dinner.  It was a revelation to me to realize that not everyone would make the same choice.  And so I began to see my failures to hit my workouts as a series of choices that I had made, not some result of inevitable scheduling conflicts.

A Caesar and Poutine...my first dinner back in Canada!

You see, I just got back from nearly 2 weeks in Canada; I was there for meetings but had a chance to visit with friends and family as well.  And while I was there, I predictably worked out basically not at all and am now back in Kuala Lumpur with the familiar sinking feeling of coming back from a loss of fitness.  I will have to claw and climb my way out of the hole that I have dug for myself.

And how did I did this hole?

Easily.

Out for my own birthday dinner (cake over a run workout
any day!!)

I chose to visit with friends and family over working out.  Instead of balancing my time and being able to both visit AND work out, I crammed any unscheduled time with visiting.  I found myself going from one friend's house to then heading out to dinner with other friends.  When I had a free moment on my first day back, I could have headed out for a run to loosen up my legs after the plane, but I went to a friend's house for a surprise coffee with her instead. I also found myself rushing home from a meeting to be able to sneak in an afternoon at the zoo with my nephew.  Instead of running early in the morning, I took the wee pre-dawn hours as an opportunity to have a cup of coffee with my sister.  Rather than foregoing the glass of wine with dinner so that I could run afterwards, I relaxed into my evening with my dad and had both wine AND dessert, making any post-dinner workout impossible.  Instead of blocking off time to catch up on workouts, I blocked off time to have some of my high school girlfriends over for brunch.  Rather than taking an afternoon run, I headed to my brother's office to participate in the surprise birthday cake for his 35th birthday.  Or when I could have rushed home from a meeting to sneak in a workout before packing and getting ready for the plane, I rushed over to a friend's house to see her and her 9 month old son one more time before leaving the country.  In each and every instance, I chose socializing over hitting my run workouts.  And the strange thing about all this is that while I recognize in that my utter and complete failure to adequately manage my time and meet my workout goals and responsibilities, I am convinced that I would do the same thing in the same circumstance again.  Even in seeing my culpability here, I wouldn't do anything different.

Hanging out with the nephew, a peacock feather,
and a penguin at the zoo.

While for some people working out is in and of itself a good to be sought, a thing to be protected, and something to be prioritized, I have to admit that socializing comes first for me, and my workouts are always best if they are also social.  As much as I enjoy the meditative feeling of running by myself, I enjoy socializing with others more, so if I'm able to combine my sport with others - like in 2012, the summer of the cycling sisterhood, or 2010 when Nomi and I first learned to run and ran our first ever half marathons - then I'll be a-okay, but if left to myself I'm not entirely sure that I'll always carve out the appropriate time for sport.

Now that I've identified the root of my failing here, I'm not 100% sure what the implications are for my sporting goals - a 10km race in November and another 10km race in December - but I at least have taken a moment to identify and interrogate my own motivations so that I don't always just beat myself up for being a failure when it comes to my workouts.

Wish me luck...and better than that...say you'll come out for a run with me!

Over and out,
Joy

First Bike Ride in a Loooooong Time

Joy here...So at the end of August last summer (2012) I raced in the Ontario provincial Time Trial championships on my bike - placing 6th in my category - and I went into the winter off season thinking that I'd build up fitness and form on my bike and start this new season (2013) with monster cyclist legs like tree trunks, lungs that could inflate a hot air balloon, and mad skills to make people wonder whether or not I was doping.

The cyclist grandson who gets kidnapped in
the fabulous movie The Triplets of Belleville would have
nothing on my awesome cycling physique.

But to misquote Ursula the sea witch from The Little Mermaid:  things were NOT working out according to my ultimate design (see this summary blog post from May if you're curious as to what went wrong).

As I put my plan of becoming a superfit bike racer on the backburner and dusted off my running shoes to get some running fitness back, I just didn't prioritize getting out there on the bike.

The result of that is that I went out for one bike ride in Canada before leaving for Malaysia, and I've done one bike ride since arriving.

But this morning changed all that.

I dusted off my lycra, febreezed my helmet, and wiped off my shoes to get ready to head out the door to ride up a hill that is a favourite amongst Kuala Lumpur cyclists.

I'm not going to lie to you, I was a bit nervous about this decision to hop on a bike and commence climbing up consistently for about an hour, with parts of the climb reaching an incline of 9%.  But I figured that I owed it to myself and my awesome bike to give it a try.

So try is what I did.

The blue sky peeking out, the tall grass, and the trees
beyond, as The Man pauses beside the road
marker that reads "K. Lumpur 38."

But as Yoda says:  "Do or do not. There is no try."  Today, mighty Yoda, I did it!

The morning was around 24C and very humid; soon we started riding our bikes up the climb, with the lush tropical jungle all around us - rising up over the cliffs to our right and dropping off into the ravines to our left - and the blue sky peeking out from watercolour white clouds as the early morning mists began to dissipate across the canopy.  Thick leaves drooped down from high trees, and I felt like I was on the set of Jurassic Park, only this setting is real, full of the smells and sounds of a city built in amidst the jungle.

The first part of the climb wasn't too steep, and I wasn't feeling taxed.  I had to pee like crazy, but other than that, I wasn't uncomfortable.  About 3kms in, my bladder was about to explode, so I parked my bike off to the side, wandered into the jungle, and within about 2meters I couldn't see the road anymore due to the lush greenery.  I dropped my cycling drawers and did the deed, hoping against hope that no snakes would see my big, white moon as a target.

The overpass marking the end of the climb.  See all
the cyclists gathered around?

After emerging unscathed and much relieved, we carried on with our ride, the gradient increasing ever steadily.  When I stopped concentrating on my rhythmic breathing and looked around me, the sights were truly awe inspiring.  This city has some of the most majestic scenery that you could ever hope to see, with old jungle growing tall and proud against red hills and granite cliffs. It makes you feel like you should have David Attenborough narrating in the background.

The climb pitches up steeply just before the end, but then rolls nicely to the finish, which is marked by an overpass; gathered beneath the overpass are many Sunday cyclists, their bikes leaning to the side, their bodies showing the relaxation of achieving their cycling goal for the day.  And as I got within sight of them--dzzzzzzt--I shifted from my easy gear to my big ring and pedalled powerfully towards them, slowing just before dipping down the hill on the other side.

Jurassic Park (you know, minus the dinosaurs)

I turned around and began the switchbacking, winding road down from the peak.  Imagine surfing through an aqua barrel wave, surrounded by an arch of teal water over your head as your board slices almost silently forward through this magical pocket.  Now imagine it faster.  Now imagine that instead of a barrel of water, you're rip-roaring on your bike as green, tropical foliage drapes over you as you hug the side of the road.  If you've imagined that right, then you've probably captured a fraction of the fun I had as I tore down from the top of the climb.

So you know what?  I think I'm gonna do that again.

Over and out,
Joy

Today's Ride Stats:
Rode uphill for 14.88kms for a total elevation increase 484m (about half the total elevation gain in Gatineau Park), and I averaged 15.2km/hr, barely breaking a sweat!  Then I turned around and rip roared down the hill, around the twisty turns, and arrived safely and soundly at the car!

Life is a Highway

Joy here...I really love the metaphor that life is a highway.

I remember some 20 years ago when I was in high school and my friends and I would raise our arms, clapping along (me probably slightly off-beat) and blurting out the lyrics at the top of our lungs (me probably very off-tune) with Tom Cochrane.

But somehow like some guy whose glory days were back in the halls of his high school as he reigned supreme on some varsity team and dated some cheerleader, his life never reaching that pinnacle again, I seem to have forgotten the forward-motion implied in the life is a highway metaphor.

Vintage Joy:  The Highschool Years

You see, I never was a super athlete with all sorts of glory days to fall back on.  But as I grapple with feeling a sense of fitness loss right now, I can't help but think of things in terms of "recapturing" or "getting back" former levels of fitness rather than just an onward trajectory through life.  It's as though on some level I'm thinking well, I used to be fit, so I just need to get back to that fit place.  When, in fact, that's a rather bizarre way to think about life.

If life is a highway, then the metaphor would suggest that as I trundle along, there'll be speed traps, wrong exits, hills, valleys, passing lanes, and toll booths that I will go through all before the day that I close my eyes for good (which is hopefully a long way off).  But thinking about "recapturing" or "getting back" something from the past implies a kind of weird circularity to this highway...more like contrived race track that just goes around and around and around...

Who knows what lies beyond the dark and twisty turns of
life's highway?

And since I truly believe that sport is a metaphor for life, and the lessons it can teach go way beyond how far you might run, how fast you might be, or how your race went.  So as I grapple with my fitness not being exactly where I'd like it to be in the here and now, I'm going to remind myself to resist the temptation of thinking about my past fitness.

Life is a highway, and I might be in the slow lane now, but watch out...I like to go fast!

So if I've not really hit all my run workouts as I would have liked since returning from Australia, well, I'm just going to keep my eyes on the horizon before me as the highway stretches onward!

Over and out,
Joy

PS - Here are my run stats for the last week since our return:
Aug 28: Ran for a total of 18:56 for a distance of 3.09km with an avg. pace of 6:07min/km.
Aug 29: Ran for a total of 15:02 for a distance of 2.5km with an avg. pace of 6:01min/km.
Aug 31: Ran for a total of 30:00 for a distance of 5.1km with an avg. pace of 5:53min/km.
Sept 2: Ran for a total of 20:00 for a distance of 3.2km with an avg. pace of 6:15min/km.
Sept 4: Ran easy for 20 minutes (didn't wear Garmin, so lacking full data)
Sept 5: Ran for a total of 15:17 for a distance of 2.5km with an avg. pace of 6:07min/km.

Running Down Unda!

Australian Parliament

Joy here...From January until June when we left Canada for Malaysia, I spent more time in airports and on airplanes than I ever thought I would.  I fell off my workouts entirely, and have been struggling to get back into the swing of things ever since.  However, since arriving in Kuala Lumpur and getting settled, by mid-August I was starting to feel like I was turning the corner to being a runner again.  I huffed and puffed much less on my runs, and I was hitting more of my workouts than not, and even getting in my targeted hours of running per week.

But then I got on another plane.

Yet all was not lost.

Not yet at least.

We landed in Canberra, the capital city of Australia and checked into our hotel.  The Man had completed his Master's degree in Canberra some 14 years ago, and he was invited there to speak at a conference on Malaysian law and politics.  I brought my laptop along with me and planned to do some of my own work.  But, of course, I also planned to run.

The Man doin' his thing!

On our first day there, once we had checked in, we changed into our running gear and headed out to run around the ANU campus.  Now after that run, I'm convinced that university campuses the world over are all created equal.  This one was like so many others I've been to, beautiful natural scenery somehow not fully taken advantage of by the seemingly hodge podge collection of university buildings.  And like other universities, there are plenty of shiny, new buildings all the while moneys for full professors, scholarships, and actual research is shrinking.

But as we ran, I thought about none of those things and just enjoyed the upside down world of "down unda" where trees shed their bark rather than their leaves, and swans are black rather than white.

We ticked off our 40 minutes and headed out to dinner with The Man's former M.Phil. supervisor.  Okay, day one - check!

Running around the ANU...

...okay, done running!

Then I spent some time doing work and sight-seeing around Australia's capital, a "city" that is very pretty - bright blue skies, beautiful greenery, and urban lakes - but rather sedate.  After wandering through museums and developing blisters, I headed back for a dinner at the Malaysian High Commission.

The following day we decided to go for a run around Lake Burley Griffin, a man-made lake in the heart of Canberra.  The winds were high, and we had to run around some Aussie boys who were drunk, beer bottles in hand, by 11:00am, but we were undaunted.  We ran with Telstra Tower rising up from Black Mountain to our right and the lake to our left, the sky threatening but not delivering rain.  We chatted, we laughed, and we decided that as lovely as Canberra is, we don't necessarily want to live there.

Lake Burley Griffin

Yet another run under our belts - check!

We headed back to the hotel and headed out for Nonya food in a suburb of Canberra and packed our bags for the next leg of our Australian trip:  Adelaide.

We got up bright and early on Friday morning and headed to Adelaide.  But when we got to Adelaide, we were shocked by just how cold it still was - both inside and out - and opted for visiting with our friends, going on a wine tour, enjoying a driving tour of the sights and sounds of Adelaide, and gorging on amazing home-cooked meals over working out.  So that was a weekend with no running.

Now I'm back in KL and back where I started from.  I feel a little like Paula Abdul in the pre-Idol days.

Over and out,
Joy

Run Stats:
1st run:  Ran for 40:00.34 for a distance of 6.41km with an avg pace of 6:14min/km
2nd run:  Ran for 60:00.01 for a distance of 10km with an avg pace of 6:00min/km

KL Crime and Running Alone

Joy here...Just as we arrived in Malaysia in June an online site posted its list of the "10 most dangerous cities in the world," pegging Kuala Lumpur in the number sixth spot.  Everyone from our friends here to the mainstream media were quick to point out the problems with this list - from the absent metholodology for their ranking, to the bias that saw KL making the list but Kabul being left off, to official statistics claiming a decrease in crime of 27% rather than an increase in 70% as the ranking posits - but anecdotally speaking, Kuala Lumpur isn't the safest place in the world when it comes to certain kinds of crime.

For instance, in the last two months since our arrival, there have been a couple of high-profile shootings.  Now, shootings used to never be a problem in Kuala Lumpur, but organized crime and official "hits" are now becoming more common.  This is a big city problem (I can't help but think of sketchy parts of LA), and I'm not sure that KL has the policing professionalism or task force to deal with it.  (In fact, police brutality, corruption, a culture of impunity, and collusion has been cited as main problems contributing to KL's crime problem.)

A sign is better than nothing, but increased and professional
police/security solving the problem might be better!

And beyond targeted shootings that hopefully wouldn't affect me personally, there are other kinds of crime that are pretty worrying.

The other day, just beyond the guard house that leads to our neighbourhood, one of the cleaning ladies who works up the hill from us was walking down the hill to catch her bus home.  It was still during Ramadhan - a time of reflection and spirituality for Muslims the world over - and as she walked, she was attacked by two guys on a motorcycle, armed with a machete. They grabbed her purse, and when she resisted, they cut her multiple times along the arm.  Bleeding and crying, she made her way to the guard house and the police were called.  They showed up the next day, more than 24 hours later.  A lot of good help they'd do then!

Just this Monday, a friend of ours (who I've even blogged about before), was getting set to drive from KL back to Singapore where he is based.  He had his car loaded up with all his worldly belongings:  passport, laptop, suitcase, and a friend's bike was racked up top.  And well, what do you do before a road trip?  You often stop at an ATM to make sure you have cash for the road.  So that's what our friend did.  He pulled up, parked his car, went into the ATM, and on his way out, he was approached by two guys wielding a long machete who demanded his wallet and car keys.  He handed it all over and was stuck standing in a parking lot with nothing.  Hours later he had made his police report and visited the British High Commission to get a new passport, but has likely seen the last of everything else he lost to two armed burglars.

These two incidents hit a little too close to home for me.

They make me see that crime isn't necessarily something "out there" that happens to "other people" somewhere else that won't touch me.  Rather the Kuala Lumpur crime problem may just be increasing, which means that I have to be extra careful.  In living in any big city, there are certain risks.  One needs to be careful and vigilant; being a woman makes vigilance second-nature; and so I have to be conscious and mindful not just when I'm out and about doing my day-to-day things here, but also (and perhaps more importantly) when I'm out running.

Running alone.  Let's hope that I'm safe.

I mentioned the risks of the monkeys swarming my previous running loop, and their increasing aggression, and how I had to find the loop in my little gated community as my place to run, and now I headed out there for my first 1 hour run in months and months and months, and instead of running through some of the beautiful neighbourhoods and scenery around here, I just ran 20 loops of my safe and guarded neighbourhood, waving to my neighbours walking their dogs and making friends with as many folks as possible.

So while I'm proud of myself for hitting my long run target time for the first time since getting to KL; and while I'm happy and safe in my own neighbourhood; it saddens me that KL, such a wonderful city with such amazing potential, may just be walking the razor's edge between being a live-able city and one too ridden by crime to be habitable.

For me...I'll just keep my pepper spray handy when I run alone!

Over and out,
Joy

Run Stats:
Ran for 1hr for a distance of 9.95km with an avg pace of 6:02min/km

Feeling like a runner again...

Joy here...It's been nearly 2 months since we arrived in Malaysia to start this next adventure in our lives, and I've spent a lot of that time since arriving whinging about not being in shape, or opining about feeling like I have no running fitness.  I cringe when I look at my past blog entries, because they read as a litany of whining and complaining, and I'm usually one with little patience for whiners and complainers.

But as with anything, the only way to move forward is to just take one step at a time.  No one achieved anything on the back of a mountain of complaining.

And at least I can say for myself that along side my complaints, I have been taking those steps forward.

Those are looking like runners toes to me!

In fact, I've taken enough of those steps forward, one after the other, that I'm starting to feel like I'm only a few small steps away from being able to call myself a runner.  I've even got the gnarly bruised toes to show for it!

It's been nearly 3 years since my co-blogger Nomi wrote about our bruised toes, and it feels like it's been almost that long since I've felt like I've had any running fitness.

But, yet, as each day unfolds and I get myself out the door to run loops around my taman or do my drills as ordered by Coach Woods, I'm getting closer and closer to hitting 100% of my workouts, and closer and closer to feeling like a runner.

Now why, you might wonder, would feeling like a runner even matter.

The answer is rather simple, running is a metaphor for life.  You don't get better at it by whining and complaining.  You don't achieve your goals unless you get out the door.  You don't improve without failing and floundering a bit first.  And you will never ever get where you want to go without a bit of pain along the way.

So when I write that I feel like I'm getting my running a bit more on track, what I'm really saying is that amidst the insanity of setting up shop in a new city, in a new country, I'm also maybe - just maybe! - getting my life back on track too.

Over and out,
Joy

Here are my run stats since my last post:
Tuesday - Ran for 30 minutes for a distance of 5:41km with an easy pace of 5:33min/km
Wednesday - Day Off
Thursday - Easy 15 minute warm up, followed by drills, and then 2 X 5 minutes at Tempo
Friday - Ran for 25 minutes for a distance of 4.28km with an easy pace of 5:56min/km
Saturday - Easy 15 minute warm up, followed by drills, and then 5 hill repeats
Sunday - Went swimming for an hour at a friend's house

And now it's a new week, and we'll see what I can do!

A Step in the Right Direction

Joy here...On June 14th we arrived in Kuala Lumpur for our 12 to 24 month trial (which might turn into resettlement if all goes well).  We spent the first night in our new apartment on July 4th, had our first dinner guests over for pizza on July 5th, our second for cold dinner July 7th, and were able to cook a real meal with our stove on July 8th.  The Man's mom finally came by to check out our new place on July 10th, and we moved our bags over from my cousins' house where we had been staying on the weekend of July 13th.  On July 17th our first guests from Canada arrived, and on August 5th our guests left.

The man waving from the screened-in patio of our new place!

In there we hosted a house-warming party, had friends and colleagues over, met new friends, headed out to dinners/drinks with friends/colleagues; we bought a car, registered and insured it, and even managed to ding it already; we bought bits of furniture for our apartment (including a sofabed that's big enough for guests); we went through all the paperwork to register our consulting company in Malaysia; we continued with our own work-related projects - The Man working on a few articles and conference papers, especially in preparation for our upcoming trip to Australia where he will be featured on Aussie TV, and me working on Canadian Museum for Human Rights-related issues (including participating in numerous conference calls beginning at 4am KL time!) as well as a number of other editing/writing and education-related projects that I have on the go - we balanced bill-payments and responsibilities of a home in Ottawa and one in Kuala Lumpur, and generally we have been busy, busy, busy.

So maybe it's not surprising that I've felt my fitness wane in direct proportion to the increase of my midsection.

The bright, late afternoon sky and the condos up on the hill
overlooking our little taman that lies midway up the hill.

I've blogged about my lack of commitment to training during this busy transition period as well as opting for playing tour-guide and hostess to working out, but slowly I'm getting back into the swing of things.

For the past four weeks, Coach Woods has scheduled 4.5hours of workouts for me each week.  And, well, on week #1 I did 0 hours, on week #2 I did .5 hours, on week #3 I did 1.5 hours, and at the close of week #4 I completed 2.75 hours.  Now those hour counts are sadly embarrassing.  I mean, I should be up to around 7 hours per week (which is only an average of 1 hour per day!), and even though I've fallen far short of a very conservative plan, at least I'm moving in the right direction!

So at the start of week #5, I had a 60 minute run scheduled.  I had the best of intentions to get out there for the full 60 minutes; I thought I had timed everything properly, but with a taxi booked to take our guests to the airport at 7pm and the need to run, shower, make dinner, and eat it before-hand, somehow the day just got away from me, and I was lucky to squeeze in half of that planned workout.

Let's see how the rest of this week goes!!!

Over and out,
Joy

Run Stats for Monday:
Ran for 27:10.26 for a distance of 5.01km with an average pace of 5:26min/km.