Friday, April 3, 2009
Long Long time since...
The last few weeks have been very very quiet and to tell you the truth I haven't been involved in many trips, explorations or races that I could use to make a killer entry into the blog and get you guys to read such entry with baited breath (like you have been reading every single one of them up to this point). The obligatory weather report: it is just as cool as in February and we are in April, no sign of heat but the humidity is here... I don't remember the last time the sun came out from behind the fog, mist, low clouds, pollution or whatever you want to call it. I am sure that spring in either Budapest, Boston or Toronto is much nicer than the one in Hong Kong.
I just concluded another what I hope will be a successful training period as I am preparing for the Nagano Marathon in Japan on April 19th. Cool temperatures and low humidity should be the key to go sub 2:40. I am chasing this dream and I hope it will happen this time 'cause the motivation is fading a little. I hope it's just the sign of a long season which started a week after my arrival last August. My legs feel it and my mental approach suffers as well so I am hoping that I can do one more big thing in Japan coming up in 2 weeks. More on that later, in about a month or so. After the race I will spend a few days in Osaka and Kyoto with Marce (a very dear friend/ex-coworker from Toronto).
For Easter I will head to mainland China for the first time since coming to Hong Kong. Paying over HKD 300 (around CAD 50) for a single entry visa, we were able to book an overnight bus trip from Shenzhen to Yang Shuo. It will be an experience as many of my local co-workers were surprised that we would have the guts to attempt such a trip. I thought they worried for our possessions being stolen but it turns out that they mostly feared due to the poor driving ability of the drivers. It will be a quick trip and this place is probably the best introduction to life in China away from big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai as it is much much smaller but yet it is the biggest tourist attraction around. Many stores are geared towards tourists coming from HK and Easter should provide for a great atmosphere. I am heading down there (or up there?) with a friend that I have met through running, Steve from England who is in town teaching ESL as well as English literature in a local school. It promises to be an interesting trip, pics and stories to follow... Check out some info on the place on wikipedia...
I would like to write a few lines on a much lighter and far less interesting trip I took a couple of weeks ago. Sitting home on a Saturday morning and having just finished my weekly cleaning session (yes, i have instituted such a thing) it was 11 am and I was looking for some new things to do and new places to visit when I stumbled across a note from a co-worker who recommended visiting this small island about a 30-35 minute ferry ride from Central Hong Kong called Cheung Chau. It is a quiet island where the only way in-and-out is through the water which makes it peaceful, clean and quiet. Not so much in the central area of the village where seafood restaurants line the shore hoping for travellers to grab a quick lunch as they get off the ferry from Central or grab a nice dinner before heading back to urban jungle of Hong Kong. A few minute walk away from the port area, Cheung Chau turns into a quiet island 'resort' with quite frankly not that much to do. There is a path that my guidebook recommended that I follow and that's exactly what I did. It passed a few local temples, some smaller streets, supposedly famous local restaurants, a walking path through the nicer residential areas, a Catholic Cemetery and ending at the cave of Cheung Po Tsai. It really is nothing special but - as I later found out - there was a character based on this pirate in the movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'.
Well, check out the pics by clicking...... HERE
I am glad some of you guys are planning to come out to 1. visit HK 2. visit me 3. temporarily extinguish my homesickness... Is there such a word?
One more thing: Hungary beats Malta 3-0 and is in 2nd place in World Cup soccer qualifying for South Africa 2010. Oh boy, what it would bring to the country if those guys could make it....
Friday, March 13, 2009
Unnecessary Blog Entry
There are some nice events, visits and small trips that I will take within the next few months internationally but also locally within Hong Kong. It is frustrating to see how many places there are around here to visit and experience... One step at a time...
More soon, I promise. :)
Friday, February 13, 2009
Summer time - HK style
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Hong Kong Marathon - Feb 8, 2009
It has been a while since the last update to my blog as the last couple of weeks have been extremely busy. The last week of hard training was completed just as my mom arrived to
Well, the day finally arrived. February 8th, 2009, the Standard Chartered Hong Kong International
After spending most of the day on Saturday at home watching TV and reading Harry Potter I loaded up on pasta for lunch as well as dinner. I had my veggies too and drank plenty of water to be ready for the big race. It was an odd yet peaceful day since this was the first time that I actually spent in my own home before any marathon I have ever run… After a good night of rest the alarm went off at 4:45. I grabbed a few toasts with strawberry jam for breakfast, followed by a banana and a bottle of Gatorade. The Hong Kong Marathon and its half-marathon along with a 10km race is so large (all sold out – around 30,000 10km runners, 15,000 for the half-marathon and 8000 for the full marathon) that public transportation started two hours earlier to provide transport for all the runners to the start line. Travelling on the subway at 5:30 am on a Sunday I was surrounded by nobody but runners, it was a strange but a rather neat experience.
I arrived at the start area at 6 am, about two hours before the race started. My mind was already going 100 miles / hour listening to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ by Queen, ‘On My Own’ by Hedley, ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ by Bon Jovi and ‘Till I Collapse’ by Eminem… I managed to snap a few pictures before the half-marathoners went off in style in multiple waves at 7am after which I slowly made my way to the baggage trucks. The weather was way too pleasant and never had to deal with any throw-away shirts, gloves or hats. It was around 20C and a bit on the humid side. Before depositing my bag, I had to listen one more time to ‘Eye of the Tiger’ for some added ‘psyching-up’ and off I went. After a quick warm-up, some minor stretching, and a visit to the quite Asian ‘let’s-squat-and-hope-not-to-miss’ porta-potties I was off towards the starting line with 25 minutes to spare. The front of the line was crowded like ummmm, like…… like….. like
So off we are!
We leave the Golden Mile in Tsim Sha Tsui (a glamorous, well-lit area of Souther Kowloon that is notorious for its designer shops) behind and head north towards the
The course turns north to head towards – what else? – another bridge.
Knowing this, I realized that meeting my goal based on how I felt at this point in the race would be a tough chore so I had a decision to make. Ease the pace to rest a little. If so, I might waste away precious seconds that I could use for the biggest climb of the course at 36km when the course picks up almost 50 meters in elevation in the matter of 1.2 KM. Or, I can choose to keep with the pace and have faith and confidence in my training that despite the heat (almost 22C by this time) the humidity (over 60%), and the climb waiting ahead I will be able to finish strong. I chose the latter. After all, ‘only those willing to go too far can find out how far they can really go.’
After another quick dip in the tunnel on the way back south towards
Entering into the
Now that the tunnel was behind me I still had an onramp to deal with. Wow, what a humbling experience. Breathing got deeper, legs were getting heavier, and sweat was pouring down my face but I kept repeating my mantra “tough times don’t last, tough people do” when finally the end of the onramp was in sight. As the road curved eastbound towards
I kept thinking of Roger’s words to me the day before the race, tried to dig deep which I continuously was trying to do. Unfortunately there was nothing there. Nothing whatsoever. Within a KM after this point I am passed by the only runner that got the better of me on this day, a local runner who was nice enough to think that I might give him a challenge. I wished him good luck and told him “I can’t go but you stay strong, see you at the finish” Off he went and within another KM he was almost 60-70 meters ahead of me.
At 40km I was greeted by a couple of training partners who ran the half-marathon earlier in the day but even their enthusiastic words meant nothing to me. Passing a few construction sights in the 41st kilometer and having to breathe in all the dust on top of the high Air Pollution Index was almost as bad as climbing Heartbreak Hill and smelling the BBQs as spectators are having a leisurely picnic to celebrate
A quick climb and we were in
To my biggest surprise, there were no medical personnel around, no volunteers to help the runners and absolutely nobody to hand out water at all. It was as if I just ended a long training run… I felt really abandoned standing there, which I think will be my only reason why I will never run this race again. I managed to gather a few bottles of distilled water (!!!!) and a few Chinese pears and headed towards the bag check area. I was in a bad mood but the school kids that were working at the baggage truck welcomed me with the biggest smile and cheer. “You are the first one to claim!” they said and gave me a round of applause. It made me smile and was the appropriate way to end the day.
I left the area as quickly as possible to find my mom, took some pictures, and relaxed a little. There was no need to even change or put on a sweater, temps were around 24C by this time. We made our way out of the park and headed to the Windsor House for – what else? – Dim Sum to celebrate the day. We met up with all the runners that I had trained together with over the past few months and ate excessively. We shared stories, we all complained about the same thing (runners tend to do that) but all-in-all everyone had a good day.
The course was an ugly ‘mo-fo’ and there was virtually no fan support anywhere before the 39km mark. Forget the distilled water that they were providing on the course as the minerals could be easily obtained from neatly packaged sports drinks and bananas that seemed to be in abundance all throughout the course. The hilly course and the weather combined made this race as challenging as any other marathon I have ever run. For the first time I can safely say that unless this is your first marathon this is unquestionably not a PB course. My efforts were definitely worthy of a PB time but the result simply does not show it…
You may ask why I called this race a rewarding experience in the beginning of this race report… Well, I appreciate the fact now even more that running for a PB should never be the goal for a race. I realized that running to your potential on the given day with the given circumstances is the only realistic aim that one can hope to achieve. Whereas I am as confident as never before that my fitness, speed, and endurance were without a doubt good enough for a sub 2:40 result on this date, I need to draw the conclusion that it simply was not meant to be. I could be disappointed that all the hard work was for nothing or I wasn’t able to dig deep when I really had to. Coming through the finish line my immediate gut instinct was that I had to be satisfied with the race because I left nothing out there and I ran as well as I could on the given date. I right away realized that (after 21 marathons) I can cover this distance even faster and even stronger than what I had just done… This is exactly the reason why I am already in search for the next race where the magical 2:40 will be broken…
I guaran-damn-tee it!
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For pictures, click here... Also feel free to view the starting area an hour before the race in Tsim Sha Tsui and the finishing turn at Victoria Park.