Having Some Fun, Finally

J has been crazy busy at work lately, so we haven't really had much time to spend together and enjoy all the things that London offers during the holiday season.

We managed to squeeze in a ballet, Sleeping Beauty, with one of his work colleagues.

It was truly the best ballet I've ever seen. The choreographer, Matthew Bourne, is pretty well-reknowned and for good cause. It was a modern take on the traditional fairy tale, and I was more than a bit surprised when fairy-vampires and hoodlums in hoodies made an appearance, but it was a fabulous update. The dancers were amazing, and I definitely want to see the choreographer's other production, Swan Lake.

Things at work finally slowed down for J during the weekend, and he decided to humour me in getting up early on Sunday morning to head to Greenwich Park for a 10k Santa Run. It wasn't that cold, but the the wind was pretty strong. I was already dressed pretty warmly (3 pairs of gloves), but I thought that putting on the Santa outfit would be additional protection from the wind.

Unfortunately, it was a bit too big.

I met up with my cousin for a quick meet and greet before we were off.

I don't know what was up with the course since it was pretty disorganised, but it was either too short or I run much faster when I'm surrounded by twenty thousand Santas.

In any case, J was near frozen while waiting for me so we made a quick getaway so I could shower before we hit up Apollo Theatre to watch Twelfth Night, my all-time favourite Shakespeare play.

It was so well-done and hilarious! J and I both agreed that it was the best play we had ever seen, and we were near about rolling on the floor during the whole thing. I would label it a definite don't-miss. Mark Rylance, the guy who played Olivia, was amazing, and I'm a big, big fan. We're already planning on buying tickets to see Richard III to watch him again.

We had some time to kill before our dinner reservations so we wandered around Regent's Street and Carnaby to check out their Xmas decorations.

We ended the night with a veritable feast of Korean food at Asadal and rehashed the Santa run with  my cousin and her boyfriend. A perfect end to a perfect day!

P.S. Excuse the British spelling - it's spellcheck, not me.
P.P.S. And yes, I did cut my hair again. I'm easing J onto the whole short hair thing. ;)

Some More Half-Marathon Moments

And for the finish (I'm on the left hand side)...

I Ran a Half-Marathon!

The Royal Parks Half-Marathon was today, and it was finally time for all of my training to pay off.

I've been training for the last three months, but I haven't been training as hard as I would like what with working full-time and taking care of household chores. According to my training plan, I was supposed to do 33 runs, but I only did 17 runs or so. Epic fail on following the plan, but I was pretty confident that I would at least finish after completing two 11 mile runs in the last two weeks.

Ready or not, race day finally arrived, and strangely enough, I wasn't nervous at all. I had no problem falling asleep last night at a decent hour, and this morning felt like any other morning as I ate my oatmeal and drank my coffee.

We were supposed to arrive at the running area to meet my other running teammates for a group photo, but the tube ride took much longer than anticipated what with all the people heading towards the half-marathon. Then I had to stop by the porta-loos, which had a huge queue, so we basically missed out on the group photo altogether. Sad.

I found my corral, which was completely packed with people. I felt a bit like cattle as they guided us closer and closer to the start line, but we were moving so slowly that J was following along on the spectator side and acting as my own personal paparazzo.

 

Why am I always the smallest person anywhere I go?

We finally got the go ahead to start running, and that's just what I did.

I was careful to watch my pace since I had to keep it up for about 2 hours or so, and I enjoyed looking around as I ran through the streets of London. It was a bit surreal running past Big Ben, and it was at this moment I felt like a true Londoner.

There weren't many spectators out, and I just chugged along with my music blasting. It was a beautiful course even though there were a bit too many slow inclines for my taste. There were lots of water stations, and I had Gu (energy gels) at miles 5 and 9 to keep me going. My only complaint about the course is that it was much too crowded. I was never able to find my groove and just sink into my running - I had to weave and dodge a lot even though there wasn't much room to manuever.

It was also kind of scary seeing people who had pushed themselves too hard and were being tended to by paramedics on the side of the course. One guy was completely laid out and unconscious with an oxygen mask on and a blanket covering his body. Yikes.

My right calf started to cramp up around mile 11, and I took a few walking breaks to see if I could walk it off, but it seemed like the cramp was here to stay so I decided to just keep on running. I also realized that I wasn't going to meet my time goal of under 2 hours so I decided to slow down the pace and just enjoy the rest of the run.

I finished hard and with a smile on my face, and I gave a two thumbs up to the race photographer at the finish. I'm such a nerd.

In any case, my Garmin tells me it took me 2:04 to run 13.3 miles. Where did the extra 0.2 miles come from?! I thought it was supposed to be only 13.1! In any case, I won't know my official time for a few more days, but it was a good first half-marathon, and I'm definitely tempted to sign up for another one.

What's next on the horizon? A Runaway Bride 5k towards the end of November that I'm running for fun with some of my friends. I can't wait.

Run and Repeat

The Royal Parks half marathon is only 9 weeks away now, and I've been freaking out about how close it's getting. I've got two week-long holidays planned between now and the race, and I've been worried that it'll impact my training and I won't be running as much as I should. I don't just want to finish it, I want to run it under 2 hours, so I have the added pressure of becoming a faster runner in that time. Oh, and did I mention that I also signed up for a 10K race on September 4?

I've been running home most days from work, but those tend to just be commuter runs - the sole purpose is to get home in one piece, not to run faster or improve my endurance. Whereas, preparing for the half-marathon requires me to do both.  Poo.

So it was with great trepidation that I headed out to the park today for my "long" run. I didn't have a specific goal in mind, just longer than 7.5 miles would've been good for me. I took the first four miles really slowly and sped up a bit for the following miles until I wrapped up my run at 8.3 miles.

I felt great at the end of my run, and I probably could've even gone farther, but I didn't want to push myself too hard too fast and risk getting injured. It was the first time I felt confident that I could actually do this thing, and I'm actually looking forward to my next long run - I'm thinking around 9.5 or 10 miles or so? Fingers crossed.

Farewell at the Knights Templar

My friend Patrycjya is leaving for Paris tomorrow, and we all got together for one last drink at the Knights Templar at Chancery Lane.

The Knights Templar is part of the Wetherspoons pub chain, and the decor is quite nice with really high ceilings. The bathroom is even nicer and has more lounge seating than actual toilets, believe it or not. Another couple nice things are that the drinks aren't too expensive, and the place was pretty busy but not too packed. They also have a pretty good selection of food, even if the salsa for their nachos did taste like it came out of a jar.

In any case, about twenty of us were there to say farewell to Patrycjya since she's pursuing a much better job opportunity in Paris. I'm happy for her, but at the same time, I'm still sad to see her go.

 

I've promised to visit her in Paris, which is only a 2 1/2 hour train ride away, and she's planning many future trips to London, but it's not the same, especially since she's only recently become my running buddy. But I could always chivvy J to go on runs with me, and it looks like I may be running the Warsaw marathon in Poland with Patrycjya this September, but we'll see if that happens. =)

In any case, I'm off to do one last run with her now!

A Little Rain Must Fall

It's been one of those days where nothing goes right, but I find that I can't be that upset about it. There are all sorts of things going on in the world that are leagues beyond any discomfort that I may be facing, and I'm grateful that my complaints are small.

That being said, I had an absolutely horrible run this morning - the shortest and the slowest run I've had in a while. I wasn't feeling particularly motivated, but I had promised my friend that we would both go running at noon, albeit her at the gym and me at the park. About two minutes into my run, my iPod ran out of juice, proving me wrong in thinking that the poor thing had another hour or so left battery-wise.

I decided to just keep on trucking in silencio, and then a mile later, I ran into a dog fight. Lots of dog owners wander the park without their dogs on leashes, and maybe that's not the brightest idea. Like when your large dog is the kind of dog that likes to chase and bite other strange, large dogs. I couldn't run through the dog fight so I waited and watched as the owners attempted to pull them away from each other. After the dogs were separated, I got out of there quick, but I did hear them starting up again right as I left. Leashes, people!

I was glad to escape the dogs, but I couldn't escape the rain. It started out as a drizzle, but then it started raining in earnest. I tried to keep on running while wiping the running water from my eyes and telling myself that it would stop eventually, but I finally called it a day after a paltry three miles when I saw even the rugby players packing it in. And they don't stop for nothing. Besides, I hate running in the rain - I can hardly see and I kick up muck on the back of my legs and ankle blisters are a near certainty.

Sad and dejected, I went home to dry off and await the arrival of the decorator (US: painter) and the grocery delivery. Then I had to cancel the decorator because we're having some water leakage issues, and I discovered the grocery delivery truck is going to be an hour late after calling their helpline to figure out why my food hasn't arrived yet. As a consolation, the customer service rep promised to include a free bottle of wine in my next delivery, which would be great but for the fact that I don't drink. Sigh.

Waiting for Spring

I woke up this morning to another grey and blah kind of day, and it's getting to the point where I'm actually dreaming every night of floating in a warm, blue ocean with the sun beating down on my face. I wish.

Anyway, I sucked it up and decided to go on a run this morning since the half-marathon is only about 2 weeks away now. I was feeling a bit glum from the weather, but I couldn't help grinning when I saw a pair of park rangers on horses calming meandering along the trail ahead of me.  I eventually passed them, and lo and behold, I saw a clump of blooming flowers! I think they were snowdrops and daffodils, but they're just beginning to bloom so I couldn't be sure.

I've been waiting forever to say this, but I think spring may be coming! And not a moment too soon.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Not that I believe in the holiday or anything, but it's nice to hope that everyone has a little extra love in their life today.  J and I are not celebrating, since I think it's kind of a fake holiday requiring poor guys to shell out for overpriced flowers and chocolate. Besides, every day is a bit like Valentine's with J (you can stop gagging now). Our big Valentine's Day plans are to eat chili and watch Glee re-runs at home. Besides, we covered the basics - J bought me flowers on Friday and I baked him chocolate brownies last night. =)

I haven't been really good about blogging lately because there just isn't that much going on right now. The weather is still cold and gray, and I'm still prepping for my half-marathon coming up in 3 weeks (eek!). I'm running about 5-6 miles a day now, and I'm happy to report that I have not gotten crapped on by any birds lately. Thank God for small blessings.

We did go to a party last Friday that was thrown by J's group at work. I was dreading it a bit - I wasn't quite sure what to wear, and how much fun could a bunch of lawyers in a room could be? Turns out, a lot! No one really talked about work (thank goodness), and everyone turned out to be American expats.

Pretty much everyone's married, and none of the lawyers' wives work. That was pretty awesome, because I hate going to parties where I'm the only wife that's not working. The conversation inevitably turns to Hollywood gossip, because the others figure that's about as much as my pea-sized brain can handle. Not so this time - we're all unemployed, yay! I was a bit surprised that I'm the one who probably works the most, and it's only as a contract attorney. Which makes me very curious as to what they do most of the time... I suppose I may find out this weekend, since they suggested getting together for drinks sometime this week.

Running Into Crap

Literally. I had just started my run this morning, minding my business, when a seagull decided to crap on me. A mile later, I inadvertently swallowed a bug. I'm happy to report that neither instance stopped me from finishing my five miles.

I guess it was just one of those days...

A Wet and Wild Run

After months of relaxing at home and eating Cadbury chocolates and generally just getting fat, I've finally gotten my lardass in gear and went for a run in Regent Park yesterday. Let's just say, it's been a while, and I think J might still be a wee bit mad at me for picking one of the windiest, rainiest day we've had in a while to start my outdoor running regime.

My friend Caleb and I would run outdoors when I was in Ann Arbor and I loved it, but we switched over to the gym after a few months due to cold weather and shin splints. Although swimming laps in the pool was alright, I didn't really enjoy the constant smell of chlorine in my hair and splitting lanes with random middle-aged thrashers. As soon as the weather warmed up, we were back outside running again, and I joined a very posh gym once I moved back to California (word on the street was that Kobe worked out there).

I've been making excuses to not run outside up until now - it's rainy, it's windy, it's cold - you get the picture. Joining a gym seemed stupid since the nearest gym is farther away than the park, and I'd feel silly paying exorbitant monthly fees to run on a treadmill when I can run outside. So running outside seemed like the logical solution but it's been a while since I've run outdoors and never in weather this cold.

Instead of continuing to make weather excuses, I decided to man up and went to the Nike store on Oxford Street to pick up some cold weather gear.  I ended up picking up a water resistant jacket, some gloves, and a headband that covers my ears. I looked like some sort of reflective Nike billboard, but at least I was warmish.

As for the run, it was pretty miserable weather-wise with rain blowing into our faces and having to watch out for slippery leaves and mud patches, but other than that, it felt great. I forgot how good it feels to just flat out run. I won't lie, sometimes it was hard to catch my breath, but I kind of expected it after a three month hiatus from running. Anyway, we ended up running a little further than we expected, a little over 3 miles, and both of us were a bit sore this morning. Regardless, I'm headed out again today with reflective clothes and all. The worst part is actually leaving the flat and facing the cold weather kitted out in lightweight running gear, but once I'm warmed up, I feel like flying.