Rich House

Joy here...Nomi's daughter is friends with a child who is a member of one of Malaysia's royal families, (each province/state has its own Sultan, and one of the Sultans of each state gets voted in as the national Sultan for a term every now and then).  Because of her family connections, she lives in a lovely compound, the likes of which many of us will never see.  Now, Nomi's daughter told us yesterday that she wants to live in a "rich house" and have "rich things" when she grows up.  She also thinks that if her dad loves her enough, he would just buy her a "rich house."  Nomi and I tried desperately to explain to her that there's no way on this planet that her dad can buy her a "rich house" that compares to something a member of the Sultan's family can buy.

She was not convinced.  Oh, to be seven and so naive again.

And I didn't truly know what she meant by a "rich house," but on our Sunday run this week, I got to have a bit of a glimpse.

You see, I had made plans with one of The Man's friends (Simon who is an amazing triathlete) to meet up with him and some of his friends on Sunday morning for our run.  I was going to do a longer run (around 20kms) in preparation for our half marathon next weekend, but since Nomi had to be back in 90 minutes, we opted for a shorter run.  So we joined up with a group of running friends who do a route called "Two Hills," which is a hilly route through one of the city's most exclusive areas (the Sultan of Selangor's palace is in this neighbourhood...I know, because we ran past it...there was a sign saying that trespassers would be shot...they don't mess around in this country).  Let me tell you, the homes in this area were INSANE!  I couldn't tell if they were condo buildings or hotels or houses.  They were all larger and more ostentatious than even the most posh homes in exclusive neighbourhoods in Toronto that I am familiar with.  Let's just say that the Bridle Path (in Toronto) has nothing on Kenny Hills (in Kuala Lumpur).

Here's how one real estate agent describes the neighbourhood:
"In a nutshell...
Kenny Hills / Taman Duta...in short:
You will be caught in awe as you drive through the luxurious neighborhood of Taman Duta and Kenny Hills. The homes of the rich and famous are sporadically spread all about the Taman Duta and Kenny Hills area with the tightest security. As you drive through these quiet and hilly neighbourhoods, what the residents of Taman Duta and Kenny Hills call home, appear like castles in the sky to the ordinary person."*

So as we ran - up and down the hills, through the deserted morning streets, around the compounds - we couldn't help but stare at the opulence all around us.  It made for an interesting morning run.  And then, as the sun began to rise in the east, painting the sky a brilliant shade of pink, we stopped for a moment amid the mansions and looked out over the city skyline with the Petronas Towers gleaming as the sun rose behind them, and we realized that these gazillionaires also get the best view in town.

But we just put our heads down and kept on with our run, letting our own minds wander in and out of our own fantasies - would we want to live there?  what would life be like if we did?  do I really need a house like THAT? - and with each step I began to realize that I, for one, am perfectly happy with my own state in life.  I don't need a "rich house", because I'm happy enough to run by them in the early morning dawn of a beautiful Kuala Lumpur day in May.

So here are my contented run stats one week out from the half marathon:
Ran for 1:22:24 for a distance of 13kms with an average pace of 6:20min/km.

Over and out,
Joy

*The quotation is from:  http://www.propertylink.com.my/kennyhills.php
**The photo of the KL skyline is from:  http://www.galerie-creation.com/photographies-couleur-d-architecture-asiatique-k-58172.htm?page=6.  Next time I run there, I'll make sure to bring my own camera!

Three's Company

Nomi says,

Finally........Joy is back!!!!!

After a year away,
Good times are here to stay,
Well... till she leaves again anyway:)

Having company makes a big difference in training. There's someone on hand to compare notes with, to ask for advice or to complain to when everything hurts. And there's safety in numbers too. More often than not, attempts to run have been aborted at the thought of driving to the park alone at 5.30am when it's pitch black outside and the mind imagines all sorts of unsavory life forms hiding behind bushes just waiting to cause mischief....So with Joy around, if a plan to run is made, it is materialized.
Running alone, sometimes takes an effort. If a definite plan is not made, it often gets cancelled. Lulu had also suffered a knee injury and had to take a break from training. So, the preparations for the up coming race...in the words of my little girl..' pretty lame"... Sometimes, all i ran was two or three times a week, 10 kms at the most to prepare for the half marathon. I did no other exercise in between and had sort of slipped into a semi-comatose state when it came to training.

Joy's present to Nomi

So with Joy back, it was like a breath of fresh air. She had mad a little book of our experience and progress from running a 10km race to a half marathon. Her spirit and enthusiasm was infectious. So, the training for the up coming race began again. Lulu recovered sufficiently to join us and we tried to run a 90 minute run on weekends as a group, with a few other individual shorter runs interspersed during the weekday. And it was mostly just fun:) But frankly, none of us trained like we did one year ago for our very first race -  the 10km race. But then, most of us had moved along. We were aiming for a longer race and this upcoming half marathon in May was just an interim race. With the support, encouragement from girlfriends...the sky's the limit....

Girlfriends rock!!!!!

Hot Afternoon Run...and Emergency Potty Break!

Joy here...at the spur of the moment The Man, his friend, and I all decided to go for a run around that same 3km loop that Nomi and I just ran.  However, when Nomi and I did that run, it was still pretty early in the morning.  Granted, the sun was up already, but it's wasn't mid-afternoon sun.  Not so much for our trio's little run yesterday.  We figured it would be good to run in the late afternoon since we have to get used to running in the heat of the day; our 1/2 marathon (gulp! next weekend!) is in the evening, and the heat coming up off the asphalt promises to be sweltering.  So we've got to be prepared for it, right?  Anyway, that was our thinking.  So off we went...

The view from our running loop!

...into the sweaty, humid, hot afternoon.  The boys went off ahead while I waited for my Garmin to pick up the satellites, and then I trundled on behind them.  I seemed to be going at a quicker pace than they were, because I was able to catch up with them without too much trouble.  But then some trouble started as we finished our first loop...

Look at that humidity!

...trouble of the tummy variety.  So as we came around at the end of that first loop, and I could see the golf club open to us like the open arms of a warm embrace (and a toilet in there somewhere), I turned off and let the boys keep running, while I did my own little sprint to find the closest potty I could before whatever it was that I ate that wasn't agreeing with me made its nasty appearance.  After safely expunging said innards, I was able to start running again.  So out of the golf course I went, and up the hot, sweaty hill I ran...

It's steeper than it looks!

...but I couldn't catch the guys.  My emergency potty break had given them too much of a head start, so I just ran to the top of the hill, turned around and ran back, figuring I'd meet them going the opposite direction.  And I did.  However, I only met The Man on his way back up, but his friend was done with running for the day, so I continued on in one direction, The Man in the other, and I met up with the friend and we walked and stretched until The Man rejoined us.

Then we all came home, showered, and had dinner...this time I cooked it, so there will be no emergency potty breaks today!

My hot afternoon run stats are:
Ran for a total of 27:43:56 for a distance of 4.9kms with an average pace of 5:42min/km.

Over and out,
Joy

Running with Nomi...

Joy here...if you read Nomi's post below, you'll get a clear sense for just how hard it can sometimes be to balance all the things in life there are to balance.  And I agree with Nomi:  sometimes when you're busier you actually end up getting more things done, even though that seems to be counter-intuitive.

For me, I seem always to feel like I'm fighting against the weight of inertia, always planning to get much more done than I actually do.

However, today was a bit of a triumph.  It's a public holiday here in Malaysia, so Nomi didn't know if she'd be able to run or not, or if she'd have kids to care for (her own and two of her nieces).  But it turned out that I got a call from her just before 7am, and she was game for a run.  So I laced up my shoes, and out the door we went!

There's this area not too far away from where Nomi & I are located where there's a loop that's around 3kms.  It's pretty safe and pretty tropical.  It's one of my favourite spots in the city, because it's really quite beautiful.

So I slathered on the sun screen and the bug repellant, and headed out with Nomi to run loops around this area.

Part way through the 3km loop there's a bit of an incline, which is super fun to run down, but not super fun to run up.  However, since the 1/2 marathon in Singapore (which is - gasp! - only 11 days away) is pretty flat, we figured that working in a few hills wouldn't kill us.

And...guess what?

They didn't!

However, if the hills didn't kill us, there was a good chance that some of the monkeys out there just might.  You see, in Canada people are used to raccoons, skunks, and squirrels everywhere, but in Malaysia there's a good chance that the critter who is going to dig in your garbage is a cheeky garbage monkey!  And let me tell you, they were out in force this morning.

It was like running the gauntlet to avoid these little suckers, because you just never know what might set one off and inspire it to bite you.  And, well, I've seen the movie Outbreak; I know what kind of trouble a monkey bite can cause.  I have a healthy dose of fear!

But heat, hills, and monkeys aside, we successfully ran our three loops, huffing and puffing along the way, and I can now say that I think I'm over my jet lag, and I might even be getting acclimatized.  Heck...I might even survive this upcoming 1/2 marathon afterall!

Here are our run stats for today:

Ran for a total of 59:29:01 for a distance of 9.7kms with an average pace of 6:02min/km.

Over and out,

Joy

She Works Hard For Her Money.....

Nomi says,


After 'resting' my brain for about 2 years, I decided to go back to work...outside the home. I mean, being a stay at home mum is a full time job so by working outside the home as well, it is as good as holding down two jobs:)

 

But, it was good having the experience of being a full time mum. I mean, hats off to those women who dedicate their lives to their home and family, especially to those who do not have any form of help. Sometimes it is harder to stay at home - as doing so is pretty much a 24/7 commitment. There are no annual leaves, medical leaves, benefits, insurance or pay for some. The mum is the chauffeur, cook, butler, wife, maid, home manager, girl Friday, nurse, gardener, handyman,  amongst other things all rolled into one. They are wonder women, actually. Sometimes, working outside the home is a little break of sorts, where a woman can have a few hours to herself (although she is working), talk to other adults and hear herself think.

I realized that as a stay at home mum i had flexible time, and I slipped into a state of slobbish-ness...I mean, there was no absolute urgency for household chores to be done immediately. As long as the home was generally clean with no mold growing on the dining room walls, or cockroaches running around the kitchen floor, some chores could sort of wait. The days melded into one another with not much direction to it except for cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning. A sense of boredom, purposelessness and a growing restlessness became more pronounced. Running was erratic as well. So, i felt that i was disintegrating into a pot of stagnating left overs.

So, when the opportunity came to get back to the grind stone albeit part time, i decided to dive into it. And it has been a blessing in so many ways. Because of time constraint in having a job outside the home and without having any domestic help, the days have to be molded into some semblance of a plan..with schedules and timetables.  Things have become more structured and running has a definite place.

The days are busy with a job, managing the family and the home and squeezing in runs whenever possible. I try to run at least three times a week. Two sixty minute runs on the treadmill and one 75 to 90min run at the park during weekends. Which is doable and all about i can manage....and about all the training that i have for the up coming half marathon in Singapore.

So, in my humble opinion, majority of women by virtue of their gender alone are traditionally born with the inheritance of a ready made full time job :) ..anything else is extra. It take planning, juggling and managing to get through most days.  So, to all the women out there, whether you decide to to be CEO of your home, or work 2 jobs or even more...and run races on top of all that, i salute you!!!

Running in Malaysia!

Joy and Nomi:  Together again!

Joy here...Okay, I've new been in Malaysia for just over a week and I think I've finally kicked jet lag's ass! The best thing about being here is that Nomi and I can run in the same place!  As you can see from the photos above, we even have the same shoes (Nomi's are the nice, tanned legs and mine are the pasty, Canadian white ones).  We've been able to do a few runs together, and we've been joined by our energizer bunny friend, Lulu, who has agreed to do some guest posts for the blog in the next little while.  All three of us are coming up on our 1 year anniversary from our first running races ever, so it's quite the milestone for each of us.  And we're all running the same 1/2 marathon in Singapore in two weeks.  What better way to mark the start of our racing careers than with another race?!

the lake where we run together

Here's the Malaysia running stats so far:
Saturday (May 7):  Ran for 54:54:54 for a distance of 8.62kms with an average pace of 6:22min/km.
Sunday (May 8):  Ran for 1:21:22 for a distance of 13.23kms with an average pace of 6:09min/km.
Tuesday (May 10):  Ran for 1:06:45 for a distance of 10.51kms with an average pace of 6:21min/km.
Thursday (May 12):  Ran for 1:05:21 for a distance of 10.42kms with an average pace of 6:16min/km.
Sunday (May 15):  Ran for 1:30:00 for a distance of 14.32kms with an average pace of 6:10min/km.

the waterfall where we run

It's been terribly, terribly hot (with the temperature hitting highs of 36 C), and so I still haven't fully acclimatized.  My running is a bit slower and a bit more laboured than I would like it to be, as I huff and puff like the wolf in that children's story.  I'm hoping to run the 1/2 marathon in two weeks with an average pace of around 6min/km, which is still much slower than my first 1/2 marathon, but I think more reasonable given the heat and humidity here.

For now I'm not going to worry too much about pace or distance or anything like that.  I'm just going to revel in the fact that I'm back in a place that I love very much, where the weather is hot and lovely, and I have friends and family to hang out with.  I'm going to enjoy running around the neighbourhood with The Man while it's dark and everyone is a sleep and we feel as though we are masters of the world in all its shadows, and I'm going to enjoy running through the park with Nomi and Lulu before the sun rises with only the sounds of chirping crickets to keep us company until the sky turns a pale shade of pink just before dawn.  Instead of worrying about the smog and the humidity and my huffing and puffing, I'm going to be grateful that I'm not running in Ottawa where it's 12 C right now!

Over and out,
Joy