A Walk and a Jog

Joy here...

On Monday we decided that we were officially healed from our bout of food poisoning, but just couldn't drag ourselves out of bed for an early morning run.  The alarm went off, the eyes opened up, the hand pressed "off," and the sleeping resumed.

When we eventually pulled ourselves out of bed and chastised ourselves for being lazy, we agreed to run in the afternoon to make up for our little extra sleep.

Ha!  Bad idea that.

Have you ever tried running in the tropics in the middle of the day?  Let me tell you, it's damn hot!  Well, actually the strange thing is that while we ran it wasn't so much the sensation of over-heating that made my feet feel like lead and my legs feel like concrete, but rather the sensation that all my internal organs were about to explode simultaneously.

It was as if my heart, lungs, stomach, pancreas, liver, and kidneys all decided to go on strike, and while they were out there on the picket line, I was suffering.

So we pulled the plug on that run rather early, and decided to run into the closest shop so that I could buy some cold water.  Our run then turned into a walk around the neighbourhood so that we could lock all the sights of the beauty and the greenery in our minds as advance preparation for the winter which while away at the moment, will jump out and bite us in the @$$ sooner than you might think!

After an afternoon's walk on Monday, we promised ourselves that there's no way we were gonna just sleep through the alarm on Tuesday, so when it went off, we forced ourselves out of our deep and sweaty tropical sleep to face the darkened streets and run in the relative cool of the pre-dawn morning.

And while it was just an easy, slow run over the hilly terrain of the neighbourhood, it was nice to get the legs moving at a pace a little more than a walk.  Maybe a jog is a good way of describing it.  We went for an early morning jog.  While I know that I'll have to pick up the pace, pick up the training, pick up the mileage, and generally get my rear in gear for the full marathon in the fall, it's sometimes good to remind myself that I do, in fact, enjoy a nice, slow jog with the fresh scent of rain hanging in the morning air while the crickets buzz, and the odd breeze rustles the large leaves of the jungle foliage.

Here are my run stats for my walk and my jog:
Monday:  Ran for a total of 27:16:52 for a distance of 4.22km with an average pace of 6:28min/km (and that was before the walking!)
Tuesday:  Ran for a total of 1:06:30 for a distance of 10.41 with an average pace of 6:20min/km.

These will be my last two runs in Malaysia...the training will have to begin in earnest once we're back in Canada...and then Nomi and I (and maybe even Lulu) will all sign up for a full marathon and try our luck!

Stay tuned...

Over and out,
Joy