Aug 8 2016

Running is Harder in Japan

Today is my fasting day and I’ve just returned from the gym where I did an upper body and core workout designed by my fabulous personal trainer Renee at Falcon Anytime Fitness. It was a great workout but when combined with the fatigue I’m still experiencing from yesterday’s long run, I’m finding it difficult to keep my arms in position to type. Lifting up my water bottle is a challenge.

That aside, this post is about yesterday’s long run. It was my first 10+ km run now that I’m back in summer weather. In Lake Clifton, I knocked off a couple of 21 km runs and did them in a good time and fairly comfortably. Yesterday’s run was quite different.

I had put three energy gels into the freezer after my last run and the unpleasant ‘hot salty banana juice’ experience of midway through the previous training session. I had a bunch of podcasts lined up on my phone to listen to and I was really looking forward to going out and hitting the pavement for a couple of hours of running.

Due to the heat, I’ve been running in the evenings. As I planned to run 22 kms, I knew it would take me a couple of hours so I didn’t want to wait too long but I also wanted to watch the West Coast Eagles game as I suspected it might be the last one we would win this season. The game was planned to finish about 6pm so I was going to be out the door by then and back by 8:30pm which wasn’t too late. In the end, I didn’t leave until after 6:30pm as mum rang to discuss the game. She expressed her concern about me running at night but clearly wasn’t anxious enough to get off the phone so I could get going and get back at a reasonable hour!

The run started off great. It was still light when I started so I ran down to the park behind Sankeien Gardens then back up Honmoku dori. At about the 7km mark, I took the first of my energy gels and it was still cool and almost pleasant to taste. It gave me a boost and I ran up Hospital Hill to the bluff. By now it was dark but there were a lot of people out and about enjoying the warm summer evening so I was never in trouble.

By this time I was very sweaty and I could feel that my brand new sports bra that hadn’t caused me any problems whilst running in the winter climate the week before, was starting to slide around a bit. Still it wasn’t hurting me and I kept going.

After about 10km I need to take a pit stop. I don’t think this was because of the gel but merely because I hadn’t gone earlier in the day. Luckily I was running by the Red Brick Warehouse and the quite excellent public facilities that are located there. I used the disabled toilet because although I wasn’t that tired yet, I was still grateful for something to hang on to on the way down.

At the 14 km mark, I was ready to take my next energy gel and I was starting to look forward to a good long sit down. Although starting to feel pretty tired, I was still confident that I would complete the run. My RunKeeper app reminded me to begin running at a faster pace for the next 6 kms but I decided to ignore it. My aim for this run was just to finish and I was already feeling it despite running slower than in previous weeks.

With just a handful of kilometres to go, I took my last energy gel at Yamashita Park. A few minutes later, I really started to struggle as the stomach cramps began. These were the type of cramps I was familiar with from my time in Ghana where I had leant the hard way never to trust a fart. Despite my best efforts though, fart I did but mercifully that is all I did!

By now I’m more waddling than running. I feel a bit nauseous and any left over energy is being channelled into keeping my butt cheeks clenched. With my apartment building in sight, my RunKeeper app speaks the two most beautiful words in the English language – ‘workout completed’.

It had just past 9:30 pm. I was exhausted. When I g0t home, I took off my running gear to assess the damage. I have four chafe spots on my chest and two on my back from my sports bra that made showering a very painful exercise. My feet have begun to look pretty gnarly with old and new blisters, callouses and peeling skin.

Although I’ve run this distance before, this is the longest it has taken me to do so. In three weeks, I’m running the same distance in a race on a mountain. If the race was in wintery Lake Clifton, I think I could have a crack at doing it in 120 minutes but running is harder now that I’m back in Japan!

The final waddle took its toll on my average pace!

Aug 6 2016

My Pokemon Go Adventure

When this was released I had to give it a go. I justify this by the fact that in a few weeks, I’m going to be back teaching a bunch of twelve year olds and it is important that I can relate to them about topics they are interested in. I’m basically just doing my job! Being in education is a great way to get away with doing stuff that no self-respecting 42 year old should admit to be doing!

But seriously, where do the coins go?

So whilst I was down in Australia at mum’s place in Lake Clifton, I downloaded the app. This took a while because mum’s internet connection is not exactly up to Japanese standards. She lives one hour from the largest city in the state and has no mobile phone coverage unless you stand out the back by the bins and no reliable tv reception without the use of a satellite dish. Strangely enough though, she gets perfect reception for the community based channels but the no signal error frequently pops up on the big commercial and government channels. If all she wanted to do was watch Russian state news and informercials about the Wonder Wallet, she’d be set! (By the way, I don’t see what’s so wonderful about this wallet – where do you keep your coins?)

Anyway, I digress…

My first experience of searching for Pokemon down in LC was very disappointing. I wandered around mum’s house with the limited internet connection I had and couldn’t find any. LC is a Pokemon desert.

I tried again the next time I went up to Perth. In Perth, I could see a bunch of Pokestops on my phone but still no Pokemon appeared for me to catch. This was a bit weird because my sister then tried on her phone and she was spotting Pokemon everywhere. I put it down to the fact that I was using the free shopping centre wifi and she was using the real stuff you pay for. Who knows if that really is the reason but that is the story I’m selling.

Lake Clifton -the middle of nowhere!

Meanwhile I got my revenge as I turned my nephew into a Pokemon nut. As my phone wasn’t cooperating, he could only play with his mother! Ha! In the end, when I returned home to Japan, she told him that I had caught all the Pokemon in Australia and had taken them with me. It worries me a little that he swallowed this story so easily, even though he is only five.

Harrison Go!

I returned to Yokohama on Wednesday and the game has just been released here. On Thursday, I went for what was supposed to be a 12 km run that ended up being just 9 km as the shock from running in 15ºC and low humidity weather to 28ºC and high humidity, was just too much for me. I started walking about 3 km from home in the middle of Minato Mirai – the most beautiful and tourist dense part of Yokohama. As it turns out, it is also full of Pokemon!

68 Pokemon and counting

By the time I got home, I had caught a lot of Pokemon and visited a number of Pokestops along the way. My favourite being a child’s playground in my apartment complex which comes up in English as being ‘object of ship’. But frankly, after the initial thrill of catching your first few magikarp and so on, having to stop every five minutes when more Pokemon appear to catch, really ruins a beautiful summer evening’s walk. But for the first five levels, you can’t do anything else. It wasn’t until I had reached my apartment complex that I finally made it to level six and the opportunity to put my collected Pokemon into battle at a Pokegym. Unfortunately, I had also reached the limit of my phone’s battery life and my will to continue with the game.

My closest Pokestop!

Although I had reached a point where I was already a bit bored with Pokemon Go, I decided last night to try to do battle at a Pokegym to see if this next level could reignite my interest. Luckily, there is a Pokegym very close by my apartment at my local Homes store, so I walked over there on the pretence of picking up a new outdoor light for my balcony. Once my shopping was completed, I walked over to the canal where the Pokegym was.

I tried to battle one of my Pokemon but couldn’t really work out what I was supposed to do. In the end I selected run away which then really confused me because I was told I had won the battle! Not sure how I did that and after three minutes of trying to work it out, I was over it.

Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only person playing at this Pokegym. There was one other player – a bloke about my age dressed in a suit. Considering this was a Friday night, I realised that we may be the two saddest individuals in Yokohama and possibly the whole of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area! I gathered up my shopping, tucked my phone into my pocket and walked home.

So that now completes my Pokemon Go adventure. I’m not quite ready to delete the app from my phone yet, but I doubt it will be long. What I am excited about, is what must now already be in development for new location based games for my phone. Someone somewhere is developing something that is fun, interesting and suitable for sad 42 year olds!

Jul 14 2016

The Chaser

Some slightly less terrifying chasers.

There are few things as terrifying as feeling the hot breath of an unknown creature on the back of your calf as you are running at dusk in rural Australia.

As it was, my heart was already pumping pretty hard because I was running a fast interval, but it went up an extra notch due to the sheer terror I was feeling. With great trepidation, I slowly turned my head to look behind me to find out just what was pursuing me. Hot on my heels was an enormous sheep, barrelling its way down the hill right behind me.

I calmed down a little bit, but sheep still have an impressive set of gnashers so I kept running as hard as I could. My training paid off because I was able to outrun the sheep which eventually gave up the pursuit and went back to nibbling grass on the side of the road. Phew!

In unrelated news, I’m really enjoying working with my personal trainer Renee at Anytime Fitness in Falcon. She is helping me put together a strength a program that I can carry on with at my local gym back in Japan. She is also a long distance runner so she knows what needs to be done. So far we have been working on 30 minute sessions that are a mixture of super sets and intensity workouts to target different muscle groups. She has given me sets of exercises using just basic gear because the Naka Ward gym doesn’t have a lot of fancy machines but is well stocked on general lifting gear. By the time I go back to Japan, I should be set!

Jun 28 2016

Running in the Rain with Chafe

Running in the rain for my last run in Japan until August!

Soaked but still smiling!

I am not in great shape! I have chafing on my left arm where my armband for my iPhone goes. I alternate using the armband with a bumbag and that has given me stomach chafe. I’m still using the same sports bras I bought 18 months ago on my last visit to Australia and now that I’ve lost a bunch of weight, they move around a lot whilst I’m running so to top it all off, my chest is covered in bandaids!

It is time to upgrade some gear! New sports bras, new stick of body glide, new shoes, may be even some new running pants too. It is a good thing the yen is doing well against the Aussie dollar!

6 x 800m fast with 30 s of walking in between

Today was my last run in Japan until August. It has not stopped raining since I got up at 5:30am and the forecast is for rain all day. So, I ran in the rain! With the half marathon looming at the end of August, I don’t feel I can miss a single training run. I did an interval run today and I was happy with my splits as I was aiming to keep the 800m intervals under a 5:30 pace and I did.

My next run will be an easy 5 km run in Perth tomorrow evening. Hopefully, despite being winter, it won’t be so wet!

Jun 23 2016

67.90 kg

Yesterday I finally reached my weight loss goal that Screen Shot 2016-06-19 at 1.10.09 PM I set nearly 12 months earlier. Today, I confirmed that I had met that target by being able to purchase a pair of shorts in Japan, that looked good, were not the largest size on the rack and when I removed them after trying them on, my knickers didn’t come off with them!

My goal was to weigh less than 68 kg so that my BMI fell into the normal range. Now, I know that the BMI is a flawed index developed in the 19th century and doesn’t take into account how much muscle you have opposed to fat. However, I’m not exceptionally tall or short and I’m not an athlete with crazy amounts of muscle so I feel that it can be used for me as a rough approximation of what I can aim for.

Every Wednesday morning my support group meet for our weekly weigh and shame! Yesterday was our last one for the year. School is finished so we weighed ourselves at home when we got up (before eating breakfast and after doing a wee) and then met at Starbucks to discuss the results and our goals for the summer holidays.

I weighed 67.90 kg.

I have lost the majority of the weight in the last 12 months but this has been a process that has spanned a couple of years. A colleague of mine recently asked me to share the diet plan that I was on but I couldn’t because I’m not really on one. It has been an incredibly slow process that has required making many small and manageable changes to my lifestyle to find what I can sustain long term and what actually works for me. In this post, I want to try and summarise what I did in case someone else might find it useful. The following things worked for me but every one is different so this post comes with no guarantees!

Have a support group

My support group in action!

My support group started with Kim and Elaine who had begun running together about a year earlier before I joined in with them. We were already colleagues but we became good friends also as we had a common goal which was to lose weight and improve our over all health and fitness. Later Leah joined us after Kim left to live in Bangkok.

For me it has been really important to have like-minded people that I can feel free to talk to about everything and who are going through the same ups and downs as me. We bounced off ideas with each other, shared success stories and setbacks and supported each other. We meet weekly for our weigh and shame (which isn’t as awful as it sounds) and keep in touch through the week at odd times too.

Set achievable short term goals

My over all goal was to lose more than twelve kilos but that takes a long time and you only see minute progress in relation to that goal especially at the beginning. In our group we would set short term goals like losing 2 kgs before the October break or running a 10 km race in November. Sometimes we achieved the goal, sometimes we only got part way but we were always moving forward in the long run.

Accountability

For larger goals, I went as public as I could with what I was trying to do. When you make it public, you feel more pressure to actually do it and any motivation is better than none! I recently decided that in order to maintain the changes I’ve made in my life I needed a big goal to work towards and that is to run a marathon. So I told everyone about it! Now I get advice from friends of mine who are experienced runners, people ask me about it, I continue to blog about it and post on Facebook about it. If I don’t actually do it now, I’m going to look a right turkey! That’s motivation!

Keep making changes

I needed to find what works for me. There are lot of diets and plans out there all supported by ‘experts’ but really it all boils down to one thing. If you want to lose weight you have to consume less calories than you burn. Doing more exercise alone is not that useful because you overeat your exercise very easily. The important thing is to eat less. It sounds simple but that is terrifically difficult for me to do. I love food and I love drinking. But I have made changes to my lifestyle continually over the past three years to find the right balance that works for me. And I’m still adjusting and changing things as my circumstances demand it.

I’ve tried lots of things that I couldn’t sustain. Here are a few:

going vegan, vegetarianism, no alcohol, exercising every day, counting calories…

But every time something didn’t work for me, I just made a small change to try and find a compromise that I could sustain and would help me continue to achieve my health goals. Here is a summary of what I’m trying right now.

My diet

I eat a plant based diet with seafood, eggs and limited dairy added in.
I only eat meat if there is no other option or if a friend has made it for me.
I don’t deny myself something if I really want it but am aware of portion size and only having one! (This doesn’t always work!)
I’ve substituted milk with soy or almond milk for everything except in my tea.
I fast (meaning I consume approximately only 500 calories) two days a week.
I drink alcohol one weekend/occasion per month only which I decide on beforehand.

My exercise plan

I concentrate on running because it is free and I like it
I set myself race goals and follow a training plan that tells me when to run and how far to go on what days of the week – it also allows me to have days off!
I don’t exercise on fasting days

These changes are working for me right now but they wouldn’t work for everyone and they won’t work for me forever. The important thing is to keep trying different things until you do find something you can do for a longer period of time and that works.

Final tips

Don’t expect to lose weight every week. As long at the overall trend is downward it doesn’t matter if you stay the same or go up some weeks. Graph the trend.

Use technology to make some of the record keeping easier and to increase contact with your support network. I use RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal amongst others.

The next challenge

I’ve lost weight plenty of times before. Sometimes because I was trying to and others because I had amoebic dysentery or malaria. I’ve never been able to keep it off more than a couple of years so now, I hope to be able to maintain the changes I’ve made and to continue tweaking my plan as necessary, to stay healthy long term. Following my own advice on accountability, I’ll let you know how it goes!

Apr 25 2016

Getting Faster Despite Stitches and Insects

Two weeks ago, I went out to brunch, ate enough food to choke a small horse and then came home and ran my fastest 5 km ever! This was despite having a murderous stitch for half of the run. Yesterday, I had a better preparation before my run and despite inhaling a swarm of midgies with 2 km to go, I managed to run my fastest average pace yet again!

Imagine how fast I would be without eating a community of insects during the run!

Marathon Preparation Update

I have signed up for a half marathon at the end of August which takes place up around Mt Fuji. I’ve selected a 16 week training plan from the RunKeeper that will commence in early May. Once I’ve completed this race, I will start a training plan for the full marathon in preparation for 2017!

The half marathon I’ve signed up for is going to be hot and hilly so I’m just aiming to finish and not really worried about the time. Luckily I will be able to practice some hills around mum’s place when I’m home in July!

Apr 11 2016

10 km Down, 30 To Go!

Just made my goal as seen on my RunKeeper!

Yesterday I completed the first step on my long road to running a long run. The Paracup was a fun race with plenty of people in amusing costumes to distract me from the fact that I was wearing long, winter pants, despite the balmy conditions, and that I had my iphone tucked into my bra because I had misplaced my armband.

My goal was to do it in under an hour and I just managed to sneak it in under the bar at 59 minutes flat. The best part was that my foot injury seems to be on the mend after a couple of weeks of physio because I was able to walk normally, even after resting for a bit at lunch.

I’m on my way!

Apr 9 2016

42 Years 42 Kilometers

I am worried I’m getting old.

Proof that I’m aging!

Last week I went to the doctors to have my ears syringed, my minimum font size is now up to 10 point and I’ve started to enjoy gardening. All the signs are there.

So I’ve decided to give myself a challenge that an old person would be mad to attempt to prove that I’m not quite over the hill yet. I’m going to run the Tokyo marathon in 2017.

Now, this is the plan but there is no guarantee that I will be able to get in as entry is on a lottery. If I don’t get in, I’ll have to run something else, but I’m going to attempt a marathon some how.

This is going to require a lot of preparation. For the last couple of years, I’ve been slowly trying to make changes to my lifestyle in order to live longer. I’ve been pescatarian now for two years and I’ve cut down on dairy except milk in my tea and cheese because a life without cheese is no life at all.

Then in September, I decided to get really serious and stopped drinking. My goal at the time was to make it until Christmas but I managed to keep on going right through the holiday and into January. After five months of not drinking, I felt absolutely miserable. I decided this was not sustainable and decided to tweak my plan a bit. I now pick one drinking occasion a month. January was a trip to the robot restaurant in Tokyo, February was a ski weekend in Hakuba and March was the St Patrick’s Day weekend. This month I have a date to share a bottle of Cloudy Bay with the fabulous Mrs Rossing.

Also in September I decided to start the 5/2 fasting plan. My friend Kim has been doing this for a couple of years now and when I was visiting with him last summer, I thought he was insane. Then I saw the Horizon program What’s the Right Diet for You which discussed this plan and I decided to give it a go. So I now only eat 500 calories on Monday and Tuesday and just try to eat sensibly every other day. On the sensible days, I don’t deny myself anything but I try to not overeat. It is so much simpler than counting calories.

Since this time last year, I have lost almost 12 kg. I’ve just got four more kilos to lose to make my goal marathon weight!

Now I’m concentrating on starting my training plan. The 2017 Tokyo marathon will happen in March so I have plenty of time to prepare. I’ve had a foot injury for almost a year that just isn’t going away and a crunchy knee that I decided to see a physio about. I made an appointment for the first week of the Spring break and I left Tokyo Physio armed with a collection of exercises to do and a tonne of bruises from the sports massage. It was agony but the physio assured me it was necessary. I had a session again last week and the massage hurt a lot less this time. Apparently that’s progress!

Work starts again on Monday and my plan is to run 3 times a week and go to the gym twice a week for the rest of the semester (ten weeks) to try and get back into a regular training pattern. After that, I’ll reassess and look at working on increasing speed and distance.

So that’s the plan in a nutshell. Now I need advice especially from anyone who has run a marathon before. Recommendations for training plans and any other tips and pointers would be appreciated. I’m going to keep blogging about my progress to try and keep motivated and for accountability and I’m tracking all my training on my RunKeeper too.

My next step is the Paracup 10km race tomorrow. I want to finish in under an hour and be able to walk on my sore foot later on that afternoon. If I can run 10 km successfully tomorrow, surely 42 km won’t be a problem in 12 months time!

Feb 3 2016

Accident Etiquette

I forgot to charge the battery of my electric bike last night. This resulted in an accident on the way to school this morning as I was riding up a very steep hill. As I compensated for the lack of battery power by shifting down gears, the bike slowed down so much, it tipped over!

This hurt me physically but that was nothing compared to the emotional hurt I was about to experience as I laid there on the side of the road.

First, a car went by me. It slowed down to avoid me but didn’t stop. I didn’t think too much of it as it is a narrow road and I reasoned that may be there wasn’t enough room for the car to pull over which explained why they kept going.

But then a number of people, all by themselves, walked by me too.

I thought this very strange and not a little bit hurtful! Did they think that I was casually taking a rest on the side of the road with a heavy bike on top of me? Did they think this was normal?

Were they worried that if they asked me if I needed help that I wouldn’t understand the Japanese? This is definitely not the case. My Japanese may consist solely of sushi ordering vocab and taxi instructions but lying there, prostrate, bleeding and in not an insignificant amount of pain, you could of asked me in Swahili if I was ok and it would have been clear to me. You could have used one of the rarer Inuit languages to ask if I needed help and I would have understood you like it was my mother tongue!

Come on people! When you stumble across a woman on her arse under a bike, help her up. The bike is heavy and her day has not begun the way she planned. Don’t ignore her and make it worse. Lift the bike off her!

Image Credit
Shared on Flickr by Jhane (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Dec 26 2015

In Niseko…

Near enough is good enough in Niseko

When my name gets put into katakana is looks like this -　ウィンスラドメリリン！
When it gets translated back from katakana to romanji it looks like this:

ウィンスラド/メリリン

Naked bath time in Niseko

One thing about travelling in Japan I’m always a little apprehensive about is the shared bath situation otherwise known as the onsen.

Vegemite is in demand in Niseko!

Today I arrived in Niseko. The town is teaming with Aussies and foreigners in general, just as I expected. I went to book lessons at the English ski school only to discover they were almost booked out. The queue at the local shop to pay for your vegemite was around the block.

But at my little, no-frills, Japanese style guesthouse – I am the only guest! Private bathing guaranteed!

No-frills and no worries in Niseko

My accommodation takes basic to a new level. The room is an empty tatami room. I have two wafer thin futons that I have double stacked but I can still feel my hip bones grind on the floor every time I turn over. They have supplied me with an abundance of pillows however, most of which I have fashioned into a chair so I can watch a movie on my computer in the evening.

On my first night, I discovered that I wasn’t supplied a towel in the room and I didn’t pack one either. (I can feel my mother’s groan as she reads this!) I contemplated the drip dry but it is way too cold here for that. I had to beg a towel from the owner and he said that because I was staying so long he would let me have one! Phew!

Nearly private lessons in Niseko

Great weather so far. Hoping for some powder on my last day!

Yesterday I had a half day lesson and it was great. The instructor said I should try the level up the next day so when I went to my lesson today, I explained this to the instructor for level 6 but he didn’t seem too keen in taking me. In the end I stayed with the level 5 group but I pushed for the instructor to take us off piste and to do a couple of blacks as well. The two other students weren’t that keen with this and after lunch they decided not to come back.

That meant I had a private lesson that afternoon for no extra money and it was great. The instructor took me to do more off piste and a big long black too. It was so much fun! Can’t wait to scare some people off my lesson tomorrow! 😛

Update – another private lesson in the afternoon today with more off piste tree runs. Super cool!

No wine in Niseko

I’m still on my alcohol free kick that I’ve managed to sustain since September. Originally, I had decided to stay on the wagon until Christmas when I would re-evaluate the situation. I was explaining this to the bar tender last night over my glass of water (straight up, no ice) and some edamame. He turned out to be a Perth boy and he was both shocked an appalled at my sobriety. He said if I came back at Christmas he would buy me my wine!

Now I’m really torn because I had almost decided not to break my sobriety after all and push on through to January when I’ve booked the Robot Restaurant for Jazz and co. But it is free wine we are talking about here!

Update – I’m hanging on until 23rd January! 🙂

Notable quotes in Niseko

After attempting to ski off a ridge amongst the trees and stacking it at the base, I struggled to my feet and my instructor began to laugh. He said, “If you want to know how hard you fell, take a look at the size of the hole you made!”

I turned and looked at the ginormous, arse-shaped dent in the snow. I laughed with him but I died a little inside!

No more Niseko

It is time to head back to Yokohama and start recovering ready for my next ski trip in a week’s time. This time I will be skiing closer to home in Shigakogen with team ‘Over-the-Hilbournes’! This is a Japanese resort so it will be goodbye to Perth bar tenders and flat whites in the the cafes and hello eating in the hotel because there are no other options, anywhere! I may get a onesie to blend in better amongst the locals as well! Goodbye Niseko!