So I run about 7.5km 3-4 times a week without much of a physical twinge. On Thursday, I did my first yoga class in a few weeks and my body ached for 2 days afterwards. So much for my fitness levels. We did do enough sun salutations to cause a heat wave and I managed to complete a couple of chatarungas (slow motion press ups), but I got stiff from a yoga class...really?
Until recently I thought yoga was for wimps. It is slow and about as stimulating as watching paint dry. You lollop from one position to another and the most challenging thing you have to do is breathe...as if one usually forgets...
But since I have built some running muscle and have developed a 'core' (albeit shallow), I have discovered what yoga should be. It doesn't get my endorphins going but I am able to spend an hour a week marinating in my muscles. I clench, I pull, I push, I invert...oh yes...and, when I remember, I breathe...
I've also come to view yoga as good training in frustration management. For now, running is a great way for me to 'vent'. I can achieve a few moments of brain emptying, meditative stillness after 30 laps. My face may look like a gasping beetroot, but underneath I am serene and at one with my blisters. But what will I do as I get older? How am I going to manage when I have to be angry and 'still'?
God, or should I say, Krishna, only knows.
Monday, 29 April 2013
Monday, 22 April 2013
Running amok
Went to the track today at the kids school, not sure what I would find. There was a huge storm yesterday evening in our area of Lusaka. Just to set the scene....
...we were relaxing at home. Tennis and swimming in the morning, eggy bread for brunch followed by lego building in the afternoon. We had realised vaguely that something was awry with the weather. It has been humid. A few drops of rain had fallen at soccer on Saturday. Nothing unusual in much of the world, except that the seasons are defined differently here. Zambia has 3: hot, hot and rainy and cool (which actually is the 'hot, but not as hot as the hot season, season'). It does NOT rain in the hot or cool seasons.
The weather in Lusaka is pretty temperate by most people's standards. Never too hot, nor too cold, nor too rainy or windy. When people complain here about the weather, I feel like I'm back in England. Comments like, 'it's so hot today' when it's 30 odd degrees. Having lived in Greece and on the East Coast of the USA - I know what proper hot feels like. And I have harped on and on about the great weather here: no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no snow/ice storms...
Until last night. At some point, we realised a storm was coming. And then suddenly, the wind started. Hailstones almost the size of golf balls fell. The wind whipped up some more. Torrential rain. More and more squalling rotational wind.
The children, raised in a tornado and hurricane area, knew what to do and we sat it out in the most internal structure of the house: the stairwell. Our house is a European concrete structure rather than a USA matchstick and plastic house, so we knew we were 'safe' but we didn't know where the water would come in or if something would be hurled through the window.
At some point, water was pouring down the stairs. There had been so much rain, it came in through the window frames and flooded parts of the upper floor. But the roof and windows held out. Our neighbours were not so lucky: one of their windows had imploded with shards of glass flying across the room: they had also been sensible enough to move into a safe room.
Unlike in the US or Europe, we had no warning of the strength of this storm, there is not a functioning emergency services department and there was no information about what the wider impact of this storm has been. Many people here live in concrete block huts with tin roofs and without electricity. If it was a frightening experience for us, it must have been terrifying for the average Zambian. But equally, they live with the elements all the time. We only notice the extremes....
...we were relaxing at home. Tennis and swimming in the morning, eggy bread for brunch followed by lego building in the afternoon. We had realised vaguely that something was awry with the weather. It has been humid. A few drops of rain had fallen at soccer on Saturday. Nothing unusual in much of the world, except that the seasons are defined differently here. Zambia has 3: hot, hot and rainy and cool (which actually is the 'hot, but not as hot as the hot season, season'). It does NOT rain in the hot or cool seasons.
The weather in Lusaka is pretty temperate by most people's standards. Never too hot, nor too cold, nor too rainy or windy. When people complain here about the weather, I feel like I'm back in England. Comments like, 'it's so hot today' when it's 30 odd degrees. Having lived in Greece and on the East Coast of the USA - I know what proper hot feels like. And I have harped on and on about the great weather here: no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no snow/ice storms...
Until last night. At some point, we realised a storm was coming. And then suddenly, the wind started. Hailstones almost the size of golf balls fell. The wind whipped up some more. Torrential rain. More and more squalling rotational wind.
The children, raised in a tornado and hurricane area, knew what to do and we sat it out in the most internal structure of the house: the stairwell. Our house is a European concrete structure rather than a USA matchstick and plastic house, so we knew we were 'safe' but we didn't know where the water would come in or if something would be hurled through the window.
At some point, water was pouring down the stairs. There had been so much rain, it came in through the window frames and flooded parts of the upper floor. But the roof and windows held out. Our neighbours were not so lucky: one of their windows had imploded with shards of glass flying across the room: they had also been sensible enough to move into a safe room.
Unlike in the US or Europe, we had no warning of the strength of this storm, there is not a functioning emergency services department and there was no information about what the wider impact of this storm has been. Many people here live in concrete block huts with tin roofs and without electricity. If it was a frightening experience for us, it must have been terrifying for the average Zambian. But equally, they live with the elements all the time. We only notice the extremes....
Friday, 19 April 2013
Running with the crowd
What a week: Boston marathon bombed, massive earthquake in Iran and then the explosion in Texas. Too many grieving families again this week...
I had always thought that city marathons were peripheral affairs, not worthy of much media and therefore terrorist attention. But I am learning otherwise. There are a lot of runners out there. Some, like me, enduring a solitary, non-competitive form of exercise. Others, seriously competing in 5km, 10km races on flat roads and hills. Then there are those uber-runners running half-marathons, marathons, double and ultra marathons: thousands of races going on all over the world. Running could be the last amateur sport for which anyone can train and have their moment of glory.
I felt some of the competitive excitement last week. It was our local school's triathlon. My 6 year old did the junior event. My 8 year old is a great swimmer but rides a bike like an uptight village spinster and runs like a duck. But we are indulgent and, we like to think, encouraging parents. We would enter a family team. Daughter would swim, husband would bike and I would run.
Given that I run, on average 7km 3-4 times a week and this was a 2km event, I knew I could cope easily with the distance. But I hadn't reckoned on the adrenaline I would feel. So as my daughter soldiered through the swimming (she was against children at least 3 years older than her and adults) and my husband struggled through the bike ride (just unfit), I found myself getting increasingly nervous.
But off I went...not sure about the pace I needed to run 2km quickly and my breathing was completely off. So, I slowed down, took a couple of deep breaths and found a running rhythm which I judged sustainable. It turned out to be easy peasy. And seeing (and hearing) my husband and children cheering me at the finish line was a rare moment of sheer, complete joy. For that alone, I could get into racing.
So how popular is running? This weekend, there will be 36,000 competitors in the London marathon. There were 23,000 in the Boston race. As for the ultra-marathons, the South African Comrades is 89km long and will have 18,000 competitors. At our school last week, over 600 people competed.
These are astounding numbers, especially given the pre-qualification requirements for most races. My 7km run, 4 times a week would not get me a look-in. To give some idea of how large these races are....if the runners in the London Marathon on Saturday changed their mind and decided to play soccer instead, there would be 3,272 teams....quite a tournament!
Whilst such statistics are fantastic news for amateur running, the city marathon lost its innocence on Monday. Let's hope the organisers share the attitude of the competitors....you must just keep going...
I had always thought that city marathons were peripheral affairs, not worthy of much media and therefore terrorist attention. But I am learning otherwise. There are a lot of runners out there. Some, like me, enduring a solitary, non-competitive form of exercise. Others, seriously competing in 5km, 10km races on flat roads and hills. Then there are those uber-runners running half-marathons, marathons, double and ultra marathons: thousands of races going on all over the world. Running could be the last amateur sport for which anyone can train and have their moment of glory.
I felt some of the competitive excitement last week. It was our local school's triathlon. My 6 year old did the junior event. My 8 year old is a great swimmer but rides a bike like an uptight village spinster and runs like a duck. But we are indulgent and, we like to think, encouraging parents. We would enter a family team. Daughter would swim, husband would bike and I would run.
Given that I run, on average 7km 3-4 times a week and this was a 2km event, I knew I could cope easily with the distance. But I hadn't reckoned on the adrenaline I would feel. So as my daughter soldiered through the swimming (she was against children at least 3 years older than her and adults) and my husband struggled through the bike ride (just unfit), I found myself getting increasingly nervous.
But off I went...not sure about the pace I needed to run 2km quickly and my breathing was completely off. So, I slowed down, took a couple of deep breaths and found a running rhythm which I judged sustainable. It turned out to be easy peasy. And seeing (and hearing) my husband and children cheering me at the finish line was a rare moment of sheer, complete joy. For that alone, I could get into racing.
So how popular is running? This weekend, there will be 36,000 competitors in the London marathon. There were 23,000 in the Boston race. As for the ultra-marathons, the South African Comrades is 89km long and will have 18,000 competitors. At our school last week, over 600 people competed.
These are astounding numbers, especially given the pre-qualification requirements for most races. My 7km run, 4 times a week would not get me a look-in. To give some idea of how large these races are....if the runners in the London Marathon on Saturday changed their mind and decided to play soccer instead, there would be 3,272 teams....quite a tournament!
Whilst such statistics are fantastic news for amateur running, the city marathon lost its innocence on Monday. Let's hope the organisers share the attitude of the competitors....you must just keep going...
Monday, 8 April 2013
The Sex Starved Boa Constrictor
I was privileged enough to be in the House of Commons in the late 1980s when Tony Banks accused Margaret Thatcher of having the 'sensitivity of sex starved boa constrictor'. I was an A Level politics student and this was my first of many visits to the House as I continued my politics and economics degree and later worked for a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State.
It was a funny, perhaps even an apt comment and everyone laughed. But as an insecure female teenager, I wondered how any woman could cope with such a personal insult. She didn't flinch. She was witty and acidic in her response. She was so intensely single minded that the comparison didn't even seem to register with her. I was completely inspired.
On the other hand, I had grown up in 1970s council estate Britain. I lived amongst the unionised workers and welfare scroungers which she so passionately opposed. My dad was made redundant in the early 1980s; he was in his mid-50s and had been a manual worker in manufacturing. He was one of the 3 million unemployed: an unprecedented number on the dole since the depression. The night he came home with his redundancy notice was the only time I saw him cry until my mum died.
I was a Thatcher child in every sense of the word. I grasped every opportunity that I could possibly get my hands upon. I worked hard and was 'rewarded'. But my dad had worked hard too.
My mixed feelings about her are writ large today in all of the commentary on her passing. My Liverpudlian neighbour opened a bottle of champagne singing 'Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead'. My husband's work colleague declared her the last great British Statesman. Either way, she is history...
It was a funny, perhaps even an apt comment and everyone laughed. But as an insecure female teenager, I wondered how any woman could cope with such a personal insult. She didn't flinch. She was witty and acidic in her response. She was so intensely single minded that the comparison didn't even seem to register with her. I was completely inspired.
On the other hand, I had grown up in 1970s council estate Britain. I lived amongst the unionised workers and welfare scroungers which she so passionately opposed. My dad was made redundant in the early 1980s; he was in his mid-50s and had been a manual worker in manufacturing. He was one of the 3 million unemployed: an unprecedented number on the dole since the depression. The night he came home with his redundancy notice was the only time I saw him cry until my mum died.
I was a Thatcher child in every sense of the word. I grasped every opportunity that I could possibly get my hands upon. I worked hard and was 'rewarded'. But my dad had worked hard too.
My mixed feelings about her are writ large today in all of the commentary on her passing. My Liverpudlian neighbour opened a bottle of champagne singing 'Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead'. My husband's work colleague declared her the last great British Statesman. Either way, she is history...
Flight plight
What a week...been to Raleigh, NC and Washington DC for Spring Break. We are all jet lagged and dumbstruck after the 16 hour flight back to JoBurg. What an ordeal. Thankfully our lack of TV in our ordinary life means kids are more than happy to watch movies back-to-back for the flight. Even the same movie...my son watched Ice Age 3 three times. And as they are kids, they can sleep in any cramped space.
Not so with me. I've come to the conclusion that economy class in most airlines is designed to put you into your place - socially speaking. Think you're a jet setter....get an intercontinental flight and see what sharing a toilet with 200 other people for 16 hours is like. Try to eat the food which has fallen below the standards of a British Rail 1970s sandwich. You used to be able to board a flight and get drunk with the full cooperation of the cabin crew. Now they treat most passengers with distaste and only appear when some arcane flight regulation allows them to.
And as for the ground transportation, the numbers they squash into the buses to the terminal would be illegal outside of the hallowed ground of an airport. And luggage - Ha! The last trip we took someone rifled through our suitcase, breaking the lock and leaving behind an empty camera case in the process presumably from some other poor victims valise.
And we paid close to USD 8,000 for this privilege!
Air travel is certainly not the only area of life where customers are treated with such contempt. Just think about what the banks have been up to. But where is there any redress for such systemic disregard? It infuriates me.
Anyway, back to our new African normality. Kids back at school, husband back at work and me back on the track. Reduced mileage (26 laps today) as I try to re-engage my muscles.
Not so with me. I've come to the conclusion that economy class in most airlines is designed to put you into your place - socially speaking. Think you're a jet setter....get an intercontinental flight and see what sharing a toilet with 200 other people for 16 hours is like. Try to eat the food which has fallen below the standards of a British Rail 1970s sandwich. You used to be able to board a flight and get drunk with the full cooperation of the cabin crew. Now they treat most passengers with distaste and only appear when some arcane flight regulation allows them to.
And as for the ground transportation, the numbers they squash into the buses to the terminal would be illegal outside of the hallowed ground of an airport. And luggage - Ha! The last trip we took someone rifled through our suitcase, breaking the lock and leaving behind an empty camera case in the process presumably from some other poor victims valise.
And we paid close to USD 8,000 for this privilege!
Air travel is certainly not the only area of life where customers are treated with such contempt. Just think about what the banks have been up to. But where is there any redress for such systemic disregard? It infuriates me.
Anyway, back to our new African normality. Kids back at school, husband back at work and me back on the track. Reduced mileage (26 laps today) as I try to re-engage my muscles.
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