Cambodia Diaries - 5 September 2008

Running with my homies

Before I begin, I would like to say thanks to all of you who have already donated and are ‘about to do so’ at www.justgiving.com/jhberlin. All of the monies are gratefully received and in due course, I will inform where the money will be going to.

I would also like to say special thanks to the 14 people you will read about below and whom I will be running alongside in Berlin on 28 September.  Their efforts, dedication and spirit are such that I am chuffed to bits and looking forward to not only running with them but also, to having a few cold ones with them after the race.  To them, my deep respect and thanks.

There are two things that I rarely get the chance to say and so I am going to enjoy them whilst I can.

Firstly, not since a bout of gastric flu in 1987 have I had to eat to put weight on!  I found myself in a curious position a few weeks back in mid-August of running out of holes in my belt as the weight just dropped off me.  So I have had the sheer delight of being able to cast my eye over numerous menus and ordering up something yummyilicious from the jolly trolley.

The second thing that has been quite remarkable with the training for this marathon is the fact that notwithstanding the copious injuries previously experienced when training for London, Chicago and most notably, Boston last year, this time round it has gone better then I could ever hope for, especially when you think that before I even started to train for this one four months back, I did my back in whilst drinking a cup of tea!

I certainly do not want to tempt fate with three more training runs left before the race and I am certainly not going to take it for granted that all will be well on the day, but it really has been so surprising just how well things have gone.  When I started to plan my training schedule soon after my arrival I was wondering when the injuries would come and how I would cope with the heat and humidity, but bar one weekend when my knees were sore, I have been able to run every weekend and despite the odd niggle, there have been no major problems to report.

One of the things I have found enjoyable is the ability to get out running in the early hours of the day when the city is yours.  In Forrest Gump there is a wonderful scene when our man is running through the desert as the sun goes down and it’s just him and the setting.  When I was training for London in 2005, everything between Battersea and Westminster bridges at 5am were all mine until around 7.30am on a Saturday morning. 

However, in Phnom Penh, despite hitting the road at 4.30am, the place is already lively at that ungodly hour.  People busily heading off to market or even power walking are common.  I pass a Buddhist temple and the boys are all in there chanting away and by the time I hit Hun Sen Park around 4.45am, I am greeted by the site of scores of people of all ages, shapes and sizes exercising away for themselves under street lights and before the sun rises.

You’ll never walk alone in PP

Some of the sites you see running at that hour of the day anywhere in the world are often something to behold.  A few weeks back when heading out for a 12 miler, I noticed that the only company for me along Mao Tse Toung Boulevard were bats flying around and when I turned to run down the side of the local market, I was greeted first by the sight of a bloody huge dead rat lying on the road and then the sight of a beheaded pig straddling a motorbike round the next corner!

Everybody was kung fu fighting!

Flying without wings

My runs always end close to Sweet Cucumber Street where there is a little street corner food stall run by a family and by the time I get there I look a right mess.  Totally drained, my head as red as a beetroot and dripping with sweat from where I buy a couple of bottles of cold water, one to down on the spot, the other to accompany me on a long warm down walk and stretch.

Me and my nuts!

Invariably I am served by the family’s young daughter who is about 9 years of age or so and we have a little chat in her remarkably good English and whilst I have yet to explain what the hell I am doing, she has such a wonderful welcoming smile and laugh when she sees me that it really is a cheery sight for tired and weary Londoners. (I’d take a photo of her, but you don’t want to be known in your hood as that bloke who takes snaps of little girls if you know what I mean).

Red hot and sweaty

A lot of thanks must also go to the ladies of a little massage place I was alerted to by another Brit working for an NGO, where I toodle off to on Sundays to have my legs massaged for an hour.  I say massage, but it is clear to me that no matter where I go in the world to have such supposed soothing hands applied, it still results in a good pummeling bordering on GBH.  But for $10, including tip, within a day or so I am back fit as a fiddle and without any aches and pains, so it’s working and I’m not complaining.

Well I shall soon be leaving PP and my warm weather training camp to return home to Europe to acclimatise to the conditions ahead of the race and to meet up with the other hardy souls amongst my friends who have, of their own volition, entered the race as well.  Whereas the Americans have been pondering who would be the running mates for Messrs Obama and McCain, I am honoured and delighted to have 14 running mates.  I would also like to thank the several others who were going to run but have had to pull out for various reasons (all bona fide) and even those who having entered, we have never heard from since and are missing, presumed hiding it out until the 29th!

Team Runney Honney –their suggestion, not mine- is made up of three distinct groups and whereas the successful Team GB at the recent event up the road from me appear to have won all their gold medals bar three in events that required you to sit on your arse (sailing, cycling and rowing), this lot are letting their feet and my foot do the talking:

1. The Crown Heaton Moor Athletic Club

My old local in Manchester, where I returned to after the Boston marathon and straight into the last remnants of a stag weekend debrief.  Some of the chaps subsequently woke the next morning to find that not only were they nursing a hangover, but they all had texts from me reminding them that they had agreed to run in Berlin.

I have been impressed with the lads for all of whom this will be their first marathon.  However, an email from Richard ‘Podders’ Podmore, has revealed that training has started to take the strain: where once the talk was about being first in the group, fast times and so forth, gave way to “Well as long as I beat Honney”  to finally rest at, “I’ll be happy to finish it”.  The group is made up of:

• Podders - notwithstanding the fact that he has a knee condition that ended a promising athletic career he is running the race despite being the recent father of twins and sustaining a twisted knee whilst entering The Crown one night! 
• His brother Chris - whose stag doo it was that started this nonsense for them, is the dark horse contender for fastest time and whose training runs have been blighted by the installation of a new kitchen. 
• Chris Fensom - he maybe the ‘old man’ of the bunch, but he has licked the competition with a training regime the envy of most. 
• Jamie “I’m from Yarkshur’ Morley - who appears not to have trained as hard as was expected but being from Yorkshire, sheer bloody mindedness will see him through.
• Mark ‘Dietmar’ Evans – A brummie with an uncanny resemblance to Dietmar Harmann and he is seen as the Black Country dark horse.

2. The Rangers Boys

All of whom have run at least one marathon before and as befits all things QPR these days, they have taken a professional approach mixed with a little Italian style to ensure they are in tip-top shape come race day.  The group is made up of:

• Mark Coughlin – The personification of fitness, wellbeing and professionalism.  Recently raced some old banger from Woking to Mongolia and still managed to run 60kms a week in the process.
• Richard ‘Lloydy’ Lloyd – we ran together in Chicago and despite injuries, he nonetheless put in a two week marathon training session in Mauritius, although technically it was also his honeymoon.
• Kevin ‘Chocky’ McSweeney – in 1984, Kev was the second youngest entrant in the London marathon.  He really has had a torrid time with injuries and as he says: “If I were dating a physio I’d save a fortune”
• Ian ‘Pykey’ Pyke – lithe of limb, stout of heart and firm of mind.  So professional in fact, he actually practices ducking at the line.
• David Rowe – QPR’s man in Singapore and training in conditions that make Phnom Penh look cold.  Another making a comeback to marathons after a 20 year hiatus.

3. Rest of the World

• Katja Klug – the last remaining female of the many that ‘were going to run’ and she is running her home town marathon.  Being German, if it goes to penalties, we’re sure to win with her in the side.
• David ‘Daffyd’ Evans – smokes 20 a day, drinks like a fish and has skinny legs.  Yet, the boy can run and the cleaver pesos are on him to romp home in a little over three hours.  He’s Welsh you know!
• David ‘DK’ Khan – an old colleague from London and despite entering several marathons since I ‘encouraged’ him to run his first, this will actually be his third race.
• Jon Purr – the man from Hull, now living in Singapore, has been blighted by injuries ever since his beloved Hull City got promoted to the Premiership and started winning…sorry, for injuries read beery sessions.

Well to the virgins running their first marathons and to those returning to the fold after a good few years, may I wish us all much success and I am looking forward to catching up with them all in due course.  Fingers crossed, we’ll all come home safe, in one piece and with a fine cold German beer in our paws come 5pm on race day.

Cheers

JH