Cambodia Diaries - 22 April 2009
This Sporting Life
I fired up the old PC a couple months back to find two very contrasting emails. The first informed that a half marathon I had entered for 1st March had a field of a mere 20 runners! The other email was from the Achilles Track Club an American amputee charity, confirming my place in the 2009 NYC marathon.
Just prior to Christmas, Lucy a friend working at another NGO enquired if I would offer her guidance on running a half marathon. No sooner said and I’d entered the race and started to rope other poor souls in as well.
Adam, a teammate in our pub quiz team, was made hopelessly compliant on Christmas Day and Helen similarly co-opted on New Year’s Eve were told to report with Lucy to the Olympic Stadium at 6am on 10 January when their training would start. A few did drop out, but we finally added Hugo, an experienced Canadian speedster with lofty ambitions of winning the race. The members of Team Runny Honney 2 were rabid with determination and commitment and regular early Saturday morning runs around the Olympic Stadium was not enough for them and all three of the first timers eclipsed the training plans I had drafted for them and certainly kept me on my five toes.
Race day commenced at 6am in Kep, one of the nicer coastal settlements in Cambodia and ran 13.1miles inland to a little village that the charity organizing the event supports. Despite it being a half-yomp, the heat and humidity on the day made it every bit as challenging as a full yomp and without any of the usual necessities that I have come to expect.
Despite near perfect training, I really struggled on the day. The course itself consisted of a mere 3 or 4 miles on proper road and the rest was on either unsealed roads made slippery due to an over night deluge or worse, from the half way point we hit scraggy undulating cross country track. Throw into the mix the facts that I ran much of the race on my own and the Cambodian crowds, such that they were, merely stood gawping at you with a look that said “You fools” as opposed to providing encouragement all combined to make it a bit of a damp squib.
However, I came home in 2.25.03secs which is my standard time for half way in a full yomp and after considering all of the above, I was chuffed with. Adam was about 14 minutes quicker, Lucy and Helen some 20 and 30 minutes behind me respectively. I may have found it miserable but the others seemed to enjoy it and the charity concerned raised a lot of loot. Hugo did really well with an impressive time of 1hr 32min and claimed second place. So well in fact, that his prize was the naming of a local Well in his honour!
L TRH 2: Adam, Me, Hugo, Helen and Lucy
NYC will be a different experience in front of thousands of people. A slight wobbly moment appeared when the charity emailed to say that I still had to register for a place with the race organizers, especially as I have booked flights and invited myself to friends in the city! But I am sure it will all turn out fine in the end. I am also conscious that not only is this going to hopefully see me complete all five of the World Marathons, but in all probability this will also be my last race because the toll is becoming too much. Certainly as I laid there shattered after the Berlin yomp, my thought was ‘one more’ and as I lay there in Central Park the thought of running ‘one more’ will not appeal.
The sporting month of March 2009 that started in a sleepy seaside town on the Bay of Thailand with NYC in mind, was blown out of the water when I attended the recent Hong Kong 7’s rugby tournament at the end of the March. When I pinged an email off to the chaps out here in early 2008 informing that I would be hunkering down in PP for a while, my good mate, Jasper Donat, replied immediately with what seemed as much an order as it was a recommendation: “You must come to the Sevens.”
It’s all well and good living in PP, but when the opportunity presents for a bit of developed world living and catching up with old friends, then grab it with both hands. Jasper and I had the pleasure/misfortune of working in the media world in London back in the day and despite not seeing each other for many years and me probably owing a bundle of TV ratings, we renewed acquaintances on the stag doo of our mutual amigo, Vib Sharma in 2000.
Jasper’s good mates at Synovate had invited us to their box, which in view of the costs of things in HK was a tremendous result for a bloke in the NGO field. The pre-7’s advice from The Sharma and another mutual friend from his stag doo, Dan Metcalfe, was similar to that which I stress to virgin runners of both TRH’s; pace yourself. But upon arriving at the venue to find Justin Sampson (he from the December blog entry) dressed in full lederhosen and Jasper with the pleasant glow of a man who’d had a good long lunch, it was as much as I could do to catch up.
Also in the box was Julie, a colleague from back in the day, and despite knowing no one else, I was as welcomed as the prodigal son. The next thing I knew, I was not the only international athlete entertaining the troops, for who should pitch in to help me out, none other then a true legend of both egg shaped codes, Jonathan Davies. Men like the mercurial Welsh man, blessed with sublime talents rarely disappoint and he was no exception. He popped in for a quick cold one before the overnight red-eye back to Heathrow and straight in to a day’s commentary on the BBC!
The case of the Legend and the Leg-end
I thought my first night went well until Jasper informed that I may have been a tad loud on the way home. Which as I understood it, is de rigueur for the 7’s and in any event, he was hardly likely to be the prosecution star witness having been on it all day.
Now when I was here last, Miss Sunny Donat was a baby and now aged 3½ she presented a different cherubic proposition. I arrived knackered after a 4am start and Sunny and I hit it off from the word go and no sooner up after a little shut-eye, I accepted her invitation of “Let’s play a game”. The game for it had no name or rules as far as I could make out, merely resulted in cries from an arm waving Sunny of “I win”. Despite the best efforts of Sid a.k.a. Mum, to hold her back at 6.30am the next morning, in she marched to my room as I wallowed in the midst of my hung over sleep recovery plan. Davies was getting off lightly up the pointy end of the plane in comparison as an army of dolls and teddies were paraded, all seemingly with the name Alex or Alexandra. Of course, when the last one was brought in and I was challenged to name the chap I was lambasted by Sunny as a ‘Chumpster’ for answering Alex. No amount of pre-7’s advice had prepared me for this.
I could hear Sid laughing next door as the banter between us flowed in this one-sided contest which the Donat dad/daughter tag team had contrived. By 8am I was wide awake, sleep had been abandoned and after a quick shower I joined Sid for breakfast to be informed that I had got off lightly as Sunny’s original plan was to wake me at 5.30am. Jasper slept on.
Upon joining the Donat gals, Sunny’s next suggestion: “Let’s play dressing up”. Out of my comfort zone and despite pointing out that her collection of dresses would not fit me, the ever resourceful Sunny produced a tabard, Panama hat and instructions to “Dress up as a cowboy!” Efforts to discard the apparel were met with recriminatory looks by Sunny and hence my view of a plot against me because low and behold, the rested Jasper surfaces with a camera. Done again!
Sunny and cowboy circa 8.15am…how could you say no!
The 7’s kick off early on the weekends and conscious of the advice given and armed with a bacon sarnie, my Saturday morning session got off to a strong start with a couple of hours on the Bloody Marys. Somewhere out there were finely tuned athletes battering themselves in the name of rugby. But the real fun is in the stands and if rugby players had any sense, they could simply spoof in the middle, save themselves all the punishment and we’d be none the wiser. With a firm tomato foundation secured, an afternoon of beautifully paced beer supping took place and led me into the night in fine fettle.
Play ended about 7pm after England beat Wales, well that’s what someone said and Julie, who is Welsh, had disappeared, so it must be true. We all moved to a beer tent because 8 hours drinking was clearly not enough. This was going to get messy and then Jasper got a text to remind him that his band (5 Men in Uranus – tut tut) were jamming that night and enquiring if the bass guitar was coming along? I don’t know what it says about the state of music in the 21st century, but when a night with a rock band saves you from the rugger crowd, it certainly says something.
The final day arrived with Sunny again thrashing me at everything and all four of us trooping off to the stadium together. The thing about the 7s is that it maybe a relic of HK’s colonial past and a full on party and drinking festival for 3 days with a rugby tournament desperately trying to be noticed in the middle, but it’s also a family affair and despite the adults all being sozzled, the stadium is full of kids probably helping themselves to the booze as well for all we know. The mornings see many kids from local clubs playing on the hallowed turf and being cheered on by thousands of early hung over attendees and I understand much of the profits are ploughed back into the grass roots of the game. Of all the sporting events I have been to, it is arguably the most enjoyable and it is most definitely the most lubricated.
The rules of the game state that what goes on tour stays on tour and thus, I am not able to print the picture of Jasper’s first drink on the Sunday and I can neither confirm nor deny that it was an alka seltzer. Likewise, he won’t print the piccy of me eating a carrot! There was one last chance to be tagged by the Donat tag duo when Sunny offered me a carrot which is distinctly un-7’s fodder I know, but how could one say no to so such an angelic face. Whereupon Jasper whips out his camera and snaps me just as Julie held aloft the Welsh flag behind me…chumpster indeed.
All told, a wonderful weekend and one I am truly indebted to Jasper, Sid and of course, Miss Sunny as well as our hosts, the ever welcoming boys and girls at Synovate for. The tournament, as if it mattered, was won by a lively Fijian team. But the recession being as aggressive in HK as elsewhere meant that seasoned veterans of the 7’s were commentating on how toned down it was compared to previous years.
On tour with the Donat posse
Maybe it was a case of the band playing on as the Titanic sinks, but if this is so, then as I sat recovering on the train heading to Shanghai the next day, I considered that I had got away lightly. And with Miss Sunny destined to join the ranks of kids playing rugby at the 7’s next year, I pity the chumpsters not on her team for they will surely have no chance at all.
Cheers
JH |
