Cambodia Diaries - 14 October 2009

Out with the old and in with the new

Quite how it’s worked out the way it has I am at a loss to explain, but work out this way it has!

When I sit down to write out my marathon training schedule I use a pencil because I am conscious of the fact that at least twice if not more, I’ll be revising it before race day.

The cornerstone of my preparation has been training in the gym, walking and zealous attention to what I consume to make up for the fact that for long spells during the training periods, injuries have stopped me from running as one story of woe has inevitably been followed by the next ailment waiting in the wings to hinder progress.  To run a marathon having only run some 33 miles in training is one hell of an effort I can tell you.

Entering September, half way through my four month training plan, I was a tad surprised to still be on the original plan to such an extent, that for the first time in this seven year madness, I decided that I needed to put the brakes on!  I was less then a kilogram off my target weight for race day, I had not missed a weekend’s run, gym session and with all this yoga, I was rather supple considering.

The timing was perfect to take a short break because after 16 months and many predictions of visiting made pre-economic downturn, someone I actually knew arrived and who didn’t travel here by their own means of two wheeled transportation.

I first held Patrick Constantis in my arms in 1986.  It was a damn sight easier to do it then as he had been born a few months earlier to my cousin Carmel in Corfu.  As we all stood around this little bundle aside the Aegean Sea with his life ahead of him, little did he or I know that we were on the same path!  After the family moved back to London, Patrick took to supporting QPR, is part of the University of Sussex alumni and as is evident from his year long trip, the wanderlust on the maternal side of our family has found residence in the  next generation.  It is also fair to say that this new generation has mastered the art of traveling light, for I have gone away with more stuff for long weekends then that which he arrived in PP with. 

No sooner here then he was presented to the other two members of the Phnom Penh QPR Supporters Club branch. I had promised my aunt, his Grandma, that I would ‘look after the boy and ensure he was feed and watered’ and apart from an initial bout of Delhi Belly days after leaving the UK, he has been in remarkably good fettle since. So no surprises that within 24 hours of being in my presence, he came down with a dodgy tummy. 

Indeed, by the time Patrick, Nikolai a half Norwegian Londoner from Queens Park and the third member of the PP Hoops and I went quadbiking the next day, we all had queasy tummies.  A tremendous afternoon planned was slightly diluted by Patrick’s bike falling apart, a brute of a downpour so that by the time we returned to PP, all three of us were sopping and covered in muck from head to toe.

Three mucky pups (Patrick, Me, Nikolai and our guide)

The day after Patrick left I was getting up to go to work when I went one way and the back the other and with it and at long last, an injury! The rest of the month's training was largely lost as I again hobbled into work looking anything other then an athlete to visit Sopheak, one of our physios, for several lunchtime fixing sessions.  

Two weeks of rest with me managing to convert a planned 5 mile run into a genteel walk was all that I could do during the fortnight. However, in the middle of September whilst needing to use up some airmiles, I had arranged a visit to Singapore for which my old buddy Vib Sharma enquired: ‘So you’re coming down for warm weather training then?’  If you are going to have injuries in this game, then at the end of your training is not the place to have them and so with some trepidation, I brought my running leg with me for what was hopefully going to be a 7 mile run.

Now in the longer intervening period, between when I came out for Vib’s wedding in 2000 to last month’s visit, his stepson Song has grown up somewhat and as befalls young Singaporean men, he must do two years national service and Vib had kindly volunteered Song to accompany me on the run under the guise of ‘He’s in training for the army!”   Where I wondered have the years gone that the once page boy at his mother’s wedding is now on the cusp of being a trained killer/potato peeler or whatever the Royal Singaporean Forces have mapped out for him.

Of course, I had absolutely no confidence that he would be up and ready to run at 5.15am a time he is more used to coming home at after a night out these days but low and behold, there he was out the front putting his trainers on having got the car fired up for the off.  As we departed I could not help but think ‘hang on you were only a boy a blink of the eye ago’ and now you’re driving me before we run 7 miles!

The future of the Royal Singaporean Army and son of Sharma…oh dear!

I have never run with anyone before, so I was a bit edgy what with that prospect and my back having kept me out of action for a bit and I suspect it was the first time anyone in Singapore has been up so early to run on a Saturday morning as there were only a handful of pensioners doing tai chi by the reservoir when we finally got going around 5.30am.  Thankfully, all went well and by the time we called it quits we had completed just over 7½ miles and where as I was bathed in sweat and had a head on me as red as a swan vestas match, Song merely flicked his hair, took a sip of water and had the air of a man for whom the drive home was going to be more taxing.

All the while, the Sharma slept soundly.

No sooner back in PP when the old Khmer adage that you wait ages for a visitor to rock up then four arrive came home to roost.  Graham Small, a Kiwi I worked with at the asylum that was Grampian Television in 1990, has been a travel guru of sorts, albeit that the more adventurous stuff that he and his wife Sue got up to has been temporarily replaced of late and for the next dozen years by Juliet and Jeff now aged 10 and 8 respectively.  The day I handed my notice in to go on my first travels Graham and I went for some liquid lunch and everywhere I was going, he and Sue had been to, which took the gloss off the excitement a bit. However, they did fix my mate Stuart and I up to stay at his sister’s place in Perth and with his parents in Auckland. 

Indeed, it has been a feature of my globaltrips that I always ‘pop in’ to NZ to see the Smalls as Graham has kept an eager eye on his protégé both from a traveling perspective and also from an athletic one. Marathons to Mr Small are a tad limp and though he has now retired, his pursuits were of the Ironman variety where before you do a marathon, you have to swim 2 kilometers, cycle 100 more to then have the pleasure of running 42.2 kilometers! So when I was sorting my finances out to facilitate my getting from London to PP and then on to NYC, it worked out that the most cost efficient way to do this was to purchase what has turned out to be my fourth round the world ticket but with time being of the essence, there was none to allow me to go via NZ.

So when he, in true Honney fashion, contacted to invite himself and the family as I have done to them, there was a near perfect synergy to it all and the Small family-Honney world tour tradition remains intact.

Just your average elephant popping in to a bar for
one after work with Juliet and Jeff

But during the time of their visit, I needed to get in some good long runs. Bizarrely, all my midweek training had ceased as I rested up but unlike before, I was able to run at weekends, the complete opposite to before and come early Saturday mornings, I would be in a sufficient state to run albeit that precious little would happen until the following weekend.  My training once I get to the 10 mile mark is such; that long runs are interspersed with shorter ones as I ease myself to the all important last big run. Basically, if you can get yourself to 15 miles three weeks before a marathon without needing CPR, you should be ok come race day.

My last series of runs were however rescheduled for 12, 13 and the final big push for Saturday 10 October. I got through the first two targets without too much discomfort, but for the last big run I will freely admit that I was a little anxious when setting off at 3.46am due to recent niggles. PP is not the best place in the world to try running in fact, it’s a challenge with so much to occupy your mind in the form of safety, not least that little period around 5.15am when the street lights are turned off and the sun has not quite switched itself on. Then around 6am when the roads start to get busy, which due to the pavements not being the best to run on shall we say, you're better off on the roads and thus, avoiding being run over also occupies the mind.

But bang on 7am I ambled down my street in reasonable nick and with huge relief at having completed 16 miles!!   

I am now in the taper down period which means the next two weekend runs before the race on 1 November are a ‘mere’ 10 and then 5 miles. The amazing thing is that despite the lack of midweek training over the last month, for the first time I have actually completed all that I set out to do some four months ago to such an extent, that of the 104 miles I had hoped to run by this stage, I am actually at 121 miles.  How typically ironic that despite everything that has been, I am now starting to get it right just as the fat lady is warming her vocal chords.

However, the temptation much less the desire to continue after NYC is not as before and as this old dog stands on the edge of retiring, it really is time to move aside and let the younger pups take over. I just hope they have as much fun as I have.

Finally as ever, to all of you for your kind emails, calls and so forth, thank you. See you in NYC.

Cheers

JHx           

     
ps I know times are hard and as many have been so generous before, if you can great but if not, then no worries…but if you could throw something in the pot it would be handy or I’ll have a whacking bill in NYC.

If you have any problems using Visa on the donation site, just let me know and I will work something out.