Cambodia Diaries - 30 October 2009

The Before Bit

Well the tapper down went a little off skew, but what the hell as all things considered, the training has been tremendous.

I generally try to avoid running with people as it can cause more problems then solutions, but for my penultimate run I had made plans to run with Brîan (QPR supporter number 2) who is training for a half-marathon, only to find that as I made my way to the RV point, some 5 miles into my run, the trusty gel leg sock burst like the tyres on an F1 car and curtailed my ability to run. I managed to walk a further 3 miles challenging Brîan to try and lap me around Hun Sen Park, before calling it quits and heading home.

A week later on 24 October, further plans to meet up with Brîan for my final training run, a mere leg turner of 5 miles, were delayed due to the reasonably unusual appearance of early morning rain in PP. To be fair, it was such that it actually woke me up at 4.30am and so I fired Brîan a text suggesting that we delay our run. Half an hour later and still lashing down, I fired off another text to announce that as far as I was concerned, ‘rain stopped play and good luck out there’.  Running 5 miles a week before the race really wasn’t going to make too much of a difference whereas being soaked to the bone would and so for what was the first and will likely be the last time, instead of getting out of bed in the early hours of the morning, I rolled over and went back to sleep.

This was bloody welcome because instead of resting the night before a run, I was out at a little gathering of the boys and girls to say adios as I won’t be back in PP until early January.  But as I was polishing off the sodas and lime it meant that no sooner was I in bed, then I was doing a small marathon back and forth to the toilet all night.  By the time it came round to get up and run, I was still half asleep and all things considered, the rain was quite handy really.

It was sad to say goodbye to all but as I said to the girls as we all left, ‘take a good look at me now because this is as good as it is going to get!’ My training has, despite a dodgy back for the last month, been the best of the lot. I would say that I am the fittest I have been for any of the five and certainly the lightest going to the starting line.  In fact, having had to have an extra hole put in my belts, I have purposefully put on a little bit of weight back on since leaving PP. 

The long schlep from PP to NYC started by flying down to Singapore for a few nights last weekend.  This afforded me the opportunity to carry out a couple of tasks.

Naturally, I was being hosted by the Sharmas, who were also hosting our friends Dan and Swee Metcalfe from KL. Earlier in the year when I popped into see the latter, the Sharmas rolled up to surprise me. The tables were turned when at the Metcalfes’ tenth wedding anniversary dinner; I roll in to send Dan’s jaw to the floor.  If it wasn’t there, then it soon was when our mate Justin (who was mentioned here when he played his last rugby game in PP a year ago) rocked up from Australia.

Nights around a table

However, just as you thought it was safe to assume that amputee lawyers running marathons were an endangered species, then like buses a second one comes along!

In 2004 Fiona Callanan was on holiday in Thailand and got caught by the tsunami and sadly, lost part of her leg. She is a plucky girl I will give her that because within a couple of years later she was cycling across Cambodia! Now living with her husband in Singapore, she contacted Cambodia Trust (‘CT’) saying that she wanted to run a marathon for us.  Whereupon I entered stage left. 

A quick call to my mate Fiona Jerman who got me into my first marathon back in 2004 and several years later, she again used her influence to get Ms Callanan a place for the 2010 London marathon. Not surprisingly, she had a few questions and as I was in Singapore, we met for an isotonic latte.

It was strange talking about what lays ahead of her based on my experiences over the last few years and I must confess to feeling a little melancholy with the impending passing of this chapter in my life and one which I have thoroughly enjoyed every step along the way. As I promised Fiona, many will be painful, some will even be excruciating, but the one that takes you over the starting line is the one that will make you feel like a child walking into school for the first day again.  However, the step that takes you over the finishing line is the one that fills you with such a sense of pride that despite all that you will go through to get there, it will all be worth it at the end.

She is already up to 5 miles which took me about a year to get to that mark.  However at that point she starts having problems which of course only took me about 5 minutes to get to that stage in proceedings!

But she certainly has that look about her that suggests she is not the type that will give up too easily and I would not be the least bit surprised if after completing her first marathon, she goes on to bag several more.

And so to assist her, I called in David Rowe, who ran in Berlin to act as her coach. David is running in the Singapore half-marathon with his wife doing the 10kms yomp and so I left them all to get on with it…crazy young things the lot of them.

Passing the baton on with the Rowe boys, David and Master Stan

This comes to you from Los Angeles where I moved onto next to brake the schlep up and also, to start getting used to the bad weather!  As I sit typing this, the World Series is on from NYC and it looks decidedly chilly.  Running in the heat agrees with me but dropping down 20 or 30 degrees presents a real challenge and an equal measure of concern.

Now I have been coming to the city of angels quite a lot over the last few years but after my first visit, only because it has been a point of entry or departure from the US. I must confess to not caring for the place much but if you do come here, then the place to stay for my money are the beach cities.  This time round I have holed up in Manhattan Beach, obviously, and despite a slight concern about feeling a little cold coming on, I have had two wonderfully sunny mornings walking along the beaches of Manhattan and Hermosa where Angelinos are also running, cycling and roller blading as only they do round these parts.

I then stop for some breaky at a place I often come to when I am here called ‘Good Stuff’.  The fact that I am sat chomping as the ladies beach volleyball players go through their paces is pure coincidence, but very enjoyable breakfast entertainment nonetheless.

I have also endured the customary false accusations of my hosts of being called ‘Australian’.  Americans remain as ridiculously friendly as usual just as their sense of geography remains as ever. The look of confusion written on their faces when I say ‘Cambodia’ is priceless and I am sure many actually think I’m that Aussie bloke living in Toronto!

Thursday 29 I fly up to the Big Apple and I have been blessed again with the offer of an apartment on Madison Avenue right opposite Central Park. Peter Darrow, a man who does the type of law that comes with several noughts attached and who also happens to be the chair of the board of CT, has thrown open his apartment to me.  Peter is a wonderful man who is much admired by us all at CT and who is currently involved with his most trying case of his life and which we all wish him much success with for the obvious reasons. http://peterscancerdiary.blogspot.com    

But I am also looking forward to catching up with some old friends and some new ones. Friday sees a lot of us meeting at a bar to watch QPR and I also have some friends in the Apple for a holiday as well meeting up with a chap called Chris Cooke who like me, is a QPR fan running the marathon and we have been keeping check on each others progress via email.

I will go to the start with a heart as heavy as my legs will hopefully be at the end of it all. I am not sure at which point the ‘when not if’ moment will arrive but if you are at a loose end at 10am, East Coast time on Sunday 1 November, then log on to www.nycmarathon.com and you will see down the left hand side under Race Week Info the link to ‘Athlete Alert’ and you can enter the details for runner 59,972 and get updates or, as I understand it, there will also be a race day tracking link as well.

Well as ever, many thanks to you all.  I keep saying it, but all your messages are as well received today as they ever have been and again, thank you seems not to carry the right amount of gravitas for how much they have all been appreciated.

And come what may, I am very much looking forward to a cold one or two Sierra Nevadas after the race as I sit on a barstool reminiscing on it all as a retired athlete.

Cheers

JHx