It’s tomorrow!

Posted on November 2, 2013 by NM

Right now I am sitting on the couch in my friend BC’s apartment listening to the hustle and bustle of the early Saturday morning NY streets below. I have been awake for a couple of hours. There is a lot going on in my brain.

I arrived in New York yesterday morning in what felt like the start and end (I am still not sure, I suppose it is both) of an enormous journey, but in reality was a two hour flight from the ATL.

A message from my aunt this morning

Well Nik, we have gone full circle. This time last year you were arriving in Australia. We will be with you every step of the way. Looking forward to the finish photo and medal. Be brave. With love

It’s true, on this day last year I was landing in Australia. When I took off from LA the 2012 NYC marathon had not been cancelled, when I landed in Sydney it had. Either way it didn’t matter so much to me then, but because of the cancellation I had the opportunity to run this year. I would probably have not been able to otherwise. Small things.

Yesterday I went to the Expo to pick up my bib. There were thousands of people there, thousands of fit looking, marathon running types of people. It was a daunting experience. The bag check, id check, the bib pick up and then the only possible exit is through the rest of the expo area. A bit like the people you always curse when traveling with small kids and you have to travel through the duty free shop on your way into and out of customs, the very clever organisers funnel you into the world’s biggest ASICS NYC Marathon shop where people are in a frenzy buying themselves mementos and gifts for family and friends. While you stand still, trying to think and take it all in you wonder why you can’t – it must be the DJ in the middle of it all pumping tunes designed for maximised purchasing opportunities. If you don’t move you are at risk of being knocked over – good practice for the start line tomorrow?

I didn’t go with the shiny silver jacket with inbuilt red flashing lights on the shoulders, not sure if it was an 80’s throwback or not but not that many chilly days in Atlanta to justify.

The shirt I wanted to get wasn’t in my size, but I was able to buy it anyway for the PBM who by chance was corresponding with me via fb chat at that exact time and was happy to take the XS on offer.

After I made it out alive from the ASICS store there were rows and rows of running related things that were what I imagine to be a bit like a runners heaven running shop.

It was about the same time that a message came in from another friend having seen my check in to the expo (I am nothing if not a slave to social media)

You can never buy too much gear there

Thanks for the green light Soph!

Luckily the headbands were in my size so a did snap up a few of those, although not all of mine say 26.2.

I got a couple of other t-shirts and thought I should stop then – and didn’t go through with the thigh warmers, shoes, flouro long socks or various protein bars or the Vitamixes on offer.

I did want the gloves but left without them somehow.

After I escaped the madness and was walking back to BC’s there was a beautiful New York sunset.

Tomorrow’s high in NY is predicted to be 9 degrees celsius. Chilly and windy. Better than too hot I suppose. The OAC (from Kili adventures) ran a marathon in Myanmar today where the temperature was 32 degrees celsius but the ‘comfort level’ was 39!?

In other news as I start in the final wave at 10.55am I wasn’t keen on being on a bus at 6am and having to wait at the start line with my 48 000 closest friends wearing running gear and garbage bags, so I enquired about alternative transport yesterday at the Expo and was able to get on a Staten Island Ferry at 8.15am, which will bring me to the start line at about 9, a much more acceptable arrangement.

I am feeling the love from around the world so much. Thank you all for your messages via various forms of social media and telephone. I treasure every one of them and will draw on them tomorrow.

I suspect ( not having ever manged more than 11km) a marathon is like childbirth where you set off with good intentions but take sound medical advice if required through the process.

Thanks Sally C for this giggle with excellent advice.

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I may not get to 42 sponsors tomorrow but there is no harm in trying. I will be chasing Sponsors to be Committed to Testing for the rest of the year, and a very long time yet. I believe that awareness of possible symptoms and testing when appropriate are so important.

How to sponsor me for your very own kilometre – click here and don’t forget to let me know which kilometre you want. Again I am focussing on value for money, your kilometre will last at least 7 minutes!

Numbers marked in red are taken, perhaps your lucky number is still available?! Snap it up now before those that haven’t chosen yet pick it.

How to be a sponsor committed to testing – send an email to randomthoughtsnikki@gmail.com to let me know and get along to your local GP or pharmacy, whatever way is accepted in your country of residence and do yourself a favour and get tested. I won’t be asking for medical results or certificates ;)

It’s a small crowd so far, but don’t let that deter you from joining.

6 days

Posted on October 28, 2013 by NM

6 days.

In 6 days these shoes will take me on a journey that I will probably never forget. A journey I can’t yet imagine fully without waves of panic and a little bit of nausea.

The shoes are in honour of my mum who fought Bowel Cancer (or Colon Cancer, depends which country you live in as to what you call it) for over six years with a ferocity that would surely have carried her through many a marathon. I can’t believe it was only 11 months ago she was standing in my living room, wearing the hot pink shoes she bought on arrival in Atlanta, to do another walk around our neighbourhood, even after discontinuing all treatment and having two stints in hospital during her three month stay with us.

She never gave up. I hope that I don’t give up on Sunday.

I am running / plodding for the Jodi Lee Foundation. The gorgeous Jodi was a fabulous friend of mine. Jodi was diagnosed with Bowel Cancer at 39 and passed away two years later, after a tremendous battle. Although friends from ‘home’ our families both lived parts of our lives as expats, happily landing us in Asia at the same time. They visited Hong Kong and we visited Vietnam, leaving great memories of fun times – but not the best group photos. Note to everyone, even though you may hate photos of yourself, have photos taken with your friends often, they are not the most important memory but they are pretty good to have.

The Lee / Moffitt trip to Hoi An 2006

After she passed away, her husband Nick founded the Jodi Lee Foundation. The foundation promotes awareness of Bowel Cancer (particularly in Australia where 1 in 12 will develop Bowel Cancer in their lifetime), education about the importance of screening and the tests available and aims to improve the uptake of regular and appropriate screening by those at risk.

With Sarah in South Africa, 2011

I am running for Sarah, a friend from Hong Kong. Our sons were best friends in pre-school and beyond. Luckily her husband is South African with family in Durban, so we were treated to more than one visit during our time there.

This photo was taken a couple of months before Sarah ran the GreenPower in Hong Kong, a grueling 25km trail race, she set a cracking pace and recorded a great time. The race was one month before she was diagnosed with Bowel Cancer in Stage III. What followed, was a tough and unimaginable treatment process that lasted almost a year. As with Mum (most of the time) and Jodi, I followed from afar – only able to offer support by electronic and telephonic means. The tears I cried on March 2nd this year when I received the email saying her tests had come back showing the all clear were real, heartfelt and happy.

This past week I cried again, our neighbour’s 34 year old brother died of Colon Cancer. I had never met him, but his family have been our ‘go to’ people this move. They are wonderful and generous and have made our landing here softer. This weekend I will also remember Corey.

Mum, Jodi, Sarah and Corey never gave up. I’m going to try very hard to remember that for 42.2 kilometres on Sunday.

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As the big day approaches I am loving all the messages of support I am getting from places near and far. I appreciate that there will be people thinking of me from so many countries around the world, some of which will have daytime at the same time we do!

I may not get to 42 sponsors by Sunday but I am going to do my best. I will be chasing Sponsors to be Committed to Testing for the rest of the year, and a very long time yet. I believe that awareness of possible symptoms and testing when appropriate are so important.

How to sponsor me for your very own kilometre – click here and don’t forget to let me know which kilometre you want. Still so many to choose from and don’t say I don’t give value for money, your kilometre will last at least 7 minutes!

Numbers marked in red are taken, perhaps your lucky number is still available?! Snap it up now before those that haven’t chosen yet pick it.

The Plodder

Posted on October 10, 2013 by NM

I have never worried too much about being a slow runner. I was never a sprinter at school, much more a cross country girl. Long and slow for me, really very slow – even back in the day when I wore short shorts rather than three quarter pants to run because I didn’t care so much who saw my legs.

In the recent 10km races I have participated in I don’t worry when the crowd takes off in front of me, even the yummy mummies with their prams. They hover ahead in the distance and slowly, slowly, very slowly – I make up that ground. Usually on the hills, which is a surprise as I am the slowest hill runner known to mankind. They may be pushing a pram with a toddler (or two sometimes) but I partly justify that I am carrying the extra kg’s on my person, sadly not in the form of a weight belt. I get frustrated with the sprinter, walker crowd – they put me off a bit, get in my head, when they sprint past and then then five minutes later rounding a corner they are walking and I plod past them only to be taken again in another few minutes time.

By about two thirds of the way through, the yummy mummies with prams, the sprinter walkers and a few others pulled up with injuries or for other various reasons are generally behind me and I start to see people I haven’t seen since the starting line. A fit father and middle school daughter running together, at some stage one of them must have needed to walk and so I inch towards and then surprising myself, past them. A guy running by himself who at the start I guessed as someone I would probably finish around the same time as – by what exact evaluation method I cannot tell you. Two women running together who look way fitter than I do, to me – in my mind, who probably didn’t train and just turned up and now are slowing down, just enough so I can edge past.

The point is, my brilliant strategy – is my only strategy, and I have always been quite happy with it. Not every man in the street can run a sub 2hr half marathon or sub 4hr full marathon. Hats off to those who can and do. I have several friends who can achieve this amazing feat and I have never been jealous of them – only in awe of their dedication and achievement as regular people who can train hard while managing families and jobs and their lives and just whip out a sub 4 hour marathon once in a while.

I have never really cared about being a slow runner until about 10 days ago when I had a 28km training run that took around 3 hours and 30 minutes. That was a looooong run that took a very long time. I got pretty jealous around kilometre 20. I was thinking off all the people I know who would already be home lying in their ice baths, eating protein bars and glugging down water and other rehydration substances. I do not put the end of that run in the win column for the mental game.

This weekend I have a 30km run to do, my last ‘long’ run before the marathon according to my trusty training plan that has my current ETA on November 3rd as 5:16 – 5:22. I can’t say I’m not a bit nervous, about this run and the big one in 25 days time. I am nervous, a lot. It is too late to change my pace, strategy, training plan and a lot of other things – so plodding it is.

Maybe I just need to Google ‘mental game for plodders’ and I’ll nail this thing.

Thank you to everyone for your messages of support and to those who have sponsored me for my long long long jog around New York City on Sunday November 3rd.

How to sponsor me for your very own kilometre – click here and don’t forget to let me know which kilometre you want. Still so many to choose from and don’t say I don’t give value for money, your kilometre will last at least 7 minutes!

Numbers marked in red are taken, perhaps your lucky number is still available?!

How to be a sponsor committed to testing – send an email to randomthoughtsnikki@gmail.com to let me know and get along to your local GP or pharmacy, whatever way is accepted in your country of residence and do yourself a favour and get tested. I won’t be asking for medical results or certificates ;)

I’m here, I’m training …

Posted on September 20, 2013 by NM

I bought some shoes.

They aren’t hot pink – but they do have hot pink laces. I have trained in them for the last 9 weeks so they are almost ready to be traded in. I have a hot pink pair on order to transition into for the last SIX weeks of training. *shrieks of terror*

You may recall last year my brother was consulting with a Hawaiian Iron Man participant on my behalf because he was concerned that I ‘wouldn’t have the legs’ to finish the whole thing. That story was part of this post. The upshot being that I should be clocking around 100kms / 62.5 miles a week and my long runs should be a lazy 35km / 22 miles on a regular basis. At that time, 12 days until the marathon, it was not such helpful information. My longest run to that point had been 25km / 15m miles and I wasn’t about to trot out a quick 35/22.

It is fair to say my training plan last year was on the haphazard side. An international move and a terminally ill parent was not conducive to a super smooth countdown, that was my excuse anyway. This year I did have the opportunity to consider better planning and running programs.

Here’s how that worked out.

A lot of thinking about starting to train for the first part of the year.
As summer drew nearer, thinking about how hot it would be to run in the heat.
When summer arrived – spending ENDLESS mornings of the 77 days my kids were on summer holidays at the pool for Swim team.
When Swim team ended it was the middle of summer, super hot and humid and about 18 weeks until the NYC Marathon. It was time to make a plan.*

In my internet browsing hours I happened to come across the New York Road Runners Virtual Training Plan. There was a 20 week plan, a 16 week plan and a 12 week plan. I was 18 weeks out – a tiny bit late for the 20 week plan but more than in time for the 16 week plan.

It was a fairly straight forward exercise that involved inputting some relevant statistics, determining if I would do a Conservative, Moderate or Advanced plan (tick Conservative here) my credit card number and voila – a 16 week track to running a marathon. It looked suspiciously similar to the training plan my Runkeeper app had produced on my phone for free, but the fact I had paid for it, even a small amount, made me feel I was more likely to follow it.

And although it fluctuates weekly depending on what information I input about my training runs and times, it tells me today my current estimated completion time is 5.16.23 – 5.26.21 just sneaking in under Katie Holmes’ time of 5.30 which was my driving force from last year. It’s not rocket speed, or particularly fast, it’s actually pretty slow – I am no sprinter, but unless you have run a marathon this year or last, or ever, you don’t get to tell me that.

I have been religiously recording my runs and times in and on of all my recording devices, so I am not cheating myself.

I now share them with you – to keep myself accountable.

Nine weeks of training, it really feels like I’ve run further, but you can’t argue with an App, a fitbit and a Garmin watch apparently. Triple checked.

I do have to be a sprinter now though in one respect. Today there are 45 days to go until I hit the starting line and I still want to meet my target of 42 financial sponsors – one for each kilometre and 42 sponsors committed to testing for Bowel cancer.

The first because I desperately want something and someone different to think about every 7 minutes or so – (give or take 45 seconds apparently – uphill, downhill, crazy spurt, extra slow) while plodding my way around the streets of New York and the second because The Jodi Lee Foundation is based on raising awareness of Bowel Cancer.

How to sponsor me for your very own kilometre – click here and don’t forget to let me know which kilometre you want. At the moment only #5 is taken. So many to choose from.

Ambitious? Hell yes, but so is running a marathon if you ask me.

* I thank my three years in South Africa for adding this phrase to my vocabulary, I have no idea what I would have used in the past, but it’s a brilliant addition.

The Marathon that wasn’t

Posted on June 1, 2013 by NM

It’s all in the history books now.

Monday October 29, Hurricane Sandy landed ashore in the New York, New Jersey coastal areas and beyond causing untold (if we can even use that word anymore with so many kinds of mobile social media) damage, loss and destruction.

Thursday November 1, while controversy was swirling like the remnants of the storm about the increasingly unpopular decision to keep the 2012 NYC Marathon on schedule I boarded a plane to Sydney rather than my scheduled one to New York.

Friday November 2, instead of a joyous and long planned reunion in New York, the PBM picked me up from the arrivals terminal at Sydney airport and drove me ‘home’ to Mum.

The PBM hadn’t been able to make the trip to New York because of travel chaos with ever changing flights and schedules and two of the three major airports being flooded and shut down. She had planned the time off so she used it to chauffeur me to my waiting family. I could not have driven after that flight and knowing what was to come. I am more than a little bit grateful she was there for me, that day and in the days and weeks to come. Really the PBM has been there for me ever since she declared me a scowl-ly person who was nicer than my face led her to believe in the halls of college at University twenty years ago.

Friday November 2 New York time, they cancelled the 2012 NYC Marathon. The runners already in town having managed to negotiate various travel methods to arrive had already picked up their numbers and were ready to go. Instead of running on Sunday November 4, over the weekend they joined numerous clean up efforts to help out the area so battered by the storm.

Jodi Lee Foundation CEO Nick Lee was one of those in town to run and kindly did a touch of souvenir shopping for me. Now I have a small but important memory of the marathon that never was. I don’t think I sent a thank you – I’ll put that on the list.

11/04/2012 as they say in these parts

Wednesday November 7 Australian time, Tuesday November 6 – US time when the Presidential Elections were underway I was having an awkward conversation with the lady in the Bunnings paint section about these colours