Skip to main content

Who am I again?

This morning, I set my alarm for earlier than I would to get up for work. That's right. On the 'day of rest' I set my alarm to make me stop resting earlier.

And last night, I sipped caffeine free tea and popped myself into bed at 10pm. Same time as if I was getting up for a hard days work.

One of my biggest fears in life is that I would never stop loving smoking. That I would always like it and therefore always smoke because my mantra is to do what I love to do (within reason, people).

And just as my hate-on for smoking surprised me, so has my desire to get up early.

I don't get up early. And I say this in the Tom Hanks-League of their Own-"There's no crying in baseball" voice.

And yet, guess what? I do.

Not only do I get up early, but I throw on some fitness gear, fill up my running belt bottles and head out to conquer the road, 1km at a time.

This morning met me with glorious sunshine, so much so that I didn't need all the layers I had piled on earlier in the morning when it was just dawn. And my call to NOT bring my sunglasses? Ah ya - bad call.

Training has been a whole different beast this time around. Initially, I was nervous about whether I could do it. I decided to train on my own this time, choosing to let my tunes be my motivation. Last week, I realized I was getting bored with myself.

And so, with a Running Room nearby, I decided to join the rest of the real runners and get my long run in, first thing in the morning.

Which brings us to the early rise. Last 1/2 marathon training, I dreaded trying to get up early to run. And today? Well, it seemed the like the most natural thing to do first thing in the morning - run for 2 and half hours.

It was a tough slog, but a glorious one, filled with feet thumping and mountain staring, idle chatter and re-hydrating..

So the best part about this self imposed wake up call? It wasn't hard to roll out of bed and it didn't seem out of the ordinary - at all.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

They Started a Heat Wave

(sing) a tropical heat wave.... (White Christmas fans? anyone? c'mon..) Yes, there is a heat wave, with warm sun and highs of 30 but NOT HERE IN KOREA. Yes, it is warm and humid but there is no sun. Do you want to know where the sun has ended up? BELFAST!! Lucky bastards....I wanted a tan by August gosh darnit - I should have stayed with the Guinness. And, it wouldn't have been a day on this blog without some reference to the weather. The weekend was a nice long relaxing one but super panic hit on Monday night and I was ready to get out of the house. I was freaking out yet again about the garbage (what the hell is wrong with me?) and didn't have a great sleep. There is something to be said for cooping yourself up in your house to watch English speaking DVDs for a day. But I think this only stops you from experiencing the culture. I did venture out on Saturday by bus (whoa, crazy bus drivers) to Pusan where the open markets you can barter and get cheap shirts - thanks to my

Korean Drivers Manual

1 - First and foremost, you are the only car on the road. Please drive this way. 2 - Be sure to keep a tally of the number of pedestrians you hit. 10 points for old ladies, 20 for young children (they can run faster you see). You can also add 5 points for each near miss and pat yourself on the back for trying. 3 - Red lights can tend to get in the way of your driving. Simply proceed through them if you need to. Honk your horn to make sure the cars that actually have the right of way know you'll be sailing through the intersection. 4 - Signalling is recommended but your car does not have blind spots. Just go ahead an change lanes. 5 - It works best if you keep one foot on the gas and one foot on the brakes at all times. This will allow you to continually pump the breaks all the way down the street avoiding 'other cars' while still revving your engine and going at the speed of light during those intervals when you are not slamming on your brakes. (By 'other cars' I

Starring....

A Teacher and D Teacher! On local Gimhae TV. Having the cheesiest english conversation known to man! A: Is it hot enough for you? D: Yes, we need more rain A: More rain, are you crazy? It will flood the streets again! Can you believe it only took me 5 MINUTES to write that? Wow, I'm pretty talented. And pretty much a big geek. The local cable station does a show every week about the school and Big A used to appear on a regular basis with his 'Daily Expression'. I decided to take it to the next level. I created the 'Daily Conversation' and launched D and I into the stardom that we so deserve here in Gimhae, considering everyone stares at us anyway. No one in the camera crew spoke english and it was back to A-language again, with me nodding and smiling and pretending to understand. (this really works actually - why do people even learn the language anyway?) It brought me back to the high school days when I used to produce a show for the local cable station about our h