Holiday!!!

Ok, I know it is very poor form to bang on about holidays as a teacher, especially a teacher who is basically on one long holiday but… This term is 14 weeks long and we get one poxy 4 day weekend as half term. Pah!!

However, that weekend started tonight and as the bell rang we were grabbing our bags and jumping into the car to drive all the way across Malaysia to Kuala Besut which is the access point for the perhentian islands.

It took us about 7 hours with an entertaining dinner stop where we wished our Behasa was better so we could have shocked them even more. 3 ‘orang putih’ (white person – how the kids laughed when I asked if utan was orange… Orang utan… I thought it was clever) caused quite enough excitement.

Anyway we are now in our hotel and ready for an early start tomorrow to get the boat across to the island and then to go diving

That’ll be my Juneathon exercise for the first few days… Slightly unconventional, but needs must.

Night night

Xxxxx

What have I done?!

So, I was having a noodle on the interwebs today and was reading some of my favourite blogs and I realised after a bit that the -athoners were gearing themselves up for another festival of madness and this got me thinking the following thoughts:

- oi fattipuff you have completely and totally lost your exercise mojo over the last 2 weeks
- remember how you wanted to return to the UK tanned, fit and more like thinnifer?
- there are no good reasons why not to do this (there were for Janathon)
- you might locate your lost mojo which would be good given that you are supposed to be running a 10km race in 3 weeks.

So what did I do? I signed up of course. Join me in the madness by clicking here

Sharing

I have always considered myself to be fairly good at sharing.  I happily lend out my stationary at staff meetings, or to children; if anyone ever wanted to wear my clothes, they would be welcome; various bits of training kit are currently residing with various colleagues who wanted to have a go; after a few false starts of a Joey fashion ‘Fattipuff doesn’t share food’, I’ll even happily share food at a restaurant.

Since moving to Malaysia I have had to come to terms with sharing my living space.  Not with humans, but with various bugs and creatures – some of whom I object to and some of whom I don’t.  The ants – they have to go.  So do the cockroaches.  The geckos though, they can stay, and the funny little jumping spiders – I don’t really mind them (to be fair, they are a total pain to catch so I’ve just learnt to put up with them).  I am even happily sharing both my front and back porches with families of martins at the moment, despite the fact that means bird poop all over the place.

I have however drawn the line at termites.  Termites have decided that my house is the place to party.  I can empathise with them – for little critters who like wood, there is a lot of wood about.  If I could get over the fact that they have taken over my kitchen – yes, that’s right – MY KITCHEN – I would probably find it fairly interesting.  They build quite impressive constructions.  However, they are in my kitchen and rapidly encroaching on my living room.  This is not interesting it is GROSS.

I have enlisted the help of Rentokill who have been and laid bait.  The idea behind this is that the termites chew on the bait and take this back to the colony, the bait is poisoned so gradually the colony dies.  The man will be back in 2 weeks and it will probably take another 2 weeks at least to kill them all.  In the mean time I’m kitchenless which is something of a bind, but does mean I have an excuse to go and eat out!

 

On the training front things have been going well.  After another false start curtailed by illness, I have had a week of good training and am starting to feel the effects of what I had done, and what I am doing.  There are now 9 weeks to go until the Tri – running still isn’t my friend,  but hey, can’t have everything!  I am a little bit in love with my new Garmin though and the sad geek in me does rather love all the graphs that it generates for you.  I’m not sure that I’m using them for anything more constructive than simply looking at and going ‘ooooooooo’ at the moment, but maybe that will change!

 

 

 

Bucket Lists

So, a while ago I was chatting with my friends and we started to talk about bucket lists and decided to make one.  Mine is a list of ’35 things to do before I’m 35′.  I’m sharing it with you because I’ve ticked a few off, and also because I haven’t quite got to 35 things…  I realise that sounds stupid – obviously there are more than 35 things I want to do before I’m 35, but I kind of want them to be not necessarily just something I’d do in a normal week, and I also want them to be things that I am, to a certain extent, in control of.  Anyway – this list as it stands:

 

1)  Learn to Scuba Dive - big tick!  Completed my PADI Open Water at the end of March, booked onto my Advanced at the start of June and going to arguably the best dive site in the world (Sipadan) at the start of the Summer hols, and then possibly to Indonesia at the end…

2)  Drink a Singapore Sling in Raffles Hotel, Singapore

 Achieved on a weekend trip to Singapore at the end of the Easter holidays.  We went to the Long Bar and sat in this fantastic room, floor littered with the monkey nut shells that you just throw onto it (rather odd) drinking our slings and people watching.  I’d recommend it as an experience.

3)  To do an Olympic Distance Triathlon.  This is my personal marathon – I know lots of you would put do a marathon on your personal lists (or have already done them) but I just don’t like running enough!  This will provide enough of a challenge I assure you, especially when said event is only just over 10 weeks away and I am a LONG way from being able to complete just the 10km run let alone the whole darn thing!  (in my defence I can swim 1500m and cycle 40km just not sure about sticking it all together yet, but that’s what adrenaline is for right?!)

Port Dickson Olympic Distance Triathlon entered – July 8th 2012

4)  To run a sub 60 minute 10km race.  Somewhere I have one of these recorded, sadly though it wasn’t actually me running, rather my friend Charlie!  So I’ve entered the 10km bit of the KL Marathon which should be a relatively flat course (I think – didn’t really think about that actually and there are a couple of hills in KL – oh well) and hopefully as it is just a couple of weeks before the tri I’ll be super fit (!) and ready to smash 60 minutes…  Obviously if this fails, I’ll enter the Penang Bridge Marathon (10km event only!) in November and have another go, and if that fails I’ll just have to go somewhere cold and have another go!

KL 10km entered June 24th 2012

5)  Visit Vietnam

6)  Visit Laos

7)  Go to Japan in Cherry Blossom season (or as close to it as I can)

8)  Go to Bali / Indonesia

9) Have a Pedicure (I should put an explanation in here – I hate having my feet touched as I am ridiculously ticklish so this is a bit of an endurance event!)

10) Go to a live concert

Maroon 5 are playing at the Singapore Grand Prix (see point 17).

11) Go to the Olympics

I have tickets for a handball preliminary match and am willing to accompany anyone to anything

12) Go and see the Lion King

Sounds a bit random, but I have wanted to go and see it for years so figured that this might actually make me book tickets to do so!  Haven’t actually done that yet, but will do.  Anyone want to come whilst I’m back in the UK this summer?

13) Have a massage

Again not something I particularly enjoy – not really sure why it is on the list – feel it is something I should enjoy!

14) Go to the Perhentians

Booked to go June 1st – 4th and will be completing my Advanced Open Water course there, suspect it might be the first of a few trips there.

15) To eat every cake on the Delicious menu

I’m working on it   It’s the most amazing cake place in Penang – actually it generally has ace food but the cakes are something else.  There are exceptions – like I don’t have to eat cakes I don’t like, that would be silly – for example coconut cake – EUGH! but the ones I do like all have to be ordered and eaten at some point.  They can be shared though.  It’s fun -makes me pick something different each time….  Hmmmmm cake

16)  To be able to wear my Zara trousers

These are the trousers I bought probably 5 years ago now, the last time I was ‘thin’ and they were a tad speculative then – a bit of a ‘when the last 1/2 stone has come off pair of trousers.  Anyway, they have been my long term goal since starting my fattipuff to thinifer project and I’d love to be able to put them on.  Completely impractical tailored trousers for this climate, but that is hardly the point!

17)  To go to the Singapore Grand Prix

With two big GPs in such close vicinity it seemed silly not to go to one of them, and with Singapore being a road race rather than a track one, and being close to my birthday this year, this is the one we have opted for.  Sounds like there is going to be much more besides the Grand Prix to look at, and anyway, Singapore is just a really cool place to spend a weekend.

18)  Have a facial

19) Have a new job (or a different job title anyway)

That doesn’t need to sound quite as dramatic as perhaps it does – all I mean is that the particular role I’m doing right now, I don’t want to still be doing in 18 months.

20)  Spend a night in the E and O Hotel

21)  Have gel nails (ridiculous, girly, out of character – I don’t care!)

22) I feel that there are a number of films that I haven’t watched that I should – am currently compiling a list.

23)  Likewise I think that there are a number of books that I haven’t read that I should have…

24)  To buy a piece of jewellery from Tiffany’s (again, probably rather out of character, but I think every girl wants something in a blue box and no, I don’t mean an engagement ring)

 

So, there you have it – a few things haven’t made it onto the list due to it just not being practically possible for me to do them, and a few might be edited from this version of the list, but as you can see – a few extra spaces to fill up…  Any suggestions welcome!

 

 

Training fail, but life experience win

So, in my last post I might have mentioned my back hurt.  It continued to do so.  Quite a lot really.  Stretching didn’t seem to help so I gave in and gave it rest and had to give it rest all blinking week which meant that week 2 of my training programme has scored a big fat nothing.  Somewhat frustrating, but perhaps I should conceed what everyone was telling me regarding too much too soon.  Hurrumph.

Anyway, so far this week I have also done nothing, but for better reasons.  My back eased off just in time for my diving trip (maybe I have injuries in my brain rather than my body!).  To be honest, it was still a little stiff, but nothing was going to stop me from doing that.  It was absolutely AWESOME!  It was a school trip but this time I went as a kid rather than as a responsible adult.  I’m not entirely sure what the difference between  me usually and me on this trip was, but something to do with liability   It was just so so so so cool.

We left school and headed to the airport (again).  I seem to spend a lot of my time there.  The funny thing is, that it is always slightly different as they are in the middle of rebuilding it, but can’t obviously close it to do so.  Makes it exciting – you can never be quite sure where the entrance/exit/check in will be.  We flew to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.  The last time I was there was in 2008 with another group of students on a very different type of trip so it was fun to be back.  In many ways little had changed, but the relentless march of development was noticeable and some pretty posh stuff had been put up in the intervening 3 years.  As a city there isn’t all that much to do, but as a springboard to lots of extraordinarily cool things it works brilliantly.

We were diving in TARP (Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park ) and so each morning walked down to the jetty to get a boat out there.  I love boats, especially when they take you out to places like this:

We were doing the PADI Open Water Divers course so had had to study a bit before hand learning about the equipment, hand signals and how to use the dive tables.  On the plane we all had to sit an exam…  As the only teacher there was some pressure on me to make sure that I beat all the kids (competitive, me?!) which fortunately I did!  My buddy team had all the highest scores in fact – I picked them wisely you see!

 

The course was awesome.  We arrived at the dive site and had to do our swim tests and then it was on with the gear and learning how to use it.  We had to do things like taking our masks off under water and putting them back on again – this made us all want to breathe through our noses, clearly a stupid thing to do underwater, breathing from your buddy’s regulator and other fun things.  When we had mastered the basics we went diving and we saw lots of fishies and amazing coral and a turtle and it was just so so so so so cool.

 

Once I had sort of mastered the buoyancy business I could get right down and see all the little fishes swimming in and out of the coral.  We found lots of Nemo in anenomes which was ridiculously exciting.  All in all just amazing.  I love it and am now planning lots of other diving trips to take advantage of some of the world’s best diving sites around here.

 

Some pictures (courtesy of my friend Chris):

 

 

 

 

So whilst training has been a total fail, I feel that my life experience counter has taken a massive leap upwards!  I’ll get back on the training wagon today or tomorrow and will probably have to then adjust my schedule to account for last weeks lack of activity, but hey ho, roll with the punches and all that!

 

Ow

So not stretching had me feeling a little stiff on Sunday. Woke up on Monday with my back in spasm and shooting pains down my left leg. I’m such an idiot! Didn’t, funnily enough run on Monday or swim today and weights isn’t looking too clever for tomorrow. What I’m trying to decide is whether a light jog or bike ride might loosen it all up again…

Any thoughts or good ideas welcome. Currently feeling like an 80 year old granny lowering myself into chairs!

Dingbat Fattipuff.

Week 1: Done :)

So, I have managed complete the first week of my training plan, only another 15 to go…  There were some highs and some lows but generally feeling pretty positive about it all.  I learnt, or remembered, some more things:

 

1)  Going onto the Wiggle website when feeling a bit tired and in a ‘let’s just buy it’ is probably not the best idea…  I now have a fancy GPS watch winging it’s way to me, along with various other bits of extremely crucial kit.  Clearly I have a lot of kit already, but new kit is always better and makes you go faster right?

2)  Cycling in Malaysia is actually less terrifying than it should be.  I have written before about the lunacy of the driving here.  In fact, I find it a lot less lunatic now which is probably a very bad thing and doubtless means that I have become a true Malaysian.  Oh well.  Anyway, the flip side of the fact that people generally drive like nutters is that they are very tolerant of other road users and rather than being constantly cut up I have found so far that I’m given a wide berth and cars are pretty good at not running me over.  Having said that, you do have to keep your wits about you and zoning out and just staring at the computer on the handle bars really isn’t an option…  Not that I have come to any harm, yet, but I was slightly startled out of my reverie earlier by a moped.

3)  Training in the heat is not attractive.  I took this photograph a full 30 minutes after completing my bike ride today.  That time was spent mostly standing under the AC unit in my room.  Nuff said!

4)  I still really don’t like running.  I’m working on this.  I was running this week thinking about the PRB concept that Maggie proposed in one of the ‘athons, which helped, a bit, but it’s slow and hard work and kind of hurts.  Hopefully this will get better with time!

5)  The bits of my training programme I’m rather crap at following are the bits that say ‘stretch’ and ‘core work’.  I’m now sat here with a very stiff back brought about entirely from tight hamstrings.  I know that this happens if I don’t stretch.  I am officially a moron.  Next week I will stretch more.  Honest.  I will also try and do the core work – it’s just really hard when you are sweaty – kind of slide all over the place.  TMI?  Quite possibly.

6)  I feel better when I exercise.  Well, durrrrr.  That is hardly a revelation but something that I find helpful to remind myself when I’m getting up at 6am so that I can beat the heat and still have enough time to run, sweat, shower and de-red myself before work!

 

So, enough.  My plan for the coming week is:

• Monday: 45 minute run
• Tuesday: 45 minute swim
• Wednesday: Weights
• Thursday: 80 minute bike
• Friday: 45 minute run
• Saturday – Monday off as I’m going to go and learn to dive in Borneo.  Whoooop whooooop!