12 weeks

(Warning: This post is yet again running-related)

The North Shore Marathon is just 12 weeks away. It'll be my second full marathon, and out of all my goals for this year, it is the highest, most valued. I have the goal of a sub-3:30 time, and hopes of getting it considerably lower. My other goals in between it and now, my 10k and 5k goals are at this point to serve this greater goal. 12 weeks is both far and near - individual weeks can play huge parts in the lead-in; a single run or injury can bring it all down. It has clearly got my attention.

To understand and be better prepared than last year it's important to know what went right and wrong last year. I should have had the fitness to get close to 3:30 at the Auckland Marathon. Instead I got 3:46 with an exhausting last quarter. My post-mortem of factors that led to the disappointment, from close range to long range are as follows:

1. Running too fast in the first half
2. Not hydrating well during the race on a warmer than average morning.
3. Risking fueling with just dates and never considering using the gel I had in my hydration vest.
4. Doing my training runs on average too fast, with few easy runs.
5. Not sustaining a consistent mileage in the weeks leading up to the event. 

Many of these lessons I've already applied. Point 4 I believe I've partly succeeded in. I now do 2-3 completely easy runs during the week and have reined in my long run speed, with only a few indiscretions. For example, last week I was doing an easy run and in the last 5 kilometres found a "second wind" that I just ran with. Considering I had a hard run the previous day, it was probably ill-advised. My calves felt quite tender on the rest day and then they still had some residual soreness, which then affected my long run today. It served as a reminder that speed has the capacity to kill this campaign. Going slow now can only lead to more speed and health in the long run.

And that was what went wrong last year, which led to point 5. I had momentum back in January 2017 until I did three straight days of fast runs, had one rest day and then one more intense run was enough to give me a calf tear and a couple of months out of action. After recovery and progress, I again were delayed by niggles both perceived and real. The biggest of these was my knee ligament issue that developed in July, which started once I started doing increasingly long runs far more early than I should have. For perspective, even though I was doing a few runs a week, the long run was often over half the mileage for the whole week. I was a so-called "Weekend Warrior" making up for a lack of running during the week by going overboard on the weekend. Every three "good" weeks of mileage would invariably be followed with a week of worry when something causes me to fret that I was overdoing it. This year I've built up in a more reasonable way. Two straight months I've average over 50km a week. In the last four weeks I've pushed it up from the 50s, now into the 70s. I'll consolidate around this level while aiming to push up further, peaking at 100km for the peak weeks in early August. In other words, touch wood, I've got a more informed, strategic mindset to get me in better shape to my goal.

As for points 1-3, that's race day.

Of course those are just to address the missteps of the previous attempt. 

Overtaking oneself (part 2) - Running related again

Almost two weeks on from the first Overtaking post, I have a better sense that I'm doing as the post title says. On the following Sunday, I set a new official 10km personal best with 43:16 at Barry Curtis Park. This was still not exactly "crushing it" but sets a nice measure of where I am at. At the same event last year I surprised myself recording 43:52 (mat time). I set off at a rather unrealistic pace for the first of three laps (below my 5km pace) but managed to hold on to an acceptable pace for the second lap before cranking it up for the final. In five weeks' time I'll be running in my next 10km race at Western Springs (8 July) where I hope to show my progress and get a time in the 42-43min range (target) or below (dream). Depending on how well the training goes, I may move this goal. In terms of really "overtaking myself" 42:48 is my fastest presumed 10km run which was at the peak of my fitness in October last year.

May was a good month for proving myself for mileage, too. The 266km I ran makes it the second highest mileage month of my running life. (Second only to September last year where I ran a half marathon and had my peak week before the Auckland Marathon. June 2018 is now set to become the biggest and, health-gods willing, should start a sequence of high mileage months to lead into the North Shore Marathon. In the first four days of June I've run 66km and I've no obvious aches or pains but will rest tomorrow before another two workouts, a rest day then the start of what I hope will be a pattern of six running days and one rest day until the taper for marathon. 

The next real tests of where I'm at are as follows:
5km - 16 June Cornwall Park Parkrun; 30 June - Western Springs Parkrun
10km - 25 June - Time trial; 8 July - Race: Run Auckland Western Springs
Half marathon - 23 June - TwinPeaks; still considering whether to do the Millwater Half prior to the full marathon.

Of course the main test is that final goal: North Shore Marathon 2 September 2018.

Ceremony

On Sunday I got to witness my little sisters' First Communion. Not having been brought up in a religious, let alone Catholic, tradition there was quite a lot to learn and a lot to go in the flow of even as a spectator. The girls themselves had gone through classes prior to their Confirmation (the day prior) and their First Communion to make sure they knew what to do. I could have done with a class though as each part of the Mass had some call-and-response element to it. If you did want to sing or talk along with the prayer, there were things you were meant to say at their conclusion. Not that my ignorance annoyed me - it was just interesting to be a part of. It was cute to see the girls and the other children have roles to play and rituals to perform. I couldn't help but be happy that they were brought up in such a tradition.

Ceremony is something that I have learned through experience is vital to being human. Perhaps that sounds like I'm going too far but it shows how far I've changed as I've aged. That is probably the case with a lot of people. As a principal of a school, there are many ceremonies to be done: Orientation for students and new staff; staff farewells; student graduations; recognition of performance or contribution. And not surprisingly their absence on occasion does get noticed. The "Why didn't we...?" question is commonly posed to me, when the "we" refers to "me".

One of the work topics that permeate my after-work hours is the lack of a sense of ceremony that our Chinese students have. Out of all the students who deliberately avoid a graduation by calling in sick or booking their flight the day before, most are Chinese. Ceremony isn't big in China and many ceremonies really are "for show". It's easy to be cynical.

Overtaking one's self

Warning: Running-related blog

As my running career rises with training and falls back with injury, I go two steps forward and one step back. There are lots of different emotions on this rollercoaster - the frustration of climbing back from the depths and the thrill of rising towards a crest. The previous peak for me was the last quarter of last year. I ran my favourite TwinPeaks route in 1:40, ran 10km under 43 minutes, ran 5km below 20 minutes, ran a marathon and got to the point where I could run a half marathon under 1:35.

Two months was all it took to take it back to the bottom. That was first apparent at Coatesville where I barely finished a half marathon in March. Fortunately despite the niggly weirdness and a suspected hernia, everything has come back together fairly well. But now there are some more semblances with my peak last year and I think I might be approaching my previous fitness. The Rotorua half marathon might compare well to those last year. My parkrun last Saturday was faster than my best race 5km last year as well. It would seem that my speed for shorter races has returned. I'm pretty sure that my endurance at the longer end of the spectrum isn't there yet though. I may struggle to run further than 30km right now.

But I have the confidence that I'll be past there soon. The next run is a 10km race on Sunday. This time last year I exceeded my expectations and broke 44 minutes. I shouldn't have difficulty matching that at least. I look forward to possibly getting below 43 minutes.

Out of the thickets, running in the dark

It's interesting how the patterns of our lives shape the patterns of our thinking. I believe that I'm pretty good at my job, or rather the job that I've fashioned for myself. It currently revolves around managing close relationships with 30 people and rapport with close to 200 people, and the administration thereof. That is 80% of the job. The other 20% of the job is more strategic and creative but is increasingly more detail related. Designing courses and programmes does have, as you would expect, room for innovation, but are predominantly referring to specifications and building to requirement. Most of my job is among the thickets.

And that is how my thinking about greater problems has disappeared. I'm in the thickets and struggle at times to get out of the details long enough to get a greater view of my job, my life and the universe around it. There were times in my life when I've enjoyed being beyond the thicket, up the trunk and perched somewhat along a branch to look out upon the jungle within eyesight. (But not the jungle beyond, or the concealed clearings.) It's been a while since I had that luxury and it is something that I yearn.

But my job isn't everything. Running, though potentially a hobby to not think about things, is something I now invest quite some time in decision making relating to planning training and time. I now consider myself at least basically capable of doing the planning for myself, and thinking about which events to enter, what paces, workout styles and terrain to run and how to deal with the physical and dietary side of these things. There is an element of creativity, risk/reward and endeavour. It's a realisation to find that the mere act of managing something of your own is a joy, not to mention without the managerial function to my running, I wouldn't nearly enjoy it as much. (There are a lot of other things to enjoy from running such as health, camaraderie, relaxation, pride in achievement, cultivation of self, but it's the managerial function that makes all the other most positive.)

In managing anything there are decisions, risks and rewards. In my job life this week has begun a reckoning about one of my decisions and my handling around it. I've learned a lot. Coincidentally it also featured a moment in my running where two strategic decisions came to a reckoning. Every busy runner has to make decisions of how to get the time to train in the face of all life's other distractions. My choice, which suited my constitution, was to get up early in the morning to run. This in a way has been my key decision to get the mileage in that allows me to run at a decent level. But there are risks. Even the lightest coloured running gear isn't obviously visible to drivers in dark conditions. (Let's face it - even the brightest coloured clothing could be mown down by a driver in the bright of the day.) It's also harder to see the ground and any hazards. This was obvious from the time of the blackouts. At the time of the black-outs I had the choice of borrowing a waist-lamp that would illuminate the path for our group running events but always chose not to. Even when one was free, I chose not to use one. Perhaps it was by conservatism around running gadgets. Perhaps it was my belief that I was a canny runner who could do without. To choose against running with carried illumination is the second strategic decision, which brings us to the result.

On Thursday morning I went on my first hard workout since the half-marathon, interval running at the Domain. I got up at 4:30am and jogged easily to the Domain. Fog had descended on the city and the Domain in particular had captured a layer of it. I began my first mile of pace and in the last quarter heard a van coming from behind me. The headlights hit the fog making for a bright glare. The Domain doesn't have a footpath around the mile loop so I tried to get to the left of the road so not to concern the driver. Just as he passed me, my foot went into a wastewater drain and I was thrown into the asphalt. The van stopped to investigate and I got up, my palms hot and my knee bleeding. He checked me out and but in the van's lights there only seemed to be some grazing and cuts. I thanked him and bid him on his way. I felt fine to continue so jogged for another mile before I felt good to start another mile of pace, then a rest, another mile of pace, and a rest, and a last mile of pace and then jogged home, 14.5km in total, at least 10km of running after my fall. I got home and got cleaned up. I hadn't noticed it but a cut at the base of my little finger had bled down to my elbow. I went to work without trouble but around 11am my left knee swelled up and I struggled to get around the office. I got a bit worried. My left knee had been the knee that I broke four years ago. It was also the one with the fickle tendon that had caused me annoyance for the last 9 months. The physio tested it the next day and found that no ligaments, tendons or bones seemed damaged, likely to be just a "contusion", and fortunately a couple of days on, the initial swelling has gone down. It's plausible that I'll go on a test run tomorrow.

I have to learn from this and act now to get a running light of some sort. I'd broken my knee while walking at slow pace. I'm very lucky if these are only "flesh wounds" considering I was running at interval running pace (between 4:00-4:30 mins/km) and thrown into the hard ground. The broken knee of course was falling onto some steps. I was lucky this time that my hands took the impact. (although interestingly two days later, my shoulder has started aching too.) I was lucky that I've been a habitual runner now with stronger bones. I was indeed lucky.

Smashed

I should now have done enough half marathons for the specialness to have worn off. But that’s not the case. They’re a contest. An experience. An I-against-I. A measurement of belief vs reality. The ceremony around it only makes that sense thicker.

I charged through the finish gate 1 hour 40 minutes 3 seconds after running through the start gate. That was about one and a half minutes slower than the previous year but on a totally different course. Last year’s course was flat,fast and all road. This was hilly, rough and on very uneven surfaces. To be honest, even though I may have charged through the finish gate, my body was quite a lot more broken than when I’d started. I had a sore hip flexor and a painful shin but more on that later.

Every race has its story. This one started off with me rolling with the 1:40 pacers. 1:40 had been my target for a half marathon with my current fitness although knowing that this course was hilly I’d prepared to try for that pace on the first flat 5km and then take time over the hills in order to have a fast final 5km. I started drifting back as soon as the hills came. 

The first hill was a massacre. Usually you need to wait for the final half to start passing people. At 5km, I passed a glut of runners that had gone off too quickly. One of them was walking. It was steep though and we’d hit the unsealed section. At 6km we finally had some descent and that was when I felt the hip flexor start to be really sore. I’d just gained this problem recently in my training but in training it’d be sore to start and then fade. This wasn’t fading. And that made sense: a hip flexor helps adjust your leg on uneven surfaces. It must have been working overtime. It was so early in the race and past a level of discomfort that would have stopped a training run. I thought about pulling out but was in the middle of nowhere. I decided to keep plowing on.

I got passed by those I’d passed on the hill but they became my running bunch and targets for the next 5km. “Big Rig” was the most dominant of them early on. He slowed on the ascents but powered the descents. I passed him in total about three times but overall lead our bunch for most of the second quarter. I slowly worked my way through the others “The world’s fastest Indian”, “dropsy” (who dropped his energy bar and never caught back to the group) and “The worlds fastest Indian pt 2” (different fella). We had a lot of a mild ups and downs and if my hip flexor wasn’t enough, my shin pain from two weeks ago returned. Both were just manageable.

The second sharp rise put an end to my current collaboration. Big Rig wasn’t seen again and for the third quarter I was tracking with just one runner “Lofty” who had been in my group earlier on but had probably stayed with the pacers for longer. (I didn’t see them till the end.) He set my pace until the third sharp hill which marked the three quarter mark. I didn’t see him after that.

Going down from that hill I only had two other genuine companions: Fluro and Action Man. Fluro was the kind I call a “late starter”. A late starter is the kind who comes out of nowhere in the middle of a race at an unreal pace and blows by you, as if he or she were a pro runner who started late. He passed me on the downhill making some comments on how shocking the last ascent was and then speeding onwards. He was in the distance for quite sometime indicating that he was slower on the flat. 

Before he left my sight he just had passed Action Man, and we all entered the confluence of the Quarter Marathoners and walkers (coming the other way). This is a dangerous phase because there is more dodging but also fewer true visual cues for pace. If you have a half marathon competitor near you you can pace off them but in a sea of runners for other competitions it’s tricky. But at this stage it was almost totally downhill.

I finally overhauled Action Man as we were literally “coming out of the woods” and thankfully hit the paved and sealed sections. He was bizarre though running with surges to overtake me sometimes going quite far into the distance before cruising. My slower but steady speed was fast enough to get him every time. He probably passed me and fell back five times. He was great to have because he kept me pushing in the final kilometres right to the final stretch. At that point I started my final sprint and he wasn’t able to close the gap 6 seconds behind me. I don't know if he imagined it as a duel, but it helped me sustain the speed to the end.

And then I was done. The body was sore but I hope neither of the two issues are long lasting. I’ll try some easy running soon to loosen things up again. I’m so glad I stayed the distance. 1:40 on this course is an achievement. I crunched the numbers and found I was the slowest 42nd place getter in the last 6 years. Usually that runner would get a 1:30 time. So maybe the course could be said to have a 10 minute handicap to a runner of my pace.which makes me feel good till I think that I’ve never run below 1:35...

My body was smashed but I smashed it. I’m glad to be a runner.

My pre-event ritual

Original Wednesday blog text:

Which event of mine is not preceded by medical drama? My first half marathon had me preparing my mum for the possibility of an emergency call. The Rotorua half last year was preceded by a strained arch. The North Shore Half was preceded by the dodgy knee (that still bothers me now). The Auckland Marathon had IT band syndrome just weeks before and now we come to this event.

After the optimism of my last post, I went on one good run, a fast 5km for the Garmin fun run at Cornwall park on Sunday, and felt fine. I'd planned a good taper week with pace but less mileage. I rested on Monday and prepared for a pacey week. On Tuesday I got up early, 4:30am, and prepared for a run. My warm-up wasn't the best with a few cranky tendons but I'm used to that now. I started up for my usual 15km easy run route but after less than 500m the my lower front shin felt tight. I ran over the base of Mt Eden but it didn't go away and felt close to pain. I came to a stop after 1km, rubbed it, stretched and tried to run a bit more but it remained. Walking back, it still felt tight and sore. The sensation plagued me the rest of the day when I walked. Today I woke with my legs feeling fine so I tested them with a light jog but stopped as soon as I felt the tightness coming on. It returned on my longer walks later in the day.

So ten days before another event I'm worried about the extent of an injury. Shall I just wait patiently for a few days without testing or should I still do test runs? One interesting piece of advice you hear a lot is that if it isn't a bone, or painful, don't stop running. Not running doesn't fix a great number of problems. I'll probably plan something in between. I'll have another day off and then just see how it feels with a day of walking. I'll use a foam roller and do other strengthening exercises but keep running off the agenda until the weekend.

It seems to be the recurring story of my running life. It doesn't deter me. I just keep hoping and almost every big event has had me pulling through and exceeding the original expectations.

Addendum:

Saturday. Three days after the post above, seven days before the Rotorua event, the sun didn't rise in the morning. After a week of good weather during which I haven't been able to run, the weather was a depressing, dreary, thick smearing of cloud. I had a terrible sleep centred around some of my work anxieties. I got up at 6:45am and made a coffee and got myself ready for a run.

Outside there was a sudden downpour. Weather apps and rain radars are wonderful but there was nothing about that on them. There was to be light rain that would become heavier from 8am onwards but there is nothing as accurate as that for Auckland weather at this point. I prepared nonetheless.

I had reason for hope. After my failed Tuesday run, I tested myself on Wednesday morning as mentioned above and I chose caution. I kept myself completely away from my running shoes on Thursday but already there was an evident change "afoot". This niggle felt a lot of tendon tightness and tenderness early on. By Thursday, the sensation wasn't in the muscles but now below the skin. The area felt swollen to touch but I had no trouble walking or even doing short urban jogs to cross the road. I got up early Friday feeling fine but after the warm-up I had enough reason to suspect it wasn't completely over. Which brings us to this morning.

By the time I went out that downpour had already ceased and it was just drizzle. I warmed up as usual and started to run. Perhaps it was confidence that these changes clearly were in my favour. It was after a kilometre that I remembered that this was technically a test run, and I noted to myself I hadn't found any discomfort. In fact I was rollicking along at a rather rapid pace. I stayed close to home in case the weather got too nasty but by the time my running shirt was saturated and I returned home, I'd completed 13.7km without much of any physical problems. (My knee had chimed a couple of times.) In the process I ran my fastest 10km (45:43) since resuming in 2018. Looks like the show is back on the road.

The next seven days are a little tricky. I do want to make up a little for lost time but also keep things shorter and pacey, but with lots of recovery. I'll hopefully have a window of better weather tomorrow morning to do a 15km run with a 5km half-marathon pace section. Then a rest day and a 10km time trial so I can estimate for one last time the best pace to run.

Fingers crossed I can roll into the event without any further surprises. (The course is a little bit of a surprise, but I'll leave talking about that to a later blog.)

Two weeks till Rotorua

I did countdowns to events last year and I thought I may as well repeat it this year. The next event on the calendar is the Rotorua Marathon (half marathon event). There's been something of a phoenix-from-the-ashes element to it. Five weeks ago I ran, struggled and walked in the Coatesville Marathon, feeling broken and flat. Despite some obvious physical issues that have not gotten better or worse, but have transformed, they haven't obstructed any of my progress.

Last week I expressed my consternation that what came easily last year was strangely not coming out from a much more structured, planned training programme. The difference of six days is significant: I packed four workouts into a crucial week and with some easy running tomorrow I will have done 70km for the first time since October in the lead-up to the marathon. What have been the workouts?
- Tuesday: Hill sprints - I ran 12.5km including 6 sprints up local "hills".
- Wednesday: 10km tempo run at Shoe Science Run Club - I ran within myself but still ran almost as fast as my 10km TT last week. I finished without feeling overly tired.
- Thursday: 15km 3 x 2 mile intervals (in this case: 1 mile easy, then 2 miles fast, then 1/2 mile easy, and then 2 miles fast and 1/2 a mile easy and then 2 miles fast and then easy to finish). The important thing from this run was that all three intervals were hard out runs but each time I recovered well enough to still go hard out.
- Saturday: 20km easy + 5 km fast. I managed to slash 3 minutes off my run of the same route from 2 weeks ago and most importantly felt the 5km fast easy enough to do - I managed to stay under 5 minutes per kilometre on tired legs. And I didn't feel tired after the run.

Of the four runs, I noticed clear improvements in three runs. Tomorrow I'll run slowly easily and only exert myself a little at the Garmin 5km run tomorrow. Two weeks is the recommended length of a taper for a half marathon and I'll look to do this "by the book". I'll do two time trials in this period to double check my fitness and estimate the pace that I'll do Rotorua. I believe I should be fast and fit enough to equal or better 1:38:45 from last year. There could still be some "progress" made but consolidating the gains, healing what can be healed and keeping sharp is the order of the fortnight ahead.

When it rains it pours

Being of British ancestry I do tend to talk about the weather a lot and the last 12 months have really stood out as extraordinary. We had a long baking summer, three cyclones and just recently an apparently mild weather system produced unpredicted category 2 cyclonic winds that brought down a large number of trees in Auckland and cut the electricity supply to some for days.

Though my mouth talks about the weather, weather rarely intrudes on my mood or my plans. I've been running as much now as I have in the past, although it must be said that a lot more caution has been required in the last few weeks with some suburban blocks completely dark after sundown and before dawn, often with branches of varying sizes blocking the footpath. (In isolation either one of these wouldn't be too bad but together you could be running into a tangle of branches before you know it!)

Following up my last blog, the tendon problems I mentioned are slowly going down though not completely; shin pain has returned and my knee still checks in to say it's still there from time to time. But I am running and running pretty well. In the last month I've run more than 200km and gotten some of my speed and endurance back. With three weeks to go till the Rotorua Half Marathon I'm still trying my best to get in important training, raise my mileage and test my limits.

Last year I ran Rotorua and achieved a lot more than I had expected. I ran 1 hour 38 minutes at a time when I hadn't broken 1 hour 40 minutes at any stage. And although my training relative to its lead-up was solid, it's nothing compared to what I've managed to do after it and even in the recent weeks. For some context, in 2017, in the same set of 4 weeks I ran only 120km compared to 224km this year. But there is a little mystery for me in this. Mileage does have an affect and should raise performance. I am doing work-outs that should help me run faster and longer, the kinds of work-outs I didn't even know about last year. Yet I did my favourite 21.1km training run and did it 2 minutes slower than last year. To give myself a little consolation, this morning's route was slightly different to last year's route as we moved house and there is a little bit more "uphill" than before; and it was raining for the last 10km, although I was already behind the 8-ball when rain started to fall. The strange conclusion is that I was a stronger faster runner at this time last year with less running.

Although I'm now following the advice of the running experts online, I definitely wasn't back then. Last year, I was still trying basically to go as fast as possible on all my training runs but not running many back-to-back days. Looking back on the titles or descriptions of those runs, one of the most common phrases is "badly timed", that is, I'd often misjudge the speed I should run out and feel the burn by halfway or three-quarters of the way, and have to try to survive till the end. Quite possibly that is a short cut to fitness (if one avoids injury) because the body has to quickly adapt to the demands of ridiculous work-outs. As a result of running fast and holding on I had PBs of 45:00 for 10km and 21:00 for 5km. I'm nowhere near that right now. I'll persist with my plan until after the Rotorua Half and then evaluate. Many of the work-outs are said to take 10km to show effect and I'd like to give it a chance to make me a stronger, resilient and eventually faster runner.

Starting blocks

What does it mean when it's easier to run than jog? What does it mean when it hurts less to run fast than to even walk? Those are questions that it pains me to ask. During this period that I've been running I have had a lot of niggles, even mild injuries but none have been more confusing the my two feet right now.

While I was in China, just when my knee was coming right, something went wrong with my left foot. It was painful just below the point of my ankle. And it should have because I'd ignore discomfort and still decided to run 8 kilometres. "You should listen to your body!" they say. But I've never listened to my feet. Half my runs in 2016 started with tight, sore soles that only loosened after running. (I realise now that I had plantar fasciitis for much of my twenties and thirties.) So I ignored a little tight discomfort on one run and struggled to shake it even with extended rest. And just as it started to show signs of improvement, my right foot mirrored the symptoms. Now I've got two terribly frustrating feet. 

But, there is a silver lining. The physio said it was my tendons and tendons improve through putting work through them and using them, that is, running. So on painful feet I start my warm-up, fearing that I might make things worse. I jog in agony. And then once I begin, the previous pain fades. And the rest of the day is fine.

The best measurement of tendon healing is how it feels in the morning. By that standard, it's getting better but still not near better. Mornings make me walk like an arthritic old man. But better is... better.

My running plan for the next year is clear in my head. Even with these niggles I'm running more and more strategically than I did at the same time last year. I'm looking forward to a good 10km race on 15 April with which I'll judge my fitness, which will lead to an estimated time for me to do a half-marathon on 5 May. 

The first step is rest. Tomorrow there is no running. And then on Sunday I'll aim to run 25km. If and when I do, it'll be the first time I've done that since the marathon. I hope I can do it on painless feet.

Resume

There is a time in life when everything is about to happen. A few moments when it does. And then a time shortly after when it resumes. And now it is resuming.

Looking backwards through the smoke and rubble of the past was a four week long holiday; a helter-skelter technology-hamstrung four weeks in the office; the hustle and/or bustle of the Christmas period travels and feasting; the marathon and its anticipation; the struggle for fitness and confidence in my own health; work stretching me to the limit while I still focussed mainly on running... that backward glance was a busy 6-7 months. And now I can look ahead to a comparatively anodyne and relaxed "start to the year".

It does feel like a beginning, a reset. There is nothing on the horizon. There's just life, routine and simplicity.

Today was the first Friday since I came back. Everything has fit together. It started at 5am in the morning with a 10km run. This was the longest run since late December. In the 2.5 months before this run, I'd run a mere 52.7km, and it's been a challenge of restraint, stupidity and desire. My left knee which had been a nuisance since August 2017 got really stroppy with me after bouncing on a trampoline on New Year's Eve, and I struggle to run more than 3km in a single sitting. I strengthened and waited but it still bothered me till eventually I went back to the physio, who redirected me onto a specialist. With him I had my first MRI of my life. Regrettably that was just a few days before our trip to China. Less than 48 hours before departing the result came out was interpreted by my physio and said onto me: Keep strengthening, don't stop running.

So I did. I ran in the village for the first time ever. It was a thrill. But I was thwarted twice over: while sitting feasting and drinking I suddenly turned to my left and felt a pinch around my ribs; anesthetised by the drink I didn't notice for long; the next day I noticed my ankle was a bit sore pre-run. This is relatively normal for me. I have flat feet and they are never 100% happy to be feet, let alone running. As this was a feeling similar to what I had had before, I ran despite it. But the run after it though feeling OK at the time had a huge effect. My ribs ached and my ankle twinged. My ribs were sore with any movement so my plan of exercise went out the window. That alone would have precluded running but even if it hadn't, my swollen ankle was going to be an obstacle. And then in this pain, we travelled to Chengdu with heavy suitcases... After which it felt marginally better. Then we went to Guangzhou last week where I ran again but regretted it afterwards, feeling beaten up and miserable.

My specialist had booked me this morning so I decided that I had to know how my knee was and chose to run 3km. My knee was fine it appeared, but concern for my ribs and ankle cut the run short. The next day however I didn't have any after effects, which led me to today.

My alarm rang out at 5am. I didn't like it. I got up nonetheless. I could still feel the discomfort in my ankle but after a walk down the hall it wasn't obvious. I kitted up and went for a run. I pushed it - 10km is a reasonable morning effort. I felt the same as I had after 3km. My knee didn't irk me at all, but my ribs and ankle were clearly urging me to finish. I showered and went to the specialist who showed me the MRI scans: I'd split my tendinosus (a tendon). But he was taken aback that I ran 10km without discomfort and said I should still do strengthening work (which I will do). And now I have the challenging choice. I was silly enough to book a half marathon for Sunday. I might try it and try only to get to the end. I'll rest well, strengthen and think about it.

But that was all sorted at 7:25am. The day was still yet to get on with itself! I headed home, picked up the wife, headed to work and observed a teacher. He's a nice fellow who was introduced to our school while I was away. He's an awesome teacher and even more awesome because he likes our place and thinks I'm an OK kinda guy, and is best friends with our senior teacher. Good teachers set us up for stability. Then out the door I met my boss, who had the talk I'd hoped for. And she gave me the answers I wanted. So I feel happy staying where I am. We had a nice staff lunch and after a korean dinner with soju, I feel a nice calm with the year ahead.

It's time to resume and I like where this is going.

To health: Credit where due

I can't recall how many times I've recounted experiences with the Chinese medical system, either on this blog or real-time. Whether it's the upstairs-downstairs healthcare, or playing medical tag, with an audience of gawkers, poor Hippocratic attitudes, pushing in, and pushing away, it had always been a ride. I remember warning teachers: you just need to get a medical cert for your sick leave; the rest is a story to tell your folks.

But credit where credit is due to the humble Chinese hospital: it's better now by a long way. It's all about using its obvious strength while ameliorating its weakness with technology. China already had economies of scale. A single hospital has everything - but previously it was a Byzantine bureaucracy of paper and payments: register here, diagnosis there, payments here, treatment there, pay for your medicine/treatment here, collect it there, curl up in a ball and cry/die here.

Now there are payment terminals everywhere, scanning a QR code allows you to pay everything cashlessly. Now you can be treated and tracked simply. Technology serves the masses. Treatment are a salve rather than a rack.

It is a disaster that I've had contact with the medical system thrice on this trip. My sidestrain from eating. My wife's digestive distress. But travel should be about experiencing and in that area I can't complain.

Since I'm often with a glass on this trip: Here's to health.

Post-script: the strange picture is a plastic bag in a ball. They're sold from a vending machine with a QR code. There is no complimentary bag when you collect your meds. It's part of that move to reduce plastic waste.

City Review: Chengdu

We had a window of time to travel out of Guangdong and despite my having been there twice already we decided to go to Chengdu. Not that I was disappointed. My previous two visits impressed me and this visit was not any different. In my previous trips, I'd done some of the "key experiences" like seeing pandas, going to teahouses and eating spicy food. But had also done two specific out-of-town experiences Emei Mountain and Leshan's big Buddha. This time we spent it all inside the city and still found a lot to do.

Hotel review: Buddhazen (near Wenshu Yuan (Manjushri Monastery): 4 stars out of 5

A beautiful classical building right next to a large monastery? It's as good as it sounds. Everything is old wood, perpendicular corridors and spiritual. The emphasise the connection with Zen Buddhism. The service was humble and quick. We would stay there again without hesitation. The only drawbacks were a slight odour from the plumping, a seemingly non-live TV broadcast and an average quality foot massage. But those are minor compared to the enjoyment of living in and returning to such a comfortable place.

Favourite places: Du Fu's Thatched Cottage: 4 stars out of 5; Shujing Fang Baijiu Museum: 5 stars out of 5

These were two places I went to for the first time on this trip and both would be high recommendations, although most appropriate to people with a bit of a knowledge of Chinese and Chinese culture. Du Fu was never one of my favourite Chinese poets. (For the record, I loved the alcoholic poets more, even when I was teetotal, namely: Tao Yuanming and Li Bai.) But after going to his recreated thatched cottage and the grounds around it I may finally have gained an appreciation. The poems I liked best were his war-time poems. During his life there was a large-scale rebellion against the Tang Dynasty and a lot of his works focus on the pains of war that any modern reader could see are just as true today. One non-war poem that took pride of place on the cottage grounds was a dedication to Spring in Chengdu:

好雨知时节，
Good rain knows its time,
当春乃发生。
It falls when it becomes Spring,
随风潜入夜，
It follows the wind and enters by night,
润物细无声。
It moistens all with fine, silent drops,
野径云俱黑，
Its mists cloak the rural paths.
江船火独明。
All that can be seen through it are the lights on riverboats,
晓看红湿处，
And when it dawns the red of the sun can be seen through the moist fog,
花重锦官城
The damp, heavy flowers decorate this city of Chengdu.

The poems were great but the grounds themselves are beautiful. Highly recommended.

Now an alkie like myself has to love Sichuan province. Of the top 4 baijiu brands by market share, 3 are made in Sichuan. Number three is Shuijing Fang which is made in Chengdu. And a few years ago when they were expanding the factory, the diggers revealed that the same site had been used since the Tang Dynasty. (Which incidentally could mean that Du Fu might have drunk wine from there!) It's one of the oldest proven places of Chinese wine production. Archaeologists have even shown that the bacteria that was present at the time is the same as is used now.

The museum itself takes you through the production process and even gives you a sample of the first drawn spirits, at about 68% alcohol. Wooooo! One sip is enough. They show you the art of their bottles. (And in fact Chinese wine bottles are far more artistic than the simple elegance of western wine and spirit bottles.)

Restaurant review: Bashu Dazhaimen Hotpot (Caishi Street, Qingyang district, Chengdu): 5 stars out of 5.

I'll throw in a restaurant review because simply it really shows service mind, which had been a rare thing in China. Every trip to Chengdu requires a trip to a hotpot restaurant. At first I baulked about walking far to one with a good review arguing that we weren't connoisseurs, and there were places on every street. But I was persuaded and we went to this one. My arguing and the required persuasion had probably delayed us to the point that we had to wait for a table. This was the first impressive point though. If you have to wait, they give you a voucher that takes 15 yuan off your bill, provide you with cordial, sunflower seeds and another snack. We didn't have to wait long and the waiter was very attentive. In fact there was one moment that I thought nailed attentiveness. A staff member gave us our cutlery and I thought I noticed a small smear of chili oil on my cup. I checked with my finger and no sooner than I did the waiter switched it without a word. The food was great, too. Overall, there are lessons even a New Zealand restaurant could learn from them, which is rare.

City review: 5 stars out of 5.

Chengdu. Three visits and three pleasant times spent. But there are so many small things which make you feel good. Whether it be the main at the guokui shop who used tongs to handle money and plastic gloves with food. The general cleanness of the surrounds. The proliferation of bicycles. The unobtrusiveness of people and service in general.

If a tree falls in the forest...

China is an interesting place to be. Armed police and army troops march obviously. Tourists march on.

A friend mentions that something with knives happened in Beijing. Not in the news. Tourists march on.

We go from a station to a station. The blood goes from a city to a city. We march on.

A slice of life

I'm standing on the second floor of my family-in-law's home looking out the window. I happen to be peeing into a Chinese toilet, a detail which you might think I should omit but it took more skill at that moment because I was mildly inebriated (more about that later). As I look, I spot my grandfather-in-law, A-Gung, feeding the chickens. He's 95 years old but is still the perfection of how old people should live, keeping active and in routine. Just ten minutes before, I'd completed a near one hour conversation with him, which is lengthy by my standards. I tire at that length in Cantonese. He's really tough to understand, not just because he speaks even Qingyuan dialect as his second language (he actually speaks dialect Hakka as his mother tongue) and has missing teeth etc. but also because he's old and grew up in a hugely different cultural context.

We talked about of all things: sport, and then golf which is a prestige, expensive sport in China but is much more accessible in New Zealand. From there the conversation gravitated to the Chinese obsessive topic of money, who has it and who doesn't, before talking about houses. First the family over the road, then my younger brother-in-law's new home and then back to history with Chairman Mao. I can follow Waangleng accent of my family-in-law well, even when drunk, but that isn't the reason why I'm mildly inebriated talking in the yard. The reason lies in Saamgok accented Cantonese. (NB: Waangleng, Saamgok and Gwongtau are all villages in Qingyuan.)

An hour previous I'd been drinking and eating with my wife's Saamgok cousins. These are not the cousins who featured earlier in this blog. I still remember my first encounters with the cousins: It was at my younger brother-in-law's banquet; I'd had one round of food and drink; happily drunk, I went downstairs again to be sociable and caught another round of food and sat down at a table. Fourth uncle and two of the cousins were there and keen to meet me. They immediately asked me to drink and I gleefully agreed. They finished their cups in one go and I, as an afterthought after a first sip, finished mine. Then a wife from another branch of the family swooped around with a two litre mineral water bottle filled with her old man's homebrew and liberally poured everyone at the table with it. They drank and I drank, and I wisely took some time out after that to recover from the sudden dose of strong alcohol. Apart from some time-outs, I managed than banquet well.

These were the same cousins who I was sitting with one hour previous to now. Perhaps I should talk about what happened just four days previous. We went to their mother's hometown of Gwongtau. Gwongtau is a special place for me because I really enjoy the company of Fourth Uncle, my mother-in-law's brother, though I struggle with his Gwongtau accent. We get along because he doesn't hold my struggle against me. Anyway, at this visit four days ago it was his first time back from the hospital. He'd been really sick. And not just rather sick, but very sick and not just one kind of sick, but many kinds of sick. When I heard that news in New Zealand, it was rather upsetting and I was really glad to be seeing him again at my table in Gwongtau, even with the cousins.

The three cousins are individually lovely. Caan-wing, perhaps because of his likeness to Joe Pesci, has always seemed kind and funny. I remember him the most clearly from that first wipe-out at the banquet. Caan-tong has been village chief for many years, all bluster yet with feeling. And then Caan-gan who played with his grandchildren with so much affection that it almost blindsides you to his sneakiness with drink.

It was these three cousins I drank with four days ago and the same that I drank with an hour ago. Four days ago still ranks as an embarrassment. When we went to Gwongtau I first went to Third Uncle's home and was immediately invited to drink. Did I mention he brewed his own spirits? Either way, I enjoyed, sip-by-sip, his masterpiece of brewing, about two shots in total. Then went over to Fourth Uncle's to eat. They gave me the big cup and I didn't fight it. I should have. I drank and enjoyed and there was a little bit of to-and-fro, not helped by the fact that I don't quite understand Saamgok accent and why I had to drink particular rounds. To cut a long story short, I later got into a car to see my brother-in-law-in-law with his head hanging out the window. He was more trolleyed than me. I thought it strange until he started throwing up down the side of the car. It may have been in sympathy, or may have been because I'd drunk as much, if not more than he, that I too started throwing up, at first inside the car, then with my head out of my window with my brother-in-law-in-law. Hence the embarrassment.

That had been four days ago, and unfortunately, bad gossips spreads fast, so on this day everyone was asking me in a sarcastic tone about my desire to drink today. (My brother-in-law-in-law was at work today. Lucky thing, he got to avoid this inquisition!) Anyway, today I faced my bullies. Caan-tong in particular was full of tactics to get me back under the table. To put it simply, he's village chief for a reason. He's drunk more and had more battles (and scars) than I could ever wish. And he positioned himself well. I had control of the bottles early and he had the control later. When I wanted to switch to white wine (made of grapes, lower alcohol) he insisted I drank brandy. Now that brandy happened to be one I bought at Auckland Airport thus not a fake product and had been quite the hit on both occasions it was drunk. But I wanted to vary my alcohol as well as take it easier. He wasn't going to have a bar of it. Twice we comically fought physically to fill my glass. On one occasion he won. Another time I won. Either way, I can be glad to say I got to the end standing proud and able to talk to my grandfather-in-law in a coherent way an hour later.

These kind of battles can be eschewed if you avoid the drinks table altogether. I just wish the drinks table didn't entail Sun-Tzu's Art of War. I like to drink and do not need help getting drunk. But for others it's a game.

Which brings me back to my conversation with A-Gung. I asked him about his knees and he said his right knee needs a rub every morning just to get going. I'm reading Being Mortal right now which talks a lot about the secrets to an enjoyable last phase to life and I must say he really has it. I hope I can see him again.

Doing it for the kids

The cousins came over. Not the direct cousins, but the cousins of the same generation yet a few branches over, perhaps 3rd or 4th cousins in the western terms. It's a rowdy visit. All three, three men, seem quite astonishingly self-confident and haughty in their postures. I can only talk about their postures because they so speak quickly in dialect with references and irony that I follow little of what they're going on about. They come over to the home one by one, number 1 comes in a sits as if he owns the place, smokes and offers me a cigarette, which I refuse. He's the largest of the three and has a gravelly voice. Number 2 strides in afterwards and loudly jokes before sitting, offering me a cigarette, which I refuse. As they are drinkers and the place they're actually meant to be visiting next door has no drinkers at all, our family begin lunch preparations. My father and I and are the most regular drinkers within the 100m radius of the home. Number 3 comes in quietly and offers me a cigarette, which I refuse. He has a few discreet words with my father-in-law, and then the food comes in and the St Remy XO brandy, which I'd brought in Auckland duty free, is poured.

It doesn't take long for it to become apparent that number 3 can't hold his liquor. After the first glass he gets quite emotional especially about the help my father-in-law gave to him in Guangzhou in tough times. He was starving at a point was given food. Hearing about my father-in-law's Guangzhou time is jarring because I only got to know him once he was already in the village, where he was clearly in his element. He worked in construction in Guangzhou for a time and later failed as a paint shop owner in central Qingyuan before returning back to the countryside with debts. But he is a genuinely kind man and I'll reiterate what I have hopefully said many times: I'm very lucky to have such an open-hearted, accepting person as my father-in-law. Number 3 can't keep his voice, arms or tone down. My father-in-law has to almost bring his arms down physically and asks him repeatedly to keep these things in the past. When another cousin from another branch comes in, number 3 still in heightened emotion dresses him down for his lack of support for his father and family (being "unfilial"). This is quite an animated but not atypical new year scene in China. Through all this drama there is a mini-scene that I'd like to focus on which is almost a distraction from this scene of drunken sentimentality.

As number 3 gets into his stride of gratitude, the child of number 2 charge into the room, grab his father's bowl from in front of him and run away. He's tailed by his cousin, the son of number 1. I was shocked by this brazen food robbery, but number 2 puffs his cigarette and his son brings back the bowl. The two children notice me and then get into a pushing match toward me to say something to me. What they would like the other to say is lost on me and likely lost on them, too. I entertain them trying to get them to tell me their names by first teaching them how to say "My name is.." but they run away. I ignore them but later get up to talk to them. One runs into the bathroom to hide so I hold the door shut. He eventually tries to get out but has to say "My name is..." to get out. I'm such an evil teacher. Both run away after that but it is just another refraction of a social trend in China that we see in our classes in Auckland, namely, undisciplined, unfocussed youth.

They're everywhere. There was probably an evolution where the Cultural Revolution did a bit of a moral reset, the One Child policy warped all the attention to a single child who grew up in unprecedented wealth and then that overindulged child was then expected to produce and raise a child, if not two. Any of these "links" in the procreative chain could give birth to a rather uncontrollable child. I went to the number 2 and said that his son was quite bright, and he shook his head and said he was "lazy".

Another tale was an anecdote shared during the "visiting of relatives" yesterday. A young auntie of ours told us how a similar situation brewed. Third Uncle's son had gotten married and had recently had a child. But the son had the best of the good life as an only son and had always had his parents do everything for him. After the child was born, both he and his wife did very little to do any of the hard work care of the child, preferring to play computer games till late, not waking in the morning and getting lunch from KFC. They were there to play with children of course.

These stories travel far over new year as all the people return to home town and each round of "visiting relatives" is a whirlpool of gossip. Children are China's future. It's going to be an interesting ride.

 

Development

When I was self-employed between 2005 to 2008, most of my students were learning English, but incredibly three were with me to learn Mandarin Chinese. When the possibility of teaching them first was proposed by one of my clients, it seemed rather bizarre. My Chinese, though useful, wasn't anywhere close to fluent. But I had teaching technique, a firm understanding of the basics and nothing better to do with my time (and I fancied giving it a lash). Two were marketing people who had to go to China or Taiwan, while the other, an older gentleman, went to China on occasion but I believe he took the lessons as a benefit of his job to help him fight the ageing process, rather than for work. He wanted to learn to read and write which were the most difficult skills of all.

Two of them had had a long connection with China, both having visited in the 80's. I remember being jealous of them and that they had really gotten to see the speed of development by visiting at different times since. China, to be clear, has been one of the fastest developing societies in the history of the world. At that stage I'd been to the Mainland twice, in 2000 and 2003 and would be going in 2007 and felt I had only a snapshot of this change. One of my students had gone to China exactly in 1980 just a few years after China re-opened its economy. Now I'm the one with a bit of scope especially with my access to the back stories and better understanding of official and unofficial history. My association with the Mainland is almost 18 years old. It does spin the head to reflect on the changes.

Guangzhou was one of the greatest point of references in that. It was my first steps into China from Taiwan in August 2000. Back then, there were no direct flights between Taiwan and the Mainland. We had to fly to Hong Kong to apply for a visa and then cross the border. We disembarked in a dusty, unattractive area. A dirty child approached me with a flower, which I assumed was a "gimmick" for beggars and moved quickly away from her. It didn't really appeal at all as a city. Jump forward ten years and I was living happily in it.

Qingyuan, just 70km up the road, is also developing at breakneck speed. It was a backwater to the metropolis of Guangzhou but is surging, now a third tier city. (China categorises its cities in tiers.) I spent time here in 2015 before we left and had a brief visit in 2016, and now in 2018. In these few years there is a noticeable change. I almost fell over as cars gave way to pedestrians on a huge crossing in the central city. (It was written in big letters but the fact that they actually stopped confused and then moved me.) Bus stops now have detailed information. The bus announcements come in English as well as Mandarin and Cantonese. All priority seats on the bus were filled by priority people (e.g. the elderly, children or the unwell). There are road signs that are helpful in finding places you want to go to. There is another bridge is crossing the Bei River. The dimsum we ate yesterday was almost at Guangzhou's standard. The traffic just felt a little less chaotic. (I almost would feel comfortable driving here.) Some of the small "feeling" changes are the most significant because it reflects an improvement in attitudes and habits.

The villages are where there is the littlest change. The villages themselves get moved around by development after all. My in-laws home, the only home I have known them in is about 10 years old. The previous home, which was apparently much more basic, was moved by a motorway development (which makes getting here all the so much easier). We visited my brother-in-law's abandoned old village which still has most of its buildings still remaining despite all the residents moved to the "new village". The homes are beautiful. But due to a dam project which would make the ground water undrinkable they were moved about 500 metres and rebuild the homes, but in a much more modern way. 

These new homes may be moved too. Two new modern roads have been built either side of the "block" of land that my parents-in-law live in and when the urban area expands again, they'll be moved, either into apartments or have the village move over one more time. That's why things don't change. Why improve the infrastructure to a constantly moving or disappearing village system which mainly is where they old people stay to keep the home fires burning (a bit like ahi kaa). I hope my grandfather-in-law will never have to move again and can keep feeding the chickens till the day he doesn't.

As a result in the villages, the rubbish is still collectively dumped. Roads are narrow and concrete. And the water and power can be iffy. But as nostalgic as we can be about it, it's not the most comfortable place to live for modern people. It's a way of life that might have done it's dash.

I remember watching the movie Dragon Boat which had villagers in Guangzhou being moved out of their villages to make way for the High Education Megacentre (aka University Island). The elderly even when moved to the comfort of air conditioned apartments were often sadder and depressed. It uprooted them from their purpose, habits and rituals.

I hope my in-laws when the day comes can adjust to a new life. I feel lucky to have been able to see and experience it.

Longevity

(Quick note: Blogger.com is banned in China as a result, the blogs I write here are "wired" in by a less than ideal method. I believe it went awry last night so I've reposted this in the belief the first one didn't "get out". If there are two copies or a blank in the previous post of the same name, many apologies.)

 I type this from a sofa sitting next to my 94 year old grandfather-in-law. I've mentioned him before on this blog and I must say it's one of the most special things about our return to be able to sit next to him, who I call A-Gung.

He made it through a very turbulent time with a Japanese invasion, civil war, the Cultural Revolution and modernization. He's pretty sharp too even at his age, still discussing and inquiring deeply, still having an active life raising the family's chickens. In his late 80s he had a fall but the fact he bounced back is a tribute to his good habits and general resilience.

He restricts his own diet, wakes early, tries new things (he took up coffee when I started bringing it and had been a coffee drinker ever since). He talks about every speck of news with an NZ tie-in. He's probably more aware than our whole student body...

I'm not sure how long my genes have me likely departing this mortal coil, but I've probably increased the predicted time of death in the last couple of years, running, quitting sugar and adopting a few random habits. I've been pleasantly surprised that my immune system has withstood a series of very stern tests in the last two years. In fact having only one day of sick leave in the last two years is a source of pride. In China I had periods of rather poor health.

One habit with a Chinese tie-in is my consumption of LSA. Though sounding like a drug, this poorly marketed product is just ground Linseed, Sunflower seeds and Almonds, which happens to have omega oils, minerals and protein. I add a tablespoon of it to any cereal I eat in the morning. Chinese people have many habits that influence their health for better or worse, but one of their more obvious habits is eating sunflower seeds. They buy them unhulled but learn the process of hulling them with their teeth at a young age. The whole seed goes in the mouth and only the shell comes out in a simple action. Any traveler on the trains or office reception areas will be familiar with the files if sunflower seed shells. It is certainly a nutritious snack.

Other positives are their preference of fruit, whole food habits and love of tea. Their elderly are also far more active than those in NZ. (There are of course negative habits that are generally held but let's not talk about those.)

On the fitness front, I'm glad to say I'm back running. After my worries after New Year, I had an MRI and X-ray on my knee. The result? No problem with bone or cartilage. Just a strained tendon. Phew! It all happened just days before leaving for China and I got the one piece of advice I needed to hear: Don't stop running! Niggles get so much in your head that sometimes you think it's the end. This problem almost had disappeared for a time last year despite my regular running. It's come back was in spite of my training too. It might have been caused by the level and intensity of the training but training was still the best way out. I've done two gentle runs in China, while doing daily exercise and my knee feels so much better for it. Tomorrow will be another run.

I've taken advantage of this lull by donating blood. I initially intended to donate in Auckland but got turned back until my MRI result came back. But that meant I'd be in China. So I donated in China instead and got a transport card for my contribution.

With that out of the way, I'll build up my running hopefully to run 10km+ on consecutive days. I have a half marathon 2 weeks after returning to NZ, and a marathon 6 weeks after that.

Running will be the way to burn off all the goose and chicken I've been eating and get me back down from the 68kg I'm now.

Treating the Treaty

Part of my job is to make a presentation about something confidently in simplistic language, in a way that should be as engaging as possible to a wide range of people. Usually these things happen at our school assemblies but can also be a celebration. And most usually these things happen with almost no preparation. Oh, what a luxury some preparation time would be! I think I do pretty well, though. 

Last Friday at an assembly, I spoke to students about the Waitangi Day for their awareness (basic information: don't come to school on Tuesday) and also for their education (basic information: New Zealand came about through the Treaty, with Maori chiefs and representatives of the Queen coming together to sign an agreement). I got into it forgetting we did actually have someone with Māori heritage on the team on site. She was leading the preparation for a group-wide event on the following Monday (yesterday) and had been intending to describe the Treaty's significance at that event. She didn't mention anything at the time but on Monday morning asked me to do the same at her event on account of my ability to simplify language. 

My presentation yesterday went something like this: "Welcome, everyone, to our Waitangi Day event. I would like to tell you about what Waitangi Day is and why it is special. I asked a student today if he knew what Waitangi Day is. He said that it is a Māori festival. Many people think this, but actually it isn't. It's a special day for all New Zealand. Waitangi is a place in New Zealand. Does anyone know where it is? (There were guesses.) It's up North, in a place called "The Bay of Islands", a very beautiful place. In 1840, something special happened there. A lot of Māori chiefs went there to meet with a man from England called Captain Hobson. They signed an agreement which made this land become New Zealand and part of the British Empire. It made Māori people British citizens and equal with them. It promised to protect their lands and treasures. Every year many people go to Waitangi to celebrate. Today, Jacinda Ardern went there to speak. Do you know who Jacinda Ardern is? (No-one knew, which was rather disappointing.) She's the Prime Minister, the leader of New Zealand. She's been in the news recently because she has had some good news: She's going to have a baby soon. So Waitangi Day is a special day to remember when Māori and the people from Britain became one people by coming together. Thank you again for coming. There are some fun activities for you to learn about the Māori side of New Zealand culture. I hope you enjoy it."

This isn't going to win any speech competitions, but it's very much fit-for-purpose: Lots of short sentences. Repetition. Simplistic language. Few idioms. Checking understanding of key reference terms. Even the gossip magazine Jacinda news, which I wouldn't usually raise, has a purpose with this kind of audience as it engages as well as informs. The audience also meant that I wasn't going to go into any of the complexities of chopping flagpoles, land wars, injustice, disease, protest, settlements and revitalisation. 

Being said rather extemporaneously, I'm still kicking myself for a few things, such as not starting with a Māori like "Kia ora, koutou!" and ending with "kia ora". But the number one kick was that I really didn't connect the Treaty to them, visitors and immigrants to NZ. Since I've been back I've heard the standard, multiculturalism on the basis of biculturalism many times, and it has always sounded a bit "forced" and not really explained well. I regard myself as being relatively advanced in my understanding of the implications of the Treaty. I also feel so many immigrants feel that the Treaty isn't relevant to them, or perhaps have a touch of the conservative white view of it as something for Māori people to get money and complain about things that don't really matter. And I wanted to think there was a simple sentence or two that might give a chance to understand its relevance.

I guess I would like to have said, and maybe will say on the coming Friday:

"Treaty is the foundation of New Zealand in the past, but also it's the foundation of New Zealand today: After setting up a fair and equal, respectful relationship between Māori people and people from Britain, all people from other countries who come to New Zealand to live also become a person under the Treaty. New Zealand welcomes people here and we do everything to make sure everyone can be treated fairly and with respect." 

I'm not sure if that would have got through but we need something to include all. I believe, even considering the historical injustices since the signing, New Zealanders should be proud of the Treaty and the sincerity since the 80s to try to realise the hope that was in it. The latter came about only after a protest movement. Even today the proportion of New Zealanders who have an understanding of our history and of the Treaty itself is not as high as it should be, for various reasons. I hope I can improve my communication of it both in words and actions.  

The uncultured, classless revolution

Reading White Swans, despite its riveting narration, felt like torture when the part of the book dedicated to the Cultural Revolution of China started. Every tale, a misery, an injustice, a travesty. As a reader, I couldn't wait to finish off those 300 pages that describe the ordeal endured by the family of the author, Jung Chang (Zhang Rong) during that period of time. You turn the pages just wanting her to cut a long story short and say: "And a few years after that, Mao died; sanity resumed; everyone apologised, hugged and moved on.' It didn't. Every time I picked it up was with some intrepidation. Of course, reading is nothing compared to being there. The actual length of the "revolution" was over 10 years, between 1966 and 1976 and I could not imagine how people bore it in real time.

Any description of it is required reading for anyone interested in human nature under pressure, politics, China or philosophy. A lot of the people I've spoken to with an interest in China often have no idea. Sometimes they know the misleading name, without really getting to grips with the substance.

It wasn't much of a revolution. It was a tool for the top leader, Mao, to get rid of his enemies, with the whole population in the cross-fire. Revolutions by definition is the population, or a group of people, successfully deposing their leaders or the authorities, usually by force. China has had revolutions. Many dynasties started with one, including the Han and Ming. The last dynasty, the Qing, ended with the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, (famously with "the last emperor", Puyi). And then the communists won the Chinese civil war in 1949, which was the Chinese Communist Revolution, when they removed the corrupt capitalists of the KMT (Guomin Dang) from power over the mainland of China.

The Cultural Revolution wasn't very cultural either. It exhorted people to destroy cultural things, stop independent, individual thought and embrace ignorance. While there is still a degree of this lingering even in the China of today in the fields of politics.

If you don't know about this period of history, I'd recommend you reading about it. In China it is talked about with the abbreviation wenge, but it isn't a popular topic. Wild Swans incidentally is a banned book in China. Prior to this I'd read only a couple of pages of hers, the Chinese version of Mao: The Unknown Story, which was part of one of my favourite anecdotes from China. I bought it in a train station book store in China and carried it in my shoulder bag. When I arrived back in Guangzhou, they scanned all of my luggage and I was called over by the customs officer who pointed at my shoulder bag and asked to open it. My heart was in my mouth. He pulled out the book without checking any of my other possessions flicked through it, said: "Bu keyi" (not acceptable), tossed it into a contraband bin. He asked for my passport, flicked through it, gave it back to me and wave me onwards. I was anxious about any "implications" for me but clearly he didn't want to make that kind of trouble.

I've finished Wild Swans now and I'll probably need a "break" from heavy reading for a while. Still not running, I'll pick my travel books carefully.