hero up--klong style

A few months ago I optimistically signed up for the Hero Up Half, a fantastic race for a great cause. Anyone who runs and lives in the Northwest should try and participate. Rocky and I have wanted to run it for the past couple of years but haven't ever been able to. This year they added a virtual option and I signed us up.

I really did plan on training but somewhere between single parenthood for four weeks and two 13 hour time zone switches with a baby, I didn't get around to it. I did get out for an 8 mile run the week before. I was supposed to go 10 miles but with traffic lights and trying to maneuver around and in between scooters, helped me decide we should try a different option for our race. (I'm also just really slow.)

Come race morning, we decided to run the 13.1 on the klong near our house. I had been running there this past year, but had stopped a few weeks ago due to an irrational fear that someone would come up, out of no where, and push me in. And if you've smelled the klong, or seen the dog carcasses floating in it, you know, there's no coming back from a swim in the klong.

Klong, is the Thai word for canal. They run throughout the city of Bangkok. For a city so entrenched in traffic, the riverboats that run up and down the larger klongs, can be the fastest way to travel. The klongs are also, as far as I can tell, filled with trash, refuse and at times rotting dog carcasses. The klong by our house has flat, straight sidewalks and goes on for farther than I've ever wanted to go. There are homes built right up against the sidewalk, facing the klong. Some don't have windows and the doors are nearly always open, so you often feel as though you are running through someone's front room, but the people are friendly and seem unperturbed by the intrusion. The air is cooler and the sidewalks nearly free of traffic.

The biggest hazard on the klong are the soi dogs. The street dogs that hang out and lay around looking dangerous. So far I've never been bitten. The big dogs have always left me alone--which is good because they are giant and mean looking and could easily kill me with a few well placed bites--it's the little dogs (the ones that look as though they at one time had an ancestor in that was a toy poodle) that chase after me and scare me the most. I have had plenty of people laugh at me as I run away fast with high knees, trying to escape a pack of dirty, white, ferrel toy mutts.

Soi dogs aside, we started our race at 5 am. Since sunrise wasn't until after 6 am, it was still pretty dark, but we wanted to be done before it got hot. Which in Bangkok is usually sometime around 2:30 am. We actually had great weather, a nice breeze and it was still in the 80's when we got finished (no need to disclose the actual time). It was a fun race and we were so glad we were able to participate. We're excited to do it again next year.

Here are some pictures from our run

 I really love this city.

 There were a few obstacles on our run but a lot less than if we had run on the street.

 Not a lot of Thais run. This means they think we're super weird. It also means they cheer for us as we run past. When I'm puttering by at my 12 minute mile pace and a group motorcycle taxi drivers throw their arms up and cheer for me, I feel like I'm rounding the last turn, in the lead, of the the Tour de France. Well, minus the bike. And most everything about that metaphor.

This is a spirit tree. The houses are for people to put offerings to the spirits. Here's to hoping those spirits are fans of red fanta. 

                                 

I did this at about mile 2. I wish I could blame it on the klong or the darkness or the motorcycle coming up behind me but the reality is that if I lifted me feet more than a cm off the ground, I wouldn't trip like this. Good news is it didn't hurt at all during the run. Bad news is it's nearly unbearable now. I guess it's been too long since I last skinned my knees. I've clearly forgotten they are the most painful possible injury. 

I told Rocky this morning the pain was so intense I might throw up. He laughed but I was dead serious. I now have an inexhaustible amount of empathy for my kids when they skin their knees. I will not be able to help them up, of course, in all likelihood I will not be walking for several months, if ever again. But when this does happen to them, I will spoil them rotten with Jake and the Neverland Pirate bandaids (the current gold standard in our house).  

Or littlest superhero. Because he is too cute to not feature.

Sweet as peaches and finally sleep trained. Now that we're sleeping through the night, it only makes sense to voluntarily put a stop to that. Update coming.