The marathon experience....

In December last year I meet up with my friend Markus in Zurich and we decided to run a marathon in 2012 together. This would, for both of us, be our first marathon ever. A couple of weeks later we had found the venue of choice: The Singapore Sundown Marathon on the 26th of May. I am not sure if we at the time realized, what we would actually sign up for in terms of humidity, but certainly liked the idea of running a marathon at night. With the venue and date chosen, I set off to start the training. 

The training regime:

- I initially started out to run 3 times within the week for about 6 km each and then a long run on the weekend for as far as I could get. 

- The long runs over time, then became longer and longer up to 30 km runs of which I should have even done more

- Combined with all the running I also started to workout again to strengthen my core and back 

- The training regime was all no problem as long as I was in Banlung, where I didn't have much of a distractance. But the last month before the Marathon I actually started traveling through Vietnam, thats where it started to become challenging: to go for runs regularly. It didn't work anywhere close as I wished. 

The implications:

- Running became fun: While I always thought, that running "comes easy to me", I guess can only now say that I am really enjoying running. 10 km runs in the morning became real fun, as they were no hard work anymore rather performance test on seeing if I can shape off another minute or two.

Also the long runs became exciting as I was interested to see how many kilometers I could clock down and how I progressed over time. 

- I lost the last bit of weight I wanted to get rid off: I started my travels in August 2011 with weighting 96 kg and while I lost already a significant amount of weight by Christmas (though thanks to my Mams cooking and super-delicious Christmas biscuits, I put 3 kg right back on during my stay over the holidays in Germany). By the time I was ready for the marathon I weight 76 kg - which arguably is a bit to low for my hight but every extra kg you don't have to carry around for 42 kilometers counts :-). 

I guess I can only recommend a Marathon training for weight loss. No matter if you are actually going to run one or not. I guarantee you, you will be dropping weight just like that, while eating like a American Football Player. Needless to say, that you need to keep up the running to not have an YoYo effect. 

- I lost 2 toe nails: When I started the marathon training I only had, lets call them "sub-optimal", trainers available, which were a bit to tight in the front. Well I payed the price for it... as the running and kilometers increased 2 of my toes turned blue and about 3 weeks later the toe-nails fell off just like that. Scary, but they are, incredibly enough, grown back normally. Also once I had proper fitting running sneakers that wasn't a problem at all anymore.

- I got back my old achilles tendon injury: If you read long distance runners material, you hear a lot about how to avoid injuries as repetitive long distance running is increasing your risk for injury potentially. So you are supposed to switch up as much as possible: the surface you are running on (gras, concrete, gravel, ...), the shoes you are running in (runners, sneakers, barefoot), the tracks (up-hill, down-hill, flat), the speed (intervall runs, sprints, regular pace....) and I did it all... nevertheless my old achilles tendon injury broke out again. I was lucky enough to have a friend who gave great medical advice on how to keep it from stopping me running. (By the way if you are interested in a book about running have a read in "Born to run" - a very good book)

- I was eating like a "Scheunendrescher" and sleeping like a baby: Training for a marathon was really going to my reserves but it had great side effects. I was able to eat about just anything without having to have a bad conscience, my water consumption on just every day increased significantly to a healthy level and whenever I hit the bed I slept just like a baby and woke up well rested.  

The run itself:

Markus, had actually motivated a whole group of friends from all over the world to run the Singapore Marathon with us. So we ended up to be a group of 7 runners who took on the half-marathon and full marathon distance. Except Markus and myself, all the others had run marathons before. 

Then after all the training and build up to the Marathon, May 26th was there. The race started at 12:30 midnight and Markus and myself lined up at the 5-6 hour marker as we were really concerned about the humidity (it hadn't rained for the last 3 days) and wanted to go slow at it, to be able to finish it.

The first 5 km were a drag. To many people were let go at the same time and the track was to narrow. What I also had underestimated was the heat that over 20,000 runners create themselves... not just was it super-humid that night but also the runners themselves added to the heat and I was basically soaked after the first kilometers. Then after kilometer 5 the field started to be less crowded and I got into my running pace until km 15. After kilometer 15 it seemed like the km 19 marker did just not want to appear and a eternity away. Well at least thats how it felt and I totally got out of my running pace and started to get annoyed by myself. Luckily to set that off, it started to rain which was a great cool off and re-hydration was not as much of a concern anymore as it poured down on us. I still "have to find myself a pacemaker or I am not going to make this" I thought, which I did by km 23. I basically have to thank a unknown lady who ran a nice, smooth and contant pace and whom I could comfortably follow. Her running got me through to km 36 at which she, seemingly effortlessly, increased her speed and I couldn't follow anymore. So the last 6 km were on me and I struggled with them... After running the last 17 km in a thunderstorm I now started to get cold, my hip started to stiff up and I started to take long walking breaks as I was exhausted. But I pulled through and made my way into the finish after 4 hour and 42 minutes. 

The conclusion:

The training up to the marathon was actually more fun than the marathon itself and I will keep on running and signing up for half- and full-marathons as the side effects are only positive. 

I also want to take on a normal marathon to see what time I can actually achieve under normal circumstance and also see if there are any marathons out there which are challenging as well. For example a friend of mine and experience long distance runner recently ran a marathon on a frozen lake in Russia... certainly worth the adventure, no ?!

Singapore....

... is quite a change when you have been in Cambodia and Vietnam for the last 4 months :-). A superclean and sterile city, everything is very clean cut, traffic rules, hundreds of shopping malls, thousands of restaurants and Cafes, people dress to impress and you can get about anything you envision on this planet though for ridicoules prices.

So the first impression you have of the city is a bit emotionless but staying in town for 12 days allowed me to see a different side of Singapore and I have to say it got its flair with the local food markets, you get used to all its shopping malls and appreciate the convinience of them and it got quite a good night life :-). Even though Singaporians won`t like to hear this but it is like a small and clean version of HongKong :-).

 

P.S.: Sepp this one is for you ;-)

Vietnam experience wraped up!

4 weeks of traveling in Vietnam are over and if you'd ask me to wrap it up in one sentence then I would say "The opposite of Cambodia".

Meaning Vietnam has a beautiful countryside and landsacpes, some great food just like in Cambodia but unfortunately the majority of Vietnamese we have met in our day-to-day life left us with a unfortunate bad impression of being rude, dis-honest and having the talent to be persistantly annoying. The times we have been not left alone by people trying to sell us just anything (for example sunglasses while I was wearing my pair of sunglasses), deliberately given back the wrong change, having been quoted prices easily 300% over what regular tourist prices are, ignored us when we had a question, etc. is uncounted for and unfortunately that is the major impression we left Vietnam with.

Nevertheless we met some great people, ate some great food and had a good time throughout the travels. The highlights were the 2 weeks driving on our Motos through central Vietnam, some great creative sea-food omlets in Nha Trang, the Ha Long Bay sorroundings (not particularly the Party-Boat-Trip we had booked) and the people we meet in Saigon.

By now I arrived in Singapore, where I am staying with my friend Matt and his family and all focus is on the Marathon preparation. 9 days to go before the event starts. Due to the fact that I haven't been able to keep up a regular running regime throughout the travels and the humidity here in Singapore this marathon is going to be a real challenge.

Wish me luck

Joe

3 weeks into the Vietnam journey....

... and today we sold our Motos. After the first couple of days in Nha Trang, Chris and myself bought 2 Motos to tour the country the Vietnamese way. It started off with buying two local used semi-automatic "Motos" which were already registered, as you can not register a Moto under your own name if you are only 1 month in the country. The process was pretty smooth and
we were counting on the foreigner bonus of not being stopped by the police (which worked out perfectly). After some more shopping for Moto gear and for me getting used to actually driving a Moto we set off north on the coast line to travel to Hanoi.... 
Despite the fact of non-existing traffic rules, mad bus drivers and bad roads it was a lot a fun. 
Traffic in Vietnam is a bit more reckless than in Cambodia but still follows common sence rules such as - whomever is bigger than you has the right of way, what you can't see does not exist and therefore needs to watch out for you, who stops "looses" so keep flowing. 


The result of the first 30 minutes of our travels... we lost our "beat-box" which was supposed to entertain us while driving and had a flat tire. Not particularly a good start - but the drives the first 2/3 days along the coastline was worth it. Beautiful views, a bit of reckless truck-driver driving which kept one on its toes and a lot a fun with the Motos. Well at least for me as it was my first "Motorbike" experience... Chris is actually driving a racing bike at home, so I am not sure
how he felt about the 110cc of his Moto. He will tell you in a guest-entry once we are in Saigon. 


After 3 days of driving, the Motos started to wear off on us as making 130 km a day took us easily 4 hours, so we took some more off-riding days and enjoyed what Vietnam had to offer. Unfortunately not to much other than a beautiful coast line. We made our way over a couple of days/stops up to Hue, where we put the bikes on a night-bus and made the last 700km up to Hanoi that way.


Hanoi is a overwhelming place, which is super busy and I am sure it would be a great place to visit if you know local people, but as we don't it feels a bit to busy and annoying so we took the bikes out again and went to Ninh Binh a more peaceful place to see some more nature and tomorrow we are setting off to Halong Bay apparently a stunning site. Well we booked a party boat trip with other young tourists so it should be interesting.


More updates are coming soon 
Cheers

Good Morning Vietnam....

... the first week in Vietnam is already over and it kicked off quite "special".

My friend Chris, with whom I am traveling through all Vietnam, and I attempted to cross the border in Ratanakiri together with some of KYCs teachers who wanted to come with us for a weekend trip. Apparently only about 25 foreigners a year are crossing this border, so for the Vietnamese Border control, it was a very unusual process, especially as we "rocked up" without Vietnamese visas and only with invitation letters. After about 4 hours of discussion and waiting, Chris unfortunately was declined the visa as his invitation letter had been expired and I was let into the country. So we split for two days as I went on with the KYC teachers, while Chris was waiting for a new invitation letter in Ratanakiri.

Our first stop in Vietnam was Nha Trang, a very touristy and developed place with tons of tourists of whom 90% were Russian. But it was great to spend some last time with some dear Cambodian friends. After 4/5 days Chris and myself went then on up north the coast to and are now in Hoi An again a quite touristy place but nice.

The impressions so far from Vietnam ? It has a stunning coastline, some great food, people are very nice and helping (even though nowhere close to Cambodians) and Vietnamese people seem to not go out in the evenings so we are having very early nights here... which after 3 months in Ratanakiri is a bit disappointing, but I guess good for my marathon training, which is suffering anyway.

Enclosed some snapshots from Vietnam and soon some more. Also an entry from Chris, to mix this blog a bit up.

Cheers

Joe

Way to fast over....

... that's the feeling I get when I think of leaving Banlung City to take on Vietnam. My time here has been very salutary and I enjoyed every bit of it:

- I realized how lucky I am, being in good health. Which will be a lesson for the future to better take care of it and not wasting it
- I learned how constantly friendly, helping, welcoming and honest people create such a nice atmosphere. There shouldn't be a reason not to try to be "Cambodian" every day.
- I meet a lot a interesting people here and made some good friends who truly broadened my horizon
- I ate delicious new food and at the same time so healthy. It is so easy to create a healthy and delicious diet for a healthier life. Nevertheless I still appreciate a proper steak at "Wolfgangs" in NYC with some Canadian sizzling-honey bacon as a starter :-)
- I had time to focus on my exercise regime - which itself gave me a lot a time reflecting on myself (trust me running around a lake 4 times a week for a total of 4-5 hours gives you a lot of time to think :-))

- I learned a lot about the Cambodian/Khmer culture, about South-East Asia and how Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia all are connected to each other. 
- I certainly can now say after teaching in Ecuador and in Cambodia, that my patience level is not suitable for teaching and being a teacher will not be an option for me in the future. At the same time my respect for teachers has grown immensely (though I still think German teachers get to much time off :-P)
- I am truly thankful that I was given the opportunity to help some people here on the ground and make a change to their life. To give you an overview of what we achieved over the past 3 months:

- We got a staggering 13,000 US Dollar together to build 7 wells in indigenous communities, which gave over 4,000 people access to water. As well as the money will be used to build a small school in Cambodias "outback".

- Helped Rosica to get a majority of her hearing ability back and started to re-finance her hearing aid with the help of friends.

- Helped Sokhav to get a proper diagnose of his skin-problem, put a therapy together as well as set him up with the initial necessities.

- We financed Chanrath and Meraline, two children who were abandoned by their parents, their studies at Krou Yeung Center so that they can receive a proper education.

This all couldn't have been done without the financial support of (this is in no particular order): Anke, Sunjay, Linda, Joy, Stefanie, Franziska, Genovefa, my parents, my aunt, Ellisha, Andrew, Nayomi, Florian, Sue, Tim, Kayelyn, Andy, Matthew, Jimi, Sumit, Christopher, Rouven, Ting, Robert, Ruben, Ling and Malte.

 A big Thank You to all of you, you are grand !! 

I will write more about my the highlights here over the next weeks - but one thing is sure I will come back here in the future,  not just to see how the children here have grown up or meeting up with friends but also because it is such a peaceful and joyable place.

The enclosed pictures are from a splitter-bomb that was found in the backyard of our school... routine/daily reality to Cambodians - they didn't even "evacuate" the closest classrooms.

Joe

"Skin Cancer" or "We don't know what he has"....

.... those were the first comments I heard about Sokhav, a 6.5 year old student at Krou Yeung center with severe skin problems. He suffers from a "Elephant skin": thick and dry skin covering his body all over. 
The skin renews itself every 4-5 days for 3-4 days in a very painful process. This is only the first obvious symptoms you see, but he is also missing eye-lids as well as his ears are not properly developed. Having suffered my own bit of skin-problems when I was growing up (though nothing anywhere close to Sokhav) and knowing from that experience how hard a "abnormal" appearance can be on your self-esteem, Sokhav certainly became a case very close to my heart and I was determined to try to help him. The first thing that had to be done was to actually get a diagnose of what he is suffering from, cause it certainly was no skin-cancer. Even though the parents went with him to a specialized skin-clinic in Phnom Penh in the past, they never received a proper diagnose nor any proper help.

So with help of my friend Ruben, who is a practicing doctor in Germany, I got a initial picture diagnose together which then 2 traveling dutch doctors, who visited our school, confirmed. Sokhav has "Ichthyosis congenita" which is a genetic imperfection, where the body can not hydrate or fatten the skin itself, so the outer-layer of the skin creates a "Elephant skin". As it is genetic it is also not curable, but by knowing what he actually has, I set off on researching what can be done to improve his life-quality. Unfortunately there is not much experience nor any studies available on Ichthyosis as it is not yet properly researched. Nevertheless with the help of Ruben and some references in the internet, I put together a plan on how to help Sokhav and ease his skin-problem. That's where the whole challenge started !!

Part of the "therapy" is a very time consuming daily routine where Sokhav has to manually hydrate and fatten his skin. But if done consequently and over a long time the results are very promising. 
To start the therapy off, we needed a proper creme which is fattening Sokhavs skin and in huge-amounts as he needs to completely cover his body at least 4 times a day with it. The creme would be something you will get in any Pharmacy in Germany, even at "Aldi" as we found out - but not so in Cambodia !! And I mean all Cambodia !!! I was searching about every Pharmacy in Banlung, I had people check with big Pharmacies in Phnom Penh, I went to the local hospital, to many local shops that sell skin products, approached basically any big pharmaceutical company I know, searched the local Banlung market, I even got in touch with 3 big children NGOs which all have a health department but the only feedback I got everywhere was: "We don't have such a creme and you won't find this in big amounts in Cambodia". While it is super easy to find here all sorts of make-up or skin-whitener a normal fattening creme containing "Urea and Glycerin" and not containing perfume or alcohol is basically impossible. As the end of my time here is approaching and we want to help this boy, we now settled for a regular creme which we can get in big amounts (as a major consideration is also that Sokhav has to be able to access the creme his life long, so sending packages from abroad is not an option either).

So next week we are kicking off the "therapy" with Sokhav hoping that over the next 3-4 months he will experience major improvements with his skin.... The enclosed example illustrate how Sokhav could improve if the therapy actually helps him and he is following a strict hydration and fattening regime.

Seeing Sokhav, makes me realize how lucky we, who are blessed with good health, are! And how we sometimes carelessly waste our good health: it is just way to easy to make that excuse not to exercise or depend on our health systems and medicine... but people like Sokhav never even have the chance to be healthy, cause if they would have it they would take it!!!

This leaves me to say a BIG THANK YOU to: 

- Ruben, who is the expert behind all this and without whom I could not have put this together.

- My parents, who have generously supported the therapy plan for Sokhav so we can set him up with the initial set of "tools", cremes and other necessities

- Shamim, who has supported me on getting in touch with big Pharmacy companies to get access to cremes. Of which GSK was the only real lead and seem to be the only company that is serious...

Cheers 
Joe