The Last Asian Vacation

We are just back from a whirlwind trip to Cambodia and Vietnam...and have so many stories to tell...and hundreds of pictures to share....! It was so much fun. Here is a quick preview....

Michele & Jason's Singapore Triathlon

The day after my ill-fated footrace, I headed out bright and early in the morning with my friends J. and C. to cheer on our friends M. and J. on their first triathlon! Luckily their race went WAY better than mine! 

It was so inspiring to be a part of these guy's journey to the tri. They trained so hard, and were so dedicated to their goals, it was amazing to get to see them in action on race day! 

M. and her supporters! 

Looking tough with that war-paint. 

J charging out of the water. 

And running on to the biking transition.

We were screaming for him like total crazy people! 

M.'s wave getting ready to start. 

M. (looking like a total PRO) charging out of the water, with a huge smile on her face! 

Off to the transition...

Getting ready for the bike ride...

Unfortunately it was a busy-busy day and J. and I had to run off from the race to see our significant others' play baseball, so we didn't get to see J. and M. cross the finish line, but they both did GREAT! And they both looked so happy doing it! A big huge congrats to both of them for accomplishing their goals! Glad I could be there to see it! 

Energizer Night Race Report

This is the story of how horribly wrong a seemingly innocent race can go. Like really really really wrong. This is the story of Erin and Kunal's adventures at the first ever (and hopefully last ever) Singapore Energizer Night Trail Run.

Now you might think that it is a really stupid idea to combine a trail run with darkness. You would in fact be correct- its a really dumb, stupid, horrible, terrible idea. But, silly me, when I read trail run, and I thought about Singapore, which is not exactly known for being "rugged", I decided that by "trail" they probably meant "well manicured dirt path." So, a well manicured dirt path at night doesn't seem that bad, totally manageable. 

But they were not kidding around about the whole "trail" thing. Because what they meant by "trail" was one-"helluva-rocky-road with incredibly unstable footing and many massive sink holes." I swear, this must be the ONLY rugged road on the whole island. And, in case you were wondering, by "night race", they meant really "frigging pitch black dark in the middle of the jungle". These puny little headlamps they gave us were useless. All of this combined spelled disaster. 

But before we get to the misery, the night actually started out pretty well- the race was a family friendly event, and they had set up a pretty neat carnival before the race.

Dave, testing his might at the strength challenge. 

Kunal doing the same. Such manly manly men. 

Then the boys moved on to a less manly activity- net ball (an all female sport, for those unfamiliar). 

They may have been there for like 10 minutes, but they didn't leave until they managed to get a few in the basket. The whole no backboard thing is surprisingly tricky! 

Nothing like posing for a pics with the porta-potties. 

To be fair, they do play a huge role in my race success, so its only fair they get proper tribute. 

Me and K and the Energizer Man. 

(Flash forward 2 hours, Kunal looks at me and suggests that, if we ever finish this race, and are not dying or broken when we do so, we cause physical harm to the f*^#ing Energizer man)

The sign should have read "slow down, beware of a totally miserable race route"

Its not a good sign when I am making this variety of face before the race has even started. 

The starting gate...pretty much the only cool thing about the route. 

We would have looked way less happy if we had known what was in store for us.....

Adjusting my little tiny totally insufficient source of light. 

Totally should have used my Kilimanjaro lamp! 

And we were off.

And this is the last picture from the race..because understandably K and I didn't have a camera with us to document the misery step-by-step, and Dave couldn't take pictures of us at the end because it took us 12 hours to finish and he got tired of waiting it was too difficult to see the finishers coming up to the finish line in the dark. 

So why was this race SO bad? How do I even begin to describe it!

It started out alright...a bit of rough terrain, but not too bad- and the runners were in good spirits, so it was fun for the first 1/2km. But almost immediately from the starting line, the route started heading upwards, in a long, steep, painful, rugged hill. And I hate hills. But I was actually pretty proud of myself for keeping my head down and trucking along...right up until I rolled my ankle on a loose rock and thought I was going to die. So just like that, we had to slow down to a hobble before we even hit the 1K mark. Not an auspicious beginning for sure. 

I hobbled along for a while, until we reached the top of the first terrible hill, and I stopped for some stretching and injury-investigation. After concluding that I had not broken anything (thank god!) I realized that I really needed to keep running or I might as well just turn around and go back to the carnival. So we ran. We  even sprinted right up another brutal hill, and another, and another...until we got to the hill-from-death. No really, it was unimaginably bad. 

It was so steep that it was physically impossible to get up it with out crawling and/or using the ropes (yes I said ROPES) to pull yourself up the steep muddy slope. Lucky for me, as I was using the ropes method, the girl behind me lost her balance and ripped the rope from my clutch, throwing me in to the chasm in the middle of the two rope paths. Awesome for me. So I finished my summit using the hands-and-knees approach. I was less than pleased. All I remember is looking at Kunal and saying "this. is. insane!" And it was...

Not too long after our mountain climbing experience, Kunal twisted his knee, which sent us back to the hobbling. We were totally the walking wounded, probably a pathetic sight. To be fair, we really couldn't have been running very fast anyways, it was basically one big series of massively steep hills. And the downhills, with the loose rocks, were actually worse than the up-hill. So we walked, and stumbled, and hobbled. The going was slow.

Practically every 200 meters we saw someone injured. It looked like most of them were minor scrapes from falls, but it was far from a safe race. My biggest worry the whole race was "DO NOT FALL, because you are wearing your brand new Lululemon Athletica pants and you CANNOT RIP THEM!" I would have been devastated to ruin them on my first run wearing them! I was secondarily concerned with breaking a leg, but my first priority was my new pants. I was realllly wishing I had thought to wear my old grubby pants instead! 

Normally I enjoy the sound of my running. It sounds like, "clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp," very neat, very rhythmic  Syncopated with my usually pretty even breathing.  Its comforting.

My running this time sounded like this "clomp, clompclomp, scurry-scurry-scurry, clomp, SHIT!!!!, clompclomp, scurry-scurry, Mutherf&@#er!!!, clomp, trot, SHIT SHIT SHIT!!!, trot, clomp." The stream of expletives that flew freely from my mouth would have impressed the hardiest of truck drivers. It was NOT fun going. 

After we hit the 11km sign, we decided to run for it, and magically, the road evened out significantly, so the last km was pretty smooth. And I have never been SO glad to see a finish line. Luckily, we didn't end up having a physical altercation with the Energizer man. 

I love running. And I love races. And I love races in Singapore. But this was pure misery. Never before in my life have I considered quitting a race...and this race, I probably thought about throwing in the towel 10x before the first 2km! 

But we survived. And honestly, the worst part that it was my last Singapore race with Kunal, my trusty running buddy. We have both improved SO much in just 6 short months, and the last races we did together went SO well, we were really hoping to rock out our last one together. But alas, it was not meant to be. But we did suffer together, and it was wonderful to have a partner in my misery. I hope we find occasion to run together again some day soon (the NY Marathon would be fun, hint-hint Kunal!) 

So my advice to any runners is- never, ever, ever run a night trail race. Really dumb idea. Really dumb. 

Exploring the Opera House

Our final hurrah in Sydney was a backstage tour of the Sydney Opera House. We were unable to get tickets to see a show at the Opera House while we were there, and I really wanted to see it, so the tour was the second best thing. And actually, we got to see such neat things, that it was probably better than just seeing the show. 

This is the view from the inside of the pit, looking up in to the Opera Theater. 

Dave on the conductor's stand, taking a peak at the stage. 

On stage at the Opera House...

It may have been cheesy, but it was pretty awesome. =) 

If I knew how to sing, I probably would have belted something out for good measure. 

But since that would have been painful for everyone involved, I just sang a little Les Mis, in my head (where I happen to sound perfectly on pitch)

Erin, Prima Ballerina.

(Look Mom, those dance classes early in life paid off- I am totally looking cool, on stage, at the Opera House) 

All set up for the ballerinas to come practice! 

The massive pipe organ in the Symphony theater. Would have loved to hear it in action. 

Sound orbs in the symphony theater- so the musicians can hear what they are playing.

The tour was really interesting- we got to walk all around the theater complex and on all of the various stages. I had never been behind the scenes at a major theater before and it was fascinating to see how everything comes together. I also loved getting to go in the fancy dressing rooms- we got to go in to the nicest dressing room in the house- where many celebrities have been- it was pretty schwanky! We ended the tour with a yummy breakfast in the green room, where all the artists and stage hands would be hanging out closer to show time. Dave was very patient with me- I know he would have rather taken a more history and architecture oriented tour, but I was totally in love with the backstage view of the theaters. It did have the downside of starting at 7am (ugh!) but I guess thats really the only time you can get in to the theaters when the actors, singers and dancers are not using it! It was a good thing that we had already done all of the sightseeing and shopping we needed to do- because we headed right back to the hotel for a mid-day nap before the flight home! Thank goodness for late checkout! 

Bondi Beach- Part 2

The Bondi-to-Bronte clifftop walk...was, much like the rest of our trip, AMAZING. The beaches were so beautiful, it was nice to get some exercise, and we loved watching the crazy surfers. 

The remarkable Bondi Icebergs Club. How cool are these ocean pools? The waves were really going nuts this day, so practically every other wave crashed up over the walls of the pools. Apparently being a member here requires that you swim a certain amount of times in the pools in the cold of winter....brrrr! 

Brave souls getting their laps in on a cold fall day. 

Taking in the view (and probably catching our breath- this gentle walk involved a fair amount of hills!)

Gorgeous! I believe this is Tamarama in the front and Bronte in the background. 

Still carrying my Lulu bag = a good man. 

Evidence of my little accident on the wet cliffs....

I wanted to sit and watch the surfers for a little while. Dave, very reasonably suggested that we sit on the edge of the walkway...but oh no, I wanted to go farther out on the cliffside to get a better view... but I didn't even make it one step before I slipped in the fresh mud and nearly did the splits trying to save the camera. I am happy to report that the camera, my jeans and my groin survived. My dignity was the only real victim here. Only I can manage to slip and fall in mud, on a totally paved hiking path. 

Yup, that's how I felt about that. 

Walking around covered in mud for the rest of the day was pretty awesome. 

We had been watching a lot of surfers...but mainly the small-wave kind. But at Tamarama, we found a group with pretty impressive skills. This guy was particularly amazing to watch. 

Sigh. We had such a good time in Bondi. Its just so lovely, I could be a happy woman living there. After we left the beach walk, we tried to take a "short cut" back through town, which involved some reallllly serious hills...and....well, we failed. So ended up back on the path, back to Bondi, and when we were cold and tired enough, back to the hotel. Great day had by all. 

Bondi Beach- Part 1

When we were planning this trip, everyone told us we HAD to go to Bondi. And despite continued crappy weather, Bondi Beach did not disappoint. It was so so so beautiful! 

The famous Bondi Beach lifeguards- they have their very own reality TV show... not surprisingly, they were not filming this day, probably not too much TV-worthy drama happening in the rain. 

As if Australia needed to impress us more, they have BLOODY MARYS! 

Delicious! 

And, not a bad view to go with our morning Bloodys. 

(Pretty glad I had my new Hoodie on, btw- it was cold!)

After our brunch (nachos and bloody marys, a brunch of champions!), we took off to walk along the beach and get a little exercise. I think Dave, who has been wanting to learn to surf, is looking at these surfers in the icy water and is pretty glad we didn't decide to try to take lessons today! 

I am thinking, "its cold, its cold, thank god for my hoodie, so cold!"

So beautiful. We saw so many amazing beaches this trip, but Bondi is pretty special. 

After enjoying the Bondi views, we began the famous Bondi-to-Bronte clifftop walk....