Harassment of women in Brunei

I must and I’m not sorry Brunei. I’ve been trying to ignore this for a while, but today has just been too much. I’m not sure what it is with this country, but I’m starting to feel really exasperated with the way I have been treated whilst doing absolutely anything alone in public, which, needless to point out, includes the running.

A Coffee Run, literally. And LSD.

So I realised that my long slow distance runs aren’t appropriately slow enough, and hence, does not count as a slow run. Was reading around RW plus other running blogs and websites when I came to the conclusion.

Thus, I decided to attempt another lengthy dawdler of an adventure today. My friends wanted to grab a coffee after work so I thought I’d join them at the café, except that I’d run instead of driving over. I never thought taking it easy could be so difficult! According to the two pace calculators I used (1 and 2), I failed. As soon as I stopped thinking about my running pace I started speeding up again, which got me thinking – was my recent 5k time not one of my better efforts? Or is my long run too short? Perhaps the recent 5k race time I had input into the calculator didn’t particularly reflect my “current level of fitness?” (Oh, how ostentatious that sounds!)

My most recent 5k time was 28:40, which rendered the long run training pace to be 7:09 – 8:02 min/km. My magical 5k PB of 25:57 (that happened over 6 months ago) calculated the long run training pace to be 6:32 – 7:21 min/km. Much closer to what I was running. This gives me hope… Hope that I can smash that PB. That, or most possibly, I’m just running my LSD all wrong.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Easy Run on Jalan Residency with company, 4 Jan ’13

Did a nice easy run on Jalan Residency whilst catching up with a friend today! Little garmin took ages to find location though, and being such keen beans, we set off before it finally initialised.

Steady Run to Tasek Lama, 23 Dec ’13

Phew, was it hot!

This Tasek Lama route is becoming a bit of a favourite now. It’s not bad really. There aren’t proper pavements for the first kilometre, followed by some treacherous narrow road edge treading for the third kilometre, and then a full blown deep excavation/construction site that I manage to casually dawdle through.

Run to Tasek Lama, 20 Dec ’13

Below are the stats from the day of my previous post when I took the photo of the silly monkeys at the entrance of Tasek Lama. I mostly go to Tasek to have a little relaxed walk on the short trail with my friends, which is why I need to get my run done and out of the way beforehand. Yes, I go for a run AND THEN go for a little “exercise session” with my friends immediately after. It makes sense because

Monsoon Clouds of Doom Running Philosophy

I’ve not run in ages and I blame this awful weather. The clouds of impending doom have been gathering, threatening to storm it down like the holy mother of angry watermelons. I mean, what is the deal with this weather? It looks like it’s going to chuck it down any minute and it doesn’t for some hours. Precious hours that I could’ve filled with gaining some good miles. It leaves me feeling absolutely helpless!

The Dilemma

Do I brave the outdoors and risk getting caught out in a full-blown thunderstorm, not forgetting the possibility of getting struck by lightning?

Here is a list of reasonable responses I have come up with:

1. Yes, because YOLO. Running under the clouds of doom could actually be a godsend. Those clouds are not the enemy; they’re protecting you from the hot sun. Yes, the sun, that thing you hate to be directly under other than those scary-looking clouds. Remember who the real enemy is. Sure, it’ll be humid and you’ll sweat buckets, but you sweat buckets anyway without the humidity prompting you to. You want to run outdoors, then go and bloody do it, fool. Worried your expensive GPS watch may get ruined? Wear a waterproof layer. If it starts storming though, find shelter until it subsides. Call someone to drive over and rescue you? That said, on a serious note, this option of braving it out would be least dangerous if you stick to roads with possible shelters along it.

2. No, because you can go on the treadmill to bypass the risk of death by the holy mother of watermelons. But it’ll be boring. The same stupid wall the treadmill faces would be staring at you throughout your run. What’s a virtual hill compared to the real thing? But if you’re not willing to risk your life this could be the solution to ALL your running problems. Running outdoors poses all sorts of risks for the fainthearted. What if you trip over a massive tree root and break your ankle, and nobody finds you? What if some reckless driver runs you over and leaves you to die from fear of getting prosecuted for reckless driving? What if some rabid dog bites you? List is endless. Stay home, or go to the gym.

3. No, run later/tomorrow/next week/month/year because you don’t want to die. Don’t fool yourself. You will die anyway, and you don’t want to be fat. Rethink your life’s priorities and refer to 1 & 2.

I realised in the middle of writing this that I kept putting down “you”, “your”, “yourself” instead of “I”, “me”, “myself”. This post is really meant to be just me reasoning to myself. If you’re someone who is actually reading this and finding it useful (which I doubt), then cheers to you! You are making a difference to my life by giving me some attention, putting pressure on me to actually do as I say I would.

Oh look, it’s raining again. Gym, here I come.

Love, Brunei Runner. x

Is there a reason why the wind only blows in one direction on Jalan Residency?

I’ve done a few runs on the waterfront already and it seems the wind blows southward each time. Not sure whether this is a coincidence or a normal phenomenon because of land structure/vegetation/etc.?

Lone Jalan Residency Run, 10 Dec ’13

Damn hot. Like every single day.

Used laps to separate the actual run from my cool down.

Walk and Run Intervals at Tasek Lama, 4 Dec ’13

I actually thought this one was particularly difficult mentally, which was why I ended up walking a lot of it. I wanted to give up. And I did (clearly shown by the embarrassing lap splits right at the bottom of this post). The best bit of the stats saved to last. fml.

p.s. I wonder whether humidity affects the difficulty of a run?

Brunei Runner. x

My embarrassing run and walk intervals. The second “lap” represents a portion where I walking on a really unstable bridge. The other slow laps are just me gasping for air and dying.

Run to Tasek Lama, 28 Nov ’13