Eat, Pray, Run: Half Marathon in Angkor Wat, Cambodia

December 3, 2010

I'm in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, at the world's largest set of religious buildings, and I'm running a half-marathon here with my Kuala Lumpur running group. The kids and Ken aren't here, since we'll all be returning here in a couple weeks for our holiday travels (alert: upcoming holiday posts will be from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam!).

The half marathon is tomorrow, Sunday Dec 5, around the outrageously beautiful Angkor Wat which is in the middle of a vast jungly National Park. Compared to KL, it's such a relief to think about taking a long run in humidity-free, crisp early morning, fresh, unpolluted air.

I've been training with a running group in KL consisting mostly of parents and teachers from the kids' school, International School of Kuala Lumpur. They have become buddies of mine here, helping me get a babysitter a couple afternoons a week to relieve Ken (a much needed break from caregiving!) and night-time sitters. And, I've started socializing with some of them. But, we also ran every Saturday morning since September to train for this race, building up to a 15 mile run a couple weeks ago.

That long run put most of our bodies over the injury edge. We'd actually done a great job of systematically building up to such a long distance but all of us except for 2 had knee or hip injuries by the time we finished the 15 mile longest training run. I'm convinced the KL city streets are brutal on your joints and tissues. KL is not a pedestrian-friendly city, and the same goes for running KL. The sidewalks are made of ceramic tile and often broken or nonexistent. We are jumping on and off the sidewalk, running on the side of the road often. It's a rough surface on the body.

So, my IT band, at the back of my knee, got hurt and I limped through the last half of the 15 mile run. It's an injury that responds well to stretching, I've heard, so I've stretched and taken it easy on my knee ever since, in hope that it'll make my running the half marathon do-able. While my knee's improved, the pain's not disappeared, especially the longer distances I run. So, I'll let you know how the long distance of the half turns out for me.

Even if I have to walk some of it, I'm excited for this race! It represents my having a life and taking care of my body via exercise in the face of a lot of work and family activities that could easily make me sacrifice my exercising. In the end, I'm convinced that my running is what's allowed me to have such fun and joy in my life abroad, despite some of the pressures of living abroad.