But Time Makes You Bolder

Even children get older

I’m gettin’ older, too

***

I had so many things I wanted to write about the night after the half-marathon: I lay in an uncomfortable, saggy bed in our serviced apartment, staring out of the window into an unfamiliar darkness – listening to the ocean, the boys’ even breathing; Daniel occasionally placing a warm hand on my arm, words streaming into sentences in my consciousness, a slightly damp pillow. I never did get to put down those words, even in my journal. I regret it a little now, as I type this on my comfortable bed back in Singapore, because I don’t think I will be able to recreate the magic of a story that is the side-effect of a low blood sugar level and which makes for wonderful, late-night reading, but we’ll see how this goes. 

***   

I hadn’t actually wanted to go up to Gold Coast to do the half-marathon this year – give it another year or two, I told Jon, I think I need more training (before we go to the expense of hauling the family overseas so I can try to shoot for a lifetime PB in the half-marathon). Jon was up for going this year, though, reasoning that our relative youth would balance out the effects of a longer training period. I’m not sure I agree with that, because I do think I still have a faster time in me (which just means we’ll go up to Gold Coast again??), but it sounded like fun – until I made arrangements for my mother and brother to come up so both of us could run, and I was struck by how similar circumstances were to the last half-marathon we’d done overseas in December 2013. Was this a sign? Had I jinxed things by wanting to do this race? Silly, I know, especially since I believed so strongly when I found out I was pregnant with Daniel that God was assuring us that Jon would be healed – and yet.   

Jon was supposed to go for his 5-year PET scan sometime in January, but because he was travelling so much for work, he ended up having to reschedule it and only got it done the week before we flew off. He had to fly again before we left for Gold Coast, so we still don’t know the results of the scan. He didn’t receive any calls when we were away though, and NCC has scheduled him for a follow-up in August. I think it'll be okay. 

***

Well I’ve been ‘fraid of changing

‘Cause I’ve built my life around you

I’ve spent hours and hours in my own head the past nine months, and I’ve found plenty of things to be ashamed of. Frustration, covetousness, envy, insecurity. Anger, worry, selfishness. But I’ve also found peace, patience, hope, and courage; found that God is faithful in His promise to sanctify. 

I can’t quite remember what I was like before we were told Jon’s tumour was malignant. More immature, I think; more self-centered, more prone to taking things for granted. I don’t think the people we were back then would have made the choices we have in respect of our careers, where we stay, how we want to bring up the boys. Nevertheless there are times I feel envious when I see or hear of what my peers are doing career-wise, investment-wise. Sometimes I even feel like I’m not “mum” enough because I don’t want to have more than two children (what does that even mean?). And on really bad days, when my level of job satisfaction reaches all new lows and I can almost taste the bitterness in the air around my desk at work, I think of private practice fondly. (D: your rose-tinted glasses are blinding you.) The high pay, always being on-call and “needed”, being so busy you don’t think or worry about anything else but work, the feeling of relief and satisfaction after the rush of pulling an all-nighter for a big hearing –

If I hadn’t felt the fear of losing Jon back then, almost 6 years ago now, I don’t think I would be as willing as I am now to make the constant choice to put aside the base desires of my heart and focus on what God affirms is good and right in His sight. The choices we have made have enabled us to have the emotional capacity to be honest with ourselves and who we are turning out to be, to reflect objectively on whether we have faced the trials in our lives with courage and faith, whether the choices we have made in response to those trials have led us closer to or further from God. Although a part of me will always wish we hadn’t had to go through everything we did, I am, today, inexplicably thankful for it all. I can only hope and pray that whatever happens in the future, I will continue to be.

***

I’m glad I took the plunge and decided to commit 100% to training with Coached, because finally, after all those years of striving – I will say it again, having kids really messes with your head – I have realised anew that it has always been about the running, and doing a lot of low-intensity high volume training suits me. 

It wasn’t easy slowing down in the beginning to keep my heart rate in the stipulated zone, being overtaken by aunties and uncles at the park connector (I’m still being overtaken all the time), but as the weeks went by and I got more efficient and more confident in the training, there was nothing that compared to getting out there before everyone else in the family was awake, especially because that was the only time of day it was cool in Singapore (this calls for a LOL. LOL!!! Have you seen the real feel temperature and humidity level at 6.30am?). 

I’m back to feeling that I like training more than races, something I thought I would never feel again. I still want to bring my PB down, but I feel somewhat different about it now. Less strive-y, more willing to be patient, keep my head down and put in the work. Maybe it’s because we finally got to run the half in Gold Coast – if Jon hadn't had the tumour we’d probably have put off trying for a baby until after the 2014 edition – and at the right time. I don’t think I would have appreciated how much work goes into a PB if I’d run it 5 years ago. 

My mum helped out a lot this training cycle so I could fit all my workouts in because Jon was travelling so much for work, staying later on the two weekdays she usually comes over to hang out with the boys, cooking simple, healthy dinners and also inviting me over for dinner on other days. (So. Much. Chicken. Soup.) I owe a lot of this PB to her, and to her investment in my commitment to this training cycle (I hope she also knows that there are more to come, haha). 

I had a few moments of Imposter Syndrome on the flight to Gold Coast OMG so many fast people on this flight, I’m not even doing the full marathon, what was I thinking, my mileage and pace is probably pitiful compared to what some of these people regularly do for fun, but she told me to remember that what was important was that I had committed to this, had been consistent in training, and that was what mattered (it is). 

There were times I wondered (again) about getting a helper, but I’ve said before that I don’t think I’m willing to give up the family closeness we’ve worked so hard for just for running, and I’m still not and will probably never be. Maybe I’m idealising the situation, but when the boys request without fail to speak to Jon before they go to bed, bickering over who gets to spend 15 minutes asking him to show his surroundings (Are you on the airline? Are you in the hotel? Are you in office?), when Andrew cries I want papa right before he falls asleep, I feel like it’s been worth my while, protecting Jon’s place in their hearts.

*** 

A blog post about a runcation would not be complete without recommendations, so for what it’s worth, here are some of my thoughts on Gold Coast and Brisbane. 

When we go up again (note that I didn’t say If), and if we bring the boys, I’ll probably stay at Surfers’ Paradise (again) or maybe Southport (which is closer to the race start), then after the race move to a serviced apartment in Coolangatta. Coolangatta is a suburb in Gold Coast about 30++km from Surfers’ Paradise, and is really near the airport (it’s also probably the reason, I realised, that the short form for the Gold Coast Airport is OOL. I kept thinking of oolong tea). This time round, we drove up to Brisbane the day after the race and stayed for about 3 days, then drove back to Gold Coast (we booked a serviced apartment in Coolangatta for the last night) because it was cheaper to fly back from OOL direct to Singapore. We ended up liking Coolangatta Beach so much that we extended our stay by a day. On our last full day, I went for a run with my brother – there’s a track that that runs along the coast that’s perfect for long runs, though we only did an out and back of about 7-8km – and then we joined everyone else at the beach.  

The boys splashed around at the edge of the ocean, got sand all over their clothes, dug holes, tirelessly ran back and forth filling pails with ocean water and emptying them, and were mighty pleased with the sandcastles they built by packing pails with wet sand and overturning them. After a bath and lunch which included an acai bowl with a huge dollop of peanut butter, Jon took them to the playground. After pizza for dinner, I packed them off to bed without a bath or brushing their teeth. An absolutely glorious day for a small boy, don’t you think?  

My body was protesting against angmoh food and meat by then, so I had yogurt, fruit and blanched broccolini for dinner (weird, I know). The two best brands of yogurt I tried were five a.m. (vanilla bean, passionfruit, mango, no added sugar) and Skyr (plain, strained Greek yogurt). Vaalia pouches were on offer at Cole’s and Woolworths, 4 for AUD 6, the kids liked the strawberry flavour, and the adults, the tropical one.  

We cooked quite a bit this trip, especially in the lead up to the race. Besides my mother's excellent meatballs, Pinky’s at Nobby Beach, Gold Coast, deserves special mention. The hash browns were something else, shredded potato and cheese pressed into bars and fried until crispy and brown on the outside. The banana bread was good, too. Served in thick, hefty slices, it wasn’t too sweet and had a slightly burnt crust (I greedily broke off all the edges before anyone else could get to them). 

I enjoyed our time in Brisbane too – I like cities as a general rule, particularly the view of the CBD at night (Brisbane’s didn’t disappoint), and Jon and I got to go on a date. We took the ferry, had dinner at George’s Paragon Seafood Restaurant, and walked back to the serviced apartment via a riverside path. George’s is Google’s highest rated restaurant in the Eagle Street Pier area. We didn’t think the food was that nice, and I was expecting better for the price we paid for my blackberry caipiroska, but it had a kitschy, epitome-of-class-for-provincial-tourists feel that I appreciated. 

We all felt the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary was rather overpriced, though the boys enjoyed the train ride, and we took another 1001 pictures of them feeding kangaroos. Jon found The Fat Controller at the Thomas show at The Workshops Rail Museum “creepy”, and the boys were far more interested in the play area (lots of train track parts to put together, but not enough Thomases to go around) than any of the exhibits. 

Here are some pictures, because everyone likes blog posts with pictures:

Daniel with the Pinky's banana bread

Riding the mini-train at The Workshops Rail Museum. It cost an extra AUD 3 per person, and didn't go very far. Okay, these trains usually can't go very far anyway, but it really did not go very far and made quite a few circles, probably to make people feel they were getting their money's worth

Train ride simulator at The Workshops Rail Museum. The boys enjoyed this too (the seats don't move)

The 1001st picture of my children feeding kangaroos at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary 

Act afraid! my mother said. But doesn't look like anyone got the memo (Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary) 

I love Cole's. When is NTUC bringing in double-seater trolleys? 

Handsome Husband with oolong fruit tea from Lü Cha, Brisbane. Worth a try, I can imagine it would be wonderful in summer

Field behind Sirromet Winery, where wild wallabies were observed and chased with great shrieks of delight (Kangaroo! They shouted, as the wallabies quickly bounded away)

  

Lastly, if you thought Jon was wearing army gear, I can confirm that he was