As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Nothing is Ever Normal about My Schedule... Wednesday, November 12

While the rest of Cheonan was presumably eating their lunch, I was lying in bed with my feet dangling into a bucket of super warm water -- Snickers was giving me a foot massage.

And while the rest of Cheonan was presumably getting ready for bed, I was heading out the door and just starting my after work fun -- Snickers took me out for a movie date.

Bedtime for me ranges between 2:30am and 4am and I wake up long after most have already.  Three days a week I greet 8am only to get a morning coffee and light pre-run snack, then I head back to bed.  I give myself a full hour to digest the fact that I've got to get in my morning run and then at 9am I use every ounce of energy and self discipline to get up, get dressed and go run.  Despite going for a morning run however, that's not to say my day has started.  Usually I'm back by 10am, showered, have devoured my post training meal and am back in bed by 10:30/10:40am.  In between getting back in bed and getting up again at 1pm to actually start work and clean the club, I'm pretty much in a state of veg, aka lazy-girl mode, drifting in and out of napping, cuddling and playing with my phone.  

Today I woke up at 8am, only to then fail miserably at getting myself out the door for running.  We have the coal heater at the front of the club burning 24/7 but in the morning it definitely needs reviving.  Consequently, there's a big drop in the club temperature after hours.  In our bedroom we have an electric blanket, but it's cold in the club.  Don't kid yourself.  We always make sure to hit the bathroom before bedtime because having to go in the middle of the night, wow, that's just cruel on to your body.  The shock of the drop in the temperature at night is cruel.  And while Snickers has the luxury of all his clothes being nicely stored in the massive closets in our bedroom, my clothes are stored in my secret room behind the juice bar.  Every morning I do the "polar bear run" to my closet to get my running clothes.  And as to why it's called the "polar bear run", well, you try sleeping naked and then have to go to the other end of the club to get your clothes.  You can see your breath in the club in the morning.  There is no walking at that point, there's only crazy buck naked running... hahaha.  

I woke up at 8am and went to bed at 5am.  It was a 21 hour day.   Don't ask me if I'm going to run tomorrow, it was already tomorrow when I went to bed.  Tomorrow is a definite write off for getting in a run, as was Monday and today.  If I don't get in at least one more run before Saturday than I'll have quite the task on hands as I try to go for this week's distance goal of 40kms.  I've only banked. 9.56kms and though it was a personal best with my pacing being 5:13mins/km, there's no real bonus points for pacing.  An improvement in pacing doesn't mean a decrease in distance.  I have to get the distance covered. 

Rocket has asked me to do the Seoul International Marathon with her, scheduled for March 15th but I'm not a huge fan of Seoul so I'm not too keen on running my first ever marathon there.  I would absolutely love to run my first marathon here in Cheonan but Cheonan only hosts two running events a year, one in the spring and another in the fall.  Usually the spring race only consists of a 5km, 10km and a half marathon.  It's a "marathon" event with no actual marathon, go figure.  I would love to do the Adidas marathon in March but it's at Jeju Island.  So far it's looking like the 12th Gyeonggi Marathon on April 20th, Suwon.  With it being hosted in Suwon, a city that's only but a 40 minute away from Cheonan, it'd be super easy to get to and from.  Plus, Snickers' best bud lives there so I'm sure he'd join up with us for the event and wait with Snickers at the finish line for me.  I think I'm good to go for the distance but, and as silly as it sounds, I just don't know what I'd do with myself to mentally occupy myself for the 4 hours or whatever time it takes to complete such a lengthy race.  I've started listening to Podcasts, like Rocket suggested, but then I find myself getting annoyed that I picked a topic I'm not really interested in or my mind wanders and then I don't know what they're talking about and then the frustration with that throws my pacing off.  Plan is to head out this Saturday for a long run and try to figure it out.  We've been making our weekly long longer with each week; last week's run was 21kms.  Pressure is on a bit for this week's long run to be longer, not only because they've been getting longer but because I'm lacking in distance this week.  I guess only Saturday's morning will tell.  Feeling apprehensive about the weekend already.

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