Friday 20 February 2015

Training in Cambodia

Let me start by stating I have not lived for any particular length of time in Cambodia, nor have I travelled extensively in Cambodia. This blog is simply about what training I did in the two weeks I holidayed over there in January/February 2015.

Having holidayed in Vietnam, at about the same time of year, in 2014 I had no illusions about how hot and humid it was going to be. In Vietnam there were pavement and road safety issues to add to the fun, I could only hope things were better in Cambodia, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

We left England, just before the snow arrived, but we soon caught it up as we landed in Munich to pick up more holiday makers. Next stop Singapore before a short flight onto Siem Riep, and a day after we started we were in Cambodia. It was mid afternoon, I dozed a little on the plane but movies and a constant supply of food and drink had distracted me, so I was a bit tired, but with evening approaching I figured I could last out the day. Taking a short walk around the hotel grounds and surrounding area I wasn’t at all certain I was going to be able to do much with my training. There wasn’t a lot of ground within the hotel complex, but I did spot one get by possibility. Leaving the hotel grounds it was clear there was only hope for a kamikaze mission, a dual carriageway, with multiple crossing points and a two way carriageway on either side of that, again with crossing points. More potholes than there are currently in Cheshire’s roads, though only just, and an erratic pavement, with added risks such as dogs, pedestrians and traffic moving in all directions at all speeds. I decided there and then to stick with my get by possibility.

We only had three nights booked here, a chance to see the temples at Angkor Wat, so no point in hanging around, we booked onto a tour the next day. With that being an early start and a long day, and myself not being as motivated with training as I have on previous holidays, it meant another day without any training, making a total of three days, probably the longest period I’ve missed training, with the exception of injuries and illness, in the twenty five years I’ve been a runner.

Angkor Wat was fantastic, I’d recommend the temples to anyone. This had to be one of the best touring days I’ve ever done, not only were the temples so vast and interesting but we had a great guide (I know this because he kept telling us) and the tour bus of 11 people, from different countries, all got on really well. It was a day for laughs, education and sun. At the end of it six of us went straight into town for dinner and beer. I was in a buoyant mood, but ready to begin my training the following morning.
Someone told me black socks would keep the mosquitoes away, that's Angkor Wat in the background and a murky pool in the foreground
Is it just me or does this remind anyone else of a bunch of timekeepers at an athletics meeting

Last day in Siem Riep was going to be a relaxing morning by the pool and an afternoon in the town, followed by some more pool time before dinner. But first there would be training. I’d spotted a paved circuit around a bit of garden. It wasn’t very big but it was better than nothing. I ran around it for 35 mins, running hard for a loop around the circuit with 30 seconds recovery between each loop, and alternating direction each loop. Reps took me between 45 and 53 seconds, I had Carole do the same, with a minute recovery, how’s that for adaptation. It was a nice, relatively easy start to our training, though the heat started to hit me after 10 minutes and by the end of the session my legs were jellied. The only thing dangerous about this place was when a bunch of workmen started doing something with an overhanging cable and I had visions of a live cable swinging into me half way through a rep. The next day we left, but not before another session around the garden.

Moving on, we’d embraced Cambodian culture, now for a bit of relaxing shade bathing. We flew down south to Sihanoukville, to a hotel with two nice pools and a lovely beach. All was looking good until the manager told us he didn’t have a booking for us. There was no point getting angry with him, his English was not that great and my Cambodian even worse, but eventually we got ourselves booked in, even if it meant spending the rest of the day under the pseudonym of a Japanese couple.

Once again we spent the afternoon wandering around the hotel grounds, here they stretched out to 24 acres, surely this would be a fantastic base for training, and they had a largish gym too. Carole was happy, she loves running along beaches and this was a nice beach, though as it proved not the best for running on as it had quite a steep camber.

After two sort of quality days my first training session in Sihanoukville was a steady run. Funnily enough I found this harder than doing reps, because it was hard to just run and mentally it was just boring struggling along at a not very fast pace. 24 acres and a slow pace but it was still too small for me. So I decided I was going to run two days of quality followed by 1 day of steady for the rest of the holiday. It proved to be a good place for quality and as the week progressed so did the length of my reps, reaching up to 5 min reps by the time I was due home. Whilst we were away from the main roads, I still almost got knocked over, twice, by staff ferrying lazier guests around in those hotel buggy things, I guess they didn’t anticipate my speed as they cut across me.

A couple more days of steady when I went out on the main road to see more of the countryside and a day off to do a boat trip, but the bulk of my training was relative speedwork around the complex. We ventured into the gym once, I gave Carole a 30 minute PT session, joining in for my own benefit. I had to remember that I was on holiday and not an obsessive so that was enough for me, besides sunset cocktails at the beach bar were beckoning.
I've seen better sunsets, but this was good enough to keep me out of the gym along with the cocktails on offer in the bar

By the end of two weeks we were both ready to come home, we’d met some nice people, eaten some nice food, had a woman walk on my back and poke things into the soles of my feet, but I was ready to get back to reality and down to some serious training. Only down side was that I caught another cold a week into the holiday and this was still lingering when I got home.

So we set off for home on probably the longest, most arduous journey I’ve ever undertaken. I was so glad to finally arrive back in Northwich, oh how good it felt to be cold.

Written by Roger Alsop
www.rogeralsop.co.uk