Forever ago!!!!

Well it has been over 6 months since I posted my last blog. :/ ahhhh.
Well that’s due to me joining the Army.

So to catch up on a couple things. I wasn’t able to do long distances for a few months, so I lost quite a bit of my speed and endurance when it came to running. I’m finally picking it back up since I’ve been restationed to FSH, TX.  I ran my first race since the Squaw Valley Mtn. Run back in early August(?). It was the FSH Army 10-miler. I ended up getting 2nd in my age group with a time of 1:09. I loved it. Perfect running weather!  55*, clear skies, the race started as the sun’s rays hit the horizon, absolutely beautiful.

Currently I am on the Ft. Sam Houston, 10K team. We run Mon, Tues, Wed, and sometimes Fridays.
I’m still working on getting my mileage back up to 70+ MPW. I’m currently at around 47. (excluding the 10K team training.)

Well I’ll keep you all updated more often now that I have internet and everything again!

“Well stop thinking about it and just do it.” –a man at my yoga class

Hey…they tried..?–En azında denediler

This past week the whole running in foreign countries and awkward stares have been good! I got into the town I used to live in-Izmir, Turkey-and the teens that were in the house that I was staying at decided that would attempt to try and run with me. So I let them come along with me. The first day one of them came along. We were doing fartleks and he kept commenting on stuff and this is how our “conversation” went [translated]:

Why are we running so slow? (btw he said this at around the second mile)
Trust me you’ll see. (giving him a cynical look)
I thought you said you run almost everyday and can run this so called 42 km stuff? (Kind of giving me that whatever you like you could run that…blah blah blah) Note: 42km is about a marathon).
Hahahaha. Just wait…
~We get to around the 5 mile~
Holy crap….how much farther are we going. (looking tired and secrectly hating me)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! This is the warm-up we still have 10 more kilometres. (I decided to really start increasing the fartlek hold speeds.)
[He started falling WAY behind by about a km. then he went home.]
~~the next day~~
So you coming running with me today??
Are you INSANE!?!?!?
Yes I am! =] So, you’re coming right? (give him a little snare/grin)
[He didn't say anything and just kept playing his FIFA 2008] 
-END CONVERSATION-

But I came to realise how much NRs (non-runners…yes I decided to start calling them that because I’m gonna type in a few more times here) under-estimate what we do. Every time we get out there and run our bones and body take a big hit but ultimately the long-term benefits are better on the body. And there are many many factors that affect our run, from nutrition to shoes to weather to moods to the place we run . NRs often see us and think…yeah anyone can run; they don’t see that yeah anyone can….but for how long (not just distance but can they do it everyday.) Unless your a runner or another type of athlete you can’t fully realise why we eat differently then NRs or why we buy RUNNING shoes or why we pick a certain time to run on or specific surfaces to run on or how come we are always consuming fluids (AND running…to the restroom).  I’m sure most of you runners have noticed that if you bring a normally NR with you they often think it’s easy at first and we can go faster….ok…but let’s see them continue that speed for the next 2½ hours or better yet….let’s see them come out and do again tomorrow! hahaha. I love it.

Either way I had people running with me almost everyday in that city (not one of them lasted the whole way). BUT then I went to Albania and there are more runners there and that was nice. But just like Greece it was really hot and very humid! gah! And in Albania I did ALOT more trail running. I was in a small town not to far from Tirana. I then took a bus up to Montenegro. But I didn’t get the change to do any running there. Bleh. Disappointing. Just not enough time. Now I am back in Turkey. In Bursa. My plans did change quite a bit. I was suppose to head up to Lithuania but stuff changes. I only have 3 more days before I’ll be heading back to America. :/

Recently I decided I would start running mornings as much as possible. I noticed that when I run in the morning then come home and sleep for another two hours I feel much better in the day. And I’m usually stressed and exhausted by the end of the day anyways. I have done my speedwork, my long run, and my average run in the morning this past week. And I only had one not so delightful run this past week. It was only cuz of the heat and humidity and stuff…I just didn’t feel good during that run. I felt more sick not so much a “bad run” just not a great one. But that’s okay at least I know now. And by the way…I found out that I can’t have carbonated drinks 1 hour before a run and up to 2 hours after a run. My stomach can’t take it. My god it hurts sooo much! I had soo much trouble with the pain still a couple hours after running. Blah! So note to self…no soda before/after runs.

Gah! My friends that don’t speak English have been asking why I haven’t been translating lately….ughhhh. It’s much more work! I mean I’m fluent in four languages…almost five (the fifth you can’t type though…) But I have to be on a bus in the morning to head up to Istanbul in a few hours so I need sleepy-time! It took me a week just to get the time to type this haha. My friend was talking to me last night and I was telling her that I started typing this and didn’t get around to publish it…now tonight (it’s 1:30am) I changed so much from what I wrote last night and am now posting it…hopefully on the bus later I’ll actually get around to typing this up in non-English. ha.

“Our sport is your sport’s punishment!”

Where’s my PB?!?!

Okay Well I haven’t written in here for a week now. Gah! I got busy…with ALOT of things! Well since then, (I just do an overview and then go into details w/ some subjects) just been running, traveling, eating…etc.

To start off…my usual ranting. Peanut butter!!! I finally found some in this country, but oh my gosh, it is expensive, and much more unhealthy. They have alot of additives to it. It costs 10.000.000 Lira, (About $8.20 for a small jar) I freaked out…but of course I bought it. I was happy! Like suuuppppeeeerrrrr excited! And then I finally found whole wheat bread, which is 10x the price of normal everyday bread. (people here eat ALOT of bread, as in my house we go through 2 loaves per meal.) (those are usually 300.000 Lira but the wheat bread is 3.000.000).
But I don’t care!! I finally got it! Muahahaha. Yes, I do feel accomplished…! Be jealous!

While I’m on the subject of nutrition, it is sooo difficult to eat “healthy” here. It’s so irritating. And I’m always being mimicked because I eat “healthy”. Grrr. Very few people understand why I eat the way I do. It becomes especially hars when I tell them I’m not trying to lose weight.
At least the people I am with now understand more why I run and what not…

Well I had a marathon that I wasn’t telling anyone about until afterwards. It was just a personal thing. But it was crazy. It was the smallest marathon I’ve ran in and one of the weirdest. I started out at an okay pace. I knew that this race was up and down alot of hills and the ground was not just asphalt but also those concrete bricks that are often used here for roads. My knees started to hate me at about the 10th mile. Yeah…not good. Soon I was able to continue at a more desirable pace. Because I run on hills alot I was able to keep my pace throughout the marathon when going up the hills and get some speed heading back down the hills. So, the result…**drum roll** 3:06. (Yup, I would have qualified for the Boston IF it were certified…but it’s not! Blah!)

Well I’m now in Greece, I’ll be heading to Bursa in tonight, and then going to Albania on Wednesday! Yay!

But one of the guys I’ve been staying with has actually wanted to run, he was able to go with my one day for 10km fartleks, then dropped over. Ha. Yesterday he was too sore (or lazy) and today yeah…he said “hell no!” hahaha. (cuz today is my semi-long run day. But the runs lately have been awesome!!! Running along the mediterranean, nice breeze, good paths, but the only not so amazingly sexy part is how crowded it’s been. When I go to Albania I know some nice trails to run along, so hopefully that’ll turn out to be good!

And finally…I hate my iPhone. I hacked it so it would work with a European cell phone carrier, and it worked for the first 10 days. Then it decided to go all PMS on me and not work. I put in the SIM card and it says “No Service” no matter what. Ugh! So I formatted it/restored it with iTunes and then rehacked but for some reason it just won’t seem to work. So I’ll give it some Midol tonight and hopefully get it work. (Midol=major hacking changes of the HD) muahaha!

So anyways, I’ll leave you all with a couple pictographs of yummies!!
(The first one is an ice cream that is sooo thick it has to be used with a fork and knife. The 2nd pic is with the ice cream-that white block connected to the crane-holding up a van because of it’s strength. It also is known to be “unmeltable” at lower than 60*C)

This next pictograph is a wonderful fruit salad! yay!

 ”Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others!”

Running is Foreign

This is my first week several days in far far away land. I swear running is a very foreignconcept to people here! The first thing that made me realise this: I had a water bottle with me (the reusable plastic kind) and I would have almost this same conversation with everyone: [translated]
“What is that?” (point to the water bottle)
“It’s a water bottle….” (give them wierd look, like, “what kind of question is that”)
“Why do you need one? We have water, you don’t need to carry it around.” (giving me that “duh” look)
“One, you guys don’t drink cold water very often, and two, I don’t want to have to go get water every 5 minutes.”
“Oh, that’s weird, you can just ask for some or get some.”
“Like I said…every 5 minutes…not gonna happen. I drink 3-5 litres a day.”
“What kind of crazy person would do that?”
“A RUNNER!!!”
“What? Why?” 
–END CONVERSATION–

Then, I asked the people I was staying with where I could go running…they stared at me blankley. Then asked me, why I would go running. I explained that I’m a runner and I have a race next week in a city south of here and I have another one as soon as I get back to America. They didn’t understand why in the world anyone would run. (Over here they don’t have Track or XC and races are done by foreign organisations). But they finally found me a nice park that was a loop of 1 km. People kept staring at me, and question what my running water bottle was (I have an Ultimate Direction handheld) and my armband to hold my iPhone for music and such, that I like to call Phillip. They had never seen either one of them before…or an iPhonefor that matter, which by the way, I had to hack mine in order to get it to work with the cellphone carrier here, that was irritating. So…I explained to them what those things were for and why I use them. 
In that very same run, the people I went there with were playing football ((soccer)) and they kept stopping me after my 6th lap asking me when I’m gonna stop and what not…grr. Unless you are running with me or dieing; don’t stop me! Plus in that same run, for some reason, my knees decided they would hate me and I fell three times and then on my way walking home, fell again, and finally when I returned back to the house I fell so many times I can’t even count….blah….why must my knees hate me so. :/

I then had another run the next day, by far the worst run of my life. After the 4-6 years I’ve been running I never had a bad run, I was hoping I would be one of the lucky ones to never have one, well I did. That was because the people that were taking me to a place to run didn’t know why runners avoid concrete as much as possible or any hard surfaces like that. So we go to a pretty huge park here that has like 10 tea gardens and a few playgrounds, several fountains and what not. Well the paths for walking/running are made of concrete bricks. OUCH OUCH OUCH. My knees didn’t like me. It was really crowded. The humidity was terrible. The hills were just no fun. People, kids especially, wouldn’t move away while I was running, so I had to move off to the grass….which btw had puddles from the sprinklers being, soaked my shoe in muddy wetness. But most of all, it was me, I just wasn’t happy about running their in the first place and that day irritated me Yeah…just not my run. And to top it off, afterwards I joined the people I was with, and because of where I am 70% of the people their age smoke, I had to finish it off with being around a bunch of cigarette smoke at the tea garden but once again, I probably made it worse than it really was. ahhhhhh!

Finally the next day, my friends and I decided, spontaneously, to go camping for a night. That was nice! We got a tent and sleep stuff, we were able to go swimming in the Mediterranean, made a fire and had a BBQ, then sat and watched the sea at night w/ our fire lighting it up, and finish it up, played cards and made tea. yay! The next day, Sunday, I had the best run I’ve ever had! (I’ll explain that in my next paragraph.) Got back around 8 am, started breakfast, went swimming again, cut up some watermelon, swam somemore, then cleaned up and stopped at a tea garden in one of the summer towns about 15 minutes from there. Followed by the hour long drive back home.

 

Okay, so for that most amazing run! And definitely one of my hardest runs. It was from the place we camped at to 9 km out. (I ran 16 km and walked two–½ km out and 1½ km on my way back)
It was along the side of a peninsula, the view was amazing, very limited cars, weather was great. I headed out around 6:15 a.m. and got to see the sunrise. The difficult part of the run, was the hills. The only part that was downhill was returning. Heading out I kept seeing signs that said 10% incline. There was also alot of ups and downs once I got up a good 1400ft. The only bad part of the run was a blister I ended up getting on the inside of my right foot by my arch. Ouch! But still one hella amazing run!!!!

 Here are pictures of the path/area/sea. I made ‘em smaller because I don’t was my blog to freak out. haha.

 

 

 

 

 And finally, everyone is America thinks gas is expensive there…look at this picture and I’ll give you the numbers.

 

 Yeah, 3.49 looks cheap (The top two are for motorcycles.)

BUT

That is per litre.

So 3.49 x 3.8 = 13.26  (There are 3.8 litres in a gallon)

Then, 13.26 x 0.82 = 10.87 (0.82 is the current currency rate exhange to USD.)

SO, they pay $10.87 PER GALLON!!

 

Just thought I would share that with you.

 

 

 

 

 

“We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves…The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom.  No one can say, ‘You must not run faster than this, or hump higher than that.’  The human spirit is indomitable.” – Sir Roger Bannister
  

15 hours & counting–15 saat kaldı

I have about 15 hours left before I’ll be on a 30 hour trip to Turkey. I super duper excited, especially to see all my old friends, classmates and roommates! I should be gone for about a month, and also traveling to other parts of Europe, I’m hoping for at least 15 countries but we’ll see. I’m hoping to get as much running in as possible there, but for some reason, outside of the football ((soccer)) fields no one runs. The only place you ever see is along the seaside. Hopefully I’ll get about 20 miles a week, but with the heat, humidity and all the traveling it probably will be hard, but I’ll find a way! Mwahaha! I just started packing…well sorting…I have yet to actually get stuff into my suitcase. haha. My friends all thought I was weird because everything is being checked in by my laptop, iPhone, R mag., and a book, AND [the part they found weird] a bag of my running shoes, a running clothes, hahaha. Cuz heck if they lose my luggage at least I have my running stuff.

So the past couple days have been extremely hectic. And my run on Saturday was eh, I felt really tired for some reason….grrr. But then yesterday I had a normal run WITHOUT music. My first time running without music in a long time. It wasn’t bad, actually, it was kinda nice. I really have been changing the locations that I run at lately. This last week, not once, did I run in the same place twice. I found out I gained 10 lbs since I enlisted in the military but lost 6% body fat. I’m now 13-14%. I’ll probably gain a little being in Europe. When I lived in Turkey I gained 35 lbs from eating all that they eat numerous times a day! Crazy people and their hospitality…heck in America, I’m lucky to get a glass of water when I go to someone’s house, over there I always get a 10 course meal!! ahhh!

I felt I would entertain you all with pictures of where I used to live.

Çok temblim şimdi, o zaman, az yazacağım Türkçe’de. Yarın sabah (çok erken) Türkiye’ye çıkacağım ben. 3½ hafta kalacağım insallah. Ama birkaç ülkeye gitmek istiyorum.
Koşmak cçok istiyorum Türkiye’dayken, fakat bilmşyorum şu anda. Geçen birkac gün çok acayıp bana göre. Dün ilk defa müziksiz koştum…manyak birşey ya! haha. şaka yapıyorum…sevindim. ve 4.5 kilo aldım ben FAKAT %6 [vücut] yağı kaybettim. Galiba biraz kilo alırım Türkiye’de. Cünku çok delisiniz (Türkler). Her zaman yemek veriyorusunuz….HER ZAMAN!! haha. O yüzden çok severim.

Tamam, aşağıda fotoğraflar var. Ben çektim İzmir’de.

“Never deceive anyone, even if they deceive you. Fidelity and uprightness are two of the highest virtues. Even if following this advice brings you loss, which it usually does, always be faithful and upright.” –M. Fethullah Gulen

Checking out the streets–Yollar Deneme

Well for the first time I decided I would try out running in residential areas mostly on the streets. (both in the urban areas and suburban areas) I realised why I always run either at the Lake or on trails or paths. I absolutely did not like it one bit. The cars, the crosswalks, the asphalt…yeah not enjoyable. I didn’t like the feeling of running around the cars, or the having to wait at crosswalks, or even more I felt like my feet were burning from the road. Gah! I’m going to stick to running around areas with more nature and fellow runners. But hey, at least I can say I tried it out. One more thing, I hate living in Reno. There are VERY few areas for running/walking, I know of only three trails but each are a mile and those are not fun to around 10 times. haha.

Also I have been having alot of knee pain lately (back in my freshman year of high school I found out I had a cyst growing in the bloody middle of my knee, lack of circulation in both legs, fluids were found, and I was already born with limited meniscus. ahhh!) Well I got to see the sports doctor and the orthopedic surgeon along came an MRI.  They found that the cyst is causing my knee to misalign and the joint bones are grinding against each other. So their orders….run MORE and FASTER! hahaha. Loved it! Plus they gave me vicodin when it’s severe and naproxen for inflammation. And they FINALLY put me on an inhaler for me EA (Exercise induced Asthma).
I can’t wait for tomorrow’s run. yay!

For my actual runs, both days were shorter 3.7 miles and at 7:13 pace. I’m happily seeing an increase in my speed. happiness!

Bugün ilk defa yollarda koştum. Genelde patikada, parkta, yada gölde koşuyorum ben. Ama yolları hiç sevmiğim öğrendim bugün. Arabalar, ışıkta bekleme, ve asfalt…hiç güzel değilki! Asfalt, manyak sıcak, ateş gibi, yakıyorduğu gibi hissetti ayaklarım. ufff ya! Doğa ve kosucular ile yerinde koşacağım artık. Ve birşey daha diyeceğim, Reno’da (eyaletimde) kalamaya hic beğenmiyorum, Çok çok çok az patika var ya. Hiç bir yerde koşamam. eh…1 mil yeri var, fakat orda 10 defa dönemem lazım.:/

Ve dizim çok ağrıyordu bu hafta. 9. sınıftayken her gün birkaç saat fizik tedavasıya gidiyordum. O zaman bugün doktora ve cerraha gittim ve birkaç test yaptılar. Bir Kist buldular dizimde. O, dizime yanlış ayarlıyor. ”Sen, daha uzak ve daha hızla koşmasın lazım.” Muahaha. Ve ağrı kesicisi ve enfeksiyonu giderici verdiler bana. Yarın için beklemek istemiyorum ben, koşmaya cok istiyorum ben! yea!

Dün ve bugün yaklasık altı km koştum, yirmiyedi dakikada yaptım. Ve elhamdülilah daha hızlı koşuyorum, bana göre! Çok sevindim!

“What counts in battle is what you do once the pan sets in.” –John Short, S. African Coach

First of many–İlk blogum (ağ güncesi)

Hello everyone!
So here is my first post. First my username “Çılgın Koşucu” means “Insane/Mad/Crazy Runner”.
Most of my blogs will involve running, food, or my travels & military service and I might add a couple other things in here. You will notice I post most things in both English and another language, that is for my friends that do not speak English, and it will always be in Italics.

So I hope you all enjoy reading!

Selam!
Bu benim ilk blogum. Burada koşma, yemekler, seyahat etmek, veya askerlik hizmeti hakkinda yazacağım.
İnsallah, her postda İngilizce’yle birlikte Türkçe yazarım. Fakat bazen çevirmeyebiliceğim. Türkçe’yi yazirsam, italik yazinda yazarım.

Bence, hoşuna gider!