Xi'an China

I returned home just before Thanksgiving last year and I figured that I would be home for at least 2 months before going to China.  I figured I would leave sometime around the end of January, beginning of February.  Not so! Since I still had to completely rebuild the kitchen from the studs up, I figured that had the greatest potential to hold me back.  That actually went really well and I love my new kitchen!

Really, the problem holding me back turned out to be paperwork!  I thought that the Middle East countries had a lot of paperwork to do but they have nothing on China.  To start, I had to get a long form notarized copy of my marriage certificate which I then had to get notarized by the Secretary of State.  Of course each step needed to be expedited (for a fee) otherwise I would still be in the states right now.  Once I had the apostille from the Secretary of State, I had to take that to the Chinese embassy to be further certified.  The closest one was in Los Angeles.  Which was where I went and waited for over an hour to be told that because I was married in Nevada, I was under the jurisdiction of San Francisco and would need to go there. No exceptions.  I contemplated going to San Francisco and doing this, but that is a 6 hour drive from Los Angeles and a 9 and a half hour drive from Las Vegas.  I really don't see the logic of making me go to San Francisco especially since I was standing in the Los Angeles office!!!!  Also, Las Vegas to Los Angeles is 4 hours.  Las Vegas to San Francisco is again 9 and a half hours.  I just don't get the logic.  So I paid a visa agent to do it for me because it was much cheaper than my gas, time, and sanity.

When it finally came back, I found out that my Dad had to have surgery, which was a surprise to us all. So I guess it was a good thing that the marriage certificate took so long, (3 weeks) because I would not have wanted to be newly out of the country when I got that news.  Luckily, the surgery went well and he is back home recovering.

After that, I booked my flight and then attempted to get my travel visa where I was again told that I would need to once again go through the San Francisco office because I have a Nevada ID and of course, the San Francisco office has jurisdiction.  It takes 4 days for the office to process the visa so again,  there was no way that I was going to be able to go do it myself so I went back to the same visa agent and she took care of it.  I got the visa back 3 days before I was supposed to leave so that was good.

I had a very good flight and arrived in Xi'an on March 4th.  It's a tad overwhelming but I suppose that is to be expected.

So this is probably one of my last blog posts here, however,  feel free to join me over at my new blog.
Where To Next?

See ya later, Saudi!

This was supposed to be a relaxing year.  When it came time to renew the contract, we decided that it may be nice to just hang out for one more year and not have to stress about moving somewhere new and starting a new job.  Of course, as soon as Matt signed the new contract he started getting contacted by headhunters.  Not a bad thing, but certainly not great timing.  Also, these interviews go on for weeks, then if you get a job offer, the negotiations turn the whole process into about 3 months.

So, first up there was an offer from Jakarta.  We went over it a million times! It all sounded well and good but something about it did not feel right.  Also, when I looked it up, I found one report where it ranked number 2 in the worst places to live as an expat.  (Riyadh ranked number 3!!) Factoring in worse air quality and (I find it hard to believe...) worse traffic?? Anyway, I was not eager to pack my bags just yet.  In the end, Matt turned it down. And then of course, second guessed that decision for months!

Next up, Xi' an, China.  This one sounded very interesting.  And after about 3 months worth of interviews and contract negotiations we decided to go to China.  With the contracts signed, we kept quiet until we were sure that Matt's work visa would go through.  So then Matt had to resign from his current job, which he did, giving the required 3 months notice.

During this time was when his Dad got sick and we went to Germany for three weeks.  When we returned, Matt's current company offered him a position in Vancouver Canada which despite having already signed contracts with China, we absolutely had to consider.

I must say, although I really do enjoy the expat lifestyle, it can be really exhausting and stressful.  The thought of going to Canada sounded like a really nice break.  And Vancouver? I hear the quality of life there is amazing.  Also, it's so close to home.  It would be such a short flight! No more 30 hour travel times!

So we went back and forth a million more times.  Meanwhile, I had to book my flight home because of my marathon plans and we still didn't know where we were going! It was nice that we had two really fantastic choices to consider but that really didn't make it any easier.  So one morning (about 2 days before I was scheduled to fly out) we went to breakfast at the compound restaurant and made a pro con list and we decided that we simply had to choose Canada.  I expected a feeling of relief to wash over me but it never happened.  I started packing my bags for Canada.  Of course by that evening, we both said, "You know, I don't think Canada is the right choice."  And, after much more discussion we were back on China, and I started repacking my bags.

So when I left Riyadh, we were still on China but Matt had still not yet turned down Canada.  And so, even though many, many people thought we were crazy for turning it down, eventually he did turn down Canada.  It's official, we are going to China!!  In fact, Matt is currently on a flight for China right now!  See ya later Saudi!!

The Marathon!

So way back in July I started thinking about registering for a new marathon.  I didn't want to wait until March for the Riyadh Marathon since last year it ended up being quite warm.  Also, the course was an oddly shaped out and back in one direction and then out and back in another direction repeated 6 times!! And at the end of it last year there was some arguing about whether or not the course was short. (Matt and I ran it as a relay.) I was hoping to get it in before the end of the year.  Since I figured that I could count on going home for the holidays, I chose the California International Marathon which is held early in December in Sacramento.  Since Thanksgiving was late this year, I figured that it would work out well and I would be home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas and then go back to Riyadh for New Years.  Also, coming for Thanksgiving would give me almost 2 weeks to recover from the flight.  (30 hours of travel time !!)

Having lived in Sacramento for 9 months, I was familiar with the area as well as the hotels near the finish line.  I was a bit hesitant to sign up because I knew the weather in Riyadh doesn't begin to cool down until October and I still wouldn't actually call the weather "cool." I knew training would be even more difficult (and boring) since I would pretty much have to do it by myself, what with both my running buddies having moved on.

About a week later, I was chatting online with Andrea and she mentioned she was looking for a race around November/ December.  I mentioned, that I was seriously considering CIM and she was welcome to join me... I had already booked the hotel (cancelable) but I had not yet actually registered for the race.  A week later we had both signed up. (Not cancelable or transferable.) This gave me about 20 weeks to train.  About half of which was during the hottest part of the year.  Oh well, it couldn't be helped.  And I really needed a race to focus on.

Of course, as soon as I signed up, life just happened as it does with everyone!  First we went on vacation which was actually quite a nice change.  Then I went home for the summer to deal with the kitchen.  It was nice to be able to run outside, but Vegas in August is not much better than Saudi!  It was seriously getting to the point where I just had no concept of what the temperature was.  One day I went out for a 10 miler and I ran out of water and I was just dragging at 6 miles so I called it quits and went home wondering what the heck was wrong with me? It definitely felt cooler than Saudi, but when I loaded the run from my Garmin onto the computer, the temperature came up as 97 degrees.  So even though it felt cooler... 97 degrees is still pretty hot to be running in! (36 C)

After that I started planning a bit better.  I started running a 4 mile loop around the lake.  I would park my car in the shade with a frozen bottle of plain water and a frozen bottle of coconut water so that every four miles I could refill.  I also started checking the weather for cloudy days and I would do my long runs then.  Still hot, but much more manageable.  Just before flying back to Saudi, I did a 15 miler at the Rosebowl.

Once back in Saudi I continued to scour the weather report for a rare "cool" day and I would schedule my long runs then.  I would get up early but my 16 miler took me three hours.  The first hour was quite pleasant, then the second got a bit warm, and the third was a bit miserable as the sun was now out full force.

My 18 miler was in Germany.  It was a few days after the funeral.  Definitely my most pleasant training run with the temp being about 60 degrees.  Unfortunately I caught a pretty bad cold 2 days later and as a result I had 2 very low milage weeks which followed while I recovered.  My 20 miler on compound was a pathetic 4 hours and was probably about 24 laps around the compound.  On my Garmin it looks like this:

The compound is a tad bigger than the pic but it's enough to get an idea. It's a bit maddening.  Which is why when my husband offered to take me to the DQ for my second 20 miler I was extremely happy.  He planned to do a 12 miler and I didn't want him to have to wait for me for an hour and a half so I got up early and did 7 miles on the compound and then when he was up and ready we drove 20 minutes to the DQ and I did the remaining 13 miles.  It was not good.  My legs stiffened up on the car ride over and I felt like crap.  Also, I ran out of water for about 2 miles and felt even crappier.  We met up at the car when I still had 2 miles to go. Still, I refilled my water bottle and dragged my sorry butt the last 2 miles where we met up again at the Starbucks just in time for prayer!!! So after all that, I didn't even get my latte!!

I week later I did the ten mile race at Ranco Farm and finished in about 1:38 something.  Not great but it was under a 10 minute mile which these days is good for me!

When we finally showed up for CIM, I knew my training was definitely not up to par but really, it was the best I could do given the circumstances and I adjusted my goal accordingly.  I decided to shoot for a 4:40 time and just try and enjoy myself.  I was actually making it to the starting line! This alone was farther than I got last time!!  But did I mention it was FREAKING COLD!  I mean freakishly cold! The weather said 27 degrees at the start but it "feels like 21."  (-3 C but feels like -6 C) A couple of the buses had a foot of snow on the roof and it wasn't melting!!

Here we are waiting to board the bus at 5 AM.  The race started at 7 and sunrise wasn't until 7:09.  It was so cold that the water at the first two water stops froze all over the street.  People would drink some and then throw the half full cup on the ground and it would promptly freeze over.  I slowed to a walk and tried to go right down the middle where the least ice was and I still slipped on it!  I didn't fall, but Andrea said that she saw 3 people go down when she went through.  Very dangerous!

Everywhere there was frost on the grass and it NEVER MELTED!  At 11:20 I ran by a bank and the temperature said 33 degrees!  My final results were no big surprise.

That said, it really wasn't too bad! My longest run up to that point was 4 hours and 20 miles.  On the plus side, I hit the 20 mile mark 22 minutes earlier than on my training run so I was actually at mile 22 when I hit the 4 hour mark. I felt fine up to about mile 24.  At that point I was still soooo cold! Also my hip hurt.  I walked for about a half a block and then started back up. After that, I just said screw it! There are only two miles left!!  I can so do 2 miles.  And I did.  And when I stopped running I was so freaking cold that I could barely feel my fingers.  I felt a bit like the final scene in Terminator 2 when they pour liquid nitrogen on him and he freezes solid as he's walking.  Luckily, I didn't freeze solid and I made it back to the hotel.

So, am I happy with 4:49? Well, I would have been happier with 4:45.  Especially after looking it up and seeing that I lost 3 minutes waiting in the line for my one bathroom stop and about 2 minutes with my half a block walk at mile 24.  But live and learn.  And this way it will be easier to PR on the next one.  And there will, eventually, one day, be a next one.  But not for a long while and not when I have to train entirely by myself because that sucks!  But that said, I was so glad Andrea did it with me because it would have been really weird to do it by myself!  Oh, and Andrea did freaking awesome! She did  4:09!! Way to go!!  Marathon DONE!

Germany and Mallorca

Once again, I have been really lax about keeping up with the blog.  Things were a bit hectic this summer.  We were in Saudi for the first half of Ramadan and then we went on vacation for the second half.  We decided to go to Germany so we could visit Matt's family for a bit and then from there we planned to go to Mallorca.  First we went to Simbach to visit Matt's Dad. 

 Then a few days later we went to Garmisch to go visit Matt's Mom.

 We really didn't have any plans at all which turned out to be really nice because we just did whatever we felt like doing.  Like going for a walk and stopping for coffee.

Or going to a horrible Mexican restaurant.  (That purple stuff is a generous sprinkling of lavender.) It tasted like soap.  Nasty stuff.

 And it turned out that we were there for the annual block party on Matt's Mom's street.  There was a BBQ and lot's of beer of course!

This lady was funny.  She kept speaking to me in German.  She didn't seem to get it that I didn't understand her at all.  If she said something really funny someone usually translated it for me.

 Eventually, this being Germany, of course it started raining. Pouring actually.  But they just got out some tarps and clipped them to the sunshades and zipped on some plastic sides and it less than 5 minutes we were all dry.

And the party just carried on.  Except that we moved on to schnapps.  I think we got maybe 4 hours of sleep  and then we had to get up to go to the airport so we could fly to Mallorca Spain.

 Parts of Mallorca are very beautiful.  I can not for the life of me remember the name of this place but we paid to get in.  There was a museum there as well.

We went running along the corniche and I stopped to take a picture of this place.  I have no idea what it is.  (I'm so informative!)

So anyway, yes, parts are very beautiful. The reason we chose Mallorca, however, is because Matt's family has a studio apartment there.  The area where it is located is in Palma.  This is a bit of a party area. It is not beautiful.  It looked like this:

At night the whole thing lit up and it was a bit like being on holiday with the Inbetweeners. We had a good time but we went back to Germany a few days early.  I can no longer party like I'm in my twenties and I have no desire to anyway.  

Back in Germany we saw Matt's Dad again and then went off to his Mom's house again where this time they were having a parade.

 It lasted for about 20 minutes and then everyone followed the parade up the hill.

 Where low and behold, they were having a little "Octoberfest" in August.

Prost!

We hung out for a few more days and then we went back to Saudi.  A day and a half later I went back home to a pipe burst in our townhouse and I spent the next month and a half dealing with that.  My kitchen now looks like this:

Eventually I made it back to Saudi and then sadly, Matt got a phone call that his Dad was very sick with pneumonia.  He left that night to go back to Germany and a few days later he died. So we spent a couple more weeks in Germany for the funeral.   It was a very difficult time for Matt, but it was nice that there were so many family members around.  

Most of the time we were in Munich, but we did take a day trip to Innsbruck just before we went back to Saudi.  

And that is what happened over the Summer and half of the Fall.  

Road Trip! (Doha, Qatar)

So about a month ago we went on a road trip! It was the first one for me. (Matt tends to drive to Bahrain when I'm not around but thus far I've never been.)  We decided to go to Qatar, a country that borders Saudi.  It takes a couple of hours longer than the trip to Bahrain, but according to Matt it is well worth the extra time.

One would think that a road trip would be a lot less hassle than dealing with airports and rent a cars and such but when you are living in Saudi that is definitely not the case!  Apparently, if you are going to take a car into another country there are all kinds of paperworks that need to be filed.  Even though Matt started the paperworks more than a week in advance all kinds of things came up.  First, it turned out that Matt's drivers license was expired.  That took three trips to various offices to get renewed.  Next, we found out the car registration was expired.  After several days, we realized that this was not going to get finished in time.  Matt's boss offered to let us take his car but then we had ran out of time to get the travel paperwork in time.  Luckily, we were able to move our hotel reservation (which had been paid in full) over to the next week.  So we tried again.  

After another week, the registration still wasn't finished so we started the paperwork on the other car.  The paperwork finally came through on the morning that we were supposed to leave.  We then found out that our travel visas had expired!!  After much rushing around, we got a one time exit visa and we were off only a couple of hours later than we had planned.  We didn't want to get out too late because we hadn't been there before and the desert tends to get a bit disorienting.  However, we did finally buy a Garmin which helped tremendously!  I can't believe we haven't bought one up to this point.  Especially considering how easily we get lost.  

So off we went! 

 Total distance to Doha was about 489 KM from where we started.  (Doha is about an hour away from the Saudi/ Qatar border.)

 One would tend to think that that drive would look mostly like this, and parts of it did.

 But for the most part, it looked mostly like this.  With gas stations about every 20 miles or so.

 And I still find it a little crazy to see camels all over the place just walking along the side of the road.

I guess it's kind of like seeing horses out here.  

Eventually, we made it to here:

This is the border crossing between Saudi and Qatar.  There are all kinds of stops and we had to keep giving our paperworks to various people.  Then we drove about 8 kilometers to the Qatar side where we had to get out and purchase a visiting visa and car insurance.  The whole border crossing took about 40 minutes.

Once in Doha, we stayed in the W hotel.  It was very nice but a tad annoying with all their jargon.

 This was looking down on the lobby, ahem, I mean "living room" (eye roll.)

We also went to the Souk Waqif where we bought nothing but had a very nice lunch at a Moroccan restaurant.

 Here is Matt drinking a Moroccan tea.  I didn't like it because it had way too much honey for my taste. Truthfully, Matt didn't like it either but he did drink most of it.  I think it was mostly to be polite since he had asked the waiter to make a drink suggestion.  Everything else though was really good.

Afterwards we walked around a bit but there was nothing that either of us just had to have.  Later we drove down to the Corniche. 

The difference in the humidity by the water was tremendous.  It took about 5 minutes before my hair frizzed up and my jeans started sticking to me.  

Still, we did go back later in the evening for a run.  100 degrees and really humid, but I still managed to run a ten minute mile pace for 4 miles.  Lately while running in Saudi I haven't been able to run any more than a 12 minute mile when outside so I was quite pleased with that.  

Another day we also went to go see the Pearl. 

This is a model of the Pearl.  I couldn't fit it all in the picture so here is a super short video.  

It's not finished yet so there are still spots you can buy for your own private island estate.  

And saving the best part for last, I got to see Tiffany! Doesn't she look fabulous!  I can't believe she just had a baby 4 months ago. (Well, I guess 5 now since I have taken so long to post this!) The baby is super cute!  Miss you Tiffany!!

Eventually we had to leave and make the long drive back.

Apparently Qataris really hate trumpets ;)

It was a bit quicker to get through customs on the way back into Saudi but the drive back seemed a lot longer.  Also, it was really windy and so it was very dusty as well.  All in all, a really nice long weekend.  

Wrapping Up Running

The running "season" in Saudi is from September to March obviously due to the extreme heat.  Even in September it is still pretty hot.  As I recall, it was 43 degrees C on the first race of the season. (109 F) It really doesn't cool off until October but who can wait that long?

Looking back on the past season, I must say that it was not my year!  Between ITBS and constantly getting sick my running times all increased significantly.  Despite all this, the roadrunners was and is still my favorite thing to do in Saudi.  Such a nice group of people.

 Things started looking up around February of this year.  My ITBS started to subside and I managed to get my vitamin and mineral needs met so I stopped getting sick and felt better in general.  Unfortunately, by February the running season is almost over.  I did make it to the marathon in March, but Matt and I ran it as a team.  (We each ran half.)  My time for the half, was about 2 hours and 15 minutes.  No where near a PR, but a huge improvement over my dead last time of 2:38 back in December.  It was nice to end the season on a good run.  FINALLY!

Here is a pic of Matt's half of the marathon.  Clearly not a ton of people on the course! By the time he ran it was quite warm.  (Much better to run first if you can talk your partner into it!)

We also ran a 5K Terry Fox Charity Run about a week later.  I ran it in about 27:40 so I was happy with that.  It wasn't officially timed because it was a fun run but that's what my Nike+ said.  It was nice to just do a short run.  The long ones had been getting to me a bit.

This was us at the finish.  Our friends went for another couple of laps. 

We went straight to breakfast!

When I went home, I ran one more race.  It was just a 10K but it was a doozy of a course.  Luckily, it was super close to home so I was able to manage to squeeze in 3 training runs on the course itself.  It was the Verdugo Hills 10K Trail Run.  It conveniently worked out that the race was the day before we were set to fly back to Saudi.

This was my first ever trail race.  It was actually probably my first ever trail run.  I loved it! In fact, I can't believe I've never actually tried it before.

The race was 3.3 miles uphill on an average 9% grade.  Then, back downhill for 2.9 miles.  The course map and profile looked like this:

Since there are no hills like that anywhere near us in Saudi, I had to do all of my training at home.  The first time I ran the course it took me an hour and 23 minutes.  The next day my EVERYTHING hurt and continued to hurt for about three days.  A week later I ran it again and shaved off about 5 minutes.  I still hurt the next day but not nearly as bad as the first time. I skipped the next week due to vacation but I was able to get in one more training run a week before the race.  I stopped to take a few pictures because I knew I wouldn't have time to do it during the race.

 On the way up...

 Almost there...

 At the top!

Stopped on the way back down because a deer was on the path.  

The race was a week later and there were about 650 people there.  It was really only crowded at the beginning and after about the first mile, the crowd was better spread out.  The race was really well organized and they even hauled a port a potty all the way up there!  

My official time up to the summit was 49:04.  (Yes, there was plenty of walking going on in between bouts of running.)  My time on the downhill was 21:52.  Previous to this race, I think my fastest mile may have been an 8:30.  I always figured that the only way I would break 8 minutes would be to run downhill in a hurricane but evidently, I only needed the downhill part because I clocked 2 miles in the low 7's.  

New fastest mile, 7:11!  And, unless I run this particular race again, I will probably never see that time again!  This was also the only time I have ever run all out on a race.  At the end I had absolutely nothing left over.  A couple of people passed me at the very end and there was absolutely no room for me to go any faster.  Also, I don't think I could have continued at that pace for much further.  All in all, I was very proud of myself.  My final time was 1:10:57.  I was hoping to break 1:10 but I got pretty darn close considering I had only a month to train.  Overall, I finished 238 out of 653.  For my age group, I finished 7 out of 48.  

Going up!

We recently had the end of the year awards banquet for the road runners. It was held at the French Embassy in the DQ.  And, despite my less than stellar times I still won an award!  And it was really nice too.  It was for 2nd place in the Female Veteran category in the 10 mile series.  

There were three ten mile races.  Here we are at "The Maze." It was the last of the ten mile series.  I was the only female in my age group that showed up.  Also did I mention that overall I was second to last for this particular race? 

It was very cold and windy! Luckily it had rained the night before otherwise 

the dust would have been terrible!

Here is my award.  Really nice!  But less impressive when you know that there were only 4 female veterans total who showed up to race! Still, it is my favorite race, which is why I always showed up.  (There is a lot more competition in the 5K, 5 Mile and 10K categories.)  Also my time last year was a full 10 minutes faster than this year but Cest la vie!

Currently, I have only been running inside.  Not only is it hot right now, but it is constantly windy and therefore dusty.  It seems like there has just been sandstorm after sandstorm! Of course none of them have been quite as bad as my first real sandstorm (which was Mission Impossible 3 quality) but it's enough to keep me inside.  It's just too crunchy for me outside these days.  I don't remember it being like this for so long last year.  I guess I will just have to wait for either a vacation or for Fall.