Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Pijamas as running singlet ?

This morning was a very quiet 5x1000m @ 3'24" pace + some strides on the school track. I did not feel "Reactive" legs, probably I have not really recovered yet from the sunday's long run. On top of poor recovery, I feel some tightness in the right leg, I guess due to some poorly-made stretching (I start to believe the stretching can be sometime more dangerous than helpful).

Anyway the main topic of this post are the folks who populate the track in early morning.
Knowing the secretive nature of chinese institutions, it was quite surprising for me to find out 2 years ago that the primary school 1km away from my house had a all-weather tartan track, and most amazingly the track was open to the public in early morning (from down to school start).
Basically it was the real factor that prompted my return to running, because I was really not very keen in running on treadmill all my life. And the track is at a mid-hill location, very quiet and in a good environment. So in late 2005 I resumed running, mostly for the pleasure to make some fast track workout and feel again the unmistakable smell of tartan rubber.
The only drawbacks:
- the track is 300m long ... and the stretch is only 70m
- the other folks: it seems that everywhere in the world, many like to go to a track to just walk or stroll around (there are reports about even a walker with a dog).
In China, there is more or less the same, but obviously all in Chinese fashion:
many people run backwards (Chinese believe it is very healthy for the back ... I guess it can be healthy until you crash against someone alse...), many run/walk barefoot but the most amazing are those running in pijamas. Every time I spot 2/3 ladies who jogs in pijamas or night suit. It is definitely a good way to cut on the time needed to reach the track from the bed, but I would not like to try to sleep in my running singlet either.
And finally, a group a old ladies who behaves in typical Cantonese (south china) fashion: they walk 10 meter apart from each other, so they have to shout very loudly to make themselves understand. Cantonese (both in HK and mainland) are very very noisy and the noise is part of their culture, but still now I am not very clear because the people should greet each other with a shout when they are 20 meters away and not wait to get closer ...

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