A Running Newbie

When I first moved to Vancouver I started doing intervals to train to run 5km. Then laziness kicked in and running went out the window. Now there's rain and a billion other excuses on why I don't run. Which really has to stop. In Hawaii, we found out we were in Maui the same time as the Maui Marathon! Also, the day before the marathon there was a 5K Maui Taco Run! After a week of a lot of eating and drinking (and no running) we woke up bright and early and did my first 5K run!

Well running might be an exaggeration. I probably ran the first km, third, and last km. The rest was lots of walking and sweating under the sun. The race was in Ka'anapali along a few nice hotels and golf courses. It felt good that I wasn't last and even got a compliment of being so fast for a walker ;) I sprinted the last 200m and got in at a time of 38min and felt woozy.

All in all it was exciting since I've never taken part in any organized runs before! It showed me how nutrition is not enough and that I really need to start exercising and running to reach my ideal weight and health. My time was pretty terrible but I guess it's a start. It's a love/hate relationship that I have with running. The thought of doing it and how my body hates it makes it tough to gather the will power to go out and do it. But once you're doing it, it's a great feeling. Running in the sun and seeing palm trees and clear water also is pretty awesome. I think my mind just remembers the day after and two days after where my body hurts all over. If I can just overcome this hump...I'd like to get a decent 5k time in a month. Any tips on how you made peace with running?

In other news, I finally broke under the 130lbs mark that I haven't been able to cross for 5 months! 128lbs to be exact. Let's see how the next 2 months pan out!

Hawaii Bread Fruit

I've been very delinquent in my blog posts lately. Just got back from an amazing trip to Kauai and Maui. I hoped that hiking, snorkeling, surfing and a 5K run would counteract eating out and lazing at the beach and pool everyday. However, the food won this battle as I came home and to my dismay, gained 5 pounds - which I quickly lost being sick over the week.

Anyway, I wanted to write about some things that I learned in Hawaii. On the plane ride there on Hawaiian Airlines, the featured article was about a lady who collects all variations of Breadfruit. I had never heard of this fruit before and after reading about how it's the highest yielding (up to 200 fruits grow on one tree) and full of nutrients, we made a mental note to try this in Hawaii.


Indeed, on the first day at the Luau, we saw breadfruit but it wasn't until the last 2 days that we ate it! The first was at Mama's Fish House in Maui (which by the way is an amazing seafood restaurant which will require its own posting. The menu lists which fish was caught by who and where on the island!) Anyway we had the lobster guacamole with breadfruit and yam chips. The breadfruit in this case was deepfried/baked in oil so it tasted delicious! But I find that any vegetable/fruit drenched in oil tastes good.

The next day on our drive to Hana, we stopped by some food stands on the road and finally found baked breadfruit!

It tasted like baked yams or potatoes or taro - very very very rich and dense. Make note all those vegetables grow in soil but breadfruit is a fruit that grows on trees! This is an awesome fruit for tropical third world countries!! Wikipedia describes the issues of storing it since it does yield so many fruits at a time. Also describes how the tree is useful for building canoes.

I guess you learn something new everyday :)