NZ Bound

This is probably a week or so overdue. It’s been a couple of weeks since I ran my first race in this series – the National Cross Country Championships held at Roundhay Park in Leeds on 27 February. Without a doubt, it was the hardest race I’ve ever run in. For a start – there is a reason why it is called the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS. These runners were good. Really. Good. And I am not really good. I am an average middle-of-the-pack runner, at best. And today was not my best. You have those days, and today was one of them.

As if 1400 of the country’s finest cross-country runners wasn’t intimidating enough, I also had the course to contend with. I was wearing very inappropriate trail shoes with minimal grip when I should have been wearing lighter 15mm spiked shoes like everyone else. So not only was I relatively inexperienced having only run trail races, I also had bad equipment to deal with the monstrous cloying mud, downhills and cambers we had to deal with in two laps of the course. Not that I am blaming my tools – I really was out of my league. Even if I had better shoes, I’d still have only finished in the last quartile of this tough 12km race rather than the last 100. Others were kind and said that usually this race would be run over 8km, but I really did struggle. The most disappointing thing was that I finished with gas in the tank enough to run over to the rest of the team and felt like running some more. I was very under prepared and that cost me. Anyway, all good experience for this relative novice runner.

The second race in the series happened today, and went much better. This was a 10km run in Regent’s Park, London at 9am run by the Friends of MSF, and is the event that inspired to embark on this path in the first place. Today was a good day – I was well-rested,  well-fed and up for the challenge. I ended up running a great time for me in my first 10km tarmac race. I’ve run a few trail 10k races now, but only 5k races on tarmac / road. I ran today’s 10km in 45 minutes and 44 seconds – which is a pace of just over 7 minutes per mile. I’ve never sustained that pace over this distance before – not even in training runs, so I was very pleased with my result.

When I got home, there was even better geek fun to be had. I worked out my age-graded time. This involves taking my advancing years and into account and it compares my time with the standards that others at my time of life would run this distance after performing some kind of statistical corrections. When I first started running, my times put me at around the 48-50th percentile of equivalent aged male runners. Today’s race put me over the 60th percentile for the first time – 61st percentile means that I am now classed as a ‘locally competitive runner’ (70th percentile = regionally competitive, 80th percentile = national calls, 90th percentile = international class).

As well as being personally fulfilling through all the training and racing I’m doing, I’m of course looking to raise funds for MSF. Today, the racers and their supporters / sponsors raised over £20,000 for MSF – which is fantastic.

A big thank you to all of you that have sponsored me so far in my series of races. For those of you that have meant to sponsor me but haven’t got round to it yet, can I encourage you to follow the link and make a donation as soon as you can? Every bit helps, no matter how small – and encourages me a lot when I’m running for a good 100 minutes at a time covering 20km+ on cold London nights and mornings at the moment.

Here’s the link again: www.justgiving.com/sarbjohal

Please feel free to pass the link on to others or ask me questions if you feel like it. My workplace – the Department of Health – are publishing a ‘health & well-being’ feature on my in their staff publication next month, so hopefully that will bring a few more donations in too. If you know anyone who can help with publicity, or have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

As a final sign-off, I’m now running half-marathon distance in my training runs in about 1 hour 50-55 minutes, and I’ve also added a new race to my schedule – the Oxon 40/20 (I’m doing the 20 mile version). I’m planning on running it in 5 mile chunks and treating it as a training run – it’s a bit of an orienteering mission, so I’ll take food etc. If you fancy joining me, give me a shout.

Will leave it there for now. Be great to hear from you and see your encouraging words on my Facebook and group wall and the donation site.

On the 14th of March this year I am running a 10km race in Regent’s Park to raise money for the international humanitarian medical aid charity, Médecins Sans Frontières. This year there will be around of 250 us running – university students and members of the public from in and around London.

But that is just the start. Here is a list of events I’ll be running for MSF this year, culminating with the Berlin Marathon in September this year – my first marathon.

Steps to Berlin

March 14 – 10km for friends of MSF – Regent’s Park, London
April 11 – 10 mile race – Denbies Vineyard, Surrey
April 25 – Shakespeare Half-Marathon, Stratford-upon-Avon
June 5 – Otmoor Challenge (Trail Half-Marathon), Oxford
*July 25 – Dartmoor Mountain Half-Marathon (Trail), Dartmoor (TBC)
*August 2010 – Half-Marathon (TBC)
September 26 – The big one: The Berlin Marathon

I’m meeting all my entry costs, flights, accommodation etc – what you donate goes to MSF, not me. This site (http://www.justgiving.com/SarbJohal) is a great way for you to sponsor me and make sure that MSF receives the donations. It is very easy to use, and if you are UK tax payer this site makes it easy for MSF to claim back an extra 28% from your donation.

What you can do to help

It would be fantastic if you could sponsor me. Médecins Sans Frontières is an international humanitarian medical aid charity which is currently working in around 60 countries around the globe. Some of their recent efforts have been directed towards the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the ongoing unrest in Sudan and the so-called ‘neglected diseases’ such as Chagas. There’s information about MSF at the bottom of this email – please have a read or visit http://www.msf.org.uk/ourwork_where_work.aspx for more information. MSF’s YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73zMcdGfXGE) also gives a great overview of the organization.

Those of you who know me well also know that I’ve done quite a lot of work on psychosocial support after disaster events. In the case of Haiti, MSF’s emergency ward are still treating large numbers of patients but the nature of their injuries is gradually changing. Fewer people are appearing with wounds directly caused by the earthquake, but now the indirect consequences of the disaster are beginning to manifest themselves, with more children suffering from diarrhoea and more people coming forward with physical symptoms of mental trauma.

Feel free to get back in touch with any questions. If you’d like to come and support me on the day of any run, please let me know – it would be great to see you and hang out after the race. If you want to join me on a training run, that’d be great too.

Please do sponsor me – any amount will be gratefully received, and it will all help us raise money for a very deserving cause.

Argh, I’m sick of this grim winter. Cold, cold cold every day. Enough already. At least the days are getting noticeably longer – about 28 minutes per week at the moment which is heartening at the beginning and end of the day. There is something quite deadening about getting up and going home from work in the dark. Makes me feel like I have no other life than work.

Lots going on otherwise. I now have a house in Wellington and well into the process of Kate and I buying a flat in London, though it is so much slower here in the UK compared to NZ. We’re trying to figure out whether we are going to India or not next month, but we’ve got a couple of things going on that might get in the way of that.

My running is going well after my injury in November. Still seeing a physiotherapist as it isn’t quite right yet with my hip and lower back, but just starting to build up my runs again. I’ve just done my first 10 mile run this weekend (it was about 18km), and have signed up for the Berlin Marathon in September. But more about that in my next post, coming up shortly.

You can see from the left sidebar that I have been tweeting about running and work and life in general. The integration between Facebook and twitter that is possible – and Audioboo too for that matter means that I seem to be able to manage these three types of communication on a much more frequent, light-touch basis than I do this blog. Maybe all those people that say we will shortly witness the death of the traditional blog are on to something. You’ll see that I update this much less frequently than I used to. But there is still something quite special about having the space to reflect on things at little more at length that a Facebook status or series of tweets and links.

Running through recent events – Kate and I spent a couple of nights away in the New Forest National Park over the new year weekend, staying at a country inn and going for a couple of nice long walks. The weather has been icy for 4 weeks pretty much non-stop in London – and much worse in other parts of the country. This weekend has been a welcome respite from the relentless ice and snow, but it looks like the temperature will drop again later this week.

Work has been interesting again – I have joined the Quality Framework team at the Department of Health, which is much more NHS facing role. All the action in the NHS over the next five years will be about delivering consistently high quality services in a fiscally challenging environment – it will really be the story of the entire public sector as a result of the events of recent time. The next few months should prove an interesting challenge, and I’m looking forward it.

I’m stepping up my running again after some more physiotherapy. Things are easing up in terms of pain, and my current physio seems confident that the problem is located more in more lower back than elsewhere. I have a challenging race next weekend in Portland, Devon. The last 10km I ran was completed in 54 minutes. The average time for a man in this race is 1 hour 24 minutes! And the elevation map of the course looks positively horrific.

The latest on the accommodation situation is that we are still out in Hayes, staying at my parents’ place – who are kindly let us stay with them while we try and figure out something more permanent. As I think I posted previously, I bought a house (!) in Wellington, and this is now going through the final stages of the purchase. We’re also in the preliminary stages of nailing down a flat to buy in Isleworth – more of a modern pad for when we’re in London, in a reasonably accessible and nice part of town. I thought we were there but we might have a last minute change of mind – we’ll see what the next day or two brings.

You’ll be able to tell that I’ve got a lot on at the moment. Apart from the running, not a whole heap of travel lined up – but we’re only just back from NZ really. We’ve a trip to Amsterdam booked in for the end of this month, and then probably India on March on some frequent flyer miles, if I can get the right dates. After that – I’m not really sure. Possibly back to NZ for a visit / work in August – maybe New York somewhere along the way.

And that was the news, for now.

I find myself sitting in bed in London this Christmas eve – very different to arriving in Whangarei at Kate’s parents’ house with my friend Rob, this time in 2008. Different side of the world, opposite season, and very urban compared to what is pretty rural in New Zealand.

And much has happened this year:

• I have moved from NZ back to London – not sure how long for, but I’m here for now
• Kate came too
• I had a month long Fellowship in Japan
• I ran workshops all over New Zealand and went back in November this year to run some more
• I wrote, produced and was the talent for an educational DVD that has distributed all over the emegency management sector in New Zealand
• I have started work at the Department of Health in the UK as the Swine Flu Vaccine Policy Coordinator, while maintaining my business in New Zealand
• I secured a promotion at the Department of Health to Policy Manager in the Quality Framework Team, starting in the New Year
• I have secured honorary positions at the School of Psychology, Massey University, NZ and the National Centre for Neurology and Psychiatry, Tokyo, Japan
• I attended a training course at Fordham University, New York
• I had a paper published in the New Zealand Medical Journal
• I bought a house in Wellington (subject to various conditions being met) and am looking to do the same in London
• I turned 40
• I took up running, with some gusto
• I played a lot of cricket, both in NZ and in the UK
• And best of all, Kate and I got engaged to be married.

Along the way, I have met some fantastic people, traveled all over New Zealand, to Japan, the USA, Sweden, the Netherlands, and France. I have renewed old friendships and rekindled connections with my family through being back in London. I think this has probably been one of the more eventful and satisfying years of my life. In fact, the decade started with my clinical training at University College London, which was one of the better decisions I have made in my life, as was my decision to go to New Zealand. But more reflections about the decade in another post. For now, I feel happy to be alive, to be sharing my life with wonderful people, satisfied with my achievements for the year and challenges for the next, and grateful for the privileges that my life has afforded me, compared to many, many others.

A whistle-stop trip back to Wellington and NZ for two weeks for a bit of work for Massey University and MCDEM, as well as catching up with my old Ministry of Health colleagues and H1N1-buster counterparts. The trip couldn’t have gone much better from a professional point of view – the workshops went well, though attendance could have been a little better. I’ve had a bit of input intosome research proposals – which we’ll wait to hear back about. It was also great to be valued again from a work perspective – something that I am sorely missing in London

From a personal point of view, it has been a brilliant trip too. Kate and I have had some fun in Wellington – though I was working much of the time. I got a good game of cricket in – we lost, but I bowled well and hit an unbeaten 19 coming in at No. 9 trying to hit 30 off 7 overs to win. We fell 9 short, but I did enjoy pulling a big 6 over deep square leg with Josh’s new bat. I completed by Triple Continent Challenge, running a 10km cross country race in England before I left (in hail, thunder and lightning), a 5km race in Santa Monica on the stopover to NZ (finished 7th in my age group, 41st out of 447 runners), and then a 5km race in Wellington.

Then finally, a lovely side-trip to Taupo, where I caught my first trout and had a great time with Kate’s family. There’s more – but I think we’re boarding soon, so I’d better shut up shop. Until LA.

My inner government geek is getting nourished at this residential course I am attending at the National School of Government in Sunningdale, near Ascot. The course is designed to give a detailed working orientation into the machinery of Government that is the parliamentary democracy of the United Kingdom. Much of it is taught here in Sunningdale, but we’ll be off to the Cabinet Office on Wednesday as well as a pressure group to see how they can influence Government policy. I will be off to visit the Green Alliance. Next week will include a full day at the Palace of Westminster, including a tour with Jeremy Corbyn MP, a talk with ex-Minister Charles Clarke MP and attending Departmental questions in the Commons and general questions in the Lords.

So far so good – the instructors and knowledgable and great presenters, and the exercises have been fun and thought-provoking. The food is great and the campus is very pretty. If only I could run …

I don’t talk about my relationship with Kate much on here – mainly because she prefers her relative obscurity on the net. But I am very happy to post that we got engaged on October 25th in Paris. It was a cold day, with a queue that looked around 3 hours long at the Eiffel Tower. I mistakenly gave Kate the choice and she opted out, which kicked my Plan A into touch. I re-grouped and asked her in the gardens, and she said yes.

Last weekend, we went ring shopping in Hatton Garden. For those who don’t know, this is the Jeweler’s Quarter of London, and almost gave me a heart attack as soon as we stopped at the first shop. There were rings at over 10,000 pounds. That is about NZ$25,000. Way too rich for me. However, we did choose a magnificent, which I duly took out a mortgage for – and it will be ready to pick up in a couple of weekends time. I’m sure those of you who know me will see it in due course.

Thank you, lovely Kate – you’ve made me very happy

I think I need to see a doctor and / or a physio. I’ve had something of a sore hip for a couple of weeks now and I think I need to get it looked at. I tried a week of no running whatsoever, and a gradual re-introduction to a bit more running, but I think it is getting worse. A few more stretches were working to help it feel better, but seem to be getting a few more problems in my left calf now – probably because my gait has changed in order to try and protect my hip. I’m not sure what is going on – possibly something in my back, or my hip joint as I was experiencing something like sciatic numbness that I have experienced before from a cricket injury.

Will get it checked out before we’re off to Paris for the weekend on Oct 23rd.

A busy couple of weeks at work as the swine flu vaccine programme finally swings into action as the European Medicines Agency  (EMEA) license the vaccines and the manufacturers actually start delivering vaccine. They’re in the distribution chain now and will be delivered to the their destinations from this week onwards. Work has been very busy as I one of the policy coordinators for the vaccine programme – but we’re hoping that things will start to calm down. Unfortunately, I think this might be wishful thinking as Parliament has returned and we have a steady flow of PQs from both houses. I also imagine some parliamentary debates coming up soon, for which Ministers will require briefing.

I’m not sure how long I’ll stay in this job though – I have opportinities to move on to do things other than the repetitive briefing and correspondence work I have been managing over the past 3 months. I should be in a position to something more about that in the next week or so. Until then, more of the same next week.

Cold. Expensive as hell. And I didn’t think people were all that friendly. In fact, Kate got positively shoulder-barged out of the way on a couple of occasions on the street. Not sure if they were natives or tourists, but hey, we’re leaving with a less than friendly impression of the place. Don’t get me wrong, we had fun, despite staying in a museum prison hostel with a very small living space and where the whole town seems to want to charge you for every little thing you do, including taking a pee. I mean, where was the last place you went where even McDonalds charged for you to take a pee? Left us unimpressed (and busting), to be sure.

People avoided eye-contact as a  rule, and even if you said ‘Hej’, or whatever, you tended to just get a puzzled look in return. Not really teeming with positive vibes. Of course, it is hard to make a rounded judgment after only 4 days. But we spent almost 500 pounds on a budget that included sandwiches for packed lunch and self-made porridge for breakfast. I only had 2 beers out, and a few coffees & hot chocolates with Kate, and we stayed in a twin bunk in an ex-prison cell. Hardly what I’d call extravagant.

We spent a lot of time in Gamla Stan, scene of the Royal place and Bloodbath Square. The Swedes seem to have a touch of the dark about them. We certainly noticed it.

Although I’m a big fan of the iPhone, I don’t think it’s fantastic as a runner’s tool – especially now I’m starting to run a bit longer and further. I was running on Sunday and my battery for the iPhone was only at 37% after leaving fully charged with RunKeeper Pro on the whole time I was running – a GPS mapping and tracking app. And that was after about 1 hour 20 mins of running.

So I have succumbed and bought myself a Garmin Forerunner 405 bells and whistles GPS watch with heart rate monitor on eBay. It’s pretty pricey, but I think I’ll get a lot of wear out of it to be honest, the way my running is going. Will be fun to have it with me when out and about hiking and traveling about over the next few months overseas too, without having to worry about racking up data costs if trying to track my path using the iPhone.

I’ll post about how I get on with it.

I seem to be spending quite a lot of my spare time traveling. Either to and from work, or some kind of weekend activity. Unfortunately, quite a lot of the latter trips are tedious detours because the state of London and it’s transport infrastructure is so shockingly awful for a city of it’s stature. I think I preferred the far nicer trips I used to get sent on when in Wellington. Ah, managing a project budget – happy days.

I’m also traveling quite a lot by my legs as I’m really liking running at the moment. And my capacity to do so seems to be improving nicely. I’m able to knock off 10km pretty easily and have run about 38km over the past 5 days, including a recovery day with no running. I have developed bits of my calf muscles I have never had before. And my knees are perfectly fine. Running is also proving really effective in countering my post-40 slowing metabolism and as stress relief for the slightly unsatisfying work conditions I find myself in. Never thought I’d say it, but I think I’m hooked. Trying to make the running thing a habit, and I think it’s working.

A day out of the office though tomorrow. Gives me small relief from the swine flu vaccinefest.

It has been some time between posts, hasn’t it? That usually means that time has been at a premium. What with Kate arriving in London and setting up our lives here, that has certainly been true.

What can I catch you up with briefly  before I make a better stab at keeping the blog up to date?

• The new job has been somewhat underwhelming. The title of Swine Flu Vaccine Policy Coordinator at the Department of Health in the UK seems to indicate some kind of policy development might be involved. Truth be told there has been scant trace of that – it has been mainly reactive briefing and correspondence duties so far. If it continues for much longer, I don’t know how long I will stick it.
• London life and how much energy it takes, with travel and trying to do interesting things has been revealed again to me again, somewhat shockingly. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to take it, especially if the job doesn’t pick up.
• I joined a cricket club and had a few lovely games of 20 over cricket at the end of the season. Missing thr old crew back in Wellington, though it was nice to be playing and bowling on grass wickets again
• Joined the Serpentine Running Club, and regularly managing 6-7km runs, and the odd long one thrown in too – including a 10.5km run tonight. Also ran my first 5km official event, which was a trail run in the middle of a hot day – clocked 23:58, which I was very happy with. I’ve also dropped down to 78kg – which is the least I’ve weighed since I was a about 30 – I’m also very pleased with that too. The aim is to try to do a few more 5km events, a 10km event before the end of the year, and then start a training programme for a half marathon in the spring.
• Kate and I have managed a bit of travel – as well as a day-trip to Calais and a weekend in Amsterdam (where Kate ended up in A&E – but that is another story), we also got down to Avebury, Bristol, Lewes and Seaford, St Albans, and Bournemouth. In the new few weeks, we have Stockholm and Paris lined up, as well as possibly Brussels, and a trip back to NZ  via a weekend in LA for me to do some work.
• I now have a Visiting Researcher role at the National Institute of Mental Health, where I did my JSPS Fellowship earlier this year.

That’s enough I think – live blogs start again forthwith.

Almost a month has passed and it’s been so busy. Work continues in my new role, and I’m off to Amsterdam for a long weekend break with Kate early tomorrow morning. She has just completed two weeks working for Barking PCT which has been really challenging at times, but getting better.

Will post more with pics and background from the last few days and weeks over the weekend.

If you’re wondering why I’ve been so quiet, it is because I’ve been so busy. The new role, and getting used to the new way of doing things at the Department of Health for the UK Government based here in London is taking some getting used to, let alone commuting again. The commuting isn’t so bad as it takes about an hour. But still, I haven’t done this for years and am finding it quite tiring. Will aim to post more detail about life and its current pleasures and challenges later this week.

Finally sorted it out – will be joining the UK Department of Health Pandemic Influenza Immunisation Team in London, starting 20 July. Again, more later.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks in the USA. First, visiting my old school friend Saideep and his lovely family in Philadelphia, and then a ‘Mental Health in Complex Emergencies’ certificate training course for 9 days full-time (plus a weekend off) at Fordham University in New York City. The highlight has to be the last three days where I have taken a specialist module called Training Others, with Dr Nancy Baron – a very experienced and incredibly competent international trainer. I’ve really appreciated her critical but caring approach and learned a lot over the past few days – both personally and professionally. A definite highlight of my professional development so far in my various careers.

Met some great people too – especially my room-mate (dorm accommodation at Fordham), Niroshan – a retired Sri-Lankan Army Major and Drew, a teacher and clinical social worker in NYC. It was great fun to hang out with Drew and his girlfriend, Erin at the weekend, watching a Minor League Baseball game out in Coney Island, Brooklyn, and then hanging out over 4th July weekend. But now, I’m at the airport preparing to head back to London. I arrive at 10am on the 9th of July, and Kate arrives at 10pm – she’ll be in the air right now en-route to London and about to land in Singapore.

More later.