ESPN 30 for 30 - Once Brothers (1/6)

One of my friends posted this video on facebook the other day and I have already seen it twice. If you have not seen it on ESPN have a look on youtube. I loved it. It took me back to the old days when I was just a little girl and all these guys that appear in this video (Toni Kukoc, Vlade Divac, Drazen Petrovic) were my idols. That era, the era of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan for me was when the best basketball was played.

I started playing basketball competitively when I was 9-10 years old. By the age of 13 I was already playing in National junior (U18) team and by the time I was 14 I was playing in my club's senior team with the girls who were at least 4-5 years older than me. I loved it. Basketball was my life and I loved my life. I trained hard and I trained every day. I used to go to practice an hour before everyone else and would stay an hour after everyone has left. I lived for the game. And I was good at it. Really good (without wanting to sound big-headed). I always thought that I would be a professional basketball player. For me nothing else was an option. But things happen in life over which you don't have any control and my basketball career came to abrupt stop.

I so often wonder what would have happened and where would I be now if I carried on playing. It is amazing how one event if your life changes your life altogether. Well, perhaps that's the beauty of it.

In more recent news, work has continued to be absolutely crazy. Hopefully the deal I am working on will complete this Friday and I can have my life back. And some more positive news, 15 days until my husband is finally back home. Huuuurrraaaay!!!

One tough week

One tough work week is behind me. Well not entirely behind me as I have to do some work from home tomorrow (Sunday) but it has been tough. I have worked over 70 hours Monday to Friday and there are no signs that it will calm down. My boss wants me to lead a really important transaction which I have never done before. I know I am capable of doing it but the problem is that the whole department is quite stretched and I am not getting the help from the junior lawyers that I need. The transaction is due to complete the day after Shaun comes home so fingers crossed it will all go according to plan.

Needless to say, after getting home around midnight most nights this week my training suffered. I used to get so frustrated about this before. But I think with time I kind of got used to accept it and go with the flow. In any event if work needs to get done I need to stay in the office and if I get too frustrated about it I just loose energy because of something that I can't change. So now, once the clock hits 7 pm and I am still in the office I just accept it and carry on working.

There are many times when I think I need a different job. That I need a job which will give me more time to spend with family and friends and do things that I love. But at the same time, I worked so hard to get to where I am and something has to pay the bills so there you go.

On a different note, Shaun and the company he commands is due to return in four weeks time. Busy work has made the time go quick last few weeks and I hope that the next four weeks will go quickly as well. It will be amazing having him home and having a normal life after 7.5 months.

Now I am peeled to my computer watching Ironmanlive and following all my friends. What an exciting day for everyone. Good luck guys.

I am leaving with with my view most of the time lately - view from my office.

It's been some time

Well yet again I have failed to update this blog for some time. But forgive me, I think I may have an excuse (for some of it at least). So what has happened since the last time I wrote.

Most of August I was just excitedly waiting and counting down the days until Shaun came back home on a well deserved 2 weeks' R&R. As usual the time before he arrived felt like it really dragged on. But seeing him after 4.5 months of being apart was amazing. He looked tired, undernourished (he has lost a lot of weight) but happy to be back home. At least for a little while. In the typical fashion of Chandler household as soon as we got home from the airport we headed out together for a run. Needless to say our neighbours thought we were totally crazy but it was wonderful. It was just so lovely to run, chat and share that love for sports, as we normally do. We had lots of fun during those two weeks, seeing some friends, eating out and enjoying some lovely food or just watching DVDs at home. I also really needed a break from work as the last few weeks in the run up to Shaun's return work has been really busy. But the two weeks went really quickly and now I am sitting and waiting until his deployment is finished and he is back home in 5 weeks :))))

During those two weeks I was doing an ironman distance race on the border between England and Wales. I have to say that the swim venue was one of the most beautiful places I've ever swum in. The bike scenery was stunning. But I never got to see the run.... The bike course consisted of two loops and on the second loop I got sent the wrong way. I ended up in T2 after 90 miles rather than 112 and my race was over. Needless to say I was devastated. It wasn't so much about the ruined race rather than all the sacrifices we make along the way. All the early morning training, all the social events that I had to skip because I had to train. All the time that I could have spent with my friend and family. I do love training but if my race is going to be ruined I want it to be on my terms. Anyway, I am not going to dwell on it any more, I have put it behind me and I am now really looking forward to next season.

So I will leave you with couple of photos taken 2 weeks ago at a short trip away with friends in Bruges, Belgium.

Trailwalker photos

Here are some photos I've got from the last weekend's race.

Pre race posing:





Checkpoints stuff





Coming into the finish



Tearful



Done and looking like a mess. But happy.

Trailwalker 100 km

On Saturday we (being the all-girls team called Gurkha Girls) ran the 100 km race called the Trailwalker. The race took us along the trail called the South Downs from a a small town in Hampshire called Petersfield to outskirts of seaside city Brighton. The scenery surrounding this race was absolutely beautiful and there were many times when I slowed down and looked around thinking "This is so beautiful". The race is organised by Oxfam and the Gurkha Regiments (in which Shaun serves) with the aim to raise money for both Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust. The aim is to have a team of 4 who will start and finish the race together. Some teams just walk whilst the others are really competitive and run the whole way. This year there were around 320 teams taking part. Each team has a support vehicle which waits for its team at each of 10 checkpoints carrying team's food, spare clothes and anything else one might want.

Our team, the Gurkha Girls consisted of 3 wives and a fiance of Gurkha officers. Our support team consisted of Gurkha officers and soldiers who were not deployed to Afghanistan. And let me tell you we had THE BEST support crew anyone could want.
Our strategy was to walk the hills and run everything else. And we certainly stuck to that strategy. But don't think that the hills were easy. Some of them would send my heart rate into zone 5 just by walking up them. Some of them were brutal.

When the things got tough all we had to do is think of the hard jobs that our husbands do out in Afghanistan and that kept us going. We were doing well. When we started we said we would love sub-18 hour finish but would be happy with anything up to 20 hours. Half-way through the race we were on course for 15 hour finish. Our support crew and the volunteers at the checkpoints were impressed. They all expected us to be these housewives who would take 25-30 hours (30 hours is cut-off time) to finish. Noone expected us to go this quick. At about 70 km in a mixed team of two men and two women passed us and said "Are you the Gurkha Girls"? We said we were and they replied "We have heard about you at the checkpoints and have been trying to catch you for hours." That made us smile.

Because I had most experience in endurance racing I tried to keep the girls motivated, help, talk and do all the things I thought may be helpful. I have been told that apparently my favourite line is "It's not that bad". Apparently I would run up some inclines and the girls would be like "Technically, this is a hill. We should walk", to which my reply was "Come on, it's not that bad".

Just after 10 pm we were getting very close to the finish line. We could see the lights in the distance. We knew our support crew was there waiting for us. We crossed the finish line holding hands knowing that we have done it for Neil, Josh and Cpl Pun who lost their lives last week fighting for our country.

It took us 16 hours and 12 minutes to get to the finish line. We were 2nd female team and 24th team overall. Our support crew was thrilled. They have, by the time we saw them, already somehow sent the message to the guys in Afghanistan telling them how well we did. When we crossed the line and saw them they told us how much the guys in Afghanistan were proud of us. We burst into tears. What we did that day is nothing compared to what our husbands do every day. This was our way of saying thank you.

Heroes

I have been meaning to write this blog post for few days now and I had in my head a topic of writing about the ironman training and how great the rest week seems because the longest workout was 2 hours. But that just seems so trivial and irrelevant to me. On Tuesday life and the way I see life has changed forever.

On Tuesday we got news of three people from Shaun's unit being killed. Two officers and one soldier. I did not know the soldier but I did know the officers very well. I will not talk about how we found out and how we felt but what I will say is that in those moments the only people you actually want to spend time with are other spouses and girlfriends who are going through the same thing. Tuesday was hard. None of us have spoken to any of our other halves and I just felt helpless and numb. I didn't eat anything on Tuesday and could hardly sleep. Yesterday was not much better - I made it to work but I only stayed for couple of hours because all I did was staring at my computer screen doing absolutely nothing.

It is amazing how life changes in a second. You loose focus and nothing, apart from family and friends, seems important. Suddenly training and racing are totally irrelevant and reading blogs is the last thing on your mind. You start thinking how people are ignorant because they don't know what is going on. But it is no one's fault really and you can't blame anyone because why should people know any of that stuff. Why should they feel the way you feel? Until Tuesday morning I used to count the days until Shaun gets back home on R&R. I have stopped doing that. Now I just take each day as it comes.

I woke up this morning and thought that I would feel this day was a success if I stayed at work the whole day and not cry at all. It is mid-day and I am trying my hardest to make this a successful day. But I can't stop thinking about Josh and Neal and how young they were and how the whole life was still in front of them. We will miss you so much guys and the parties in the Officers' Mess will never be the same. We are so proud of you and everything you've done to keep us safe.

And even though you will be sorely missed you will never ever be forgotten. Jai 1RGR!!!

Ooops

Well few things have changed since the last time I wrote. The main thing is that I am not NOT doing IM Louisville. I thought about it for a very long time and i have decided to do a local ironman distance race here in the UK called The Big Woody . The reason behind it is that Shaun will be in the UK for two weeks during that time and I realised that he probably did not want to be dragged half-way across the world to Kentucky to watch me race. I thought he would rather just relax and do things the easy way. And he kind of agreed. Of course he would have come with me and all that, but those two weeks are not about me, they are about him. And I am fine with not doing Louisville and am actually really looking forward to doing a local race. It will be fun.

So I am still training for ironman and on Saturday I had a 100 mile ride on the plan. My legs were really not happy about it. The first 20-30 miles they did not want to play at all. I found myself thinking things like "Angelina, you are sooo stupid. Why are you doing this? Why? You are not doing an ironman next year. It is far too long". But then the legs decided to join the play ans they started feeling better and by mile 80-90 I was riding thinking which ironman I should do next year. Is it that easy to change your mind!? And so before you know it I am signed up for a great race next year - it will be their 10th anniversary and promises to be amazing.