My year in 25 numbers.. ughhhhughhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

4000 Riel to the Dollar
$2 the most Will expensive haircut
$60 the most Shiona expensive haircut
94 # of dogs we have befriended
32kg the amount of will left in Cambodia
1.5 $ the cost of our breakfast
17 amount of organisations we have helped
126 poeple that have attended our free business training
51 number of weeks that Shiona has threatened to chuck her laptop in the river
1 amount of beers I have drunk (may not be true)
6 # of flip flops stolen
4.1 km's I can now run without medical intervention
320 the amount our room cost per month
102 dives completed in a year
290 meals eaten out in the last year
0 the number of times I have washed up this year
4 number of accounting systems designed and implemented
36kg the weight of our life
70 the $ I earnt for one days work
15% tax I paid
2 number of dogs we have acquired
2 number of cars we already have
17 amount of visitors we have had in cambodia
4 countries we have visited in the last year
0 number of miles driven in last year

Johnny Drama ...

So the last week has been quiet on the running front. After being defeated, rather than get back on the horse I allowed everything to get in the way ...

Really it was a bit of cowardice ... but today bright and early I ventured back to the roller of doom to complete my task. Fuck was that hard ... I have to admit I walked an extra minute so technically I didnt complete it ... still I got to the end of the time... still very very broken.

The hard bit is the mental bit, I cant switch my brain off or refocus it. Loads floating around my head from inputting accounting journals through to what I am actually going to do in life.

In 8 days time our bubble will burst... this life I have created in the fantasy world of Cambodia will disappear and will be back

I wont lie and say I am looking forward to coming home .. .I am not. For lots and lots of reasons ... too varied and too numerous to mention. Yet I dont love Cambodia, I dont love this life ...it is the most frustrated I have ever been a country that doesnt want to change...

I was introduced to the concept of the Drama triangle a few years ago. it was one of those really simple concepts that honestly can apply in most situations

For anyone who doesn't know the triangle is made up of three elements.

The Victim feels pressured by the Persecutor and will tell everyone. normally this is the "not my fault syndrome". then to the rescue comes the Rescuer to help "save" the Victim.

This doesnt work because whilst the Rescuer wants to save the Victim, they dont actually want to be saved! Or as wonderful Wikipedia puts it the Victim is not really as helpless as he feels, the Rescuer is not really helping, and the Persecutor does not really have a valid complaint. [Details] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle…]

What was interesting is that the role can and will change, the reasons change but ultimately whilst anyone is part of the triangle you will not get a resolution or even be able to have a grown up conversation!

Today I have been a triangle all to myself ... persecuting, rescuing and complaining all to myself about myself. I have decided to stop and have a grown up conversation with myself ..

Living in a country full of Victims, Persecuted by the government and surrounded by lots of Rescuers it really hard.

No wonder normality well .. doesnt exist...

Giving up

Today I gave up.

I got to the gym, I started and from second one I knew it was going to be a bad one ... every second a minute, every minute a glacial ice age. I only had to run 7 minutes then walk 2 repeat 3 times ... I got to 15 minutes and pressed stopped.

I tried to get back on and restarted 4 times each time running under a minute before admitting defeat.

I slunk out of the gym like a naughty dog who has knocked over the bin, all the way home berating myself for being useless and not being able to manage much.

So angry that I couldn't do something so simple.

It felt like my body and my mind had a meeting that I wasnt invited to and agreed an action not to run today!

A sort of Me 1 vs Me 2 situation (for all you herring and snooker fans!)

But enough ..  yes I maybe like the numbskulls, but I can be harder on myself than anyone.
So time not to be to make sure that I take positive steps so I have decided to carry out a review and look at the learnings...

1) Take it easy chicken - in my haste to tell myself how useless I am, I forget that this morning I spent 4 hours building water filters in 40 degree heat. Sifting sand, mixing concrete and digging gravel isnt to be sniffed about at the best of times. In the heat it was doubly so. Oh and I walked 2 miles home. in the same heat. And then went to the dentist this afternoon, so mouth is very sore.

2) Push it - On top of this morning I have had a packed and mad weekend. Friday I went up Kbal Spean (2 miles in total), a hill with a temple on top, followed by a tour of a wildlife rescue center. Again out in 40 degree heat all day. Sat I did training for 50 people in the morning, work in the afternoon followed by concert in the evening. Sunday was the temples for sunrise, and walking around a lot. So pushing it

3) Sick and Tired  - I have also been ill over the weekend. Some weird virus that sucks all your energy and makes you feel like throwing up. Having visitors here has meant no rest, along with having to train and doing loads of work.

4)Tick tick boom - my brain is working overtime at the moment. In 2 weeks we step on a plane to come home. Before that we have a mountain of work to do and it is like herding cats. Things that should be in place arent, people are changing their mind and being reactive to events and fiances are quite frankly a mess. That on top of more people wanting to milk my knowledge and experience before I leave, plus having to hunt for jobs and think about what i want to do in the future means that my brain doesnt switch off at any point.  Really I should be coasting down and basically getting drunk! No hope of that, when I cant say no ..

5) Pressure Drop - Since I started this experiment into how to effectively torture myself for a prolonged period, everyone else has started to run. The Business & IT team have run 10k, Pat is running half marathon and a couple of other people are doing similar. Is it a case of new car syndrome - when you buy a certain car you suddenly you see them everywhere! This in turn has made me increase the pressure on myself, whereas before I may have relaxed, now I feel the need to succeed! NOW!

So do I give myself a break?

Me 1 can see why I didnt make it and should be proud I did so much, but Me 2 thinks it is all a lot of excuses ...

I am going to have to run, Me 1 is threatening to break Me 2's superman doll because he said he was girly, and Me 2 is about to punch Me 1 ...

Bonus points to me for using song titles from Cardigans, the Hives, Toots & Maytals Underworld and Mansun. 

Ouch ....

Running update!

So today I dragged myself to the gym. It is the first time I have seriously thought about chucking this stupid challenge in.

I think that it might .. .and only might... have had something to do with beers last night and a whole gross of food.

Inner fat will sat on his sofa shouting that "why bother... chips are for winners... running just hurts... chips feel nice ... we like nice .. .come take a seat".

Inner less wobbly will said "I concur.. chips are lovely ... with gravy". Inner drinking Will said"sod the hangover .. beer is 50 cents have another beer"

My inner me's have never been so united for a cause ... and who am I to deny them ... well i am new postive me:-)

So I slowly walked to the gym ... all the way to the running machine I was praying for a sinkhole to open to swallow the machine therefore the failure wouldnt be my fault ... if there was a God he should reveal himself now ...

But of course he decided not to.. .so onto the conveyor of misery I trundled ... my task to run / walk 2 miles.

So off I trot.. 1 minute.. .life sucks ... 2 minutes ..if I stop now I can lie .. .I have got an injury ... 2 10 minutes ... really only 10 seconds ... I wish life could be this slow a lot of the time .. 2 15.. Seriously  someone is messing with the time machine ... and then the music kicks in .. Stay Frosty provides a thumping baseline track and the minutes slip by.

My plan had been to do 5 minutes then walk .. soon I was flying past that point ... ohh 5 10 ... how did I get that far. So like the idiot boy I am I carried on .. .past 6, then 7, then 8, over 9 ... the mile marker was in sight ... so that became my goal...10 23 for my  mile and I almost collapsed!

Now dont get the idea this was a smooth machine pounding the treadmill ... elegant like a swan. No it is more like a sweaty hippo plooding drunkenly, spurred on to find a cool spot to bathe because like a fool he had eaten a chilli plant!

Somehow that hippo plodded on, now taking regular walking breaks, but crossed the 2 mile mark in just under 23 minutes.

I sit here 3 hours later a broken man ... the only thing holding me together is hope and sweat ... my body hasnt begun the process of forgetting the pain yet so I thought I would capture it.

Inner fat will has gone back to eating his chips ...

Depends

When we are young we know the answer to things.. .everything is black and white... 2 + 2 does actually equal four.

As the years pile on we slowly come to discover the answer is really Depends. So 2 + 2 depends on factors on whether you want to boost profits, minimize tax returns, hide your wealth from your divorcing wife or whether these are statistically significant numbers.

In the real world, this can be coped with because you have cultural touchstones, a moral base to make judgments and societies norms to help you with the Depends. Working here in Cambodia we don't have that pleasure.

The country has so many factors that come into play in every decision that sometimes it is better not to ask. Corruption places highly in that is pervades all parts of the countries life and every dealing with the government or official powers is rife with it.

Certainly Cambodia is not unique in the corruption that exists within society. In fact the UK has only recently had the MP's expenses issues, Jimmy Saville (how if the man on the street knew, did the police not do anything), media corruption and companies finding ways to minimize their tax bill.

In all of the cases Cambodia on the other hand is open and honest about the corruption. See these news stories for proof 

• Police fight battle of Bulge. More than 100 military police from a unit in Banteay Meanchey province were ordered to strip off their shirts on Tuesday, and take a walk of shame—in front of assembled cameras of the media
• Anti Election Trio charged with terror plot - Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court on Thursday charged three men with breaking the election law and participating in an anti-government movement after they were caught transporting T-shirts urging Cambodians to abstain from voting in the July 28 national election.
• Motorist to enjoy fine free roads ahead of election - Motorists will have an easier ride over the next few weeks, as traffic police in Phnom Penh have been ordered to focus on easing the flow of vehicles ahead of the July 28 election rather than fining drivers for traffic violations.

(Awesome, its like a world ruled by the Daily Mail ...)

This along with rigid structural hierarchy, a social pecking order, White is Right mentality and the open sexism that invades all of strata of life makes things erm .. interesting.

So to any to any question asked here we get a fabulous Cambodian Depends. It is a source of much much much frustration.

It greets you at every turn, answers every question and just when you think you have made it to 4, someone points out it is a public holiday and everyone is off for a week!

With the positive love I espoused before you would think that it would be easy to rise about it and enter a zen like state of happiness. Sadly the last 4 days has created the need to go an find a cave and carry out some primal screaming. Probably followed by some small banging head against the wall.

It has made me doubt my abilities, the fact of my existence and why don't I spend more time in bars!

At least a farmer knows that his crop is likely to grow, I am sowing madly and when I ask the gods if this will bear fruit ... guess the answer. .. 

And yet ....

When you get that Cambodian smile or someone is really truly pleased to see you (and therefore touches you a lot) it is easier to deal with the pain.

Yes I might be rubbish but it is sunny outside.
Yes I should spend more time in bars but then I wouldnt get to go to villages and see some amazing parts of the country.
My existence is a fact for now, and some point it will stop being a fact and there is (relatively) little I can do about.

It is like a puppy who knows that it has destroyed the last toilet roll in the house, chewed your favorite shoes and left you a present in your bed ...  you have to forgive...

So embrace the Depends, make it your friend and let it buy you a beer ...

Oh and the running is going well :-)
Mid way through the plan ... on target for first 5k in about 4 weeks.
Fingers crossed ...

Learning little by little

I was going to write this blog about Cambodia itself, what the country is like etc. But I will save that for another day

Run Fat Boy

So today I started week 4 of my programme. Its weird, 4 weeks ago I would have never of thought that I could do this, yet today I did run for 5 minutes, walk for 3 x 3. That plus warm up and cool down meant 30 minutes of running machine. A beast I used to be scared of .. lots.

I think now I know I can do 5 km without the need of defib or ambulances! Does it mean I can do 1/2 Marathon... well based on the fact I couldnt do this .. maybe.

Barefoot running shoes are still doing their job. For a chunky monkey I seem to be relatively ache and pain free.

Bonus of the week is that I bought the shoes in KL. Had them 4 weeks and the toe has come unglued on one side. They retail for 70 odd quid so bit annoyed. Emailed Merrell who have said they will give me 75 quid credit on their site for new shoes to be delivered anywhere in UK.

So massive double wattsy special thumbs up to them.

Non running bit

One of the things i have learnt /still trying to learn this year is about being positive. Here is Cambodia most people are positive mainly because they let things go.Stuff that stresses westerns for them is not an issue...in fact most things arent an issue.

Yes it is bloody annoying but like everything in life it has a grain of truth...

Why do we get angry? To try and control those things we cant. If we cant control them, then why worry?

Sounds simple. But hard in practice. The beauty of being here is that I get the time to think about things like this. If I get angry I can step back, review situation and adjust my attitude. Positive re framing, what are the good things??? God I sound like a Hippy!

It works. I am less stressed because of it. Not perfect and something Iwill try to do more and more but helps.

If you read the last entry you will see the type of work I do. The reality is that I see no immediate output from it, in fact often it looks and feels like I am chucking my energy and ideas into a black hole!

At this point I rely on the Wisdom of Steveo Varminater who said that as lecturers "all we do is sow seed, sometimes they sprout other times they dont, some are instant growers, some take years" and that is what we are doing here. Ask me to list my achievements and it runs to two pages, yet not much of it is visible and hence can feel very disheartening.

Stamping your feet, banging your head against the wall and shouting do nothing. So why do it.

So why talk about this rubbish? It isnt different to real life ... No but i guess for me I have started to try and work on it. Work on me ... I am scared that in the UK we are too negative too quickly. .. reading the papers from a distance it certainly seems that way. Facebook is a useful tool but people are quick to be keyboard warriors and tell everyone what to do with their lives.

Reframing it positively, I have deleted some people, blocked others, lefts some FB groups and stopped replying to negative emails.... I feel better already!

What is really nice is to see people making active positive changes to their lives and loving it ...they know who they are....  being miserable is much harder than letting go and being happier!

Again not funny or ranty but there you are ... sorry :-P

Holiday in Cambodia

This isnt just about anger or running, this blog is to document the last days I am spending in Cambodia so that when I lose my faculties I can remember how it felt.

So many people dont quite understand what we do here. Which is fair enough because sometimes I don't. To help I thought that I might outline a day in the life here. Bear in mind we pretty much work 7 days a week, never really switching off, mostly for $0. Strangely the $0 seems to make us work harder.

I wont mention organisation names so that I can be a bit more open about what we work on.

So day starts at 6 15 when alarm goes off. I would love to regale you with stories of me leaping out of bed welcoming the new day with the enthusiasm of a puppy with a new bone, but actually it involved a lot of muttering and some quick finding of the snooze button!

Finally get up at 6 30 and pack for the day. Straight to the gym (lesson learnt - don't think otherwise your brain will find reasons not to) and by 7 am I am sweating like Pavarotti in a sauna. Outside the temp is 34 degrees, but luckily for us the air con is on so temp is down to a cool 28!

Manage to spend an hour doing the run (run 3 minutes, walk 3 minutes x 4, plus warm up and cool down) and the weights and finally stretching.

Come 8 15 I am knackered and hungry. Grab a pineapple juice and make my way to first appointment of the day (whilst Shiona retires to a cafe where they are giving out free cakes for the day!). After walking about 2 miles I get to the office and straight to work.

I am currently helping them with their IT (Google drives, fixing issues, websites and any other niggles), their policies (finance and IT policies)  with a side dose of looking at the financial reporting requirement. 2 hours later and I walk the 2 miles back into town and meet Shiona.

Back for lunch (a bowl of cereal) before off a tuktuk ride out to another organisation.

Here I am working on website, team management coaching and also executive coaching. That sounds really posh but its basically working with the current country director to help him plan and focus on the strategic aspects of the organsiation, rather than him changing lightbulbs!

It is easy to forget that without the privilege of good basic education, building higher management tasks and functions is very difficult. We take for granted how we are taught and allowed to think in the UK. Here they learn by rote and individual thinking is discouraged. So you end up with people highly qualified but need help to develop the skills of application.

Finished at 3 30 and back to hotel. Watch rubbish TV for an hour, then go for dinner. Back from dinner around 6 then straight back on with work.

Answer some emails about the free training I am running (and have yet to write!), send some following up work from today and then get stuck into working on the accounts of another organisation.

Now 11 30 and have time to write this. Then will close the computer down and tomorrow it will all start again.

There are lots of interesting things to discuss and highlight including the differences in working practices, attitudes etc that go hand in hand. But they are for another day.

So not very funny, sweary or ranty today but an honest overview of what we actually do in Cambodia.

Does it help? Who knows.
Will it carry on when we leave? Who knows.
We can only try to help those that need help now using the knowledge and skills we have.
All I do know is that we have met people who have enhanced our lives and we hope that we offer that to some people we meet.

Observation of the day...
Walking / driving through Siem Reap watching the world go by is greatly enhanced by mid 90's Britpop. It was almost that Shed 7 was writing for those water buffalos.

The beginning

Well why am I doing this ... fuck knows....

But thought that a fat boy learning to run whilst leaving a developing country might be of interest to me ...if not maybe one or two erm specialist people.


Day one of blog. .. started on a downer, hating the world I live in and the people that populate it.

But before that the title of this comes from the fact that I have decided that I need to do something else ... that is learn to run. I have spent 35 years avoiding running but based on a random book and the sense of why not, a pair of trainers I have made that decision.

Hopefully ( and I hate saying this out loud) I will have run a half marathon before the end of the year. And run it under 4 hours ... right it is out there. I cant take it back.

In the beginning there was the word and the word said

Born

Then the rest of the words said 

to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Seriously read it.

So thus it was and thus it will ever be.. 

Sadly it caught me at a weak point. And I decided rashly to google barefoot running and then half marathon plans, which lead to 5km plans including couch to 5km from Bupa. Words are easy ... doing is fucking hard. 

So wandering through KL shopping we find a store selling barefoot shoes cheap. Hmmmm is it meant to be. 

My inner thin goddess was screaming YES FAT BOY OF COURSE .. inner fat boy said BURGERKING. 

Luckily at that time number one won .... followed by a burgerking (I am nothing if not fair) 

Fast forward to Thailand and working at Soi Dog meant that we were walking 9 km a day, in 35 degree heat. Hard work, knackering but with the biggest smiles.

One night, following a massively stressful and angry night of not sleeping I decided to make a change. At 5 am I woke Shiona and asked if she would like to go for a walk. At sunrise we walked along the beach and I (stupidly) outlined my plan to learn to run and do this half marathon. The words said I could and therefore I could. 

So cue getting up at 6 am and doing a mornings run before showering and changing and going to walk the dogs. Fuck it was easy. Yes really easy. For the first week I changed my goal from half a marathon to a full triathlon. Man if running was this easy, I think I should be doing it properly. 

Week 2 - Bugger ... was there a quarter marathon .. fuck it hurt. 

So Thailand done we came back to Siem reap and carried on. Now at 3 weeks in I can run mile (almost with a bit of walking) in 10 40 and can solid work out for over 35 minutes. 

5 weeks to go before I can do 5km. Target is under 45 minutes....

Angry part now... skip if of sensitive disposition ... 

Todays anger has nothing to do with running but much to do with fucking do gooders damaging the world. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but when it is the only opinion and no one else's counts then that is wrong. 

When you talk about the decline of morality in a country, what is your measure. Why can you fix this? Fuck off. 

When you give things to people you create a dependency that you will regret. Just because you  have money doesn't mean you are right. 

Sadly and I say this with a heavy heart often that all comes from those believing to come on behalf of a god. 90% of people who follow a faith are pretty sound, 5% blow themselves up or fight, 5% have to convert others. 

This country has the latter 5%. Perhaps follow your own teachings, open your mind, read some history and remember to walk a mile in someone else's  shoes first before you judge.