Gresham Family Exodus

Originally posted on February 7, 2015, by cruisingrunner

I love competition, and that love has always partly manifested itself in a love for sport. Seriously, I used to be a huge sports fan. Especially baseball (Go Dodgers!) but also American football and, more recently, ice hockey. Inevitably, though, my interest started waning in the months after leaving home, mostly because of lack of access. Life without TV and internet makes it hard even to follow standings let alone watch any games. So, I moved on. My interests shifted to other things out of necessity.

Last year we watched the NFC Championship when we were in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, mostly because we had family in town and their team was in the game. But we skipped the Superbowl without even thinking about it. And then we watched some of the Stanley Cup finals in Moorea, mostly because The Kings were in it and Andrew, our older son, was visiting. That’s about the extent of our sports viewing in the two years since we left home. Until last Monday. Superbowl Monday. Since we are in New Zealand and on the other side of the date line, the Superbowl was on a Monday. And clearly there wasn’t all the hype here like there would be at home, but there was a tavern that would be showing the game, and a few of our American friends were planning to go. When I heard about it, I was disinterested. “Who’s even in the game?” I had to ask. Maybe I would drop Tim off if he wanted to go, but I couldn’t see wasting a whole afternoon on something I was totally unplugged from now.

But on the day of the game, we were in Paihia taking passport photos to send to immigration to extend our visitor visas. The tavern was on the way back, and it was lunch time after all, so we figured we’d stop and eat, watch a little of the game, socialize with all of the Americans, and then bail. That’s not how it happened.

I LOVED watching the game. I didn’t care who won, but it was a great contest with lots of momentum shifts and spectacular plays. I couldn’t pull myself away. It was so much fun. We stayed for the whole game.

Afterwards I started thinking about how I had never realized how much I missed watching sports. Yes, my interests shifted out of necessity, but I never felt any inkling of regret. In fact, I never really even acknowledged to anyone, including myself, that there was something I had given up. It was like the interest just naturally slipped away. And this phenomenon applied to more than just sports. Which is a good thing, because if I had dwelt on everything I was giving up when we left home, I would probably have missed out on everything we were gaining.

Originally posted on February 3, 2015, by cruisingrunner

When I run, I carry one of those contoured water bottles with a neoprene handle that theoretically fits comfortably in your hand. It holds about a 1/2 liter of water, which can generally get me through a 5-8 km run quite easily. Well, here in New Zealand, that is. Back in Mexico, I can remember doing some beach runs where my goal was stop at 5 km or when I ran out of water, whichever happened first, and I almost always ran out of water first. Sometimes I barely made it a mile. Anyway, here in New Zealand where the summertime weather is much more mild, I’ve been gradually increasing my mileage. The other day I headed out with my trusty little water bottle with the intent of going 12 km (~7.5 miles). It wasn’t especially warm, but it was especially humid, and I went into water conservation mode at about 5 km (meaning I didn’t just chug whenever I felt like it), and I totally ran out of water at about 9 km. I run-walked the last 2k and was never at any risk of dehydration or anything, but as I made my way from the end of my run to the marina showers, the significance of this event occurred to me. I am now back into “long run” territory, the boundary between “regular” run and “long” run being defined by the necessity of donning the camel back instead of the water bottle. I’ve been using the camel back for long hikes, but now it’s time to break it out for my runs. I love the camel back. It’s comfortable and has convenient pockets for snacks and a cell phone and it has gotten me through many memorable half marathons and one full marathon. Maybe with the camel back my next 12 km run can actually be a full 12 km.

Originally posted on January 31, 2015, by cruisingrunner

New Zealand has been good for me. I have reached a running plateau of 8-10k, so as much as I hate to admit it, it’s time to add speed-work back in. I despise speed work while in the act, but I always love the strength and speed I get from doing it. Every time, I mean every time I have PR’d in a road race it’s been after extensive interval training on a track. The interval distance I would choose seemed to make less of a difference than the fact that I was doing it at all. So, yesterday I pumped myself up and headed out behind the Opua boatyard to the cycle track and did 5k of the following intervals:

1 x 0.2k sprint
1 x 0.1k walk
1 x 0.2k jog

Felt good. Today will be a “long run” if/when it stops raining.

Originally posted on January 28, 2015, by cruisingrunner

Tonight we are anchored in the picturesque harbor of Whangaroa. We had a normal school day and then hiked up to a peak which gave us a spectacular 360 degree view of the harbor and the surrounding countryside. We barbecued chicken and sausages for dinner, but if that’s surprising given the fact that we ALWAYS have some sort of tasty, fresh caught seafood on board, just know that we also prepared some yellowtail kingfish poke to marinate in the fridge for lunch tomorrow afternoon. After dinner, the boys started their nightly dishes ritual, which starts with heating up some water on the stove and rinsing off the dishes in the sea water from the back swim steps. (Lady Carolina boys, Kyle and Joel, oh how they miss you guys!) As I was sitting in the cockpit enjoying a glass of wine while this was going on I heard Brenden exclaim, “Oh no!” When I asked him what was wrong, assuming perhaps a dish or utensil was dropped overboard while getting rinsed, he responded with, “…the little fishy almost swam into the tentacles of the jellyfish!” I responded, “Wow, that’s quite a show you’re watching there.” He said, “Yeah, I can’t really see them anymore…”

A few moments went by with all of this seeming perfectly normal until I had a total internal freak out moment. Holy @#$! My son is watching sea life drama unfold while he’s doing dishes, and this is all totally, perfectly normal. This was sort of an extension of a mini-internal freak out moment I had the other day when a fellow cruising mom made the comment to me about her family being a bit boring. The cruising life becomes so normal to us sometimes we forget how different our lives really are from the mainstream. Boring!?!? Not a chance.

Now that we are over the halfway mark of our journey I sometimes wonder about the reintegration process. Have we been gone so long that the connections I had to people back home might be strained? Can we even understand each other anymore? I worry and wonder.

-D.