William Chong

I’ll let you in on a secret on what happens when you run for ages.

Generally when you’ve been running for over an hour, your sweat becomes progressively more and more salty (as a result of your ongoing dehydration). It’s a weird sensation when you lick your lips and it’s intensely salty – it’s the same sort of taste as coming out of a swim at the beach. And by the time you run for over 2 hours, you have gained a top-to-toe coating of this incredibly fine, human-produced salt. It’s weird to say, but it’s almost an affirmation of how hard you have been working during that run. Human-powered salt factory. It’s probably not suitable for seasoning though: I think I’ll stick to my table salt!

One of the best things about running as a sport is that it’s doable in any environment. Whether you’re a suburban mom or an inner-city slicker, whether you live in the middle of the desert or the Alaskan tundra, I’d say it’s nearly always possible to find somewhere to run, and some sights to see.

So I brought my running shoes with me on holiday in the Gold Coast, and got a pedestrian’s-eye-view from Main Beach and Seaworld all the way down to Broadbeach. It was a bonus that the course was pretty much flat and well-marked throughout. The views of golden beaches juxtaposed with neck-craning skyscrapers is unlike any other place I’ve seen.

Some pictures from running in the Gold Coast:

Surfer’s Paradise.

Cavill Street Parade and Surfers Paradise Boulevard.

High rises. Beautiful.

Bridge across a canal at Surfer’s.

“When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” – Eric Liddell, Olympic gold medallist

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If you haven’t donated yet, please consider visiting my fundraising website and having a look! We’re super fortunate to be living in good homes and Habitat for Humanity do a much-needed work in New Zealand.

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Well we’re back in cold and wintry Auckland – it’s good to be home! You can only spend so much time in the Gold Coast before your money starts to run out…

Over the course of the week we picked up a few insider tips on getting around the place:

• It may be tempting, but don’t use the Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle. It costs an exorbitant amount (e.g. $91 for a 5-day pass) for bus travel that’s on par with the local bus service. Travelling like a local will save you lots: the TX1, TX2 and TX5 routes run to the Theme Parks while route 745 and 750 go past Pacific Fair shopping centre and Jupiters Casino. We went for the fare-by-fare option and only spent about $30-40 each.
• The Gold Coast during the winter actually turned out pretty good. July is usually the driest time of the year, and while it can get chilly at night, you’ll generally get 19-25 degree warmth during the day.
• We booked accommodation using our Entertainment Book and got an 11th floor, 2-bedroom apartment with ocean views at half price. Truly amazing. If you want a place to stay that’s within walking distance to Surfer’s Paradise, we stayed at Surfers Beachside Holiday Apartments and thoroughly enjoyed it. Fully furnished, kitchen, laundry, and if you book early you have a good chance of getting fantastic views of the beach.
• The Entertainment Book’s pretty useful for theme park tickets too. You get a 15% discount, and you can use your NZ card at the ticket office on the day. Don’t buy your tickets too far in advance though, as you never know what the weather will be like on the day. Some rides do get closed during inclement weather.
• When at the theme parks, we made a beeline to the best rides first. Queues built up during the day no matter what the attraction. On the day we went to Movieworld, our first ride was the Superman Escape and had a relatively short queue upon entry. Our choice proved astute as after we came off the ride (all adrenalined up), it was closed for most of the day for maintenance.
• For another type of surfing at Surfer’s Paradise, bring your laptop or iPhone/iPod and you can access free wireless internet at McDonald’s on Cavill Ave.

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Waiting in line at Movieworld, and we’ve just done the Superman Escape. Undoubtedly the best ride we have been on! And pretty fickle too – the ride closed after about an hour into the day to deal with “electrical faults”.

Some photos:

The sunrise.

The Tower of Terror sets off at Dreamworld.

The best ride ever! Superman Escape, 0-100 km/h in 2 seconds. Now that’s fast.

Moreton Bay Bug – it’s pretty tasty, and looks like a crayfish with no legs.

Other highlights from our theme park triapsing:

• After getting back from Dreamworld last night, we promptly went to Timezone for a night of arcades. For 12 hours we were just like kids at the sweet shop: going all out on laserstrike, unlimited arcade games, winning prizes, intense roller coasters, and more!
• The “I’m going to camp and I’m bringing…” game is equally useful when waiting in long ride queues.
• Some unforeseen health issues from the trip included hoarse voices (from screaming too much), sore quads (from squatting around during laser strike), and sore feet from walking and queuing for hours
• Waiting in line for an hour to ride the Lethal Weapon is a great practical test of whether you have the fruit of the Spirit (in the form of patience…)

We’re off to have some dinner, and putting photos on Facebook soon. Do wrap up warm everyone!

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Blogging this from the back of the bus headed to Dreamworld.

We’ve so far had a grand time here on holiday in the Gold Coast, Australia. We landed on Sunday morning and explored Surfers Paradise for the day. Some photos and comments below:

We booked a 2-bedroom apartment at Surfer’s Beachside Holiday Apartments, and upon entering the room and seeing the spacious rooms and pristine ocean view, jumped around and screamed excitedly for about five minutes!

Going for a run up and down the main beach is a great way to explore and savour the sights: I got street-level views of Surfers, Main Beach, the Gold Coast marina and Broadbeach over a 16 km run.

We caught up with our maternal granduncle, who promptly took us to Ashmore Rd Steak and Seafood for a crazily filling meal/banquet. The cows in Australia must be bigger because we got ourselves huge steaks!

We followed them to meet our aunt-once-removed, whose husband whisked us on a thrilling night cruise of the Gold Coast Waterway on his luxury yacht. Following that, Rick took us around the Marina Mirage and treated us to some chocolate treats. A testament to generous and hospitable relatives.

And that was just the first day!

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It’s been two years since I bought my first pair of running shoes. My red and black Nikes faithfully withstood the many runs I pounded out in preparation for my halfmarathon last year.

So I recently updated my running shoes to the new Lunarlite+ trainers.

What are they like? Well, after running with these flourescent-looking pair for the past two weeks, I can say that they’re pretty good. These shoes sport a type of memory foam that both moulds to your foot pressure patterns and provides the cushioning during foot impact.  It definitely had more cushioning than my old pair of shoes. The foam thing has also largely superseded the idea of having air inside your shoes (that was so 90’s…) – if you’ve ever owned one of those, you’ve probably found the “air” compartment becoming less and less filled with air.

The Lunarlite+ shoes also don’t pad up around your ankles at all – I found that this gave my running a freer feel. Of course your ankles definitely get more sore initially as your feet grow accustomed to the shoe, so it’s probably best to wear them in gradually.

All in all, it’s a pretty decent shoe – it fits snug around my feet and I’m enjoying running on them.

N.B.: The runs have been going good so far – I’m about three weeks into my training programme, and the  great thing is that the days will soon get longer again. So there’ll hopefully be fewer 5 am runs!

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Thanks Kelvin! Thanks Amy! Thanks Lauren!

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It’s been pretty mad at work for the last wee while, so I was glad to take some time out and visit the hairdresser for a bit of hair modifying.

So now I find myself sitting in a chair with a showercap on my head, and a weird hairheating contraption that attempts to placate your protests of “hey my head is kinda getting hot” with nursery rhymes. Yes, those soft music-box melodies you hear in horror movie scenes showing the innocent child, playing in their room prior to some gruesome death.

I’ll put up a photo of the end result. But this tinkly music is gently putting me to sleep…

Anyways, just to let you guys know I’m off on holiday next week: me and my bros and sis are off to be tourists in the gold, Gold Coast. I’m sure we’ll survive the deadly swine flu pandemic that’s decimated the swine population around the world. That’s right, more pigs have been killed due to swine flu compared to humans.

Alright, enough rambling. Take care everyone!

UPDATE 4/7/09: The head-warming machine. Could be a low-grade torture device if you asked me.