Tag Archives: summer

Touch down Australia, “summer holidays” begin – Aug 2017

3 Replies

It’s 4 in the morning, I’m wide awake, and my body feels like it should be eating dinner.
Dubai right now is 37 degrees at 10pm. Outside here in Launceston is 1.
My summer holiday has again become a freezing one.

It was quite a day of flying. In summary, my plane took off from DXB at 10:41am. With a short stop to change planes in MEL, I arrived and reunited with my family at Launceston airport 10:08am the next day.

I already got into the Aussie mood in Dubai. The family behind me at the boarding gate were speaking in Greek. I like the sound of the language. Then occasionally they would switch to a thick, regional Australian accent when they were cursing so impressively. I guess Greek has no equivalent to “flamin‘”

As I boarded, Bob Marley & The Wailers were singing “Don’t worry, ’bout a thing … Cause ev’ry little thing, is going to be all-right.” Not just a cool song, perhaps a great ploy to calm the nervous traveler?

I had the window seat, a vacant spot next to me, then one neighbour on the aisle. It was a lovely, old British lady. She looked like a small, female version of Tim Cook. We exchanged pleasantries. Soon after she took off her shoes, and asked if it’s ok to store them in the seat pocket between us. I said it’s fine. A little while later, she put her feet up on the seat next to me, after asking if it was fine. I figured it wouldn’t be long before I’d be asked to give her a foot massage. It didn’t come to that. She was actually lovely company, even helping me finish my large bag of cashews before Australian Customs.

I watched three movies, which is my standard for this leg. 

  • I watched Fate of the Furious – #8 in the franchise. It’s a lot of fun, and must be the best movie written by a 10 year old boy. 
  • Then I watched Ghost In The Shell. It’s hard to go past an action flick with a near-naked Scarlett Johansson. The movie is quite amazing. It’s the movie you’d expect if The Matrix and Total Recall had a baby. 
  • And the pick of the bunch was Off The Rails. It’s a documentary about Darius McCollum. Darius had issues growing up, and has Asperger’s syndrome, which resulted in his unhealthy love of the New York transit system. He continuously, quite innocently, takes control of trains and buses and impersonates employees. It has landed him in jail 32 times and for more than half of his adult life. His problem is exacerbated by a justice problem which continually proves unable to help. I watched it 1.5 times.

And now the two week whirlwind whistle-stop tour begins. It’s good to be home.

2016 goals smashed – just. Kind of.

1 Reply

In 2016 I again tried to make continual progress over 12 months in a couple of personal areas I find important:

  • Running 1200kms, and
  • Reading 12 books.

Both of these numbers neatly ensure each and every month I keep running and reading. Or, so I hoped.

In reality, it’s never that simple for me.

My 2015 goals became a real challenge when the priority shifted from running to looking for new job opportunities.
And this past year, after beginning a new role opening an ambitious new attraction I struggled to find the time & head-space to read for pleasure.

Unable to find time is such a cop out. The obvious truth is, if you find something important enough, you make time. But we’ll get to that shortly ..

 

Run 1200 kilometres in a calendar year (supposedly 100km per month)

As it turned out, my running goal was quite straight-forward to complete this year.

In fact, I ran 1374km in all (exceeding even the cliched 110% effort).  This was mostly on account of running a second marathon in the year during my Australian holiday. It really wasn’t planned like this.
My parents coincidentally booked my boys and I into a wonderful resort on the Gold Coast on the same weekend in July as Australia’s premier road race, the Gold Coast Marathon. The marathon course passed two streets away from where we were staying on Surfer’s Paradise. And it happened to be where I ran my first marathon back in 2007. So I saw no alternative but crank up the training in the month before we left Dubai, and run the popular event.

It really boosted my kilometres. Usually my running tally flattens right out in July during Dubai’s summer.

 

Read 12 books in a calendar year (supposedly 1 book per month)

My reading goal on the other hand, it really came down to the wire.

I made almost no progress in the first half of the year. A couple of times I wasn’t sure I’d make it. November became such a stressful ascent, and December’s four books seemed almost insurmountable.

But I kept reading when I could, especially on my commute to and from work.

Right until the final afternoon of 31st of December, I was literally reading while running .. well, listening to an audio book on my final long runs.

Then after my exhausted return from 32.5kms I had to finish reading a final 40-50 pages.   But I managed.  I completed the final 12th book and my reading challenge.

S-U-C-C-E-S-S

It’s a good feeling to again complete these two resolutions, particularly after it seemed that one goal became near impossible.

Maybe it’s a strength to adapt to life and fit in such a variety of things, not focusing on a singular goal.

Perhaps my subconscious enjoys the drama of bringing things back from the seemingly impossible.

If so, perhaps I’d like to retire this part of my subconscious in 2017.

Making some regular progress each and every week would be wonderful to avoid getting into stressful situations with little time remaining.

Let’s see what 2017 brings.

But there was actually something I didn’t complete this year as planned ..

 

Publish 12 blogs in a calendar year (supposedly 1 blog per month)

When I renewed my 1200kms and 12 books challenges, I also thought to myself that I’d like to blog 12 times.  Again, at the start of the year this is a number which seems so easy.

In January an obvious blog for me is to write about the Dubai Marathon that I tend to run. And it seemed like a particularly good story this year as I had trained hard, and even employed a new training regime with an expert online coach. What an uplifting blog to write, in my 9th year of running to return to my best form. Though for a couple of reasons, I didn’t finish close to my goal time and I felt quite disappointed for many weeks.

I thought I’d get over it, and still share my thoughts from the day.  But this disappointing blot kept me from writing for a month. And it kept me from writing in the month after that when we had a nice trip to Ras Al Khaimer, a repeat of the trip we take each year – which I wrote about in 2015 (“Another RAK half weekend – 13-14 February 2015”).

Even in July when I holidayed in Australia I didn’t document my usual notes from our adventures. The fact that I had a resolution to write 12, demotivated me to recover the blog situation. I wasn’t getting back onto the horse.

Finally in December, I enjoyed the Striders half marathon too much and had to pen a few notes from the event, (“Yet another Striders half – 09 Dec 2016”).  And perhaps it was decidedly restarting the practice for the fresh running season and the coming year.

So the final score card has just one blog out of 12, for the 12 months.

Interestingly, when I was reflecting on my 2016 goals and I remembered the blog idea, it almost didn’t seem like a resolution. I gave up on it so early and so easily, I suppose wasn’t really serious about this one this past year.

2017?

I’ll take off the pressure for 2017, and blog as much as I feel – with no reference to any arbitrary numbers.

But I’ll definitely read 12 books & run 1200kms.
I’ve got two years experience that no matter how challenging it seems they are to achieve, I always have them COMPLETELY under control.

*Sigh*

When the going gets hot, the hot go to #Dubai Sports World

Leave a reply

The Summer heat in Dubai was making my weekly tennis matches a game more of perseverance, attrition, and stupidity than fun or skill.

Rather than migrate to the air-conditioned squash court, a friend found a good tennis deal going at Dubai Sports World.  To be clear, it is on planet Earth between June 21 and August 21, in a large hall of the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre. It’s where they bring outdoor sporting activities indoors into the luxury of enjoyable temperatures – thanks to our good friend, air-conditioning.

This massive arena offers a wealth of sporting facilities for all ages, including academies and tournaments.

– Dubai Calendar, http://www.dubaicalendar.ae/en/event/events/
dubai-sports-world-2013.html (accessed 18 July 2013)

I was aware of the place through my running club using the facilities from last year.  Though, like a naughty student cutting class, I never attended.  Coincidentally, on Tuesday evening this week when I went as part of a tennis foursome, the Striders happened to be doing their speed session. A few seemed to have a gaze of “Hey, isn’t that that guy, what’shisname?” Or it could have been my imagination.

As I walked into Dubai Sports World, I was very impressed that such a massive, fun-filled facility exists. In Dubai’s regular July-August climate of  35+ degrees outside, it’s crucial to have something like this available.  And it was encouraging to see how many people made use of it, rather than doing nothing with the excuse it’s just too hot.

DSW supports a large variety of sports and wellness activities. From what I couldn’t help but see, there was a preference for activities popular with very fit and attractive females.

At our regular tennis game, we’d see no one – except maybe an occasional compound kid wanting to play with one of our tennis balls.  Here, under one big roof, there were complete tribes of active Dubai residents everywhere doing their thang.

Actually, for the four of us, it became a little distracting.  In fact, with our wives away for the standard Summer break, we may be more comfortable telling our wives that we’ve been drinking all night at various seedy bars rather than share the actual jewel of a venue we’ve discovered and enjoyed.

See you next week!

Weathering Dubai

Leave a reply

The end of Summer is impending, and we’re already starting to get a sense of the beautiful weather in store. I could translate this for someone not living in Dubai as, the heat is no longer so much that you’ll die quickly outside of air conditioning.

I think it’s interesting how everyone’s expectations are such a lowest common denominator. Conditions don’t need to be very special to seem “beautiful” after surviving a seasonal onslaught of >40 degrees centigrade combined with >60% humidity. (I won’t mention the temperature exceeding 50, cause it never happens. Some believe this is due to people being allowed to take days off whenever it officially hits this mark, so it’s just never published.)

We must take clues from other areas to confirm that the weather really is beautiful. From my running club’s perspective weather is turning beautiful because most of us can now run more than 16kms without our socks becoming too wet with sweat to proceed – the dreaded “squelch” as our running patriarch Murph describes it. I suppose it’s unsurprising I’ve yet to hear a single weather forecast on TV use such descriptions.

Another positive sign of better days ahead is the number of people beginning to go to the beaches again. Or go camping. Or even to sit outside at restaurants or pubs again. It’s amazing that some of our regular spots can survive the hiatus. These venues are doing almost the equivalent of a bear’s hibernation from July to September. Not only is the heat the concern then, it’s also Ramadan and school holiday time – so it’s very bare in the country anyway, with everybody returning to their homelands. In an Australian’s case, returning to THEIR country’s worst weather.

Anyway, let’s enjoy the beautiful weather (“let’s enjoy doing what is considered normal in every other country again”).

In the Summertime

Leave a reply

Now that the temperatures are becoming more reasonable, it’s sparked me to reflect and share some thoughts on Dubai’s infamous Summer.

When you first arrive here everybody warns you about what Summer will bring. Some times when you meet someone it’s their opening sentence. I received so many warnings last year I was really quite concerned. Thankfully we had one of the mildest Summers on record. In fact, during the week I arrived it snowed in Ras Al Khaimah. Ordinarily it’s much hotter though.
During Dubai’s Summer months there is always a massive outflux of expats. Even many of the locals tend to holiday outside of the UAE during this time. Each year the summer period more or less lines up with Ramadan, so if people aren’t celebrating the holy month with Hajj, it’s safe to say they’re searching out more friendly climates than Dubai.

I should quantify this, the average minimum temperature during the hottest month of August is more than 30 degrees. All in all, it means that work is always terribly quiet. Although some people do strategically stay to get a lot of quiet work done through with fewer distractions around.

Despite the heat of the day reaching maybe 40-45 degrees, you still see people playing cricket on the weekends. Cricket must be an Indian’s most popular activity next to breathing. They generally don’t play during the hottest part of the day. However the timing doesn’t make much of a difference. Some nights the temperature does not fall below 38 degrees. I trained for the Berlin Marathon during our Summer period where I’d leave my run as late into the night as possible, but it was still tough.

The parks around the city are totally abandoned. In fact, I think it’s free entry during these months as there is no one to pay fees anyway. Water parks are popular places, but to be honest the Dubai summer is often too hot even for this – as you find yourself more often out of the water than in it. It’s certainly too hot to enjoy the beach – unless you’re like me and enjoy a really, really warm bath and don’t mind the salt. The doctors at our clinic warned us to avoid the beach in summer anyway. Apparently the bacteria love the warmer waters, and in the heat there’s nothing really to stop them. The place that is most busy from July through to September are the very air conditioned malls. We did go there a few times, however it’s one activity none of us really enjoy. Especially when there’s no real purpose except avoiding the heat.

We made the mistake of taking our kids to Modhesh World. It’s a temporary amusement park focused around Modhesh – a kid’s character who is based on the Sun whose names translates into amazing in Arabic. While my kids, and a friend of theirs, all had fun, it was terribly expensive considering it was just a few amusement rides, games and some pretty depressed farm animals. Much like any other exhibition I guess. In fact we likened the place to our own Ekka in Brisbane, except the all the “carnies” have Blackberrys! It’s a true sign of the wealth of the region. Another distinction with our Ekka is here is probably be 3-4 times more expensive. I was one of the people in Australia who’d complain about the rising costs of going to such places. Not any more.