Leading up to this 5k, I wasn't feeling very confident. I took a week off after the Orca Half, and the two 3-milers I ran the week after were both very difficult and slow. I went back to the gym after five weeks off and had some major DOMS, especially in my inner thighs. Damn squats.
But this would be my second year running the Kraken 5k and I didn't want to skip it. After all, I'd been organizing it at work among our run club—I had to show up!
It took me a week to come to terms with how this race went, and to be completely honest, I'm probably still not over it. I'm struggling to let go of what I know could have been in the face of how it actually went.
Last year, Matt qualified for the World Sprint Championships for paddle racing. The event is sort of the Olympics of outrigger canoeing, and Matt was competing in a few different events. That meant he'd be at the race site for two weeks, and because he'd be spending so much of his time racing, we figured I should join him toward the end of the event but not attend the entire thing. Then, Matt raised the idea of going to a second location after the championships ended, since he'd have already spent two weeks at the race location and didn't really want to spend that much more time there. We began planning a trip unlike any we've ever taken.
Because this race, unlike most of Matt's races, wasn't in the PNW, or Tennessee, or even our old stomping grounds in Florida. The World Championships were being held in Singapore.
We've never been to SE Asia (or anywhere in Asia, period). The last time I took an international flight was over ten years ago and it was completely planned and organized by Birthright. For Matt, it's been even longer—he hasn't been properly abroad since 2007, when we studied in Edinburgh.
Figuring out the logistics of his two-week stay in Singapore and where we wanted to go afterward was a long and complicated endeavor, but eventually we decided on Bali and got all our plans squared away. With the generous help of my parents, we secured business class tickets and set our plans in stone. We were Asia-bound.
