Final Preparation Before My 100 mile Road Race

I was out on a run on the road behind my house and this guy stopped me to take a picture. It came in handy because I used it to send to the race director for the pamphlet. 

Only person from the US that signed up for the race. 

My hundred mile race is only a couple days away and I'm making my final preparations. There has been a lot of planning and preparing that has gone into getting ready for the 164K (100 mile) Race Across Taiwan. The best part was the training. Getting out and seeing new places and taking pictures along the way has been a real treat and much needed time to clear my head of all the difficulties that we have been facing at work. The most challenging thing has been signing up and figuring out bit by bit what I might expect. Unfortunately the race organizers have only given a small amount of information, most of it involving strange requirements like a mandatory helmet after 58 miles.... Other than this I have a map of the course that will hopefully work on my phone for navigation during the event.

The first thing I did was study the map, translate the aid stations names and write down when the aid stations close. These are a couple screen shots of the course and the elevation gain and loss on the course. 

I'm not sure if this is right but 8,703 meters translates to 28,553.15 feet of gain and 9,117 translates to 29,911.42 of elevation loss. To put this into perspective Everest is 29,029 feet.

#1 Puli Start

#2 卓社隧道前道 Zhuo former club Tunnel Road 12K (7.4 miles) Close 1153am 

#3 武界水庫隧道後高地平台 After Wu Jie Tunnel Reservoir 23k 14.2 miles) Close 147pm 

#4親愛國小Dear small country 35k (21.7 miles) Close 351pm 

#5 台14-投71叉路口 Taiwan 14- 71 47K (29.2 miles) Close 555pm 

#6 哪嚕灣民宿 Bay Bed and Breakfast 58.5k (36 miles) Get Jacket Close 8pm 

#7鳶峰 Kite peak 71K (44.1 miles)Close 1024pm 

#8 昆陽 Kunyang 77K (47 miles) Close 1136pm

#9 小風口 Small air 84K (52 miles) Close 1am 

#10 觀原 View original 93.5K (58 miles) Close 253am 

#11 碧綠 Dark green 102.5K (63.3 miles) Close 456am 

#12 慈恩 Mercy 110k (68 miles) Close 527am  

#13 新白楊 New Topol 119K (73 miles) Close 7am

 #14 洛韶 Luo Shao 128K (79 miles) Close 837am 

#15 西寶 Westwood 138K (85 miles) Close 948am

#16 天祥 Intertek146k (90 miles) Close 11am 

#17 布洛灣 Bullock Bay 156K(96 miles) Close 137pm

#18 Finish 106.5K (102 miles) 

The second part of the preparation process was getting everything ready. The strange part about this race is they're requiring the participants to have a helmet after a certain point. They didn't mention how long we have to wear it, but it might be for forty miles. I don't know exactly why it is required but you might be disqualified if you don't have one. 

Runners are also have to wear a real reflective vest. I ended up using some bungees on my regular running hydration vest to keep everything simple.

At a certain point they are requiring a warmer jacket. This weekend I went out and bought a cheap Taiwanese down jackets that way if it gets lost it's not a big deal. After looking at the weather it seems like I might just be carrying it around most of the time in the back of my vest.

Other gear that I will be carrying

-sunglasses
-headlamp
-extra battery
-gloves
-bottle
-money
-phone
-ipod
-Tailwind (electrolyte drink mix) 
-soap
-first aid kit

Everything else is going to be with Adrien. She is going to be taking a bus along the course and I will hopefully be able to see her and drop off or get anything that I need. Some of these things are...

-extra clothes

-medical supplies

-extra shoes 

-warm clothes/rain gear  
-medication for altitude sickness 

This is a rough summary of what I'm bringing and what I'm doing in preparation for this race. I'm not a seasoned ultra runner and I don't quite know what to expect but I have done one other race. I hope that I have learned a little from that and will help me be more prepared. In reality there are always and lot of unknowns with any event like this. There is probably a few more. Since I'm in Taiwan and there is a real communication barrier between me and the race directors it always makes things more interesting. No matter what I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to get away from my boss and seeing some new places!

Quitting our Jobs and Leaving the Country

"I'm quitting in pursuit of not working here"- Unkown

We have made the decision to give our two months’ notice at American Eagle Institute here in Yangmei, Taiwan. 

We are also going to return to the USA in May and with our time running up at the school we work at I decided to write in more detail about what it has been like working at American Eagle Institute in Yangmei, Taiwan. With that said this blog is also a cautionary tale to anybody is coming to this school for employment.

Monica Behind the desk

The Management

 Adrien and I combined have worked at many private schools in Korea, Russia, and France.

We both agree that the directors at our school are unlike any other managers or directors we have worked with in the past.   

The English names of the management at our school are Monica, Co Co and Sean. One of the most frustrating things about working here is they have very poor communication skills. That doesn't mean they don't speak English but rather you can't really understand what they're saying sometimes. More specifically Monica and Co Co really don’t have the ability to communicate clearly to us.

The stinginess

Another thing that we've dealt with at the school is a level of stinginess. During winter camp we were given materials teach and a lot of the materials detailed activities that required some arts and crafts supplies. When we asked to get some supplies that are bosses told us that the parents don't know what’s in the manual so don't do these activities.  We had a lot of time and a lot of activities that would have made the experience much better for the kids but we had to skip over these because they were not willing to buy some glue and color pencils. Adrien did end up buying colored pencils for her kids.

During this was a camp and we were expected to do a lot of physical activities but when we asked for any equipment such as balls or ropes and they didn't give us any. We ended up looking all around the school ourselves to see what we could come up with which wasn't much. At other schools if they're doing any type of classes with physical activities such as PE or Winter camps normally they would provide a lot of mats, balls, and many other things that we can use for those activities but not here.

Even before the camp we asked for was a board markers and erasers because all the erasers were falling apart and stained with board marker ink and the markers were out of ink. We asked for these things that were pretty necessarily for daily lessons and it took those about two months to get these to us. The only reason they did give us these things was because they thought they were giving us some type of reward for teaching  beyond expectations.

Also during the winter, and Winter Camp especially, the classrooms and office were unbearably cold. Nothing below freezing, but with the humid cold air and the lack of any heating, it certainly felt close to freezing. The management had a heater for themselves that they turned off when we came back into the office. Nothing for the kids.

Never knowing what will happen next

Working at the school you never know what's going to happen. Here the teachers are the last people to know if we're going to have a class for an extra activity. We specifically asked to be notified about these things so we can prepare but they've never changed and let us know about these things most of the time we have to find out from the students at the school if we have to teach an extra class.

Desk warming

Our working hours schedule would be from 12:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Sometimes we have a lot of work to do and sometimes we don’t but we always had to be desk warming no matter what. I'm pretty sure this was just to show the parents that they had foreign teacher’s present but I also think it was more of a cultural hierarchy that is present in the workplace in Taiwan. The management wants to know that they're in control and that you're following their orders. This is the types of things that make them happy but is not so pleasant being submissive all the time.

Extreme Disciplinary Standards

Another thing that we found out after we came to the school is the amount replacement teachers that they went through. We were informed by another teacher that they had 12 different teachers that came and left in three months. We even experience one Canadian teacher walking out because of the very extreme disciplinary punishment that they use at the school. This happened more when we first started working here. If a kid didn't bring their homework or their folder that they needed they would get hit on the hand with a roll of paper repeatedly or a something that looks like a whip for a horse.

One day a Canadian teacher witnessed this two weeks after we arrived and he ended up telling them right then and there that it's not right and he couldn't work at a school. He walked out of the building and never came back. This made us feel very uneasy and we don't really promote or really respect these people much after this happened. It seemed very cruel and old-fashioned to us but we thought it was a cultural thing.

  

Giving Our Notice

Breaking any employer the news that you're going to quit is not always the easiest thing but as with any job that happens and we tried our best to be responsible and tell her how her bosses that we are quitting before we actually leave. In the world of ESL teaching it's very common to do something that's called a mid-night run. Basically this is when you work and you go home, pack up, and leave that night and don't tell anybody that you are leaving. This more often than not gives foreigners a bad reputation.

We decided to give them two months’ notice mainly because we thought we were doing the right thing. Everything was going pretty well but we were talking about how we would help try to find replacements and we got information that our recruiter found some replacements and we might not be able to fill those two months which are pretty important to us since we already have plane tickets back to America and we need all the money we can gets to pay for plane tickets and college loans etc. So again there is more tension between us and our bosses. If anything happens there are legal services in Taiwan for foreigners and if you give notice the employer doesn't have the right to change the contract so we are just waiting to see what happens. There are a lot of unknowns in the school but just a warning to everybody that wants to work at American Eagle in Yangmei, it's been strange time working at this place and wouldn't necessarily recommend it to any foreign workers that are coming to Taiwan. 

Yehliu Geopark

For my birthday Adrien and I went to “Yehliu Geopark.” Located in the northeastern park of Taiwan there is a small sliver of land that goes out to a point to the ocean. It is definitely a unique area for many reasons. Rock formations that resemble anything from a queen’s head to a dragon's head.

The name Yehliu comes from the Pinpu language and when it is translated into “devil’s cape.” My guess is the natives would go out to this point and see all these crazy looking rocks then think they were demonic.

Another theory of the origin of the name comes from a story where traders would come to shore with bags of rice and the native people would use sharpened bamboo sticks to cut small holes into their bags. After that they would pick up the rice that fell out. In Taiwanese Yeh means savage and lui means steal. Hence the second theory meaning savages steal.  

So is it worth the trip? It is but there are crowds and if you want to take a picture of the famous queen’s head you have to wait in a line and watch countless people take selfie after selfie. Then you feel awkward standing in front of the rock without a person in front of it.

In my opinion the best rock formation was the dragon’s head. The best thing about it is there were not many people waiting to take pictures of it. Another intriguing thing was all the fossilized sand dollars imbedded in the rocks. This is the first time I have ever seen this and as far as I could tell the Taiwanese people were paying little to no attention to them.

  

7 11

“I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything” 

-Charles Dickens

7-Eleven is a place where you get Slurpee's, junk food, and scratcher tickets in the US. Here in Taiwan things are a little different. Here they are a multi-functional stop for most of your needs. First of all they have many different types of drinks, sushi rolls, hot soups, freshly made lattes and even boiled soy sauce eggs. Every 7-Eleven varies on what type of food you can get exactly but it's good stop when you need something quick to eat.

I recently I was having trouble paying for my upcoming running event so I emailed the director of the race many times and finally figured out how to pay. But he told me to do is bring a number to 7-Eleven pay for the race there. Lo and behold I went to the 7- Eleven and put a number that the race director gave me into a machine after that the machine printed out a receipt where I paid the full amount for the race at the cash register.

This is not the only thing you can pay for at 7-Eleven. You can also pay your water, electricity, and any other utility bills that you may have. Unfortunately I found out a couple weeks ago that you could even pay your traffic fines at 7- Eleven. While riding the scooter coming back from a run I did not know there were speed sensor cameras on some of the roads and as a result I got a speeding ticket through the mail. I brought the ticket into the store and in two minutes I was all paid up.

There is also a mailing pick up service at there but I believe it's for only the domestic packages. As far as I could see most people use it for ordering things online and picking them up. I have also heard that you can bring your dry cleaning to 7-Eleven but I have never met anybody that does that yet.

In a nutshell there are many things you can do at 7-Eleven across Taiwan. One extra tip whenever you walk into a 7-Eleven or any other store more often than not the person at the counter will say, “good morning.” At least that's what I thought they were saying when I first came to Taiwan. I used to always reply to this by saying good morning back but what they are actually saying is “Ying Guanglin” which means welcome in mandarin. I have yet to find out what the correct responsiveness is. Normally I normally I just say Ni Hao to them or just nod my head.