Adventure!

The cat is officially out of the bag. My big news: I'm moving to Shanghai in 3 weeks!!

Words can scarcely contain my excitement. This will be by far the biggest adventure I've had yet! I can hardly wait to get it started.

On Thursday afternoon, I found a job offer waiting in my inbox. The instructor of my course had told me on the first day that he thought I was a very qualified candidate and asked if he could submit my resume package to the agents he works with. He told me not to be surprised if I got a job offer right away. But of course, I couldn't help but be shocked when only hours after they'd received my information, an agency wanted me! So the awesomeness began. I replied that I was interested in the position they were offering, and over the next few days we negotiated my contract. I officially signed it and sent it in yesterday.

The sweet deal: I will get to work with kids (ages 6-15) in the government school system.  They are hiring several of us at the same time, so I will get to meet and hang out with other English speakers during an orientation week before I officially start teaching. They're offering free Mandarin lessons and they want to take us out on tours of the city and surrounding area. Oh yes, and they want to pay me! 

So the next 3 weeks are going to be action-packed with bank and medical appointments, packing and auctioning off my possessions, and researching things to do and places to see. Some of the latter has already been done: of course the first thing I did after signing was to look up gyms and Starbucks locations in Shanghai!

There are two major impacts on my training plans. First, I may need to put my sprint triathlon plans on hold. I'm not sure how much triathlon-ing goes on over there, but I am definitely going to endeavour to find one nearby, or at the very least, keep training. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to do so much training, I'll be ready for a half-Iron when I get back! Secondly, sadly, I will not get to run Big Sur or Around the Bay this year as I had planned. And unfortunately, I learned that race organizers are pretty strict about not allowing runners to defer their registration to another year. However, I have taken this in stride, and am determined to run them both when I back in Canada, I'll just have to re-register. Those were the only two races I had registered for so far, but I'll also have to put my plans for the others I wanted to do this year. But while I'm overseas, I'll console myself with the Great Wall Marathon. That's right, I am going to be able to run not only one but TWO of my ultimate destination marathons this year! Istanbul is still on the books for October, and the Great Wall is timed so perfectly that I will have just enough training to race it at the end of May. Perfect!

Despite all this crazy life stuff, I still kicked off the third and final month of p90x with a bang. I have never done as many pushups as I did yesterday. I had complete failure: I kept going until I literally could not remove my face from the floor and had to roll over onto my back to get up again.

So, another big mission I have for before I leave is updating my playlist in a serious, serious way. I've been listening to mostly the same songs since my first marathon in Iceland. They're great songs....but I really need a fresh tunes injection. I was recently inspired by listening to the 90s on 9 satellite radio station. And of course I love pop because it's usually got such a terrific beat and danceable, move-your-body vibe. Do you have any recommendations for me? The more upbeat the better!

Also, any volunteers to send Clif bars and magazines to China in exchange for souvenirs? ;)

Hope you're all having a great week so far!