5:15am, Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi Vietnam.
He wears an ugly version of Keds, 1960s cheerleaders’ shoes that slap against the pavement, baggy cotton gym shorts and singlet two sizes too big for his narrow shoulders. With a sneaked look I see that the single hair growing out of the mole on his neck is much longer. Tradition says it should not be plucked or cut. He is lucky or wise or both. He’s lean, limber, his running style is fluid but he is breathing hard. He passes me a few times, sprints several steps ahead, then falls behind, can’t keep my steady pace. He may be 59. He may be 95. Impossible to tell.
We must run on the street, dodging walkers, honking taxis, farmers on bikes with their enormous baskets of fruit or vegetable or flowers, beeping motorbikes, tan-uniformed cops with batons yanking unhelmeted scofflaws from their Honda Dreams. The light rain turns the streets into oily grimy soup. Stains that take a week to fade from your calves, and that never come out of socks or shoes. The sky is low and gray. Ochre and turquoise buildings, centuries and centuries old, crumble gracefully in the mist, but many have already yielded to the developers’ hammer.
This is my Hanoi training ground. I’ve run this 1-mile loop just about every day of my 2-3 yearly trips to Hanoi for the past 7 years. And before that Hanoi was home.
When I don’t see him I wonder if he’s sick, visiting family, nursing an injury or dead. He is not friendly. He does not smile. This is business. Our relationship is based on running around this lake, and his obvious pleasure in beating me. He is confused and frustrated when I run intervals or have an easy day. For him it is all-out all the time. What’s this stopping crap, weak American? I hear him thinking. In eight years we have exchanged maybe eight different words. My greeting, Chao Ong, his urging to go faster, Di!!Di! or Chay nahn!, my explanation “training plan” that is met with a disgusted look. And my farewell, Tam biet, as I head towards my hotel in the Old Quarter near St Joseph’s cathedral for a bowl of noodle soup, a baguette and Vietnamese coffee that tastes like muddy caffeinated wine.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism tells me there are no professional Vietnamese triathletes. There is an Olympic distance triathlon in the ancient town of Hoi An, but only the expats, most from Hong and Singapore, compete. Running and cycling are the sports of old men. Cyclists won two gold medals at the 2009 South East Asian games, and a dilapidated but enthusiastic national cycling team gamely takes on Southeast Asian tours. Long distance runners emerge and fade as quickly. Monofin swimmers make a showing in regional events, but most Vietnamese grow up afraid of the water and never venture into the lakes or China Sea except to earn a living. Two runners and a breaststroker were sent to the Beijing Olympics. Soccer, table tennis, Wu Shu, badminton, these are the national obsessions.
I’ve learned to switch-up running clockwise/counterclockwise because the street cants towards the gutter, but I prefer running against the traffic as survival technique. Might makes right, which requires yielding to unsteady cyclists and motorbikes, and leaping away from taxis, cars and the crazy truckers. I’ve been clipped and bruised by rearview mirrors and truck bumpers. Taxis delight in playing chicken. The crowds make it impossible to run on the sidewalks.
My training always takes a dive on my trips to Hanoi. I get chubby and slow on the fatty and calorie-dense soup stocks, fried dishes, too many Bia Hanoi, and the enormous lunches required by my Vietnamese counterparts despite my diplomatic protests. Running is my only option unless I stay at the 5-star hotels. Pools are hard to access, ripe with bacteria, or lack lane markers or lane sensibilities.
Mornings at Hoan Kiem have changed a little. Around the Lake’s broad uneven snaggly sidewalks hundreds of people stroll, jog, and perform wild stretches and 1970s aerobics led by instructors in pink tights and striped tops, music shrieking from a CD player. The old people are as likely to wear tracksuits as their pajamas now. The young and middle-aged are noticeably heavier, some verging on obese. Economic progress. Bobby Chinn’s trendy restaurant has vacated its commanding corner for the West Lake area.
In the past eight years traffic has quadrupled. What were mostly bikes, motorbikes and an occasional taxi or truck is now a steady stream of motorbikes, taxis, private cars, buses, and trucks. With each trip I must start my run 15 minutes early to avoid traffic and exhaust. Pollution is worse. I almost always return from Hanoi with a respiratory infection. The ironic price of fitness. On weekends I now try to head to huge West Lake where the air is cleaner and the 6-mile out-and-back is mostly car-less. I only have to dodge young lovers sitting on blankets and expats with their baby strollers.
But the mythological giant turtle still lives in the Lake, Turtle Tower still stands, Ngoc Son Temple continues to decay and be overtaken by the Ginkgos. The old women still do Tai Chi or sword dances to tinny music over Tannoy loudspeakers. The flamboyant chap with the shiny boxing shorts still powerwalks with his fat Chihuahua skittering around him, unbelievably alive after all these years of dodging vehicles.
Today I’m running my prescribed 5 x 6:00 minute intervals. We meet up after I finish my warm-up, a quick nod and I indicate it’s time to go fast. He keeps pace for the first interval. Today when I stop to jog, he stops, too. Odd. I wonder what’s wrong. I tell him he can go on, this is a 2-minute rest, this is my plan. Today he waves his hands in a polite gesture. Today he smiles then sprints off into the mist.
Running against the hurtling traffic of progress, breathing hard, alive and evidently happy.