Elephants not Included

So, I’m pretty sure that my running through Japan will not include copious amounts of Thai milk tea or khao soi. Not will I spend four days wandering around in 38C heat completely failing to do any running. I’m also quite sure that elephants won’t be included on the run either. However, here I am in Chiang Mai drinking tea, eating curry and generally lounging around the place.

It’s Thursday now and I’ve not trained since Saturday. This is not how serious athletes train to run back-to-back ultramarathons. However, I am not a serious athlete, so I’m totally okay with this downtime. It’s nice to let my joints recover and I’m looking forward to running again this evening, I’m hoping to do a late-night exploration of Chiang Mai, which should be fun and at least a little cooler – perhaps as low as 29C!

I’d planned this trip to Chiang Mai before I’d decided to embark on the misadventures of training to run Japan. The aim was to see somewhere other than Hanoi, have a nice relaxing time, and perhaps see some elephants. After a lot of research, we chose the Elephant Dream Project. There are so many elephant tours here in Thailand, many posing as being very ethical, some of which are not quite so ethical. It would have really ruined the experience to pay to see elephants mistreated.

We took the approach that the more interactions you get with the elephant, the less ethical the place is likely to be. There are some very hands-off places like Burm and Emily’s Elephant Sanctuary which looked good. And we were tempted by an overnight stay at Elephant Nature Park (perhaps one for the future). One thing that attracted us to the Elephant Dream Project was that they offered some interaction, such as elephant feeding and watching the elephants bathe. At the same time, they were explicit that what we did depended on what the elephants wanted to do that day. It turns out that elephants are always keen on being handed more food so that part was always going to work out. The elephants also did go down to bathe, but when one of the elephants decided it was time to go back, it was time to go back.

Not much of a training update, or much of a running Japan update, but there you go. You got to see an elephant. Which is unlikely to happen in Japan. Next time I’ll write a proper update; elephants not included.