Getting into the Olympic Spirit

For some reason, there is an Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh. Whilst it has never been used for the Olympics, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t put to good use on a daily basis. The first time I visited the stadium was during the middle of the day and it was pretty much deserted, which isn’t surprising considering how hot and humid it is (and this is winter!).

Deserted Olympic Stadium during the heat of the day

But if you go early in the morning or in the evening it is a totally different story.  The stadium is transformed into a buzzing social and sporting hub with people congregating to exercise and socialise.  There is a whole range of activities taking place from soccer, badminton, volleyball, running, walking, aerobics, dancing, tai chi and other martial arts.  All this is accompanied by stalls serving food and drinks and people just hanging out, watching the world go by.

A lot more action at night (and in the morning)

Some sort of exercise with swords

Or with fans

Aerobics

As part of my attempt to try to get back into exercising, I decided that I would go to the stadium this morning for a run (running on the streets is a bit tricky due to lack of pavements and volume of traffic).  So I woke up early (before it got too hot) and rode my bike to the stadium where I parked it securely under the watchful eye of a diligent security guard for the vast sum of 500 riel (about 17 US cents)!  To be honest the run was a bit of a torturous struggle (it has been a while), but I did enjoy watching everything else that was going on at the stadium. 

In addition to all the usual activities, there happened to be an event taking place called ‘Running for Non Handicap Environment’ which I believe might have been for International Human Rights Day (a public holiday in Cambodia....but not for me unfortunately).  The title of the event was a bit misleading but I think that it was to promote the rights of people with a disability.  They had a number of races for people with a disability, including some wheelchair races.  I believe that this was going to be followed by a fun run (although I had to get to work, so couldn’t stick around for that).  So that provided me with some additional entertainment during my run which was good.  Hopefully there will be other events going on in the future because I find track running completely boring and I need something to motivate me to keep on running!

Running for Non Handicap Environment

Events and Fun Run