Half Before The Half

Yesterday Kristie and I did a pre-half-marathon run. We ran the full 21.1 KM just to see if we could do it. We did the entire run in about two hours and six minutes, but the run was not without incident.

First of all, I wasn't feeling it from the very start. My calves were tight, my energy level was low, but I was determined to run the whole course anyway. Kristie had pointed out that if I can run the whole course while feeling less than 100%, then I should do well on race day.

We were doing pretty well all the way to the half way point, and were still doing well for about a quarter of the way back, but then we got the point where we headed north, and BAM! We go hit with winds of about 70 KM/H!  This continued for about 4 KM of the run too! And the further you got, the heavier the winds got.

This is not uncommon at all here in Wellington. The Point, which is the part of the harbour where the wind hits you, is well known for fierce winds. As a matter of fact, there was a story of a shopkeeper who rescued a man that was blown into the harbour due to the winds yesterday!

As we neared the end, where we would reach the point and then turn west, I was absolutely exhausted! I would look down at my feet while I was running and think:

"I'm barely moving!  My feet are very slowly moving forward, but I am making virtually no headway!"

And by the time we finally did reach the point, we were absolutely livid. Our exhaustion was transmuting into rage.  To illustrate this, we saw that a couple of runners were coming towards us (being pushed by the wind); they looked as if they saw us, saw how hard we were working just to slowly move forward, and then said to themselves:

"We should turn around now."

Well, holy cow, did that piss me off. I was swearing under my breath at them, calling them wimps, etc. In my mind, they did it just to rub it in our faces!

Anyway, after we rounded the point, the wind finally let up and we had about another 3.8 KM to go. Needless to say, we had no delusions of grandeur to finish the course in under two hours. We simply wanted to finish it with the little bit of dignity we had left...which wasn't much.

We're hoping that on race day, the wind will take pity on us and realize that we had already paid our dues. However, it will be more likely that the wind will combine forces with its friends cold and rain, and attack us simultaneously.

Ramping Up The Runs

So we're down to the final month before the 1/2 marathon, and the run distances are increasing significantly.  Over the past little while, our weekday runs were only about 4-7 KM depending on the day/week. Now, we pretty much don't have any weekday runs under 8 KM.

It would have been a bit of an easier transition if it weren't for the injury that I had a while back, as we lost about two weeks of running. But hey, what are you going to do.

My friend Daniel has a daughter who runs ultra marathons. She's off to Poland soon to compete against some of the best ultra marathoners in the world and he was telling me that she has a daily training routine of about 3.5 hours of running! 3.5 hours of running each day! Holy crap! Talk about making someone feel inadequate...

I figure if she can run 3.5 hours each day, I can manage a few long runs here and there.

Tomorrow's run is a long one (for us) at 16 KM.  But we're feeling pretty confident that we should complete it without too much trouble. We've done a bit longer before, but only once. The next week's runs are around: 8KM, 10KM, 6KM, 11KM and 13KM.

Work That Butt

Ever since I pulled my hamstring muscle about three weeks ago, I've had to go easy on my running as it has literally become a pain in the butt. Little by little however, I can feel it getting better. The first run, a week or so ago, was quite sore, but with each subsequent run, it got a bit looser and a bit less sore.

Today's run was the longest we've done since the injury: 13.6 KM. For the most part, it stayed relatively pain free, and fairly strong. Towards the last 1/4 of the run, I could feel it tightening up a bit, so we slowed the run down and I could feel that it was helping.  It was fairly sore when we stopped to stretch, but it didn't take too long to recover after that.

I took my last round of muscle relaxant this evening, but I think it would be prudent to get another round as I still find it stiffens up during car rides.

Tomorrow we're doing a 10 KM, so it should be interesting to see how it faired after today's run.

Multiple Failures

Today, the third day back into running, we wanted to go about 12 KM, but it didn't work out that way.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a cold, which took me out of the game for a couple of days. Then, on a run that was probably too strenuous for my condition, I pushed it a bit too hard and pulled my hamstring. I tried resting it for a day or two, but when I tried running on it last Saturday, I found that it was too painful, and it would need more rest.  Judging by the pain I felt in my butt while running, we were a bit frightened that we might not make it for the half marathon.

In some respects it turned out to be a good thing, as Kristie had caught my cold, so she wasn't exactly up to snuff either. So we both rested for a week.

Three days ago, we went for our first run; a 4 KM run, and while my hamstring was quite tight, it seemed that the pain wasn't hindering continued training. Yesterday we went for a 5 KM run, and despite re injuring it again by stumbling at a petrol station, it still seemed pretty good. I was favouring the other leg during the run, but I didn't think much about it.

As I mentioned, today we wanted to do a 10 KM - 12 KM run, and things were going pretty well for the first 2/3 of the route, when I started getting a blister on the arch of my foot due to favouring my injured hamstring.

So for the last two weeks, we've barely been able to get much mileage in due to a series of cascading failures, all started with my cold. I guess I didn't need to say series of cascading failures and it was kind of implied by saying cascading... Anyway, I hope that we're nearing the end of this as our fitness level has been faltering too.

We're Experiencing Technical Difficulties Please Stand By

I think I already talked about how I started feeling crappy on Saturday morning, but managed to get a 13 KM run in just the same. Well, it got worse that night, and then kind of developed into a bit of a cough, so Kristie advised that I should try to get well before we do any more running as it could develop into something more serious.

So, here we are on Tuesday, and after taking Kristie's advice and downing some paracetamol, I felt pretty darn good today, other than a runny nose. So we did a bit of a different run today. We ran down Crofton Down, and into the Ngaio Gorge, where we usually take the dogs for a walk. From there, we ran to the other entrance of the gorge and then up, and up and up.  We ran up most of Kaiwharawara Road, which is about 2.5 KM long, and all of it up hill; some of it quite steep too. By the time we got to the top of the hill, which increased in steepness the closer we got to the top, we were pretty spent, but were also pretty happy to complete such a hard finish to the run.

The entire run was more than likely around 6 KM, but we can't be too sure as we couldn't measure the distance in the gorge. But judging by the amount of time it took, and the number of steps displayed on the pedometer, we think that 6 KM is fairly accurate.

Oh, and to top it all off, I found five bucks at the end of the run! Yay!

12.8 KM While Sick

Woke up this morning with a strange, unsettling feeling in the back of my sinuses today. You know the kind that kind of hurts to swallow? Yeah that one. I'm getting...A Cold! Dum-dum-dum!

So you can imagine how excited I was to go for a run this morning. Added to that is the fact that it was raining pretty hard, and my excitement went up two fold! In case you were wondering...that was sarcasm. The weather forecast said that it should clear up in the afternoon, so we decided to delay the run until we got some better weather. It does make me wonder how we're going to do when the weather really goes down the drain.

We had talked about keeping our eye on the forecast and maybe shifting our runs as needed. For instance running on an off day, and taking an off day on a rainy day, etc. But what happens if it is raining on the day of the half marathon? Dum-dum-dum!

Anyway, after making a great and easy lunch, and then an afternoon nap, which was quite invigorating, we took off for the run at around 4:00 p.m. We got through the 12.8 KM without too much difficulty, but I wouldn't say it was a stellar run. Luckily, as I was running, I was doing most of my breathing through my gaping maw of a mouth anyway, so other than having to sniff up about 12 Litres of snot, I didn't do too badly.

5 KM In 13 Minutes...Or Not

We had a 5 KM run to do today; just one day after the 16.5 KM run. We thought we'd be bagged from the last run, but as it turns out we both finished fairly strong.

In fact, according to my watch, we ran the 5 KM, uphill run in just 13 minutes! Of course, I probably stopped my watch along the way, but if it is ok with you, I'll believe the watch!

Best run ever!

Ok, so we probably did it in about 32 minutes, but that still isn't bad.

Today was kind of a busy day on the whole. We had friends coming over for brunch so we had to get to up early in order to go to the Farmers' Market. We stocked up on a bunch-o-fruit for a wicked fruit salad. We served an overnight Egg Stratta that we prepped the previous day. While it tasted good, we don't know if it was a make again dish. We've got about 1/2 of it left over, so we'll be having egg stratta for breakfast over the next couple days. Oh, and fruit salad...lots and lots of fruit salad!