From Fat to Marathon Runner

New Blog

2011-07-05T10:52:00.000+12:00

I've decided to start a new blog ... my life is pretty full, marathon training being a big part of it - but it is full of lots of other things as well, so I've decided to combine everything into one blog. Hopefully it will make interesting reading (or not! ha ha).

You can follow me there if you want to :)

My new "Not a Yummy Mummy" Blog

Two Years

2011-06-23T11:19:00.000+12:00

The photos say it all ... two years ago, proudly running a 1:04 10km and winning a spot prize to run the London Marathon.

Sunday, many half marathons, two marathons and two years on ... a 1:58 half marathon.

As an aside, I'm not running this week, I'm delivering so I'm getting a little bit of exercise ... but what have I learnt? I eat too much crap and balance it with my running, I've been extra careful this week and its made realise that I'm not nearly as "good" as I think I am. Also, running takes a lot of time - might be only a little 5k run, but its still getting out there, running, cooling down, stretching ... etc ... I've had SO much more time this week. Biggest thing though? I miss it pretty quickly - nothing beats getting out there and getting sweaty for feeling good :)

Wellington Half Marathon

2011-06-21T11:20:00.000+12:00

Sneaking in again - I really do want to try and be a regular blogger, and always have good intentions ... but you know, good intentions don't always = actually doing!

It was supposed to be a busy morning this morning with physio appointments for Charlotte and I and then rushing home to take Cameron to his specialist appointment (follow up on a nose operation - fixing it so he can actually breathe through it) - turns out Charlotte's physio was sick, and the specialist was called away to a family emergency which means I got my physio appointment (yay for me! ha ha), but nothing else was done.

Anyway - a quick Wellington Half Marathon report -

I've been training pretty hard for this, I came home from London with the body slowly fixing itself, with help from the physio's "magic" hands (might hurt, but he really seems to know how to hit the spot to loosen those pesky muscles causing the problems), a bit of rest and strengthening exercises. So the past couple of months I've been pushing the training, trying to go harder and faster. Last year I got a PB at this race (1:57:27) and was hoping to beat that time on Sunday.

I ended up with a Stampin' Workshop to be at in Palmerston the night before (just over an hour away from home), and really didn't do well at all with the pre-fuelling - a vege/kumara/potato "greasy cake" was the best carbs I could find at the service station, along with a chocolate peanut slab ... not the best at all ;) Plus yummy pavlova and cream for supper after the workshop (and I wonder why I don't lose weight?). Then home about 11pm, and asleep about midnight with the alarm set for 6.00am - definitely not the best lead up to a hopeful best race!

Got up with the alarm, had a couple of pieces of toast for breakfast - got the two girls up and going, Nic, a running friend, was getting a lift with us - we got away right on time at 7.00am. Picked up biggest son who was running the 10k from his flat in Wellington, parked at work, made good use of the no queue, clean, toilets at work and then walked to the Stadium ready to start.

It was raining all the drive in, kind of stopped as we got into Wellington, but was wet and cold waiting at the start line. The poor girls were a bit overwhelmed by the crowds of people all trying to huddle in the dry, but I assured them that once everyone left to run they would find a friend we knew would be there, and hoped that was the case as I left! (they did, Jamie and Rhiannon are friends from school - Jamie's mother started running a few years ago, and she is speedy! She ran a 1:32 half marathon on Sunday - anyway they hung around with her and her Dad while their Mums were running).

So off we ran! What can I say, wet, wet, wet, windy, windy, windy - pretty typical horrible Wellington day (nothing beats Wellington on a nice day, but when it is wet and windy it is yucky). Didn't really notice the wind on the way out, I swear it wasn't pushing us! It was more sideways and a couple of times it would be a head wind, but all in all wasn't bad at all. I was aiming for 5:35/km - and was sitting at about 5:30 pretty much all of the first half. Checked my time at halfway and was on track for a very nice 1:56 half marathon time ... and then we turned around to head back - at first the wind was actually quite good, it had been against us for a couple of k's leading up to the turn around. But after that it was straight into it. I'd figured even if I kept at 5:40/km I would be right where I wanted to be - but there were a couple of ks where the wind was so strong I slowed right to nearly 6:00/km. I was checking with my watch at every so many k's to go and quickly calculating what I had to keep to, at first for a PB, and then pretty quickly to make sure I was going to beat two hours. I'm VERY pleased with myself, in that I kept pushing hard the whole way - the heartrate monitor pretty much stayed the same the whole race - so when I went slower it was purely fighting the wind, not less push from me.

By the time I finished it was starting to rain hard, so no nice children cheering for me at the finish line - they'd all gone inside to escape the wet! I finished with 1:58:22 and am actually very happy with that. Everyone I've spoken to said they were slower and that it was a hard race. Also - according to my Garmin, last year I ran 20.8km, this year, 21.25km - not saying the course was different or wrong at all, but what it meant is that although officially (and I definitely take the official time) I took longer, unofficially my pace/km was actually faster.

Just a couple of months ago I ran a little 5km a couple of days before I ran London and was happy that I managed to push (and it was a push) for 1km and manage a 5:30min km - all the hard work must have paid off to be able to run a half marathon at 5:35/km!! (and yeah, I love my numbers!).

Where to from here? I've entered the Auckland Marathon which is 30th of October. Next week I'll start my 18 week training programme for that. I also have a quiet little goal of doing the bike around Taupo (160km) this year which is four weeks after the marathon. So my main goal will be training for Auckland, but I'm also planning on fitting in some biking (especially one long bike ride a week) and doing Taupo as well - I figure the marathon training will take care of the endurance, and hopefully the spin classes and a once a week long bike ride will be enough to complete Taupo as well - and it will be only "complete" I don't have any sky high goals of doing it really fast or anything ;) Also, have a wee obstacle in that I don't actually have a road bike - but hopefully I'll take care of that in the next couple of months, meanwhile my old decrepid delivering bike will do to start off with!

This week I'm taking complete rest - no running, no spin. Now my knee is better than it has been in months (almost ready to say all better, but not quite), my glute has been sore - I just can't seem to win, as soon as one injury goes away another takes it place. The physio looked at it today and as I suspected it is linked to the hamstring, he did some work on it and we'll keep an eye on it - hopefully a week off, plus maybe a week of "easy" running will be enough. Strangely enough (and yeah, the physio said it was very strange too) it was less sore after Sunday than it was before ... very weird!

So, I'm warily excited about starting a new training programme and hoping that it all goes well this time!

Patellar Tendonitis (jumper's knee)

2011-05-30T12:43:00.000+12:00

Darn, just as I'm finally on a "maintenance" every 2-3 weeks visit to the physio for MY knee, I took Charlotte (Miss 9yo) this morning to have her knee looked at and diagnosis is Patellar Tendonitis, looks like my weekly (or more) visits to the physio aren't quite over yet! I guess when you do gymastics training 6hrs/week, cheerleading 3hrs/week, play netball a couple of times a week, and a couple of dance classes - something has to give, and two weeks out from our first gym competitions for the season, its her knee - 4 weeks rest (eek!) and see from there, just as bad as being told not to run for four weeks! I'm hopeful that after a week of complete rest she'll at least be able to carry on conditioning and taking it easy and heal from there.

Thanks for the comments on the privacy thing - now I have to work out how to do it (haven't had any success doing that yet, for a person who's job involves being on a computer all the time, I'm seriously technically backward with this sort of stuff!).

As for running - my best news this past week has been I managed to run two days in a row, first time since January 1/2 when I first hurt my knee, its amazing how good that wee accomplishment felt! I ran a really easy 5km on the treadmill one day and then a harder, faster 8km the day after - and all was well. Stupid knee still isn't quite right, but getting better all the time. Enough so that the physio said today to really push myself in the half marathon I'm planning on running in a couple of weeks as afterwards will be a really good indication on how the body is holding out before I start training for the Auckland Marathon pretty much straight after that.

I've invested in a heartrate monitor and the numbers are really interesting - as is trying to be VERY disciplined with the long slow distances and keeping my heartrate low for those runs. Hopefully I'm learning to train a lot smarter which will keep me running, and running better in the future!

... and yeah, London report, still to come ...

Privacy

2011-05-26T11:16:00.002+12:00

Why hello there! Yes I'm still here, I've run the London Marathon (4:25 - yay!) ... and should have updated here.

One of the reasons I've got very slack at updating my blog is I started getting the feeling that all sorts of people, from all parts of my life, were reading it. Which would be fine - but it made me too conscious of what I was sharing, I'm a pretty private person at the best of times and don't always want "everybody" to know what strange stuff goes on in my head - but I also don't want to sugar coat my blog, I wanted it to be an honest, feelings out there, time to reflect, place I could look back on kind of place.

Not everyone gets it, gets how hard it is, to keep running, keep eating right etc - some people I get the feeling have a slight "tall poppy" feelings towards my success at sometimes winning the continous battle.

Anyway - because I want this to be a diary, plus a place I can get ideas and thoughts from like minded people, I'm going to (when I work out how) make it more private, and by request to read it. That way I can feel more comfortable with the info I put out there.

I think if you let me know via the comments I can invite you? It'll suck big time if I don't get any response won't it? LOL

Two Sleeps

2011-04-07T10:57:00.002+12:00

Two sleeps until we get on the big aeroplane and begin our journey to London ... the quick part of the journey, the huge journey has taken two years - but I'll reflect on that some other time!

I've trained as much as I possibly could, not nearly as much as I'd like, but definitely as much as I could. I count myself lucky, yes, lots of stupid niggling injuries - well, really just one, a very tight ITB which has caused countless other problems. But we've managed it, and I'm going to line up at the starting line with two 20 mile training runs done, a reasonable half marathon done ... and a body full of anti-inflammatries!

It will be a slower marathon than my first one a year ago, it will probably be more painful - but wow, the experience of running *the* London Marathon should make up for all of that, I plan to enjoy it - I'm so lucky to have the opportunity, and so lucky to have what seems to be a strong, quick healing body.

I have to share my physio love - I couldn't have done this without him and his great attitude - our conversation at my last session this week went something like this -

Me: Thank you so much for all your hardwork.
Him: Well, I think you did all the hard work really, my part was pretty easy.
Me: But really, thank you for not ever rolling your eyes and telling me I was nuts and should just not do it.
Him: That's okay, I know how I'd feel if I was in the same position.

and that bolded part is why he has been so good - he runs, he loves to run, he understands, he understood this was a huge event and not one to give up on ... that makes such a huge huge difference.

I'll probably still do some work with him when I come back - they are getting equipment so they can analysise gait etc, plus once I've had time to rest and hopefully get rid of all the niggles we'll work on what to do to make sure they don't happen again - work on prevention, rather than the continual "band-aiding" we've been doing.

S0 - this is it ... one dance costume to finish, lists to write out for the kids who are fending for themselves (Mr 19yo will be head supervisor), packing to do, a couple of small runs ... and we are off!

Injuries Shoomizees

2011-03-10T23:21:00.003+13:00

Sooooo ... injuries ... right now my physio knows more and sees more of my legs than my husband!

Three weeks into training (just after Christmas) - bam! knee hurt, swelled up, heated up ... didn't look good at all. I waited until the Monday after the New Year break and rang the physio at the gym to get an appt as soon as I could, he had a look, a prod, few bends, squats etc and diagnosed Patellofemoral Syndrome aka Runners Knee - probably caused by the tight ITB pulling the knee cap over, ouch. I let him know that I had a very important marathon in about 15 weeks and there was no way I couldn't be running - gave me some exercises, said to rest it for about a week and then start off with a short run every second day.

I waited until the 9th of January - it was about a week, and also my birthday, I figured that had to be a lucky! and off I went for a 5k run around the block, knee lasted until about 2k before it started hurting off and on, lasted until about 4k before it really protested ... I was seriously worried. Lucky for me I struck a really good physio, who most important runs, and has run a marathon and didn't look at me like I was some strange being when I was pleading to fix it so I could run again. Next run was about the same, kept doing the exercises, the physio did some massage and said (surprising me!) try adding a k each run ... so I ran 6k, then 8k (I've always had trouble with maths) and it was feeling "okay", still twinges but definitely getting better.

It was about then I said to him, do you think I could run a 16k race in about a week? Kind of kidding, but he said, yeah - why not - give it a go, just ease into it over the week though ... yayyyy! Only problem, over this week, I still can't really pinpoint when, my hip/back started hurting, I was getting the dreaded limpy, gait :( I did run the 16k, and paid for it afterwards with my hip/back ... back to the physio, now two appointments a week, one for my back, one for my knee.

I tried to keep running, until my personal trainer (who I see once a week for core/strenthening work) said take two weeks off, went and then went and had a chat with the physio who managed to negotiate me to 10 days. By now, time was marching on and I was getting really worried. Lots of deep massage for the ITB to keep the knee going, and massage/realigning through the back and hip and 10 days rest ... and I tentatively ran again. Not too bad, getting better ... but what is with the pain around the groin area?

Uggghhhhhh Adductors ... more massage (and gees when I say massage, no sleeping "spa" massage, it hurt! and I was walking around looking like someone had been battering my legs which were lovely and bruised).

Sooooo finally the last couple of weeks things seem to have stopped hurting, physio has signed off the back/hip issues and adductor issues they are all good now. Knee has never really totally stopped being swollen, but seems to be holding up.

I ran the Rotorua Off-Road Half Marathon on Sunday and had an awesome run, slowest half marathon I've done - a combination of the fact I have lost all the speed I had gained and it was a hilly off-road course - but I did it, and felt pretty strong. Thought my ITB was tight around the knee again after it, but the physio after MORE poking, proding, etc thinks it might be an inflamed ligament (I swear, you couldn't make up this stuff). Good news is that he thinks it will pretty much fix itself, with a bit of rest, ice and anti-inflammatories - and I should be okay to run my 32k I planned on this Sunday ... although he has said to maybe run circuits close to home in case something does flare up.

Big fat SIGH ... so where I'm at, with just FIVE weeks to go until the London Marathon?

I'm running about 40-50k a week.
I'm running just 3x a week and doing a spin class 2x a week.
My longest run so far is 25.5k, I'm upping that quick (too quick probably!) to 32k this Sunday.
I'm stretching, doing hip stabiliser, core and thigh building exercises and foam rolling every night.
I'm now seeing the physio ONCE a week instead of twice.
Funny enough, I think I'm okay for London - I'll be slow, I'm probably going to hurt more than I did after Rotorua, but I'm pretty sure I can do it!

So, that, is the long sad story of my marathon training!

I'm looking forward to being able to take a good week or two off and just let my body heal (which it is screaming to do, hence injury after injury) and then building back to some pain free running. There will be another marathon - I want to do a training cycle that I can just relax and enjoy ... I think this has been the hardest thing I've ever done, to get this far!

ABC's of Me

2011-03-03T13:38:00.002+13:00

Well, lookie, I'm still here, still alive ... and still counting down to London - just over 6 weeks to go!! I have lots to catch up on, training, forced to rest training, injuries ... but I'm getting there :) I've enjoyed reading all the other ABC's so thought I might just reappear and kick it off with copying everyone else!

Age: 42
Bed size: Queen (not big enough for a snoring husband and a 9yo who still likes to join us half way through the night!)
Chore you hate: Any sort of cleaning, keeping the house tidy isn't my strong point ;)
Dogs: Scared stupid of them, not good when you often run trails which are also favourite doggy walking places ;)
Essential start of your day: Quiet for five minutes
Fav colour: Purple
Gold or silver: Silver
Height: 5'3"
Instruments I play: I learnt the piano years ago as an adult, I have the long fingers for it, but no natural muscial rhythm or talent at all.
Job title: Word Processing Operator, Deliverer, Mother ... and lots more
Kids: Five - David (19), Josh (16), Cameron (15), Rhiannon (12), Charlotte (9)
Live: Near Wellington, New Zealand
Mom’s name: Patricia
Nicknames: AA (don't ask)
Overnight hospital stays: Five for child birth, three (? I think), for croupy, double vision, high fever kids.
Pet peeve: Judgemental people, chewing/swallowing noises
Quote from a movie: No idea!
Right or left handed: right
Siblings: 2 olders sisters, 1 older brother, 3 younger sisters, 1 younger brother - I'm a double-middle child, middle of 8 (well, no.4), and middle of three siblings close together.
Time you wake up: 7.30am-ish
Underwear: Got to have it.
Veg you dislike: Silverbeet
What makes you run late: Distractions
X-rays you have had done: Teeth, ankle, knees
Yummy food you make: Lots of things - cupcakes are popular right now!
Zoo, favorite animal: Monkeys

I'll update on my marathon journey soon!

Another Busy Day

2010-11-16T14:04:00.002+13:00

Don't you love this time of year? We are hitting chaotic ... and every year I seem to forget how busy it actually gets. For some silly reason (oh yeah, December babies fitted in with the outdoor shooting season ...) we have three of the kids' birthdays between now and Christmas, not to mention Christmas, end of the school year ... etc etc ...

Soooo Sunday after Saturday's Incline run was a lovely rest day - I got my Christmas Class (Stamping) ready - I have three classes in different places all doing the same class over the next few weeks and then went and watched Cameron play his rep Cricket game - which they lost, badly!

Yesterday (Monday) I ran a short 6.5km and it was hard work, I seem to have got sluggish and lost all speed (if I ever had what you could call "speed"), I'm sure it will pass, but I feel like I've spent months getting no where. Did my delivering and managed to get to the shops to make sure I had Charlotte's birthday gifts organised (yay! only Monday, and I'm feeling organised for her birthday onFriday).

Today, Tuesday, is usually my short run and spin class day - I either struggle and get up earlier to do the run before spin, or do it after spin, which usualy means the whole day seems to disappear quickly. So I tried a new idea today, I ran to the gym, did spin class, then ran home - now, that is a good workout! 5km pretty much exactly to the gym and the same home. Felt pretty good too, I've just been delivering and now just need to hop in the shower, try and get dinner semi ready, pick up the girls from school, get Charlotte organised for her Dance lesson then back to the school for the first of three teacher interviews (I'm on the Board of Trustees as the Personnel person so its time to do the annual new staff interviews - just one place to fill this year, which is an extra teacher as our numbers have gone up - must be a good sign of a good school when the teachers don't leave!), I'll quickly take Charlotte to dance between two of the interviews, once that is done, I'll rush Rhiannon off to her Touch (rugby) game, watch that and then get home for dinner *phew*.

I'm pretty sure I'll have no trouble sleeping tonight!!

Rimutaka Incline

2010-11-14T09:20:00.002+13:00

18.4km - 1:45:27 (5:43/km)
Fun run - so no places :)

I love this run, off road - first 11k is up to the summit with a gradual incline the whole way, last 7km is down from 500m to 60m (I think, it is a really steep down!). It follows the old railway course, tracks are long gone, but the tunnels are still there and pretty cool to run through - if not pretty dark and worrying about twisting an ankle!

I even have photos - kind of. My two sisters walked it, they left 2hrs before me with the walkers and chatted, had fun, took photos ... kind of sounds like a better deal than running ;)

I left home at about 8am - a lot more relaxed after David realised on Friday that he wasn't actually working like he thought this weekend, so instead of worrying about kids getting to places on time and having the right people pick them up, and rushing back for other drop offs, I could just relax and enjoy the day off and let him worry about it. Got to the carpark at 9.00, got on one of buses to shuttle us to the start, picked up my number, trip to the toilet, and I was ready to go!

There was a misty rain the whole drive over, and still slightly misty wet when we started - bonus though, the wind was blowing the right way and for a point to point run, wind blowing the right way is a bonus!

Set off - I found I was puffing way too much, my body just didn't really feel in the groove, possibly tired - its been a busy week with a trip to Auckland, meetings, work, tonight will be the first evening I'm home for nearly two weeks or eating crap (although I tried hard not to and wasn't as bad as I could have been) for a few days in Auckland, then really not getting back to the good eating after we got back ... whatever, I felt sluggish. Groin muscle was soreish to start, but not too bad.

5km Drink stop - this is Julie ... just imagine it is two hours later and I'm running up to it! Ha Ha

I wanted to finish the run with a 5:40 pace, I started off pretty much bang on that and kept it there until about the 8th km when the incline gets steeper for the last 3k up to the top, I kept on slogging/jogging and felt pretty slow, but was passing people rather than being passed so I was probably doing fine. Got to the top absolutely stuffed and stopped at the waterstop and took my time having some water and a gel, brought my pace right up to nearly 6:00/km, but I knew the downhill would be lots faster!

Nearly at the summit!

Old remains of the train at the top

Crossed the creek slowly ;), went through a tunnel, again slowly ... finally set off down the hill and picked up speed, had to slow down again for the very stoney steep gully ... and then finally it was all down hill, with a couple of slow tunnels (slow because I didn't want to trip!).

One of the tunnels

Most of the downhill is spent looking down making sure you're not going to trip on any stones, or turn an ankle - but fun!

2.5km to Finish! Really?!

The advertising for this course says 17.5k, I knew it was more like 18k from last year, but even still, I thought I had about 1k to go when I reached the sign that said 2.5k to go! What! I was ready to be finished by then, and that 2.5k felt like a long long way. I ran this is 1:48 last year and thought I would blast that for a PB easily, but was getting a bit nervous that I would be slower. Ended up 3min faster - but really, thinking about it afterwards, I was definitely more sluggish than I would have liked ... probably the first time I've run a race where I just haven't run as well as I can, well, as well as I could on the day, but definitely not where I think my fitness is at.

Here I am, at last!

Nice thing about being the runner, not the walker, is that my sisters were there to cheer me in at the finish - poor things had to wait for an hour because they walk so fast! Julie's partner had nicely offered to come and pick us up at the finish end, so he did the patient wait as well. So, came in, stretched, hopped in the car, went and got some lunch - Les drove us over the hill where Georgie and I picked up our cars and I headed home.

Today my legs feel good - quads from running down that hill? Don't really hurt at all - that Maungatook training I do, plus all the biking must be good for something! Groin muscle is kind of sore, but not too bad considering it was a hard, long run the day before so hopefully it is on the mend.

Rest day today - I'm liking my switch to long run on Saturdays and a total rest/family day on the Sunday :)

Is it still Thursday?

2010-11-12T18:49:00.002+13:00

Actually, here, it definitely isn't - it is Friday afternoon! But I can still pretend and do Three Things Thursday can't I?

It's been a long time since I wrote anything here - no reason really, I just didn't get around to it, and the longer you leave it, the worse the mojo gets ... so it's been a while.

I planned my training for London 2011 today, for the upteenth time ;) But I think this is definitely what I'm going with. I had dreams of speed work, hill work, all the serious stuff I read about and admire and will make me a faster runner. I've discovered everytime I push it to hard something gives. I recovered from the hamstring injury well - no twinges or pain at all anymore. But now my groin is sore. I've decided I need to just concentrate on getting the distances in and building that endurance, the speed will come when the last 5kg finally comes off and with the training. With that in mind, I'm going with my original plan of doing Hal Higdon Intermediate II programme, I followed Intermediate I for my first marathon and it worked well so there is no reason to change what isn't broken - except to make it a bit harder.

I have about a month until the Wanganui Half Marathon, I've tried to train hard for it, and am definitely building a good base. Not sure I will be as fast as I want, in fact I know I won't, but I'm still hoping for a goodish half marathon and then marathon training will start straight after, I'm excited, and nervous.

7 Months! ... aka Here I am

2010-09-16T22:00:00.002+12:00

I had to look at the London Marathon site to see how long it is until the big day, was surprised to see exactly 7mths ... that time is going to tick by awfully fast.

So where have I been, what have I been doing?

Well, for a couple of months I really wasn't running, and it was very frustrating, not to mention worrying. Not sure where I got to the ages ago that I was here, but I ended up going to see a sports doctor, she sent me away to get my knees x-rayed and ultra-sounded, they came up with nothing and after more examination she decided (but I don't think was really sure) that it was the very bottom of my hamstrings hurting, basically that is where I was pointing to was hurting coupled with the fact my hamstrings were very weak, seemed to be the logical explanation. She sent me off with instructions to strengthen the hamstrings and that yes, I could run, but not consecutive days and not too much.

So I left there, had already started seeing a Personal Trainer, have carried on seeing him. I started running 5-6km 3x a week and since then have slowly built up. I saw the Doctor again last week and she was very impressed at how much stronger and more stable my body is and we set an appointment for two months time with the plan being that I probably wouldn't need it, but to have it there just in case, and okay to run, but stick to the 10% rules.

So where am I at now? Feeling pretty good :) I've upped my mileage to about 35km/week, I ran 14km last Sunday without the injury playing up. I ran 12km yesterday, that felt fantastic. I'm running a 10km race on Sunday, so that will be a good test to see where I am at. All the strengthening work I've been doing has definitely made my body feel stronger and more stable, speedwise and running fitness wise, I'm not quite where I was at pre-marathon and just after the marathon when I was probably at my peak, but I'm definitely getting there and am pretty confident that I can built up that fitness again pretty quickly.

At this stage I'm pretty much following the same build up as I did last year. The Masterton Half Marathon is in a few weeks, which was my first half last year. I'm hoping to run it, but will see how the body feels, I definitely won't be doing it "as fast as I can", but am hoping to be able to run it at an easy/slow pace, just so in my head I know I'm back at half marathon fitness again. The Rimutaka Incline is on the 13th of November (about 18km), I'll definitely be aiming for that and then the Wanganui Half Marathon on 12th of December ... I'm really hoping to put in a good race and good time at Wanganui, after that I will start marathon training again. Feels like I'm in a time warp in some ways, same plan, same place as a year ago ... except this time I know I've done it once and I can do it again.

I've been eating crap again and it is showing on the scales, I wonder if you ever win against the eating demon? I know in my head that to run just that much faster and easier I need to lose that last 5kg, but I can't seem to buckle down and do it. Oh well, I will keep trying though!

Family is good ... we're in that nice inbetween winter and summer sports time, we have NOTHING on Saturday which is very unusual (okay, I lie, the girls do have cheerleading, but that is later on in the day - no getting up early for it!). I'm not even running or spinning, I'll be resting my legs ready for the Pelorus Trust 10k on Sunday.

Shall I try and promise I'll keep updating here better, or just make no promises - but try?

8 Months, 21 Days

2010-07-26T09:33:00.002+12:00

Whoops, skipped a few!! Oh well, that is life :)

Okay ...

Training

Friday
1 Spin Class
45min Cross Trainer

Saturday
40min Cross Trainer (cross-country ... hard work!)
30min treadmill (snuck in a 1km slow jog)

Sunday
1 Spin Class
50min Cross Trainer

I really really want to run :( ... the 1km I did on the treadmill on Saturday just reinforced I'm not healed, definitely not sore and limping around, but I could feel it ... and know that if I had run, say 5km, it would have been sore. Patience isn't my best attribute, and this just plain sucks!

On good (and being totally optimistic!) news - I've persuaded three of my sisters to enter the relay with me for the Tarawera Ultra ... should be lots of fun!! It is about a month before London, so hopefully I'll be back into it, fit and training ... the 23km I'll do should equal a good long training run for the marathon.

Eating

Just don't want to talk about it!

Life

Busy, busy, busy ... as usual :) Not such a bad weekend, Saturday was quiet for us, the girls both played netball at 9.00am which means we were finished with sport early, which gave me time to go to the gym. Went and visited my new great nephew, he is rather gorgeous - a good looking baby! Sunday, off to the gym again, and then I had a Stampin' Up workshop in the afternoon - days sure do fly by! Everyone back at school and work today ... I'm about to do the very exciting job of hanging out the washing, then on my bike to deliver and then back in time for the Mr Sky Man to come and connect us etc, fingers crossed it all happens this time!!

8 Months, 25 Days

2010-07-22T23:15:00.003+12:00

Just sneaking in before the day finishes to keep up with the daily blogging! Not a whole lot to say today ...

Training

Zilch ... we'll call it a rest day! Dad rang this morning and said I could have the day off, he'd do all of them today, under questioning, he's supposed to be only doing about 30min on his bike, he has had his stitches out but the skin isn't knitting together quite like it should (he had internal and external stitches) ... but he is being his usual stubborn self and feels fine, so isn't listening quite like he should. Anyway, it was raining, and I although I tried to persuade him being out in the rain and the possibility of slipping etc wasn't a great idea, there was another part of me quite pleased I didn't have to go out and get wet! I thought about going to the gym and doing a stint on the cross-trainer, but decided a complete rest day would probably do me the world of good.

Eating

Double blah

Life

Ahhhhh a nice day at home, I got so many little things done today! The Sky TV people were supposed to come this afternoon and get us connected, we've been with Telstra forever, but have finally got sick of waiting for their Home Media to start and have decided to switch to Sky and MySky (I miss so many good programmes working in the evenings!). Anyway, the technician rang at about 10.00 and said he would get there about 3.00, of course at 2.55 I had to go out and get the kids from school (it was still raining), and he left a message just after to say that they couldn't do it in the rain (the satelite dish needs to be put on the roof of the house). Why he couldn't have worked that out earlier I really don't know. Oh well, nice day at home, housework got done, phone calls got made, stampin orders got dropped off, my workshop for Sunday is all organised (and its only Thursday!).

Spin tomorrow, plus a cross-trainer workout ... hopefully will balance out the work dinner later on!

8 Months, 26 Days

2010-07-21T12:57:00.002+12:00

Happy 100th Post to me!! ... pretty sad when I'm pretty sure I've probably had it going for about a year (just checked, first post was 2nd September) ... so another day in the thrilling life of Lisa trying to get to the London Marathon :)

Training

1hr Cross-Trainer - I've decided to emulate what I'd be running pretty much on the cross-trainer, hoping that will keep my fitness somewhat where it should be for when I start running again, in fact I'm thinking that once I'm okay to run that for a while I might try running 3-4x a week and using the cross-trainer the other couple of days, its not such a bad work out and I feel like its making the leg muscles stronger. So today, I decided to try and make it equal a longish, easyish run. I set it for 60min and manual (because I couldn't workout how to change the time on the fat-burner programme from 30min) and alternated between 5min on 1 and 10min on 4 ... trying to make sure my heart rate was pretty much in the fat burning/sweat, but not high cardio stage. I think it worked pretty well - it felt like a good workout, albeit seems like a long time and is pretty boring (I don't think it as boring as the treadmill though!).

1hr Delivering - Dad must have been given the okay to get back on his bike because I came back from the gym to find a box with not nearly as many bills in it as it said on the box, he must have taken a good chunk of them himself. Probably not so great because he probably should still be taking it easy, but a bit of a relief as I still have grocery shopping and helping Rhiannon with her paper run to do!

Eating

Blah, just the same as yesterday ... and the scales are matching that - not moving, good that it isn't upwards, but downwards would be nice. But, well you have to WORK at them coming down!

Life

I have a new Great Nephew, born at 6.50am this morning! That makes my "greats" now number four ... does that make me old? LOL Romeo (I still can't believe my niece is making the poor boy live with the name Romeo through the rest of his life, especially his school life ... ) was born after only about a 4hr labour and 30min pushing, wow - 7lb10oz :) Rhiannon is hoping we'll go and see him at the birth unit this afternoon, but I don't really see us fitting it in, maybe a quick 5mins on the way to the supermarket. Tracy (my niece) was living a pretty hard life up until she got pregnant, addicted to P and alcohol and doing some pretty awful things that go with those addictions, the last 4-5mths she has really cleaned herself up, is living with my sister, and is back to the sweet niece I've always known and supported through some pretty hard family times ... hopefully she will stay clean and this will be the making of her (and yeah, my family could be a soap opera ;)).

Time for a shower and getting ready for the afternoon usual rush!

8 Months, 27 Days

2010-07-20T15:17:00.002+12:00

Training

1 Spin Class
45min Cross-Trainer (on cross-country programme ... hard work!)
1hr45min Delivering
0 Housework ;)

Eating

Not bad, not good ... it is hard to balance getting hungry from working out with eating right, one day I might get my head working with my body!!

Life

Well, quick one today ... its been a busy day! 3.00pm, just waiting for afternoon tea to finish cooking (Sizzlers in bread ... pack of 8 means 2 each for the kids so I can't be tempted because someone will miss out which = me being in trouble! LOL). Once they are cooked I'll go and have a shower, then off to drop of the first one at Jazz, deliver the last of the bills in the car, then home to get dinner ready (Pumpkin Lasagne ... yummmy) ... with gym and hip hop drop offs/pick ups inbetween!

Not a lot else happening ... thats what happens with trying to blog everyday, anybody who can be bothered reading, gets to see how mundane my life really is ;)

8 Months, 28 Days ... & I'll show you mine

2010-07-19T13:30:00.005+12:00

Marlene's I'll Show you Mine if you show me your's

Okay, I don't have many medals from running at all, they don't always give them here! I'm disappointed they didn't have one for the Rotorua Marathon, that would have been one of my proudest.

Mine aren't anywhere exciting, in fact I'm probably the most relaxed person about medals, the only reason they're hanging up at all is because my husband or the kids have hung them up!

But here they are hanging on the framed (by hubby, not me, of course! LOL) medals from my shooting days ... my proudest medals - I always said the London Marathon medal would probably get the same equal proud feelings. Anyway, the ones in the frame are my Oceania game medals - first in the Womens' Individual match and second in the teams match ... way back in 1995! ... note the two Australians either side of me, that is worth a LOT of medals LOLOL.

Training

Lets call it training ... it will eventually become that!

Yesterday -

1 Spin Class
30min on cross-trainer
2.5hrs delivering on bike

Today -

1.5hrs delivering on bike

Nothing too exciting, but definitely feel like I'm keeping my muscles moving and my cardio fitness up there.

Eating

Yesterday - okay, not great, but okay. Today the scales had me at less than I was Friday, for me, and a Monday morning, that is an accomplishment :)

Today - bad lunch ... but it wasn't really bad (half a thing of chips, chicken sandwich and sultana scone). Breatfast was good, dinner will be healthy shepherds pie. As long as I keep to the no picking after school, that is an okay day ... not a weight losing day, but shouldn't be a gaining day.

Life

The kids are back at school today, yay! for a quiet house ... boo! for the getting back to rushing around. I've got to pack the girls in the car amongst some bribery to do some of my delivering ... as in me driving, and them hopping out to the letterboxes. Dad came off his bike last week and has internal and external stitches in his leg and has been told NOT to bike for a while (for avoidance of blood clots that he is prone to and an ulcer forming on his leg) ... so the bits and pieces he usually bikes for miles to do on his bike, I'm doing in the car - just don't tell him I'm taking the lazy way out ;)

Hubby has a job interview this afternoon ... fingers crossed for that - I think I've mentioned a bit here about his work and their lack of motivation to pay him his commission payments, we ended up going to a lawyer and mediation and as a result ARE slowly getting paid ... but things aren't great ... he loves his actual job, but the stress of their money problems etc just isn't much fun.

I'm about to be totally indulgent ... ignoring the bathroom that really needs a good clean ... and going to sit and watch Outrageous Fortune taped from last week :)

8 Months, 29 Days

2010-07-18T09:02:00.002+12:00

Okay, time to get serious ... serious about updating the blog - do you think I can do it daily, even if I just have drivel to write about? Maybe some daily headings :)

Running/Training/Exercise

Running = not happening, I've made an appointment with a sports doctor for 2nd of August (first available appointment). I ran 10km a week ago, absolutely loved the run, took it at an easy pace, leg felt good while I was running, the sun was shining albeit cold ... it was one of those perfect runs BUT by night-time I was limping around again - not so good.

So I decided to make the appointment, what I'm hoping will happen is that by then without running for just over three weeks it will be almost better from rest and the Dr will say start slowly, or rest it a bit more. I'm not sure I need the appointment, or whether rest will do it, but giving it takes 3-4 weeks for an appointment, I didn't want to rest for a few weeks, run, find I needed an appointment and then have to wait another few weeks. So, that is the plan, for now.

I'm picking the Auckland marathon isn't going to happen, I should be training now. I'm okay with that, I can always do it next year - way more important is to get right for London next year - 8 months and 29 days away!

Exercise - so what am I doing instead? I'm doing the three spin classes I can get to each week and on Friday I gave the cross-trainer (elliptical) a go at the gym, figuring that my leg seems to only hurt from the running impact ... I'm hoping it is closest to running and will keep my fitness up there ready to run again. I did 30min on Friday and boy did I have sore muscles yesterday, obviuosly you use different muscles, or muscles differently on it! Good news though is that my knee/injury DIDN'T hurt, so it should be an okay alternative - yay!

Weight Loss

Insert high pitched screeching laugh ... or maybe call it weight GAIN. I have been awful the last week, its like a total mental thing - can't run = eat instead, absolutely pathetic behaviour! I'm exercising, I'm burning calories, I don't have to run to stay this weight ... but I do have to eat right! Hopefully slightly back on track since yesterday.

As for official weigh-in on Friday, I did sneak a look, but hated what I saw so I'm pretending it didn't happen ... blinkers are on!

Stupid, because one of the things I know I need to do is drop that last 5kg, impact is hurting my leg and causing the injury, less weight = less impact, pretty easy equation.

Life

This school holidays ended up being busy for me! The first week my "real" job had half the team away, so I did about twice the hours I normally do ... although Dad did all the delivering so it wasn't so bad, I had time to take the kids out to the movies one day, and time to spend some time baking doing stuff at home before I left for work the other days. Last week Dad managed to come off his bike and he has stitches in his leg ... and been told NOT to ride his bike for at least a week, so I've been doing all of it ... good exercise, but lots of time! I'm lucky I have good older baby sitting kids, and good kids that are happy to entertain themselves.

Yesterday I spent a lovely WHOLE day at home ... made pumpkin soup ready to freeze, some scones ready for lunches next week and started a craft project with the girls ... and even did some tidying and vacuuming!

Today it is spin class and then I'll do another 30min on the cross-trainer ... delivering and then hopefully time to finish the craft projects (so my name isn't mud! LOL).

Back to school tomorrow!

Bits and Pieces

2010-07-10T09:35:00.002+12:00

So how was the knee after Thursday's 5km? Well, by Thursday night it was sore and I was cursing and swearing and resigned to the injury just not getting better. Friday morning I woke up and it was still a bit sore, went to the gym did my physio stretches, did a spin class and its been feeling good ever since, well "good" as in it feels about where it was before I ran on Thursday. Maybe there is hope. So, I'm going to continue with the physio's idea that along with the strengthening exercises and taking it easy it will get "manageable", but I'm also going to book an appointment with a sports doctor and get it looked at. So, slow and easy 10km tomorrow ... I'm going to try taking an antiinflammatory before and after and see what happens ... that maybe a lot of the pain is inflammation?

Barefoot Running - even after reading Born to Run and being fascinated with all the research, and definitely being able to the sense of it - it still isn't something I aspire to do. But, funnyish story, I was talking to my Dad yesterday about it and he reminded me how on the last leg of the running tour they used to do around here (3 days of running, 5 legs I think? It was an annual thing for a while and he ran it each eyar) they used to have to run across the river, so because he didn't want to run in wet shoes he always wore sandals for that leg of the race ... my Dad was a trendsetter way back about 15yrs ago and he didn't even know it! LOL

Official Weigh-In - well, yesterday morning I managed to get to 68.4kg ... a whole 400g less than the week before (that is 0.9lb). Any loss is a good loss so I'm happy. Now, to do the same this week! It was easier to eat better this week because I started work at 3.30pm everyday (except Tuesday) - I normally start at 6.30. Anyway, that meant I had lunch at home, and then left at about 2.30 - avoiding that early afternoon when all I want to do is pick and eat all the wrong stuff! I was very good at bringing the right snacks and dinner with me and sticking to them :)

I think that was all! Happy Birthday to Josh my now 16yo!!

Baby Steps

2010-07-08T10:17:00.002+12:00

Baby steps are good, strides would be better, but any little step is good :)

On the eating/weight loss front, official weigh in day is tomorrow, but I weigh myself everyday, and I've lost all of a grand number of about 200g so far this week, hopefully that will hang on for tomorrow's official day. I'm actually pretty happy with that - I have dropped my exercise sooooo much the last couple of weeks and I was really worried my body would go into shock and put on weight, so my "trying" and doing okay, but not perfectly at following points again and 3x spin classes a week is keeping me on track and at least maintaining. I'd obviously love to be losing more, but I've got to look at the big picture. I haven't even done any biking/delivering for nearly two weeks! That is usually what burns those extra few calories ... but my Dad (who I suspect is more addicted to exercise than I am LOL), did the last few days of last month because he knew I was trying to rest my leg, and then this week when we start up the month, he insisted on doing Otaki (the first few days) because I'm starting work early most days this week. It's certainly been nice having some time at home, especially as it is school holidays, but I feel like a lazy slug!

On the running side of things - I ran 5km this morning! Yay! and really enjoyed it, I was a bit worried that I'd enjoyed the time off too much and it would be hard work to get back into it. But it felt like coming home, and although I could tell my legs were a bit "gosh we haven't done this for nearly two weeks", my fitness felt good. As for my knee (and yes, I'm calling and admitting its a knee injury now), it started off good, a bit stiff but pretty freely but I could feel it the whole way, and was very tentative on the downhills because I felt like the extra impact would be too much. I came home and iced, and rolled ... now I'll just wait and see how it feels later tonight - it usually after I've sat at work in front of the 'ole computer screen for a few hours and not kept moving that I feel it. If it is no worse than before I started today I'll still not run tomorrow or Saturday, but I'm hoping to do a slow and easy 10km on it on Sunday.

I've just finished "Born to Run" and one thing that has made me think about is the enjoyment of running - I think I've been pushing and pushing to get better and better since I started, I think now, especially while trying to fix the knee, I just need to get out there and run slow and enjoy it .. something I'm definitely going to work on. I'm still a goal seeker, I still want to break that 4hrs for a marathon, and better my last time, but reality is, Auckland is 16wks away and I don't think this injury is going to let me train hard for a while, so I plan on (hopefully!) getting the miles in, getting the hills in, but taking it easy and just enjoying the running ... and then doing the same with Auckland. In an ideal world the injury will get better and I will be able to train "harder" for London ... because, really, that race is the important one :)

Training Programmes and "Summer" of Weight Loss

2010-07-03T13:13:00.002+12:00

Firstly ... Training Programmes. I love planning, writing lists ... just not so good at keeping to them! LOL

So, for my first marathon I followed (religiously, never missed a training run) the Hal Higdom Intermediate 1 programme, and it worked well. This second marathon training cycle, I had planned to follow the Intermediate 2 programme, but blend it with some speed work and hill work. About a week ago I sat down with my spreadsheet and blended in the latest RW's half marathon programme in with the Hal Higdon one ... using the RW's speedwork etc and mixing it with the right mileage. I was more than happy with it.

Then, I admitted defeat and admitted that I'm injured and decided to take a week or so off, I worked that into the training programme, I figured I am more than half marathon fit, missing the first couple of weeks of the Higdon programme wasn't going to be a major, and in fact when I worked out the whole programme had that all fitted in.

Then, with being injured, and all the blog reading etc I do, I thought maybe I'd look at the FIRST programme to see what it says ... I keep saying to my younger sister who has struggled with injuries that it would be good for her, so should listen to my own advice. I had a look and the whole concept makes a lot of sense, but I know I want to run more than three days. While looking at the site with the FIRST programme, I looked at their five day marathon programme, and thought, now that looks like me. So now I'm not sure what to do! Too many choices.

So Hal Higdon? Big plus, his programme worked really well for my first marathon - and I really like the two harder weeks, then an easier week concept ... mentally I found that worked well.

Marathon Training Program - Has the "extras" worked into it, has a longer run mid week (the only thing I thought would maybe work better with the Higdon programme), it is a twelve week programme which gives me a bit of time to work on the injury.

I think I've pretty much decided to scrap my well worked out programme from a couple of weeks ago and go with the Marathon Training Programme ... and if the knee is still not quite right, cut down to four days a week - which with the longer mid-week run, I think would work well. I'll probably use the spare 5th day to work with a Personal Trainer to work on my core and strengthening.

Maybe, I'm just a programme whore, and can't get enough of them? LOL ... but I do love working with a spreadsheet ;)

... and the injury update? Physio really does think its my knee, I told him I was sceptical of that because it just doesn't feel like my knee ... but he explain how all my other muscles are fine, there is absolutely nothing to point towards anything else, plus it is definitely weight-bearing pain which points towards a joint injury rather than muscles (something like that anyway). BUT the big thing that has me convinced that maybe he is right (and sorry Mr Physio man for doubting you and saying I doubted you), I talked to my sister the next day - my younger sister who ran my first few races with me - who has been off with a knee injury for a few months, and comparing notes ... her injury started in exactly the same way. Damn. So I'm doing the exercises, I definitely won't run until Thursday ... it is a week after the half marathon now and I can still feel soreness when I move wrong. Thursday I'll run an easy 5km and see how it feels, I'd planned to then take another couple of days off and throw myself into a 17.5km as per the programme on Sunday - but I'll assess that at the end of the week. Meanwhile I'm trying to do three spin classes during the week to keep my fitness up :)

"Summer" of Weight Loss

Kerrie over at Mom vs Marathon is putting together a group of people wanting to lose weight over the American summer (it will be our winter), I need something to give me a good rocket up the a** to get myself back on track, so I'm going to join in with the hope it will give me the motivation I need.

I'll put my beginning weight and some photos up tomorrow (I'll try and convince my 11yo to take some photos in the less workout clothes as possible to get a "true shape" shot).

This not running makes me eat even more believe it or not ... I'm so frustrated with myself and lack of control at the moment :(

Harbour Capital Half Marathon Report

2010-07-01T08:19:00.004+12:00

Before I ran my marathon, I had this planned as my next big goal - my first under 2hrs half marathon. Then I ran a half marathon before the marathon and got my under 2hrs there, so I changed this goal to 1:55. I didn't count on gettin injured though. I've been nursing this stupid injury for about a month, my training definitely hasn't been what I wanted it to be, so by the time I got to Sunday I'd readjusted my goal to getting under 2hrs.

After Christchurch my leg was pretty good, the physio sent me off with the exercises and the expectation it would get better. After a couple of weeks of training pretty hard, my leg was definitely getting worse not better. So before this race I took three days off, dosed myself up with Voltarin and hoped for the best.

My plan was to push myself to start faster, get to under 2hr pace, or very close to right from the beginning and then keep it there until about 13km. Then, if needed, push myself to run a couple of fast k's to make sure I kept my pace to under the magic 2hrs (half marathon pace for under 2hrs = 5:42).

We parked at work, about 10min walk away and walked down to the stadium. Weather was a typical winter Wellington day - cold, wet, southerly.

Got to the stadium, found my sister, niece and great niece - left Cameron who was running the 10k and Rhiannon who was running the Magic Mile with my niece and my sister and I went off and lined up for the toilets. I'm usually way too early to races, this one I was running late! While in the toilets they called for everyone to line up, so it was a rushed toilet stop and then off to the start. Ugh, one of my tactics was not to get jammed in at the start, I had to push myself to the middle because it was already crowded. Dianna had long gone and I know was going to try and stick with the 1:40 pacer (she's much faster than me! LOL).

Got my ipod going, got my Garmin going, and I was ready - just in time, only took about 30sec to reach the start (I much prefer the different starts for each event), and off we ran, and no jamming in - yay! Probably because we run from the stadium and the entrance is wider than a normal road, by the time we reached the pathways down and hit the road people were already settled into reasonable pace, and I must have been in the right place - no weaving, getting frustrated.

So - plan to hit about 5:42 pace? First 5k splits = 5:35, 5:35, 5:37, 5:33 and 5:34. Whooaaaaa ... the voltarim and rest obviously worked, my legs were actually working right!

By about 8km I was getting tired, I was a bit worried about this ... I'm usually a slow starter in case I overdo it, but this time I wanted to push myself. At about 9km we turned a corner and suddenly had the wind behind us, just as I needed it. Second 6k-10k splits = 5:37, 5:39, 5:42, 5:41 and 5:27.

This was an out and back course, so it was about 9k I the main bunches started coming the other way, I saw a friend from school first (she finished in 1:31 ... whoa!), was looking for my sister, didn't see her, didn't see her ... thought I must have missed her. At about 10km (0.5km) from the turnaround, there she was! ... she is quite funny about my running and I know lots more worried about me beating her than I am about catching her ... I can imagine her panic when she realised I was only a k behind her - she said afterwards it really sped her up ;).

13km I stopped properly, had a drink, had a gel and regathered, that pushing it was getting tiring! 11k-15km = 5:33, 5:40, 5:42, 5:45 and 5:34 (the 5:45 was the drink stop, I was quite pleased I managed to gather the time back afterwards).

Those last 6km I was just telling myself to hang on and keep running and making sure I kept my overall pace in about the same place! I was quite surprised everytime I looked at my watch that I was still keeping up, because I didn't feel like I was! I think the wind was behind us most of way back which probably helped.

Last splits, 16km to finish = 5:36, 5:38, 5:52 (drink stop), 5:37, 5:36 and 5:42 (there is a killer short steep ramp/hill going back into the Stadium).

I didn't look at my overall time until just before the finish and suddenly realised if I pushed it I could get a PR ... so I pushed myself into a sprint and managed 1:57:27 ... 13sec faster than my previous fastest time ... yay!!

So ... the damage? Well the voltarin obviously masked the injury, because by Sunday evening I was seriously hobbling. Monday I was still sore ... and Thursday now and its still not good :( I'd already decided to take at least a week, probably a week and a half off to see if that would fix it - but I was hoping by now it would be feeling good and then a week extra would give extra healing time. I'm off to see the physio in about half an hour, hopefully he can work some magic!

And the kids? Cameron (14yo) ran the 10km in 51min, which isn't bad because his training seriously declined about the same time the World Cup started ... bit hard getting up and running before school when you've spent half the night watching TV! ... he said it was easy and should have run faster (he hadn't run that far before and was worried about pushing it too hard).

Rhiannon (11yo) ran the mile in 9:22 ... not too bad, she isn't quite the natural athlete her brother is, so thats pretty good for her :)

Righty, better get myself ready for the physio and those little running around jobs I need to do afterwards!!

Thanks for reading :)

Oh ... and a last couple of pictures - I wonder why people are forever mistaking my sister and I???

A comparison

2010-06-29T14:30:00.002+12:00

Before I do the Wellington Harbour Half Marathon report - how about a comparison :)

One year ago I'd been running for about six months, this race was my 3rd (I think) 10km, and my goal was to run it in under 1:05 (6:30/km). Little did I know how much this day was going to change my life.

(BTW - that is my sister running next to me, she WAS so supportive in my first few races, during that run we agreed that this year we'd run the half marathon together ... we ended up running our first half marathons together last October :) ... she is now injured and hasn't been running for a few months ... I miss her!)

Yes, I'd already taken the big step and made some changes, one year ago I'd lost 16kg (35lb) and trained myself to run 10km ... so big changes had been made.

BUT this was the day my number was drawn out of lots and lots of other numbers and won me a trip to run the London Marathon ... from this day I got serious about my running and losing more weight.

You can see from the photos how far I've come ... another 13kg lost (STILL haven't quite reached the magic 30kg!), and wow! I actually look like a runner!!

Time wise? 10km last year = 1:04:05, about 6:25/km. Half Marathon this year = 1:57:27 (5:34/km).

I didn't win a spot prize this year, and I still haven't run the London marathon ... but I have run a marathon, something I'd never even dreamt of doing (in fact, totally said NO I never would! LOL), I'm training for my second marathon and ultimately the 2011 London Marathon.

... and yes, I'm very proud of myself and my journey :)

I'll try and find time to write the race report tomorrow!

Long run yesterday ... in the rain

2010-06-21T09:19:00.002+12:00

18km was on the plan yesterday. Saturday, total rest day, the weather was perfect for running ... as I walked back from the netball courts for about the third time I was muttering about how finally we had a great running day, but I knew I needed a rest day, plus of course, three trips to the netball courts, two drives up to Waikanae for soccer drop offs, a couple of drives down to the gym for gymnastic and cheerleading drop offs ... well, I'm not sure a run would have worked into my day at all anyway!

So yesterday, I wake up ... raining, again. I spent all of last winter running and it hardly ever rained when I ran ... the last month, all it seems to have done here is rain and rain. I got up, I had a card class to run over in Lower Hutt in the afternoon so there was no option of waiting for the rain to stop. 7.45am I got out of bed ... and the rest of the house was still asleep *sigh*. Had my breakfast, got myself organised and off I went. Muttering about how I really really need to get my act together and buy that good running jacket I keep promising myself! It rained steadily for about the first 7-8km, and wasn't so bad ... just very wet. About 10k it seemed to stop a bit and I was thinking, hey! this isn't so bad ... at about 12k the heavens laughed at me as they opened up and it bucketed down, bucketed down to that point where it was a mission to find places on the footpath where I could place my feet without them landing in a few inches of water.

I'd decided before I left that even though it was a long, slow run day ... that at about 13km I would up my pace to 5:30/km, with this infuriated sore leg, I have really slowed down - I was just starting to run my shorter runs comfortably at 5:30/km ... now they're more like 5:45ish, and I was hoping to run the Wellington Half next week at 5:30/km, not much hope of that now - but I did want to push myself to that pace when I was completely warmed up and should have tired legs, just to see how it felt. I managed a km like that, slowed down for the next km, and tried it again at 15km and just couldn't get myself to that pace. Not sure how much the sloshing shoes and drowned rat look would have helped/not helped. But I think I've got to face reality that there is no way I can run that speed for a whole half marathon.

So the injury? Was feeling pretty good, but the last week or so, it is definitely slowing me down and not getting any better. After the half on Sunday I am definitely going to take a week completely off running, maybe two to see if that fixes it. I'm supposed to start week 1 of 18 weeks of marathon training that first week, but I'm pretty sure even missing the first two weeks will be okay, I'm pretty sure I've got enough base fitness that will still be okay to start right into Week 3. Very frustrating though ... definitely not what I had planned, I'd hoped to train up to a great Half Marathon at Wellington and being more than ready to dive straight into some good, hard marathon training.

So, cross training today which = delivering on my bike ... and the sun is actually out, yay!

Oh ... and GO! the All Whites ... 1-1 against Italy ... Wooooohoooooooo!!

Still running

2010-06-14T14:36:00.002+12:00

Got to say, not a lot of excitement happening around here!

Training wise - all is going good - leg is still sorer than I'd like, I'm hoping it will hang in there until after the Wellington Half Marathon (two weeks away) and then I'll decide whether I should just give in and take a week or two completely off running. Straight after Wellington is supposed to be the 1st week of my 18 week training programme for the Auckland marathon, but I don't think a week or two off and starting on Week 3 would actually make too much difference, I'm running the k's and distance of those first few weeks now.

Anyway, latest runs?

Tuesday - 8.0km - early morning, slowish, done.
Wednesday - 6.5km - another early morning, another slowish, sluggish run.
Thursday - 10km Tempo - after breakfast and dropping the kids off, great run - love it when a run goes well :) Perfect tempo run, warm up, building up speed to middle k's then slowing down to warming down for last couple of k's.
Friday - 6.5km - early morning, sluggish and slow.
Saturday - rest day - way too early wake up call to get to Palmerston in time for 8.00am warm up for gym competition.
Sunday - 16km - nice long run, felt good, felt strong :)

and, here we are at today, Monday. No run today, but a good 2.5hrs on my bike delivering, so not a total slug. I was going to push myself to a spin class tonight, but my leg is a bit sore after yesterday so I'm not going to push it. I'll do the same tomorrow as I did last week - run and then spin class later on in the morning.

Nice to see some sunshine outside today - it feels like its been ages!!

Christchurch Half Marathon

2010-06-11T11:20:00.003+12:00

Here I am! I really need to be better at updating here ... but what can I say, running, 5 children (well, 4 at home anyway), two part-time jobs ... sometimes life just gets too busy!

So this past weekend, I had my responsibility, husband and child free weekend - it was bliss :) and when choosing where to stay I figured out the Christchurch Half Marathon was the same weekend, so it was off to Christchurch I went. When I booked, I forgot that it would be winter, and that Christchurch is darn cold in winter! The weather was awful the week before, but as the week went on it was looking more and more like they'd put on a good day for Sunday's marathon event.

Um, so going back a bit - I flew to Christchurch on Friday, got there early afternoon, booked into my hotel and then spent the afternoon wandering around getting my bearings and finding the craft shop to buy the embroidery cottons I needed (one of my other passions is embroidery, and a weekend away for me = time to sit and do it :)). Picked up my race pack and picked up some dinner and went back to my hotel room for a lovely evening of sitting in bed watching TV doing my cross stitch - yeah, I'm just the ultimate party girl! LOL

Saturday I slept in (bliss!), hit the shops, bought a few things ... looked at running jackets but just didn't have the money to spend quite that much and was still thinking it was going to be nice the next day. Got back to the hotel for another quite evening.

It was about Saturday afternoon I did the silliest thing ever before a race, I fiddled with my dead toenail (from Rotorua), it had come half off and I tried to help it, ended up clipping it the best I could and by Saturday night it started hurting ... eh oh.

Sunday morning I woke up to rain, oh yay. Also woke up to a really sore, obviously becoming infected toe. Darn. Oh well, just hoped like anything that once I started running I wouldn't feel it. At my toast with peanut butter and a banana, drank my sports drink and off to the start I went.

It was quite lonely on my own, I think all the races I've done I've had my sisters, or family, or other people I know around to chat to. I was all alone in Christchurch and it was quite strange! Once I'd lined up with the other 5000+ people I chatted to a couple of people near me :) I was VERY good and lined up at the 2:00 sign ... because that is what I expected to run it in. Finally, off we went! It took me just over 2 minutes to pass the start line ... and instant frustration ... why oh why do walkers insist on lining up in the wrong place? How many times and places were they told to place themselves towards the back? Ugh! Here is an absoute typical, what I felt like I was doing for a lot of the race -
I love that they got the squeezing through photo, and then the after photo! LOL The guy in blue doesn't look happy with me at all, but hey - line up right folks!!

The race itself went well - I never got the soreness in my Popliteus muscle (have I told you that that is where the physio has decided my injury is? Reading about it, I totally agree - good to know what we're working with!). I think there was no soreness because of the standing around, then walking a couple of minutes to the start, and a slow start ... I could probably learn something from that ;) and then, well I got into the groove - I've decided that I really get into my own head when I'm running, people ask me about the scenery or this and that and I never have a good answer, I must be pretty focussed on what I'm doing. Toe didn't hurt, yay. It was wet and cold, but I didn't really notice it while I was running, it was probably better than a stinking hot day.

I didn't really have any big goals for this race, I haven't trained that well while mucking around with an injury, my real aim was just to run the 21k as more of a training run before Wellington in a couple of weeks, Wellington is where I want to run a GOOD race. But competitive person that I am, once I started, I really did want to break that 2hrs, as you do ;) I just never quite caught up on the slow start though, I did inch closer and closer to the magic 5:42/km and at 17km ran a 5:30km, but couldn't sustain it much longer than a k and settled back to 5:40ish pace. Once I saw the finish line I realised that I was close and tried to finish off fast, but couldn't quite do it - I ended up with a 2:00:35 official time, I did finish with a 5:42 pace as well, but managed to run an extra .15km ... probably the weaving around people. I'm more than happy with the time, its exactly where I should have been with realistic expectations. And folks, I'd like to point out again, I lined up at 2:00, I ran it in 2:00 ... so why did I spend the whole race trying to get past masses of people running slower???

What I've learned? I need to run a few races before I hit London next year (yes, my entry has been sent and should have been received!) ... if I'm frustrated at a crowd of 5000 people, imagine how frustrating a crowd of 40,000 is going to be - I have to work on this more than anything! (have I mentioned I hate crowds at the best of times! LOL).

As for the injury - it felt great, I had a twinge at 7km, but it went away and felt good through the whole race. The toe was fine until I stopped and boy was it sore on Sunday night, not being able to sleep sore - finally Monday the infection obviously "came out" and I was able to clean it out (I won't go into that gorey description ;)).

My leg felt great on Monday, and Tuesday I was full of confidence until I started running! LOL It took a while for it to work properly, but once it did it was okay.

Went back to physio yesterday and he is amazed at how it has healed, it is definitely better than it was ... not what he expected at all. So I have some more strengthening exercises, instructions to ice after running and I'll see after Wellington, he is pretty confident it is healing and healing well and should come right and with the exercises should be able to keep it from recurring, yay :)

A few congratulations from Christchurch - Andrew ran an awesome marathon and PB'd by heaps!! - I admire his bravery, I need to get brave like that and have the courage to push myself just a bit more without worrying about how I'm going to feel at the end.

Bernie Portenski - wow! what a woman ... Bernie used to live here in Paraparaumu, she belonged to the same running club as my Dad and I remember at least one marathon where I biked along beside my father and he was running the same pace as her and another local runner ... she always had everyone laughing with her rather full personality :) She broke the world record 60-65 age group record for the half marathon.

Suzi Richards - she was 2nd woman in the marathon (2:56 - wow!) another local! I know Suzi from the local Sports Office when I was the Cricket Assn's secretary and I was in and out of there all the time - I'm not she'd know me, but she was always happy to smile at the kids and give them a drink or treat while I was busy using the copier :)

Its nice to go so far away from home and see local faces up on the stage receiving prizes :)

It's that time of year again!

2010-06-02T14:41:00.003+12:00

After months of conditioning, months of training ... it all comes together - sounds like a marathon! Actually, this post has nothing to do with running ... it's time for gymnastic competition season, oh yay - I think ;)

Charlotte (8yo) is our little gymnast, Rhiannon (11yo) used to be - but once she got past about Level 3, you could tell she just didn't have the natural strength needed for the harder grades so she finished up. Charlotte has had that natural strength since started walking and following Rhiannon around the gym at about 9mths old, heck, I swear she was doing somersaults in the womb!!

She had a "rough" year last year, not rough really, but we said no to her current coach coaching her, we just thought it was too much for a 7yo, too serious, we weren't ready to take that step. Turns out we might have been wrong because she spent a year wasting time being kept to the "whole group" level, rather than being trained to her ability. This year Gill demanded we give Charlotte to her, so we gave in ... and she is doing great ;)

So, here you go, two videos - her floor routine (which was actually pretty rough) and her vault. She came 11th out of 23, so nothing earth shattering ... but better than last year when I watched her first competition and couldn't believe how bad she had got, and she came last!!

So the next couple of months we not only have to fit the netball and soccer and my running into the weekend, we have gym competitions to fit in as well!

That is interesting

2010-05-27T22:04:00.002+12:00

I'm sure that last time I tried to write a post from work I couldn't because the signing in part was blocked ... oh well, we'll go with it!

After struggling with my funny leg pain for a few weeks I finally went to the physio today ... best news is that he said I could carry on running, it's not getting worse, and while I'm running it actually feels okay, once I've got over the limping 2-300m start. He said not to do anything too hard like speed work or hill training, but doing as I've been doing, keeping it easy should be fine ... yay! He said it was up to me and how I felt as to whether I should run the Christchurch Half Marathon next week - that yes, it would make the overall recovery take a bit longer, and that I'd definitely expect to aggravate the pain and to be sore for a couple of days, but it won't do any permanent harm, although if I expect to do Wellington WELL a few weeks after that, to think about how I wanted to approach it, so at this stage I'll go with my original plan of treating it like a long training run for Wellington, unless I get to the end of next week and its not feeling any better, I'll reassess then.

So what's causing the pain? After much pushing, pulling, prodding all my muscles - especially my hamstring which was his original expectation was causing the problem - he decided that all my muscles seem fine and that it is looking like it is my knee, of course I looked at him a bit dumbfounded with a "huh? but my knee doesn't hurt?" ... but when he explained how its all attached, and how all the symptoms seem to be happening when the knee is engaging (walking down stairs, bending my leg up to do quad stretches), hmmm maybe he is right. He did say that its definitely not a typical presentation and gave me some exercises and stretches to do to build up around the knee and to support the knee, then next week he wants me to run right before I see him so he can double check the pain while it should be freshly there (see, he said I could run!).

So, certainly doesn't seem anything major, and hopefully with a bit of massage, bit of knee strengthening, we'll fix it. He thinks its caused by a few things all amassing together, the high mileage from training for a marathon (he mentioned how surprising it is that I haven't had anything hurt up until now), trying out speed work so running differently and the fact I have double jointed knees (do your knees bend backwards?) which makes them looser and probably more susceptible to them moving around more than they should.

I ran a nice 10k yesterday, I should have run 6k on Tuesday, and 8km yesterday - but skipped Tuesday and did a spin class instead ... so yesterday decided to go a bit longer, and it was nice :) Rest and physio today, then plan on 8km tomorrow and Saturday and then I'm still undecided about Sunday, I think I will see how I feel. Probably 14km - originally I wanted to do 18k before next week's half, but I think I'm probably better taking it easy and doing the 14km. I ran a marathon only a month ago, so I'm sure my body still has the fitness to manage a half marathon without an 18-20k run in the few weeks before!

Life is going to be crazy the next few days, we seem to have lots on, Dad is away so I've got the whole delivery job to do ... I'm looking forward to next Friday when I get to escape all responsibilities for a few days, yay!!

Ha Ha

2010-05-27T01:06:00.002+12:00

Out of a crowd of 30,000 or so at the all important All Whites game in Wellington (where they made the World Cup) ... guess who's ugly faces are in an ad?

That is my oldest son on the left (covered by his mate's hand), and his two friends. They had no idea until they spied it on the stuff.co.nz homepage! LOL

Lifetime ... and a few other bits and bobs

2010-05-21T11:36:00.003+12:00

Yuppers ... I am officially a Lifetime member of Weight Watchers :) I've joined, rejoined and rejoined again, Weight Watchers over many many years and never once did I really join with Lifetime being my ultimate goal - it was always to lose enough weight to look "normal", Goal or Lifetime always seemed too far away. But here I am, a Lifetime member - and really, I have to thank running more than anything for that achievement!

The best thing about Lifetime? I don't pay anymore (unless I go over goal weight+2kg) ... wooohoooo!! Plus, I don't have to worry about missing a week as I only need to go once a month to keep the Lifetime and freebie going. I do, however, plan on going at least two weekly for a while yet, I still need that accountability each week and I still have a few kg's to lose.

This week I lost 800g ... which sounds good, but I hadn't mentioned how last week I managed to put on 1kg ... now hopefully this week, I can start to lose some "real" weight ... not weight I've already lost and get on track to becoming a lean, mean, running machine!

Running!

I've been trying to take it easy, which has been hard ... I know to lose weight I also need to run (or that's what I think), so this week when I really really wanted to lose weight and at the same time my body (darn leg) is screaming at me not to, well it's been hard. Monday and Tuesday I didn't run at all - Tuesday I did however do a spin class, I always forget how much I love the spin classes! Wednesday I ventured out for a run - I ran just over 7km and it was okay, my leg still hurt when I started off, but felt pretty good by the time I'd finished. I took yesterday off and then ran 8km this morning. My leg felt much better when I started this morning (yay!), but unlike Wednesday when by halfway it felt great, I could feel it the whole run ... not hurting, just not "right". It was supposed to be a tempo run today, and I did attempt it, but between being a bit scared of pushing the leg too much and a mean horrible head wind, the tempo didn't really happen.

So, two weeks and I'm supposed to be running a half marathon. I'll keep running as planned this weekend, but taking it easy - I'll do 6km tomorrow and 14 or 16km on Sunday (I haven't decided yet) and then reassess on Monday - if it still doesn't feel better I'll go and see the physio, I'm actually thinking a good massage, movement of the muscles will fix it - my gut instinct is that it isn't anything serious - just a nagging inflammation of the muscle. Because I just about never take any drugs for anything, I don't have any painkillers/antiinflammantries in the house and keep forgetting to buy them ... a good dose of those before my runs for a couple of days might very well go along way as well!

Inspirational?

Apparently I'm very inspirational ... I still believe that anybody could do what I'm doing, I'm not that amazing ... but reality is, people seem to believe I'm that inspirational lady. So much so, I have two emails sitting in my in-box that I need to answer - one from David's boss who along with some mates is planning to run the Rotorua marathon next year and wants me to direct him to some training programmes and give him some tips on how to do it and one from a sales rep that David knows (he sent an email out before the marathon as a push for the fundraising site with my story) who is overweight and has downloaded the C25K programme after reading about me, but also would like some tips and advice.

David reckons I should start charging, I'm still blown away that people think I might be able to help them!

I just hope they're not like my friend who was inspired and started running, within in a couple of weeks she tripped on a stick on the footpath and broke her ankle ... hmmm very inspirational! LOL

Calorie Counting

2010-05-17T14:20:00.002+12:00

After doing Weight Watchers for the last 18 months, and off and on for too many years to admit to, I've decided to stop counting points, and count calories ... and take more notice of the balance of food I'm eating (protein, carbs, fat, salt). I started the year saying this was the year I wanted to make habits of eating healthily, I think that will be the key to keeping the lost weight off.

So why move from points? (especially as I don't plan on giving up my WW meetings) Through marathon training I haven't followed points properly at all, I do use them as a base to what I'm eating, but as wonderful as I believe the WW programme is, I don't believe it caters for athletes (wow, did I call myself an athlete? LOL). I found it really really hard to figure out how many extra points I could eat with the amount of exercising I was doing, so after much thought and googling I am using www.myfitnesspal.com and trying to record all my food and my exercise. Plus although out of all the diet companies out there, they probably promote "normal" eating the best, I don't believe they promote healthy, natural eating as well as they could (as an example, one of their frozen meals that I regularly take to work for my evening shift dinner, has 1100mg of salt - that is half my salt intake in one small meal).

But, of course, I have a few questions ... do you think the Garmin is accurate when it counts calories? I'm pretty sure it is for running calories, but what about biking? I've been wearing it while I do my delivering, on a regular day I'm usually out for 2-3hrs and bike 20-30km over that time - according to the Garmin, for example, today I've burned 600 calories. Last Wednesday I ran, biked and helped my 11yo deliver her pamphletts - all up (according to the Garmin) I burned about 1500 calories. Now 1500 calories, plus the 1200 (worked out from height, weight and wanting to lose 2lb/week) is 2700 calories to eat for the day - thats a lot of eating - and I did eat, a lot, that day.

Next question, do you think you should eat all those extra earned calories? Personally, I'm leaning towards NOT. I'm thinking that at some point the body goes - nah, I'm not taking any notice of any more burned calories, I'll only notice/use so many of them. No scientific thought in that all - just a gut instinct, and also knowing that I definitely don't lose weight if I eat over a certain amount.

Anybody use calorie counting to lose weight? Any ideas, thoughts? I'm thinking I will have to work to find what balance works for me, as I'm thinking everyone is different.

Long term I'm hoping to ditch another 18lb, short term definitely another 6lb - 6lb for health, the extra 12lb, I think will make me run better and faster. Very long term, I want to find where my body sits as to how many calories it needs to maintain, how many extra calories I can eat following calories burned to maintain.

I never want to be disgustingly over weight again and I know, oh so KNOW, that I could put all that weight back on in a blink of an eye - I have to work out how to manage my eating, exercise and weight so this can be a life time thing.

As for running - I've run a few small runs and yesterday ran a lovely 14km, I'd really missed those long runs over the last couple of weeks! Bad news is that I have quite a sore "back of my" leg - I *think* it is the bottom of my hamstring, but in the evenings my knee is aching a bit, and my calf seems to be sore while doing day to day things. The hamstring actually hurts as I start to run though, so I think that is where the real soreness (I'm too scared to call it an injury) is. It is fine after 1-200metres and isn't actually hurting the rest of the run, but I have decided to be good and not run today (which I didn't plan to anyway, Monday is a x-training day), and to also have tomorrow off. Hopefully by Wednesday it will be starting to feel better, I'll do a small, slow and easy run Wednesday and see how it feels, Thursday was a planned rest day, then a smallish run Friday - hopefully that will be enough resting to fix it.

Have a good week everyone :)

Guaranteed entry into London 2011

2010-05-13T14:33:00.000+12:00

Oh yeahhhhhh ... :)

Pencarrow Lighthouse Fun Run

2010-05-11T12:30:00.003+12:00

So, no breakfast in bed for Mother's Day, I was up before 6.00am, waking Cam, Rhiannon and Charlotte and getting them going at about 6.15am, and we left at 6.45am ... I'm always so scared of arriving too late, and I was very conscious that we were all going to be late entries (as in I hadn't entered us - I wasn't sure how I'd feel about running 10km after running a marathon the week before!).

We arrived in Eastbourne just before 8am - the nice entry people only charged us one late entry fee (*phew* that was a saving of $30!!), entered myself into the 10km and Cam and the girls into the 5km.

We toilet stopped, sat in the car for a while, put our numbers on and then went and stood in the light rain waiting for the start. The 10km left at 9.00am, the 5km at 9.10am - by my calculations, the girls would take about 35-40min so I expected them to finish about 10min before me. Cameron is a speed demon, so he'd be there to wait for the girls at the finish. I instructed them to make sure Cam started in the front and the girls towards the back, and I went to line up for my start.

I tried to put myself in the "frontish" part but STILL ended up weaving through walkers and slower people, so frustrating, why don't they put themselves in the right place? There were only 108 runners/walkers so it shouldn't have been a problem ;) Anyway, off I went, and first thing I noticed is my legs felt great! No stiffness, soreness or anything ... yay! I tried to keep to about 5:30/km, I wasn't sure how much tiredness I'd feel later and didn't want to overdo it.

At about 3km I started catching this tall guy, now I'd just read the day before about how much men hate being passed by women, and boy was this a classic example, I started passing him and he suddenly SPRINTED away from me, I just let him go and figured I'd catch him later - I'm more than happy to run my own race, I could see it had hurt him though, his head was up gasping for air ... silly man LOL - about 4km I was slowly gaining on him again, and guess what? Got to passing him and he stuck beside me, until I realised I'd pushed my pace to about 5:10/km and I didn't really want to do that so I let him go ahead ... and what do you know? It only took about another half km before I caught him again and passed him again.

I had a quick gulp of water at the 5km turnaround and carried on, I picked up my pace pretty naturally through the last 5km. For some really dumb reason I thought my 10k PB was 56:20, and I also thought that if I kept 5:30/km that would be 55min, so as I got to 5:25/km I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. I never look at the total time when I'm running, I usually know by my pace if I'm on track or not!

About 3-400m to the finish guess who I came across walking? My two girls ... eh-oh. The deal was that Rhiannon (11yo) would run with Charlotte to the halfway turnaround point, then Charlotte would let her go - Rhiannon wanted to run the whole thing, Charlotte was doing the younger sister "I'm scared, i want Rhiannon to run with me" act ... so that was the deal we made. As I passed them and cheered them on Rhiannon was doing a major dramatic eyeroll at me, so I knew Charlotte had had a hissy fit of some sort and persuaded Rhiannon to stay with her ... Rhiannon is such a good older sister. I was the good mother I am, and carried on running ;) I passed Cameron coming to look for them just after that so I knew they were fine.

I glanced at my watch then and saw 53:something and thought - cripes, that is fast! It wasn't until I stopped that I remembered 5:45/km is 57:30, 5:30/km is 55min ... and my previous PB was 54:20 - duh! LOL I finished in 54:13 - so a good PB. I was pretty tired by the end, I think that was a marathon just a week previously showing!

I got to cheer the girls in, Rhiannon came in before Charlotte, Cam had obviously stayed with Charlotte and Rhiannon was released from her big sister duties. Charlotte came in a little while later with Cameron.

I was right about the rolling eyes, Charlotte got the stitch and cried and wouldn't let Rhiannon leave her. I think the next one we do, we will quietly leave Charlotte at home so Rhiannon gets a chance to do it at her own speed in her own time - 8yo (and being particularly nervy at the best of times about new situations) is perhaps too young to expect to run on her own.

So, the official results?

Me:
Official time: 54:13
30/77 Total Finishers
14/44 Females

A whopping nearly 12 minutes off my time (1:05:58) from last year!!!

Cameron:
Official time: 23:07 (and that was with a quick puke halfway)
2/37 Total Finishers
2/6 Male Finishers
(they didn't have age groups - but definitely first in his age group at 30ish? yo man beat him).

Rhiannon and Charlotte:
44:22 and 44:59
33rd and 34th.

We went to the local shopping mall afterwards, wandered around the shops for a while, had some lunch and then went to the prizegiving - where even with FOUR of us there we managed to win no spotprize at all :(

It was a nice day though - and a nice way to spend Mothers Day, running with the kids enthusiastic abut running too!

I went and saw my Mum in the afternoon and then came home and assisted the kids cooking of dinner (Rhiannon made a devine - way too many calories - cheesecake ... yummy).

Oh, and Cam's wee puke stop? He just about always does it at the end of a race - I'm not sure if it is because he is putting absolutely everything into the run, right to that puke threshold point - or whether it is his whole breathing/nose equipment. We are waiting on a specialist appointment for him to have a look at his tonsils, he has, and always has had, terrible breathing problems - at 8yo he got his nose scraped out and adenoids out, but he still struggles to breathe properly - he uses an allergy spray for his nose which definitely helps, but he is also a terrible snorer (so terrible that when he goes away for soccer/cricket tournaments he always gets a room to himself), and I think he needs the tonsils pulled out (the Dr agrees they are VERY big) ... so I don't know if it is "puke threshold" or another aspect of the whole breathing equipment thing - it will be interesting to see what the specialist thinks.

Oh, and another thing with Cam - he ran his school cross country last week and came a disappointingly (for Mr Competitive) 14th - he got tripped towards the end and reckons he would have come 12th if that hadn't happened. But interestingly - it was *only* 3.5km ... I reckon if he'd had another 1.5km to run he would have passed a lot of the kids in front, us "Watsons" are just not genetically made for speed - my whole family is better at endurance, and Cameron definitely has those genes :)

So, what's next?

2010-05-07T10:59:00.002+12:00

Actually I was going to do a Rotorua Holiday post ... but my batteries in my camera just died. So, instead, the other thing that has been on my mind - what's next?

Ahhhh well, lots of plans. You can all roll around laughing (my friends who know me do, and then they say typical Lisa), but I sat down about a week before the Rotorua marathon and mapped out my training plan right up until 31st October - including recovering week, 4 weeks post marathon and finishing on 31st October with the AUCKLAND marathon!

I have that niggle that my first marathon was SO good, that maybe I shouldn't spoil it ... the next one might not be as easy ;) But I have to get over that and stay confident. I *think* I will aim for about a 5:50-6:00/km pace which works out to be 4:06-4:13 marathon, we'll see how the training goes before I set that in concrete and make it a true plan, but I will definitely start off with that time in mind.

Before that marathon though I will be running a couple of half marathons, the first being Christchurch :) Why Christchurch (which is only a few weeks away)? For years when I was shooting Queens Birthday Weekend was the big North Is v South Is shoot and I'd go away that weekend every year - with lots of small children (although not as many then, but small then) I loved that weekend away. Then when I stopped shooting I missed it for a couple of years, then when I started with Stampin' Up I went away over to Australia about this time of year for their Convention and had a bit of a holiday at the same time. Call me weird ... but I really like being alone, and that one weekend a year has always been a life saviour for me to recharge my batteries. So, I said to my husband the other day that for Mother's Day I'd really just like the okay to go away on Queens Birthday weekend by myself, for the first time ever he didn't seem that thrilled - but, um, hello darling, you work 6-7 days a week, you leave before we are awake and come home about 6-7pm, um, darling? What do you think I'm doing while you're at work - because it sure isn't sitting on my butt eating bon-bons! Anyway - of course, having this wee addiction to running now, I then looked up what races were around that weekend so I could decide where to go ... and Christchurch popped up. I love Christchurch and the pull of doing a "big" half marathon made it perfect. I booked my air tickets last night - just need to enter and book a motel and I'm away :)

I'm not planning on racing Christchurch too hard, its still only about a month after Rotorua and my next big, want to do well, race will be Wellington Harbour Half Marathon a few weeks after that.

So, that is my next big goal - the Wellington Half Marathon, this is the event that I won my big spot prize at last year :) I'd like to pick up speed for this one, I'm setting my sights high and want to aim for about 1:55 and for the next 7 weeks I'm going to work on a bit of speed and building up for that.

Very conveniently, after Wellington it is exactly 18weeks until Auckland ... so I can start marathon training straight after.

Also, over the next few months until the marathon training gets into the longer k's I'm going to go to the gym and work on building my core muscles and strengthening my body - have you seen the pictures of how I run? So stooped, I'm going to work on strengthening which I'm hoping will naturally fix that.

AND lastly, my original goal weight was 65kg ... to run really well, I should go to 60kg - I'm going to work on that as well :) (I'm only 5'3" so 60kg (132lb) isn't *that* light, just in case you think I've really gone off the deep end).

So that's it ... the next lot of long term goals :)

In the immediate future I have a 10km "race" on Sunday. At Pencarrow, I ran this last year and really liked the course. Cameron and the girls all want to run the 5km so we'll all go and do it, once again I'll be going by feel, not aiming to race - the last thing I want to do is over do it and end up injured when I have all these big dreams!

The Rotorua Marathon!

2010-05-03T17:13:00.004+12:00

I did it!! I'm a marathon runner :)

From Fat (December 2008)

To Marathon Runner

So, this could get long.

First off - at least three reasons running Rotorua was BETTER than running London would have been -

1. The Haka ... wow, now that is an emotional start - it was going to be emotional anyway, to just be there, finally doing it ... but the Haka, well lets just say the first few hundred metres I had to get myself under control to run properly!

2. My awesome sisters! Three of them secretly arranged a road trip up to Rotorua to surprise me and cheer me on through the race. I knew nothing about it until a photographer seemed really intent on snapping a photo of me at about 6km ... the thought process went something like this ... why does that photographer seem to only want a photo of me, gosh she looks like Georgie, oh Sh*t! It IS Georgie, I turned and looked across the road and there is the car full of my other two sisters and my niece :)

3. I can't imagine what the crowds would have been like in London - to go from events of a few hundred people, to running with 2000 was bad enough, I found it frustrating the first few k when we were still sort of packed together. I'm not sure how I would have handled that for 42.2km - at least this way, I had a chance of running a marathon at MY speed, not the speed of the crowd I was with, which with hindsight is probably a good thing.

So, lets see if I can do one of those really good reports that I enjoy reading, with a bit about the splits, I'm not very good at remembering - I think I just get into my head and run!

1-5km: 6:15, 5:56, 5:59, 6:02, 6:14
First km was slower, obviously because we were all bunched up and it took a while to thin out. Also the first few km's were through roads which have had roadworks happening, so there wasn't a lot of room to spread out. It was probably a good thing as it helped me have to stay slow. The last km (6:14) was the first drink stop, it was a mess, everyone stopped at the first table rather than carrying on to the later ones, I for one didn't realise there were a few more tables to run to. Pace was generally good though, I was feeling good, I was on my way!

6-10km: 6:09, 5:57, 6:00, 6:08, 6:07
Its at about 6km that the annoying photographer who turned out to be my sister turned up! and when I looked across the road realised THREE of my sisters were all there to cheer me on, that was such a surprise and such a boost having them there.

What's that photographer doing???

It's my sisters, the sneaky so and so's!! (they'd even texted me in the morning asking me about the weather and wishing me good luck! LOL)

It was still pretty flat up until 10km, I think the 5:57 was probably trying to make sure I kept my overall pace at about 6:08, after the first slower k and then the water stop, I probably pushed it to bring that pace to where I wanted it - then fell back to exactly where I should be the last couple.

11-15km: 6:01, 6:06, 6:13, 6:17, 5:53
and then came the hills :) I stopped and walked through all the drink stops and had a gel at about 13km - there was also the first hill at about then too, so that will be the 6:13/6:17 - the 5:53 was down hill after the first up. My plan was to be strong up the hills but not to worry about the time too much, and to use gravity and make up time and "gather myself" down the hills. I used this method through the race, and it worked :)

16-20km: 6:12, 6:04, 6:08, 6:22, 6:19
From 18km to 21km it was a 100m elevation climb, which you can see from the times! One of biggest proudest moments of the marathon was my strength up the hills, I passed lots of people going up them and felt strong going up - definitely had no desire to stop and walk, hurray for the Maungatooks! The only thing I was slightly worried about was that maybe all those people I was passing were actually very wise and "saving" themselves, and I would be paying for it later. It was here my family found me to cheer me on - at about 16km, it was good to see them!

Running strong up those hills!

21-25km: 6:29, 5:52, 5:55, 6:40, 6:02
Spot where the downhill after the uphills were! LOL the 24km is where I had my second gel stop, not sure why it took so long! It's about here it was lovely and scenic, the road was closed for about 5km, and it was just really nice - just the runners, no cars or crowds and the lake :) Halfway time was 2:09:something, spot on - I was aiming for 2:10 halfway. I was really pleased to get to half way, about 18/19km was probably the only time I had "negative" thoughts, I was thinking how we'd run so far and weren't even halfway yet, I knew once I got halfway it was just a matter of counting down kms.

26-30km: 6:12, 6:19, 5:50, 6:10, 6:05
Still feeling good! Another big hill from 25.5-27.5, another strong run up it and then catching up time going down. Still right on target with my pace, still feeling good. I knew (or thought) that after 30km it was all flattish and downhill.

31-35km: 6:07, 6:06, 6:19, 6:08, 6:49
Third and last gel break at about 35km. From about 33km to 36km it was a steady, slight uphill (that didn't look uphill when we drove around, but sure felt it after running that long!). Once again though, lots of people walking, and I was still running fairly strong. My family and sisters were all at about the 35km mark - it was good to see them! I'd said to David I wasn't sure about him stopping at the 35km spectator mark, I was scared I'd be really tired and the kids wouldn't have good memories of me ;) But turns out I was pleased to see them, and I was still looking and feeling strong :)

7km to Go!!

36-40km: 6:18, 6:19, 6:15, 6:22, 6:26
Its these kms where I finally started feeling tired, you can see I got slower, I thought it was going to be more "down" hill, but infact it was a very slight continous downhill that felt flat. I think 39-40km was a drink stop, I seem to remember my Garmin beeping the 39km before the drink stop, but the sign being after it. The later drink stops I'm pretty sure I stopped longer and slower!

Three of the supporters ... isn't my niece cute??? She is wearing the red hat in support, I just finished knitting it for her - plus a matching red jacket, but she wore the hat to support her Aunty Lisa ;)

I do have photos of my family, I haven't uploaded them anywhere though! I'll do that later and maybe do a Rotorua holiday post :)

41-42km: 6:16, 6:16 0.45km: 2:35 (5:49 avg) The last couple of km's I just dug it in and ran, numbers girl I am, I was checking my time from about 38km and working out how slow I could run and still break 4:30, by these last 2kms I knew I could run at about 8-9min/km if I had too, but I just dug it and ran the best I could, turned out I didn't do too badly!

As I hit the finish line my sisters were just before the finish and my family lined up by the finishing shute, it was good to see them AND the finish!

Chicked at the finish line! LOL

VERY happy to be finished!!

Feelings and Thoughts
I feel like I ran a perfect first marathon, I never hit a wall, when I finished I felt great - legs were sore, but "health" wise I was amazed at how good I felt - no dehydration headache, dizzyiness or anything, I just felt normal. Stopping and drinking was definitely good planning. My first half was 2:09, second half 2:13 - I would have liked to have negative split, but reality is, it was probably hillier in the second half. Plus, 4min difference is close enough to knowing I paced myself really well.

... and okay, what is with the pacers??? the 4:30 pacer was in front of me for the first 10km, I was at the time, before the hills started, running a 4:15-4:20 pace. I *think* knowing the course that maybe they planned to run those first 10km faster and then slow down during the hills - but surely, from everything I've read, running too fast in those first 10km wouldn't have been a good plan? I passed and left them at about 15km (when the hills started which is why I think they were maybe planning for the hills) and never saw them again - but I dunno, makes me think I'd never run with a pace group. I never saw the 4:15 group, so they must have gone off faster as well ... and of course finished a good 7min before me, but in the beginning my pace would have matched what I would have thought they'd be running.

and lastly, I've decided marathon running is very much like childbirth. I've had five natural/drug free births (more from luck and speed than being any sort of super woman!!). I'm the third sister of six, when I was pregnant with my first one I heard ALL the horror stories from my lovely older sisters ... after giving birth the first time, my first reaction was "wow, that wasn't *that* bad" ... well, I feel the same about this marathon too - it really wasn't so bad, in fact I can honestly say I enjoyed the whole race! I just hope I don't get to marathon no. 5 and finish it by saying "that's it! I'm not putting myself through that pain EVER again" LOL.

Official Results Net time: 4:22:40
843/1541 Total Finishers
212/528 Female Finishers
41/89 Age Group

... and Cameron (14yo) ran the 5km - his results:

Net time: 24:26
15/180 Total Finishers
10/69 Male Finishers

We're Off!

2010-04-29T08:25:00.003+12:00

Well, when I move my butt from here and pack ... and get kids organised we will be!

So nervous? Funny thing is, I don't feel nervous, but I have a mouth ulcer! Most of my big events through life that I should be nervous for and feel fairly calm, you can guarantee I will get mouth ulcers ... strange, but sure sign my body knows I'm nervous, even if my mind doesn't :)

So goals, expectations?

C Goal = finishing. It's my first marathon, that's probably all I should be worrying about, but I'm a number obsessed, goal setting Capricorn so of course I need more than that. Although just finishing WILL be enough if it comes to that :)

B Goal = 4:30ish - just over would be fine, just under would be fine.

A Goal = less than 4:30ish.

If I was doing flat London, on a good day, everything going perfect, I'd be fairly confident of the A Goal. Rotorua, however, is a much harder course, it has a couple of big hills and is hilly so I think realistically 4:30 will be a very good time.

So, off to pack and get ready to go - if nothing else it should be a fun weekend with the family :)

Thanks for all your support over the last 10 months, it has been a huge journey and I'm excited to be at the final destination!

We're away until Monday so I probably won't update until then.

1, 2, 3 ... Awwwwwww

2010-04-28T09:12:00.002+12:00

Our local paper runs a "Queen for a Day" competition each year for Mother's Day. Rhiannon came home last week with the page and form from the newspaper and said her teacher gave it to her and said (demanded! LOL) that she write a letter and put it in. To be quite honest, I think mothers who deal with very sick children, or do it on their own, and lots of other situations probably deserve the prize more than I do, but hey, reading what my 11yo had to say about me is pretty cool on its own ;)

So here's her letter ... ready to go "awwwwww" :)

My Mum Lisa Beck is a very cool and good Mum. She never yells or anything! She deserves to be queen for a day because she is the best! My mum has to look after 4 children recently 5 as David has gone to university this year. 2 girls and 3 boys ages 8, 11, 14, 15, and 18.
She has to run after us all the time taking us to netball, gymnastics, cricket, soccer and dance practices and games and to school and friends houses. She always comes and watches our games. As well as that my Mum has quite a few jobs. She does stamping up, delivers power bills, she works at Simpson Grierson, helps us with delivering our pamphlets and is a board of trustee member at our school.
My Mum always cooks good meals and always gives us a treat every now and then. She always knows what we need like if we need new clothes or school things. And she never gives us something that we don’t like because she knows us to well.
Just recently my Mum has had a very disappointing and stressful week. Last year she won the BIG spot prize at the Wellington run. She won a prize to go run the London Marathon. After that she trained and trained. She lost 30kg with weight watchers, running and biking. Mount Eyjafallajokull erupted so all the ash was in the air. My Mum and Dad were one of the unlucky people that missed their flights to Europe. Last Monday they were meant to go to London but instead stayed home because of the ash. But my Mum nether gave up. She would be more disappointed if all the training went to waist. But luckily enough there was a marathon in Rotarua a week after she was meant to run the London marathon. This is why my Mum deserves to queen for a day. I love my Mum!

Spelling and grammar mistakes are all her own, the typist/proof reader in me had to bite my tongue hard and resist fixing them!!

I don't talk about my kids a whole lot here, but they are great kids which makes looking after them pretty easy. We don't ever have a lot of problems with them, they're pretty easy going and quite happy to work hard at school and at their sports which makes running after them worthwhile. An example of how good they are - the Friday before we were due to fly out we had a big load of firewood delivered. It arrived while both David and I were at work - by the time David got home, they had put it all away in the shed (stacked properly) to surprise him :) I get lots of remarks about "wow ... FIVE kids, you must be crazy/tired/etc", but really - they are worth it!

... and that's enough gushing for the day ;)

THREE sleeps to go!!

One week to go!

2010-04-24T10:49:00.002+12:00

Running 13km, trying to find a comfortable marathon pace, felt a bit like Groundhog Day today! I ran exactly the same last week ;) But after today, I'm onto the "real" last week of tapering.

I ended up running 22km on Wednesday, the next day my marathon running mother, friend, school mother ... told me I was silly and shouldn't have, whoops! too late ;) Honestly though, I felt I needed to - even if it was just a mental thing. I wasn't totally silly, I had two options when I got to about 20km, carrying on the long way home and making it 25, or going the short way and making it 22 - I was starting to feel tired and a bit sore about the butt/hips so I chose the shorter option. I ran it pretty slowly, Deirdre ran the first 9km with me and kept me slow (she is recovering from her marathon just over a week ago), and then I kept about the same pace for the rest of it.

How am I dealing with the disappointment? Pretty well actually. Trying to explain to "painful" Janice at work, when she was doing her usual talking over the top of me with a group of us, that no, I wasn't "hiding" my disappointment, I was disappointed, I can't change it, I've moved on and I'm looking to the future, and looking forward to what might be in the future. London isn't going anywhere, we'll get there one day. In fact, I've just ticked the withdrawal part of the my registration form and written a letter to go with it, and I'm sending it off this morning. The travel agent, who hasn't been particularly helpful, told me they only defer overseas entries, but I can't see anywhere on the rules or website that actually says that - so I'm sending it in, with a bit of a sob-story (but not too sobby! LOL) and am hoping that they will be nice and defer until next year.

Meanwhile, I need my body AND my mind to be ready for next week, so I'm refocussing on that and I'm looking forward to being able to call myself a marathoner :)

Meanwhile I'll leave you with the lyrics of "The Climb" ... Mylie Cyrus does nothing for me (especially with 8yo and 11yo girls at home who always seems to have those high pitched sweety yucky voices on TV) ... but the lyrics of this song really speak to me :)

I can almost see it
That dream I am dreaming
But there's a voice inside my head saying
"You'll never reach it"

Every step I'm taking
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking

But I gotta keep trying
Gotta keep my head held high

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down
But no, I'm not breaking

I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most, yeah
Just gotta keep going

And I, I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on

'Cause there's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb, yeah!

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Somebody's gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb, yeah!

Keep on moving, keep climbing
Keep the faith, baby
It's all about, it's all about the climb
Keep the faith, keep your faith, whoa

Happy running this weekend everyone :)

Journey to a Marathon

2010-04-19T14:28:00.002+12:00

... and the journey is what it is about, the destination has changed, but it has, and is, still a journey.

Along the journey I've lost nearly 30kg, I've become a runner, and a not so bad runner, I've gained in confidence, I've learnt so much.

The destination will be Rotorua on the 1st of May, rather than London on 25th of April.

Along my 41yo journey I've tried hard to focus on the positive and not to stress over what you can't change ... I'm trying hard to keep that attitude now.

A family holiday for 4-5 days in Rotorua, my whole family supporting me, and a marathon is a marathon (albeit MUCH more hilly than I was expecting!).

Originally I said I'd definitely do London next year. David and I have talked and we're thinking about using the refunded money we should get and putting it towards the whole family going to Disney, I'd get to ran that Birthday marathon I only dreamed about doing, and it would be a family holiday of a lifetime. The $18K total airfare has me cringing ... but we're going to work on it.

So, yeah, disappointed and still in disbelief that such a crappy situation had to happen just as we were off for our much anticipated trip ... but we'll try our hardest to make sure we can turn it into a positive :)

Thanks for all the thoughts!

Now, one question ... I've got an extra week in my taper, I've followed the programme so closely, I'm not sure what to do! At this stage I'm thinking of running a slow 20-25k on Wednesday, and then doing the 1.5wk taper as per the programme, do you think that sounds okay? I'm not sure about a FOUR week taper, seems too long to me?

Plan B

2010-04-17T22:22:00.000+12:00

Because, I've got to have a Plan B, I need a plan ... this waiting on Act of God stuff is just doing my head in.

Firstly though - Ewa - the marathon organiser basically said no plan b, can't book flights later on because no room on any flights. Only UK people get their entry deferred so I haven't even got that little bit of "hey, at least my entry will stand for next year".

S0, maybe pessimistic, maybe realistic ... I'm not hopeful about that ash clearing very quickly, the volcano is still bellowing it out, until it stops the skies aren't going to clear in a hurry, unless the wind changes dramatically.

I'm still hoping that it will magically right itself by Monday night, or at least look like it is so our flight goes off expecting to make it. I'll talk to Air NZ tomorrow about whether there are any possible seats later on in the week.

If it all turns to custard? Plan B.

1. Rotorua marathon is a week after London, at this stage it looks like I can still enter ... that way my training won't have gone to waste and I'll still run a marathon.

2. I'll be putting my name down with the travel agent for London next year. I can't let go and not do it ... the "journey" will just be that much longer.

Hopefully Plan B won't have to happen ... but I feel slightly better having it :)

Meanwhile, I ran a nice 13k this morning - tried to stick to an easy, comfortable pace going by feel which hit at just under 6:00/km ... still not sure what to aim for when I run the marathon, but it felt mostly good this morning, and felt good running a longish run after all the little ones during the week!

Keep on crossing everything, I still want to make it to London!!

How stressed am I??

2010-04-16T11:17:00.000+12:00

Almost in tears stressed ... why, just when I am going to do the biggest thing I've ever done in my life does a natural disaster have to happen?

All flights in and out of Britain grounded.

Who knows for how long.

We fly out Monday night - as of today, they've cancelled the latest flights, tonights are going at this stage, but they're advising travellers not to bother and try to rebook or cancel.

What else can I say?

Stressed. to the max.

I can handle missing a few days holiday, I'd be disappointed, but it would be okay. If I have to miss the marathon, I would be incredibly, unspeakably gutted. My body feels great, I'm ready, I'm not even nervous, just excited and ready for it to happen.

Keep everything crossed, pray, or whatever works ... that there is no more ash and what is there clears, quickly!

The Great Forest Half Marathon

2010-04-11T08:27:00.000+12:00

I broke 2hrs!! Yayyyyy!!

Official Results:
1:57:41
232/415 Total Finishers
58/182 Female Finishers
10/36 Age Group Finishers

I've come a long way from being worried about being last :)

and if you're number crazy like me, the splits -

1km - 5:31
2km - 5:36
3km - 5:41
4km - 5:53
5km - 5:45
6km - 5:41
7km - 5:36
8km - 5:50
9km - 5:32
10km - 5:36
11km - 5:37
12km - 5:35
13km - 5:37
14km - 5:49
15km - 5:33
16km - 5:36
17km - 5:27
18km - 5:33
19km - 5:32
20km - 5:29
0.92km - 5:06

I struggled with not going to fast in the beginning, even though everyone seemed to be passing me (and I'm sure I caught up to them and passed most of those people later on). A couple of the earlier slower k's I think were actually the GPS having trouble in the trees, a couple of times I looked down at it and saw either really fast or really slow times when I knew I was holding pretty steady, I think that 8km 5:50 was one of those, and then the slightly fast 5:32 was evening it out.

I knew 5:42/k was the 2hr pace, so tried to keep my overall pace to nothing above 5:40, allowing a little time for a gel stop at 13k - turns out I did that pretty fast anyway, opened it before the drink stop while I was running, had most of it and then just had a good drink and carried on.

I would have liked to have gone just a bit faster at the end, but I was well and truly tired, I did managed slightly fast splits though :)

The "expert" runners I know have all said how great it is to break that 2hrs on that particular course, apparently it is a slow one.

Great course though! It is all through forest (near a beach) and logging tracks, so most of it is on packed gravel roads, although there were quite a few places of loose sand which made running a bit harder. The worst of it, I thought, was catching up to the walkers who left earlier and having to watch footing with the sand and rocks plus trying to dodge around them, nothing major, but definitely made it harder.

It was a sunny, hot day, but you didn't really notice until you ran into the odd "no tree" places, because the trees acted as shelter the whole time.

Lovely family atmosphere. My older sister ran the half marathon as well (1:48), her 17yo son ran the 10k and my niece was there to hang out with my two girls and make sure they made it to the 5km start - they ran together in 37min (not bad considering neither of them have done any running at all!). I was there before they finished so I could cheer them in ... they looked very sweet running in together, and I didn't have my camera!

We sat around and had some lunch in the sunshine and just before I knew Deirdre would be finishing, who was running her marathon that we've been training together for, I walked out a couple of k and then ran with her to the end - she did good, 4:25 and looked tired, but pretty good when she finished.

So, now its serious tapering, next long run is *only* 13km next weekend!

My legs feel great ... but my toes are smashed, they were sore after the 35k last weekend, after yesterday one of my big toes is hurting, I think it needs a needle stuck in it, not sure whether I'm willing to do it though ;) I should be running yesterdays run of 6.5k today, but I think I will leave it and give the toes a rest. 21k running hardish, rather than 19 easy, should make up for the missed 6.5! I've got to go out on my bike today, so I think I'll shift my days up for the week, make today cross training day, run tomorrow, with the days pushed up, I'll run next Monday as well before we fly out later on that night ... we'll be on an aeroplane on Tuesday when I'd normally be running (maybe I could run up and down the aisles for 4km?).

Yessss ... only one week until we spent about 24hrs flying, oh yay ... I'm not looking forward to that part!

Hope everyone else is having a good weekend :)

18 days to go!

2010-04-08T11:23:00.000+12:00

It's coming so fast now, when I first won the prize it was a huge 10mths away, people kept asking if I was going soon, or had I done it yet ... I'm not sure that most of those people had any concept of training and running for a marathon! But that 10mths has gone so quickly, but at the same time so slowly, I had a lot to do to build myself up to be ready ... and I feel ready!

Not a whole lot going on around here, its school holidays which doesn't help my eating ... at all. Self control would be a good thing, I mean, I didn't have to get a burger and fries at McDonalds yesterday, I know full well that a low pointed wrap and if I really felt like a treat, a smoothie ... would have been fine - but no I went for the fat, calorie filled burger and fries. Although I've lost a weight, I still have a long long way to go to changing habits forever and keeping it off.

My runs have been good this week, I am loving the Forerunner ... definitely no regrets making that investment. So far I haven't found any problems with it at all. I'd read up on it before I got it (the 405) and I know one of the complaints was only three options on the screen - I've set it up so my "first" screen has the time taken, current pace and distance. I've then got the "second" screen set up with two options - overall pace and current lap pace, I have it set to medium scrolling and it works perfectly. Another complaint seemed to be the sensitive or awkward Bezzel, well, once its all set up, it is easy to lock it, even though that is locked the start/stop buttons aren't - so it is easy to start/stop the watch, and then when you are completely finished, switch the bezzel back on, I'm not sure of any reason why you would need it unlocked while you were running (then again, I haven't gone into the training details of the watch, so maybe you need it then). So far I have no complaints whatsoever :)

Running this week -

Tuesday - 8km
I started off slow to test how my legs felt and then just went with how I felt, did a great run with negative splits.

Wednesday - 10km
I haven't run 10km for a while, for some reason that distance doesn't come in the training programme very often. I've been thinking for a while that I could probably run 10km in under 55min now ... so yesterday I decided to try it :) Another awesome paced out run (I amaze myself! LOL), I won't type out the splits, but they went from 5:40ish down to the last couple being 5:16, 5:12 ... first 5k was 28min, second 5k was 26:20 - making a 54:20 10km ... and it wasn't even "that" hard.

Absolutely unbelieveable to think that March last year I ran my first 10km and it took me 1:12 ... I'm still incredibly proud of that race and that time, I never thought I'd ever run that far and it was an absolute buzz. But I'm amazed how far I've come, and I've said it before so many times ... not just me, but how the human body can be trained to do it!

I had to drop off the car to be serviced and fixed this morning so I mapped out 8km from there and ran home (being a runner is quite handy sometimes! LOL) - I wanted to try a 5:40 pace to see how I feel, I'm sort of thinking of aiming for that at Saturday's half marathon. If I can do it, it will be under two hours, which I'm not really set on doing, it was my next goal when I came back from London, so I'm not too concerned if I can't do it. My plan is to run it pretty easy to start, if 5:40 feels easy, then that is what I will run, if it's feeling too hard, I will slow down. So today I managed to keep at 5:37/km the whole 8k, and felt pretty good ... still not sure whether I will feel good after 21km at that speed though - I'll find out in a couple of days! The biggest thing that will stop me is the route, it is called "The Great Forest Run" because it is run through forest, no roads, and quite a bit of sand ... so word is is that it is a slower course because it is harder to run on.

Deirdre is running her marathon that day, so I'll be there to cheer her off at the start and then will probably run back and run the last couple of ks with her to the end.

I was going to bring Cameron with me, plus the girls because David is working. They have a kids 5km race which Charlotte would probably like to do and Cameron was going to run it with her. But David just told me that Cameron has soccer practice on Saturday morning, *bad words* typical, middle weekend of the holidays - do they not think we might want to do family things? Grrrrrrr ... and its try outs for 1st/2nd 11 at college so he can't really miss it. Deirdre's family will be there so the girls should be okay to tag along with them, but annoying when I had it all worked out!

I think thats all the rambling I have today! Off to hang out washing and tidy up our family room ... having no car means we are stuck at home with just tidying up to do ;)

Long Run and Hardest Training - Done!

2010-04-05T08:31:00.000+12:00

Yep ... 35km (21.75 mile) is done! Now its tapering ... last "hard" run will be a half marathon next weekend, I haven't decided whether to push it for that or just take it easy, gut instinct says take it easy ... but we'll see how I feel on the day ;)

So, yeah, 35km ... training programme said 32km for the second long run, but right from the beginning I'd said I wanted to do 35k, just so in my head I knew I was closer to the marathon distance.

I did this one on my own, Deirdre did offer to run some of it (her marathon is next weekend), but I wanted a practice run ... drinking at each 5km, gels at about each 10k and seeing if I could twitter from my phone as I rang, also needed to know my head space could do it on my own. Also wanted to use my Forerunner to try and pace myself at a 6:20-6:25 pace.

Mapped out the run and it fitted perfectly - my usual about 10k block, once around the whole river run (about 10k), down the beach a bit and then up the road from beach to top of river and then down the river track and then home ... nice sections, I find it easier working section by section rather than thinking about the whole run.

So! off I went! (and I can give you splits, yay! so much fun ;)).

1-5km: 6:07, 6:06, 6:16, 6:20, 6:13
Working hard at trying to keep to 6:20-6:25 pace, it was hard, but I did start getting it and eventually seemed to make that 6:20 most of the time.

6-10km: 6:20, 6:21, 6:19, 6:25, 6:10
Hit that pace! had a quick walk for a drink and quick tweet at that 6km. Not sure about 9km, I think that was crossing the road and heading into the wind. Then, as I do, I subconsciously sped up knowing that I was nearly finished that first section and it would be time for a drink and gel.

11-15km: 7:41, 6:14, 6:17, 6:18, 6:33
11km was a drink and gel walk/stop then onto up the river. The 6:33 was quite an eye opener, I wasn't going a whole lot slower (well I was, the same effort I suppose) but looking at the elevation it really goes up at the end of the river (makes sense, the waters rushing down!) but more than that, it is really rocky - my least favourite part of the river run - so watching the feet and making sure I don't turn an ankle or anything obviously slows you down!

16-20km: 6:47, 6:14, 6:21, 6:18, 6:13
16km was a drink stop and tweet as I walked across the bridge ready to run down the other side. Rest was more of trying to keep that pace in the 6:20's. With the stops my overall pace was sitting nicely at 6:25ish all the way, so really I was right on track! I was feeling pretty good here as well, down the river on that side is a much nicer run, and more downhill than it looks ;)

21-25km: 6:17, 7:16, 6:15, 6:14, 6:15
Made myself keep running right to the end of the river trail and then stopped and walked for a gel and drink (the 7:16) that was right on the half marathon distance - half marathon distance was 2:15 something ... pretty spot on to what I was aiming for, maybe slightly faster. Its at about 22-23km that it got hard. The road going from the beach to the top of the river is long, and boring, and it had got hotter - especially coming out from next to the river and under trees to the road. I stopped worrying about my pace at about this point and just started slogging. Funny enough, if anything I started going faster rather than slower!

26-28km: 6:19, 6:18, 7:04
Just three, this is the last three up the road ... I was tired at this point and just pushing pushing to get to the top of the river, I knew once I got there it would be about 7km to go (it was actually more like 8k, how disappointing! LOL) and running down the river is my favourite run. So still slogging it ... once I got to the top of Te Moana Road I walked while I had a drink, thought about having a gel but decided to push myself to 30km and stick to my gel/10km plan.

29-35km: 6:08, 6:17, 6:46, 6:13, 6:55, 6:05, 5:49
29k (6:08), whoops! going to fast Lisa ... slow down, you still have 6km to run! I was feeling pretty good again at this point, back under the trees, going slightly downhill and I could smell the finish ;) Walked after the 30km beep, so at 31km for the last gel and drink and then carried on, faster again. 6:55 is across the bridge and a last walk and drink and then the last two km home. Hurray for the Forerunner, I actually added a small block once I got close to home because it wasn't going to be 35km. Pushed the last 2km and finished strong ... felt strong too. Until I stopped and felt like collapsing!

So all in all, pretty darn good, all went to plan :) My legs were sore and I felt really dizzy when I finished, but by the time I'd had a shower and some lunch I felt pretty human again. Went down to see a friend at the local soccer tournament, stood and walked around there for an hour or so, by last night my legs didn't feel too bad. This morning they feel pretty darn good - I can feel them, but definitely not too stiff and sore. I was worried that I had run too fast for a long, slow, training run - but perhaps not :)

So now ... bring on tapering and bring on the marathon! Short of a disaster in the next few weeks, I can't have trained any better. I've run every training run (managed to avoid being sick or injured), I feel like I've done the mileage ... it will all be up to what happens on the day now. I can't wait until its done and over! LOL

We've had a lovely quiet Easter weekend, I at chocolate Saturday night because I knew I'd run it off yesterday (and thoroughly enjoyed it guilt free!), the kids haven't overindulged (because we're mean parents like that) ... today brings more tidying up of my bedroom (I've spent time this weekend throwing out my old life in clothes).

Hope you are all having a good Easter too :)

First trip out with my new toy

2010-04-01T13:13:00.000+13:00

aka Wizard, hmmm very original. I've seen people name their Garmins, I just thought it was a bit silly then when I was setting it all up on the computer it asked for a name, um, eek, I dunno .... wizard!

I still have some reading and playing to do - I thought I'd read the instructions quite well and knew what buttons to push to get it started, but for some reason got the virtual racer on the screen - I just wanted the time and pace really, so still some nutting out to do. It did work though - yay! It beeped every 1km so I could look then to see what our pace was.

Deirdre and I ran the Campbell Mill run, so it was never going to be consistent good pace, it is off road, muddy and rocky and hilly - a really good training run though :) I have to say I was impressed with the GPS ability, there are some parts of the run that are through quite dense bush and it was fine ... so definitely success there. The next big test for it will be next weekend when I run the Waitarere Half Marathon, its not called "The Great Forest" run for nothing!

Anyway, back to our run and my new mate "Wizard" - I couldn't help giggling when I noticed the tiny little person standing with his hands on knees "resting", while I waited for Deirdre to finish climbing a gate and stretching out her calf muscles, I thought that was pretty cute.

The biggest problem I had with it was when I got back, I noticed about half way through it had switched to "time" mode and thought maybe I'd lost the GPS signal, but it continued beeping each km so obviously not. But when we got back to the car I pressed "stop" and then tried the reset button (like I'd read to finish off that run) and it didn't seem to do anything. It obviously hadn't done anything because as I drove off it beeped another km done! I need to have another read and play to make sure I get that right.

I got home and downloaded the data and after a bit of playing around and reading the instructions, I finally got that right and managed to upload the run (yay me!) ... I love all that data, it is my sort of heaven! (poor Deirdre just rolled her eyes and laughed at me ;)). I can see me really enjoying being able to analyse everything (yeah, what a geek LOL).

Hmmm I was hoping I might be able to copy pictures over, but maybe not. Might just be too technical for me.

I do like the fact it gives you total running time, taking out the stops ... although I've always felt that is cheating a bit, in a race if you stop, its counted! But today we stopped a couple of times to climb gates, talk with Deirdre's friend who biked it (it is such an "out of the way" course, that the friend doesn't actually bike with us, but likes to know we're out there if anything happens).

So total time (including stretching afterwards by the car, talking and then hopping in the car before it beeped at me again!) was 1:45:18, total running time was 1:35:55. Total k's were 14.04 - although that was with the little drive before it beeped! LOL

Splits? It would take too long to type out, they're not great on paper - but if I could get the elevation map to copy somehow you'd see why, even the downhill is really steep (and really rocky), so slow going, you can't speed down - too dangerous!

Anyway, good test for the new wizard, and a good training run ... so all good (except one of my nice new sparkling white shoes is covered in mud :( )

Magic!

2010-03-30T15:53:00.000+13:00

Magic massage that is :) I've never had a massage, I hate being touched ... don't run and hug me when you meet me for the first time, I'm a live in a bubble kind of girl. So, even before this running lark people would say you should get a massage, you're so busy, take time for yourself, get a massage ... um, no, not many clothes, somebody I don't know touching me ... ah, no. All the runners I know keep saying, get a massage, and I have thought, yeah I should ... but, um maybe not.

So my shoulder/back/neck is obviously muscular, I'm scared, so I decided to listen and get that massage. Lucky for me, Deirdre goes to one regularly so could recommend her, and also mentioned she is a runner and has run a marathon, okay all good - I've also been worried about getting someone who doesn't know what they're doing.

30min appointment, 40min spent on my knotted, tight, shoulder/back/neck and it feels soooooo much better. Sore to touch where she has poked and prodded, but that is probably usual for me - the couple of times I've been to a physio I've warned them I bruise easily, the first time the poor woman was aghast and looked so guilty when I went back for a 2nd appointment a few days later and I was covered in bruises where she'd poked and pushed. I have a feeling I'll be bruised after today ... so the "outside" is sore, but the "inside" feels sooooooo much better. Still stiff, and I can feel it, but I know even if its sore again by the end of the weekend I have another appointment next Tuesday that should loosen it all again, and after that its tapering and time for it to heal. Hopefully it will be all fine!

So today, 8km run - fairly easy pace - 43:52 (5:33/km).

A Garmin before Easter?

2010-03-29T14:31:00.000+13:00

I hope so! I just ordered the 405, I'm a bit nervous, I've read the reviews and I don't think this one is as reliable as the 205/305, but I also really cannot see me wearing a bigger bulkier one. I would have loved green but none of the websites in NZ seemed to have the green, only the black. I love lime green! LOL I did order it through what seemed to be a reputable, good (not parallel import) company so hopefully that means if there are problems at least I have the option of sending it back in to be fixed.

I tweeted about it, my husband came back with "I have no idea what it is, a small dog?" LOL I talked to him later and he wondered if it was something to do with my relatives (he was being silly), as my mother's maiden name is Garmonsway ... that should be good luck, right? When I explained what it was he then sounded very cautious as he asked me if I remembered what my track record with watches is like ... um, yeah, I've lost a few and haven't worn one for years because I always lose them, I assured him it was a training tool, I'd only wear it while I was training and then it would sit in a charger ... it will be fine!

I do feel guilty about spending the money, but (and here comes the woman justification thing) my Nike+ is driving me crazy, I just can't get it to callibrate right so I'm trying to run at marathon pace, checking my pace and doing a quickish calculation based on what I "think" the difference should be. Deirdre my running partner will laugh at me, she thinks I need to relax more and just run. But I'm a numbers girl, an analytic girl and working to pace and coming home and working it all out is half the fun for me (it's that inner geek!).

So, talking about the running thing. I ran on Saturday even though I knew it was going to hurt my back/shoulder socket/whatever is hurting ... and it did. It was fine while I was running up until the last couple of kms and then it started hurting, including shooting up to my neck. I came home and sat with a bag of frozen peas on it for a while. It wasn't actually worse than the Friday after that, but still sore ... and I was scared (and am still scared) that I'm damaging something that isn't going to fix easily and I've only got FOUR weeks until marathon day! So yesterday I didn't run and didn't bike, had a complete rest day (which I'd planned to do anyway) and went to the pharmacy and bought some Voltarin to hopefully really hit at it. It didn't seem to be doing anything until yesterday evening at some point I thought gosh, the pain is finally going, yay, the anti-inflammatories must have finally hit the right place. Much more comfortable sleep last night and this morning it doesn't feel too bad at all. I took voltarin this morning, but I think I'll leave it after that and see how it feels after my run tomorrow. I have been biking/delivering today and it is still good. I can still feel it, but I can lean on my hand/arm now without yelping. I also booked a massage for tomorrow morning in hope that that will loosen whatever needs loosening. Tomorrows 8km will be interesting, I'm going to take it easy ... so fingers crossed! I think Deirdre and I are going to run the Campbell Mill run on Thursday so I'll swap my 8km on Thursday to Wednesday and run Wednesday's 13km on Thursday ... two days of short easy runs will hopefully help the recovery as well.

S0, lots of hoping today, hoping my Garmin arrives before this weekend so I can run my long run with it on Sunday, and hoping my sore socket/whatever is on the way to recovery and stays that way!

I did it!

2010-03-26T11:23:00.000+13:00

Yep - hit goal weight :) Helped by running this morning, but I ran last week as well and still lost 1.3kg for the week, that controlling your snacks inbetween meals sure does work.

July 2008 - 96.8kg (212lb)
March 2010 - 67.0kg (147.4lb)
Total Loss - 29.8kg (65.5lb)

This is my Weight Watchers goal, I still want to get to 65kg (143lb). Yeah, I look 10x better, I'm 10x fitter but I still fit in a 12/14, I'd be happier in a 10/12, plus I think I'd run better ... its all in the details :)

But I'm happy! When I started at Weight Watchers for the upteenth time, I never imagined reaching goal weight, I just wanted to get to a "normal" weight, its only been the last few months I've dared to believe that I could actually do it.

I have to thank my good friend - RUNNING!! The weight really started moving when I started and finished the C25K programme, then upping it to 10km. I'm not sure what would have happened without the amazing spot prize to run the London Marathon, I like to think that I would still be running, but probably not training for a marathon. When my sister and I ran the 10k where I won the prize we had said while we were running that next year we would do the half marathon, so quite likely I would be just starting to train for my first half marathon now. It would be amazing to be able to see what would have happened if that "little" thing hadn't happened, know what I mean?

So to the running thing, its been a week since I updated and I've done a bit of running in that time :) Including, how could I forget? The big 32km (20mile) run last Saturday! It went really well, by the time we got home after 3hrs30min I was tired and my body was starting to hurt, but most of the run I felt great, slow steady pace the whole way. What really blew me away is that the next day my legs hardly hurt at all, so amazing that your body can be trained to run that distance and manage it to a point where it doesn't even hurt.

Monday I ran an early morning (6am, in the dark) 8km, 45min something, quite slow ... maybe from tired legs, maybe because it was dark and there were parts I was scared of tripping.

Tuesday I ran with Deirdre and one of her running friends, Maria. We ran up the Maungatooks over the top to the four wheel drive place and then back again, nice to run with friends and a good hill work out - it took us 50min, so probably about 8km, which conveniently is exactly what my training programme said to do.

Wednesday was another 8km, 42:39, I decided to skip the tempo run and just run comfortable, so quite a good time. I think I was subconsciously rushing because I knew I needed to get home, have a shower and be ready for the local newspaper reporter to come and interview me. I'm pretty sure it was this run where I've injured myself! Me of no injuries ... not ankles, knees, hips, hamstrings ... not my legs at all, but my back where the moving arm kind of rubs at the shoulder blade, does that make sense?

Rest day yesterday - but I had delivering to do, in fact a couple of days worth to do because I worked all day Monday and have been a day behind all week so yesterday was catch up day. My arm/back felt "okay" until last night when I had to do some filing and pushing the hole punch down hurt.

13km marathon pace today, 1:19:53, pretty much bang on pace which was good! Came home and my arm/back hurt lots, darn it. I've taken a antiflammatory pain killer and I'm hoping that does the trick. I'll run my 19km tomorrow but then Sunday I plan on a total rest day, and then to get me back to my normal training days, I won't run, but will bike on Monday so hopefully by Tuesday it will come right, fingers crossed. Otherwise I might have to run and only move one arm!

Right, time to pretty myself up and get ready for work ... this week has been non-stop, I'm looking forward to what looks like a reasonably quiet weekend!

Goal Weight

2010-03-19T11:26:00.001+13:00

No, not quite there yet, and what is it anyway? For ages I have been saying 65kg is my goal weight. At Weight Watchers this morning I said how about we actually measure me propery and work out what my WW goal weight is, originally I planned to bypass their goal weight and stick to my 65km ideal, but the weight is coming off so slowly now and I'm paying nearly $20.00 each week to be weighed, which I do at home anyway. BUT I still need to go - it keeps me on track and keeps me accountable knowing I've got a meeting each week, it works for me.

Anyway - they measured me as tall as possible, including leaving my slip on shoes on (probably about 1cm gained height, so my "official" Weight Watchers height is 165cm (5"5'), which makes my official goal weight 68kg. Today I weighed in at 68.3kg (yeah, 100g MORE than two weeks ago - I know from my scales I gained about 1kg in the last couple of days, probably the hummus and rice crackers I demolished in one sitting ... or just usual woman cycles). Anyway ... that is 0.3kg (0.66lb) off goal!!!

I feel like its a bit of a cheat, and I know in my heart that that is not my true goal ... but it will be nice to be there, talk about maintenance, do the maintenance thing before I go away (and really, although doing the WW maintenance thing, I'll still be aiming to lose more!).

I also need a push at the moment, and to lose 0.3kg this week will hopefully be the push I need to stay totally on track this week, sometimes a little goal makes all the difference!

So wish me luck ... I'm hoping for a "Lisa's First" accomplishment next week (I've done WW for years and years off and on, and never got near goal ... this is actually really big, but for some reason I'm having trouble getting excited, probably because I know its not my "true" goal).

I'm also only 1.5kg off losing 30kg ... I'm really excited about getting to that, hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I'm picking there will be lots of small accomplishments over the next few weeks if I can just stick to eating well (WW goal, 30kg lost, healthy BMI, "my" goal).

Running - I tried to run 8km marathon pace this morning (aiming for 6:10/km), since I've had my new shoes my ipod Nike has been recording extra length (eg 13.6km instead of 13.1km), so this morning I tried to resync it, I ran 1km, pressed the right buttons and then carried on for the other 7km. Checked my pace, 6:30/km what??? I'm not going that slow?! sped up until I had it telling me I was at about 6:13, and knew I was running faster than that. Tried to just keep a steady slow pace, got home and it measured it at 6.5km .... grrrrrrrrr, I'm so annoyed. I'm going to have to try and go out before our 32k run tomorrow and try and resync it again, I really want it to be recording right when we do our big run.

Have I mentioned I want a Garmin Forerunner? Really really want? ... but $500 is better spent on overseas accommodation and travel right now, if husband's %&#&& work would just pay him the money they owe him I could buy one! Not sure that is a priority he will be mentioning when pushing them for the money though ;) Talking about Garmins (can you tell I'm avoiding housework before I go to work?), 405 or 305? I really really like the look of the 405, I don't like things around my wrists at the best of times, I don't wear a watch, bracelets annoy me ... so the 405 looks a much better size (even with being overweight I have small skinny wrists ;)), but I've read reviews (not obsessing at all, honestly!) it doesn't sound the best? Or is that the typical "always some moaners out there"? The 205/305 looks really really bulky to me, I'm not sure I'd handle wearing it ... but it has better reviews. Expert opinions? Cuz you know ... that was going to be my reward when I reached goal weight, I could justify it, IF the money came through :)

Loving the Mizunos!

2010-03-17T10:25:00.000+13:00

Now my blister on the my heel has healed (heel, healed ha ha), I've put the Mizunos back on and I've just finished my third run in them ... they feel great, definitely lighter and whether its the shoes, the training, whatever, I'm a running a little faster and easier :) The only problem I am having is my third toe is mushing against my second toe and rubbing the nail into it. I clipped the nail yesterday hoping it would solve it, but it didn't, it was still rubbing this morning. I'll have to be sure to put a plaster or something around the second toe before I go out on Friday. Let me say here, I ALWAYS have trouble with blisters etc with any new shoes, one of the great things about the Asics is that I never did ... not sure whether that means they are my shoe or not, or just good luck - but I know from experience that after a while the new shoes will be fine, I tend to take a bit to break new shoes in (whether running or normal shoes ... hence I've never ever been a "shoe" gal).

A quick summary of my runs this week (I'm running a day ahead because we're doing our long run on Saturday, rather than Sunday, this week) -

Monday - Tempo run - 1km/2.5km/1km/2.5km/1km - 42:29
Tuesday - 13km run - 1:13:32
Wednesday - Hill run - 8.5km - 51:27

Wow, the wind was BRUTAL this morning - the first 2km I was running straight into it - hard, freezing cold, southerly - yuck! Best thing was, on the way back it was an easy run! Looking at my Nike ipod stats it says I was running about 5:05/km on the way back ... pity that with the new shoes I know its slightly wrong - probably more like 5:10-15 ... but even that is fast for me ... worth the really hard first 2km to enjoy coasting back to the car! Up the hill it winds so the wind kind of comes and goes so its not so bad ;)

Now ... on to weight ... interesting couple of weeks. Last week I lost the plot with my eating, it seems to happen to me every now and again, I just can't face eating right and eat crap for a week. Actually, I don't really eat the crap I used to - but I did buy my lunch nearly every day last week - my choices are better (no cream donuts or high fat takeaways!), but still not good, and I was pick, pick, pick at everything. According to the scales I whacked at least 1kg on, very annoyed with myself. But, as I know also happens, this week my head is back in the right place and "boom!" I've lost that 1kg plus some. I wonder sometimes whether our bodies just need to relax sometimes, definitely I think the mind does! For me though, it really is still a continuous battle to make good choices, how long do you think it takes before the good habits I'm trying to teach myself just become normal and without thought? Ever?

Anyway, big picture is ... the training is still going unbelievably great, there are only a couple of weeks of hard training left and I'm still waiting for the "extremely hard", "feeling extremely tired", "not wanting to go out for a run" feelings, because they just haven't happened :)

Fun runs!

2010-03-14T19:15:00.000+13:00

Wow ... busy weekend! As I've said, I totally switched my training around this week.

So Friday was long run day with Deirdre instead of Sunday. Rather than run 21km we decided to run on Deirdre's "home turf" (normally she parks at my house and we run on the flat/river/beach courses) and try the Campbell Mill run - Deirdre has run it before a few times with her old training buddy (who moved to Australia, hence her asking to connect with me for her marathon training this time around). Anyway, Campbell Mill - fun farm/trail run!

Campbell Mill/Perham Road loop - this is where we ran, through stones, mud, cows, horses, over gates, up rocky hills, down rocky hills and through a stream ... wayyyy out of my comfort zone but I loved it. Including running from where we parked the car at the start and making it a loop it was nearly 15km ... maybe not 21km, but the different terrain and up and down hills hopefully made up for it! Definitely not a course you'd want to run by yourself - especially me who is scared stupid of animals, we get to the cows on the track and Deirdre is just keep running they move out of the way, and they do! I would have stopped and frozen wondering how to get around them without them noticing me ;) Plus it is very out of the way, and out of cell phone signal, not the sort of place you'd want to be on your own and break an ankle or anything.

Finished my run, got home, showered and was off to work, whoops, no time to prepare for my stamping (card making) class on Sunday!

Saturday was rest day, I got DH to drive me to my sisters house while he took the girls to their cricket game, he dropped me off at about 8.30am, I got Stephie out of bed (sorry Stephie!) and picked up other sister's old bike off her - a road bike, unlike my very thick tyred mountain bike ;) ... I rode that home ... just a couple of km and hoped that was enough to sort of get used to it! Spent the morning getting my class read for Sunday afternoon because I knew that would be the last chance I'd have. Once the girls had finished cricket we packed Charlotte up who was (very conveniently) staying with friends for the night, packed DH, me, Cameron and Rhiannon up and caught the train to the Stadium to watch NZ beat Australia in the cricket (yay!!). Got home about 11pm, to bed about midnight and set the alarm for 6.30am this morning.

Alarm went off way to quickly, I showered (yeah, even though I was going to get sweaty and need another one), had breakfast and hopped on the bike and biked to the race start of the Waikanae Triathlon - I'm sure I've explained before the stupidity that is our roads that it is actually quicker for me to bike over to Waikanae Beach than it is to drive! Good to give the bike a run though!

I entered myself into the Duathlon and waited for my two sisters to arrive who were also doing it. They finally arrived (why am I so insanely early to races?), we jogged up and down a bit to keep warm cuz it was cold, autumn is in the air! Put our bikes in the transition area and off we went to the start. Only a really small group were doing the duathlon - really only a small group doing the whole lot, got to love small town events! It was a 2km run, 15km bike and then 5km run.

Hooter went and off we went! I ran the first 2km in 10:40, go me! Even better I was just behind the "faster" front group ... sister Dianna was in the "way ahead" first couple of runners, then there was the "faster" front group. Sister Georgie was in the group ... I was so proud to be just behind them! Transitioned onto the bikes ... and off we went. Now, just a wee note here ... I'm not a bike racer! LOL ... I'm on my bike from anything to 2-4hrs about 5 days a week delivering, but delivering to mailboxes and stopping starting, walking my bike up the hill when it gets hard is a bit different than racing, I'm definitely bike "fit", but I wouldn't call myself a racer. So all those (well few, cuz there weren't that many in the race) runners behind me, passed me on the bike ... maybe not all ... but definitely quite a few of them. I did fine, I was more than happy with myself, I didn't have any problems handling the distance, just not speedy. The 15km was 5 loops of 3km ... Dianna lapped me when I was on my 4th lap, darn LOL

Finished the biking, hung up the bike and off we ran again. Ahhhhh can I say how much stronger I have become? All those women that passed me on the bike ride, I think I passed them all on the run, nobody passed me on the run, but I passed quite a few ... that's a nice feeling :)

After getting myself sorted so I had my Nike+ ipod all set for the 2km, and restarting it for the 5km, I crossed the finish line, chatted to a couple of mothers from school and THEN remembered to stop it - duh duh duh ... I wanted to see how fast I could race 5km! It stopped at 28:30, I'm pretty sure going by my pace at each km, I probably ran it in about 27min.

The results are up already and I came 6th out of 16 ... soooo happy with that :) Us sisters did good -

Dianna was 2nd - 1:05:09 (1st place was really fast - 58:36!)
Georgie was 3rd - 1:12:33
and me 6th - 1:15:38

Last year when I started running in a few races, my sisters were miles ahead of me ... I'm slowly catching up :) Then again, when you're last in - you get the loudest cheer from them all!

So just to finish off my busy weekend, I chatted for a while, then hopped on my bike to ride home, got home - showered (again), made myself pretty, packed the car and went off to run my class. Got home in time to cook dinner ... now I plan to watch a movie and relax for the evening!

Sad happenings on "my" hill

2010-03-11T09:50:00.000+13:00

Car accident

A group of silly teenagers (skipping school) were obviously joy riding - its not a road you drive up to be going somewhere, when I'm running I will see maybe one or two cars, if any. Usually working cars - road works, power works. It's narrow, windy and steep ... and obviously whoever was driving the ute didn't take that into account. The kids involved were from the same school my two high school aged boys are at, they didn't really know them - not their crowd (thankfully!). I'm incredibly impressed with the school though, the accident happened at about 9.30am, by 3.00pm when they came home they had a notice with exactly what had happened, who had died and who else was involved ... no room for rumours or tall stories at all.

I have to admit to being very relieved it was a Wednesday morning, not a Thursday morning ... the timing was such that I probably would have been right there just as or after it happened - not my idea of fun at all!

So running! Yesterday I ran 13km, having swapped all my days around this week, this was my Saturday run :) ... it was one of the those rare days where I really couldn't be bothered, the legs, the breathing and everything was working just fine ... but my head couldn't wait for it to be done! I realised later that I've run five days straight this week (usually I run two, cross-train, run three, rest), including my long run ... so quite likely I just needed a day off, which I'd planned for today anyway!

Tomorrow Deirdre and I have plans to run the "Campbell Mill" run, I haven't run it but Deirdre tells me it is a good work out. She lives at the bottom of the Maungatook Hill, so we'll run up my usual hill, but then carry on further - I think you turn off and carry on up ... not as steep as the Maungatooks, but a few more hard hills, I think going by Deirdre's time to run it (about 1:20), its probably about 13-15km ... I should be running 21km, but I figure the hard hills should make up the difference, and it should be fun!

If it turns out Deirdre is busy (we can't all have later afternoon/evening jobs like me, leaving the mornings free to run!), I'll do the 21km on the flat.

Righty, off to do some delivering on my bike, have a good day everyone!

I'm such a Goober

2010-03-09T18:56:00.000+13:00

Here's part of the email I wrote to the travel agent yesterday

Also - do we get some sort of confirmation letter or something from the marathon people? Reading all the info on their site I think we need something when we turn up at the Expo to collect our numbers?

Don't mind me ... it's getting close and I'm starting to panic about all the details - or that it might just be a big joke, and someone will jump out and say ha ha I fooled you!

Seriously, as I'm training sometimes I start to think, what say this isn't real? What say I'm doing this all for nothing? ... I know, nuts ... but it is like a dream really :)

And never fear, she answered me with a reassuring, yes its definitely real and the travel envelope will be couriered to me next week sometime!

So, yesterday ... I did my 15km bike ride, then 5km run. Both were really good - but gosh that getting off your bike and then running is a really strange feeling, I couldn't really feel my legs properly until I'd run a couple of k's! Once I could feel them, they felt pretty good, especially after running my long run the day before.

Today I ran my 8km at 6.00am ... way earlier than I'm used to, and it was dark! I never run in the dark and I have to say that our street lighting is really bad in some places, I also very rarely run on the road, but I was this morning because I was worried about not seeing a drive way dip. It should have been a tempo run, but that just seemed too hard so I ran a "fastish" easy pace for the whole run. Ended up being 5:40/km ... which I'm happy with!

I also have to say I take my hat off to people who commute in rush hour every day - normally, with the odd hours I work, it takes me about 45-50min to commute into the city, this morning I left home at 7.30am and didn't get into the office until 8.50am ... I'd go nuts if I did that every day, and that's with being able to use a carpark in the office building ... so direct from my front door to the office. I also admire those people that get up early every morning before work to run ... I've been one tired puppy all day after getting up before 6.00am.

Tomorrow is 13km, I'm going to take that pretty easy. I really need to let my body and muscles rest a bit before next weeks hard week!

Another Sunday, Another Long Run

2010-03-08T09:41:00.000+13:00

Yep, the next long run, done! 29km (18mile) was on the training plan ... and I *think* we ran that far. I'm a stick to the plan, stick to map girl ... Deirdre isn't! We are a good combination, I keep her more focussed, she keeps me more relaxed and out of my comfort zone.

So, I had the course all mapped out, we get to Waikanae and Deirdre is "how about we run along the beach", well why not? So off we go ... I should run along there more often, it was a nice running the tide was out, the sand was hard, and I think it's better for your legs than the pounding on the roads (see, she drags me out of my comfort zone, in a good way!). We stopped at the toilets at the other end of Waikanae Beach, and I don't know what I did, but my ipod kept timing the run, but not measuring it ... so it was 8.5km at the toilets - we ran for what we thought was about 5km up the beach, to where we thought main the Peka Peka road was, had a gel and a drink, I realised the ipod wasn't working properly so restarted it. Got back to the stream/toilets (well, the stream wasn't the toilet, the toilet was at the top of the stream, that we had to walk up and cross so we didn't get our feet wet!), checked my ipod - 3.5km, whoops not quite the 5k we thought! ... that's okay, numbers are my thing - 8.5km + the 3.5km my ipod missed = 12km ... and we should have run about 13km up to Peka Peka, to make the return route right to get to 29km - whoops!

Anyway, off we went, up the road towards Statehighway One, took a wee detour around a block to try and add the extra km's, got to the Highway Bridge by the river and we were at 21km ... with about 7km left going the route we planned, and me being slightly obsessive wasn't wanting to do 28, 29 was on the programme! So as we ran down the side of the river we decided to run the long way home after we reached the end of the river which would add extra, but we'd walk the last half km or so to ease the muscles. Which we did, although we stopped too early. I mapped the route later and it was actually 29.5km including the walk - so I dunno whether we actually "ran" the whole 29, it might have been more like 28.5 ... but, really, come on Lisa, that doesn't matter - it was the Sunday long run done, and it was fun run with lots of variety - road, trail, beach, road, trail, road :)

After my lovely heel blister on Saturday with my new shoes and my sore left foot, I decided the older shoes would be a wiser option. I went to the pharmacy and asked about really good band-aids for the blister and she suggested that I actually use strapping tape and tape around the blister and foot, that way it wouldn't move like a plaster probably would. So I went with that suggestion and it worked like a dream! Never felt the blister at all and the strapping stayed put, didn't move or come off at all AND by total accident found that my foot sat in my shoe so much better, the strapping stopped my foot from sliding up and down ... so even without the blister I'm tempted to strap the foot anyway. I definitely will until the blister heals! Left foot that I was worried I'd done damage to was no problem either, and the pain is all gone - yay!

Today is a cross training day, and usually I'd have delivering to do on my bike, but I haven't got any to do (well, I have but only a small lot that I know will combine with tomorrows so no point in doing them today). So after much humming and hahhhhing, I've decided to do a mini-duathalon later on today - I'm doing a fun duathalon on Sunday so need to do a wee practice run of biking then running, so I'll map out 15km to bike and then I'll run 5k ... the 5k isn't quite the no-running, cross training ... but I'll take it easy :)

This week is a total "off training plan" week - it is the "step down" week in training, so I thought I'd take advantage and do the fun duathalon, just because I want to ... and I could juggle things around and make it work. I'm supposed to run 21km on the Sunday, which I was going to do on Friday, then rest on Saturday, then Duathalon on Sunday. Deirdre does a wicked hill run that she's been wanting me to do with her for a while, I think its about 15km - up the Maungatooks, then up and around even further, so we're going to do that on Friday ... and with the hills it should pretty match up to an easy 21km. So this week -

Today (Monday) - bike 15km/run 5km
Tuesday - 8km Tempo (I'll see how the body feels for the tempo)
Wed - 13km (should be 8km, but I'll miss the 13km on Sat so swapping things around)
Thurs - Rest Day
Fri - Campbell Hill run (approx 15km)
Sat - Rest
Sun - Waikanae Duathalon - 2km run/15km bike/5km run

Then the week after we'd already planned to run the big 32km on Saturday because we are both busy on the Sunday, so I'll push my training programme forward a day for the week, so Monday will be straight into the usual Tuesday run. I think it looks like a pretty good plan - fitting in the "want to dos" without mucking the training programme around too much :)

Spirit of the Marathon and New Shoes

2010-03-06T12:34:00.000+13:00

It's not often I have too much to talk about, but lots at the moment LOL

Firstly - the movie Spirit of the Marathon Deirdre and I were talking about this last Sunday and both saying we must watch it, well what do you know, I went to my sister's for a baby shower that afternoon and she had it there, she'd got it for Christmas - and so loaned it to me. I squirraled it away for a quiet time which turned out to be Thursday night when DH and Josh were away in Auckland (seeing Paramore, well Josh and his friend saw Paramore, DH did the supervising, dropping off and picking up - they had a great time ... and I'm relieved, especially after Josh tells me they made it right to the front of the stage and he had to hold one woman who fainted, that they both came out safely!) ... anyway I ended up with a bonus evening at home, so after the girls were in bed and quiet Cam and I watched it. Gosh it was good ... the build up etc was very interesting and worth watching, but OMG watching the start with about the same number of people who will be starting in London, well that definitely brought a tear to the eye and shivers down the spine, have I mentioned in the last five minutes how close it is getting??? Part of me is excited about being part of such a huge event, the other part still scared stupid. Something good about watching the start though, was how relatively quickly those tight crowds did spread out, by the time they got to the start they were moving pretty freely - that was a relief, I pictured being jammed in for the first couple of k, but maybe not. Also interesting to see were the drink stops, I've been pretty certain that I wouldn't take my hydropack, that I'd rely on the every 1 mile drink stops, but I'm second thinking that now - they looked so crowded and scary, that maybe I'm better taking my pack and stopping out of the way, away from the huge crowds at each drink stop. Something to think about. Anyway, if you haven't seen the movie - definitely worth watching (of course, its a few years old now - but I'm never first up to watch/see anything! LOL).

Something else I've done the last couple of weeks is read Dean Kanaze's 50 marathons in 50 days and his first book Ultramarathoner ... he is my new hero :) ... I like that he is "just an ordinary guy" with amazing "something extra" that sees him through such amazing events. Cam, my sporty, non-reader has even started reading it ... so it must be good!

So right now, I'm full of inspiration ... lets hope that equates to good running!

New Shoes ... yesterday I went to Athletes Foot and got my feet properly fitted for shoes. Very interesting! I have suspected for a couple of weeks that maybe my shoes are too big, I've bought the same size for the last year, and over the last year have lost a lot of weight ... so it doesn't take rocket science to work out that maybe my continuous sore toe (I lost the nail after my first half marathon and it has never been the same, after every long or hard run it blisters or gets slightly infected again) was due to my shoes maybe being slightly too big.

Turns out I was right. My left foot is just over half a size bigger than my right foot AND I was wearing shoes that were about half a size to big for my left foot which equates to being a size too big on my right foot, which is the foot that my toe has been giving me grief.

When I stood on the magic machine, it showed all my pressure on my heels - I questioned that and said there is no way I'm running with my body being held too far backwards, I'm struggling to make myself run upright rather than stooped at the moment, the complete opposite to what he was saying. So then I walked across it - and whoooaaaaaa ALL the pressure on the front of my feet, the guy doing it was quite surprised, I wasn't ... that is what I'd expect to see going by photos of me running. So - smaller and more flexible shoes are apparently what I need.

We tried a few different brands and ended up with Mizunos - they feel great, very light and very like they're just part of my feet. I don't know a lot about running (well, actually I know way more than I thought I'd ever know!), but I do know from shooting that if my rifle felt like it was just a part of me, I performed at my best ... I figure it is the same with shoes on the feet :)

So, Mr Expert said to run them in slowly, just a couple of ks at first ... so this morning being the bullheaded person I am, I ran my easy 13km in them, and um, there is a reason he is an expert - I've ended up with a blister on my right heel (yep, where my smaller foot is moving up and down the heel) and my left side of my foot is really sore, it felt like it was cramping or something for a lot of the run - not towards the end though. I think the soreness is just getting used to I suspect running slightly different, and the slightly different probably actually running better.

Now my biggest decision is whether to use old shoes or new shoes tomorrow for my big run. At the moment I'm thinking probably the old ones, I don't want to end up really hurted that left foot, I can handle a blister (I just about always get them with any new shoes I buy - although surprisingly not when I bought the Asics?), but I don't want to end up with a stress fracture or something scary.

So a big "running" week for me :)

Today I ran my 13km "marathon pace" run ... my Nike attachment wasn't recording right (new shoes - placed differently?) but I think I managed it at pretty much exactly 6:10 pace, I haven't put it in Map my Run yet which gives me a nice accurate time. Felt good though, I was singing along with my ipod so definitely in the low heart rate range :)

I've added/changed a couple of things

2010-03-05T22:39:00.000+13:00

I've finally added my sponsorship link - my family and friends keep telling me I need to put myself out there, but that's a scary thing to do! So I've put it on my blog ... that at least a few people read, is that putting myself out there? LOL I've had lots of offers for other people to contact the local newspaper etc ... but its scary, and honestly I don't think I'm *that* much of an inspiration, I'm really rather ordinary!

So anyway - it is there, definitely don't think I'm pushing anything, because I'm not ... I'm not a pushy person, but its there, like everyone keeps telling me to do - happy "everyone"???

I've also changed my weight loss ticker, I've very bravely put my original weight - I don't really like to admit how much I weighed, I still don't feel like I weighed that much ... but there it is, I did ... and instead of feeling bad about it, I need to start feeling proud and happy about how far I've come :)

I went and got my feet properly fitted today ... but I'll write about that tomorrow, it's bedtime for me now!

Rah Rah ... I want your horror ..

2010-03-04T15:00:00.000+13:00

I've just sat for the last hour and gone looking for new music for my ipod - I've got some old ones that are annoying me now, and I needed some more upbeat ones. Lucky for me I have a 15yo who is mad on music and often has the music channel on watching videos so I can annoy him by going - oh I like that! Who's that? What's the name of that? Oh I've asked you five times before? Whoops, sorry (yeah, he doesn't enjoy the bonding moments ;)).

So between the internet and remembering the videos my ears have perked up at and looking online at "top running songs" I've spent $30 on new music (via The Warehouse, two $20 itune cards for $30 this week!).

I've never been a big muso, even when I was bopping 80's teenager (although George Michael was rather gorgeous!), so I've got quite a range in music I like ... basically anything that sounds good to me but I never have a clue about who sings what or whether its old or new, or popular or not.

Which from the new ones I've added today probably shows!

Here are some of the my favourites to run to (in case anyone else is looking for some running music, or you just want a laugh at my taste!).

Lady Ga Ga - Bad Romance
Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow, I Gotta Feeling, Meet Me Halfway
Gin (a NZ artist) - Oh my, Hey Hoh, Under My Skin
Juice Newton - Queen of Hearts
Survivor - Eye of the Tiger
Miley Cyrus - The Climb (I was gutted when I realised she sung this ... I'm forever complaining about the screeching, high pitched pre-teen voices of Disney channel in our house *big eye roll*)

Those are some I added today - a couple that remain my favourites to run to -

Smash Mouth - All Star
Eminem - Shake that Ass (this one is typical bad words, bad Eminem - but I love it ... and if I've got my ipod on shuffle in the car with the kids, its one I have to really press skip really fast!). I have to admit to being a bit of a closet Eminem fan - I have a few of his on my ipod ... not sure I really like my kids listening to him though!
Westlife - I have a Dream (I like their version better than Abba's)
ELO - Don't Bring me Down

They're just a few which shows my wide range of music likes!

... and in running, I ran up my hill today and was feeling amazingly strong all the way up, then turned around to come down and was blasted full on by the wind, so maybe not so strong, more that there was more wind than I thought helping me!

Rest day tomorrow ... then another big weekend, that I'm all prepared for with my new music!

February Totals

2010-03-02T13:37:00.001+13:00

Just because I'm a big copy-cat and I've seen other bloggers doing it!

Total Km Feb: 239.4km (148.75 miles)
Total so far for 2010: 437.5km (271.6 miles)
Furthest Run: 28km (17 mile)

On track? Yeah baby :)

I tried to work out my average pace, but with all the places I record my running, I couldn't find an easy way of doing just February!

So this morning I ran the first "short" run of the week - my Tuesday tempo run. Training plan has upped the distance to 8km, so I worked out that 1/2.5/1/2.5/1 should work. Ran the 1st "warm up" km, then pushed the speed for the next 2.5km - first 2.5km was good! Tired and ready for the recovery 1km by the end of it though. Second 2.5km I struggled to keep up a good speed, definitely worked myself a good workout which is the main priority, but I wasn't as fast as the first 2.5km. Then slowed down and ran the last 1km home. Still my fastest time for that particular route though! 42:54 (7.9km) - go me :)

This afternoon is our nutso Tuesday - Charlotte Jazz 4.15-5.00 then gym from 5.00-7.00, Rhiannon Touch Training (which Cameron coaches so I have to pick him up from school ready for straight after school practice at the primary school) 3.00-4.00, then Hip Hop from 5.00-6.00, then netball training from 5.30-7.00 (obviously she misses half an hour, we haven't learnt that magic trick of being in two places at one time yet!). I keep saying I'm Ms Queen Juggler!

As for our big overseas trip - on Saturday I booked the rest of our London accommodation (the prize only allowed for two nights) and booked tourist and travel passes for London and Paris ... that put a major dent in our bank account, but so relieved to have it done - now all I have to worry about is accommodation for Paris and LA and then spending money, and I suppose money to feed us for two weeks! It is all coming together and I'm starting to get really excited now!

Why is it?

2010-03-01T16:20:00.000+13:00

That I look *beep* awful in official running photos? The photos from the half marathon are finally up (and lucky you, I can't copy any of them!) ... and there are a measily three of me, and they all look awful. The one "good" running shot, I look hunched over and have a big open mouth with what looks like gritty teeth - cripes do I really look that bad all the time I'm running? Sheeeeshhhh

Oh yeah AND I still look fat - all these people who keep telling me how fabulous I look and how I don't need to lose anymore ... hello? I can see that extra 5kg even if they can't!

Although, looking at photos like that DOES tell me that, yes, I look hunched up - I need to work on my posture and try and run straighter ... hard to describe, but I look "short", like my knees bend too much and my body is hunched. Something to work on!

Oh well - maybe London, I'll get that perfect running photo?

Onto much happier things ... we ran 28km yesterday, and I feel great! We ran it slow and steady and I felt pretty good the whole way, even when we got back to my house I felt like I could have run a few more km. Poor Deirdre was struggling, the last km or so she kind of fell behind me and I could hear her shuffling, whereas I felt like my feet were still lifting well - I've said it so many times, but the training really does work, I'm amazed that albeit slowly, running 28km really wasn't that bad at all! It took us just over 3hrs, I don't know the exact time because I forgot to press "resume" after our drink and gel break at 18km, it took me a couple of km before I realised there was no music playing my ears (in my defence, I had it on pretty quietly just as a very background noise!). The main thing is though, we did it!

I've been on my bike for four hours today and honestly, my legs are a little tight and one inside ankle ligament feels a bit "stretched" ... but otherwise, I'd hardly believe I'd run that far just yesterday.

So this week - 8km tomorrow which I'll try and put a couple of tempo sets in, 13km on Wed, 8km on Thurs which I'll do up the Maungatooks, 13km again on Saturday and then 29km on Sunday - it's one of the bigger weeks in the schedule!

Hope everyone has had a good running weekend and are looking forward to a good week, wherever you are!

Two Months!

2010-02-26T12:03:00.000+13:00

Do you see the ticker? Two months!!! Whooooaaaaa baby, it wasn't that long ago that I won the prize and it was 10 months away, and I was having to tell people, no, no, its not for ages yet, but I need that "ages" got get my body prepared. Well, I'm happy to say the preparation is going good, now I kinda feel I just need to finish the training programme, keep my body well and uninjured and we're all GO!

I saw a friend at the shops today that I haven't seen in a while and she asked if I was nervous, and as I said to her, funny enough, the closer I get the less scared I get (about the actual run, I'm scared of getting sick, getting injured, the huge crowds I'm not used to and don't like at the best of times). As I get closer and the training gets harder, and I knock off the long runs, the more I believe that I might actually be able to do this and maybe, just maybe, do it pretty well, better anyway than I ever dreamed about 10mths ago when my initial reaction was "what! run a marathon, not *insert bad words" likely" LOL

I did my hill run yesterday, 53:20 - funny, my time gets slower each week, yet I feel stronger running up it - I think I've learnt to pace myself better and pace it pretty slowly before hitting the hill and then take it pretty easy running down ... not worried at all, its getting that hill in that counts! In fact, mad woman I am, I'm wondering if I should attempt doing it twice - or even maybe three repeats of the first half, the first half is steeper - I know now, definitely more of a mental thing, that once I get past the first half it is okay, that first steeper half is the killer. Anyway, I then read the notes on the Hal Higdon training programme last night where it says take Thursday's shorter run easier to prepare for a lot of running this weekend - whoops! 8.5km, steep hill on still a bit tired legs from the weekend before ... maybe not quite what he meant! Legs feel good today though, and its a rest day - so all good :)

Weigh in today, and for the first time in a while I actually lost a reasonable amount of weight (600g, just over a lb). My secret? Well, WW wouldn't like me, but basically a couple of weeks ago I decided to stop counting points and to sound like the hippy that my husband likes to call me (I'm still trying to persuade him that positive thinking, kindness and deepset belief in yourself works wonders) I'm sure that in some sort of strange way, I've released it from head, so my body is happy to "release" as well. Yeah, sounds wacky, but I think there is something in it. Also, mostly, I just can't count points and stick to a "diet" when I'm going to run 2-3hrs the next day, or needs to refuel my body after a 2-3hr run. I'm not rushing out and eating junk, in fact I'm pretty much eating the same ... but definitely those couple of days of big exercise, I'm letting my body dictate more about what it needs. We'll see what happens over the next couple of weeks - hopefully its the start of a downward trend!

So - this weekend - 13km at marathon pace tomorrow and then 27.5km on Sunday ... I've mapped it out on Map my Run ... and boy it looks like a long way! We'll take it easy though, and I'm sure we'll survive :) I get to come home and go to a baby shower for my niece which should be lots of fun, something to look forward to while I'm running!

Still on Cloud 9!

2010-02-23T17:38:00.000+13:00

Yep, still on cloud 9 and still buzzing :)

But I've got to write about my "Best Mother of the Year" moment yesterday, can I blame still being high from such a good run and wanting to rush the girls to school so I could buy the paper with the official results for my wee, um, slack mother moment?

I got up yesterday, did the normal shower, breakfast, getting the girls' lunches ready, getting them out the door (really, it is only the 8yo that still needs prompting to eat breakfast, put shoes on, brush hair), took Charlotte to school, got the paper - came home and read it, mucked around on the computer here for a while, made a couple of phone calls and then went out on my bike delivering for a couple of hours. Got home about 12.30 and notice Cameron on the couch in the lounge as I walked past to put my bike in the shed, I figured he'd come home sick from school (the high school is a 5 min walk down the road from us).

Got to the front door and vaguely wondered why it was still locked, and how he'd got inside. So I ask him why he's come home? His answer? "I never left", um, yeah ... mother of the year, I'd never even noticed that he wasn't in amongst the normal morning activities in the morning, certainly never occured to me he was still in bed asleep! Turns out he was very tired and slept until 11.30, and actually went to school this morning, raced in the 1500m for athletics and then came home sick, full of a cold. There is no doubt he will be well tomorrow though because he has a school cricket game!

So, got to wonder ... maybe my head is full of running rather than mothering? LMAO!!

So, this morning is usually my shorter, tempo run. My legs are still a bit stiff and tired from Sunday so I wasn't sure whether I'd try and run faster, figured I'd decide once I started. I gave it a go at my normal starting point, but only lasted about 1.5km, and then just ran steadily to another road where I knew it was about the end 1km that I usually run faster and tried to run that faster, but really was too tired and didn't do much pushing at all. I'm fine with that, got to listen to the body sometimes, especially when I know I've got a 13km to run tomorrow!

6.6km - 36:24min

Right, off to the next "way too busy Tuesday" pick-up - Rhiannon from Hip Hop, then dropping her straight to netball!

2:01:08!! and a little bit of Sunshine

2010-02-22T09:30:00.000+13:00

Wow and wow!! How did I manage that? In just two months from my previous half marathon, I took 8 minutes off my time, just wow ... I am amazed everyday at what we can train our bodies to do :)

Ewa gave me a Sunshine Award - thank you Ewa!! and thank you for all your nice comments, I'm blushing :) I have been reading your blog, but can't comment? Just in case you thought I was really rude and was totally ignoring you!

I'm supposed to pass this on, but I think every blog I read has had a Sunshine Award! I read lots of inspirational blogs and they all deserve awards!

Today is a non-running, cross training day. My cross training will be getting on my bike and delivering, I have Saturdays and todays to do, because I wanted to let me legs totally rest before yesterdays run.

Legs feel pretty good today, one calf muscle is a bit sore, it was trying to cramp for a few km's yesterday, but I willed it away ;) ... but it is tight today, otherwise - a bit stiff, but not too bad at all!

So what was my Half Marathon Time?

2010-02-21T21:57:00.000+13:00

I don't know!!! and its killing me! Stupid, stupid me arrived at my carpark at work (okay its a client carpark, but its "my" carpark when I work my evening shifts, so I decided there'd be no harm in parking conveniently and easily almost across the road from the start line!). Anyway, arrived, parked starting getting all my gear together and found I'd forgotten my Nike+ attachment for my ipod, oh no! absolutely gutted! My game plan was to run a 5:50/km pace for the first 15km and then decide from there whether to speed up, stay the same or struggle at whatever pace to finish. So here I was, no ipod attachment, no watch, absolutely nothing to give me any idea on how fast I'm running ... duh, duh, duh!

I remembered just before we started that I DID have my playlist from Wanganui's half marathon, so if I used that at least I'd have a vague idea if I was on track or not if I could remember the songs I'd placed at 5k and 10k, and would definitely know if I was doing really badly if the playlist finished before I did ;)

So off we went, I was with Deirdre (running partner on a Sunday) and Sue (another mother from gymnastics who was doing her first half) ... we were all running about the same pace to start with but then the two of them edged away from me - which was fine by me, I hate that feeling of trying to keep up, or like I should be talking or whatever, I just wanted to concentrate on my running.

I started and kept up a pretty steady pace, at about 3km I passed Sue and it was getting pretty hot. At 5km it was still feeling like hard work but I felt like I was running at a pretty good pace, confirmed by the first "girl" artist singer song at 5km, which is exactly where it should have been. At about 7-8km the rhythm and in the "zone" suddenly kicked in and I was feeling great ... I love that what I call "machine" feeling :) ... there was a drink station at 9km, I pulled my gel out of my pocket ready to take and then thought, no I'm feeling fantastic, I'll save it until the next drink station and only use one (I'd been umming and ahhing for a while about whether I really need two gels for a half marathon).

We hit the wind about this stage - Wellington is well known for its wind and it was good hard gusts for a while, which going by the way a lot of people were dropping back and I was still going and feeling well, I handled quite well!

I could see Deirdre just ahead of me all the way ... all that running together, we must have pretty much aligned our pace!

So on we ran, 11km I had my drink and gel ... hit the turn around area at 14km (the finish wasn't at the start) and was still feeling strong, at about 15km I sped it up a bit ... feeling strong and the wind now on my back! I passed Deirdre at about 17km, and at this point was looking hard for the 18km where I was hoping to put in a last burst. By the time I got to 18km I was still going at a good pace so I kept with it (and was passing a few people, so I must have paced myself well as they seemed to be flagging). Then hit about 19km and all of sudden my body said "enough!", the last 2k's were a struggle, but not a really bad struggle, just tired and it was hard work.

Then finally, the finish! They had said to us at the beginning that when we came in and looked at our times to make sure we added 50min as the clock was set for the 7km runners/walkers who left after us (but were all coming in as we came in - wow, chaotic!). So I desperately looked for the clock but didn't see it anywhere! I knew I'd definitely run faster than the 2:06 I wanted because my last song hadn't played on my playlist, but otherwise had no idea of my time. Deirdre came in not long after me and her watch said 2:02 for her time ... but I'm not sure how accurate it is ... so until tomorrow when the official results come out, I'm thinking I ran about 2:02, maybe 2:01 something ... which I am absolutely thrilled about! My goal was to definitely run about 2:06, but hopefully push it to a 2:04 :)

Of course, I will wonder for ever whether actually not being able to check my pace and time was actually a good thing for me, I had to go completely by feel (these last few weeks of working on marathon pace, and tempo runs and "normal" runs definitely has helped me "feel" my pace better), or whether I would have done just the same if I was checking my time ... and well, if I knew I was that close to two hours would I have had the mental focus to push just a bit faster to break it? (not that that was ever even in my head to do - I'd long decided that one of my first goals after London will be to work on a sub-2hr half marathon, I had no dreams or intentions of pushing for that yet!).

Anyway - it was a good run, good in that I did exactly what I wanted, paced myself in the beginning well enough that I'd have enough juice left to push it a bit faster at the end, didn't quite do it exactly right as I definitely felt it in the last 2km, but 15-19km I was able to push it a bit faster.

Very very happy :) (and even happier when I actually see the official time!).

Mini Taper

2010-02-19T11:21:00.000+13:00

Sort of a mini taper ... it is also the "cut back" week on the marathon programme, so it worked well. Mini taper for Wellington Around the Bay's Half Marathon on Sunday! It is only the second year they've run the half marathon at this event, usually it is just the 7km fun run/walk event ... which is one of the bigger running events close to us. I'm looking forward to running the half with about 1000 people, rather than the last couple that have been 1-200 people :)

None of my trusty sisters are running this weekend, Julie my usual running mate is battling injuries, the twins just thought it would be too much of a struggle with lots of people and Macy (the baby) and Dianna is concentrating on her biking ... so its just me from the damily this time. BUT! I have two friends running, my usual running buddy and another mother from gymnastics is doing her first half marathon. I'm picking up Sue and driving us in, parking at work which is very conveniently almost across the road from the start and then Sue's husband is going to pick us up at the other end (don't like those races that don't finish where they start!) and drop me back off at my car. Fingers crossed it all works smoothly because I have to be in Palmerston by 2.00pm to run a stamping/card making class ... so half marathon starts at 8.30, should finish 10.30(ISH), back to the car by 11.30, home by 12.30, very quick shower, need to leave by about 12.45 to be in Palmerston at 2.00pm - its going to be tight!

So my mini taper, I stuck to the programme Tues/Wed, but ran my hill on Wed rather than Thurs. Yesterday (Thurs) and today I've run 6.5km at a pretty easy pace ... I'm going to have my rest day tomorrow so hopefully my legs are fresh for Sunday.

I'm hoping, and expecting (and will be disappointed if I don't!) to at the very least make my 2:06 goal (6.00min/km). I'm aiming for more like 2:03-04. My plan is to start out at 5:50/km and hopefully keep that pace to about 15/16km. At the point I'm going to either find that I was dreaming and started to fast, but should be able to maintain or drop back in pace a bit for the last 5km and still make 2:06. What I'm really hoping is that the tempo training will kick in and I will have enough energy left to actually pick up the pace a bit for the last 5km and run those a bit faster. Here's hoping!

Deirdre who I run my long runs with wants us to race each other ... that works for her. Also Sue I think will be just a wee bit faster than us, so she reckons we should aim to keep up with her. I'm going to have to work really hard at being firm about running my own race! Yep, I'm competitive and would be happy to race and beat them, but I think I know my limitations and I'm better off sticking to my plan and if that just happens to make me faster, well that would be nice ... but beating my friends isn't actually a biggie for me ... I'm very self-motivated and self competitive and thats enough for me :)

Now, lets hope for a NON windy Wellington day! (They don't call it Windy Wellington without good reason though!).

No hill repeats for me!

2010-02-17T10:32:00.000+13:00

Just one kick-ass hill! I was going to take photos last week, but it rained. Today it is raining again, but I took photos anyway. Now, I live on the flat, by the beach, walk out my door and it is all flat ... but up the road away from the beach we do have hills! So I drive up to Valley Road, park by a retirement village, and do my hill.

So here we go, my hill run in pictures!

Firstly, dropped the girls off at school, then driving to the hills - can you see them in the distance?

Starting off - down Valley Road, this part is just over 2km, the horrible thing is, as soon as I get out of the car I'm straight into a small hill so I'm stuffed as soon as I start! Once again, see those hills in the distance?

Here we are! The Maungatooks ... now trying reading that sign after a few wines, there is a good reason all the locals call it the "Maungatooks"! Can you see that sort of horse shoe group of trees on the right at the top? That's where I'm going!

This is my view for the next 1.8ish km, going up I just concentrate on the road and keeping on going!

Finally the top! One of the ways I keep going is telling myself that at the end of the London Marathon, this is how I'm going to feel ... so suck it up and just keep going!

Getting to the top is worth it though - look at the views!

I've got to say, it looks much better on a sunny day when you can see the blue sea, Kapiti Island and if its really clear the South Island as well ... but well, I can't say we've had a lot of sunshine this summer! If you look hard you can see the flat with all the houses in the distance, that's where I live, see how flat it is!

This next photo, you can see Valley Road where I've turned off from to run up the hill, see? one kick-ass hill!

Of course running down is way more fun! I didn't take any on the way down ... but going down it is definitely easier to enjoy the view ;)

... and just because I had my camera when I got back to my car, look at my number plate - it's one of my favourite things :) Then again, I haven't shot for a couple of years so maybe I should change it to RUNMOM!

... and you know? Watching the Winter Olympics, my favourite event has always been the biathalon, I would LOVE to give that a go one day, but considering I've never skiied, that I've touched snow, oh about once in my life, there isn't a lot of chance. But hey, they should make a Summer Olympic sport biathalon - RUNNING and shooting, would that not be the coolest thing?

So the boring details - 8.5km Hill Run (52:56).

Life is good

2010-02-16T09:42:00.000+13:00

Especially when you're training for a marathon and you're still enthused and feeling good! I've had a couple of people say in the last couple of months ... oh, wait until you get to those monster weeks and you just can't be bothered getting out and running. Well, maybe I'm not at those weeks yet, but I'm still eager and enthused to get out and run every morning. I love feeling stronger, I love seeing my pace get faster, I'm loving the challenge.

Okay, alot of that gushing might be to do with the fact the last two runs have been great, throw in a bad one I might not be quite so gushy! LOL

Long Run Sunday - 24km

My furtherest run to date, but then again the next 10 weeks will have lots of those! I was supposed to run with Deirdre, but first of all I had to change to the afternoon because we took our oldest son into his new living arrangements (life as a varsity student!) and helped him move in, I kinda figured that huge moment in his life (and ours) was probably more important than running my long run in the morning when I'd like to. Anyway, we planned to meet at 2.00pm and run then. Deirdre rang me at about 11am in a fluster, they were having unexpected visitors that she couldn't get out of being there for so was rushing out of the house to go do her run then. Which left me on my own later in the day. Originally I'd kinda planned we'd run down the beach, because I know Deirdre likes that run, and I'm all for trying something new (and not being so bossy and anal all the time!). When I was on my own I decided to stick to where I knew and ran the river trail twice, it is about 10km long so with the 2km from home to the start of it and back again, that made my 24.

First Km I was frustrated, I was trying a new hydration pack (I usually carry a drink bottle which is really annoying), I had the pack to loose and it kept dropping off my shoulder AND my ipod was only playing in one ear. I stopped at about a half km to try and fix them - pretty unsuccessfully. I carried on, feeling rather annoyed ... by the time I got to the river I still hadn't fixed them but decided I'd cope until I got to the Main Road bridge where I was planning to stop and drink and have a gel anyway. By the time I hit the second walkbridge (about 5.5k from home) I was in a rhythm and feeling great. The Main Road bridge is the turning point for the river run (over the bridge and back down the other side of the river), so about 7km from home. I took the pack off tried to tighten it (but still not enough), had a drink, had a gel and was off again. For some reason, probably a totally mental thing, I love running down the return side of this trail, I always feel good :) I think I sped up a wee bit and was really enjoying the run. I'd also talked myself successfully into knowing that once I got to the main walkway bridge I'd have a quick walk and drink over and I'd be halfway then it was just up the one side and then back down the "fun" side and only 2km home after that. It wasn't until I got to the second walkway bridge again (about 15k) that I started feeling at all tired. Then it was just that 1.5km (which is the worst part of the run, lots of big river rocks along the trail that I'm always really scared I'm going to twist an ankle on) up to the Main Road Bridge. I walked across there again, again having a drink and my 2nd gel and then it was the "fun" side of the river back down to the start again. Made it to the walk bridge no problem, walked across and had a drink and then just had the 2km home. I'd be lying if I said that 2km was easy, but it wasn't too bad! Got home, and all finished - a great run. It took me 2:32 with an average pace of 6:21/km, I think I actually ran the second half faster than the first, which is good for me the serial start too fast runner!

I was pretty stiff the rest of the evening (and yes, rolled my eyes at unfit husband who was complaining HIS legs hurt because of the six flights of stairs we went up and down a few times while moving David into his new home). The worst thing was I kept waking up during the night with sore legs, what is with that? I'm thinking blood circulation or something? Woke up yesterday morning and my legs felt great ... bit stiff, but definitely not "sore".

Today - Tempo Run - 6.5km

Once again, this went well, I'm amazed I can run a long run Sunday and then find my legs all ready to go again on the Tuesday morning.

Fastest overall pace yet 5:23/km (35:17 for the whole run).

See? How can I not be enthused?

Remind me of my happy Pollyanna attitude when I'm moaning after a bad run!

Survived!

2010-02-13T10:10:00.000+13:00

Last week at Weight Watchers when we went around at the end to find out our week's goals ... I said "survive" ... I knew last week was going to be a busy one! I worked 8.30-5.00 on Tuesday, and then had a Stamping (card making) class at my house on Tuesday night, the usual delivering and folding the kids' pamphletts for their paper run on Monday, as well as organising class so I could come straight home on Tuesday and be ready. Wednesday I was in work early (I swear that either the women I work with have very low immune systems or are very good at making the most of their sick leave!), Thursday was pretty normal busyiness and yesterday I worked from 8.30-5.00 again. *phew*, I made it through the week in one piece though! I must admit, that eating wise I kinda lost the plot this week, I just couldn't be bothered ... and the fact that eating right is still such hard work, shows I have a long way to go. Actually, my weight stayed about the same all week, so that is fine - I didn't really "blow out" I just didn't eat "losing weight" good.

When I got up this morning and found that the girls' cricket was cancelled, I thought today might be a quietish day, but as the day goes on (and its only just after 10.00am) it is already looking like logistics muddle ... there is a good reason I call myself "Queen of Juggling"! I have delivering to do, which will probably take just over two hours, not too many at all, but I need to bike over the river and right to the other side of Waikanae Beach. But finding those two hours is looking complicated. Cameron needs to be dropped off at cricket at 12.30, which means I can't go now (which probably means I should hop in the shower, I was going to run, breakfast, bike and be home for a nice free afternoon), I need to do some shopping, a few last minute things for Mr 18yo who is leaving tomorrow and a hydration backpack ... which I want before tomorrow's long run. So its looking like cricket drop off, shopping, then home to do delivering - getting home in time to go out to dinner at 6.30. Last family dinner before Mr 18yo leaves! Such, is the story of my life. In fact, I've just realised that Cameron is at cricket, Josh is going to a party which means my two babysitters aren't home this afternoon ... hopefully David Jnr (18yo) is going to be, otherwise I won't be going anywhere! ... so next time a well meaning person says something like "gosh, isn't it amazing how you can fit something into your life if you really want to", can I hit them? (oh, and DH is working today)

Anyway, enough with the rambling.

This morning I ran 11km at Marathon Pace - it is really windy out there today, but running slower you don't seem to notice it as much! 1:07:21 (6:07/km).

Tomorrow is 24km - we're running it at 2.00pm, I never run at any other time except the morning, so I'm a bit nervous about it being hotter and my body not being used to it ... but it should be fine. It's another juggly day, David wants to be in at his hostel at about 10-11am and I'd like to see him off into the big wide world, so it was either leave really early to run (about 6.00am) - which actually, would have been my first choice, but Deirdre isn't a morning person plus her hubby wants to bike with his biking group at 8.00am anyway so afternoon worked better. Cameron is playing a rep match tomorrow which I was hoping to see some of, but that isn't looking likely at this stage!

Okay, off to find that shower ...

Quick Catch Up

2010-02-11T08:22:00.001+13:00

Very quick (lucky I type fast!) ... thought I should update somewhat in case anyone thought I'd got lost on my long run or something!

So after my mammoth delivering/biking effort on Saturday, Sunday was long run day - 22.5km, the furtherst I'd run! and actually it wasn't so bad, it took us 2:26 which was pretty slow, but slow is what I'm supposed to be aiming for on the long runs, so all good. My only slight worry is that I was definitely tired and done by the end of it, and really it was only a km and a bit more than a half marathon, so I hope I can go faster without it ending badly at next weeks half marathon. My legs were definitely tired during the run, I felt good breathing/fitness wise, but my legs definitely struggled. So got home, rather tired, dehydration headache (bad me, I've been good up until now at avoiding that) and then had to go out later in the afternoon for what turned out to be another two hours on my bike. Actually, that was probably the best thing, my legs felt good after that - biking definitely loosens those muscles!

Monday was cross training - NO delivering (explains the big amount over the weekend), I did my spin class that night - I looked after my legs a bit there, I didn't put as much into as I could have :)

Tuesday I tried a "proper" tempo run - 6.5km, 1st km warm up, then approx 4km fast and then 1.5km warm down. It all went good except I didn't really slow down that much for the last 1.5km! But I did my first "longer than 5km" run under 5:30/km - yay me :)

Yesterday was my mid-week longish run, 11km 1:01:43 - felt pretty good, I'm feeling strong :)

Today is up the Maungatooks for my hillwork. It will be a slow hard one, my calf muscle is feeling quite tight and I know I'm tired ... we'll take it as it comes :)

Right, girls are waiting for their lunches to be made!

Oh! and big relief, DH got paid half of what he is owed ... enough to pay the extra curriculum activities (girls' dancing, gym, Cam's soccer, cricket etc) AND more importantly, I can book accommodation for our trip, yay!

I did a Marathon Today

2010-02-06T22:09:00.000+13:00

Well, does 4.5hrs on my bike delivering count, its the same amount of time I want to run the marathon in! ... Yeah, four and a half hours, and I didn't finish - that's what I get for taking Thursday off as well as my usual Friday, and a big load of envelopes turning up on Friday. It's going to be a fun long run tomorrow ... I've been drinking lots of water, plus Powerade, I didn't push it at all, kept the bike on a nice low gear for easy riding ... lets hope it all worked!

So my 11k Marathon pace run this morning? It went great! You can see from my Nike+ graph that I was a bit up and down trying to keep the pace the same, but overall it came out at 6:10/km which is about what I was aiming for. It was a nice run, I was able to sing along to my ipod and just enjoy, not that I don't enjoy my other runs, but there is something about running slower and easier that makes for a nice run :)

Tomorrow, 22.5k (14mile) ... will be the longest I've run (as will most Sunday's long runs from now on), Deirdre and I are running together ... we both agreed to go out half an hour later, I found it hard getting up this morning and feel I need a bit extra sleep, she is going out to a party tonight and is expecting to feel it in the morning. I think we'll both be happy to go slow tomorrow, me because I've probably over done it, her because she will be probably slightly dehydrated, fine pair we will be!

I still have about an hour or so delivering to go so I'm going to have to drag my tired legs out later tomorrow to do that as well, after I've run. I tell ya, if it wasn't for the ice cream and apple slice I had for "lunch" at about 4.00pm after I finished on my bike, with all that exercise I should look like a stick!

A few thoughts

2010-02-05T22:36:00.000+13:00

Rest day today, love rest day! (actually, sadly, I'm starting to miss running on a rest day ... my husband must be right, I'm addicted!).

Anyway, a few things on my mind ...

Weigh in day today. 69.5, finally at the bottom end of where I've been for the last 12 weeks, hopefully I can get below that now. I've been thinking about my eating and I'm going to try and make a few changes, actually sticking totally to WW points would help, I have too many little cheats that I like to deny to myself are happening.

I'm obsessing over the 2011 Disney Marathon ... seriously, I've said it before, how amazing would it be to run 42km on the day of your birthday that you turn 42yo, and then even more amazing if it was at a place like Disney? I told my husband last night that we should take the kids to Disneyland next summer holidays, then threw in the idea that perhaps I'd run a marathon at the same time. So obsessed that I've looked at the entry page and wondered if I should just enter and then worry about details later ... oh yeah, I still haven't actually run a marathon yet, I might swear never to do another one after London! Oh and, 2 adults, 4 adult fared children and one child fare = BIG money ... but still, how amazing would it be?

Here's the Facebook message my older sister left me yesterday -

"hi just had to tell you something before I go grocery shopping...I was running this afternoon and a lady in one of those kapiti health white cars stopped me..she was quite excited...she said to me " youre Lisa arnt you? Youre running London Marathon, I saw your write up in paper"..I then told her no im not you that im ...your sister...she was surprised and asked me if i was going to london with you...i said no that youre taking your hubby....funny...come to think of it i have had people say hi to me lately and i dont know them..lol"

Ha Ha! About 20yrs ago when I was a lot thinner and Dianna was just a bit bigger we used to get mistaken as each other all the time (she is 6yrs older than me, so not sure if its a compliment to me!) ... then she got thinner (we're about the same build, but she is about 52kg (115lb)), and I got fatter and it didn't happen quite as much ... now I'm not as fat, its starting to happen again.

Tomorrow is Marathon Pace day ... we'll see how that goes - I've given girls' cricket duties to Husband, I also have a s**tload of delivering to do, so the plan is to run and then go out on my bike, I suspect it is a good four hours worth ... probably not the best thing to do before Sunday's long run but I don't really want to do them afterwards so I haven't got a lot of choice, I'll take it easy and hope that it doesn't tire me out too much before Sunday.

Four down, one to go ...

2010-02-04T11:24:00.000+13:00

That is children, out of the house to their respective education facilities! Got to say my 18yo who is the last one to return to school (as I type he is just coming home to disturb my lovely, first time in seven weeks, quiet house). Anyway Mr 18yo is off to university this year and is driving me nuts ... even though we've talked (and yes, nagged and nagged) about saving money for the last couple of years he has been way more interested in socialising etc than actually saving. So now, its crunch time ... and of course for some reason its all my fault. I think I'm supposed to be sad, or something, about him leaving home in a week ... but after having more words, again, this morning ... well I can't see me missing him in a hurry, sad yes that the first one is leaving, sad that he is going to go live in a hostel with four other people who might just get annoyed at the same things I do (dishes that don't go in the dishwasher, towels that get dropped on the floor etc)? no! He needs it. To remind me that we're not really bad parents and a most of it is down to personality? The other four seem more than capable at saving money and picking up after themselves!

Anyway ... I needed to get that off my chest ... and I bet you thought this was a running blog!

So on to running ... THANK YOU Morgan and Andrew for your comments - Morgan you had me in a slight panic, tempo? speed? hills? Eeeek! I'm just concentrating on getting the miles in LOL But actually when I look at my running week, I DO do a tempo run each week, usually at least one of my short run days I concentrate on pushing myself and seeing how fast I can run it ... I went and read up on tempo running, and although I'm not doing it exactly right, I am pretty much doing what I should be *phew*. As for hills, I've got slack, and knew that before you commented, and fixed it today (more on that later). Andrew, I always like your perspective, I think we've come from the same "place" so its always good to hear what you've got to say :) Anyway, with the pace thing - I'm going to try and run my 11k on Saturday at 6:10/km pace ... this is probably a bit faster than marathon pace, but I want to see how it feels and I'll be making sure we run the 22.5km on Sunday nice and slow. After I've run a half marathon race in a couple of weeks I think I will be able to work out better where I'm at.

This weeks runs?

Tuesday - 6.5km (35:59), tempo run! LOL (next Tuesday I'm going to actually do it properly, run a slower 1km to warm up, 4km pushing it faster and then 1.5km slower to warm down :)).

Wednesday - 11km (1:02:19), probably a little fast, but I tried to stay comfortable the whole run and it all felt good.

Thursday (today) - 8.5km (52:05) - back to my hill work! I had a look and it was 5th of November since I last did this run ... I think I stopped before the half marathon and then never got back into it. So with the kids back at school it is easy to drop them off and then drive up to the carpark and get to it. The last couple of times I did it I managed to run all the way up ... today it was a definite run/walk ... but still faster overall than three months ago. If its a beautiful sunny day next week I'll definitely have to bring my camera ... first 2.5km is rolling valley hills, next 1.8km goes from 50m elevation to 279m elevation ... it is a beautiful view from the top, well worth running up for, but hard work!

Tomorrow is rest day - yay!

Marathon Pace?

2010-02-01T15:57:00.001+13:00

Okay, I'm not sure how many marathon runners are reading, but I'll throw the question out there ... Marathon Pace? How do I work it out?

I've studied the McMillan Calculator, I'm aiming for a 4hr30min goal (6:30/km) ... based purely on that is what "I" see as a respectable, first time, runners marathon, believe me I also know that just finishing, at any time will be an accomplishment! But 4hr30min is what I've also put down for London which is where I'll end up when put in corrells etc.

S0, studying the calculator - 4hr30min is probably about right (pretty lucky considering that a few months ago that was pretty much a pie in the sky dream number plucked out of no where!).

Now, studying the Higdon (Intermediate 1) programme I'm following - I'm failing in the pace department, on Saturdays I should be running at marathon pace, I'm not, I'm just running at a comfortable pace which is way faster than marathon pace. Sunday's long run I should be adding 30-45sec on to marathon pace, I can't seem to make myself run that slow (although as I hit longer runs, maybe that becomes easier?).

So, experienced runners I guess I'm asking am I completely failing training by doing what feels comfortable at the time?

I AM going to try and run Saturday's run at marathon pace, I can understand that it is important to get the body to feel the pace and get used to it.

The long runs, I've slowed down, but I'm not sure I want to slow them down any more than I am?

Also, I started running a year ago. As I get fitter and thinner (ha! not much thinner for the last 2-3mths but still working on it!), I get faster and stronger. In two months am I going to be faster and stronger than a 4hr30min marathon? Or is this about where I'll be, because really 2mths isn't long - maybe I should take now as my base line for pace?

I think I'm lacking endurance training, but that could be the nervous, OMG I've got long runs coming up, can I do it? But maybe I'm dreaming about a 4hr30min marathon ... when I hit that 30-42km mark my body could very well fall in a screaming heap and say HAHA what were you thinking, I don't have an extra 12km in me ... and I could very well limp slowly to the end.

So? Suck it up, follow the programme, it works, and stop thinking about it so much?

OR follow how my body feels on the long runs and weekly short runs, but work at marathon pace on Saturdays?

and um, yeah, all of sudden reality is setting in and I'm suddenly scared I'm doing it all wrong!

So - tonight - spinning class, should I admit the mild panic I felt when I rang to book only to find the class was full? Oh no, I have to do that I want the scales to go down, Oh no I have to do it, it is cross training day and the programme said an hours cross training would be good today ... I don't think I'll admit that to my husband, he already thinks I'm now addicted to this running lark - I'd hate him to be right! LOL ... oh and they rang soon after to say someone had rung and cancelled so I've got a spot *phew*.

I like the "Step Back" week

2010-01-31T13:09:00.000+13:00

Today's run was "only" 14.5km ... amazing how it really did feel like just a normal training run, who would have thought!

14.6km - 1:27, I felt great the whole way. Dee wasn't available this morning so I ran on my own and managed to keep my pace down to an easy to breathe, keeping running easy and steady ... about 6min/km. I'm hoping I can feel that good and keep a nice pace like that for the half marathon I'm going to run in a few weeks.

Next week picks up - 6.5km/11km/6.5km mid-week runs and 11km/22km weekend runs, bring it on! Next week also brings the start of school and a new (or the old?) routine. Well, actually it will be new. Last year I was getting up early(ish) and running before the kids went to school, after a lot of thought I've decided to do my runs after I've dropped them off, except Tuesdays which I'll still try to do early. This is mainly due to the fact that I had too many scary drives home from work last year where I was just way too tired to be behind the wheel. So, even though it means losing part of my day, I'm planning on making myself sleep in until about 8.00am on Wed/Thurs/Fri (work days). Up at 8.00am, dressed, quick breakfast, quick tidy up of the house and then drop the kids off and go for my run. Wednesdays I'm going to try and run and then get to the 10.30am Synergy class at the gym (stretching/yoga/pilates) ... makes for a busy rest of the day fitting in delivering and grocery shopping, but its also looking like a free after school day (no dancing, sports practices or gymnastics) so I might just have to drag the kids with me grocery shopping then. Thursday's won't be so bad, its a shorter run day and usually a free during the day day, I'll run then do whatever delivering I've got to do and should still have time to shower and eat before school finishes.

Hopefully it will all work in ... next week we'll find out!

School goes back on Tuesday, so tomorrow (Monday) we'll do our last holiday blast with a round of mini-golf, the pools and probably McDonalds for lunch. The kids have been pretty good all holidays, especially the last week or two when I've been working extra hours, its been hot, and they've been stuck at home entertaining each other!

Well, that was the last 5km for a while

2010-01-28T10:06:00.000+13:00

I know I've felt for the last few weeks that 5km seems to short when you are supposed to be training for a marathon, but I think I'm going to miss knowing that I've "only" got to run 5km, it's only half an hour ... pretty okay, no matter how I'm feeling. Short runs from now on are 6.5km (4 mile), I've got a 7km block I run, so I'll be running that rather than the exact 6.5km.

Anyway, what have I been doing the last few days? Working, can't you tell? I can't sign on to blogger at work, I wish I could, it would be easy to slot in a blog entry or two there ... I'm a word processing operator, as long as I'm clacking away on the key board it looks/sounds like I'm working hard! Yeah, working, delivering plus one of the woman I work had her mother die the Monday we all started back at work, she had been sick just before Christmas and I think in re-hab but obviously wasn't well enough to make it. So anyway, I've been starting earlier and working a couple of extra shifts so only time to breathe, deliver, run and work!

Training-wise

Sunday - long run (19km). I ran with Deirdre again, after worrying about running with someone else, whether I really wanted to (I'm a bit of a loner kind of gal), etc ... I think its working well. We had a great run on Sunday, she is really good at keeping me to a slower pace and I think I'm really good at digging in and keeping going, which is what she needs, so we're a good combination. It took us pretty much exactly 2hrs to run the 19km, that was with a trip - land straight on her face and legs, ouchy! for Dee and a toilet stop for Dee ... looking at my ipod stats when we were running we were pretty consistently at 6:10-6:15 which is about where I'd want to be - with the stops it was 6:23/km. I'm also wayyyy more technical than her, she would just run for a couple of hours, I'm anal about sticking to the distances my programme says to run ... as I say, the two combined makes for a good combination ;)

Monday - I worked all day and then made spin class at night, love my spin class - I've told myself that when it starts getting hard I'll have to stop it ... but its still working so I'll keep doing it.

Tuesday - 8km - I tried to run this fast, just because I felt good and wanted to. Managed it in 43:12 which is my fastest time for that route (actually 7.9k according to mapmyrun). Felt pretty good, but there was no sprint/fast finish left me at the end! Plus we've actually had summer hit (at last!) so its pretty hot out there now too.

Today - 5km - I was tired this morning, whether it was yesterday's effort, or (and I suspect is the case) working and getting home at 1.00am, I'm not sure - but my body felt tired. I took it pretty easy, still managed 27:43 which is a pretty good time for me, so all good :)

Rest day and weigh in day tomorrow ... I didn't report last weeks weigh in because I am frustrated, still frustrated. Last week I "officially" put on 100g but I know I put on more than that - when I run on WI day I always lose about 500g and last week I swapped days around to adjust for Sunday's race and Monday's long run so ran on Friday morning. This week, I'm looking about the same again ... which in a confused world means I have actually probably lost a few hundred grams of what I put on last week ... but darn it ... it shouldn't be such hard work to drop the weight with all the exercise I'm doing! I admit to not being perfect, I'm eating good meals but snacking IS a problem, but then again, my snacking is so much better than it has been, I'll keep working at it - I'm determined to drop this last 5kg!

Paekakariki Road Race Report

2010-01-25T07:50:00.000+13:00

Here we all are! ... and the official results - oh, firstly, they changed the course slightly from previous years for safety reasons, so the loop was 5.3km - meaning 10k was 10.6k and 15k was 15.9k.

Cameron (72) 5.3km - 4/8 age group and 9/28 (25:49)
Me (161) 10.6km - 4/6 age group and 13/22 (1:01:01)
Dianna (204) 15.9km - 2/5 age group and 13/22 (1:20:13)
Julie (288) 15.9km - 5/5 age group and 20/22 (1:30:18)
Georgie (167) and Stephie (168) (yes, they are identical twins!) 10.6km walk - 1=/3, 2=/11 (1:25:56)

So we all did good!

The race itself - well, as you can see it was perfect running weather - misty rain, cool breeze, very nice!

They had to change the course this year, something to do with road safety, I haven't run it before so I'm not sure what they changed, something in Queen Elizabeth Park - but this year they added a loop in the park, which included a killer up hill - I think that really sorted everyone out! I was a bit disappointed it wasn't exactly 10km, I wanted to see how I did timewise in a 10km - but 10.6 is close enough!

Great course, a big hill about 1.5km in, and some other smaller rolling hills. I had a game plan, I didn't want to push it too hard, not with a long run the next day, my plan was to run about the pace I wanted (5:45/km) on the flat, take it easy up the hills and catch up on speed on the way down. I reckon I did it well. First time around the first hill wasn't too bad at all, all that training has obviously been good for my strength :), the second hill in the park was a killer but I ran all the way up and caught my breath on the hill going down straight after.

Funny thing about the killer hill - I remember it SO well from school cross-country, it's probably about 0.5km? from what was the start line way back then, all the kids would sprint off, and I couldn't sprint (still can't!) to save myself, so I'd be towards the back ... hit that hill and all the sprinters would be walking and gasping for breath, that's where I'd pass them all - not much has changed! LOL

So, after lap one - I was feeling great! Stopped briefly for a drink, enough time to ask Cam how he went, then carried on. Second time around, the first hill was definitely harder work ... but I passed the woman who was just ahead of me, but not quite catchable for a quite a while before it - she stopped at walked, I kept running ... and never saw her again. Once I was over that hill I actually picked up my pace a bit, as we hit the park I decided I was going to walk some of the killer hill so I'd have enough energy to put more into the home stretch - I ran up half of it then, walked (fast) up the last half - it is a short sharp steep hill, so really I don't think walking was any slower than running! Shot down the hill, ran up the last upward rise out of the park and then dug it in for the last down hill and then last I'd say half km straight/flat stretch to the finish. I had enough in me to do a faster run to finish (I couldn't call it a sprint, as I said, I can't sprint!), but had plenty left in me to push myself (unlike previous 10km races where I've had nothing left for any sort of fast burst at the end).

I was so happy with the way I paced myself, I never felt like it was too hard or I was pushing myself more than I should and I finished with exactly the overall pace that I wanted. Yay me!

Also really happy that I finished middle of the pack!

... and a quick note about Cameron, I'm so proud of him - 25:49 (4.52/km), he hadn't run 5km before, he got up to 4km the day before! He did so well :) He's now keen to run the 7km Around the Bays run in a few weeks, I'm planning on running the half marathon - so he'll keep running over the next few weeks. First up he has a cricket tournament in New Plymouth over the next few days though!

Yay! It's the Weekend

2010-01-23T18:48:00.000+13:00

The sudden shock of work last week reminded me that my life sure does get busy, and school isn't even back yet (so Saturday cricket, Jazz ballet, Gymnastics etc hasn't even started yet). That's okay ... this is my year of becoming organised, first up is getting a "To Do" notebook to keep me on track, hopefully!

So training? Seems to have been hard work this week, Wednesday's 10km and Thursday's 5km were very sluggish and seemed to take a long time (10k = 57min, 5k = 28:10), not that bad really. I'm putting it down to my body suddening being thrown back to getting home from work and to bed after 1.00am again, I don't actually feel sleepy tired (I've been making sure I sleep until 8ish each morning), but I suppose my body would feel it in ways I don't even notice!

So Friday morning (yesterday), I ummmed and ahhhhed about running another 5km or just giving my body a rest, I decided to run and felt so much better ... so was good to get out there (5k = 27:50). Today I've made my rest day, tomorrow is the Paekakariki Road Race (10k) and Monday is 19km. Tomorrow's race will be interesting, I've looked at the last couple of years results about 60-70 runners, and obviously practically all "serious" runners - the Harrier club organises it and its obviously mostly the club that come and run, not the "fun" runners. Going by the results from the last couple of years, my hopefully about 57:30 (my 10k during the week is actually about 9.9k) will put me about last! ... and I thought I was getting speedy ;). I'm not at all worried, I'm quite happy to run at my pace - I'm not going to push it too hard, I need to save my body a bit for my long run the next day. As of today my older sister (Dianna) and younger sister (Julie) are running the 15k, I'm running the 10k and my younger sisters (Georgie and Stephie) are walking the 10k, and of course Cameron is running the 5k ... they're hoping for 100 entrants this year, we'll be helping them along quite a bit!

It is a 5k circuit - little 'ole Paekakariki is only a very small village, and looking on map my run they have to add a couple of little "bits" to make it 5km :)

Oh! and I bought my new shoes :) So far so good, I've worn them for my last two 5k runs - they are Asics GT2150 (my last ones were 2140), the only thing I've maybe noticed is that the soles of my feet feel burny hot? I hope that doesn't mean there is something funky going on about my feet and the way they touch the inner soles of the shoe ... and just to make you laugh, the day I bought my shoes we went "shoe shopping", as well as my shoes we went and bought cheap running ones for Cameron, two pairs of black school shoes for Cam and Josh, a pair of trainers for Rhiannon and a pair of trainers for Charlotte. My shoes cost $100 more than all the other pairs put together, crikey!

Okay, dokes, I'm off to Georgie's house to meet up with my other sisters for a bit of sisterly gossip :)

BTW - I also do have two brothers ... the youngest (my baby brother - only 26yo!) is in Perth and my older brother, couple of years older than me, is only a 40min drive away but he's not into the running thing and I think his partner is freaked out by her six close SILs. On another rambling interesting note - both my brothers' partners are called Lisa, what are the odds of that? I reckon its because they admire their favourite sister so much!

I might have talked him into it!

2010-01-20T01:00:00.000+13:00

Our young (14yo) Cameron is a bit of a sporting nut, he has played in the JPL (Junior Premier League) age group soccer team for a few years, and the rep soccer team. He is captain of the rep cricket team, and usually a bowler, but like last Saturday, couldn't bowl so did a fine job as a wicket keeper and then carried through the team to a win with a 25NO batting, which aren't his usual positions, for the college team. He is one of those lucky beings who is just naturally co-ordinated and usually naturally fit. This cricket season he keeps injuring himself, so when he came back from his last tournament a couple of weeks ago I said I reckon he needs to work on his fitness, so he's been going out for a run a few days a week - just 2-3ks. (This is also the kid who came, i think it was 2nd, in his high school 1500m last year, with no running training at all ... then moaned that he "only" came 6th out of 8th in the interschool - as in Wellington region - 1500m, um hello Cameron? most of those kids train and work hard to get in those races!).

So today, as he left for his run, I looked at the clock and when he came back, looked again ... 2.3km - 11min, sheesh, I've worked darn hard to break 5.30ish/km, he's breaking 5min! So, I had a thought ... how about you run the 5km race on Sunday Cam? I think I've almost persuaded him to, I'm really interested to see how he would go. I might even buy him a cheap pair of running shoes, because he's not even running in proper sneakers at the moment ... sheesh.

I'd love him to get into proper running, he is small, all muscle and really light ... but his first loves will always be soccer and cricket, so I haven't got much hope, I can keep trying though!

As for me - 5km this morning, 27:27, my legs feel great. They were sore after Sunday's long run on Sunday - a bit stiff yesterday but some delivering on my bike and a spin class last night seemed to have cured them and they felt great this morning. 10km first up in the morning!

Righty, I'm back at work, so this is a 1am entry ... I should get to bed and have some beauty sleep before I wake up at 7-8ish for my run!

Wanganui Half Marathon Review

2010-01-18T08:46:00.000+13:00

Okay, a very late review ... but today is cross-training/no run day so I thought it was a good time to try and finally remember the details.

Wanganui Half Marathon - Saturday 12 December 2010

This came at the end of a really busy time in our household, in hindsight, that showed in my running and how I felt ... but hindsight is always a wonderful thing!

Wanganui is about 2hrs drive from here so my two sisters and I decided early on we would go up Friday and spend Friday night in Wanganui, then run on Saturday. Once again Georgie was doing the 10km, Julie the half marathon. As it turns out, Cam was playing a rep game against Wanganui on the Sunday ... perfect timing! I then decided I'd take the two girls with me (David was rostered to work that weekend) and we'd stay the Saturday night as well. It was Rhiannon's birthday on the Friday, so it was a nice birthday weekend for her too.

The girls both decided they wanted to go to school on Friday morning and be picked up at lunchtime (I have strange children who love school! LOL), which suited me fine, I still had things to do and finish off before we left - it was a rushed morning, and we didn't leave until more like 2pm rather than the planned lunchtime. We stopped at McDonalds on the way up for a very late lunch and arrived in Wanganui about 5ish. Connected with Georgie and Julie, and Julie's son David (who is a couple of years older than the girls ... the planned kinda babysitter while we were running!) and went for a quick visit to my niece and her baby ... then went and picked up our race numbers. At this time it was stinking hot and humid ... and we were wondering what it was going to be like to run in, in the morning! Rain was forecast though so hopefully that would kill the humidity. We had some dinner, sat up and chatted a while, and then went to our motel rooms to sleep. It was hot and sticky, not good sleeping weather at all ... then about 3.00am the heavens opened up and the temperature dropped - yay!

So got up Saturday morning, it wasn't raining ... but the clouds were heavy. Went down to the start which was in a boating club clubrooms. Not long before the start time, the heavens opened and boy did they open it absolutely bucketed down, oh no. They had the pre-start talk in the basement boat storage amongst all the rowing boats, Julie and I being the polite girls we were brought up to be, were standing towards the back, and being polite when the talk had finished we took our time leaving letting the people in front of us all leave first and politely letting people come in, get in. Bad idea.

So, Wanganui is a 10.6 lap course - two laps for the half marathon, four laps for the full marathon. I wasn't worried about this at all, even though Ms Negative Nelly (my oldest sister) had of course told me that it was a horrible course (she seems to say that about every course she runs, not sure why she bothers!). Anyway, two laps, and runs alongside the big Whanganui River, crossing 3 bridges - 5 times, I think ... I've been trying to remember how it worked, but can't remember!

So, the start, Julie and I come out of dark basement clubrooms, into the pouring rain ... and ... S*** they've already started! The big bunch of runners is about 100m ahead of us, we weren't the only ones, there were a few of us muttering "thanks very much, great organisation!" Now, as soon as I started I told myself just keep to your pace, it doesn't matter that everyone else is ahead, and I think I did okay with that - but I'm not sure that it still didn't affect me. Julie had decided to run on her own this race so she had taken on well and truly ahead of me. I was running next to, the same pace as a tall girl for about the first 1k, we chatted a bit at first, but really ... it annoyed me having someone next to me ... I was quite pleased when she eased a head of me (ha! come on Lisa, how many people do you think are going to be right next to you in London? LOL). The rain stopped after about 1km and it never rained again, but the parts where we ran through the park were really really muddy.

The first half dragged. Really dragged. I didn't think that first lap would ever be over. I really wanted to run this half in 2:06, I was checking my time, trying to stick to about 6:00min ks. I did, but it was too fast. By the time I got to the start/finish, so halfway, I was right on time - 1:03 something, but I was tired, really tired. The kids were at the halfway point cheering us on, which was really nice ... nothing like a cheer from family to keep you going! I decided then just to run comfortably, I still had half to go! That is what I did, and at about 13/14k I actually felt really good, mad with myself that I'd slowed down, and also mad that I'd put too much into the first half. So I felt good for about 3-4k then hit about 18k and was really really tired. I wanted to walk, and I'd had enough. I made myself keep running, mostly because if I couldn't run it in 2:06, I definitely wanted to be faster than my first half marathon of 2:12 and told myself that even if I was running slowly, it wasn't that much slower than I wanted.

By the time I got to the end my oldest sister (the non running one, not Ms Negative Nelly one), niece and great niece were at the end to cheer us in as well :)

I'd set myself up a playlist for this half marathon, ending with one of my favourites at 2:06 (Smashmouth's You're an All Star - probably not the right name, I'm hopeless with music!), and then had thought, I better have an extra if I went over ... so tagged Step's Tragedy on at the end, ha ha sick sense of humour. But I did indeed get to Tragedy, but I finished before the song finished! LOL ... 2:09:12 That was my time, and I'm taking that one ... the official one was going to be wrong because we started late!

All in all, not really the most enjoyable run. But a good experience, and a good lesson. Don't go out too fast!

As for recovery, I was pretty stiff and sore on the Saturday, but by Sunday wasn't too bad at all - so although I felt pretty tired and it was hard work, I probably did okay :)

Saturday afternoon, I took the girls to a movie, we had takeaways at the motel and relaxed for the evening, it was lovely. Sunday morning we went off and watched Cam's cricket, then left early enough to make it home to Rhiannon's birthday party at the local 10 Pin Bowling place, and dinner afterwards, a busy weekend!

Official results:
2:09:52
31/53 Women
10/16 Age Placing

... and Julie? She did good :) 1:57:36 (17/53, 10/31 in her age group - she slips into the U40's, I don't!).

18km ... done.

2010-01-17T13:15:00.000+13:00

Got to say, it was hard work! I can't imagine running 26-27km in a few weeks, heck I can't imagine running 42km ... but I'll keep tackling it all one km at a time :) I knew it was going to be hard, I knew it was going to be hard even before I'd gone to bed last night (got to wonder about the mental game, right?). I could feel my legs from the 10k I ran in the morning, I'd managed to get my face lovely and sunburnt while sitting in the freezing cold southerly and overcast weather (I should know by now that that doesn't mean those darn sun rays aren't working!), I felt over cooked.

But! It is done :) 17.8km 1:47:30 - 6:01/km. I tried to keep a SLOW steady pace, but still ended up slower at the end than at the beginning. I really need to find a comfortable pace where I know I can run forever, or close to it. All experience, all will work itself out.

It was a good course though, I'll definitely try and work it so that it becomes a regular - from our house along the long way to the Waikanae River (4km) then the 10km River run (up one side and then down the other), then 4km home.

Now, I was reading Andrew is Getting Fit's blog last night and he mentioned inspirational women he'd seen while running. It reminded me about the woman I saw yesterday. Now I've seen this woman for years - she obviously has MS or something like that, I used to see her at weighwatchers years ago, and over the years I've seen her out walking, progressing from limping, to walking with braces on her legs to the last year or so out with her dog and sitting in an electric wheelchair, well Friday as I was driving I saw her walking! and determinedly walking (with braces covering both legs, but walking). I ran past her yesterday (back in her wheelchair) and tried to say quickly, I saw you walking yesterday and you looked great! She replied something like "Thanks, it felt great" ... but I was running past and had my ipod on ... so didn't quite catch it. But I would say, that is one determined lady :)

Okay, on to the rest of the day - off to the shops to kit up the two girls for school, grab a couple of baking things so I can do some baking this afternoon - probably really dangerous thing to do when I'm trying really hard to eat right ... but the rest of the family could do with something in the tins!

She wears shorts

2010-01-16T10:22:00.000+13:00

Who would have believed it? ... I've progressed from baggy shin length, cover everything capri sort of pants, to running tights, capri length with a pair of shorts over the top to now wearing my new Skins (thank you family, excellent Christmas gift!) which only just go to below my shorts and while I'm running definitely only peep out from below my shorts. Who would have believed I'd feel okay about running around the local streets in shorts. Okay, I still hate my knees, even if I was a thin size 8-10 I'd still hate my knees, I also have striped tan marks ... capri length tight marks, then biking pants (just above the knees) marks ... I'm not a good advertisement for tanned legs - not unless you like the striped look ;) Oh and by the way, does anyone else have knees that actually bend backwards? It's quite a party trick when people start talking about double joints, I'm not sure whether I've come across anyone else with that strange ability... wonder if it makes them stronger or weaker, I assume the ligaments are looser ... something to ponder!

10km run this morning - 56:32, and whooooaaaaaa remember there was no wind the other day? Well, I'm picking that is because the strong northerly was turning around to a strong southerly and I was lucky enough to run while it was inbetween doing nothing, cuz today the wind had definitely turned, so it was a hard first half ... but nice second half - I'd much rather be blown home! But gosh, come on summer! I expect wind in October and November, in another life I was a pretty serious smallbore rifle target shooter, we did most of our serious trials in October and November and it was always windy, but by this time of year it had settled - January shooting was usually much easier. I wouldn't mind seeing some stats somewhere to see if it has been more windy this month than usual. As an aside, at one of the 10k runs I ran a few months ago we ran past one of the indoor shooting ranges and I could hear them shooting, I couldn't help thinking that sport was sooooo much easier (I mean, really, what is better than a sport where you lie down to do it! LOL).

Anyway, I'm obviously in a rambly mood - it's Saturday here today (one day I will work out how to change my blog time so it matches NZ time), Cameron is playing cricket at the high school so we'll probably go and watch some of that (the high school have put together a U15 team to play an invitation U15 side from Sydney). The girls could be playing, but I'm revolting against the club who has decided its okay to start Saturday morning cricket for the school kids when it is still a good two weeks until they go back to school, I mean come on, this is the only time of year we get a break - I'm queen of juggling, but I'm not ready to start doing it again quite yet!

I need to get my head together to start planning some Stampin' Up workshops and classes ... I've been putting it off - but being organised now will really pay off in a few weeks - I have some new stamps to play with so will hopefully get time to do that this afternoon. Also got about an hour of delivering to do, I'll go out just before dinner to do that.

Tomorrow I've got 17.5km to run - I'm not sure whether I'm looking forward to it or not ... it seems a long time since I've run that far, and definitely haven't run that far the day after running 10k, I think I'm looking forward to having it done!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Friday = Weigh In Day

2010-01-15T11:04:00.000+13:00

... and once again I'm UNDER that 70kg mark (69.6), now lets see if I can actually keep it there - forever! I've been up and down over that mark so many times over the last couple of months ... very very frustrating. But then again, its all up to me!

Thanks for the comments on the shoes, Andrew - I looked at Runners Warehouse and other places in the States, nobody is allowed to ship Asics overseas, bummer. I do have some good internet friends who would be happy to send me some, so I might still go down that track - I think it is free shipping to them, and then I can just pay the postage to send them to me, I'm not sure I'll bother this time (mostly because I've left it too late, but also I do like to support local shops - its tough enough out there for them) ... I just need to suck it up! One thing for sure, when stop over at LA on our way back from London I plan on finding a good outlet mall and stocking up on shoes and running gear! As for the $ - that is NZ$, which at the moment = US$190.00 for a new pair of shoes ... got to pay for living in paradise ;)

Now, please don't think I'm whining! Its just a fact of life ... without going into great detail, because its long, boring and you don't really want to know, DH's company owe him quite a bit of money - and that money is our trip money, plus would-be shoe money ... we're better off than lots of people at least we'll (hopefully!) get that money and meanwhile we're not too badly off ... just the little extras get a bit harder, but as my DH keeps saying, I've got my good ole positive thinking (he says Hippy) attitude going :)

Also when I write my best selling book about becoming a marathon runner, I want to remember all these wee hic-ups - so anybody who is reading, gets to read the boring, whiny stuff! LOL

Today is my lovely rest day, which I take very seriously ... the kids and I are going to a local adventure park for a picnic and then to the pools - it's my last Friday off work so we'll make the most of it!

Darn, another month isn't going to do it!

2010-01-14T19:46:00.001+13:00

My shoes that is, my plan was to have my current pair last until about two months before London, and I'd get a new pair at that time, but I don't think they've got just over a month in them. Problem is, I'm not sure I've got over $200 in me to buy the next pair! The inside heel part is falling apart, and more noticeably my knees are suddenly feeling the running - sure sign I would say that the shoes have done their dash. I can't remember when I got them - I think back in about July, definitely the same time as my ipod and since I got my Nike+ attachment which was a few weeks after that, I've run about 750km ... not sure what the scientifc formula is, but I'm pretty sure I've heard 500miles somewhere.

I looked in the sports shop briefly yesterday, I thought my Asics that have done me well were $280, they're actually $260 ... that's a saving of $20.00. The manager came and chatted and said she would give me 10% discount ... so thats a total of $46.00 saving - that makes it sound, ohhhh so much better (hurray for my sister who used to work there, and all my past sport admin work, they know me well in the shop!). *sigh* ... two primary kids to kit out for school in a few weeks, two secondary kids to kit out in a few weeks, and one university big kid who I have an inkling is going to need a bit of financial help in a few weeks. Such is life, we'll get there :)

Onto the training, much more exciting!

I ran my 10km yesterday - tried to keep at a good steady, but not too hard pace and took almost exactly the same time as on Saturday - 56:28 (I think, that is going from memory) ... it's actually not quite 10km, I'm picking I need to add another 30sec on for a proper 10km time - but I'll definitely take it :)

Today was 5km - I made myself (and believe me, it was hard!) not check my pace at all, and just run, good and steady. Got home and it was 27:36, yay! I actually slowed the last couple of km, my legs were tired - running, spin class plus a couple of days of 2 or 3hrs of biking = tired legs!

Right, after 2.5hrs of delivering, plus a spin class ... I am well and truly ready to attach myself to the couch for the evening!

Not a lot to say!

2010-01-12T10:01:00.000+13:00

But I'm trying to be good at updating regularly, so figured I should write something!

Hard to believe that I'm starting Week 4 (of 18) in the training programme this week - this is the week it starts stepping up, 17.5km on Sunday - its been a while since I've run that far. Tomorrow goes from 8km to 10km and so does Saturday.

Did my 5km block this morning - 27:44, I was kinda pushing it, but not really - in fact trying not to push it really, as the mileage picks up I need to just be concentrating on getting the distance in!

Spin class last night, a late one at 7.30pm which I thought might mean I was sore or tired this morning, but didn't feel too bad at all and really it probably means my body is just getting used to the spinning and after this week I'll be pushed to fit those classes in - over the next few weeks I think I'll keep trying to do the Monday night one, it is a cross training day and Tuesday's run is always a shorter one so it should keep working for a little while, at least until school starts and I have BOT meeting once a month and usually a class or workshop or overtime throws itself in as well!

Managed to finish cleaning out the girls' room yesterday - nice sparkling clean instead of the rubbish tip it has looked like for the last few months. Next up is my desk and surrounding area, another big job ...

First 10km in a while

2010-01-10T10:47:00.000+13:00

and it went awesome! Looking back, November when I was training for the Wanganui Half Marathon is the last time I ran my usual 10km block - back then I was still struggling to get under an hour, a couple times I did, couple times I was just over. Today, 56:24!! Wow, I don't know where this sudden extra speed has come from, maybe fairy dust on my shoes ... whatever it is, I'm taking it! The weather probably helped, it was a cool morning with soft rain ... and I think the wind helped this morning for most of the run, the last 1km it suddenly was full blast against me, but by then I knew I was nearly home so pushed myself to keep up about the same pace through it. Have I mentioned, I am seriously sick of the wind!

After yesterdays, um slight blow out, in the eating arena - I'm back on track today. Day's menu is planned out, completely ready to roll - lets hope the will power is there too!

Oh, and reading lots of other blogs and seeing what the world has to offer ... I worked out that if Disney has its marathon the same weekend each year that it will be on my Birthday next year ... how awesome would it be to run the Disney marathon on your birthday? Of course I mentioned this to my "darling" husband and he gave me the "what the hell are you going on about woman" look ... he just doesn't get it. Then again, London in April which we're still finding the money for (free trips are really really expensive ;)), I don't think we'd be taking the kids to Disney in January ... not unless that Lotto win finally comes in - but a girl can dream, right?

Happy Birthday to Me!

2010-01-09T10:25:00.000+13:00

I'm an old 41yo today :) ... but I believe you only worry about your age if you feel like you're missing something in life - and life is good, so I'm happy!

Last year at my surprise 40th Birthday Party I said a quick couple of words (never been one for speeches ;)), but basically said that this decade was going to be MY decade and that it would be all about me ... it would be my decade where I became thin, fit and rich. Well, I wouldn't call myself thin yet, but am 20kg thinner than I was then (plus the 5kg I'd lost before that), wouldn't call myself rich either, but we're not struggling like we were ... but the fit part? Oh yeah baby LOL

Yesterday was Friday which = rest day (and I take that rest day VERY seriously, no running, no delivering and a lovely sleep in!) plus it is also WW weigh in day. Officially I put on weight from the last weigh in a week and half before that, but last weigh in was on a Wednesday and I'd ran, so I always sweat out a few hundred grams ... plus I'd done a hard spin class the night before and I'm sure I was way too dehydrated. Anyway - yesterday's 70.5kg is I'm pretty sure a true weight, I'm going to call it my 2010 start weight :)

This morning I've run my 7.9km block, somehow pressed pause on my Nike+ when I did my usual check of my pace after 1km - so lost about 0.25km before I worked out what I'd done ... I worked out from my average pace that it was 44:12 though ... I think that is my fastest (which makes me more annoyed that I stuffed the Nike!).

Right I'm off to do some delivering this morning on my bike and then David is taking most of the kids to the Phoenix game tonight - I'm looking forward to a quiet evening at home with my cross-stitch and hopefully a good movie on TV (for me, that is Birthday bliss ;)). I hope our lucky kids are appreciative, I took them to the 20/20 last night, soccer tonight ... very lucky indeed!

Another 5km

2010-01-07T10:24:00.000+13:00

I know I have to follow the programme, I know the programmes work, and I am following it like a good girl (even if I am adding in a spin class or two) ... but these 5k runs seem so small! Remind of this when I'm complaining about too much running in a month or two ;)

I missed blogging yesterday, didn't even think about it! Probably because not much was really happening yesterday, just a quiet day at home with time to plan meals, plan the shopping list, do the shopping and help Rhiannon with her paper run.

I ran my 8km training run in the morning - 44:35. I'm looking forward to running a 10k, I don't seem to have done that distance for a while, I'm not sure I can keep my 8k speed up for 10k - if I can, my 10k times should be looking good. I've got 10k on the programme on Sunday but will probably run that with Dee. I think I have another one mid week next week, that one will be a good indication of how I'm doing. 23rd of January I'm running the Paekakariki Road Race ... I grew up in Paekakariki, its a sleepy little seaside village, I can remember watching/cheering my Dad and sister on up at our front gate. The race stopped quite a few years ago, then a couple of years ago the local Harriers club decided to ressurect it as a memorial run for one of the long faithful members who came from there. Anyway, at this stage five of us girls (out of six) are definitely going to run or walk it ... I think we're going to enter under our maiden name just for sentimental sake, hopefully we can talk the oldest sister who lives a couple of hours away into coming down and at least walking the 5km option ... it would be cool to have all of us do it.

Today's 5km I pushed myself to see how fast I could do it and knocked 20sec off my last fastest time - yay! go me! 27:10 ... according to my Nike+ the circuit is always 4.9something, according to Map my Run it is 5.06km ... not a huge difference unless you're looking at per km times ... 5:22 sounds so much better than 5:29! There is no way I could have kept that pace up for much longer though ... I'm still a long long way from comfortably running continuously and easily below 6:00 all the time ... but definitely getting there!

Right, off to clean up some clutter and do some very exciting vacuuming!

6 for 13 off 6 overs

2010-01-05T21:44:00.000+13:00

Ha! Now if you're from the US (like most bloggers seem to be) and not from an English good 'ole Commonwealth country, you will have no idea what that means! If you ARE from an English good 'ole Commonwealth country and follow cricket, you will know that those are darn good bowling figures! We went up to Wanganui for the day to watch Cameron and his team play two of their games in their annual tournament ... and those were Cam's bowling figures from the first game ...woohoooo, go Cam! He's wanted a five cricket bag for a while, he has had a couple, but I don't think he did at all last season, as the kids get older the batting gets tighter and it gets harder. So, we had a good day! Two wins to the boys, which is great, they are the Horowhenua/Kapiti rep team, and have very little numbers to pick from compared to the bigger Manawatu, Taranaki, Hawkes Bay etc ... they had an awesome season last year winning nearly everything, and looks they're still on track this year ... really nice bunch of boys too which is always nice (nice when you can say that about a bunch of 14yos!).

So anyway, on to the quick running update for the day - just a 5km on the training programme today, I was up at 6.30am, out the house by 6.45 and home after 27:50min!

Monday = Cross Training Day

2010-01-04T19:01:00.001+13:00

and cross training = Spin class for me today, yay! I love that spin class! Bit naughty really the training programme definitely says "easy" cross training, and normally this takes care of itself as I do my delivering on my bike and as Dad and I do it together, and he and my mother go shopping on a Monday - normally Monday is a definitely biking day. But today is a holiday, and is the 4-5 days off per month we get every month, so spin class it was. Also while I'm off work and can fit in with the gym timetable I'm trying to do two spin classes a week for the weight loss - normally on a Tuesday and Thursday when I'm only running 5km which seems such a short run. We're off to Wanganui all day tomorrow to watch 14yo Cam play cricket, so no spin class = working out well to do it today.

I'm really really going to hate going back to work in a couple of weeks, because I work 2 evenings (6.30-11.30) and an afternoon/evening (2.30-9.00) ... and commute via a 50min drive into Wellington, there is no way I make the evening classes, the early morning classes are 5.50am, and well working evenings I need sleep so just don't do mornings well (plus the wee fact that it is pretty scary driving home when you can't keep your eyes open, believe me, after a couple of drives like that I make sure I get the sleep!) - if life isn't too busy I make the Tuesday morning 9.30am class and this is it. Oh well, in a few weeks I'll be doing enough running that I won't be contemplating spin classes anyway!

Good news today is that I'm on to day 2 of no Diet Coke and today was definitely easier than yesterday, yesterday I wanted one alllllll day and ate crap (as in the evil packet of liquourice allsorts and evil box of biscuits left over the Christmas) all day ... grrrrrrr so much to sticking to my eating plan 100%! Anyway, today was a good day, lots of water, no coke and sticking to my eating plan - I made a yummy vegetarian lasanaga for dinner that, even though filled with Kumura, peppers, onion and zuccini the kids all seemed to enjoy as well (always a bonus!).

Tomorrow I need to wake up early to run 5km and then get the girls and I organised and out the door by about 8.30am, we are definitely out of school/work mode so it won't be an easy task!

Running with a Buddy

2010-01-03T14:42:00.000+13:00

So, today was my long run - 14.5km (9mile) on the training programme. Also first time running with who I think will be my training partner - still not sure I'm totally sold on the idea! LOL

Anyway, it was fine, we ran at a really nice pace - she is a little unfitter than me, so I slowed slightly, but I NEED to slow on my long runs so it was a good combination. The run went by pretty quickly with having someone to talk to, so all good :)

14.2km - 1:28 - 6:13/km - that was with Dee stopping for a toilet break, so infact I was probably pretty close to my 6:00/km which is what I like to sit at.

Today is also my last slow lazy days of the holidays, DH is back at work next week, and its time for me to start de-cluttering and organising this messy house for another busy year! I still have two weeks off work, and in that time I really do need to get classes planned and ready for the next few months, as I said, decluttering done and just generally getting myself as organised as possible ... I know those couple of months before the marathon are going to be hard work so hopefully the more organised and prepared I can get now will make it easier then!

Hope you all have a nice runfilled weekend :)

Following everyone else - 2009 running totals

2010-01-02T12:02:00.000+13:00

I finished the Couch to 5k programme in January, then went straight into a 10km training programme, looking back I'm impressed at how I pushed myself to the next step, even before winning the spot prize in June I was pushing pushing to run a bit further and a bit faster :)

Surprisingly, I ran a total of 1416km (880 miles), not bad at all for a total beginner. Jan-June I ran 38-47 miles and only 3 days per week, in June I was suddenly going to run a marathon so the miles picked up in July and picked up again in Aug/Sept as I started serious half marathon training. By October I was running 5 days a week, and still am.

As for today -

2nd week of half marathon training.

7.9km - 44:50

Tomorrow is Sunday, long run day, I'll be running approximately 14km and for the first time running with a running buddy. She is a mother from gymnastics who has run one marathon and is training for her second one, she lost her training buddy and asked if I wanted one, her marathon is a couple of weeks before mine so it should work well. She is aiming for a 4:30 time as well and it sounds like we run about the same pace ... so should work out well. Not sure I'm ready to switch from my solo with my ipod runs, but I'm very aware that the long runs over the next couple of months are going to get harder and that I'm probably going to appreciate it further down the track!

Long time ... no write!

2010-01-01T09:17:00.001+13:00

Happy 2010!! It is New Years Day here today, so what better time to get back on the blogging wagon!

November/December are always busy busy months here - lets see if I can remember enough for a quick re-cap ... a couple of things, like my second half marathon! I'll write something longer over the next few days :)

S0, from my last post on the 18th of November ...

3 Birthdays - Charlotte's 8th (on 19th Nov), Rhiannon's 11th (on 11th Dec) and Cameron's 14th (on 20th Dec).

Finish of the school year -
David's last year at high school = lots of organising for university and hostel living next year (awards for service to School Council and contribution to school via being a peer mediator for one of the first year classes).
Josh's finish of 2nd year at high school = award for achievement in health (got to feel sorry for Josh he is the very quiet hardworking type that teachers don't notice - I was that personality and its hard!).
Cameron's finish of 1st year at high school = awards for outstanding achievement in Math and PE, outstanding achievement for contribution to cricket (he captains the school 1st year team plus captains the region's representative team), diligence in Social Studies and English AND award for being top in PE (yes, he is our over achiever ... with that twinkle in his eye that teachers DO notice).
Rhiannon's last year of middle age at school, she is in the "senior" part of primary school next year - lots of awards for service to the school - librarian, road patrol and a few others - she is our "always wanting to help" child ;)
Charlotte's finish up of her 3rd year at school - no awards at this age, but if she got any it would be personality of the year, or making the teacher laugh the most with her stories (I hate to think sometimes, when you're the youngest of five and have three teenage brothers ... I'm sure a lot of her stories aren't what you'd expect from a sweet 8yo girl's mouth! LOL).

What else have I been doing? My last few Stamping classes for the year, organising Christmas for our family, last Board of Trustee (for the school) duties - including making decisions on what to do with a poor lost boy who threatened someone with a screw-driver, hopefully next year will see lots of intervention and help for him ... and I'm getting side tracked.

We had the end of year dance performances as well ... which involved sewing up the girls' costumes - now I like sewing and can do the basics, but those costumes are way too much stress each year, all cut out ready to go - but no spare pieces, the pressure of making sure your child hasn't got the costume that looks "wrong" ... wayyyyy too much pressure for this Mama! But done, the girls had a great time ... and I'll conveniently forget how stressful it is until next (this!) year when we do it all again.

Oh, and I HAVE been running too - I ran a half marathon on the 12th of December, I put lots of pressure on myself wanting to run it in 2:06, managed it in 2:09:20 - nothing wrong with that at all - but the short tale, I went out too fast - the first half was 1:03, but was really tired for the second half ... ran the whole way, but it was definitely hard work! Looking back, I think my body was just plain tired from a busy month. Anyway, in other running, I've started my marathon training and am 2nd week in ... so far so good - but this is the easy part!

Weight wise, I've lost and gained the same 1-2kg way too many times and decided after the half marathon that I really really need to drop the last 5kg if I want to run better ... and um, I still haven't lost any of it ... but new year, new resolutions ... hopefully over the next month before marathon training gets really hard I will lose it!

That's the quick version ... hopefully I'll be back over the next few days to fill you in on training etc :)

Oh, and I just set a goal on Nike+ to run 2010km in 2010 ... I'm hoping I'll still have the running "bug" after the marathon, and that will be a great goal to keep me motivated :)

One Year Ago ...

2009-11-18T09:17:00.000+13:00

I started running! Wow ... what a difference a year makes, here I am at Boxing Day last year - believe it or not I was feeling good because I'd lost a few kg's -

I haven't got a recent photo of me anywhere handy, but believe me I look different now!

Anyway - one year ago I started the C25K programme, best thing I ever did! My then nearly 13yo came with me, with a stop watch and he did the timing - and oh my gosh, that one minute running was HARD, I felt like I was going to die! But I started, and finished, the programme and the rest is history :)

So, since last year -

I've lost 25kg
I've run five 10km races (and improved from 1:12 to 59:40)
I've run one half marathon
I've done things I only ever dreamed about (Duathalon, 10k, Incline run).
and the biggest thing, I'm training for the London Marathon!

I wouldn't have believed any of it if anyone had told me that I'd be sitting here a year later, such a new and improved me!

Okay, I found two photos from Saturday's race, but really they're not that good - I need to pose for the camera! LOL

Here I am trying to avoid getting my feet wet -

and at the end!

Rimutaka Incline (aka Last Tick on my "Dream List")

2009-11-14T18:36:00.000+13:00

Firstly ... look at my weight ticker! I reached the 60's *happy happy happy dance*, okay, it is a bit of a cheat, I don't normally run on a Friday which is weigh-in day, and when I do run I know I drop about 500g from water lost ... so yesterday I was a day ahead of myself because my long run was today (Saturday) rather than Sunday, so I had my rest day on Thursday and ran 5km yesterday - but I'm taking it, even if it means I probably won't change much this week (in fact will have to be very careful not to go up!).

The last tick on my "Dream List"

When I was overweight for years, I always had vague thoughts in the back of my mind of what I'd like to do if I ever lost weight and got a fitter. They were the Kapiti Womens Duathalon - I did that in February, the 10km run Around the Vines - did that in March and the last one was to WALK the Rimutaka Incline, I never thought I'd run it - but I did, today :)

Such a neat race, as far as organisation goes, you don't get a lot for you buck - no free fruit at the end, nothing in the goodie bag except your number (in fact no goodie bag, just your number), water only at the drink stops. But the actual race, and course - amazing!

It is run off-road through what was the old railroad route (the actual tracks have long gone - not sure how many years ago, but they have a huge tunnel that goes through the hill now), 10km up hill, then 7km down (they lied, it was 11km up and 7km down). It is a gentle incline upwards, you don't really notice it until the last 2-3km, they were hard. There is just one small railway tunnel on the way up, and three longer ones on the way down - so, so, so cool running through railway tunnels, except of course for the fact that it is dark (they put lights up via generators but it is still dark), and worrying about tripping!

Okay, the running part of the race - about 400 people were entered, not a huge number. My sister Julie was doing it to, her husband kindly dropped us off at the start and was there at the end to drive us home (you end up on the other side of the Rimutakas, a big windy hill road). She decided that I was grown up enough to run on my own this time, so she took off at the start, and of course I didn't see her again until the finish. I started, going at my new 5:50 pace which seems to be the new "comfortable" for me - kept that 5:50-6:00 pace pretty much until the last couple of kms of the 11km hill. The hill work I've been doing really paid off, there were a lot of people walking those last couple of km, but even though it was hard, I never felt like I couldn't keep running ... although, a woman in front of me turned around and asked me if I needed an inhaler! Sheesh, no wonder i have music so I can't hear my breathing, it must be bad! LOL ... I assured her I was fine, just working hard :)

Reached the summit (*phew*), had a drink and gel and then started running down, bit stony, slippery at first, and the longest tunnel, then a really steep gully down and then up - impossible to walk up, more like a stony mountain goat kind of up! But once we got down and then up that gully it really was downhill, in the middle of nowhere, just the track and amazing NZ bush surrounding us - it felt really good, going gently downhill and being in the middle of nature :) Some of the way down was a bit worrying as it was pretty stony, rocky, but mostly I felt great that second half. The finish seemed to be miles away once I had about 1km to go - but I got there!

According to my ipod - it was 18.2km (rather than 17km as advertised, at the 10km mark I checked and my ipod said 9.9km, so I think it was pretty accurate) and I ran it in 1:48:30 - woohoooo! Although (and don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled with my time for what is quite a hard run), to put things in perspective, Julie ran it in 1:35 and two mothers from school ran it in 1:22 and 1:23 (sheesh they are fast!).

(I didn't take the photos - I found them on the web and copied them onto here - thank you whoever you are, great photos!).

I have a huge blister on the inside (arch) of my foot - I could feel it the whole way, not sure if my sock had a wrinkle, or what quite happened - I was relieved when I took my shoe and sock off and it was still whole and not a bloody mess though, because it was feeling like that by the end.

So ... now, roll on four weeks of half marathon training, I'm starting to look forward to my next half marathon in four weeks - I'm feeling stronger and stronger all the time :)

Now I'm off to our school's annual community fireworks display - for Guy Fawkes that was over a week ago ... in all honesty I'd rather be watching the all important All Whites (NZ Soccer Team) game, they are playing in the Wellington stadium, a sold out crowd of 35,000 - if they win (against Burain (Sp!)) they will be in the World Cup next year, for the first time since 1982 ... so DH and two boys have gone into watch that - I get to take the girls to the fireworks, fireworks don't do it for me at the best of times, when they're on just as the soccer game is on TV, they're really not doing it for me ... but Miss Charlotte (8yo in a few days) is very excited about the fair they have on before hand and the fireworks, so I have to put on my happy Mother face and make it fun for her! Miss Rhiannon (nearly 11yo) is already down there hanging out with her friends ... wonder when she suddenly grew up?

Good luck for everyone else running this weekend - enjoy yourselves!

The magic number 6

2009-11-09T08:04:00.000+13:00

Lately the number 6 has been on my mind. 6 minute kms is what I want to achieve (maybe less than 6) for most of my runs, not my long runs so much, I know they need to be slower, but for my short-medium runs. Number 6 is what I want the first number on the scale to be, and its getting closer!

The first one, the one where I run about 6min kms is happening! 8km on Saturday, 47:11 - 11km yesterday, 1:05:30 ... and both runs I wasn't pushing it hard to make that pace, it was just happening, yay me! Both runs have been hard, definitely a bit of a push, but definitely not the feeling like I'm pushing myself more than I should be ... I definitely couldn't keep up that pace for a half marathon, yet ... but I'm confident that eventually I will be able to, maybe not by December, maybe not before the marathon, but definitely in the future :)

... and the scales? I'm probably still a kg off hitting the 60's, but oh so close, if I can just keep myself on track for the rest of the week, I might not make it this week - but should in the next couple of weeks ... it has been at least 15years since I weighed in the 60's :)

So what have I run this week?

Wednesday 4/11 - 9.5km - 56:28

When I run my 10km block, I start down a different road than normal, of course I forgot to turn that way, so ended up only running 9.5km, I was really annoyed because I'm pretty sure I would have broken that 60min. Not that it matters that much, it was a good run :)

Thursday 5/11 - 8.5km - 56:36

Maungatooks day! I made it running all the way to the top again ... hard work, but it has definitely been worth it, I'm sure this is helping my speed on the flat and my endurance ... and its a darn good work out! Interestingly, and quite buzzy, I'm running up the hill at about a 7min pace, when I finished the C25K programme and was running 5km, my pace for quite a while was 7:20min/km ... I'm running up a steep hill faster than that now! I've come a long way!

Friday 6/11 - Rest and Weigh In Day

No weigh in as I worked during the day so missed my WW meeting, according to my scales I was probably down about 800gm and below where I was when I put some on a couple of weeks ago, hopefully I can keep that up this week!

Saturday 7/11 - 8km - 47:11

According to Map my Run - 7.9km, according to my Nike+ 7.98km. Whatever, this is the fastest I've run this block and I wasn't trying too hard!

Sunday 8/11 - 11km - 1:05:30

Same as the Saturday, according to Map my Run 11.3km, according to Nike+ 11.00 km (although I run this backwards from what I originally mapped it, and I tried mapping it the right way a while ago and got 11km but didn't want to change it on Map my Run, so the 11km is probably pretty accurate, more accurate too when looking at my time.

I've broken that 6min/km for my last three runs!!!

Monday today, rest day, and I'm off to work for the day again. My trying to eat well for the week will be tested as there is a big morning tea this morning because we won the best legal firm in the "Large Legal Firm" category last week ... I could do without fattening, tempting morning teas!!

I'm not very good at updates, am I?

2009-11-03T12:32:00.000+13:00

... and this might have to be short and sweet highlights, I need to put my bike in the car and go delivering!

Thursday - Maungatooks (8.5km) - 57:06

Ohhhh boy, it was windy, and cold ... and as I left the car park full force into the wind I seriously contemplated turning around, but I managed to convince myself that it was only 2km to the bottom of the hill and I'd turn left into a different direction, and it would be downhill and then I'd be blown home! I was running at about 7:00/km ... my legs were still telling me they were tired and overworked and the wind was a killer - BUT I got to the bottom of the hill, and it wasn't so bad as I went up ... and up I went, and up ... and ran all the way to the top, yay me!! I was right, going down wasn't so bad, and the 2 and a bit k back to the car was much easier with the wind behind me ... I was still slower than the week before, even though I'd ran all the way up - but so happy that I did it :)

Friday - rest day, thank goodness

... and weigh-in day, of which I stayed exactly the same - totally deserved, I had bought my lunch a few days and whilst I chose reasonably, you just can't count points that way - this week my goal has been to make lunch at home, I have no excuses for not doing it, except one of my bad eating habits is good bakery comfort food, on my own (lunch time my house is nice and empty and quiet), with a good book! Time to revisit that habit and kick it out.

Saturday - 5km - approx 30:30

Saturday I decided I would actually (finally after about 2 months!) calibrate my nike+ ipod, so I set it at 1.0km and ran to where I knew my 1.0km mark was, hit the set button and then reset it and carried on for the other 4.06km. It seemed to work, it came out at 4.09km - close enough. I finally felt good, my legs felt recovered - yay!

Sunday - 16.3km - 1:41:10

I was being picked up at 8.30am to travel to my Stampin' Up Team Meeting (of which I am "team leader", so had to be organised to set a good example! LOL) - I managed to cut card and pack my bag, make muffins for lunch, and have everything ready the night before. Got up at 6.00am, aiming to leave at 6.15am (I left at 6.16am - yay me). I was a wee bit worried because I usually get up and eat a couple of pieces of toast before I do a long run, but I didn't have time for that. I drank some Powerade, took my water bottle and a gel and hoped that would do it.

I'm starting to really enjoy the long runs, there is something about the head space you get into, and the nice pace you keep that is hard to explain, but nutso maybe I am, but I enjoy a long run. It went well, body felt good, stopped at about 8km to have a drink and gel, carried on after that, managed to sip water every now and again while still moving all the way home - with just enough time to stretch, shower, change - grab a banana and cereal bar for breakfast, just in time to be picked up - it all worked well.

Monday - Rest Day

No deliveries today, so I had a "real" rest day - of which I spent cleaning my much needed dirty windows!

Tuesday (today) - 5.02km - 28:50

Yep, I pushed it today, testing my speed again! I was pleased the Nike+ clocked it as 5.02km which is slightly less than the 5.06 Map my Run has it - kind of balances with where its been at the last couple of runs, so I think it is pretty accurate. I also done a spin class this morning - I feel so much stronger at those as well now. Now I'm off to do some delivering ... this is the sort of day I have trouble balancing how much to each with how much I've exercised - a quick (for me) 5km run, an hours spin class, a couple of hours on my bike ... that must be burning a few calories, but eat too many and the weight doesn't move, it is a really hard equation to work out.

Righty, my highlights went on a bit long and I have to get moving to make it back before school finishes!

6 Months!

2009-10-28T10:02:00.000+13:00

Have you seen my ticker? I've got less than six months until the big day! When I won the prize I had just over 10 months, and that seemed such a long time ... suddenly it is six months and boy that is going to go fast. Our air tickets are all booked, my biggest worry now is that we've decided to move from London to Paris the day after the marathon - I just hope my legs are workable enough to walk around all the great museums and art galleries in Paris for those few days after the marathon.

Anyway - back to the running ...

I ran 8km this morning - well, 7.9km in 48:01 - I just can't quite get to that 6min/km, close, but not quite there. My legs are feeling the added pressure I'm putting on them so I'm thinking I just need to concentrate on the km's and let the speed catch up. Very frustrating. I have to remind myself how far I've come!

I ran 10km (going backwards now) on Saturday, it should have been 8, but I wanted to take part in the Nike World Race, ran it in 1:01:10 (still not quite that 6min/km!), then hopped on my bike and did 3hrs of delivering. Definitely too much to then run the 14km I ran on Sunday, I took the 14km pretty easy, i had to - the whole run my body was whinging and moaning that I'd pushed it too much! Part of me thinks, darn I shouldn't be pushing it so hard, the other part thinks, well come marathon training, I will be pushing it that hard so get used to it! LOL I survived, the time was 1:29, pretty much exactly what I ran 14km in when I ran it for my half marathon training - but probably with my body much more tired, so it was "okay".

I'll be back up my hill tomorrow, rest on Friday, SMALL run on Saturday (no 10km pushing it too much this weekend), then 16km on Sunday.

Weight wise, I was up last week, 400g - I'm really struggling to keep my eating on track - it's just so hard ... getting that balance between being hungry because of the exercise and keeping to the right amount of food to handle that AND lose weight. Very frustrating.

Onwards and upwards though!

Gosh, where has time gone?

2009-10-22T08:02:00.000+13:00

I've been a slack blogger!

I was extremely lucky after the half marathon in that I didn't seem to have any injuries or a lot of soreness at all, so I've pretty much got straight back into the running. I spent the first week taking it pretty easy, I didn't run Monday or Tuesday and then did a 5km run Wednesday. Then Thursday, still feeling good, I tackled the Maungatooks! Worked out that it is 2km from the golf course carpark along Valley Road (gentle rolling hills), then 2km up the Maungatooks, 2km down, and 2km back to the car, so a good 8km run. I didn't manage to run all the way up, but ran more of it than I thought I would manage. Coming DOWN was hard, my stomach hurt (I think the muscles were given a work out holding myself back), I got the stitch, and it was hard, harder than going up. Next day, once again I felt fine (I am counting my lucky stars here that my body seems to have taken to this whole running thing really well, besides my back that seems to be all better, I haven't had any injuries, or worrying niggles at all).

Saturday I ran 5km, and ran it as fast as I could - I think one of the reasons I'm not hurting is because I'm maybe not pushing myself enough, now, I'm not sure whether that is a good thing or not - probably a good debateable topic to be quite honest. But Saturday I tried hard, to get a grasp on where I am at with pace. I ran it in 28:30 (5:40/km), so faster than I have before, but not outstandingly fast ;). Next day I ran 10km, in 1:02:50 - not extremely fast, but a slightly quicker pace for a training run.

This week I've tried to push myself a bit each run - I'm aiming to try and run my 5-10km training runs at 6.0m/km ... and still take it easy on the longer ones. Tuesday I ran 8km in just over 48min, yesterday 10km in 1:01 ... so getting there. I can "feel" my legs, they know I'm working them harder, but hopefully in a good way. Today it is the Maungatooks again, I probably won't push it too hard for that run, I just need to concentrate on building endurance up the hill.

My weight is up again, the last two weigh ins I've lost 1.4kg, then 0.9kg ... good weeks! This week my routine totally changed, I filled in a PA position at work Mon-Wed so I was in the car for an hour commute there and back (sitting on my butt), then sitting in an office all day - SO not used to that, no time on bike, no walking to school and back, I don't think I realised how much "extra" exercise I fit in during the day! PLUS I couldn't resist the pull of the nice "by myself, no should be doing things" lunch break in a cafe reading my book. So the scales today show I've probably put on the 0.9 I lost last week, I have today to try and drag it back a bit before weigh in tomorrow - I should be able to stick to my points, plus a good run up hill, plus about 3hrs of delivering on my bike ... it shouldn't be too bad - but very frustrating when I'd decided to work hard and get rid of the last 5-6kg!!

I think that is all to report really ... busy, busy, busy as usual!

So, What's Next?

2009-10-13T09:25:00.000+13:00

I'm a goal setting, mountain climbing Capricorn ... believe me, I had "What's Next" planned out a way before Sunday's Half Marathon!

This is a journey for me, each step is getting closer to that marathon goal - so, yes, I've got a few little goals along the way.

Next up though, I plan on more endurance training, which means hills! So next up in my training I'm going to start including running up the Maungatooks once a week, I tried to find a photo, but couldn't find one - I'll have to take one when I get to the top! It's a popular hill training place for runners and bikers here, I used to bike up there when I was training for the Taupo Bike Race a few years ago, it took a few goes to manage to bike up without stopping, I'm imagining that it will take a few goes before I can run all the way too. The golf course is down the road a bit, and according to a pre-mapped course on Mapmyrun, it is a 10k run from the golf course, up to the top, and then back to the golf course - so I'm going to make that my Thursday run each week.

As for races, next up is the Rimutaka Incline Run this is one of those runs/walks I've wanted to do for years (admittedly, I always imagined walking it if I ever got fit enough, never imagined running it!), it is 17km and runs through the old railway tracks and tunnels - it goes up an incline for 10km and then down for the last 7km. Definitely supposed to be a fun run, rather than anything serious - I'll be looking forward to it!

After that I'll be running another half marathon on 12th December, in Wanganui (about 2hrs from here), I need one more under my belt before I start the 18wk marathon training programme. Conveniently, 18 weeks before London is 21st December, which means I can run this last half marathon, have a week to take it really easy and then start the serious stuff.

As for short terms plans - I've rested yesterday and today (if you can count 3hrs on my bike yesterday as rest), tomorrow I plan to run 5kms, then tackle the Maungatooks for the first time on Thursday. I'm feeling good so it should all be a-okay.

Thanks for the good wishes :)

Masterton Country Marathon - Half Marathon Report

2009-10-12T09:23:00.000+13:00

Firstly - I did it! ... a year ago I hadn't even started running - I could walk 10k, and I could sit on my bike and do my delivering for a few hours, but I hadn't started running yet - amazing, 11mths after starting to run, I've run a half marathon ... and enjoyed it!

Official time: 2:12:38
Whole field: 112/133
Age Group: 16/23

(I did say little 'ole NZ has a lot less people in their races than the big ones I read about overseas!)

Nitty Gritty Details

As I'd said, the weather had been horrendous for about a week before the race, Masterton is known for being either really really hot, or really really cold. Saturday, it was freezing ... and here is what we woke up to on Sunday morning - look at the snow on the hills! We were sure that wasn't there when we went to sleep the night before.

But, Sunday was perfect. The sky cleared, it was still a bit cool, but not nearly as cold as it had been, the wind died down - perfect running weather - yay!

We got there about 45min before the start, after going on Saturday to collect our numbers and bag of goodies, Georgie was official key holder and bag/jacket put-awayer as her 10k started 30min after Julie and I started the half, it was nice not to have to worry about any of that.

We lined up at the start line, made sure we were towards the back (the walkers had started an hour before, yay, no trying to run around the walkers who always seem to start up front - one of my new pet hates in life) ... and off we went, at a nice steady pace. It was all pretty uneventful really - We got to the first 5km and I checked our time, 30:40, I was aiming for 32:00 - I said to Julie we're going too fast, I don't want to burn out! She assured me that if it felt good, don't worry about it just keep going where I felt comfortable ... okkkkayyyy, turns out she was right because we really did run that same pace the whole way. Between 10 and 15k it got rolling hill hilly, which I wasn't expecting at all - I thought it was all going to be flat, I train on the very flat, and the few 10k's I've done that have got even little hills usually really throw me, but even the hills yesterday weren't going to ruin it - just as we got to the top of them all, we hit the 15k drink station, just the right time to stop have a drink, a gel, and carry on. When we hit about 19k we both said, okay now it's getting tougher, but we dug in and kept it up right to the end - perfect, perfect run ... gosh if they could all go like that, life would be pretty darn good.

Interestingly, I said to Julie at the start, I'm going to stop and walk through all the drink stops (every 5km), take a gel at 10k and 15k. She said, that's okay I'll just run on the spot and wait - she is "old school", couldn't possibly stop running, no way she could start again. Afterwards, when she did stop through the drink stations she said she was amazed at how easy it was to go straight back into running the same pace and how it really didn't affect the running at all - nothing like teaching an "expert" something :)

Another highlight was that we were never passed by anyone, actually, we were by one lady quite early on, but we passed her towards the end. We passed probably about 10 runners along the way ... just sticking at our steady easy pace, it was a good feeling.

So all in all, a great race ... and nice to know that following a training programme really does work!

Here we are before the race, I'm the one looking goofy, Julie is in the glasses.

Oh, and today (Monday) the next day, I'm hardly sore at all! I'm a bit stiff, and one ankle feels a bit tender - but I walked the girls to school and definitely no limping, I'll be off on my bike soon which should be good to really loosen those muscles.

Tomorrow is Half Marathon day!

2009-10-10T10:39:00.000+13:00

Yippeee! I think. LOL No, actually I'm looking forward to getting this part of the journey done. Because it is all part of the journey, the journey to the LONDON marathon. Yep, I'm going to be hugely proud to have trained and run a half marathon (all going well), but in reality it is one of steps along the way to the huge goal.

I ran 12km on Thursday, I was unsure about doing such a longish run so close to it, but I took it easy, tried to pace it the same as I'll run tomorrow and it was a good run - no soreness, no stiffness, it all felt good, as a confidence booster it was just what I needed.

Today I ran 5km, and again kept it to the pace I want to run tomorrow, and once again it was a great confidence booster - I think I am FINALLY starting to "get" the whole pace thing - for ages everytime I ran I just ran as fast as I could, well not sprinted, hard out, but I had one pace, albeit a pretty slow pace, but one pace, whether it was a long run, a training run, a race, whatever ... one pace. Now, I'm finally getting my brain to feel what my body is doing and what it should be doing and I can run a slower pace when I should, and speed up a bit when I should. I think I'm finally becoming a runner ;)

In other news ... our flights were booked this week - OMG!!! It really is real, for a while I was expecting someone to tap me on the shoulder and say "Just Kidding! ... boy we sucked you in" ... but having those flights written in black and white, and the too much money (to pay for David's - mine are paid for) come out of the bank account ... yep, Oh. my. gosh. it is really going to happen - very very scary. A big race here is like Wellington where I won the prize - which had about 5,000 people running ... there will be 35,000 in London, pretty uncomprehendable for a girl from little 'ole NZ.

So things to do before we set off - like getting card cut for 40 people for a demonstration I'm doing on Tuesday morning - eeek! I'll feel better if that is done before I leave and one big job is crossed off my list.

Oh - and goals ... I said a couple of months ago when I started training for this half marathon that I didn't care about the time, I just needed to know I could complete a half marathon, whether I ended up walking or whatever - I just needed to finish. Well, a funny thing happened over the training, suddenly I started to believe I could actually run this thing :) ... so time goals ... and copycatting the other running blogs I read - A, B and C.

A = less than 2.10, considering my usual 10km is about 1:03, this would be a bit of a miracle!
B = 2.10-2.15, if it all goes extremely well, I think I can do this - but everything has to go well, right until the very end, and I'm not sure what will happen the last 3-5km, because so far I've run one 18km and that's the longest I've run - so I'm realistic in knowing that it might not all be pretty smelly roses for the whole run ;)
C = 2.15-2.20, okay, biggest thing is I finish, but honestly, I'll be disappointed if I'm slower than 2.20.

So we'll see, I'll update you after its all over!