Fun runs!

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!