Paekakariki Road Race Report

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

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!

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

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.

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

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

... 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!