Author: Gerry le Roux

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A sorry sight.

Yesterday, before discarding our 2013 year-planner (that had been stuck on the bathroom door for the past year), we decided, with some reservations, to add up the numbers and get an idea of our running/walking “accomplishments” of 2013.

I’m putting accomplishments in inverted commas because 2013 must have been more or less our worst running year since we first took up the habit at the turn of the century. Despite our best intentions, and numerous attempts to get back into some training schedule, our running just never got off the ground, and until the last quarter of the year we pretty much never managed to get beyond the breakdown phase of our training. Continue reading →

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New Year’s Resolutions – the Easy (!?) Eight

Well, here we are – hard to believe it’s 2014 already! It’s the first day of the new year, and with Christmas, New Year’s Eve and all the festivities behind us, we can start to look forward to the year ahead. As corny and silly as new year’s resolutions can be, I guess it’s pretty hard to avoid – even if your main resolution is to not have a new year’s resolutions list, we all secretly have a few things in mind that we want to take on, achieve, improve on, perhaps even avoid or quit. Continue reading →

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The magical Marathon

The marathon – most fabled of all running events.

As most of you will know, the marathon, a long distance running event of 42.195 kilometers, was instituted to commemorate the fabled and heroic run of the Greek soldier-messenger Pheidippides, from the Battle of Marathon (hence the name) to Athens.

The story goes that brave Pheidippides ran the entire distance without stopping, exclaiming ‘We have won!’ when he finally reached his destination, and then promptly collapsed and died.

Phidippides

Thinking about it now, a couple of things could’ve contributed to his fate. He may have been over- or undertrained. Continue reading →

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Hit that perfect beat!

drum

Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride
Nobody’s gonna slow me down
Oh no, I got to keep on movin’
Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride
I’m running and I won’t touch ground
Oh no, I got to keep on movin’

Miniature music players have taken over. The ipod, and a mass of ipod-like devices, have become a ubiquitous part of running culture – clothing manufacturers are even styling running clothes so that your ultra-hip little music player fits nicely into some funky ‘i-pocket’. (Take a chance, take a chance, take-a take-a chance-chance!) As a result, running with music has never been more popular, and runners the world over have their personal customised playlists to keep them trotting along. (Beat boy! Beat boy! hit that perfect beat, boy!) Continue reading →

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Kahuterawa Classic (15.4km leg) – 16 November 2013

Participants arriving at the start of the race.
Mike Tennant, working towards completing 52 races in 52 weeks.
Some back of the pack shenanigans.
In high spirits, despite the challenging hills.
Running in such wonderful hill country makes the miles go by in a flash.
A great little single-track section in the middle of the run.
Running along the hills provide wonderful views of the valleys around Palmerston North.
The last main turn, towards a farm track leading back to the start.
What would a New Zealand country run be without a flock of sheep in the distance?
Hitting the farm track approaching the finish.
Almost there – running along the farm track just before the last long downhill towards the finish.

After a lay-off of ages (and I really mean AGES – it’s been 2 years since we last participated in a road race, and since then our training has been more off than on) we recently decided to make a concerted effort to get back on the road. And knowing ourselves, we realised this was not going to happen if we didn’t have something to train for. So we entered the Classic Hits Run Mahana Half Marathon, scheduled for 1 December.

To make it to a level of fitness that would more or less get us through a 21.1km race by the start of December, we set some intermediate ‘long run’ targets – a 10km run a few weeks ago, 12km the week after that, and then, as our first race in a long, long time, the 15.4km second leg of the Kahuterawa Classic, a marathon split over 3 legs and two days, hosted by our local running club, the Manawatu Striders. Continue reading →