Have you ever sat in your car very early on a cold morning, looking at the start banner of some or other race, steaming up the windows while the rain is pouring outside, thinking to yourself, “you have to be crazy to be here right now…” In fact, probably all non-runners, including your family, will consider you stark raving mad. Continue reading
Motivation
O budget, where art thou?
Race entry fee:
$120.00.
Buying a commemorative T-shirt:
$59.00
The burn of the air in your lungs as you clear that hill at the 25km mark:
Priceless.
Yes, its difficult to measure, in monetary terms, the value you get out of a running event. Looking back at the past decade, few things have left a deeper impression in my memory than the wonderful, tough and enjoyable races we’ve been fortunate enough to be part of. Continue reading
Manawatu Striders Super Seven Series – #1 (18 January 2011)
The Manawatu Striders, in association with Vautier Pharmacy, hosts the Super Seven Series. This is a series of 7 events over 7 consecutive weeks (each Tuesday), each 7km long.
T-shirt, socks and “permanent” number for all 7 events.
After reading the severe weather warnings on the MetService website (amongst others, the after-effect of a Oz tropical cyclone heading our way) we briefly considered doing our daily run before the onslaught of the predicted gusts and rainstorms. The unbearable heat during the “quiet before the storm” period was something else. But apart from the extremely hot and humid temperature, the weather seemed to be holding up and we ended up entering for the whole series of 7 runs, including an event T-shirt, for only $35. Continue reading
Manawatu Striders – Tuesday club run & walk (11 January 2011)
Had a jolly nice 8km run with Alister (Chairperson of the Manawatu Striders) tonight! He was looking after us not-so-fit/fast newcomers to make sure we find our way around the course. Thanks Al! The club currently seems to boast more walkers than runners. They gather twice weekly for runners (Tuesdays and Sunday) and three times a week for the walkers (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays).
Unlike SA clubs that normally caters for all levels of speed, you have to be quite fast here to keep up with the group, who seems to be going at about a 5min/km pace. Could this maybe contribute to the lower number of runners at the club? If you’re new to running, a 5min/km pace is quite daunting, me thinks. Being a bit of a slow poke, it’s daunting to me who’s been running for 10+ years, last managing a 5min/km pace in 2003!
🙂
Starting over?
As a South African living in New Zealand and running my own company, I have my fair share of instability and lack of routine. The result often being, lack of commitment towards my love for running, with a number of other excuses.
Jogging next to the Manawatu River
Beginners advice
Do you see yourself as a runner, but then every so often get sidelined by something and end up not running for extended periods? And how agonizing is the battle to getting back on the road after such a long lay-off? Continue reading
Jog around the Blog 