Motivation

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Born to run

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I’ve never considered myself the Bruce Springsteen of running – I wasn’t Born to Run.

In fact, the first time Wouna and I gave in to a nagging runner friend and joined her for a 5km fun run I was already past 30. And little kids of between 3 and 5 ran the shit out of me.

Maybe it was the shock of realising we weren’t able to run continuously for more than 2km, or the fact that kids that scarcely reached my knees easily ran away from us, but from that day we did our best to get better at the running game. Running together, we persevered, eventually managing our first 10km race, then a 21, then a 32, and then the wheels came off – the classic story of injury from over-use. We rested, cut back, tried again, this time getting all the way to completing a marathon at a pretty decent 6min/km pace. The sky was the limit, so we did more marathons, and quickly progressed to our first ultra – the scenic Two Oceans marathon in Cape Town. After this came injury again, followed by cut-back and rest, slow build up, eventually another marathon, and so forth, until now, about 10 years later, I would contend that we’ve spent enough of the past decade on the road (or on the trail) to be able to refer to ourselves as runners. Continue reading →

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Rainy day runs

pic2Have 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 →

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O budget, where art thou?

budget

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 →

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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.

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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 →

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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!

🙂