Road running

by

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!

🙂

by

Olex Bell Block 10km and pre-race rave run (26 December 2010)

“All of a sudden it hit me – if there was such a thing as composing music, there could be such a thing as composing motion. After all, there are melodic figures, why can’t there be figures of motion?” – Len Lye
Gerry struggling from turkey and wine overload.
Sharing the path with some other runners also working off the X-mas binge.
Gerry rounding a corner on the last stretch of our rave run.

Visiting friends in New Plymouth for X-mas (thanks Deon and Henriette!), Gerry and I decided to enter for the Olex Bell Block 10km run. A good way to rid some of the turkey and trifle reserve kilos. And in any case, we’re on a mission to get to marathon fitness level again.

After some negotiating and marathon-hunting on the internet, Gerry found some lovely runs and decided impromptu to enter for two of them. As we know, nothing like a good challenge to get you out the door for the sometimes “challenging” training sessions. These races – the Dual (on 26 March) and the T42 (held on 7 May) – both seem like exciting scenic runs in the country and are both classified as trail runs. And if we can keep up the training and not get injured, we might sneak in the Mountain to Surf marathon at the beginning of March. Having done this race in 2008, I have a soft spot for the event, which was well presented by very friendly and helpful organizers. They even offered us foreigners a cottage to overnight before the race. Continue reading →

by

The Wanganui Three Bridges marathon, half, 10 and 5km runs – 11 December 2010

Me, flying over Dublin Street Bridge!
Registration at the Union Boat Club.
A quick bum stretch, just incase :).
5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – Go!
The field of 10km runners lining up.
urn around point for the 10km runners.
Watering station.
Gerry, nearing the end of the park. The guy in front was doing the 42km.
Gerry at the on-ramp of the Cobham Bridge.
Happy chappies at the finish! After a glass of rehydrate, courtesy of the organisers.

I don’t like the wind. In fact, I want to go so far as to say that I hate the wind. And hate is a very strong word … My granny always used to love the wind. Her theory was that it blows away all the bad stuff and you end up with good clean air. I beg to differ. We once stayed in a small town where the wind could blow an elephant off its feet. And each time after such a, what felt like a tornado, our yard would be littered with flyers, pamphlets, newspaper pages and even crisps and chocolate wrappers from around the neighbourhood (and the air wasn’t cleaner either, but that’s another story altogether). Maybe we just stayed in a collecting corner? Continue reading →

by

The Kahuterawa Two Day Classic race – 27 November 2010

Palmy in the distance
The Dransfield Woolshed
Registration
Shortly before the start
Halfway up the 200m climb at the start of the race
Halfway point with me in the last position!
Back at the start

The Kahuterawa Two Day Classic race (27 and 28 November), organised by the Manawatu Striders, is a marathon broken into three stages over two days. Stage one is 7km long and started at nine in the morning. The 15.42km second stage started at one in the afternoon of the same day, and only the following morning at nine, saw the kick-off of the last leg of 21.57km. 42.2km in total. It’s a great way to get a feel for covering the distance of a marathon, while being broken down into manageable stages. In our unfit state, we sadly only managed the first short stage of 7km. Continue reading →