At seven thirty on a lovely Saturday morning, six of us were outside Henriette’s house in New Plymouth for a casual jog down the Te Henui Walkway and onto the Coastal Walkway to the impressive new Te Rewa Rewa footbridge by the sea.
(by Gerry le Roux)
I’ll never forget, years ago, chatting to a good friend (lets call him Pete) while running with the back-of-the-pack gang at one of those massive Johannesburg summer races, when the subject turned to eating on the run.
Pete had a very amusing “principle” on the subject: it’s rude to say no when a friendly spectator or helper offers you something to eat during a race. As a result, he obviously had his share of weird eat-and-run anecdotes – fish and chips (offered by a spectator with a huge toothless grin) on the Cape Flats, home-brewed beer from a shebeen in Soweto, church-bazaar fudge in a small Karoo town, and a generous helping of Old Brown Sherry presented by a group of very jolly, scantily-clad students during the sub-zero temperature Rhodes Run. Luckily for Pete, he had a strong constitution, and most of these culinary delights were handled without any adverse consequences.
After our little stint through the Manawatu Gorge on Sunday, my muscles were (as expected) extremely tender. So much so, that I battled to go down stairs or anything that required using my quads. In fact, just plain walking required a whole amount of courage and clenching my teeth to try and overcome the overwhelmingly sore leg muscles. And having rested altogether for a day didn’t seem to help any!
But, crazy as only “runners” can be, we found ourselves at the start of the third SSS event. Again a huge field of over 1500 participants showed up. Anybody and everybody that moves in Palmy seems to be pitching up for these 7km run/walks. Continue reading
Ever since moving to Palmy, the Manawatu Gorge walkway has been beckoning, literally in our backyards. According to everyone we talked to and everything we read, the gorge promised to be one of the most beautiful places in the area, and Gerry and I have been forever threatening to make the outing to see what it is like.
It is a 10.1km point to point walk through the gorge, with the idea being that you leave a car at the finish, drive back to the start and complete the walk. But what to do when you only have one car? Continue reading
Gerry decided to treat this one as a time-trial to see what he is capable of when he’s not trotting along with me. So, for the first time in about eight years, we ran separately.
And how strange it was! I am so used to having someone to chat to on every run that I could hear myself talking to myself in my head (I am a gemini, after all!). Every now and then I would look around to see if someone heard me mumbling something in my head.
And it turned out quite well and an interesting exercise. Gerry managed a 33:45 and I, 41:08 for the 7km. Taking into account that he never ever get to run faster than my 6 or 7min/km pace, he did very well, I think!
He would obviously be able to shave off some more minutes if he starts training according to his own capabilities.
But it would be a bit sad if I loose a running partner …
Jog around the Blog 