Training

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Mentors Country Estate parkrun

Date: 7 March 2026
Distance: 5km
Time: 37min

During the flight from OR Tambo to Hong Kong with my mother’s ashes in the overhead locker, I reflected on our three week trip to the motherland. It was tough.

My mother passed away on 3 October last year at the age of 87. For the past 16 years she lived in a house we owned. Being so far away it was the best we could do to try and help her. Fortunately I still have an older brother and sister who could be more hands-on with the day-to-day needs. Providing her with a place to stay may well be a subconscious way to ease the guilt of us moving so far away.

The past number of years she became increasingly frail. On and off she stayed with my brother 700km away, and the past more than a year, she was with him all the time. 

Even though our house stood empty for the best part of two years, nothing happened; no squatters, no burglaries, no vandalism. We all needed some time to process the death of our mother, so thought we can just carry on with business as usual until July when we planned to go over and start sorting out her things. Unfortunately this all changed on Christmas eve when all the outside copper pipes were stolen from the house. This was followed by another event where the copper wire leading to, and inside my mum’s pottery kiln was severely damaged and stolen. The other issue was that my brother was still paying the rates&taxes on the property (to keep the power on for the alarm to work), which was really just a waste of money. We had to do something urgently.

We quickly made travel arrangements and by mid-February we were on our way, this time flying via Hong Kong. The quickest route, and the one we’ve taken the past five or six times, is through Australia. But we’ve never had much joy with Qantas, and the last time was a nightmare to put it mildly. Every trip without fail, our luggage stayed behind in Australia (the connecting flight allows too short a turnover time), the food deteriorated with each trip, and arriving back in Wellington at 1am is just plain nasty. On top of it all, the shuttle bus to long-term parking in Wellington didn’t run during the night, and we had to walk the 2km in the middle of the night. Luckily that changed a few years ago.

This time after four flights we arrived tired, but without any serious issues, and immediately set to work. With the help of my brother we spent the first week chasing copper pipes into the bricks and mortar. Gerry did most tof the hammering, my brother the copper pipe soldering, and I finished off plastering and filling up gaps. After four days, we had water in the house again, and could start with the clean up.

In short, we had to go through and clear out all my mum’s things. Eighty-seven years worth of belongings which she meticulously saved and looked after. I was keen on some fabric and yarn to use in an upcoming exhibition about the circle of life and death, but couldn’t take much as we only had two suitcases with a limit of 23kg each. The one thing mum said I could have was two 1930s rocking chairs, but short of paying a fortune to get it to New Zealand, I had to let it go.

Most of her things ended up donated to charity, a handful of things were sold, and the rest went to recycling and the rubbish dump. Such a sad and terrible thing to have to do. I discovered mum’s wedding album, grandma’s birth and death certificates, granddad’s identity document, and the list goes on. Just sad.

With no good reason to keep the house any longer, we were also keen to try and sell the property. I fashioned a hand made ‘for sale’ sign which we stuck on the gate. In case. Agents came around, potential buyers started walking through while the place was in shambles. Stuff everywhere, tools, cement, paint, coupled with a house that wasn’t lived in for more than a year, it looked terrible. One of the people popping in to look around, brought his wife a couple of days later to have a look, and another few days on they brought their daughter. The place needed a lot of work, the garden was in shambles, but it was still a decent sized plot, with two separate dwellings; one the main house, and the other a studio. It has a lot of potential. But beggars can’t be choosers, and we had to let it go for far less than what we might have been able to sell it for if we had the time to get things in better order. But time was a luxury we didn’t have, nor the money and ended up just being relieved to have a buyer.

The end of an era. A heartbreaking experience.

Before we left from NZ I had grand plans to go for walks on the beach with my sister and brother, but the only thing we did was work. From sun up to late every day, work. Luckily my brother could get leave, and with my sister on pension, we spent the evenings together. During the days we worked together.

Our last Saturday morning in SA we decided to treat ourselves to a quick parkrun. I didn’t have running clothes so thought I’d just walk. Working with dusty and old documents meant that hay fever was a constant struggle for me and I ended up taking far more antihistamines than I would have liked, which didn’t help my cause. Getting some fresh air was much needed, and to celebrate the ‘offer to purchase’ that was signed the day before, we went for it.

During the night the wind picked up. It was blowing a gale and the noise from the trees and corrugated iron rattling meant I was awake a lot of the time. We got up, had red bush tea and a pear before driving to Mentors Country Estate about five minutes away. It was still windy, but not as strong as during the night. Also, it started to rain, and there was a nip in the air. Not ideal conditions for a first outing since before Christmas.

Mentors is a large, privately owned wedding and accommodation facility located on the side of town near Jeffreys Bay, with the windfarm next door.

We arrived shortly before the start, and standing in the cold wind and spits of rain, I was contemplating our ‘bad’ luck with the weather. Apart from running shoes I didn’t really have appropriate clothes to wear for a run, so donned the nearest thing that is not a pair of jeans. Since the weather wasn’t ideal and looked even worse on the horizon, we decided to start with a jog in the hope of warming up a bit, and getting it done quicker. My baggy hippie-type pants turned into a sail catching a lot of wind. In the right direction, it could have counted in my favour, but it felt like nothing other than a handicap.

The idea was to jog slowly until I couldn’t anymore and then just walk to the end. But leg-memory seems to be a thing. We ran at a seven-plus minute per kilometre pace which turned out to be attainable, and I could keep going until the end.

The course is a short lollipop with two laps of the round section, off-road in a nature reserve. Lots of volunteers were on the course encouraging runners and walkers. Having a double lap of the one section meant they had a short course (3km?) as well as the full parkrun 5km distance. We were 99 runners and walkers, and being a flattish course and a loop, meant we could almost see everyone out there. In the distance we also saw some Blesbok and ostriches.

At the finish, coffee and snacks could be bought from the gorgeous stone and thatch roof venue. Water with lemon and mint were provided and the sheltered area meant a lot of participants were just relaxing and catching up. We bought a coffee and sat on the porch with a beautiful view over the farm thinking about life, death, running, and survival. A nagging concern that our upcoming flights might be cancelled (due to war and ultimately greed) and that we might not be able to get home, were thoughts I was trying to avoid.

Afterwards we went back to the grindstone to finish off the remaining things that had to be done before flying back super early the next day.

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The year gone by

And just like that another year is on its head. It is a real shame that we didn’t get to do any events this year. There are a number of reasons for that, but one that stands out is the entry fees. It has become stupidly expensive, and I just don’t want to pay that anymore. Just the other day I was looking at a local event and the late entry fee for a 10k run is $100! Normal is $70 which is already a rip-off, even taking into account that participants have to be bused to the start. 

Then there is the issue of Ironman. I try to avoid doing any events that are organised by or associated with the Ironman Group. This includes iconic events like the Tarawera Ultra, Queenstown Marathon, Hawkes Bay Marathon, Auckland Marathon. On top of being super expensive, they are killing the little man and ruining the running scene. But nobody seems to care. I am very much in the camp of ‘refusing to support the Ironman Group’. And in an attempt (I’m guessing) to try and keep up with these big corporations), most other events are also getting to the point where exorbitant fees makes it impossible to enter for average participants who just do events for fun.

A change in traffic management rules did not help either. This killed off the last few small events that were still standing. Unfortunately community events (like the North Range Trio) suffered as a result of all of these things. There aren’t many affordable events left nowadays, and even though there are quite a few I would still like to do, most of them are on the South Island, which is another kettle of fish altogether when it comes to money and prices of things. You may as well cross the ditch and go for events in Oz. 

This all changed my mindset from supporting events to one of ‘doing it myself’. Dream up my own runs and then do it. We have done so many 10kms and half marathons in the past that it would have to be an exceptional event for me to sign up. Especially taking into account that we often run half marathons and further when training for long events. The distance is nothing special if you just to it for enjoyment and socialising, and my guess is that that might be the case for a lot of runners out there. So to attract the numbers in shorter distance (especially if you want to include families and kids) they have to be VERY affordable. Well, that is my opinion.

On top of all this, it would appear that the running scene had changed quite a bit. Or perhaps it is just me that changed. I don’t get as excited about events anymore, which really is a shame. The result? I am not committing to upcoming challenges because there are none. Every now and then I look through the running calendar in search of something to sign up for, but when it comes to the entry fees, and often travel and accommodation, I just want to run screaming to the hills. Which in itself is not the worst idea!

We managed about 280 activities on Strava this year totalling about 1550km, so not entirely sitting on our laurels. But we don’t have focus. We don’t have a proper goal – something to scare me to do more. I just do my 4k run most days of the week and walk a couple more. It is not enough. I still have lofty goals, but without the occasional event to keep one honest, I’m afraid I would have to be a lot more disciplined. Which currently I’m not. When the weather is bad, which is a lot of the time, I just don’t bother.

Let’s hope 2026 will be more eventful, even if just to do more hiking/tramping. And who knows, maybe I can still get myself committed to enter a 100 again. Preferably a 100 miles and not a 100km.

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Branch Road and more

Date: 9 November
Distance: 7km
Time: 1:07

It took me a long while to post this. Perhaps because it marked the ‘last straw’ in terms of my fitness levels, or lack thereof – I had to admit to myself that things were not progressing as I had hoped. This was very demoralising. The struggle, for whatever reason, is very real. However, by now it has also started to become a mental thing – if you think you can’t, you can’t. I still believe things will look up sooner or later. But I digress.

A number of years ago when Gerry and I were still organising running events (before COVID left us with no other option than going back to full time employment), we were always on the lookout for new places to host events that could include a wider community. One of the options was venturing into the Pohangina Valley. We scouted a few places in the area, and also walked up Branch Road, a paper road, which looked like it might be a good candidate. However, after walking up the track we didn’t deem it suitable. From memory I think there was a slip, or something looked a bit unsafe, or some or other issue I can’t recall right now. Being a narrow path and a long drive to get there might also have had something to do with it.

In 2022 I started working as a trapper in the Southern Ruahine, and my then boss once stopped at the top of this track, and told me that a local lady organises a walk down Branch Road every year. At the time I did not bring our walk from the bottom up and the start at the top together to realise it was the same track. From the bottom it looked like we were walking on private land, and it felt awkward, like we were intruding, so we never made it all the way up the hill. From the top it looked wild and unkempt, but somehow still inviting, like a good place to go on training runs. But we also never got around to walk/run up or down Branch Road by ourselves or as part of the organised event in 2022 or 2023.

In 2024, when the event was on again, friends couldn’t make it anymore, so they gave us their entries. We arrived bright and early, signed in, and got some sweets and water from the car to take with. Two buses took all of us up the windy road to the start of the track (driving past the home of my ex boss). Most people were walking the event, but we were rushed for time, so decided to run down. Looking at the time it took, including a pee stop, photo taking, looking at the scenery, and trying to be sure we stayed on the trail, we may as well have walked. Although we did arrive first, it wasn’t very long before the first walkers showed up.

The first 1.1 kilometres were run on a new forestry road. What was still an overgrown path a couple of years ago, was now a decent logging road. We encountered a marshal at this point who was still busy putting up signage. We passed him shortly before hitting the ‘single track’. This stretch was quite overgrown with tall grass. With all the rain of late coupled with some warmer days, the grass is out of control at our place. It was the same for this track.

Some permanent sign boards made it reasonably obvious where to go and one shouldn’t get lost, but occasionally we did question which was the right way. We passed some slips and some muddy sections, but overall it was an enjoyable outing. I can absolutely see the locals supporting this year after year.

But …

Shortly after, I got sick again. Almost to the day I had COVID last year. It made me wonder if someone on the bus might have been sick, but of course I could have picked it up anywhere. And again, I was sick for quite a long time. More than a month. And somewhere along the line Gerry also got sick. This meant our running stopped, yet again, for more than a month. It feels like I just cannot catch a break.

After some hemming and hawing, doing the maths, over and over, I had to admit to myself that I would not be able to make the Old Ghost distance in the cut-off times by the event date in February. I have no doubt that I could cover the distance at mostly a walking pace, but it might have taken me twenty-four hours. I noticed from previous results that most runners finish in less than 14-15 hours, something I was likely not capable of achieving. We had to forfeit our entries. It is always such a hard decision to make. But it was the right decision.

Fast forward a few months (!), we followed some of the live coverage of the event at the weekend. It looked amazing. I was jealous of everyone’s fitness and capabilities. It feels like I’m never going to get there again. But since we pulled out of the event at the end of last year, and getting over COVID, we started jog-walking again. We also signed up for the Wilderness Walk1200km, which is an initiative by the Wilderness magazine to get people moving. The aim is to cover about 3.3km every day. I guess the rationale is for people to be active for roughly 30 minutes every day. And so far so good. We are on track, perhaps even a bit ahead of where we are meant to be.

On top of the walking, we also try to jog 5km most days, with a slightly longer run on the weekends. That means we cover 9km most days, and initially I could feel that the extra load set me back a bit. But at some point I should get used to doing that distance, and I should start to improve. I’m convinced of it, although the past five months or so proved otherwise.

I’m still hopeful. I’m still hanging in there.

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The Awa Adventure Run (inaugural)

Date: 28 September
Distance: 22.6km
Time: 3:50

A new event on the running calendar is always exciting. The website stated that it is run in a mountain bike park, called That Place, and that the elevation is 1130 metres for the longest distance. Which is of course the one we went for. What’s the use of driving 100km if you are only going to run 14km or 7km. The elevation should have been a warning sign, but who is scared of a little hill.

I am tired of making excuses for my ‘bad performance ‘. I’m tired of being slow. I’m tired of feeling like I’m never ever going to be fit again. On the up side, even though I’m not one of the quickest runners around, I still finish what I start. So far.

Admittedly I’m in a bad place running-wise. We battle to get into a proper routine, and every time things start to look like there’s progress, the weather turns super nasty (which is a lot of the time), or life just gets out of hand. It is an endless battle of stop-starts, and I can only hope that things will get better again one day. Running is one of those things that you cannot do haphazardly – routine and consistency is key. And to add injury to insult, I cannot stop eating junk. Coupled with generally just eating too much.

Nevermind. There will be better days again.

As mentioned this run takes place at That Place mountain bike park. It is privately owned, twenty minutes upstream from Whanganui on the Kaiwhaiki Road. We arrived early to find only a handful of other cars. My initial thought was that it would be a very small event. Especially since the school event already took place the previous day.

Walking around in the wet paddock (to register, to use the portaloo) my feet was already wet and we had’t even started yet. A friend swapped his shoes out to keep the pair he would be running with, dry. This made me wonder how muddy or wet the track might be.

It was a beautiful day, and although cool at the start, it quickly warmed up. We lined up for race briefing, and then were sent on our merry way, making our way up the mountain right from the start. But it was not as simple as that. Although we were generally speaking going up, it was on a track that goes up and down and up and down all the way. Fortunately not as bad as is usually the case with bike parks – these ups and downs are decent, not silly little bumps in the road. Once at the top (was it the top?) we passed some ponds, and also started running on forestry roads.

There’s one aid station on the mountain. An aid station that put anything on a lot of other events to shame. It was unmanned, but luckily most participants were polite, closed the containers so that the lids didn’t blow away, and generally didn’t make a mess in/around the food. There were chips/crisps, marshmallows, jelly sweets, and containers with water. Lots of it. You pass this aid station twice. Once before heading down the mountain, and once after getting back up that bugger of a hill. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Shortly after the aid station, a viewpoint over the valley made me think that we were looking down from the Skyline Track, which was obviously not the case as the Skyline Track is further upstream. But the river also formed a near circle with an ‘island’ in the middle.

After some running on undulating gravel roads, we started heading down the mountain on a grassy single track. Being wet made it slippery and no sooner did ‘slipping’ cross my mind, when Gerry landed on his arse. Luckily no damage done, and we could carry on down the steep downhill. These were also too steep to run. Whether going up or down, the incline was challenging to run on. At least for me, in my current state. Others were of course flying down the mountain.

This was also the point at which the camera clapped out. Despite cleaning the lens multiple times, it still looked like it was fogged up. Humidity must have got into the camera somehow.

Once we were finally down the mountain on the river’s level again, we had to make our way back up the steepest and longest hill of any event we’ve ever done. One and a half kilometres of relentless uphill that took me nearly half an hour to complete. Not a single step is level or down, each one is on an incline. My calves were screaming, and my unfit heart and lungs didn’t do any better.

Once back on the mountain, finally, we stocked up at the aid station again before slowly making our way down again where it levels out for the last few kilometres next to the awa. The website gave the elevation gain as 1130 metres, but we measured around 750m. Either way, it is very hilly.

I guess it’s fair to say that a lot of it can be described as undulating, while going uphill and downhill. But to me it was too steep to run. I’m just not in a place where I’m even just a bit comfortable on hills.

Once we were back at the finish (about five metres away!) we were directed in the opposite direction to cover another 1.5km. That was just nasty, but to make the course at least a half marathon, it had to be done. By then I had long given up on running of any kind. In fact about 3km earlier I already gave up the ghost and started to walk. The one part that was totally runnable and flat, was the part I had to walk.

Finally at the almost deserted finish (there were only two others behind us), we got our medals, changed into dry clothes, and made our way back home.

Spring has not been kind to us so far weather wise. It rained heaps and often the wind would blow a gale. But we were very lucky to have had good weather at all three of the events we did in September. Those were just about the only good days of the month.

Now, if only I can get into a routine of sorts and run most days of the week.

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John West Kinloch Offroad Challenge

Date: 7 September
Distance: 42.2km
Time: 6:32

Life is a funny ol’ thing. You can make plans all you like, but it will dance in the direction it wants to regardless of your plans. This happens all the time, and deja vu kicked in when I thought about the previous time I tried to study full time and make plans to do big runs. In foresight one’s plans and goals line up. Everything seems doable. In fact, having a good physical regime is necessary when stress-levels are high, so I try not to skimp on running, even though the complementary activities (foam rolling, stretching, strengthening) always falls by the wayside. But I digress.

In 2019 I was in the final throes of a PhD, but still attempted to run a 21km event the day before handing in. It was a disaster. My mind couldn’t cope with all the stress, I had the mother of all migraines, and the run was unpleasant to put it mildly. This event was another one of those (which ones weren’t?) where we lined up not ready. Not even remotely ready. Worse than ever before. And it will no doubt happen again. In fact, in a week’s time we want to do the Hatuma half marathon, and will be in no better place than now. At least the stress of the studies will be much less.

Both Gerry and I decided to enrol into the Master of Design degree, full time, through UCOL. It is a year and a half course, which we could fortunately stretch out for two more months. I started off with an idea of what I wanted to do, before having a 180 degree change of heart a few months into the study. Gerry’s situation was even worse, but he finally found his way and settled on the exact output to complete his degree in the latter half of last year. Although theoretically we weren’t much behind schedule, we also weren’t ahead of schedule. And knowing that we had a six-week family visit early in the year, we should have been further along. Adding to that another almost two-week Oz work trip, it meant we had two months less to dedicate to studies.

Last year we could still manage to train a decent amount. Not nearly enough to do our planned 100 mile event in December, but enough to get us through the 50km Tekapo run in September. Things unfortunately went a bit pear-shaped from there. I had ten weeks to complete all the practical work for the end of year’s exhibition (admittedly I perhaps went a bit overboard with some lofty goals) which resulted in not much running. Adding to that getting COVID towards the end of November, which set me back six weeks, including the dreaded ‘cough cold’. My system took a knock, and I couldn’t run at all due to feeling bleh, but also lack of any aerobic capacity/capability. We had to give up on the 100 miler, and after covering a pathetic 83 kilometres all up between mid-September and the end of the year, we started over in January and jog-walked 103km. Not that 26km/week is anything to rave about, but it is better than nothing. Which is exactly what we did in February. Nothing. Travelling halfway around the world and spending time with family, meant no running or walking at all (no excuses, just laziness). Starting again in March we covered 169km. In April we did 197km, and things looked up again. But in May we dropped back to 134km. June (214km) and July (216km) looked promising, but then August rolled around, and being the last month to finish off all the work (dissertation and exhibition) for the Masters meant we managed only 161km (jogged about 90km and walked the rest), which is quite impressive thinking back at everything we had to fit in. But is was not nearly enough.

To put it in perspective; for a marathon I like to run about 65-70km per week for the two to three months leading up to a marathon. It just makes the distance easier and far more enjoyable. Of course we weren’t nearly doing that, which placed us in a bad position to attempt a marathon. But, we have entered the Old Ghost 85km event (22 February 2025), and doing long runs are important. Also, if we didn’t do this event (or the Taniwha which we’ve done before), we would have lost the credit we had with Total Sport. $250 is not the kind of money we can simply throw away, so the only option was to just suffer through it. 

And suffered I did. The first 10km went okay, and I even managed to run four of those in under a seven minute pace. This is the part that runs from the Kinloch domain making a short loop through the village, followed by a lollipop (out-and-back stretch with a big loop at the far end) on the Whangamata Stream Track, before heading onto the Great Lake Trail to follow the new Otaketake Track (it looked quite established to me) to Kawakawa Road. This is the highest point on the course at 600m altitude. 

At only about 5km in, I developed a hotspot on my foot below my big toe. Five kilometres further and I had a hotspot on the pinky toe of my other foot. I’m not prone to blisters, so wasn’t sure what was going on. Perhaps my gait or running style changed since we walk as much as we jog of late? Or perhaps I was just feeling sorry for myself and trying to find excuses for going so slow. Regardless, I chose to ignore it. At the end the pinky toe settled and nothing happened, while the other foot had a huge bloody (blimmen!) blister.

The lovely smell of someone’s fireplace was in the air once we reached the start of the Great Lake Trail. A few kilometres further this was replaced by the smell of death. Hedgehog? After a short stint in the trapping world, the smell is immediately recognisable as a dead animal in or near a trap. This was more or less also my limit in terms of the distance I was capable of achieving. But we came for 42.2km and not 15km, so on we pushed.

I was surprised at how runnable the course is, even for me. It is an off-road event, not a trail run, so very easy underfoot. Plus, we ran on bike tracks, making it well groomed and smooth going, apart from the small bumps that are usually found on bike tracks. If only I was a little bit fitter, this could have been an enjoyable outing. Not that it wasn’t enjoyable – it was just really hard work not being fit and strong enough to cover 42km. The hills are super gradual and easy (elevation of about 300 metres over a 10km stretch. The second hill was a bit steeper), which is also shown by the winning time of 2:48.

The weather was almost perfect – apart from the breeze at the top, there was no wind, 11 degrees at the start, and overcast, so we donned a double layer of t-shits and polyprops to start with. It was cool, but not cold, and soon Gerry had to take off his vest. All was going great temperature wise, until the wind picked up near the top. As we were approaching the highest point, the breeze became quite cold and by the time we hit the road section, Gerry’s hands were numb from the cold. He was soaking wet from sweating and coupled with the breeze, he got cold very quickly. About a kilometre is run on this road before turning off back onto trails to run next to the road for a few hundred metres, until we got back on the road for the last couple hundred metres on-road. 

Turning back onto the track and following it for a few hundred metres, we reached the second aid station at the Orakau car park at the halfway mark. At the halfway aid station we filled up my two and Gerry’s one water bottles with electrolytes and water, shared one tiny piece of banana (they were still meant to cut more) and had a few crisps, before heading off. After a few hundred metres, we reached the loo where I popped in while Gerry put on his arm warmers and gloves. This made a world of difference in his overall temperature, and he looked comfortable again.

Speaking of aid stations; In my mind’s eye I anticipated something quite different and more elaborate, than what was there. When I read ‘Water, electrolyte drink, lollies and chips’, I saw in my mind’s eye gazebos with bunting, balloons, ribbons, cheerful volunteers in costumes, and loud music to keep the party going. Don’t ask me why.

But all going well in the beginning, and moving quicker than I thought I could, we ran past the first aid station at 8km, thinking it was an extra one with water only, as they sometimes do at events. It looked small, and me not studying the map or course description beforehand, I thought the first aid station would be further along. As I said, I imagined something far more elaborate and festive, so obviously this could not be it. With the second aid station only at about 21km, Gerry ran out of drinks shortly before, but I still had enough so he could sip some of mine. 

When we saw there would be three aid stations on the course, we decided to leave our 2 litre reservoirs, and rely only on the two small bottles in front of the hydration vest. This meant one litre for each of us for roughly every 10km. Unfortunately Gerry’s one bottle was leaking, so he had to finish it off quickly. I despise the small silicon bottles and always use normal plastic water or juice bottles. They are far cheaper, I don’t feel sorry for them, they can’t puncture, and they don’t leak. It just makes life easier. 

From around half way, I was well and trudy buggered. I found it hard to think how I would make it to the finish line. For the most part we were basically on our own, but saw the occasional other runner or walker out on the course. We also had Pat and Liz within earshot the whole way. But being in the bush you don’t always see other runners even though they are only a few metres ahead or behind.

Everything was sore by then and I could not wait for it to be over. The other weird thing that happened on this event was that in my mind I was ahead of the actual kilometres the whole way! That is so demoralising – thinking you are at 5km when you are only at 4km. Or thinking you only have 3km to go when you have 4km to go. Add to that the permanent track distance marker that reads 1km to Kinloch, when it is still more than 2km to the domain and finish of the event.

Nina waited for us near the finish, and we all sat drinking beer through prize-giving which we made just in time as they were announcing the winners. Unforuntately, there were no more sausage sizzles which is always a bit frustrating when you are slow for whatever reason, and the organisers start packing up. We obviously also missed out on all the minor spot prizes that were handed out as runners arrived at the finish. 

Back at the bach, we showered, had something to eat before driving home. We were not out of the woods yet with regards to the degree, and still had things to finalise before the external assessments.

A huge thank you to Nina for offering us accommodation right next to the start/finish. What a treat to roll out of bed and be at the start.

Exhausted and sore, we arrived home at about 8pm, had tea and went to bed. The physical exhaustion made for a nice change when one’s brain doesn’t want to think anymore. I’m glad we could manage to do this, regardless of the lack of training and fitness, and who knows, maybe it we’re fit again one day, might go back and claim that sausage sizzle. 😉