PB in almost 20km

Have been out of a couple of runs this week and have stuck to good steady10km jogs. Been sitting around the 50min mark so still not able to drive significant change there. Hoping this will change once I get through next weekends half marathon and commence my new strengthening program. Amped about it and went down to the gym a couple of mornings ago to map it out. Lots of compound exercises and heaps of good old fashioned squats, leg presses and deadlifts to strengthen my legs. Will be combining this with a plyometric program to hopefully drive the times down.

Today went for a team building exercise and climbed the Auckland harbour bridge. Was fantastic to be 67 metres above the sparkling waitemata harbour looking at the Auckland skyline. Was a great day for it too. Ended up with an early knock off so headed home, changed, stretched, strapped on hydration backpack and headed out for a 20km run (according to map my run).

Got to the 10km mark in 46 minutes and home finishing in 1 hr 34 minutes,\. This shocked me as I expected to be slower than this as my goal is to go sub 2 hours at the next half marathon. This made me doubt the distance a bit so wifey and I headed out to measure it using the car. Ended up only being a shade under 19km. But it still fills me with confidence that the sub 2 hour mark is there to be taken.

Would be a great goal to tick off seeing as I only decided to run a half marathon at start of year and this will be my third :-)

Time for a change

So I have decided that I must change the way I am doing my training. Because I have been so focused on the upcoming half marathons I have been doing a lot of just plain old miles out on the roads but I am finding that my times are staying relatively consistent and I am not seeing a lot of improvement.

So it was up early this morning and down to the gym to have a chat to my brother in law who is the fitness coordinator down there. We have agreed to catch up at 6am Thursday morning to write a plan with two goals in mind. Firstly i want to really start improving some of my times, especially over the longer distance (15km plus).

Secondly I want to shift my stubborn abdominal fat.

I went out for a 10km run last night and as I was running I kept thinking about changing things up a bit. I know that I should be doing more cross training type work to get faster and fitter but because I am focused on the running i tend to just stick to that at the moment. While I was running last night I kept thinking of the old saying

"If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got"

So I think this was the kick in the rear I needed to get to the gym this morning and start planing for better results both on the road and in my body shape.

Next race is the Huntly half Marathon in 13 days and after that I have a decent break so will use the time to get back to a more balanced training routine and hopefully see some great results. I will be taking pics to share at some point in the future as a record of how the body shaping goes too

New Gear makes me happy

My day yesterday ended up being a bit of a wash out as my meetings ended early. Luckily I was able to catch an early flight home and due to the rest I had given my hip it felt ok by the time I got in the door. So i thought i would head out for a quiet 15km run. My wife quickly talked me out of that and suggested ( quite wisely) that I attempt a 10km to start with.





I was also very excited because my new long sleeved thermal running top had turned up from Ronhill. It is a particularly lovely fluoro yellow but as I am almost exclusively running in the dark at the moment it is perfect for winter runs. The photo below really doesn't do the colour justice but trust me..it is BRIGHT

So I changed and once Ebs was home from the gym I headed out the door. I decided to just take it very easy and was hyper vigilant of any pain in my hip/butt. Took the first 2 kms very quietly and as there was no pain picked up the pace slightly. It was another awesome autumn evening and the temperature was just chilling down which kept me cool while I ran. Felt so good to be out there running after only a couple of days away from it. I timed the run but in my head I wasn't too worried about what time I would put in as I was more conscious of just getting round the 10km hopefully without pulling anything or experiencing too much discomfort.

The long and short of it is that not only did I get round pain free, but the leisurely 10km was done in 50 minutes 49 seconds which is only a minute and change off my PR.....let me tell you, this is VERY exciting as it means that i may be able to set a new PR in the foreseeable future for the 10km AND I am back on track for the half...woohoo. Very happy boy today

Pain in the butt

Went out last night for my first training run post the T42. decided to go and thrash out a quick 10km. Legs were stilla little sore from the changed demands paced on them from the cross country running in the trails of the King Country, especially the upper VL's in the quads and my right shin. have also had a little bit of lateral hip/butt pain on the right side as well but hadn't thought too much of this. have rested for 2 days and applied lots of deep heat and massage to the quads especially over the last couple of days ot give myself a good chance of maintaining high mileage.

So headed out last night. First couple of kms felt ok but the nagging pain in my hip/butt started to ache. I thought i may be able to shake this off so I picled up the pace a bit and was heading along at 5min/km pace (which is good for me). It felt awesome to be out there in the evening air and my lungs felt brilliant and most of legs loved being back out pounding the pavement.

Got round the 10km in 50 minutes but when I got to the end the hip/butt was extremely sore. Massaged it a lot last night and after a good rest it is slightly better today. I am very worried that this is going to interrupt my training and my goal of going under 2 hours for the huntly half marathon in 2.5 weeks. Will use today as a rest day and as I am flying tomorrow for work I won't be able to get a run in so that should be two days of rest. All going well I will be able to go hard Friday/saturday and Sunday and get up to 70-80kms in for the week.

T42 Race Report

We travelled down to Taumarunui the night before the race where I deposited Ebs and the Girls at Mum ands dad's house before heading out to National Park for registration with Mr 6. It was after 8pm by the time I got out there and the entrance way was awash with foam from the Biosecurity guys cleaning all the mountain bikes for didymo.

Got through gear check ok (after nearly spilling scroggin over the table) and collected race number, transponder and race pack and headed back out into the icy air for the drive back down to Taumarunui.

When home i packed and repacked my gear then finally figured it would actually all fit in the camelbak anyway so was pretty happy with the smaller size. Went to bed after gorging on penne pasta a very nervous boy. Tomorrow would be my first trail run and I didn't know if I was ready for it.

Woke earlyish and wolfed down toast and bananas and started hydrating. Got changed into my race gear an hour before we had to leave and applied plasters and vaseline etc nice and early. Race day kit comprised of running tights, shorts, thermal full length base shirt, t shirt and cap as well as full fingered gloves. In my camelbak was first aid kit, survival blanket, water, energy bars, scroggin, jacket and a spare polypropylene shirt. We were told that we wouldn't be able to start without the required gear so I did a double check to make sure I had everything.

Headed out to the Owhango domain with Ebs and kids to the start line and was there early enough to get nervous. Stretched and did warm up and listened to safety briefing.

At 9:30 we were in the starting corrall and the race horn started and we were off. Out of the domain and left up into the ohinetonga track. A beautiful part of bush with nice wide tracks. The weather was overcast and cold and damp underfoot but some sun peeking through. Great conditions for running. Over the crest of the first hill and i took off my gloves and settled in to the rhythm of hill running. Passed a few people as everyone settled into their race pace. 3 kms in and we left the bush and turned past the first aid station on to a gravel road. This started to climb quite steeply and it wasn't long until the running was interspersed with bursts of walking for the steeper sections. At the 6.7km mark we turned right up a very steep clay and stone track which prevented much running. The scenery was spectacular as we were getting quite high by this point and I saw several runners stopped and looking at the view down across the rolling valleys of the King Country which was a glowing green with the overnight rain. At that point I wished I had brought my camera.

At the top of the track we passed the third aid station and headed in to the "loop". This was a section of rugged bush overgrown with cutty grass and the tracks were rudimentary and almost entirely wet slippery clay./ They had told us earlier that we would struggle in normal running shoes but there really was no turning back at that point so I proceeded to the first clay downhill and immediately fell over. Clay, rain and low grip road shoes make for a very bad combination in the bush. Picking myself up I managed to navigate the next 8kms of clay track through the bush with minimal injury. My hands and face were bleeding by the time I got out from superficial scratches and I was soaked as it had also rained for about 30 minutes of that section. The puddles were sometimes knee deep and so not a lot of running was done for any period of time, it was more a case of trying to navigate a line through the many hazards and getting out to the gravel road which we knew would be someway in the distance. Ended up running with a group which was about the same pace and we kept a good rhythm going for the most part. Was nice to be running with people at that point because it is very rough and remote country up in those hills.

We finally popped out at the aid station we had passed earlier and this indicated the end of the loop. I was VERY happy to see the guy handing out sports drink there, grabbed some hydration and headed off for the 7km run home. I did notice that my left ankle was starting to hurt on the downhill run home and put this down to the constant slipping and correcting in the bush. I ran through the pain and it seemed to settle after a while but at one stage I thought I was going to have to stop.

Turned back into the domain just before 3 hours 20 and the kids were there to Hi 5 me as I came through and family there at the finish line is always a very cool thing. my sister, who was supposed to run it with me but had to pull out due to a broken ankle, was also there and was awesome that she made the effort to drive all the way to support me.

Over the finish line in 3 hrs 20 (I think) and was so happy to be done. I was soaked, sore and extremely muddy...but I had finished the longest race of my running career (24km) and it was over some of the roughest terrain I have been over...and I LOVED it...

so next year, the plan is to run the 42km marathon distance...and next year I will definitely be in trail shoes.

by the way...i don't think a spa has ever felt as good as it did that afternoon

Last week of training before T42

Feeling really sore today and that is not a good sign just before the T42.

had a great week of trainig last week and didn't quite manage the 100km but did get up to 82kms including a nice breezy 22kms on Saturday morning. Felt awesome afterwards and so felt good heading away for the weekedn. Ended up at a place called Maraetai (whcih is a beach I love) and stayed at an awesome B and B out there. Ended up heading into the Waitemata Harbour for some sea kayaking in the late afternoon and finsihed off the day watching the sun go down over the sea..not a bad finish

The picture above is the view from the bed at the B and B...woke up the next morning and sat and watched the sun come back up over the beach then read my paper from cover to cover (a treat as I never get to do that unninterrupted by kids etc)

then went down to Beachhaven for coffee and got a pic of me with Rangitoto in the background. Was a very cruisy Sunday morning.

This week started with a lie in and then last night a 15km run. Got round in 1hour 22 mins. Felt really good on the run but when I headed out at 5am this morning, i felt like rubbish. Legs were aching, I had a bad stitch and basically everything just felt wrong. So I stopped running and decided to just walk it out and see if things would resolve. The short of it is that they didn't so I got home (feeling very djected) and have rubbed a lot of deep heat cream into my quads to try and get them relief. Good long stretching session and they are feeling a little better. Will hopefully get out for another 15kms tonight but will have to check on how they feel.

Very very frustrating tuesday

Training update for T42

I have been working pretty hard since the Orewa half in preparation for the T42 which is looming large next weekend. The week after the half marathon I had a really full on week at work including being on a leadership course in the city which meant my commute was over an hour each way and the course was 10 hour days. This left very little time for exercise so it wasn’t until the weekend that I got out there for a leisurely, untimed, 8km jog.

Monday I woke with the sinking feeling that it is only 2 weeks till the T42 and I am woefully underprepared so have decidede to try and run 100km this week to get some good solid miles in prior to the mountain run.

Monday night I did 10kms, Tues am went out at 5:30 for a really nice morning run in light drizzle. Got round in 53 minutdes and then after work that night I did another 10km ( again in drizzle) and did 52 minutes so pace was similar.

Wednesday morning I gave my quads a rest and then Wednesday night busted out another 10km at dusk after work. Work has been crazy lately so it has been awesome to get home, get my shoes on and go and blow out the cobwebs from the day. Ebs is being really supportive of my running at present which is great having the flexibility to run when I need to.

Thursday was a rest day (enforced) as I had to fly to Christchurch for the day for work. I was trying to figure out how to get a run in but I was up at 4:15 am to catch an early flight down and didn’t get home till after 8:30pm. Just had to resign myself to a rest day.

Up this morning for another 10km though and once out there it felt good. Was a slow run though and only got round in 54 minutes...will head out again tonight and the plan is to get a couple of long runs in over the weekend