Karen writes: Solid running

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Yesterday I had a 30km run, funny how much less anxious I am about these long runs now that I have done quite a few of them.  The biggest danger with increasing familiarity is being slack about preparation, like not paying attention to having the right clothes or chafe and blister prevention, and not always taking enough to eat/drink during the run.  I had great fun though, exploring a patch of bush in the Whitford forest, what sticks in my mind particularly was a long, long downhill run on a pine-needle carpeted track, all the while trying not to think about coming up the hill again (which wasn’t so bad anyway).  I wanted to go further except I had to think about the fact that home was a long way away. But I came through pretty unscathed, however when I did get home I broke all my own rules of recovery…we had visitors…when that happens the recovery food/shower/compression gear/feetup/rest doesn’t happen.   Still, I was able to function reasonably for the rest of the day, which was the big girl’s 9th birthday.  How cool is that, I have a 9 year old!

This morning I reported in to Grant the trainer on the weeks efforts, admitting that I took Monday off to eat chocolate, and as ever he was very kind about that.  He feels I am ready for Rotorua, saying he expects a “solid time”, which I think is possibly a polite way of saying I did OK with the training but probably could have tried harder.

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