Karen writes: Never boring

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Had a good ride yesterday,  left early in the morning, and spent over 4 hours slogging on the back roads, round Clevedon, Takanini, and even took on the dreaded Ardmore Quarry road.  For anyone who hasn't been idiotic enough to cycle this road, it is a series of really steep hills, going through beautiful bush, and you end up high enough to get an amazing view over Clevedon and towards the coast. Hard enough as it is to get to that view, for me the worst bit is the steep, windy downhill at the end. The man at the bike-shop had tried to talk me into removing the extra set of brake levers on my handlebars, I was glad I hadn't given in, the brakes were squealing and it took all my strength to hold those extra levers hard enough to slow my descent.

Today I went for a run.  The legs were tired, but I did ok.  Long runs can be hard but I often see the strangest things to distract me, like the woman in the bikini posing for photographs perched on inhospitable rocks out in the sea, in the wind and driving rain.  The most memorable thing however, happened with 18km done, only a couple of km to go.  I rounded a point and was running directly into the wind, I could see straight ahead a group of soberly dressed people on end of the wharf at Magazine Bay.  I watched as one would step forward, do something and step back.  It was only as I got closer I realised that courtesy of the wind blowing in my direction I had likely gotten up too close and personal with someones dearly departed...the family was scattering the ashes in a near gale.  I cant tell you what was going through my mind as I tried to reconcile the solemnity of their situation, and the absurdity of my own but I tried hard not to breathe for a bit and probably ran that last 2 km as fast as I ever have...didn't even stop to say hello to the whanau before leaping in the shower.  Who-ever said training is boring?

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