Karen writes: Home again

- October 12, 2013

A very long time ago Grandma said something along the lines that when you have made your first cup of tea at home you might never have been away. For me it is more like, when I go for my first run I might never have been away. Last night I ran down to spin at Te Puru park, the Taupo 160km cycle challenge is in 8 weeks, I need some bike time and a spin class is as close as I can get during the week right now. I got to Te Puru, the building was shut up tight, I looked in the window, no bikes? Ok, something has changed in the couple of weeks I have been gone. The joy of smartphones, I quickly found the facebook page for the gym people who run the spin, phoned and was told the session had moved to Pine harbour. I grizzled that I hadn't heard of the change, and as I had run to Te Puru I wasn't going to get the extra 3km to Pine harbour in the 2 minutes left before the 6.15 start. Oh that's ok she says, we don't have a 6.15 anymore, it's 7.15, plenty of time to run down.

What to do, be sensible and run home, or keep going. I confirmed a space for the 7.15 class, and got back on the road, plod plod past the Beachlands turnoff, plod plod out onto the main road. Ok, other implications here, I ran a marathon 10 days ago, should I be running 14 km and doing a spin class in the middle of it? Well I felt ok, of course I should. Probably more of a worry was the fact that I had headed out the door without a headlight, it would be dark when I hit the road to run home again. Too bad, I needed some cycle time badly, anything else could take care of itself.

The new spin class consisted of a group of bikes huddling in a small corner of a huge inside set of tennis courts at Pine Harbour. The rest of the space was occupied by a 'bootcamp' group when I got there, whatever that was. Feeling a bit exposed I hopped on the bike for some light spin so I didn't cool down before start of the class, the bootcamp people were too busy to pay any attention to me, what they were doing looked pretty strenuous with lots of shouted instructions and people doing energetic looking things...hmmm...not for me. Spin class started but it turned out to be one of those sessions where my excuses were more powerful than the instructors exhortations. After half an hour of being slack, worrying about how dark it was getting and finally a recurring calf cramp I gave up, cleaned off the bike and set off to run home.

It was pretty dark by this stage, I find myself thinking more in the dark, I reflected that the last time I wore my running shoes was for the Zaragosa marathon, I was swapping the Spanish dust for good old Maraetai dust, it seemed like the symbolic end of something. I also thought about the last real exercise I had, it was a very memorable hike to see a cathedral at the very top of a hill in Barcelona which got prioritised on my 'must explore' list because it could be seen from the hotel window. To get there took several hours of steady up, up, up, and the surprise was that on the doorstep of the imposing place of worship was a fun-park, a strange sort of mixture as far as I was concerned but it was obviously popular, plenty of people having caught buses or taxis to the top. Anyway, apart from what was at the top of the hill I was rewarded with some enjoyable wandering along dusty roads which in some ways reminded me a little of bach heavy streets in Northland (perhaps more teetery and with a surplus of terracotta and white), some bush lined inclines, and spectacularly glorious views across the ancient city. It was such an amazing place I think this reluctant traveler may have left some tiny portion of her heart on that hill in Barcelona.

I love being fit enough to explore out of the way places without worrying about it. I got to see things I never would have in the normal course of events, and now I am home and the brain fuzz from jetlag is subsiding I am looking back at my photos, marveling at how lucky I was to have had the experience, and wondering what can possibly top this one!