Karen and Kate's journey to Ironman and beyond

One of our main motivations for completing our Ironman is to support our colleagues in Christchurch, so it was important for us to find out a bit about what was actually going on at a day-to-day level for them.  Back in April this year Kate and myself sat spellbound with hundreds of others at the NZSSD (New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes) conference as a team from the Christchurch Diabetes Service and their partner organisation Diabetes Christchurch showed a series of pictures and described the impact of a disaster of an unprecedented scale on the city of Christchurch. They made it very real to us how staff who didn't know what was happening with their own lives and families, some having massive damage to own homes, still pulled together and kept going for each other and their patients and amazingly remained optimistic and positive. Kit Hoeben, the Diabetes Centre Manager kindly provided us with some information he and his team had put together to share with you, plea...

I got in a lovely 10km run last night, it was wet but I was dressed right and thoroughly enjoyed pottering round admiring the effects on the rain from the streetlights and enjoying the noises of the water on my hood.  However, I came out feeling...well...feeling like I had run 10km and achieved nothing at all really.  If I am honest I realise I was just running distance for distance's sake. So while that 10km was on the plan and everyone agrees you need a plan, I have reached the point where I am thinking this Ironman thing is BIGGER than my current way of doing things.  My method of adapting a variety of plans as they have suited me, and ignoring anything I didn't understand  (like the instruction to run at '10km' pace, or 'marathon' pace, or 'tempo pace'...what are these things when you only have one speed which is plod?) isn't likely to work this time.    I have been up till now asking “what is the minimum I can get away with to finish”, but no...

I have had 2 days not running. Monday night I was going to run with the running group at waiuku. I finished work early, bought petrol and went to the post office. I still had an hour to wait for the run. It looked like it was going to rain so off home I went. Tuesday I went to parents evening, missed spin class and it was too dark to run. Tonight the daughter needs picking up from hockey 5pm so again no running. But if I change into my running gear I could run while waiting for her. Watch this space and I will let you know if I do it?

I ’ve discovered running with a group.  Until recently I probably couldn't have fitted it into my life anyway, but I also lacked the confidence to hang around with other runners because I am sooooo slow, I just didn’t want to make myself miserable trying to keep up, or end up feeling like I was holding people back. About the slowness, I used to joke that I was collecting ‘lasts’ in various events, I especially remember a 100km cycle race where I was at least half an hour behind the second-to-last cyclist and everything had packed up when I finally got to the finish.  It was pouring with rain, I was tired, miserable and wondering why I had even started.   I can now say I am often more of a top seven eighths of the pack person, that’s progress...who knows, maybe one day I will get up to top three quarters...or shock horror, even equal the average!   I might laugh about it, but being slow doesn't actually bother me, I finish, and hopefully taking things ...

Sunday morning and the phone went. I need to get up and run, sun shining, its not raining but I turned over and went back to sleep. Phone rang again, still not raining so up I got, into my running gear. I have a new yellow running jacket from live strong, half price in the Rebel sports sale. It stops the rain and wind. I decided to run up hill from home, I hated every step. Why am I doing this? Why have I signed up to do the iron man? Got to the top of Matakawa hill 5k and off I went at a great speed, down to the fire station and off down Hatton road. Wow I felt better. The clouds were forming and I could see the rain coming. As I hate getting wet I thought I better head for home. Had a lovely run home and no rain. Rushed to the computor to map my run and did 14.5k. Very pleased. no aches or pains, cooked lunch and ready for the rest of the day. I just need to train my self to get out of bed quicker.  

Old runners We have shared so many miles These old running shoes and me We’ve slogged, plodded and rambled With an occasional trotting spree We’ve explored so many places Towns, cities, familiar and strange Traversed everlasting beaches Busy roads we’ve run in the drains Galloping across muddy paddocks Pounding the lonely bush track Startling the cows and the sheep In hot, wind, wet, cold and night black I’ve gotten greyer, but fitter My shoes, they have just gotten old No longer royal purple and white No longer supportive and bold They sit on the doorstep inertly Tongues hanging out in despair As the new model trots past with pride I think they deserve more, faithful pair So I’ve planned a funeral ceremony They won’t retire to the black rubbish sack But be planted by the garden wall So thankyou old friends, and good luck KP

My Archilles tendons mercifully feel much better today…they were so stiff when I got out of bed yesterday morning I hobbled down the stairs muttering at my stupidity, and they ached if I sat down for any length of time.   I don’t know about you, but if something goes wrong I head for the internet…and search… and search… and search until I find something which agrees with what I have already decided I want to do…which yesterday was keep running.  Unfortunately (fortunately?) nothing I read which I could pretend was vaguely reputable agreed with me, everything I looked at said "prevent" (yes, that's useful now),  "rest", "ice" "stretch", "shoes", "rest again" etc.  In fact there was a common theme along the lines of “BEWARE the rupturetearpermanantdamageneverrunagainsurgerystopnowifitgoestocustarditsallyourfault”. Enough to frighten even delusional me into submission.   So some applications of ice with the kids novelty ice...

Last night I set out for a run home. The Husband, Glenn, dropped me at Bhanas the local shop, to run 5.5km home. The light was fading, shortest day, so I thought I would try out my new head light. It started off well but as I ran the light dropped to show off my new shoes and got in my way of running and I spent the whole run pushing it back up. Got home and the daughter, Sophie, laughed and said use a hair tie to keep it up. Tonight I will try again. Its a good job that summer is on its way and longer days.

Now that we have put something on paper (so to speak) publicly, it has certainly added motivation for getting on with things (more like panic), and the Perth marathon in 10 weeks time has suddenly come into very clear focus.  But you know how it is when the importance of something ratchets up, the excuses start appearing, for example, right now everything hurts after a wonderful 23k hilly bush run on Sunday (thanks Te Puru running club) and I have to decide if it is paranoia or time for a rest.   One of the hardest decisions as a runner is do I stop and get out of sync with my programme, or do I ‘run through the pain’ and risk damage which could take a lot longer to heal. So I ran for an easy 50 minutes last night on a beautiful cold and dark Auckland winter evening, and my archilles tendons are now telling me that the hard run on the weekend was too much on top of the fact that I delayed too long in replacing my running shoes.  Sticking with sagging old shoes mea...

The trick to actually getting going on a cold miserable day after you have been at work for 8 hours is to get dressed in your running gear before you leave for home.  See, dressed for winter running.  A hard 8km run  (thanks guys in the Sunset Coast Multi-sports club) followed up with hot snack at the Kentish!  

We have a couple of aims for writing this blog.   As more…ah…mature…women we have re-discovered how much fun we can have being fit, and achieving the sorts of goals we wouldn’t have even looked at a short time ago.  We can now say (much to others disbelief) that we are ‘marathoners’, ‘triathletes’, ‘runners’, ‘cyclists’, and…this is really cool…walk into a sports shop and have the assistant who used to look the other way, now pretend to take us seriously, because we almost SOUND like we know what we are talking about!  We want to encourage others to take on their own impossible journey too and have as much fun (suffering?) as we are. Our biggest aim is of course fundraising for the Christchurch Diabetes Service which is a very powerful incentive, keeping us going on the long slow buildup to this, the biggest event of our lives. The Christchurch Diabetes Service have had a very hard time since September 2010 when the first unexpected earthquake occurred causing major...