Karen and Kate's journey to Ironman and beyond

Kate is right, I so wish I was running too.  This morning I had an early trip in to the Quay Street bus-stop in Auckland city to visit with my young cousin as she changed buses on her journey north for school holidays.  As I drove home I envied the hardy city runners, and admired the frosty paddocks in the country. I wanted badly to be pounding those pavements with the sun coming up over the harbour, or foot-printing across the white grassy expanses, breathing in that cold air, and just running. There is positive news on the running front though.   I am feeling better after a few weeks of things all seeming a bit much.  After getting into a state of mental misery from overdosing on all the gloomy stuff online about recovering from an ITB injury (months and months), I decided to be more proactive about getting better...we do have a marathon to run (walk?) in 8 weeks and I plan on getting there one way or another!  So I have formulated my strategy using lots of ...

I'm not one to say I love running, but today I went out for a 2 hour run. I planned to run up Matakawa road, down Hatton road, accross the ARC Park and up Brook Road across the top and back down Matakawa road. 21k ish. The sun was shining but it was cold I mean really cold. My hands were cold for the first 5 k. It was a slow run but I throughly enjoyed myself. Came home had a hot bath and put my skins on and watched a movie with Sophie. What more could I want it was a great day. I'm very lucky to be able to enjoy the running, it was not that long ago that I had an injury. I hope karen feels better soon. Its not so much fun talking about what youve been up to if your friend is not running too. By the way it took me 2hours 45minutes to do. I did stop to talk to Marie Anne on her horse for 10 minutes and saw David at Bhanas and bought a drink.So its not all running you have to add in the social side of it too. 

There are sometimes things you know you need to write about, they might be really important things, but just getting what you want to say out of your head and into understandable words can be tricky.  One such entry I have delayed and delayed is related to something which occurred last month.    We have made it clear that we are on our Ironman quest to help raise funds for people working with diabetes in Christchurch, these are our colleagues who continue to face post-earthquake related issues in their own daily lives while they go to work to support people with diabetes.   Their problems were compounded earlier this year when their purpose built diabetes  premises were declared unusable, and while it didn't make national news being just one of the many things faced on a daily basis down there in Christchurch, it was a further blow to diabetes care.   Well, you know w e didn’t reach our target of Ironman 2012 because it was cancelled and downgrade...

I thought I was being slack before, just running when and for however long I felt like, 4-5 days a week, no interval training or any of that 'tempo pace' stuff which I never did figure out, what with being permanently stuck on 'slow'. This week I have managed two  runs of less than half an hour, both times starting off with good intentions but turning around and heading home when the knee started complaining.   Between the sore knee and dodgy shoulder I am feeling rather limited, but not worried enough (or heavy enough) yet to hop on the dreaded spin bike for some cross training.   I finally recalled that my leg problems are often associated with shoes past their best. Sure enough, I picked up my current pair and the wear is obvious and they flex more like sandshoes than good supportive runners. Come to think of it they probably have about 800km on them considering I bought them in January and trained for and did the last half Ironman, and a marathon in them.  Lots...

I'm back into my Friday swimming. I have my head in a good place and know i can do it! We had a session on technique. Free style  with stretching out as far as you can go. No problem with that. But I was sinking! tuck your chin in says the coach. Wow what a difference. I can not see where I am going but I do not sink anymore. It seems strange after theses years, it seems , of swimming that I have so much to learn. On Sunday I went biking with the group. It was the first time out on the road bike since the half ironman in March. First I had to wipe the cobwebs off the bike. It was a cold morning but the sun was shining, so off we went. I got left behind as usual, but that was ok. But it was hard work going up the hills. I had the gear in the big chain ring, after all that was the easiest one! It must have taken me most of the ride to remember how the gears worked. It really is sad at how quickly we forget.

I am glad we still have a whole 10 weeks to go before our next marathon.  The last few weeks have been a bit hit and miss in terms of training, with my dodgy shoulder, Kate's brush with surgery etc.  4 weeks into my new training diary there have been a few high points, but mostly I seem to be describing more treatments than training activities.     Unfortunately I went a bit mad last week and got over-enthusiastic about running up and down big hills, too much over too little time and this resulted in an upset left knee.  Picture from Thursday recording my pace over a 10km run - it shows what happens when the ileotibial band gives up trying and pace degenerates into a miserable hobble.  Funny how much worse it is going down a hill! I took a couple of days off running...got that decision right.  The decision I didn't get right however was the one I made on Friday night when I picked howling small daughter up off the concrete after an un-witness...

I wish there was a recipe to ensure the perfect preparation to guarantee a great run.  Sometimes though it is perfectly accidental that you get things right and come back from a hard effort feeling just plain "YES!".  I did my fastest 10 km tonight, there were a few big hills, road-works, it was cold and getting dark, but I was flying. I thought about it while one leg was following another with unusually little effort and concluded there were plenty of reasons for a poor performance, and no reasons for a good one.  Like the heavy duty run yesterday should have meant the legs were tired, a sedentary day at work today would normally make me stiff and cranky, the shoes are at the end of their lives and have lost much of their bounce, and this afternoon the shoulder was feeling a bit stressed after a trip to the physio. I know...the secret just has to be the sneaky custard square from the Hollywood bakery down the road from the physio, it was the only thing I di...

There are running essentials, like the right socks, shoes etc.   Then there are the non-essential things which just make the kilometers more fun and help make some sort of sense of it all. In this latter category comes my Nike sports-band.  It was a whim type purchase off Trade-me, I put in a silly bid and was surprised to win the auction and even more surprised that it actually worked. It is a little USB thingy which sits in a wristband and talks to a sensor attached to your shoe.  It tells you...time on the road, roughly how many km you run, and more importantly it gives a pace.   When you get home after your run you stick it in the computer port, it uploads the information and pretty graphs are drawn, comparisons made with others in the 'Nike community' and you get little supportive messages saying well done etc when you meet certain milestones.  Scarily it also does sinister things like connecting to facebook, do I really want everyone knowing that I ran 5...

I was all ready for my week end away. What to pack? It was going to be cold, wet and sunny! We started off at the Kobu bridge, well that had changed since I was last there. A big flash new bridge, with two way traffic. There was little signage and a bit pot luck as to which way to go. But there were other cars parked with bike racks on the back so I must be in the right place. Under the bridge I went and off along the side of the road. The rail trail is on the old railway line, covered in stone so a little hard on the tyres. There were loads of stops with gates to go through, but otherwise great for riding. stopped at Paeroa for lunch and then on to TeAroha. beautiful weather, although it threatened to rain.  It took 4 hours to do 54K. But it was fun. we spent the evening at a camp site in a small cabin, had food and beer at the pub whilst watching the All Blacks slaughter the Irish. What more could a girl want!  The next day we decided to drive back to Paeroa and ri...

I feel guilty sometimes because the foxy-cross dog misses out on exercise because I am either doing too many km, running on dangerous narrow roads, or feeling a bit paranoid and unwilling to take the risk of having a cowardly-dog-induced accident. Tonight was different though.  Me and the dog went for a 10km bush run along one of my favorite trails, she was so excited she was quivering and that silly skinny tail with its absurd white tip was like a separate animal.  I ran with her lead tied to my fuelbelt, she let me know that she wasn't keen on any mucking around, any attempts on my part to walk up the bigger hills were met with clear dissatisfaction.  I even managed to get to a dog-assisted 5min/km pace at times which is unheard of!   The sight of a distant pukeko got excited whiffling and a speed-up, a curious sheep meant a slow-down with the lead getting wrapped around my legs, and convenient puddles required immersion up to the belly and every single one in re...

Now that was a really strange run.  It started off normally enough for a night-time run...ie, reluctantly.  The whanau were happily eating dinner in a warm house as I donned the running gear and headed off into the dark.   It wasn't cold once I had been running for a few minutes, the little blob of light from my headlamp zigzagged energetically along the road, and as unhappy muscles warmed up I thought "yes, I can do this". I ran along the Maraetai beach waterfront and picked my way through the sand and seaweed washed up over the road and over the footpath, evidence of the predicted super-high tide.   I thought about how the sea used to wash into those houses and shops but they are progressively getting replaced, lifted up, or are prepared with their polythene bags of sand in front of low doors.  It was deceptively quiet at that hour, but there must have been some drama earlier in the day. I headed back towards Omana, and enjoyed the effect of the thickening...

 I caught up with my coach yesterday. He said it was ok to be apathetic at the moment but would only allow that for another week! I was tired on Monday as I had been studying for an exam and did not go out for a run. Yesterday I had spin, and I only have it once a week so off i went. They did a hard session building up long endurance I think we got to 110 cadence and 90% heart rate. I only got up to 80% and most of the time 75%. but I got home and sat on the couch and just wanted to go to sleep. Then I could not sleep as I was too tired. Today I need to go for a run. But the weather looks like rain! maybe I should just go now and get it over with. But work has got to come first.   Still the excitement will come back I'm sure.  I'm off to do the Hauraki rail trail at the week end. That should be exciting. As long as it does not rain.

We have been having the most extraordinary winter, the shortest day is week after next but it doesn’t feel like mid-winter all.   Summer this year didn’t really happen, but winter 2012 may be remembered for patches of perfect, clear, mild weather, with beautifully flat seas, and the wearing of summer clothes long after they would normally have been put away.   Case in point, Sundays 25km run was in a singlet and tri-shorts and sunhat.  I left home in the near dark, and didn’t even think twice about plastering on the sunscreen and carrying extra water. Today however it looks like things have changed.  It is getting increasingly wild outside, and the run planned for later tonight after the children are in bed is not looking like a pleasant prospect in the blustery wind and rain.  Do I remember how to dress for bad weather?  Not sure, I think there is a merino hat in a drawer somewhere, a running jacket buried in the spare shoe-box, and the water-wicking so...

My flash training diary is looking decidedly unimpressive on the exercise front.  But it does have other stuff in it, like yesterday I went for an ultrasound scan of the problematic shoulder.  I sat with all the people who looked sick and looked like they should be lined up in that waiting room, and the pregnant ladies who didn’t look sick but also looked like they had a reason to be there...I felt rather out of place. Anyway, in the darkened room it was time to bare the shoulder, get slathered in gel, and contort into various positions with varying degrees of discomfort while the deep dark secret things normally hidden from sight inside me showed up onscreen. As luck would have it, the scanner man was a tri-athlete, emphasis on 'was'.  He had stopped due to that life thing interfering and now his tri-athleticism squatted in the back of his head under the category of ‘just too much hard work’.  He gave me a run-down of what he was seeing as he worked his scanner ...