Karen and Kate's journey to Ironman and beyond

In the weekly training plan from Garyth there is one day in particular that makes me shudder.  This is the day on the plan where a couple of small words appear, those words are 'hill repeats'.  These dreaded sessions start with a short warm-up run, (oh the temptation to just keep running away from the hill), then plod, plod, plod up the hill, and shuffle shuffle shuffle down, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat etc.  There was some suggestion that my tumble last week was a rather over-the-top way to get out of the hill repeats, it wasn't, but neither was I particularly sad to miss the nasty hill session planned for the next day. But it turns out there is actually a practical use for hill repeats. I wish I had realised this over the years I didn't run because my partner was on call for coastguard and I couldn't leave the house in case he had to go out, leaving the children. This week he is on call, aha, solution, do hill repeats!  So last night I ran up and down the...

Less than 4 weeks to go to my first 50 km run.  That means my training is reaching the pointy end, what I do training-wise from now on will make not a whole lot of difference to performance on the day, but injuries and bugs may.  As far as injury goes, this is the point where I become accident prone.  Like last week when I climbed a low crash barrier at the side of the road, hooked my foot, and did an inelegant little dive-roll in the gravel.  Then I made the mistake of getting going again, and running the 5km home on adrenaline after which I was useless for days. That is one thing about being hypothyroid, there is not much I can't do if I work up gradually and take things easy, ie, sneak up on my fitness, but I have only got a certain amount of reserve and once I exceed my limits I need to recover. So 4 unplanned days were taken completely off but fortunately my energy was back and the bruises gone by Sunday which was just in time for my last really long run of 37 k...

Events are one thing, you make a decision (hard part), make your booking and pay your entry fee so you cant easily back out. You then think about all the practical things, like if it is an 'away' event, where do you stay? For any event, is it cheap, clean, quiet, good basic amenities like a fridge and preferably microwave, good transport or parking? For a marathon, is it somewhere you can easily walk home to if you have left all of your energy on the road? Does the walk take you past somewhere you can grab some suitable food (I like ice-cream shops or smoothie shops like Tank), do you need to climb ten flights of stairs before you can collapse, is there a good shower?    For a bikeride, can you get the bikes into the room safely and still be able to move around, do you have to worry about getting chain grease on expensive white furnishings.  For a big triathlon like Ironman, well, more space needed definitely for the whanau and so you can move around and set out all the m...

I ran 36km yesterday on a day that was meant to be rainy but wasn't. Oh I do enjoy the variety of weather aps I have on my smart-phone, by the time I have looked at each one I can usually find a weather forecast that suits me and sometimes they are just fortunately all wrong. It was a long run but I had lovely company for the first 10 or so km, then it was "see you next week". At that point I couldn't help but think that I still had another 26 multiplied by however many footsteps per km to do.  But I did it with a bit of judicious walking, and while I dragged tiredly up the driveway at the end of the run I still felt pretty good. What was different this time, apart from it being the longest training run I have ever done (would normally peak at about 30-32 for an ordinary marathon), was that I had something new and slightly bothering to think about. I was trying to motivate myself to take in enough nutrition, that is hard enough at the best of times but I  had been t...

My next event is right outside my comfort zone, my first 50km ultra-marathon looms on the horizon, it's less than 8 weeks away now.  I took most of last week off training, recuperating from the ankle-injury-thingy and to gather some energy. This week the opportunity to get out and do anything has been a bit sparse, tonight though, tonight I hope for a few km to kick off this latest training endeavor. While I couldn't run I took some time to look at my equipment.  You know, I have a lot.  T'shirts from various events start building up, most of them are no use at all. The most useful I have ever had was a nicely shaped black shirt from an Australian marathon with a bit of writing on the front that had nothing to do with exercise, I wore it until it almost fell apart.  Most of the t'shirts aren't even suitable for training, funny shapes, nasty fabric, odd sizes, awful colours, and writing too much like bragging. I don't throw them out though, they hold important ...

No drama, this year the luggage arrived in Wellington with us, we had an uneventful flight down, and there were lots of things to do and see on the Saturday before the run so the whanau was happily entertained without too much effort from me. Saturday night I was fed and watered and in bed early enough to snatch a few hours of sleep, albeit of the unsettled variety. That's normal, my first night in any different bed and I don't do a lot of sleeping.  What you learn is that it really doesn't matter. Hear that, it DOESN'T matter if you don't sleep much before an event, provided you haven't been partying hard you will be fine in the morning when you start moving around and have something to eat. Up early Saturday morning, a packet waffle from the supermarket and a banana, back into bed for a bit. Then I got up and dressed with much uhming and ahhing...shall I wear the thermal pants (no), hat (yes), gloves (yes), thermal top (yes), rain jacket (yes), decisions mad...