Karen and Kate's journey to Ironman and beyond

The Paeroa to Thames run along part of the Hauraki rail trail was on Sunday, 28+km, it was a little unclear on the actual distance.  What a neat run, well worth the 90 minute or so trip to get there from Auckland. We were meeting up with Kate down there and fellow runner J and myself headed off early in the wee green car. I made the rather silly decision of heading round the coast rather than going into town to hop on the motorway for the longer but apparently faster trip according to Mx Google.  So we ended up on that very pretty drive, but it took a bit more time than anticipated, especially when at Kawakawa Bay horrible grinding noises came from the car innards. We stopped, couldn’t see anything dragging on the ground, started off again, grind grind scree crunch.  Oh the heart drops, feeling sick, to not turn up at a looked forward to start-line is awful, I've never done that before and to let J down as well. Ok, let’s turn around and hope it goes away, then we ca...

Went for my first swim last week.  Um, sort-of.  I'd psyched myself up and really had to work hard at that even though it’s only 6 weeks until my first triathlon of the season which has a 1500 m swim. I found my wetsuit, a pair of goggles and a cap.  The whole lot had been untouched since it had been stuffed in a bag by the kind volunteers at Ironman back in March, there were still bits of grass attached.  So, squished into the wetsuit, zip creakily cranked up, yes I can still breathe, and over the road.  Nooo, the contour of the beach has changed, it used to be that three hours on either side of a high tide was ok for swimming, not anymore though. I found myself way out past the wharf in a foot of water feeling a bit silly.  So I gingerly walked out a bit more until there was more water, eyeing the shore which seemed a long way away and trying not to think about the stingrays living out here in the mud, but probably more of a worry, ancient broke...

Triathlon season has arrived, well for many it arrived months ago, but according to my own peculiar calendar 12 weeks out from a half Ironman it is time to...ha ha...get serious again. Again. Kate has been off at Ironman camp, as far as I can see she is triathlon trained already having never dropped swimming in the off season and she has never stopped cycling or spinning. Running, well who cares about the run anyway, you can always walk that bit if you are fit for the other disciplines but I look at the Nike app and there I see Kate, off clocking up those running miles on her side of the country too. I went to Whangarei for the weekend, Whangarei half marathon is an annual event and this year, falling a few weeks after Adelaide marathon, it was an ideal 'get back into things' effort. The weather was predicted to be awful, but on the day it turned out to be very pleasant, overcast, not too hot, and I made a steady effort on that very pretty course along the harbour-side, thr...

The Adelaide marathon was a whole week ago, another case of the time just disappearing, all that lead up and now it’s ancient history.  So how it went...there was meant to be rain, but it was a cool clear morning, 7 degrees C to start, and it turned out to be a great running day, no wind, not too hot, and pleasantly overcast at times. There was a nice sized field with nearly 500 marathon runners, as well as a lot doing the half and the 10 km who all started later. There was an early start which is always excellent because you miss the heat of the day and still have some hours left with not going straight from finishing your run to recovering then to bed. And what a lovely course, over bridges, under bridges (my favourite), tunnels, cobbled paths by the river, along roads and gravel track through bush, and winding through the beautifully manicured botanical gardens too.  Some very pretty residential streets made up the only hill, and while it was a two loop course, me bein...

I met up with a cousin on Saturday, multi-ironman, super-fit person. That day he was off for swim-squad, and cycling, and preparing for proper triathlon events where people actually go with the intention of pulling off personal bests or winning.  He may have been a little bemused when I said I wasn't even thinking about swimming or digging out the bike for months yet. I am inspired by such people, but do tend to see them as something quite apart from me, same vague animal genus, entirely different species. I do consider these things as I potter along.  But I also reflect on almost everything else which as previously described is the big contributor to why I will never get any better.  Like I was out running the other day and there was a man standing in the thigh deep water out past the wharf with what looked like a vacuum cleaner.  Vacuuming the sea? When I looked more closely I realised he actually had a metal detector, who knows what he was looking for in that sp...

Got out for the first...and last decent long run on Sunday, it was a bit of a lackadaisical affair though, at least to start with. Down the road a kilometer, outside a cafe, oh there's another runner having a coffee.  Stop for a chat.  A bit further along the road, text messages, hmm...would love to answer them, but I've only been going for 4 km, can I make 5 then I can stop for a drink, something to eat and check the message? SWITCH the sound to MUTE. Funny, I had pretty much gone cold turkey on Facebook which was turning into a troubling addiction but it turns out that the at-all-hours communication has a way of continuing around logging out of one app. I mean I do love the contact, but it can be ridiculously hard to take advantage of the off switch sometimes. So run, run, running along, ahhhh spring flowers, hey spring flowers, it must be getting near to warmer weather, pause for a look. Run a bit further, LAMBS, newborn lambs, that's so cool, take a picture and send to ...

I escaped for an unexpected Saturday run today, no preparation or planning, it was straight after a lunch of supermarket sandwiches in town, but the opportunity was there...so gear on and out the door. I headed off along the coast road, pottering along, one eye on the suspicious looking sky. Bit of a dodgy choice to decide to go light on the clothing after we had had a morning of heavy rain and wind, fortunately it all worked out ok. I felt a bit like I was running away though, dashing out of the house, just because I could. Running along, running along, thinking about everything except running, and oops, foot off the edge of the tarseal and oh drat, over like a tree and rolling into the ditch.  At least...at least I chose a ditch that wasn't currently full of water, and was more grassy than rocky, but still, why do I persist in doing that sort of stupid thing?  You would think I would have learned by now to concentrate, but no, my running remains my thinking time, sometimes...

Its a dangerous mentality when the need to 'train' takes away from just being able to go for a walk for the sake of going for a walk, or you have an automatic reaction that says 'it's only 15 minutes, it's not worth getting dressed in running gear for that'.  And it is so easy to get into that habit so you only want to do  'real' training or nothing. Last night I went for a walk.  I 'should' have gone to spin (last opportunity until who knows when), or I 'should' have gone for a run (marathon in just over 5 weeks for goodness sake), but I took the dog for a walk.  I had to make myself slow down a bit, get the idea of  'getting it over with' out of my head. The dog loved it, she chased birds up the beach, ignored me when she felt she could get away with it, ate suspicious items out of the tide and we wandered round the coast road till it was getting quite dark, then I remembered I wasn't running and it would take me a bit lon...

It's been a long time since I got out for a Sunday run, but this morning, the girls were away with their grandparents, and I was a free agent.  And I nearly, nearly rolled over and went back to sleep at 5 am when the first alarm went for early breakfast, oh madness, who wants to get up and go for a run when it's only 3 degrees according to the indoor gauge?  But, breakfast it was, and I was out the door just after 7, enough layers on to feel like a moving washing pile, but oh what a beautiful day.  Yaaaay frost, I could leave the first footprints across the paddock at Te Puru, draw pictures in pristine sparkly surfaces like picnic tables and boardwalks.  Ok, I still haven't figured out how to concentrate on being a serious runner yet, I think I never will. Not helped by the introduction of music to my runs.  Everyone else seems to do it, Kate does it, I felt like a luddite wandering along taking in the sounds of life, and because it seemed everyone else had ...

I bought new running shoes on Thursday.  Why do I always notice painful ankles and legs in an abstract sort of way, keep on running, and finally figure out that my shoes are past their best long after I should?  So new shoes, two days before a marathon, the shop only had half a size bigger and an older model, my least favourite, version 19.  I was sure I could go for a quick run on Thursday night, ah no.  Friday Kate and myself hopped in the car to drive to Rotorua, no time for running. Saturday...race day, oops. So, little training done over the last 8 weeks since Ironman, brand new un-broken in shoes, and I rather insanely decided I wanted to try a totally untested and un-recommended pre-race breakfast of buttered banana bread and coconut yogurt with chi-chocolate almonds.  If you are going to break the rules, you should do a good job of it! Race day, well it was picture perfect, mild, clear sky, no wind, it actually got quite warm out on the road.  W...

Sometimes you get out of bed, head off into the unknown and stumble across a gem.  In this case a $15 gem, the Waiuku Lions Sand to Mud run from Kariotahi beach, 8 km of hilly rural roads through that oh-so kiwi farmland to the wilder west coast beaches you all know at some level exist, but tend to forget the gloriousness of when you spend more time in town, particularly on the eastern side of the country. So Sunday morning, got up, it was early enough that the cat refused to move, he just blinked sleepily at me, so the bed got pulled up underneath him.  I had breakfast and headed off for the hour plus drive to Waiuku.  It was an overcast, still sort of day, perfect for running if the sun didn't burn the cloud off too early. When I got there I found where registration was and there were only a few people around. I had to laugh at the one porta-loo standing to attention in a prominent position in the carpark, you would have to be a bit desperate to use it in such a publi...

After a troubled lead-up and in spite of being drastically under-trained, my 2015 Ironman actually went fine on the day.  15 hours, 16 minutes, this was half an hour slower than last year, but not my slowest, and most important of all, I felt fine afterwards and had no problems the next day.  Most memorable for me though was not the event itself, but the experience of going without the usual support. I learned a few things.  1) Iron people are helpful, I had no trouble finding a lift early on Saturday morning down to the startline.  2) I should always ask if the hotel room has a fridge, I didn't even consider that it might not and had 2 days trying to feed myself out of a small chilly bin. At least the hotel let me refresh my freezer pads, but my nutrition was, shall we say, restricted. 3) Being by yourself, while it has the advantage of not having to look after anyone else, is also not as much fun. Crossing that finish line after all of that effort, with a sea of un...

I went for a final run, left while it was still dark on the most beautiful, mild Sunday morning you can imagine to plod out 18 km. That may be the last exercise I do until I get to Taupo.  The sun started to come up, I kept stopping because I thought 'this is it', but then ran a bit more, a bit more, a bit more until suddenly it was there. A run like that reminds you that it isn't just about the events, or the fitness, or the sanity restoration, being outside can be just plain glorious. I had to laugh, it might have been early in the morning but there seemed to be an awful lot of other people out too, taking photos, eating breakfast on various points looking towards the sunrise, or walking. So there is nothing more to do, no more fitness to be gained, no new equipment or nutrition can be tested. There are just the finishing touches to be made to the packing and organising.  Right now there is what seems like a huge heap of clothing and equipment on the floor of m...

I was reminded recently that you can be as stubborn as you like, be used to figuring out how to do things yourself and build all sorts of structures around yourself so you can achieve your goals but sometimes other people can make you go further than you thought you could. I was reminded everyone needs help occasionally.. I had the chance to climb a small mountain the other day. Unlike my favourite Mt Manaia which meanders up 2000-odd steep steps in a circular sort of  manner, this track was pretty much a straight line and almost vertical, so much so it was necessary to physically haul yourself up on the intermittently present rail.  To top it off, it was pouring with rain at the time, there was a torrent thrashing its way down the track, so strong it was shifting stones and bits of foliage with it. If I had been by myself I would have given up when I hit the point where I could no longer see the steps carved in the rock through the water, given up when the rail gave out a...

I wasn't sure really until the last minute whether I would even get there but I thoroughly enjoyed the SRAM Tour de Hunua ride today.  I waved the children off then with dismantled bike and a hodgepodge of hurriedly thrown together equipment in the car, I drove to Clevedon. The signs were all there that it was going to be a beautiful, clear, and hot day, I wasn't disappointed. I turned up a Clevedon showgrounds, there was a constant flow of cars and bikes all stirring up the dust from the dry paddocks. A tiny space was found for my little car, out with the bits and pieces and time to find out exactly what had I forgotten.  Nothing too much, but I had underestimated the amount of food I needed, no matter, surely it would be fine, you expect such things to happen when you do these things at the last minute. I got to talking to a few people, as you do while waiting around for a start.  A mature couple told me that Columbia was the best place in the world to cycle, they hav...

Yesterday I had a bike ride. It was significant for a couple of reasons, firstly it was my first real training ride in the final push for Ironman, secondly, it was very nearly my last ride. I started off well enough, I managed a steady pace, it was warm but not at the melting tar stage.  The roads were busy but the traffic was relatively well behaved.  I did the bit I liked least first, buzzing around the straights of Takanini, out towards Papakura, doing loops, clocking up the kilometers and had planned on doing my favourite bit last, the stretch out to Kawakawa bay and back. I had done about 50 km when I noticed that the number of trucks was building up, great big units with trailers, showering dust and dirt behind them.  It became clear after a while that they were all converging on a common destination, a piece of land near Alfriston was acting a bit like a beehive, with the trucks being the big ugly bees coming and going in all directions. If I had known this was...

Someone with a nasty habit of winning asked me a question. Why on earth sign up for, pay for, and turn up for an event if you are only planning on finishing? Excellent question, it made me think. Why would I pay money to make myself miserable, why couldn't I just go out and run 42.2 km on a day of my choice, by myself, instead of all the hassle of actually rocking up to an official start-line? It seems there is a fundamental difference in thinking between those who have an idea that they can win something, and those who turn up on the day and are happy enough to just cross a finish-line.  I have never even considered winning, it's not on my radar, its not a physical or mental possibility. Sometimes I might accidentally end up at the top of my age group, but I would never go into something thinking that that is a likely outcome.  I'm not sure however that my approach makes me any less of an athlete though, and looking at the 1000's of people who attend races also knowi...

I spent a week in my favourite Northland paradise, going up and down the familiar small mountains, the usual Christmas tradition for me. Otherwise, training has been, shall we say... inadequate.  It seems that 2015 brings with it new challenges, particularly around finding time to train. Conclusion...it may be that there is need for even greater flexibility around getting in the requisite hours in the water and on the road, and some events may ultimately need to be re-considered.  That, unfortunately, or fortunately, is called 'life'. Reconsideration starts with Ironman which coming up rapidly on the 7th of March. The event has been booked since March 2014, the accommodation is organised, time off work is planned, and as far as training... lots has been done in 2014 but the 'pointy end', the important end, is yet to be reached. The realisation however has hit that it might be a little tricky to fit this much loved event into the current busy life.  Some events you can...