December | 2012 | super generic girl

December 6, 2012
by supergenericgirl 5 Comments

Chasing my Christmas spirit

This Christmas will be my third one in the Southern Hemisphere and, therefore, my third Summer Christmas. You’d think I’d be used to it by now but… nope. Nice warm weather in December will never make sense to me and a Summer Christmas still sounds like a big paradox.

Christmas has always been my absolute favourite holiday, even though it always used to take place in my least favourite season. I initially thought that perhaps combining Christmas and Summer would make my head explode with happiness but that hasn’t happened.

It’s not that I have a bad time over Christmas in Summer. It’s just that it doesn’t feel like Christmas, at all. Words always have a variety of feelings associated with them and, to me, Christmas means warm coats, short days, the smell of pumpkin and cinnamon and all the other ingredients of the traditional Christmas food we have back home.

Instead, for the last three years, I’ve been wearing shorts and going for walks on the beach. I know it sounds like a massive first world problem – poor wee Vera has to go to the beach over Christmas, boo hoo, yadda yadda yadda. I know. But, as nice as it is, it doesn’t feel the way it should.

Some things, however, make it all a bit better. I intend to fill the house with the smell of anything pumpkin-related, decorate the hell out of it (and spend December vacuuming pine needles off the rug or chasing the cat to make sure she doesn’t swallow the tiny ornaments she grabs from the tree), eat as many pieces of french toast as my body can handle (in Portugal we call them “rabanadas” and they’re a traditional Christmas dish), crank out the Mariah Carey (don’t be hater, nothing says Christmas like All I Want for Christmas is You) and take part in as many Christmas-related activities as I can.

Like yesterday. For the first time, I was happy to be going out for a run in the rain. It was time for another Auckland Santa Run. Last year, we’d had good weather for it but, this time, even though the temperature was warm, I had the rain to make it feel a little bit Christmassier (yes, that’s totally a word).

About 1400 people dressed up as Santa and ran the ~3k course in Auckland central in the rain (at the same time as other thousands of Santa runners did the same in different cities and towns across the country), all for a good cause. It was a short run but you should never underestimate the added difficulty of running in a santa suit (there was nothing breathable about that material, I tell you) – so, by the end of it, I definitely felt like I had worked enough for some french toast. I mean, rabanada.

December 5, 2012
by supergenericgirl 4 Comments

Running on the web

I post an awful lot of running-related stuff on my Facebook, often forgetting that my non-running friends and relatives might not actually give a crap about it.

Before I alienate them all and suddenly stop getting invited to birthday parties (and start missing out on free cake), I thought it’d be a good idea to link to those other sites here and then link to this post on Facebook, thus decreasing the number of running-related updates on my Facebook profile and creating the illusion that I actually do have a life beyond running (hahaha, fools).

One

The Badass of the Week website this week features one of the nicest badasses of all time – Cliff Young, a “toothless 61 year-old potato farmer from Beech Forest, Victoria, who’d lived in a one-room bark hut with six brother and sisters during the Great Depression and showed up to the starting line of the [Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon] race in overalls and rain boots”. We’re talking 875km, people.

So you think “whatever, old dude thought he’d have a go and then realised it wasn’t for him”. Wrong. Try “had a go at it, beat all elite athletes and smashed the record by two entire freaking days”. Head over to the Badass of the Week site for the whole story. It’s a great read, simultaneously inspiring and hilarious.

Two

Running naked (and I mean birthday-suit-type-of-naked, not “naked running” to refer to running without a tracking device or music, like some runners do) has been deemed legal in New Zealand. I’m all for personal freedom and all that stuff but I’m also hoping this doesn’t become a thing.

Three

The Hairpin nailed my usual half marathon training plan. Mine usually has more beer and less trips to Brazil but the rest is pretty much the same.

Four

The T-Rex Runner found and interviewed Thomas, the man in the “50, fat, diabetic, ahead of you” that has been doing the rounds on the internet. You can read all about it here.

Five

Holy muddy shoes, New Zealand has a new magazine dedicated to trail running! Can you tell I’m excited? I’d be happy even if the magazine was a little bit shit because, who cares, it’s about trail running! But not even! It’s really well written, super interesting and with a great design. It wins all around.

I got a copy with my subscription of Wilderness magazine (published by the same company) and headed online for the digital issue. The full digital version is available online for free (!!!) until December 24, by which time you’ll have to be smart enough to realise you really ought to fork out the mere NZ$30 for the yearly subscription.

Righto, that should keep you out of trouble for a while.

December 4, 2012
by supergenericgirl 6 Comments

That morning I ran from one side of the country to the other (well, sort of)

The face may say “I’m excited so let’s run” but the reality was more like “it’s cold so let’s run!”

A couple of months ago, I watched the video shot by Andrew Evans (National Geographic Traveler’s Digital Nomad) of his run across Liechtenstein. Coincidentally, I watched it just days after I had driven across Liechtenstein (during an amazing European road trip I really should tell you more about one of these days) and had one of those I-wish-I-had-thought-of-that-myself moments. Liechtenstein is a tiny country and one of the few where someone like me can actually run the length of it in one go so I was a bit bummed about not having thought of that.

But never mind. On Sunday, S. and I sort of did that. Well, not really. Let me explain. New Zealand can get really narrow in some points. Conveniently enough, one of those points is right near where we live which means we got to run from one side of the country to the other, technically, in what was only a 16k run.

I made a sweet, sweet illustration in MS Paint to scientifically prove we ran from one side of the country to the other.

The Auckland Coast to Coast Walkway is an official walk established and maintained by the city council, that takes walkers (or, in our case, runners) from the Manukau Harbour (Onehunga) to the Waitemata Harbour (Viaduct), on the other side of the city (and the island). Along those 16k, whether you’re walking or running, you get a really good taste for what Auckland really is all about. Boring suburbs, yes, some of that. But also an amazing range of great parks and reserves, extinct volcanoes, historic buildings, etc.

Then realised the thick pink lines in that image covered evidence of water on both sides so used all my skills to create yet another masterpiece, this time zooming in on the map a bit more. SO MUCH TALENT.

The course itself is fairly well marked by blue signs with arrows (if you’re going from Onehunga to the Viaduct, which is the way we went) or yellow arrows if you choose to start from the Waitemata Harbour side. There were only two or three occasions when there wasn’t a sign telling us which way to turn so we sort of had to take a guess. Luckily, the signs were not far apart and, surprisingly, we never got lost along the way. The arrows also tell you where you should cross the streets but I’m not entirely sure you should take their advice every single time (some of them seemed to have been placed in random spots, away from traffic lights or crossings). Other than that, the route was really well chosen, leading us through reserves whenever there was one nearby, and up and down special places like One Tree Hill, Mount Eden and the Auckland Domain.

Not being great fans of routes that loop around and force us to see us the same things twice, we were pretty pleased with this run. There was always something nice to look at and 16k was an easy enough distance, only made slightly more difficult by the elevation of the terrain in certain areas (but that’s only a worry if you have enough will-power to run every single hill, which we don’t).

So there you have it. From one side of the country to the other. Another training run down, about a bazillion to go.

***

Not completely unrelated, there’s a guy who’s not cutting any corners and can actually claim to be running the length of the entire country, top to bottom, rather than across one of its narrowest parts. Dan Burgess is just about finished with his epic running adventure from Bluff (down the far South) to Cape Reinga (right at the very top). He is raising money to aid Parkinson’s UK and Cystic Fibrosis NZ and if you’d like to help his fundraising efforts, you can do so through here or here.

December 2, 2012
by supergenericgirl 12 Comments

A runner’s Christmas wishlist

Back in the day, I started running because I thought it’d be the cheapest possible way to exercise. All I needed was any pair of old shorts and an old tshirt, some sneakers (and, with the size of my shoe collection, I had a few to choose from already) and the willingness to get my butt out of the door. No membership fees, no monthly payments, no big expenses.

*pause so we can all stop laughing at how wrong I was*

Like anything else, if you get really into it (and one can say writing a blog almost solely dedicated to running qualifies as being “really into it”), it gets really expensive really quickly. At first, I think, came the dri-fit shirts. I got posh and decided running in cotton shirts was too gross. Then, with the first knee pain, came the doctor’s appointment (another $40) and the medical advice to buy proper running shoes. Hello, $300 receipt. Then, since I had the fancy shoes, I got a little more excited about taking them out. And so came the receipt for the first ever running event (Wharf to Wharf on Waiheke Island), which got me completely hooked onto crossing finish lines. Since then, I’ve been averaging about one official event per month. Some are fairly cheap, others do make me think I’ll have to resort to instant noodles for the rest of the month (mostly because some of these events are out of town and involve travel expenses). Fast forward a few months and I got hooked on trail running. This means mandatory equipment for races, in some cases. Hi, expensive hydration pack with all sorts of stuff inside.

Anyway, you get the point. This stuff’s not cheap. So I’m always on the look out for good deals on running-related stuff. I’ve got a list. I’m pretty sure it’s filled with stuff all runners want to have. So, if you have a runner in your Christmas gift list (or some extra money floating around that you might want to use to start the Super Generic Girl Running Fund), this is a good time to take notes.

1. Gu energy gels are the perfect stocking fillers a runner can ask for. At about $3 a pop, these little things don’t come cheap.

2. Garmin Forerunner 10. Or any Forerunner. Or, whatever, any GPS watch. I’ve been using the Nike+ watch (powered by TomTom) and we have sort of become best buddies.

3. Running shorts. Or any running apparel, as long as it’s cute. Oh and the right material. I suppose that’s important too.

4. Camelbak hydration pack. Especially useful for trail runs or long road runs, especially if you enter events and like avoiding the water stations.

5. Apple EarPods or any good headphones for runners.

6. My Cep compression socks are simultaneously my most expensive and my most amazing pair of socks. Don’t think a runner can have too many of these but, for the price, I think one pair is pretty much enough. Has to be.

7. Spi belt. I bought a hydration belt a couple of months ago and it sucked because there was no ideal way of adjusting it to my waist without it ending up jumping up and down while I ran. I heard these are quite good in that aspect. All I want is a way of not carrying my phone in my hand the whole time.

8. Running necklaces. Down here in Kiwiland, they aren’t too keen on giving out medals at running events. You’ll probably get a medal for a full marathon (and, even then, not all full marathons), but you are very unlikely to get one for anything below that. Some achievements, though, deserve to be celebrated with something long lasting. When we ran our 35k trail run, I headed to The Run Home on Etsy and got S. a customised necklace with her name and the distance and location of that race. Beats a medal, I think… but I still wish we’d gotten medals.

9. These running nutters sometimes decide that darkness isn’t a good enough excuse to stay home. I pack my head torch every time we head out for the trails, just in case. Also good for after work runs in Winter, when it’s pitch black by 6pm.

10. Tech gloves. Because surely I’m not the only one who checks Facebook while waiting for the pedestrian lights to turn green, amirite?

11. Road ID bracelet. If I happen to run my way to afterlife, there are a few things people need to know like: my name, my emergency contact details and that under no circumstances should my obituary refer to me as a “jogger”. Just the basic important stuff.

12. Running-related literature. I’ve got an Amazon wishlist the length of an ultramarathon. Lisa Tamati‘s Running to Extremes is just one of them, among a long list of practical marathon training guides. Basically, anything that’ll make a runner want to keep reading while, at the same time, put the book down and head out for a run.