super generic girl

the awesomely average life of a girl like all others

Tag Archives: fitness


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adventures in trail running – XTERRA trail series – Shakespear Park

On Sunday morning, we made our way up to Shakespear Park (about an hour north from home) to enter the first in this year’s series of XTERRA trail running events, the final step in our training for the Big O Trail Run in Rotorua tomorrow.

It was only my second ever organised trail run, as we’ve been mostly picking trails and running on our own, so I didn’t really know what to expect. I know I didn’t expect so many people to be at the park for the run (the only other organised trail event we entered had about 15 people). Shakespear Park, on the other hand, was full of runners keen to get their shoes dirty on the trail.

I’m definitely going to have a go at a couple of other events in the series but I hope they sort out the registration pack pick-up process – we had pre-registered and had to pick up our race bib and timing chip on the day and queued up for nearly one hour. The only reason we didn’t queue for longer was because we ended up having to jump the queue and get in front of people doing the short course (which started later), to avoid missing our race briefing and even the start of the race.

Aside from that small hiccup with registration, the whole event was pretty well organised. The location, for a start, couldn’t be better. A little out of the way for this West Aucklander here but isn’t discovering new places what trail running is all about? It may have only been 11.5km (not that much compared to the 35km we’ll have to face tomorrow), but we got to run through some truly amazing scenery – bush tracks, paddocks, beaches… stunning views from the top of the hills, as far as your eyes could see (before the salty sweat threatened to burn them, that is).

We thought it would be wise to run the mid-course (11.5km) rather than a longer option, as we were so close to race day (less than a week by then, less than a day by the time I got around to finish this post) and we needed to give our muscles time to recover. I am clearly not used to the thought of running a super long distance trail run. Every time I saw a runner along the way who was doing the longer course, I thought to myself “damn, these people are hardcore” and then realised that in less than a week I’d be having to do a lot more than that. And so, of course, I panicked. I panicked because I was having my butt kicked by a course that was less than 12km long.

The whole run was a very good reminder of how different trail running is from road running. At 6km, a really steep incline had me and pretty much everyone else around walking up (and not even walking straight). The hill seemed to go on forever and there was a point when I seriously wanted to move to the side and just sit on the ground and give up on life. My legs felt heavy like they were two iron bars. I kept reminding myself of how it was all a big mental game and how I should be ashamed to ever lose a game against myself. So I carried on up. And up. And up. Telling myself that every uphill meant there was a downhill to come.

The run finished after a small stretch running along the beach with the gorgeous views distracting me from the pain. We crossed the finish line and while S. went for a dip in the ocean, I queued up for our well-earned cold ciders.

It was the perfect morning for some trail running. And the running shoes are only muddy enough to remind us of a good time.


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people are awesome

Will you just check out that fully-coloured progress bar?

Three weeks after starting our fundraising mission for KidsCan, and one week before the big day, we reached our $1000 target! I am super thankful to everyone who has contributed and will be thinking of them and their support when I’m out on that trail feeling like giving up. So thanks all for being amazing and helping us out. The fundraising page will be up for another couple of days so if anyone is keen to take us over our goal, that’d be awesome-times-infinity, of course. In any case, one of the beers I’ll have right after the run this coming Saturday will definitely be for all of you who’ve donated.


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the home stretch and delusional marathon dreams

random photo from our first ever trail run which happened in the same area as this weekend’s run, about seven months ago. We hated it then. Good news is that we didn’t hate it quite so much this time. YAY!

This saturday morning, I glanced at the clock on my computer screen just as the digits changed from 8:59 to 9:00. Oh shit, I thought to myself. It dawned on me that, exactly 14 days from that very moment, I’d be on the start line for the hardest most challenging run I’ve ever done. And so, in good old vera fashion, I panicked a little bit inside. And then I calmed the hell down because, really, what are you gonna do, right?

I’ve spent the past month and a half training for that day which is now a mere 12 days away. I should have trained for longer but that is how late we heard about and signed up for the run. I should also probably have run more. But if you take into consideration the fact that, two days ago, I couldn’t even bend my right knee and spent a super rock ‘n roll saturday night at home icing it, then I guess it’s fair to say I’ve been working my way through this self-imposed training schedule. And all those “I should have” are not worth stressing about anymore.

On Sunday morning, we clocked 17km along Riverhead forest, in West Auckland. It still amazes me that I have so many options for trail running so close to home. I guess that really is part of what living in New Zealand is all about. But, anyway, I digress.

After that run, we headed home and spent some time looking up marathons online. There are some amazing runs out there in the big wide world and we figure our first marathon needs to be in a pretty special location. We’re toying with some ideas at the moment for marathons we can run in a couple of years’ time. For example, we found one that crosses three countries. Between that and the French marathon that has wine stations instead of water stations, it’ll be a hard decision. And then there’s also the Great Wall of China marathon. Walking along the wall is challenging enough but it is, to this day, one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Running a marathon on it would definitely top that by quite a few extra awesomeness points.

At one point, I looked at the link for a marathon in Siberia and said it would be amazing to do something like that. Stacey quickly pointed out that I had just described running 42.2km across Siberia as “amazing” which I guess should be enough to claim some sort of mental health disability benefit.

And now that I’ve rambled on enough about training and countdowns and fun marathons that are too far from my budget and OMFG ONLY 12 DAYS TO GO, I’m going to remind you that you can still donate and help us raise money for KidsCan. Do you hate New Zealand children? I didn’t think so.


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route changes and a new heart-attack-shaped elevation chart

The Big O Trail Run is now a big X, due to some necessary last minute changes to the route. Blame it on the new landowner of part of the original route (which circled Lake Okataina), who decided he/she didn’t want any stinking runners going through his/her property. This is the bit where I kind of want to write a fairly long rant about that person’s attitudes towards a running event that had been happening there for years but I’m going to stay all zen and shit and not say a word about it. On the bright side, we will now run past the same point (the event centre) twice during the run, meaning we will not only see people twice but we will also have a chance to refuel if we need to (and I definitely will need to because there is no way I can carry enough water for 35km).

The changes to the course also mean, obviously, changes to the elevation chart. I had all my fingers and toes crossed for that bastard hill at the start of the original route to disappear but… nope! It’s still here, in all its steep glory. I have never in my life run 35km, let alone 35km offroad. But to be honest, the elevation chart scares me far more than the distance. Look at all those threatening pointy bits!

Sixteen days to the big day. We continue to do light runs on weekdays and longer runs on weekends, as per our super amateur self-imposed training plan. We will do one long trail run this coming weekend (location TBC) and the, the following weekend (the final weekend before the run of doom), we will enter the Shakespear Regional Park trail run, part of the XTERRA Auckland Trail Run series. After that, it’ll be tapering and carb loading time (quite possibly my two favourite parts of the training).

We’re also continuing to collect donations for KidsCan here so do donate if you feel like doing something nice (or if I know where you live and you don’t want any unpleasant surprises).


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on why I’m going to harden up and become a running commuter (sometimes)

I’m not a dumb person. No, really, I swear. Yet, for some crazy reason, it took me over a year to actually decide to get organised and run home from work. It’s not that genius of an idea now, is it? I mean, running with a purpose, from point A to point B – that’s pretty straightforward. And really, it’s actually quite logical to think of running as a means of getting somewhere, more than just running for the sake of running. However, the thought had only crossed my mind for a few seconds a couple of times before quickly being discarded because the logistics of it all just sounded too complicated. Spoiler alert: they actually aren’t.

On Wednesday, I bought the hydration backpack that I’m going to wear during the run of doom on OMG TWENTY ONE DAYS. It’s a 9L backpack (that includes the 2L hydration bladder) so it’s got room for a few things without being too bulky. I wanted to try it out but had no real reason to, with my running buddy going away for the weekend and us being a few days away from hitting the trails for a proper long training run again. That’s when the little lightbulb lit up above my head. I could use the backpack to commute home from work. Freaking genius, I thought.

I realise it’s not something everyone can do but I live less than 10km from work so, really, any excuse I can come up with should be overruled by the fact that I’m just a big fat wuss. There are actually two routes that I can choose from (short and hilly-ish or long (well, 12km) and flat). On Friday morning, I wore clothes that I could easily fold into my backpack (plus a long coat that I had to leave at work) and got on the bus to work with my backpack. At home, I left my usually heavy-as-bricks shoulder bag with most of the stuff I usually carry (clearly unnecessarily). The backpack had some food, my debit card, ID, keys, iPod, phone and phone charger, as well as running clothes. I got changed into these after work and headed out the door before it started getting dark.

I chose short & hilly and ran 8.5km home. These days, it gets dark pretty early in Auckland so it was almost pitch black by the time I got home but the short route is also busy with lots of cars so I never felt unsafe. It was cold, though, and that was the main reason I headed for the short route rather than the long one when I left the office.

After the cold (must remember to pack an extra layer), the second most annoying thing about this commute were the traffic lights. Of course I got them all red. I could see the sky getting darker and darker as I waited for the lights to turn green for pedestrians while I looked at the driving commuters all nice and warm in their air conditioned cars. I got home about 45 minutes after leaving the office. It seemed longer than that because, once it started getting dark, there wasn’t much for me to look at anyway so it got a bit boring. But then I realised that, on some days (most days, actually), that is pretty much the duration of my commute home anyway. Except this time I managed to save money, squeeze in an outdoors workout (and skipping the late night gym workout) and lower my carbon footprint. Because I didn’t feel like I had to workout that evening, I also got extra time to do whatever else I wanted to do (read: lie on the couch eating pop tarts and re-watching HIMYM episodes. Don’t judge!).

It was only 8.5km but it made all the difference in my training week overall and, for that reason too, it is something I am going to make an effort to incorporate into my routine at least a couple of times a week. I don’t like the idea of running to work in the morning (having to shower at work would mean I’d have to get up earlier and be more organised, two things that are never going to happen). But an evening commute sounds easy enough and means I can no longer use the short winter days or work as an excuse not to run. This way, work actually almost becomes a reason to run.


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adventures in trail running – rangitoto romp

Training for your first long distance trail run means, among other things, no more weekend mornings in bed. This sunday was no exception. I was out of bed at 7am to give me time to have coffee, eat and prepare my trail mix for the morning’s adventure: the rangitoto romp. After a quick stop at the bakery (if a trail run isn’t an excuse to start your day with a chocolate log, then I don’t know what is!), we made our way to the ferry building to get on the 9:30 ferry. The trip takes less than half an hour so we hit the trail just before the clock hit 10am.

As usual, starting was the hardest part for me. The first couple of kilometers were hard and my heavy legs really wanted to run back to the ferry and back home and back to bed. But after that, it all turned amazing pretty quickly. It helps that Rangitoto is a real special place – a 600 year old volcano, so young that raw lava and scoria still forms the majority of the terrain on the island. The loose scoria made for some tricky bits along the run. What you see above is a photo of one of the easy parts, really. A lot of our time was spent watching where we put our feet because, really, breaking both legs would not really contribute positively to our training.

We made it back to Auckland on the lunch time ferry feeling a lot better about running and life in general. My calf muscles were still a little bit sore from Wednesday’s run and so, to try to recover a little bit faster, I hardened up and bought a 3kg bag of ice from the petrol station on the way home. Add icing leg muscles on a cold day to the list of things I don’t like doing.

S. had done this run before on the same day I ran the Whenuapai half marathon and she didn’t exactly have fond memories of it. Fortunately, we changed that today. To make this training day even better, we have now reached $450 in donations, meaning we are nearly halfway to our target! If you haven’t helped out yet, please do so. If you have, you rock our sweaty little running socks off. Gross, I know. I’ll shut up now.


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I seem to have signed up for a 35km trail run in 2 months’ time

Oh hi, still there? Awesome. How’s it going? Done anything stupid lately?

Me? Oh, where to start?

Well, a couple of weeks ago, my friend P. told me he had a ticket to the Whenuapai half marathon for April 1. At first I read the email and thought “nope, not doing a half marathon in two weeks’ time without any training”. Then I thought about it some more. When I think too much, stupid stuff happens. So now I’m one sleep away from running my fourth half marathon in less than 12 months, this time with almost zero training (my longest run since the February half marathon was 10km long).

Then, last Monday, while I was at work not even pretending to cope well with last minute deadline-y stuff, an email came through from S. suggesting a 35km run in the forest taking place in exactly two months time. I read her email a good two or three times (ok, maybe ten) to make sure I wasn’t in some sort of work deadline-induced hallucination stage. It still sounded like she wanted to do a 35km trail run. So I called her to make sure she wasn’t the one who was high on something. She hasn’t admitted to it but she has to be doing drugs because I called and she confirmed that I’d read the email right.

Somehow, within two minutes of that phone conversation, I had registered and paid for this insanity too. And then proceeded to feel light-headed and panicky for the following, oh I don’t know, 76 hours.

Now that I’ve had time to sleep on it, well, nothing much has changed really. I continue to think this is, by far, the stupidest idea ever (and I’ve had some really stupid ideas so that’s saying something) and I continue to have no clue about how I’m going to survive that.

I mean, COME ON! My longest distance so far is 21.1km. On road. An even surface. And you might still remember the time I ran a 9km trail run and wanted to die afterwards. I don’t run uphills very well at all. This 35km run has a number of them, including a peak of 700m before we even reach the 5km mark. It calls for mandatory gear like a first aid kit and an emergency blanket. First aid kits are for when you get hurt. Emergency blankets are for when you’re lost and cold in the bush. If anyone is going to need those, it’s probably going to be me.

I know I have to get serious about this. I know. I’ve been reading about trail running in the past day or so – it’s a start. But giggling about about finding out that speed work on trails is called fartlek is not going to help me with this. (but, seriously, fartlek.)

Work at the moment is busier than ever and I’ve got a bunch of commitments coming up that I can’t (and don’t want to) get out of. So I’ve got to get organised. With that in mind, I’ve singled out three key things to focus on in the next couple of months:

Running

Not only do I seriously need to up my training, I need to shift from the road to the trails. Waitaks, we’re coming for you!

Sleep

I’ve been sleeping an average of five hours a night over the past few months and that’s just not going to cut it. I know I can’t realistically expect to start sleeping like a normal person from one night to the next but I think a goal of averaging seven hours each night is not too far-fetched. Maybe. Hopefully.

Food

Goodbye, processed crap! Well, on most days, anyway. Goodbye, 7th cup of coffee of the day. I miss you already! No, seriously, I do. I haven’t had any processed sugar (chocolate bars, cookies, lollies, anything!) for a solid five days now. A couple of days ago, I walked past a lady eating a chocolate and caramel slice and I nearly shed a tear. I’ve also been limiting my coffee intake to two a day (HOLY CRAP!) and replacing the afternoon cups with tea. I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending that my grapes are M&Ms and, let me tell you right now, celery sticks definitely do not resemble Doritos. I’m going to allow myself a couple of cheat days here and there but, overall, this is it. And it sucks. At least for now. I want a donut. I want ten donuts. Damn it.

 

Yesterday after work, S. and I met up at the bottom of Mt Eden to try and do some hill training (something we have been avoiding like the plague for months). The plan was to do it on the road because we were really just going to focus on the climb but we ended up finding our way through a few offroad tracks up and down the mount and, I’ll even put it in writing, it was pretty damn fun. It was only a little over 5km in total so not enough to tell me anything about how that 35km one on the trail is going to go. I’m nowhere near ready for it. But what fun would it be if I was anyway, right?


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Cathay Pacific half marathon Auckland recap

Last sunday morning was awesome and it wasn’t even spent in bed like all sunday mornings should be. Instead of the usual routine of trying to sleep in while a cat gives me a less than friendly back massage and begs for food, I headed into town and ran my third ever half-marathon instead. Third ever and first of a plan of four for this year. After my first half in Taupo last August and the second one in Kerikeri in November, I was really excited about running a third one.

So excited I injured my knee a week before race day. Am I the clumsiest person you’ve ever met or just second clumsiest? With a bruised and sore knee, I dragged myself out the sunday before for a 15.5km run before deciding it was probably time to just jump straight to the part of the training that involves sitting on the couch eating lots of crap and feeling sorry for yourself. So that’s what I did. One 5km run all week and the knee showed little sign of improvement.

So on race day, I had to sport a super sexy knee brace and hope that I could end the 21.1km course without having to have my leg amputated or OMG a knee brace tan line. Spoiler: I still have both legs.

The data in the images is off my Nike+ app thingy (I call things thingy because I’m technical like that). The organisers of this event didn’t actually record anyone’s time which was kind of sucky for people like me who like to know exactly how long they take from start to finish. My nike+ isn’t always super accurate and actually think I ran more like 21.9km. I also only stopped it about 20 seconds after crossing the finish line so none of that is precise, just a good indication.

This wasn’t my best half-marathon time but it was, by far, the easiest half-marathon I’ve ever done. Nothing to do with the conditions – there were a couple of uphills to annoy my old-lady’s knee, the weather was maybe a little too hot and the staggered start didn’t exactly give me the whole adrenaline rush I normally get from these events. But for some crazy reason, I got really into it and felt amazing the entire time. I remember passing the 6km marker and feeling surprised because I felt we had only just started.

At about the 12km mark, I spotted my awesome friends (*waves!*) who had driven there to see me run. They followed me in the car for a while, stopping often for photos, high fives and just a whole lot of shouting my name. Not sure they have any idea how awesome I think they are for doing that but yeah, they are kind of fabulous that way. They left me at about 18km and drove to the finish line. I ran a really good final 3km along the waterfront, made slightly less amazing by the many walkers I had to dodge and the damn knee that kept on reminding me of its existence. I crossed the finish line only to realise and, pretty much as soon as that happened, my knee stopped hurting. It’s been three days, still not hurting. In fact – and here’s the real first! – nothing is hurting. I was walking around in high heels the day after, which was kind of a novelty for me.

So this is it. First half-marathon of the year done, three more to go. Roll on Rotorua! I’m pretty excited about kicking your ass in two months time!


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RIP iPod, hello new running gadgets!

This morning, I went for my first run in five days, which is, in my world, an abnormal number of days without running. My last run had been on Thursday last week. My iPod stopped working on that same Thursday. Coincidence? Don’t be silly, of course not.

I had an amazing 10km run by myself after work that day, complete with pukeko sightings and everything. It was sunny and not too warm and I got to try out a new running playlist. By the time I got home, I hit the ‘stop’ button on my iPod and it gave up on life. The screen went completely white so I can’t do anything with it. I tried restoring it as the website suggested but it didn’t work.

Apple has refused to fix it for me, despite admitting that it is a known issue and completely unrelated to the crack on the screen (that the iPod has had since January). Eleven months, a few running events, hundreds of kilometres of training and two half-marathons later, I’m iPod-less.

I’m not sure why it had such an impact on my running schedule but, if I’m running by myself, I really can’t run without music. I almost feel bad about this handicap – it sort of reminds me of the joke about the blonde who died when they took her headphones away (yep, I really did just google that joke so I can link you to it).

Lucky for me, I have a new phone capable of handling all manner of apps and whatever else the cool kids are using these days. Yesterday, I loaded it with a few of my favourite songs to run to and downloaded the MapMyRun app. The phone is considerably bigger than my now broken iPod Nano but has one particularly great advantage over the iPod: it works.

It’s a good short-term solution and it may even be a good long-term one. Now I need to find out how long the battery will last for while simultaneously playing music, tracking my time/distance and stopping to take the occasional photo. If it’s anything less than two hours, I’m going to have to find an alternative because there is no way I’ll be able to run a half-marathon without music.

In the future, I may just have to suck it up and invest in a Garmin Forerunner (what I really mean by this is: hot damn, I want a Forerunner and now I’m just coming up with an excuse to justify it to myself) and a small mp3 player of some sort (maybe an iPod Shuffle, if I’m ever able to bring myself to give money to Apple again).

Tell me, what gadgets do you take out with you while running? Anything you really can’t run without? 


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2012 running goals – part 1

Last Friday, I went for my first run since the half-marathon in Kerikeri.  I hadn’t actually intended to stop running for a whole six days but the whole week just flew by and it kind of just happened. Today is day five of yet another hiatus (after my last run on Saturday).

Can you even call it a hiatus if it’s only been five days? I guess not but too late now, not hitting that backspace key.

As bad as it sounds, this is still better than the period post-Taupo-half-marathon when I stopped running for quite a while longer (don’t blame me. Blame winter. That’s what I’m doing).

Entering a race every month this year has helped create a running habit and keep me motivated to continue training and I’m afraid that, if one run ends and I don’t have another in the pipeline, I might just get a little too lazy (something I seem to have a natural talent for).

After crossing the finish line in Kerikeri, S. and I lied on the grass and started drawing up the plan for what should happen next. Three days that, we signed up for a short fun run in December (and this will really be fun as it will even include costumes!) and came up with a list of runs we want to do next year. We’ve got three running events planned for 2012 so far and intend to enter a few more (the whole one running event per month idea proved quite successful this year so maybe it’s best if we carry on with that formula).

I want to take this very seriously and actually stick to training plans next year, contrary to what I’ve done this year.  So, to make it official, here are my 2012 running resolutions (part 1 only, as we still have to choose other running events for the rest of the year):

  1. Return to Waiheke Island in January and run the 12km Wharf2Wharf again. It was the first running event we ever entered, last January, and we didn’t know what to expect at all. I’m super curious to go back and see what it’ll feel like this time.
  2. Run four half marathons
  3. Run the Cathay Pacific Half Marathon in Auckland (in February)
  4. Run the Rotorua Half Marathon (in April)
  5. Run a half marathon in two hours (or less)
  6. Run an average of 100km a month
  7. Do more cross-training
  8. Speaking of those programmes, find a good one and stick to it.
  9. Run the Kerikeri Half Marathon again (and beat my current time for that course)
  10. Choose a full marathon to do in 2013

So there you have it. I’ve got put my running shoes where my mouth is. Okay, that sounded gross. Backspace. You get the point.