super generic girl

the awesomely average life of a girl like all others

Tag Archives: running


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a running update on all the running I haven’t been doing

rip, dirty old shoes. lets hit the trails, you pink beauties!

Oh hi, glad you’re still there. I know, it’s been a while.

Remember how I had a super-sucky half marathon in Wellington last month? Well, what followed were three weeks of a whole lot of nothing, with a couple of shameful single digit runs and a distinct lack of motivation to go any further.

I tried to cheer myself up and rekindle my love for running by spending more than I’d like to admit in a long overdue pair of running shoes. My faithful Mizuno Wave Nirvana 7 saw me through a handful of half-marathons, a 35km in the bush and numerous other training runs in a little over a year. In total, I calculate they did about 1200km (or slightly over that), much more than the recommended distance for a pair of running shoes. I loved every kilometer in them (ignore the big fat exaggeration for the sake of the nice obituary for the shoes – I actually did flat out hate some of those kilometers) and it’s now time to let them rest in peace. I’ve upgraded to the Mizuno Wave Nirvana 8 (same type of support, different colours). They’re pretty, too pretty, and I’m desperate to get them dirty.

While busy not getting any running done, I also signed up for the superlong course of the XTERRA trail run in Whitford on August 12 (21.8km with a not to shabby elevation chart and a toughness factor of 9/10 as rated by the organisers). I’ll be happy to bag another half marathon (and a trail one!) the day before I turn another year older awesomer. In the mean time, I’ve also guaranteed that, should I go completely nuts between now and December, I have a spot on The Goat run. I signed up for it because it sells out quick (in fact, it did not long after I got my registration in) but I’m yet to commit 100% to it. You see, it’s in Tongariro National Park (which just yesterday was in the news due to abnormal seismic activity), it starts at pretty high elevation and has a 1000m ascent over some of the toughest terrain to run on. No, you don’t have to tell me how silly that sounds.

Note that the trend here is that I’ve been spending a whole lot of money on running-related stuff but not actually doing any running. If the total number of dollars spent actually compared to the number of kilometers run, then I wouldn’t be feeling like such a slob.

Until yesterday. A short 5km with S., who’s also been on a running hiatus, led to the decision to shape up again. We want to enjoy the upcoming trail half marathon and want to go back to feeling like we can actually do this sort of stuff. So stay tuned because the bright pink on the new shoes should not stay bright for longer.


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10 things I learned during the Wellington Half Marathon

1. Flat courses aren’t actually easier

I spent this entire time wishing I could run a half marathon on a flat course. I got all excited when I saw that the route of the Wellington one was flat as a pancake. Turns out that pancakes as metaphors for course altitude are actually pretty boring (as oppose to real pancakes you get to eat, which are, of course, more than a bit awesome). A flat course means your body is always performing the same movements, with the same force (or, in my case, lack thereof). Boring. This flat course taught me how to love the hills.

2. No training = No PR

It’s actually a pretty obvious equation, when you think about. I didn’t. I came out of that mammoth 35k in the bush at the end of May and barely moved for the following couple of weeks, thinking I had time to train for Wellington. I didn’t. Next thing I knew, it was time to fly to the capital and harden up. Not my worst time but certainly not my best. Mental note: to run faster, run often.

3. Do not go to a yoga session (or anything you haven’t done in months) 3 days before the half marathon

Your body will ache. Three days isn’t actually enough time for me to get it all back to normal, as it turns out, especially since my back had already been hurting. On that note…

4. If your back hurts, running is not going to fix it.

Contrary to what my mind likes to tell me, running is not the solution to all of life’s problems. Almost all of them, yes, but not quite. Like back pain. Running made it worse. Oh-so-much-worse. Voltaren is my new BFF.

5. If you are told not to wear the same pair of running shoes longer than 700km, don’t be a tight-ass about it, buy a new pair of shoes and shut the hell up.

Running 1200km+ on the same pair of shoes and then assuming they’ll still be comfortable for a further 21km? Stupid move.

6. You better just come to terms with the fact that you’re not going to enjoy some runs. It’s okay.

You wake up some days and you don’t really feel like running, for one reason or another. It’s okay. Sometimes that happens to be the day you not only paid the entry fee to a half marathon but you also flew to that city for that particular reason. Harden up. Whatever. Get over it. Onto the next one.

7. Don’t panic about the weather.

Just because you nearly got blown off a pier while trying to walk along it the day before, it does not mean you can’t wake up to beautiful sunshine and almost no wind the next day. Case in point: Wellington’s schizophrenic weather which was very much a pleasant surprise on race day. Stop worrying, damn it.

8. Good or bad, you’re 21km closer to where you want to be.

I know this sounds like terribly hippie new-age crap but it’s a comforting thought for when you finish a half marathon that you didn’t particularly enjoy and that leaves you wondering why you even bother.

9. Running events are the perfect excuse for a weekend away.

I may not have had the best time during the run but the weekend in Wellington was all kinds of lovely. Flying to another city just because of a running event might sound silly to some but that’s only if you make it solely about that couple of hours and nothing else.

10. Stop whining. 

Running 21km and crossing the finish line is pretty damn awesome. No one cares that it took you five minutes longer compared to your previous PR. You shouldn’t either.


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So, hmm, now what?

pictured: random non-running related snippets of the last few days, reminders of how I’ve been really busy, you know, not running.

I had heard of it before. That hiatus that settles in after a big run. You train for months, run the event you trained for and then… well, then nothing. You tell yourself you’ll definitely hit the road again as soon as you recover but, really, the recovery excuse gets used for far too long.

In the period since the Big O Trail Run on May 26 and today, I have run a grand total of around about 26km (of which nearly 16km of those were yesterday). Lame, I know. It’s not even that I was in pain (I was only in pain for a couple of days following the run). My legs just didn’t want to run. I ran a shameful 3km a week after that event and, despite not sore, my legs just didn’t feel like moving.

I don’t even really have a good excuse. I’ve been allowing myself as much crap food as I want (although, surprisingly, I haven’t been craving as much bad stuff as I used to) and I’ve been taking time out to do stuff I hadn’t done during training (stuff like sleeping in or taking a nap on a weekend). I’ve also been reading more and spending a lot of energy trying to stay warm. I’ve even taken a ballet class (a good 20 years after the last one), and found a way to relate it to running and, somehow, justify in my head being in that studio rather than out on the road (exercising different muscles, stretching, yadda, yadda, yadda).

What I need is a new challenge. The Wellington Half Marathon is coming up this weekend and I’m ready to fly down to the capital and get blown by the wind gusts as I try to run along a mostly flat course along the waterfront. I haven’t exactly trained for it, unless you count weeks of chocolate intake as training for a half marathon. And once that run is finished this coming sunday, I’m in serious danger of having no goal to work towards.

One thing I know: I want to get back on the trails. The road does very little for me these days and I find myself looking up bush tracks online in my spare time. I need something big and something better, something that will force me to panic and work hard for it. After two months of obsessing over that 35km distance, there’s an emptiness that comes with having no set goal to train for. With the cold days of winter well and truly here to stay, I either find a new challenge soon or I risk taking up hot-chocolate-drinking as my new sport.

This week’s self-imposed homework: get out there and run (no tapering needed when training was non-existent) but, most importantly, pick a new challenge to work towards.


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O for Awesome – The Big O Trail Run recap

I don’t usually put photos of myself on here but when I do, they’re my grossest ones. Here’s one sweaty mess with hands double their normal size, the aftermath of 35km running in the bush. You’re welcome.

On May 26, the fourth anniversary of my arrival in New Zealand, I ran my little heart out in the bush in Rotorua. A whole 35km later, with lots of steep hills in those, I crossed the finish line of the longest, toughest, and most important running event I’ve entered to date.

In the two months we had to train, since the day Stacey emailed me and twisted my arm about signing up for this run, we never reached the distance we had to run that Saturday, on our first long distance trail running event. We had gotten as far as 22km in the Waitakeres one Sunday morning by ourselves, and that ended up being followed by a long afternoon nap to recover from it. Fast-forward a few weeks of half-arsed attempts at hill climbs and long runs and there we were, just before 9am near Lake Okataina in Rotorua, with the cold temperatures used as an excuse for the trembling when what was really making us shake was the nerves and stress and the feeling of OMG what-the-hell-are-we-about-to-do.

We left work early on Friday to avoid rush-hour traffic during the three hour drive to Rotorua. I decided not to run any risks and even dinner was exactly the same thing I have eaten before every major running event (beef ravioli and nearly a whole chocolate log for myself because if I’ve got an excuse to carb-load, I go for gold). I laid out my clothes for the next day, prepared the backpack that I was going to carry with me during the run and the bag with the extra stuff I needed C. to keep with him for the two times I knew I was going to run past him. I went to bed early (well, 10:30, early by my standards). And then I slept like crap, of course, with the pre-run stress-related stomach aches making the usual appearance.

At 9am that day, after following a training plan that was only about as long as Kim Kardashian’s marriage, we had no choice but to start running. And so we ran. And it wasn’t long before the climb was so steep that it started defeating us and forcing us to walk more than run. But it was all okay, we were doing it. Reading about trail running had taught us that walking up some hills was a smart, effective way of conserving energy. When you are about to run 35km and have no idea how that’s going to go, conserving energy is pretty high priority.

pretty views helped. crater lakes make me happy.

I had once read an interview with Mal Law where he said that one of the secrets for long-distance running was to break it down in your head. Out there on that day, I knew my little brain couldn’t cope with the idea of running 35km. So I convinced myself that wasn’t what was going to happen. The course actually helped a lot with that. We passed our starting point twice in total, meaning we had two precious opportunities of seeing our “support crew”. I used those to reset my brain.

The first 10km were, by far, the hardest, as it normally happens with me during a run anyway. It didn’t help that they were so incredibly steep (a 5km climb up to the trig and then back down, on a track that often felt more like fine sand than compact dirt). But, in my head, I was only running 10km. No biggie. The view from the trig was amazing enough to make me forget about the fact that my legs felt like they were on fire and, once we ran back down, we had 10km ticked off and “only” 25km to go. The following 6km, though, were out on a track in and out of the bush (3km each way), back to the starting point. So I told myself I was only going to run another 6km. Again, no biggie, had done it plenty of times before.

During those 6km, we had to make a couple of stops, one of them to crack out the first aid kit and plaster the hell out of the only blister I got during the run (a victory in itself, if you ask me, since I was expecting to have at least both legs amputated).

Those 6km weren’t as steep as the first 10km but still had challenging bits. We stayed in a good mood for way longer than I’d expected, though, and by the time we had reached 16km in total, we were back at the start point for the final stop near our lovely supporters (who did a wonderful job of being there at the right times to feed us while stopping themselves from dying of boredom in the process). We stopped for food, water and a bit of a stretch and then it was off into the bush for the final 19km on our own. I tried to hit the ‘reset’ button in my mind again and forget about the previous 16km. I was going for a 19km run, something I’d done before too. The fact that I had just ran 16 other kilometers had to be quickly forgotten.

we’re not running uphill! yay!

I felt better at the start of those 19km than I had expected to. Adrenaline is a wonderful fuel. Adrenaline, jelly beans, chocolates, Gu shots, salt & vinegar chips, water, coca-cola… Between what I had packed and the wonderful job the organizers did with the aid stations, I had more than enough resources for hours worth of a very high sugar high.

In fact, about 22km into the run, in a section where we got off a bush track and into another by crossing a road, Chris and a couple of friends happened to drive past, right when I was stopped (for probably too long) at an amazingly-stocked aid station. They described me as being on some sort of high, jumping up and down in excitement and offering them jelly beans and jet planes. The sugar high lasted a few more kilometers but, of course, I eventually crashed.

no blue sky. but also, no rain. win!

The final 7 or 8km were one sluggish descent into madness. I was physically exhausted but it was the mental exhaustion that was making every step harder to take. I saw trees changing shapes (all part of the famous runners’ high, as I later found) and even talked to myself out loud to keep myself from stopping. The range of emotions out on that trail was far too wide to properly put into words. Physical pain, which had been my biggest worry, turned out to actually be the least of my problems.

With about 3km to go, I stopped seeing the arrows marking the track and convinced myself that I’d taken a wrong turn and was horribly lost in the bush and would probably never be found again. When you’re that tired, getting that desperate and silly is not that hard. My brain wasn’t up for rational thinking anymore and emotions were in full control.

pretty new zealand is pretty.

I ran and ran and ran and tried telling myself that no, of course I wasn’t just getting further into the bush and away from everyone else. After a few minutes (could have been a few seconds, felt like a few hours), I spotted a runner disappearing into the distance. I wasn’t lost after all. I ran faster to catch up and, as I got closer, the runner smiled and told me “we’re almost home”. Not long after that, there it was – a sign saying we had only 1km to go. The final kilometer that, of course, felt like a whole marathon. I reached the grass area that I knew was part of the park where it was all going to end but it took me a while to spot the finish line. When I eventually did, I didn’t hold back the tears. Screw pride, I was freaking knackered. But I was done. Holy crap, I was done.

I crossed the finish line to proud familiar faces who couldn’t care less about my sweaty mess and hugged me anyway. One of the organizers saw me crying and told me I should sit down. I told him I was okay, just really happy to have finished. The free sausage sizzle (kiwi-style prize, as it should be) tasted like the most exquisite meal in the world. As I started cooling down, my pride was really the only thing that wasn’t hurting.

I was incredibly happy to have done it in such a beautiful place too. The bush near Lake Okataina is beautiful and reading up on the Okataina volcanic centre showed me it’s also quite a special place. That run was the perfect way to celebrate my fourth kiwi anniversary: challenging, hard as hell at times, pretty enjoyable for most of it, and rewarding like few other things I’ve done before.

(to my non-kiwi blog readers, I didn’t forget how to spell. The title is a kiwi reference that you can see here and here.)


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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.