super generic girl

the awesomely average life of a girl like all others

Tag Archives: running


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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.


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the run I never thought would happen actually did

Last saturday afternoon, after approximately 3,562 attempts at getting C. to join me for a run, it finally happened. Sure, the attitude was something like “I’ll run this one time if that’ll shut you up about it” but the fact is that he laced up his gym shoes, picked a route, and headed out to Titirangi with me for a run/walk/run/walk/walk some more/run/swear that we’re never running anymore/run a bit more/walk/run/complain about how stupid running is/run/walk.

He didn’t hate it as much as I thought he would. After all, I was out running with an asthmatic boy who hadn’t run in a very long time (dude never ever has to catch the bus) and who insists on telling me that cars have been invented so people don’t have to run.

In my very first run by myself, a few years ago, I ran a shameful 700m before thinking “screw this”, turning around and heading back home, coughing my lungs out and thinking that the only way I’d ever exercise again would be if TV remove-lifting actually became a sport. On his first attempt, he managed over 2km (possibly 3km, didn’t really track it that accurately). So virtual high five to him! Now I wonder if this experience will ever repeat itself. Stay tuned.


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“prepared runner” or dork? a bit of both, really

Chris’ auntie, who lives in Whangarei, spotted this in the Whangarei Report (the area’s local newspaper). That’s yours truly, during last weekend’s half-marathon.

I’m not one to care about what I look like while running (proof of that was the fact that I got given a chocolate at about the 18km mark and still had chocolate all over my lips after crossing the finish line – so classy!), but this is really making me have second thoughts about the hydration pack. Is there a dorkier-looking running accessory? I don’t think so.

Well. I may be a dork but I’m also a “prepared runner”. What the caption writer doesn’t know is that the stupid hydration pack let me down a few times during the run by clogging up and not giving me water. Prepared, schmepared.


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Kerikeri half-marathon recap

sunrise in paihia. me and a sunrise - doesn't happen often.

On Friday evening, three days after returning from Samoa, S. picked me up and we started our approximately 3 hour journey up to Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. We stay at a lovely hotel, thanks to S. finding an amazing deal on a website a month or two ago. We were so excited about having a little roadtrip and a weekend away just for ourselves, I had hardly thought about the real reason we were driving up. Until a few hours before when it really hit me that OMG we were going to be doing it all over again: 21.1km of pain and excitement and sore muscles and content all mashed together.

After getting to the hotel later that evening, we laid out our running gear, prepared our running snacks (jelly beans and a mix of nuts, that I didn’t even end up eating) and got in bed after setting the alarm for 6:03 (to give us time to snooze for five minutes until 6:07 – don’t ask!).

We jumped out of bed on Saturday morning, got ready and took the (roughly) 2km walk to the Paihia ferry building where the bus to the start line was waiting for us. We got to see the sunrise as we were walking down the hill and along the waterfront and it was around then that I started getting super excited about the day.

I was pretty optimistic about this run, mainly because the website said it was a mostly downhill course. I may have gotten overly excited about the word downhill and it wasn’t exactly as I expected. Right at the start, there were two quite big uphills that, along with the sun aiming for the invisible bullseye on the top of our heads, made for a pretty uncomfortable first couple of kilometres. But it did get better.

The first 6km were spent trying to get comfortable and from then on, I managed to get in the zone and just enjoy the course. We were running through backcountry roads with lovely green farms around us and the sun was shining (at times a little too strongly) so life was pretty good. I wore my hydration pack (nerdiest accessory ever?) which was handy because it meant I could run past all the water stations. It did clog up a couple of times, which was weird, and it leaked for a while, leaving a big wet patch on my lower back (so sexy, I know!).

At the 15km mark, I felt myself starting to get a little tired. The “maybe I could walk just for a few seconds” thoughts started to appear and I really didn’t want to walk. I had the jelly beans and nuts mix in the hydration pack but had put a Gu in the pocket of my running pants. It was the first time I ever tried Gu (after a last minute decision to rush out and buy a couple the day before). I’m not sure it did anything for me, to be honest. The vanilla bean taste wasn’t as bad as I’d read it would be and I did stop thinking about walking but it’s not like I ran any faster or anything. I think it had the same effect a couple of jelly beans would have had and it was way messier to eat than those so not sure I’ll be having it again.

The second half of the course was considerably better than the first and it did include a few downhill bits as promised. There were also a lot more people cheering us on during the second half, as we got closer and closer to Kerikeri, which really helped (to the little boy that was giving all the runners high fives, you made my next few hundred metres a lot easier!).

Around the 17km mark, I finished off the Gu and, for some stupid reason, also lost the ability to get any water out of my hydration pack (there may have been a couple of swearwords involved, as I tried to get the damn thing to work). In the end, I just gave up on water completely.

The highlight of the run was seeing another km marker in the distance and thinking “oh, good, that must be the 19km mark” and then getting closer and realising that I was wrong and it was actually the 20km mark! That never ever happens (the opposite, unfortunately, happens to me quite often). I think there may have been an out loud “YES!” at the sight of that marker.

The run finished inside Kerikeri domain. I’m not a fan of running on grass and those final 100m are always the hardest but I was super happy to see the finish line and realise that I had done it again.

we know how to celebrate in style. well, kinda.

We celebrated with hot chips and a couple of beers, sitting in the sun waiting for prize giving to start. The bus then took us back to Paihia where we spent the rest of the day lounging around the pool, eating yummy food and napping, before having one of the earliest nights ever (in bed by 8:55pm, I got a glimpse into what life as an elderly lady will be like).

On sunday morning, I woke up to a whole lot of muscle pain. I spent the day looking like a 70 year-old who had been in a coma and was now re-learning to walk. The weather was amazing, though, and after treating ourselves to some good food, we made our way back to Auckland, stopping over at one of the best beaches I’ve ever found in New Zealand, where we took time to stretch some more.

pretty beach is pretty!

All in all, this was a great half-marathon. I am pretty keen to return to Kerikeri and run the same course again. I managed to beat my time from my first half-marathon in Taupo (albeit in much different conditions this time) and I know I can do even better than I did this time. We are now in the process of choosing a half-marathon to run sometime within the first three months of 2012 (one of the four we’re planning to run next year!) and I know it will be better. Unlike this time, we’ll actually train and be prepared for it. I was definitely not fit enough to do this half-marathon this time (and my body is now reminding me of it with every movement). We didn’t follow a training plan (despite having good intentions), most of our runs were about 5km or 6km only and we ran a grand total of approximately 10km in the two weeks leading to the half. Not ideal.

I feel like it my lack of training could have easily turned this into a nightmare and put me off running for a good while but, luckily, that wasn’t the case at all. I’m super pumped about the idea of picking another half-marathon, drawing up a training plan and do a few long runs leading up to race day. Roll on 2012!


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Inspired!

After my mini-meltdown about the half-marathon last week, I’m feeling a lot more positive about things this time. It may have something to do with all the marathon excitement that populated the internet in the past few hours (with a friend finishing the marathon in Porto – his first marathon!), people I have met finishing the NYC marathon and other cool stuff like finding out that the fourth place belonged to a Portuguese lady (is she fast or what?). I mean, between the article about the couple who got married *while* running a marathon and this great read about the un-sporty turned runner, there’s a lot of running goodness out there on the interwebs right now.

I am sure it this positive vibe I’m getting is also somewhat related to the fact that, after running 6km on Saturday and feeling like crap, I ran 16km on Sunday and felt amazing. Not sure what happened there but boy was that a good run! I think that’s exactly what I needed: a good long run to put my mind at ease and remind me that, yeah, I’ve done it before so I know it’s not impossible.

On sunday morning, in spite of the cloudy (sometimes rainy) weather, S. and I headed over to St Heliers for what we thought would be a 12km (maybe 14km) run. Our goal, when we started, was to run non-stop for 45 minutes, then stretch, turn around and run another 45 minutes to where we’d started.

The temperature was just ideal and all the other runners around really added to our motivation. Once our 45 minutes were up, we decided we could keep going a bit longer and ran another 5 minutes to the port, where we sat on the grass overlooking the shipping containers and had a good stretch. Then we turned around and ran another 50 minutes back, with a total of 16km (according to her app) or 16.25km (according to mine) done. The best part? We felt great afterwards! And may I add this was a mere 30 something hours after my epic running fail when I met up with her, ran 1km (yes, one!) and had to walk home with some sort of weird stomach pain? I was glad to see that hadn’t stuck around.

The half-marathon is now less than two weeks away and I’m feeling a LOT better about it. We’re making a girls’ weekend out of it, staying at a cool hotel and heading to the street party that the town is putting on after the half-marathon too. I don’t know what I’m more excited about but the important thing is that I no longer feel like Kerikeri is the place where I am going to die. Win!

On a less positive note, I’m so far behind on NaNoWriMo it’s not even funny! I wrote about 300 words last night and felt myself hitting a bit of a dead-end in the story so decided to sit there and let it simmer for a while. Time to stop over-thinking it and get that word count up, seeing as that’s what this challenge is all about anyway.


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Emergency two-week half-marathon training plan

Oh heck, I should just accept that this is becoming a running blog, shouldn’t I? Don’t worry, regular broadcast (if there ever was one) will resume soon but, these days, running is pretty much the most important thing in my mind.

You wouldn’t think so, though, if you looked back on my running calendar and saw how little training I’ve been doing. Yes, I’ve gone for lots and lots of runs but they’ve mostly been short ones and the truth is that I haven’t really been putting much thought into the fact that OMG I’m running another half-marathon in exactly two weeks!

To be honest, at this stage, I’m not sure how (if?) I’m going to pull it off.

I was looking at my workout calendar for the past couple of months and the longest runs I could find there were a couple of 10km ones.  I think I got stuck in a “It’s only in November” state of mind and didn’t really get out of it. A couple of days ago, someone asked me when my next half-marathon was and I said “it’s only in November”. Two seconds later, the little “oh shit!” speech bubble was hovering over my head.

I now have basically one week to get ready for those 21km in Kerikeri. I also have an average of 1,666 words to write for NaNoWriMo between now and half-marathon day, as well as a four-day trip to Samoa, a concert and a couple of dinners with friends. Oh yes, and the whole full-time job thing, which means training/NaNoWriMo/social life are a no-go on weekdays until at least 5pm.

This morning, after a 6km run, I came home and drew up this emergency plan. It’s not something I’ll be able to follow 100%, I’m sure. Some days I’ll try to run more than that, others I’ll have to run less but writing this up helped me feel a little more organised.

My only hope is that the flat course and the weather will help will help (they don’t call it the Winterless North for nothing, right?). Also that adrenaline will kick in when I’m at the start line with all the other runners. But I’m not expecting to get a PR on this one.


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early morning runs rock

Today, I went for my first run since the Auckland Quarter Marathon last Sunday. The weird thing about it? I ran in the morning, before work. And no, I wasn’t on a late shift.

I jumped out of bed (and by “jumped” I mean slowly rolled out while cursing my life), got into my running gear and headed out of the house. It had to be a very quick process because I knew I was racing against my lack of willpower and laziness. It was 6:45am.

To be fair, it was only a short 5km run so it’s not like I ran a marathon, saved some children from drowning and then baked a pie before doing a full day’s work but, you know, it’s better than hitting the snooze button for half an hour while lying down regretting not having gone to bed earlier the night before.

I’m not entirely sure I’ll ever make a habit of it but it definitely proved to me that, rather than make you tired, exercising in the morning is the productivity boost you need to then be able to go to work and kick the crap out of your to do lists. It also felt pretty awesome to be running while it was getting sunnier rather than running as it starts to get dark (on weekdays, those are my only two options).

It was a good thing I unintentionally went for this morning run on the deadline day for one of the publications I write for. I had what seemed like 4 million words to write before the end of the day and they were all written.

*pause for patting self on the back*

Now I’ve got a free evening to do whatever I want without feeling guilty about not being out running! Yay! Maybe I’ll go running to celebrate. I do need another energy boost if I’m going to tackle today’s NaNoWriMo wordcount…


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How much did this run suck? Let me count the ways.

As part of the training for the Kerikeri Half-Marathon next month, S. and I ran the Adidas Quarter Marathon in Auckland this morning. I wasn’t nervous at all about it and now I realise maybe I should have been, at least a little bit. Underestimating runs is a really rookie mistake and I’ve been entering these events since January so you think I would have learnt.

Last night, I was still awake at 1am, with the alarm set to wake me up only 4h30 later. I had all my running clothes set aside and ready, something I had done earlier in the day when I was sort of stressing out about having to get up so early. “Don’t stress,” said C. at the time. “You and Stacey do this kind of distance all the time.” I didn’t stress. There was no carb loading, no early bed time, nothing. And there should have been.

At 6:20, S. started ringing me. Still very much asleep, I wasn’t really sure at first why she was ringing me and it took me a few seconds to actually realise that OMFG we’re supposed to be at the start line before 6:45am! I raced to her house and from there, we got on her scooter and raced down to Victoria Park, near where the start line was meant to be. I was still putting my time chip in my shoe and S. was just coming back from the bag drop off area when we heard the run starting. We could see the start line in the distance and there was a fence between us and the rest of the runners. The security guards pointed us in the right direction to get around the fence and we started running right then but were still pretty much the last people to cross the start line, behind all the walkers.

Luckily, dodging the walkers wasn’t nearly as hard as I expected (certainly much easier than it had been around the same spot for Round the Bays, last March). About 1km in, I remembered that, in the mad rush to make it down there in time, I’d forgotten the very first thing I’ve been doing for the past 27 years as soon as I roll out of bed in the morning: going to the bathroom! I didn’t want to make any toilet stops and get stuck behind walkers again so I just focused on trying not to think about how much I needed it. Except focusing on not thinking about it makes you think about it even more. Small glitch in the plan.

I also decided to take my hydration pack for its first run, thinking it would be good training to take it to the half-marathon next month. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t adjust the straps properly or what else it was, but I ended up with burn marks on my shoulders from the straps rubbing on the skin with each step I took. Not fun. Now I’m considering not taking a hydration pack on the half-marathon but I guess I’ll make a final decision after taking it n a couple more outings.

Luckily, the course was flat and we felt good for most of it (other than some soreness, probably due to not having had time to warm up, and my desperate need for a toilet). As we crossed the finish line, I pretty much begged the lady who was handing out bananas to point me to the nearest toilet. At least running and hiking are forcing me to get over my mental block against public toilets.

(What’s that? Enough with the toilet talk, you say? Fine.)

After finishing the run, we realised the scooter had been towed and we had to walk all the way to where the mean people had taken it. More sunday-morning-run-related suckiness, of course.

I guess, looking on the bright side, we had a good run, managed to make up for starting so far behind, finished on a decent time and didn’t get injured. This is how I’ll probably remember it in a couple of days time. Except I’m writing this blog post now and not in a couple of days time and, right now, it sucked arse.

Time to go back to bed.

P.s.: Confused by the different times in the screenshot above? The explanation is here. Basically, net time is how long it actually took me to go from the start to the finish line. The official time is the time that it took me to cross the finish line from the moment the run started (back when I was still putting the chip in my shoe).


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running randoms

  • My friend and running buddy Stacey wrote a really good article about why we run for the magazine she edits. She speaks the truth, that one, especially when she says stuff like “we have stopped running so we can eat bad, and started eating right so we can run well”. Except I haven’t reaaaaally started eating as healthily as I should be doing… yet.
  • When I was in Singapore last week, I discovered yet another reason why running is awesome: if you’re in a new place for a really short period of time, it’s the perfect way to get some sightseeing done (especially if you combine running with jetlag and lace up your shoes when half the city is still asleep!).
  • There needs to be some sort of global campaign to make people realise running on a treadmill and running outside are not the same thing.
  • It makes me very happy that both my homes, New Zealand and Portugal, use the metric system. Saying 6 miles instead of 10km doesn’t sound nearly as impressive.
  • Rockmyrun.com, I did not know you existed. Finding you today made me happy.
  • Only 23 days until the next half marathon.


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saturday

   

I woke up later than I wanted to and with a stupid headache that felt like a hangover. Except I only had one glass of wine on friday, after pretty much crashing a wine tasting at work (don’t judge, you would have done the same) so it couldn’t have been a hangover. Anyway, I tried to nurse the headache with coffee and crumpets, pretty much one of the best breakfast combos ever. It only sort of worked but I felt like I needed to go for a run. The weather was nice outside, for a change, and the next half marathon is only 34 days away (!).

   

Apple has updated the software for the ipod nano and now I get to have the Nike+ integration without having to add any extra gadgets to my running shoes. With that new software, I get to tell the little app how far I want to run (or for how long) and it then tells me how I’m doing. I’ve been using it for a week now and I’m still not sure whether it is amazing or stupidly unhelpful but it’s definitely one of those. On one hand, I like being able to track how I’m doing during the run but, on the other hand, the voice always tells me how far I’ve gone just at that very moment when I’m about to get my mind off the running (which is when it supposedly gets easier).

I told it that I was going to run 10km and set off on my run. I decided to take my camera along because the weather was nice and, since I wasn’t feeling 100%, I wanted an excuse to take it slow. By the time the app lady interrupted Feist to tell me I’d reached 3km, I was already thirsty and feeling my body overheating. It was all downhill from there and, unfortunately, I’m not talking about the terrain.

I kept thinking to myself “what an idiot, you remember to bring your camera but not your water bottle. you retard!”. I had to alternate between running and walking a couple of times which really sucked because I’ve been trying to get better times when I run. At the 8km mark, I decided it was time to stop. I’m meeting my running partner tomorrow for what is supposed to be our “long run” for the weekend so used that as an excuse to drag my sorry self back home.

Lessons learnt today: always take your water bottle/ hydration pack, especially if the weather’s warmer. Don’t tell Nike+ you’re going to do something and then give up. Might as well set the bar a bit lower instead of having to see on your profile that you chose the 10k workout but only logged 8km.

   

Well, at least there were daisies.