Return to the Colonies

I awoke at 4am to this. I wasn't going to say no.

Fourteen weeks to go (ish) and I'm just back from a two-week trip to the motherland to see the family, eat my own bodyweight in cheese and attempt to run around the Scottish and English countrysides. Due to the former two objectives the latter was not done as much as I'd have liked, but I did manage to get out a few times (waking up at 4am due to jetlag gives you a lot of time for a dawn run) in between horrible weather.

I also managed to get in some good cycles with my parents. My dad has become something of a cycling fanatic (apparently there's an acronym for this: MAMILs- middle aged men in lycra) and is training for his second sportive in the autumn, something that's quite inspirational in and of itself. He was really keen for us to get out on the road and we managed it twice. Once on the Orkney islands of Rousay and Wyre (though Wyre is about a km across so not really that big a trek), and my last full day was spent cycling round the Isle of Bute in the firth of Clyde.

I'd forgotten just how nice cycling can be, easily done in a city where cyclists are seen as at best a nuisance and at worst roadkill in potentia. It was great fun seeing descents as an extreme sport rather than a new torture device for knees, and whilst I wasn't able to keep pace with the old man on the big ascents (apparently running doesn't build up the right muscles) I had a fantastic time and got the muscles firing! Giving serious consideration to buying myself a road bike, as my mountain bike is about a decade old now and the frame doesn't actually fit me all that well. It's a fair few hundred dollars to find for that though, so bears more consideration. Would be useful for doing some more triathlons though, something that's definitely on the agenda post-marathon.

It is possible to take a photo of oneself
on the move with an ipod!

 So, after all the cheese and the goodbyes and a 40 HOUR trip home to the colonies, a journey that left me so dazed that when I got off the airport shuttle to get a taxi a passerby stopped to ask if I spoke English and needed assistance, it's time to get into training proper. The marathon is now 101 days away, and I have a lot of work to do! Today was a pace run, so I decided to mix it up a bit and run to and up Mount Eden, one of the largest of Auckland's myriad volcanic cones. It seemed like a good way to get back into my training program and would offer some visual reward at the top.

It's pretty much a straight uphill from my house to the base, so I was feeling it by the time I got to the one way road that takes the lazy/less insane to the top. I blindly followed a (much fitter) runner up what turned out to be the steeper of the two options, and it left me wanting to throw up about two thirds of the way up. Dear reader, I confess to walking at a couple of points. I'm not proud, and I'll try to ensure it won't happen again. Happily, the view from the summit was absolutely breathtaking (not that I had much breath to take by that point), and I think the mount will feature a lot in future pace/resistance runs in future. Happily, I recovered from the ascent quickly enough that I decided to tiki tour my way home and ended up padding through some lovely bird-infested suburbs and heard some tuis for the first time in ages, well worth it!

Unfortunately, my wonderful and expensive running shoes are rubbing some small but vicious blisters on the arches of my feet. Due to my holiday, I'm outside the returns policy timeframe, but I'm hoping they can suggest some way of stopping that from happening. I actually cut my run short today and hobbled the final couple of k as it was so painful, which was disappointing. My trail shoes seem OK though, just as well as I'm signed up for the XTERRA off-road race this Sunday. 12k of mud, trails and fun (or so they tell me).

Current warm-up events are:

22 July: XTerra (12km)
28 July: Glen Eden Ten Miler
1 September: Whangamata Half marathon
16 September: Whangarei Half marathon
07 October: New Plymouth Half marathon (maybe)
28 October: MARATHON

I'm sure I'll be adding to this as I go, I do enjoy running in actual events as a way of keeping myself motivated and it's a good way of measuring my progress.Now that I'm back from my holiday it's all focused on the marathon and being ready for it. I should be running 16+ k by now and I'm behind. Not all my fault, a knee problem just before I flew out meant I needed to cut back on my training (and the physio agreed) and it does seem to have healed, but I'm still not getting the mileage in I need. From the top of Mt Eden I could see almost the entire marathon course and it looks like a hell of a long way!

Arran from the Isle of Bute. If only Scotland looked like this more often....