Running and all that

Well it's over. The Adidas Half Marathon that is.

I had been training for that event since June. I believe that I had adopted a sensible graduated approach to my training, but strange things happen. For instance, when I started, I had a really sore right ankle joint and the left knee was a bit dodgy. You would have thought running would have made these things worse. In fact, the opposite appears to have happened, they are ok and other things have come to take their place.

About a month ago I managed to run 21k more or less continuously. Just to prove I could do it twice, I tried again the following weekend. I only managed 13K-due to some ligament that runs from the knee to the top of the leg complaining bitterly.

Just to be clever (?) I decided to buy a new pair of running shoes the day before the race. I checked them out by running around the block in them. Great! Like running on air compared to the old ones, which were just sneakers.

Race day. Up at 3.45am to get the ferry across to Devenport, for a 6.45am start. Met up with the other NZSugar runners Steve, Anthony, Kevin, Lynn and Graeme. This is a seven thousand person event, and I was sanwiched somewhere in the middle. The first K was good, great pace, then whatever kicked in and hordes of people started passing me.

At about 8k I realised the obvious:you should not wear new running shoes on a long run. The muscles in my feet started complaining, and did not finish till the finish line. It was a process of run/walk/run.

I made my goal, which was to get to the start of the harbour bridge before 8.45am-that's when they were going to close it and any slow ones would get put on a bus.

It was walking fron there on. It was quite worrying:being passed by older and sometimes heavier persons than myself, who seemed to have a tremendous walking speed. Just after the bridge I was passed by Patrick, who had walked the whole race. Still, he is 6'3" and weighs in around 76kg and has long legs.

At the finish, I threw down a hot dog and beer and sat down in the kids playing area to wait for Rose, my wife to come and pick me up. She did wait, but at the children's kindergarten 100m up the road. In the end, tired of her not showing up, I got a taxi, but just as we went past the Franklin Rd supermarket, I spied Rose just driving out. A frantic stop and much arm waving sorted us all out.

The rest of the day was spent in recovery on the couch. Maybe I can have my life back now, please?

Blackbirds

I'm not sure how prevalant blackbirds are throughout the world, but here in New Zealand, we have plenty. We even have a native version called the Tui (This is a native Maori name).
He looks just like a large blackbird, with a small tuft of white feathers on his neck front.

Why am I talking about blackbirds? Well, to the 2 people who read this blog, I hope to get them thinking about these great birds. Great? Maybe it is just a personal preference: The other birds just don't seem to have that special something blackbirds have.

These are quite well worth noticing: the more you look, the more you appreciate them.
For instance, the song-20 seconds or so of tweet-tweet then it stops for a while, then starts up again. But notice that the songs are never the same! It is almost as if he is thinking of the next bit, before he sings it. I understand the deep black ones are male the slightly greyer ones are female.

It's spring time here, and I've noticed these little guys indulging in risky behaviour- flying out in front of cars (mine) seems to be a favourite.

On my run the other day, I noticed one take off and fly under a tree and through a gap in a fence. Which makes me wonder: when was the last time I ever noticed a blackbird get a flight wrong? Answer: none.

It seems some are more tame than others-I'm not sure why. In our area they will let you get within about 5 metres then they are off. In Mt Eden, another suburb of Auckland, I was within 2 metres.

When the heat of summer does get here, I notice they make themselves scarce. I presume they go to the bush area that we have close by-it makes sense because there is shelter from the hot sun and there is a creek nearby to drink from.

I'm 63!

Happy Birthday me! This birthday has been a bit strange as for the last 9 months or so I have thought of my age as 63. Not 62 as actual.

I have just partaken (not competed as such, although it was a competition) in the Auckland Badminton Assn's Masters/Vets Tournament. Any dreams of glory in the singles were quickly eliminated by my first game. There were only 6 entries in the over 55 open age group, but a few of these seemed to be operating at the B grade level. (I'm officially a D). Which made it rather tough for me, but I did try.

The doubles were equally disasterous. At the end, I was a little bit stuffed to put it mildly.
This is a day later and I am only just getting back to normal, just need a new ankle and knee, then I'll be fine.

I did have this silly idea that the running 4.5km on Mon/Wed/Fri and 10km on Sundays would make me Mr Fit. Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be holding true as my badminton seems on a downward spiral. Time to give it up?

I have booked myself in with a badminton coach, something I've always wanted to do.

The funny part is that if I take it easy on my 4.5km run (ie about 50mins), I get back feeling fine and ok for energy. If I try to do the same trip in 40mins the result is a near heart attack at the end of the run. So I'm going to take it a bit easy.

We had a running guru come to work and tell us how to run. Unfortunately I only got 15mins of his presentation, but he was saying interesting things like: You have to stress your body, but just as importantly, give it time to recover. You also have to build up your training in waves, not just in a straight line graph. Apparently he has seen many such people as me training for a half marathon, who with incorrect training, end up injuring themselves. Not a good outlook if I keep up the present course.

Running

It is winter here in NZ and I have put away my bike for the winter. I just cannot face the cold, not to mention the almost continuous rain here in Auckland at this time of year. Maybe I am exagerrating a bit about the "continuous". About 3 months ago, one of the keen ones at work got some of us to commit to doing a half marathon on Nov 1st. My only running was during badminton, so apart from my walking, it appeared that I needed to get going, gradually.

My last try at jogging was in 1978, but this coincided with a slipped disc, so "certain people" decided I should give up the jogging. Hence the bike riding, which leaves a winter gap, so I always arrive at the start of summer at a low level of fitness.

The place where I work provides a free gym on the premises, so for the last 3 weeks I have done 20 minutes on the cross trainer and 1.5km on the running machine. The last few times I have upped the running part to 2.5km.

Just stir things up, today I ran on the road about 4.3km and nothing got broken. Not at a fast pace though!

Halfway through, it started to rain, but it was not cold, and seemed almost enjoyable.

The phot at the top shows where I ran to.

On the other side of Christmas

My tomatoes are looking a bit wonky-I have been watering them, but I have an idea that I should have sprayed them with something.

All this gardening stuff brings home just how much land is needed for each of us to be fed.

Oakley Creek

I'm on holiday...not that it feels like a proper one, as I cannot afford to go away.

I suppose we could have gone camping, but we thought we would have one at home, and go out for lunch ocassionaly.

I've been cycling to St Heliers and back every other day, but the weight refuses to budge.

We do a walk along Oakley creek sometimes, check out the photos. Hard to believe there is such a large waterfall in suburban Auckland, about 200m from a road that carries about 20,000

cars per day!

They were going to put the motorway through all this, but the plan now is to put it underground.

Back to work on Monday 19th Jan. Ouch.