Run for Christchurch

I'll be running in Red and Black on the 12th.

http://www.fundraiseonline.co.nz/run4chch/

As you may know, New Zealand's second largest city, Christchurch, was devastated by a 6.3 earthquake at lunchtime on Tuesday 22 February 2011. There have been over 100 fatalities and many are still missing.

Kiwis out of Christchurch and people around the world want to know how they can help, and the answer's short. With money. But we all want to feel like we're doing more than just typing our credit card numbers into a box and clicking submit. So we thought we'd go for a run. Wearing red and black, to show the people of Canterbury we love them. And we'd like you to join us for a virtual run. Wherever you are.

We're hoping to get 100 runners, so please share this with everyone you know!

I'm back

I've been meaning to blog for weeks.  But everytime I log on my PC I get distracted and forget.

I haven't given up running.  I spent August and September overcoming my hip injury - and fighting the cold dark weather.  I did end up hiring a treadmill for 6 weeks, I can't say I love running on a treadmill, but it did at least keep me putting one foot in front of the other.  

Over the past month, I've started to get back in to my regular routine of three runs a week.  I found it rather difficult to start off with, but then I remembered C25K.  I resorted to my trusty podcasts and started back on week 5 last month.  It didn't take long and now I'm back comfortably jogging 30 minutes, and I can manage a 5k in a decent, albeit still rather slow, time.

Although I feel like I didn't do much over the winter, I am grateful for the Nike+ (and the fellow c25k challengers).  I can look at my graphs in the past few months and see that I was still reasonably regular with at least getting on the treadmill or out the door and running a couple of km's.

I'm only 2km off making the Green level on the Nike website, and rather excited to see the end of all that orange!  Maybe tomorrow, but the weather report isn't looking that great - warm and rainy.  But I'll get out there at some point this weekend.

Getting the motivation back

My days off work have been great.  I think I needed a break away from work, and just some relaxation.  Not that I had any sleep in's, I was up again this morning before 6.30am and went out for a short jog.

I'm feeling a lot better about things - I think I'll still have to fight my way through the next few weeks of winter though.  My hip is a bit sore this evening, and I've noticed niggling pain during my runs.  I am pretty sure it is related to my unexpected slide across the back deck a couple of weeks ago (ended up with me doing the splits and hitting the deck hard).  I forget that if there is a heavy frost the deck freezes over.

So I'll just get out there and run as long as I feel I can - maybe I'll work out some interval running or something.  I'm looking forward to getting outside and running tomorrow morning...if it's not pouring with rain.

I need to just decide that if the weather doesn't let me get outside I have to get on the exercise bike instead - not just stay in bed.  I'm looking into hiring a decent treadmill for a few weeks too.

Running off the birthday cake

So I survived another birthday yesterday.  And even managed to get myself up and out for a nice easy 4km jog.  I was lucky I got myself out of bed before 7am, as it started raining about 7.30am and continued steadily all day.  I have another day off tomorrow, but not sure if I'll run - I've got a few aches and pains so I'll take Daves advice - I should dust off the stationary bike that is sitting taunting me from the corner of the living room.

I think I just need to find a new winter exercise routine.  Maybe mix it up a bit, a few days on the exercise bike, at least one or two runs and some yoga should do it.  And I need to restart the 100 push ups program too.  I'm a little disappointed with myself for not getting back into it after my holiday to Aussie.

Now on to more fun things - my uber-geeky birthday cake.  I mentioned that I'd never had a Star Wars themed cake as a child (my mum did do some neat cakes, but never a Star Wars cake) and it was decided that you're never too old to have a Han Solo frozen in Carbonite birthday cake.  I didn't have to do the boring bits (bake the cake or make the buttercream and frosting) but was responsible for creative direction and sculpting.  It was the first time either of us had attempted fondant icing, or anything this "creative" for a cake.  And after all the work I was rather impressed with our efforts. 

The cake itself was one of my mum's recipes for Chocolate cake - I wanted a chocolate/orange flavour, so we substituted orange essence for the vanilla the recipe asked for.  It's a really nice moist dark chocolatey cake - I don't know if it's because it's made using buttermilk, but it tastes REALLY good.  The buttercream filling (and layer of "crumb coat" under the fondant) was orange flavoured, and a very bright orange colour.  The fondant was a recipe I found on the internet for Marshmallow Fondant, it doesn't taste too bad, but it's a bit sugary, but that might be because I used a budget bag of marshmallows.  Next time I'd splash out and buy Pascals instead of Home Brand.

Winter

So winter has well and truly started.  It's dark, cold and pretty wet.  It makes it very difficult to get out of bed at 5am to run on the weekdays.  I've been running sporadically over the past couple of weeks.  I'm still keen to get out there but I was suffering a bit of SAAD this week and just wanted to get a few more hours sleep.

It didn't help having a couple of nights of broken sleep, getting up to watch NZ play in the football world cup. 

I made up for a couple of low mileage weeks with an epic 1 hour 40 minute run this morning...just over 12km.  New time/distance record.  I was pretty slow, but mentally I felt good.  It was nice to wake up early - it was 5C, so not too cold, and I could see that it was a clear morning.  The sun came up as I ran the streets and it was a lovely clear sunny morning.  Not even a frost. 

I really should have stopped at 9km, but I was so close to 10km.  Then I hit 10km and I was just under 2km from home.  So instead of walking, I ran.  Or rather stumbled, rather slowly.  Had to run past the house to hit 12km - then had a short 500m walk back to the house.  Oh, my legs - I was doing a very good impression of a ultra-distance runner and that wobbly walk once they cross the line.  For me 12km is ultra-distance running!  For now, anyway.

Since it was Saturday, I did have to get out of the house by mid-morning and run some errands.  So more walking...sore feet and all.  But it was better than sitting for too long - think I would have seized up.

Over all, I'm a litte sore, but very pleased with myself.  Hoping to get out for a short walk tomorrow and then the usual weekday runs.  But the weather doesn't look like it will cooperate :(

Another week down

Just under 9km this week, that is about normal.  Just over 3km on Tuesday and then I ran a 5k on Thursday - new PB, finally cracked the 35 minute mark.   Average pace 6'53"/km.

Not sure what the weekend has in store for me yet.  Possibly have to work for a few minutes early tomorrow, checking servers, but it's one of those pain in the behind tasks that I'm not sure when it will be and how long it will take.  Argh.  At least I shouldn't have to go in to the office anyway.

The weather looks like it will be pretty rubbish - and I doubt I'll be braving squally thundery showers.

The first Manawatu Striders winter series run is on Sunday morning.  I was thinking of running it, but now some friends are keen on walking it the 5k so I'll probably go along with them and walk it instead.  Still not sold on the 'race' thing.  But we're not keen on walking in the rain, so I doubt any of us will get out of bed early Sunday morning if it is raining.

The first couple of weeks of winter have been a rude awakening - we'd had such a mild autumn that the cold wind, rain and low temperatures are making us all head inside and eat high calorie food.

The nike sportband has been working pretty well - it's not as good at tracking as a garmin with GPS would be, but I use my phone GPS at the same time and it is accurate enough.  I like the website, the goals and challenges.  The c25k June challenge is going pretty well for my team...team Ninja in front at the moment :)    And my run graph is looking pretty good - it's nice to see the slow upping of the mileage as time goes along.  You can see the 10km run last Saturday standing out from the rest...

Queens Birthday Weekend

The 10k took a little more out of my legs than I thought - I hadn't felt any ill effects through the day on Saturday.  Yesterday was a different story - I spent about 4 hours in the car and by the time I got home I was certainly feeling every km I'd run. 
I didn't get out for the recovery run I'd hoped for, as the weather was pretty awful when I woke up.  Heavy rain and wind, so I wasn't going to brave that.  Then I woke up a bit sore again today, just went out for a short 2km walk to stretch the legs and get some fresh air, but it wasn't very nice out - not cold, but really windy.
I'm really off the wagon with the healthy eating - stopped at the dairy for a bar of chocolate on the walk...eek, I really need to stop giving Whittakers all my money.  It's just harder when it's so cold and miserable outside.

Tomorrow is another day, it's my usual scheduled running day.  I think I'll just take it slow and run/walk 3km or so.  Hope the rain doesn't ruin my plans.  As long as it's not heavy rain I'll get out there I think.