It’s been 6 weeks since I made the decision to enter the Tarawera 50km Ultramarathon, so how are things going? Pretty well, thanks for asking. Well, so far anyway.
This first 15 weeks is all about getting my body able to survive the ‘real’ work later in the year. Which basically boils down to lose weight and build some strength, especially in the mid section. As I said in my last post this means a change in diet and giving up one love I knew about, craft beer, and one I didn’t, bread.
I though the beer would have been harder to quit to start with, but that was easy compared to staying off it. Two weeks ago George and I headed down to the Xterra Rotorua Festival, and man, a beer would have been great with the post race steak. Plus in two weeks I’m off to Frankfurt, where work is a finalist at the Future Textiles Awards, and I think we all know that there will be a lot of pub based “networking”. But mercifully this has meant I’m spared the temptation of Dales beer garden themed 40th, with me being between Hong Kong and Auckland at the time.
And bread? It’s freaking everywhere, it makes up my favourite foods.
But it’s not all doom and gloom, as the cut back and getting good runs in each week has meant that I’ve lost 5.5kg.
Over the past six weeks George and Amber (5yrs) have run the Coatesville Classic (8km and 2km kids), and the Whenupai Half Marathon (6km and 2km). Amber looks to have taken to running, even coming second at Whenuapai. George also posted respectable times, especially as she doesn’t train for running. So I was left feeling super proud of my girls efforts.
In order to get my runs in, I chose to run home after these events. This was something I would never thought I would do; Coatesville or Whenupai to Glenfield? You’re nuts. But as it turns out they were a nice 18ish kms, with a few urban aid stations (dairies and servos) to help along the way.
As I said above, George and I ditched the kids and took the weekend to ourselves to attend the Xterra Rotorua Festival. While I had entered the half marathon, I changed to the 11km to save George the long wait for me to get back. Changing did mean it was the first time I had run the same course twice, giving me a chance to see how much I’d improved over the last 12 months. Happily I was able to beat my last time by 8 mins, thus earning my no beer.
With the Waitomo event and it’s 35km next weekend, a nice big run was needed last weekend. Watching this years Hillary event video showed me exactly where I needed to go – Karekare to Whatipu along the Hillary trail.
A couple of wee cyclones passing through certainly made it touch and go, but in the end an awesome turn out of 17 enjoyed the day out. With some hard honest climbs and amazing views, it is an awesome section of the Hillary. Well almost all 17; speedster Dirk suffered a bad ankle sprain, and Kunal stepping off submerged board walk and going for a swim with his camera.
So now it’s the Waitomo super long this coming weekend. Should be fun, only 35km.
The Rare Kiwi Trail Snail 
An 8 minute PB over 11km is pretty huge, 43 seconds FASTER per kilometre! Nice work on the no-beersies too 🙂
LikeLike