Worst Blog Ever

We're starting to get down to the wire here.

We've got just a little over a week's worth of training until we head out to Sydney, and with race day looming ever closer, we want to ensure that we follow the training regiment as closely as possible. That being said...I'm getting frigging tired!

Our mileage is constantly adding up, and our days off are becoming less frequent. As such, even the shorter runs like today's 8 KM, are feeling tiring.

We've got a 7 KM run tomorrow after work, and I'm just so happy that it is only 7 KM. I wish we had the day off, but that won't be happening. Luckily we've got Wednesday off to go to a lecture.

Less than two weeks until we leave for Sydney! Which means less than two weeks left of training.

Kristie and I are not going to be breaking any land speed records, but we are looking forward to the half-marathon in Sydney, if only for the scenery!

Starting something new

I've created a template in GIMP that will allow me to swap out our running data images from Nike+ along with the photo of Kristie and I from that day's run.  It's nothing fancy, but I think it will work!

Yesterday Kristie and I did a pre-half-marathon run. We ran the full 21.1 KM just to see if we could do it. We did the entire run in about two hours and six minutes, but the run was not without incident.

First of all, I wasn't feeling it from the very start. My calves were tight, my energy level was low, but I was determined to run the whole course anyway. Kristie had pointed out that if I can run the whole course while feeling less than 100%, then I should do well on race day.

We were doing pretty well all the way to the half way point, and were still doing well for about a quarter of the way back, but then we got the point where we headed north, and BAM! We go hit with winds of about 70 KM/H!  This continued for about 4 KM of the run too! And the further you got, the heavier the winds got.

This is not uncommon at all here in Wellington. The Point, which is the part of the harbour where the wind hits you, is well known for fierce winds. As a matter of fact, there was a story of a shopkeeper who rescued a man that was blown into the harbour due to the winds yesterday!

As we neared the end, where we would reach the point and then turn west, I was absolutely exhausted! I would look down at my feet while I was running and think:

"I'm barely moving!  My feet are very slowly moving forward, but I am making virtually no headway!"

And by the time we finally did reach the point, we were absolutely livid. Our exhaustion was transmuting into rage.  To illustrate this, we saw that a couple of runners were coming towards us (being pushed by the wind); they looked as if they saw us, saw how hard we were working just to slowly move forward, and then said to themselves:

"We should turn around now."

Well, holy cow, did that piss me off. I was swearing under my breath at them, calling them wimps, etc. In my mind, they did it just to rub it in our faces!

Anyway, after we rounded the point, the wind finally let up and we had about another 3.8 KM to go. Needless to say, we had no delusions of grandeur to finish the course in under two hours. We simply wanted to finish it with the little bit of dignity we had left...which wasn't much.

We're hoping that on race day, the wind will take pity on us and realize that we had already paid our dues. However, it will be more likely that the wind will combine forces with its friends cold and rain, and attack us simultaneously.

So we're down to the final month before the 1/2 marathon, and the run distances are increasing significantly.  Over the past little while, our weekday runs were only about 4-7 KM depending on the day/week. Now, we pretty much don't have any weekday runs under 8 KM.

It would have been a bit of an easier transition if it weren't for the injury that I had a while back, as we lost about two weeks of running. But hey, what are you going to do.

My friend Daniel has a daughter who runs ultra marathons. She's off to Poland soon to compete against some of the best ultra marathoners in the world and he was telling me that she has a daily training routine of about 3.5 hours of running! 3.5 hours of running each day! Holy crap! Talk about making someone feel inadequate...

I figure if she can run 3.5 hours each day, I can manage a few long runs here and there.

Tomorrow's run is a long one (for us) at 16 KM.  But we're feeling pretty confident that we should complete it without too much trouble. We've done a bit longer before, but only once. The next week's runs are around: 8KM, 10KM, 6KM, 11KM and 13KM.