20km before breakfast

I got up bright and early on Sunday morning for my long run.  I’m in week 04 of Hal Higdon’s intermediate 1 training program and this week I needed to do an 11 miler for my long run. 11 miles is about 18 km for those of us who use the metric system.  I did all my other runs on the treadmill this week as I’ve just been incredibly busy at work and home and haven’t really had the extra few minutes to go run outside.

It was very cold for the first third or so of my run as the sun hadn’t come up yet.  The clear skies we had had overnight also meant that there was a lot of frost.  This was the view in Cornwall park:

There are no streetlamps in the park so it was rather dark!  While I was running through the park the sun did start to come up and I could see that all the fields were white with frost.  I was just too cold to stop to take a photo!

I then ran on towards the Auckland Domain and what do you know?  There was an event on!  The Sri Chinmoy half marathon was being run.  If I had known I could have gone and done that instead!  It was quite funny running against the flow of the race:

I then ran around the shoreline towards home and on the way I saw a sign saying nature walk or something like that so I headed down it.  I’ve run past it many a time and not really noticed it before.  It was pretty nice:

Here’s the view out towards the Orakei Basin:

You really don’t get much better surrounds for a run than that!

Overall I did a bit more (20km instead of 18km) than I was supposed to but it was such a beautiful run that I’m not going to complain:

I’ve found a new running podcast to listen to:  4 Feet Running by Nik & Dan so I listened to a couple of episodes of theirs during my run.  I also caught up with the latest episode of Pheddipidations.  I have to admit I do love listening to the podcasts while running.  If you’ve never tried it you should give it a go.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Comments

14 Responses to “20km before breakfast”

  1. AaronNo Gravatar on July 27th, 2009 9:28 am

    Yes it is a bit weird crashing a race unexpectedly. Good weather to go running this weekend just gone.
    .-= Aaron´s last blog ..Week 4/18 Weekend =-.

  2. Chubby ChickNo Gravatar on July 27th, 2009 9:31 am

    Sounds… and looks… like you had a great run! Good for you! :)

  3. Greg at Live FitNo Gravatar on July 27th, 2009 9:53 am

    Love the shot of the basin. You’re right about the irony, too. I’ll be the race participants were chuckling about the situation as well.

    Looks like a good day to run though.
    .-= Greg at Live Fit´s last blog ..Understanding My Daily Calorie Distribution =-.
    Twitter:

  4. WilliamNo Gravatar on July 27th, 2009 11:50 am

    Looks like a great run! I have a question for you, for the longer runs how do you carry your water with you?
    .-= William´s last blog ..How my running is going (Week 7 update) =-.

  5. AnnalisaNo Gravatar on July 27th, 2009 12:17 pm

    20k! I’m doing extremely well with my 6k, thank you very much. Give me a year…

    I also have questions of what do you carry – ipod on your arm I’m guessing? Water bottle? Do you stop and stretch? Jacket for the first part, or just freeze until the sun comes up (as I’ve been doing)? I know, I am in Brisbane, and I shouldn’t complain but it does get cold before the sun rises. Anyway, just curious.

    Oh yeah, one more – How do you take photo’s? Camera phone? Probably not because those are good quality. I’d love to be able to take pics, but can’t imagine carrying the camera!
    .-= Annalisa´s last blog ..Becoming more efficient =-.

  6. BruceNo Gravatar on July 27th, 2009 9:06 pm

    It was a beautiful morning for a run. Looking at that program you have plenty more long runs to come over the next few months. While everyone is in the mood to ask questions – do you do any cross training / strength work?
    .-= Bruce´s last blog ..Time to stretch and strengthen =-.

  7. TedNo Gravatar on July 27th, 2009 11:20 pm

    Man, that’s it. I am packing up my suitcase for New Zealand right now. *wishful thinking* I do feel a chill in the air just looking at the pictures. It is HOT and HUMID here. I cannot wait for the “fall” temperature in about 10 more weeks.
    Like you, I love listening to podcast like Phed- show. I would suggest you to listen to Brandon’s Marathon, too. I tend to listen to running podcast while I am commuting.

    Now, stop taking those beautiful pictures! *wink*
    .-= Ted´s last blog ..Lost of Mind! =-.
    Twitter:

  8. VavaNo Gravatar on July 28th, 2009 2:56 am

    Sounds like a great long run! I’ve never listened to podcasts while running, and for as long as I can remember I don’t bring any music with me on my runs either. I just find the extra gear too much to deal with and simply don’t have the energy to prepare a list of songs or the like in anticipation of my run. Perhaps I will give it a try sometime in the future, but for now it’s enough just to be running. Glad to hear you are running well and on a plan towards a second marathon!
    .-= Vava´s last blog ..A Wet Weekend, and a Run =-.

  9. David H.No Gravatar on July 28th, 2009 1:37 pm

    Thanks for using the “mileage.” We here in the U.S. never learned how to figure out the conversion of kilometers to miles, except for 5k and 10k. :-)
    Twitter:

  10. Losing 50 poundsNo Gravatar on July 28th, 2009 4:09 pm

    I think running is a good exercise for losing weight.
    .-= Losing 50 pounds´s last blog ..Lose weight wrong way can put you in bad mood. =-.

  11. KateNo Gravatar on July 28th, 2009 4:25 pm

    Sadly, I can’t see your pics at work, but what a great weekend we had!

  12. AndrewNo Gravatar on July 28th, 2009 9:15 pm

    I’ll have to give that one a go. Thanks for the recommendation.
    Twitter:

  13. The Digital Weight Loss & Fitness Weekly Roundup – August 3, 2009 | Digital Weight Loss on August 4th, 2009 2:00 am

    [...] 20-K before breakfast [...]

  14. Scuba DivingNo Gravatar on February 5th, 2010 4:12 am

    Great Info. I add this post to my bookmarks.

  • RoadID

  • A message from my sponsors:

    Read reviews about Apidexin online before you buy.