My little girl slept through for 5 nights this week which is a personal best. Unfortunately a spider crawled across her ceiling and needless to say we’ve been woken up every hour or two to do a spider check. As such, my wife and I were both cursing when my alarm went off at 5am this morning. However, once we got out the door the conditions were so beautiful that the night time troubles were easily forgotten.

My training plan called for 17 miles (27.3 km) and hers called for 18 km (11 miles).

We started off by running inland towards One Tree Hill. It was rather bracing as there was still frost on the ground. There were many sheep with lambs about and it was a rather nice scene. I took this photo earlier in the week. The photos I took this morning didn’t come out that well as there wasn’t enough light.

We then headed down to the coast where my wife planned on peeling off and heading home while I continued on.  However, she was feeling really good so decided to stick with me for a bit and do an extra two kilometers.  This is her running ahead of me this morning:

Today was her record distance as she did 20 km in just over 2:10 minutes.  I’m very proud of her and it’s been great being able to run with her.

I pushed on and continued running down to just past Kohimarama.  I bumped into Aaron who was out doing his run and looking rather fighting fit.  You can tell marathon season is approaching in Auckland as there were a great many runners out and about.  It’s quite nice seeing everyone out running to be honest.  I always sense a great air of cameraderie although it may all be in my imagination!

Here is today’s map:

I ended up doing 28 km in 2:59:52 which is rather slow but it was very enjoyable and at the end of the day that is what it is all about.  My average heart rate was 135 which goes to show that I could have pushed the pace a bit more. 

I’ve been having a real good streak with my running lately.  I’ve just been enjoying the runs and its been no trouble getting out the door.  The weather in Auckland has been cooperating as well as the conditions have been absolutely stunning.

That’s the end of week 10 of training.  I did 70.2 km this week whichi is close to 44 miles.  I think I’ll be doing even more next week!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Marathon Training, running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.