A windy run, a milestone & a fan

My wife and I have the Adra Half Marathon coming up this Sunday so we wanted to get a nice easy 12km in yesterday morning.  Our babysitter (Grandma) needed to be out by 8am so we left at 6 so that we would have a good buffer.

Unfortunately it was very windy and so running was quite tough at times.  I kept thinking that it was funny that I could run a marathon but still struggle on a 12ker!

There were very few other runners out on Tamaki Drive (unlike just before the Marathon!) but we did meet one older gentleman who ran with us for a few km.  He managed to impress me greatly when he casually mentioned that he’d recently run his 106th marathon!

The highlight of my run had to be hitting 1000 miles for the year.  I think 1000 miles is a decent total myself.

Today I nipped down to Borders to buy a book during lunchtime today and a friendly lady jumped out and said “You won’t know me at all but I read your blog!”  Funnily enough, I think I do know her.  My long suffering wife immediately commented on how the highlight of the day was no longer lunch with the wife but rather recognition from a fan.  I say long suffering wife as she is used to lots of people coming up to me and saying hello.  I’m not famous or anything but I do teach at stage 01 at University and as such I’ve had thousands of students over the years.

In other news I did the end of week 02 100 push-ups test and I managed to nut out 41 in a row which is a good improvement.

My favourite online store

I can strongly recommend Running Warehouse for anyone who is in the market for running shoes/apparel. Note that this is a personal recommendation and I’m not getting anything from them.

I just spent $US380 ($US59 was on shipping) which comes to just under $NZ500.  For that price I got three pairs of shoes (2 pairs of Brooks Defyance 2s for me, 1 pair of Mizuno Waves for my lovely wife), 2 Brooks running tops and a pair of Brooks shorts (I like to match my brands – sad I know).  They also threw in a free shopping bag (and another running shirt I think). 

I paid exactly the same amount for 2 pairs of shoes (same brand) here in NZ from Shoe Science. There is just no comparison.

I have to say I love living in the age of online shopping.  It’s just a shame NZ is so far away from anywhere else that shipping is so expensive.  I pretty much paid the price of a pair of shoes in the US to ship my shoes here.  It was still worth it though!

In other news I completed week 02 of the 100 push-ups program yesterday.  Daily totals of 65, 72 & 83 for a grand total of 220 push-ups in the week.  That has to be good for me!  One thing I do find funny with the push-ups is that if I do them in the morning they are a terrible struggle but if I do them in the evening they are hard but not nearly as bad.  I did the w2d2 session in the morning and it was not pretty! 

I’m also pretty much totally recovered after my marathon.  The residual joint pain has disappeared and I’m running pretty freely now.  I’m going to try and get in about 15 km run over the weekend as I’d like to get a double digit run in before my next half marathon on the 29th of November.

General Update

I’ve finished Week 01 of the 100 push-ups challenge.  It’s good to be doing it again I find.  I did daily totals of 49, 60 & 62 for a total of 171 push-ups for the week.  That can’t hurt the fitness efforts I’m sure!  I’ve found the 100 push-ups iPhone application quite useful in this regard as it provides a timer and a log etc.  I can recommend it for sure.

I’m back on the running bandwagon and have done two runs this week so far.  A treadmill run on Monday evening and a run around our neighbourhood with my wife on Wednesday evening.  I’m planning on running every second day or more as the whim takes me.  My next race is on the 29th of November so I’m not planning on anything strenuous.

I’ve gained about 6kgs over the course of my marathon training so I need to lose those.  I guess it’s time to start reporting the weight again!  Here’s my chart for the last week. 

More green than red so that’s a good thing.

I’ve been enjoying twitter lately so if you’d like to follow me on that you can by clicking here.

Next challenge is an old challenge

I’ve had a few people ask me what is next in terms of running and I’m going to be doing the Adra Half Marathon on the 29th of November.  I’m going to run this with my wife and I’m really looking forward to it as it will be her inaugural half marathon.

However, my next big fitness challenge is to get the 100 push-ups challenge out of the way.

I was very fortunate in that Steve Spiers, who is the mastermind behind the 100 push-ups craze, sent me a copy of his book:

I found the 100 push-ups website quite useful the first few times that I tried to do this challenge but I have to admit that I think the book is much better.

In part 1, Steve starts off with a great introduction about why he started doing push-ups.  He’s a runner who was looking for more strength.  Similar to me!  Except he is really really fast.

The book is a very easy read with lots of interesting tidbits about push-ups.  There is some Japanese bloke who has done more than 10000 in a row!

In part 2 we move on to the actual training programs.  There are a lot more training programs offered in the book than there are on the website.  I think this is a big plus as the one on the website was fairly hardcore and there are quite a lot more pathways for push-up beginners in the book.

In part 3 Steve offers a section on more complicated/challenging push-up types for those who need more challenge.  Needless to say I’m not there yet but it’s something to aspire to.

Part 4 is an appendix that has some stretching routines and a program for folks who are not able to do any push-ups yet.  It also has a training log but I’d use my computer for that myself.

I found the book easy to read and it has got me inspired to do more push-ups.  The last time I attempted the challenge I got up to the mid 40s however, when I did my initial challenge last night I only managed 20 so I’ll report back once a week or so on how I’m going.  There is a real sense of achievement in managing to do a lot of push-ups.  I suspect it’s a guy thing.  What do the ladies think?

I reckon this would make a great Christmas gift for someone who was into fitness!

Auckland Marathon 2009 Race Report

I did not sleep much last night.  I guess I was a bit nervous about the event and that got my brain buzzing.  After a lot of tossing and turning I finally fell asleep about 2 minutes before my alarm went off.  Well that’s what it felt like!

I have this thing about always being on time and so I like to be ready early so I think I did really well to catch the second ferry of the morning rather than the first – unlike last year!

I was in Devonport at about 5am and I almost immediately bumped into fellow blogger Aaron. We had a good chat about the upcoming event and then headed our separate ways.

The start was at 6:10 AM and I had decided that I was going to try and stick with the 4:15 pace group as that was a pace I had been planning on trying to achieve.  In the past my big mistake has been going out too fast and I was determined not to do this again today.

Unfortunately I think this was a mistake.  After the first two km there were a few mutterings amongst our group that the pace guy was planning on walking the last 2km so was trying to build up a healthy lead.  After 2.5km he headed off to the loo and abandoned us without a so much as a “I’ll be back”.  I didn’t see him again till the 4km mark and managed to stick with him up until about the 12km mark.  However he was going way too fast.  If I look at my time splits I was on pace for a sub 4 hour finish after the first 10 km.  I decided to let him go as we hit the rolling hills before the bridge as it was becoming very hard to keep up with him.

I went quite slowly up the bridge as I didn’t want to burn out and it was a good experience.  It’s always nice running somewhere you are not normally allowed to run I find!

I started to get a few stomach rumbles and so hit the portaloos along Curran St.  I spent a bit too much time in there and  I started to get a bit concerned at this point as gastro issues have ruined quite a few of my long runs.  For some reason I started to get a rather nasty headache as well.  I must admit that at this point I was thinking that the half marathon is a great distance!

My half marathon split was 2:06:37 which was under the time I needed for a 4:15 (even with my extended portaloo stop) so I have proof I was not exaggerating about the 4:15 pace guy being way too fast.

The second half of the race was a bit of a disaster I’m afraid.

There were quite a few portaloo visits.  Let me tell you now that you don’t want to go into a portaloo after several thousand runners have gone by…enough said about that.

I really struggled to keep going and I can honestly say that I really did not enjoy most of the second half.

Having said that there were a few fantastic highlights.

My wife, daughter, cousin, cousin-in-law and their kids were at Mission Bay to cheer me on.  You have no idea how great it is to see family there cheering you on when you need it.  I felt truly blessed to see them.

My wife took this photo of me:

I also saw some of my students out cheering and got a bit cheer from them.  That was very nice too.

I’m fairly sure I saw William powering along.  He looked to be in much better shape than me but I was a fair distance ahead of him.  I guess I built up a bit of a lead in my good first half.

Aaron powered past and looking at his results he had a really good inaugral marathon.

I finished in 4:58:24 which is slower than my last marathon but surprisingly this one was a lot tougher.  During the race itself I was rather disappointed but after a great afternoon with my wife and daughter I realise that it was actually an awesome achievement to finish.  I always find finishing these things quite emotional and I’m glad I’m in a position to participate.  A few years ago I wasn’t and it’s very easy to forget that.

I’m very happy that I did it and I love the medal!  We took my daughter to the park in the afternoon and I insisted on wearing my medal!

As you can see in the map below, 42.2 km is a very long way!

Congrats to everyone else who participated.  It was a great day for it.  Thank you all for your support.

A very special thanks has to go to my beloved wife who has been unfailingly supportive.  Marathon training takes a lot of time and she’s had to put up with quite a lot!  It was especially great having her and my daughter out on the course today.

P.S. For my Auckland readers Revive restaurant is giving out a free meal to all Auckland Marathon runners on Monday and Tuesday. You just have to take in your running bib (number).

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