It has been gorgeous running weather the last few days.  No wind and either clear skies or just a light overcast.  Very,  very nice.

Last week I did a total of 69.4 km at an average page of 5:48 / km.  I think that was my fastest week of running ever.  I think my recent focus on incorporating a bit of speedwork has started to pay off as I’m finding that I can maintain a faster pace for the same effort.

As a matter of fact, my long run yesterday ended up being run at sub 4 hour marathon pace and it felt relatively easy.  My HR was in my low heart rate training zone the whole time which I think is brilliant.  If I can keep that up that Taipei is going to be a blast!

I suspect that my months of doing low heart rate training has enabled me to build a very solid fitness base and now the speedwork is adding that bit extra.

In other news, my eating has not been particularly brilliant.  My core meals are healthy and nutritious but I’m still allowing one too many snacks to pass my lips.  My weight is still under control but I really don’t want it to start creeping up.  I want it to continue creeping down!

One of my former students brought me a cake as a thank you for the help I gave in the previous semester which really didn’t help the cause (even though it was very much appreciated):

It was delicious!  And I didn’t eat the whole thing – I shared it with everyone at home.

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This morning (Thursday here in NZ) I had to drop my father in law off at the airport.  I was up at 4am and then straight out to drop him off and then I headed out for my run.  It was pouring down with rain and there was quite a strong wind so it was a tough workout but I came in under my target goal off 55 minutes (5:30 pace) by doing the run in 54:34 (5:24 pace).  I’m quite chuffed that I did so well in such atrocious conditions.

I hit a milestone for the year when I clicked by 1000 miles for the year so far this morning. I’m quite happy with that just quietly.  I’m ahead of my goal of 2010 km in 2010 by quite a long way.  I might switch my goal to 1500 miles.  We’ll see.

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It’s definitely getting warmer here in NZ.  I think winter is just about done.  The days are getting noticeably longer now and it is not painful to get out of the door predawn.

I did a total of 58 km last week.

I’m about 21 weeks away from the Taipei Marathon now so it’s time to start thinking about marathon training programs.  Earlier in the year I mentioned I was thinking about the Brooks Hanson Marathon Training plan and I’ve decided to go with it.  There’s a good write up about it here.

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As such, I decided that my Tuesday and Thursday runs are going to be faster runs.  On Tuesdays I’m going to run a 5K as fast as I comfortably can (i.e. no puking!) and on Thursdays I’ll do a 10K as fast as I comfortably can. 

My aim with the 5Ks is to try and break my 5K PR and probably the same with the 10Ks I guess!

This morning’s run was great.  It was quite nippy (probably about 6 degrees C) which is pretty much perfect for running.

I did just over 3 laps of the Auckland Domain mile loop:

I managed to set a new 5K PR of 24:19 which is 4:52 min/km pace.  I could have gone slightly faster but I’m happy with that.  There was no danger of puking!

I’m really enjoying my running again and I guess I’m getting my mojo back!

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On Monday I went to get a xray of my foot as my little toe is still swollen and hurting. You may recall that I knocked it a few weeks back. It originally went purple but cleared up quickly so I thought it was just bruised but it never really got better so I went and had it checked out. It turns out it is fractured and it will take a while to heal. Fortunately it doesn’t interfere with my running as my running shoes are a size larger than my normal shoes so there is no impact on it.

On Tuesday I did a nice 11km run home after work.

On Wednesday I thought about running but didn’t.

On Thursday I ran with a colleague and we did a 10km run in a blistering (by my standards) 52:40. That’s the fastest 10K I have run in over a year. I’ve been running with Peter for a few weeks now and it’s been most enjoyable. I find running with someone else forces you to push yourself a little harder than you normally would.

On Friday I went and bought some new running shoes.  I went to buy some more Brooks Defyance’s but they didn’t have my size in the new model so I decided to try some Adidas Adistar Ride 2′s.  To test them out I did my local 4.5km loop in 24:58 which is the fastest time I’ve ever done it in.  I’m sure it’s just coincidence.

On Saturday I got up at 1:30am to watch Netherlands eliminate Brazil in the football world cup.   I was supposed to go running on Saturday morning but let’s just say that while the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak.  Instead my wife, daughter and I went to a few of our favourite farmer’s markets and free sampled our way through the morning.

This morning, it is 8:30 and I’m already back from a 21.6km run (in 2:13:50) which was most enjoyable.  My little girl is 3 years old today so we are having a family gathering this afternoon.  Good times.

So my running this week has been pretty good. I’ve done 47.1 km in 4:37:08 for an average pace of 5:53/km. I’ll take that. I’m slowly building my mileage up again as it is almost time for me to start marathon training again.

I’ve also restarted the 100 pushups, 200 squats and 200 situps trifecta. I thought I’d give them all a go at the same time to get a bit of conditioning. It’s pretty much the first time I’ve done any pushups since doing the 100 a few months ago!

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First off I had an audience:

It was a beautiful winters day here in Auckland:

I even discovered a new walkway which had a great view of the mangrove swamps:

I’m still running and my weight is still stable but I just don’t feel like I have a lot to say at the moment so blogging will be light until I recover my mojo. I’m probably still in my post marathon funk.

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The day started off under a bit of a cloud in that the weather had closed in and it was raining heavily when I got up.

However, by the time the race started the rain had stopped and it never really returned during the race. The temperature maxed out at about 7 degrees C (44 F). I have to admit that conditions were absolutely perfect for running.  We really could not have asked for better. 

The course is two laps of a very flat course that follows the Avon River:

I set my virtual partner on my Garmin to run at just sub 4 hour pace.  My plan was to attempt to run both halves of the course at 1:59:00ish.

I felt very good in the first half.  I came in exactly on target and I was feeling strong.  I must admit that I started to think I had it in the bag at that point. 

The transition between the first lap and the second is quite startling.  In the first lap you are surrounded by hundreds of runners at all times and then all of a sudden you are running by yourself.  The whole event had only 5300 people and the great majority of them were doing either the 10K or the half option. 

At the 24K mark I started to feel a little queasy and got rather worried.  My downfall in the Auckland Marathon in November last year was my stomach and I really didn’t want to go through that again.  However, I still was running at target pace.

Things went well until about the 28K mark and that’s when my pace started to slow.  I don’t know if I hit the wall, or if I went out to fast or if my legs hadn’t recovered from the half marathon 2 weeks previously or if it was the churning stomach but I found I just couldn’t keep my pace up.  Km 29 was ten seconds off the pace.  Km 30 was 20 seconds off the pace and it just slowly got worse.  I managed to claw it back a bit between km 36 and 38 but by km 40 I was feeling rather bad.

My aim at that point had changed to not walking and I did well up until km 41 when I thought I was going to throw up and I walked for about 50 meters till the feeling passed.

The camaraderie in the last km was great.  I passed quite a few folks who were walking and encouraged them to get running (and two of the buggers did and passed me!)   Everyone was really glad to get to the end of the race.

I got that burst of energy that you do in the last few hundred meters and managed to run it home.  My wife, mother and daughter were at the finishing line cheering me on.  I thought that was the highlight of the event!

I finished in 4:20:26.  While not sub 4 hours it is still a 34 minute personal best in the marathon so I’m pretty happy.  I always knew that sub 4 hours was a bit of a stretch for this marathon as I hadn’t trained for that but I have no regrets in going for it.  I may have blown up somewhat but I still did better than I ever have before. 

Photos will be coming!

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I’d like to think I could break 4 hours at the Christchurch Marathon but the odds are really against it.  My training hasn’t been about improving speed but rather about improving base fitness.

Having said that here are my goals:

• Dream goal:  Break 4 hours!
• Optimistic goal:  4:07ish
• Realistic goal:  4:15

I’m pretty confident I can hit my realistic goal and even the optimistic goal should be quite doable IF I pace for that.  However, I reckon I’m going to go out and try and hit my dream goal.  As you do!  This might mean I blow up in the second half and do another 4:50ish or worse!  If that is the case well at least I’ll go out knowing I gave it a go.

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My wife’s cousin originally asked me if I was keen to go run the Huntly Half as he’d heard there were good spot prizes there.  I thought about it for about 2 seconds and said “Sure!” as I had been planning on doing it in any case. 

Huntly is about an hour or so away from Auckland and on the drive down on Sunday  morning we hit a bit of fog.  This meant that the start was a bit delayed as traffic had to slow down and people were still flooding in right up until the gun went off at 10:15 rather than the original 10am.

My plan for the race was to run conservatively and set a PR.  This seems like a bit of a contradiction but in reality it was not.  My previous 1/2 marathon PR was 1:59:04 and I set that in my very first half marathon back in 2008.  I haven’t actually run a proper half since then as the 2 half marathons I’ve run since then have been classified as fun runs and the courses have been a bit short so I didn’t count them as PRs.

So I set my virtual partner on the Garmin to do a 1:58 as I wanted to practice my pacing and hopefully negative split.  In previous races I’ve gone out too fast every single time.  This always results in a second half that was much slower than the first half!

The first half of the race was great.  I got stuck behind a lot of walkers in the beginning but I didn’t indulge in lots of weaving as I figured it wouldn’t make much of a difference overall.  It was probably a blessing in disguise as my first KM was the slowest of the race which is very different to my normal race outcomes.

I settled into an easy pace that was just slightly faster than my virtual partner and enjoyed the run.  The scenery was quite pretty.  We ran along some suburban streets then went out onto what looked like a hiking track.  At about the 5km mark I realised that I had been trading places with an older lady from the YMCA Marathon club so I decided I would just fall in behind her and follow her as she was running at my target pace.  This was a good move as I found the running really easy after doing that.

At the 10km mark we headed off the trails and back onto the suburban roads. 

I had to give kudos to the organisers of the event.  The water stops (which only had water) were positioned well and often.  There were very enthusiastic volunteers manning them and it was just great.

My half way split was 57:43 which was a little fast but I felt that I was running well within myself at that point and wasn’t too concerned.

It was just before the halfway point that things started to get hilly.  I must admit that the hills took me by surprise.  I had thought the course was flat but from the 10km mark to (I’m guessing) 14km mark there was a serious of rolling hills which really separated the pack.  I’m pleased to report I passed a lot of people on the hills which was quite satisfying.

The second half of the second half was an out and back section to the Solid Energy Coal Mine.  It was quite cool as we actually ran into the mine area and ran under some mining equipment which was very different to anything I’d ever done.

I dedicated the last 4 km of my half marathon to different folks.

I started off with km 17 and thought about my mum and how proud I am of her and her efforts to get fit.  Km 18 was dedicated to thinking about my dad and how he is a source of inspiration to me for taking up running.  Km 19 was dedicated to my little girl and I was thinking how I’m so glad she’s only going to know a fit dad.  Km 20 was dedicated to my darling wife and her support.

I had a brief problem at the beginning of km 20 when my cap caught on a tree and flew off.  I fleetingly thought of leaving it there but I paid good money for that cap so I ran back and got it.

Km 21 (all .1 of it!) was dedicated to myself as I tried for a sprint finish!  I didn’t quite sprint across the finish line but the last km was my fastest overall:

I managed to finish the second half in 56:39 for my first ever negative split in a race.  I also finished with a fantastic PR of 1:54:22 which is a lot faster than I had aimed for.  That time may be problematic next Sunday when I run the Christchurch marathon.  I don’t feel that I pushed too hard but I guess time will tell.  If I blow up in the marathon you’ll know why!

I really enjoyed this race and I’ll be back again next year if circumstances permit.

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The other major difference is that it is dark out when I’m running! 

I’ve had a few emails asking why I haven’t been posting as many photos lately and as you can see from the photo to the left it is because it is slightly hard to get good photos on my cell phone camera when it’s dark out!

Running in the dark is quite nice as the temperature is quite cool.  All my normal running routes are quite well lit except for Cornwall Park which is extremely dark as there are no street lamps inside it.  I ran through it on an overcast morning recently and I could literally not see the road. I had to use my cellphone as a flashlight.

Anyway, this week I’ve run 19 km on Monday, 16.2 km on Thursday and 16.1 km yesterday for a total of 51 km (32 miles) so far.  I’m planning on doing a 32km run tomorrow morning (20 miler).  I think that will be my last long long run before the Christchurch Marathon.

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Anyway, even after all that I’m down .32 kg this week.  My physics diet weight is 86.54kg (goal is 86.4kg) so I’m so close to officially being there.  My actual scale weight was as low as 84.9kg this past week which is the lowest I’ve seen since I passed it (going up!) as a teenager I guess.

The year itself is looking good:

April has been a record breaker for me in terms of my running.  I ran over 300 km (187 miles) in April which is the most I’ve ever run in a single month. I suspect I won’t be running as much in May as I’ll be tapering for the Christchurch Marathon for the latter half of it. 

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• On Monday I did a 5K in 26 minutes.
• Tuesday I did 16.1 km in a very easy 1:42.
• Wednesday I did 16.1 km in 1:30 which was a full 12 minutes faster than my Tuesday run and also (more importantly) was at sub 4 hour marathon pace.
• Friday I did an easy 13.1 in 1:23.
• Saturday I did a brilliant (by my standards) 32 km in 3:12:00.

I want to talk a bit more about my Saturday run.  I headed out bright and early and the conditions were just perfect.  We’re in a bit of a drought situation which has meant that I’ve only been rained on about twice in the last 5 months or so which is great for me but not so great for our farmers.

I set my virtual partner to run at a 6:15 min/km pace (like I did last week) as I wanted to practice keeping my pace steady (or hopefully negative splitting).  I have to admit I haven’t used the virtual partner much but I’m starting to like running with him.

The first km from my house is all uphill and I like to ease into my long runs so he pulled ahead quite quickly. But I slowly reeled him in and by the 6 km mark I was a few metres ahead.  The aim of a long run is to run easy so I was keeping my average heart rate under 148 beats which is what I’ve been using for my low heart rate training.

I got to 16km in 1:37:43.  I just felt very good and for the rest of the run I managed to keep pulling away from my virtual partner without unduly extending myself.   I did the second 16km in 1:34:17.  I was extremely pleased with that 2nd half as it was more uphill than the 1st half and it was faster!  I also managed to keep my average HR for the run to 146 so it was a good day all round.

Here’s the map of the run:

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Shauna (Dietgirl) and Carla (Mizfit) published episode 11 of their “Two Fit Chicks and a Microphone” podcast today. The episode title is “Let’s Hear It For The Boys.”  It’s all about men and blogging and they were particularly interested in why there appears to be fewer men than women participating in fitness/healthy living blogs.

I was lucky enough to be invited to participate and I think my contribution is enough to reinforce my opinion that I’ll never be a podcaster!  Have a listen as I think it’s pretty interesting overall.

I listened to it while out on a run this morning.  I did 15.4km on a bright sunny autumn morning and it was great!

In other news I’m changing my half marathon entry in the Christchurch Marathon to the full marathon!

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I ran out to the Harbour Bridge and then to work this morning.  I stopped and took this panoramic shot with my cellphone:

I’m mighty impressed that my cellphone can stitch photos together so well!  As you can see it is an absolutely beautiful day here in Auckland.

One thing I was thinking about while running today is that how I’m in danger of becoming derailed from my healthy eating plans as I’m extremely comfortable with where I am at the moment.  I find that I’m not eating as clean as I could because I’m not that fussed about losing weight anymore.  I just want to not gain weight if that makes sense.  The danger with this approach is that it is very easy to tip from having the odd snack to having a lot of snacks and then regaining the weight.  I reckon if I wasn’t running as much as I am I’d be in much greater danger so my motivation to keep running is high.

I guess eternal vigilance is required.  How do you folks deal with this?

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It’s still a green year:

I also ran the Round The Bays fun run yesterday.  Turnout was great with 70 000 or so runners and walkers.  Round The Bays is a gentle 8.4 km fun run that winds around the Auckland Harbour.  My everyday running route normally incorporates the route so it’s one I’m intimately familiar with.

We had a work team and my job was to organise the end of race festivities so I was on site at 5AM to get a great spot and set up the tent, bbqs etc.

My original plan was to run the race with my wife but on the morning I was just longing for a longer run (after a week of no running) so I ran the 8.4 km to the start and then ran the actual event back to our bbq site.    My colleagues thought I was nuts but it was great.  I took it real easy on the run in and got to the start line nicely warmed up.  I had timed it perfectly so that I was about 50 meters from the start when the gun went so I just turned around and started heading back to the finish!  Normally it takes about 5-10 minutes to get to the start line due to the number of people but not for me this year!  I’m sure I annoyed a lot of the folks who had been queuing for hours but oh well.

I felt really strong during the run itself and I ran faster than I’ve run in a long time.  I think running with other people always makes the running feel easier.  For the first time ever I ran a very solid negative split and it makes me think my training is paying off.  8.35km in 41.10.

The best part of the day was the 3 veggie hot dogs that I got afterwards.  Here’s the half of our work team that were present when we took the photo:

In other news I had a good run in to work this morning.  I took the long way and did 16.3 km.  The coastal part of my route is the Round The Bays course:

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The only photos that I could get of it were actually from quite far away:

You can see it on the right.  It is huge when you compare it to the size of the city!

I ran out on this little (200 metre long) jetty to get that shot above:

I’d hoped to get a better photo once I got closer to the city but unfortunately the container terminal blocked the view!  The QM2 is so big that it had to go berth at the container terminal rather than the passenger terminal.

Overall, it was quite nice to see glimpses of it but it was even nicer to be out for a run this morning.  14.3km and conditions were absolutely perfect for running. 

I was listening to Burning 2010 this morning and one of the points Adam was making is that no matter where you live there are beautiful places to run.  Well in my city that is the rule rather than the exception I think!

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This morning (it’s Saturday here in NZ) I got up early (5AM) and headed out for a run. I love the early runs as I love running along and watching the sun come up:

Conditions were great and it was really nice to get out and stretch the legs.  Once the sun was up it got a bit warmer:

But it was still great!

I’ve done 252 km in February and 516 km (321 miles) for the year so far.  That’s not bad if I say so myself.

In other news, Brandon over at So long, fatass has issued a Weekend warriors challenge which I think I’ll enter.  He’s noticed that he’s great at healthy living during the week but not so great on weekends.  That’s one of my biggest weaknesses as well.  So the idea is that next weekend we live healthy as well and see what results we can get.

Kepa, from The Lazy Fat Guy (and a fellow New Zealander), met and fell in love with  Mary over at A Merry Life. She’s recently been here in NZ to visit him and now that she’s back in the States he’s pining away for her.  He wants to visit her but he’s a poor student so he’s asking for donations.  The blogosphere has been very kind to him so far and he’s almost raised enough money for his trip.  If you’ve got a minute head over to his blog and read his story.  He’s quite an impressive fellow who started off at over 500 pounds and has recently hit his first goal of getting under 220 pounds.  He got on the TV news for that!

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It was most enjoyable but to be honest the highlight of my trip was that I got to go running in Wellington!

I got up at 5am and had a quick breakfast of some instant oats and a coffee and then headed out the door. 

Wellington is famous for it’s wind but conditions were perfect on Wednesday.  My hotel is one of the buildings on the right of this image.

I really liked this sign:

I actually ran so far that I ran right out of the city.  All of a sudden the buildings all disappeared and it was just winding coast road!

On my way back to the hotel I ran around our parliament building which is known as the beehive because it’s got a beehive shape.

Here’s my route map:

It was really great to go for a run somewhere new and I really enjoyed it.  It was especially enjoyable knowing that my fellow roadshow attendees thought I was nuts!

I did 20.2km which was just as well as I had to offset the extra eating I did.  These events are always catered and I was eating out a lot so I was a bit worried.  Fortunately it turns out that I actually lost weight while I was away.  Not much but I came back lighter than when I left.  I must admit I was somewhat surprised by that as I thought I’d eaten one cookie too many!  But I’ll take it!

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About ten years ago some nutter attempted to  chop down the tree on One Tree Hill here in Auckland.  It was quite an iconic symbol of Auckland and unfortunately it eventually died because of the attack and had to be pulled down.

The photo on the left shows the supports that the council placed on the tree to try and support it but to no avail.

Last night on the news they showed some new trees that they were going to plant.  There’s been a lot of political wrangling about what type of trees etc. to plant and it seems like they’ve decided to plant 9 trees.  No word on if they are changing the name to Nine Tree Hill yet!

As such, I decided I would take a run up One Tree Hill to go and have a look at these new trees.

Unfortunately it seems like they’d only been put up there for a photo opportunity as when I got to the top there was only a bare patch of ground where they had shown trees on the news!

It was a rather beautiful dawn moment as I got close to the top:

There were a lot of walkers going up – I guess with the same idea as me – and I felt really hardcore as I was the only I saw running up even though some of the walkers came perilously close to overtaking me!

Overall I did 22.5 km this morning.  Which brings my total weekly mileage to 74.2 km (46.1 miles) which is the most I’ve run in a week ever!  A great little milestone.

And here is a little music for you:

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