"The Invitation" borrowed from Pol @ ZMOnline

Chicken Soup - The Invitation

Read Pol's Chicken Soup from this morning here!

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

http://www.zmonline.com/

I'm Back!!!!

It's been something like three years since I posted, which is terribly scary.  So whats happened, my running has fallen to the side which is really very disappointing and I want to kick myself in the butt.....  grrr me!!!

2007 was a massive year running wise, The Rotorua Marathon in May then three half marathons later that year (Whangarei, Auckland and Kerikeri again); what a year!!!!  I just loved it.  Then we moved to Nelson December that year and the climate change on top of a new job threw my training into disarray.  Whangarei is humid all of the time whereas Nelson is just plain hot and dry, my god, so dry.  And hills, we had a house on the top of the biggest hill in town so whatever way I went there was a hell of a hill to come up at the end.

So my running became very sporadic.  I had hoped to go back up to Rotorua in May 2008 and do the marathon again but training just didn't work for me.  I considered Christchurch but with work and a new town.... running was pushed to the back seat.

Meanwhile, eating lots and not enough exercise... oh my god, all that weight that came off went back on, but not as bad as before.

So, 2008 was absolutely hopeless for running and sticking to plans, 2009 was a little better.  At least I set a reasonable goal and stuck to it, but again, a new job but this time not a new town, well not just yet anyway.  I joined the gym and was getting back into some reasonably routine running and decided on a local half marathon to do; through vineyards, what a better way to get back into it ...

But alas, 30 October 2009, i was up at Lake Rotoroa watching my daughter row and ran a bush track, just brilliant, I do love the off road stuff, sights to look at and no traffic to fight with.  Coming down the track and onto the seal again, and OMG, my calf... yikes I couldn't friggin move.  Thank god for the freezing cold lake, anyway, long story short, first major injury that took several months of physio to recover from.  There goes my plans for a half, the real grouch of the whole thing was I had just reached the hour run every other day ......

Surely that must bring me to the current, not in Nelson anymore, moved to Westport but with the same firm, thank god for that.  So many wonderful off road tracks and the reputed Buller Marathon and Half Marathon.  This years race was miserable and thank goodness I didn't run it.   

Anyway, that's a catch up on what has not been happening with my running.  I hope someone finds something interesting in all of this, who knows.

Week 14

This week has been crap. Sleep has not happened and by the time Saturday rocked around I couldn't be bothered doing much at all besides sleeping. The heat and humidity have been a real killer which means running later in the evening and I am sure that does something to my sleep. I have to try and get up in the morning but I just don't function at 6.00 am. Maybe that's the challenge for this year, bed early and up early to run....

OK to follow on from my last post

Wednesday I did 8.6 km's off road along to the Whangarei Falls. Hot beyond all hell and I left it til latish in the day too.

Thursday is gym day with a new programme. I spent my lunch hour with a very inspiring coach who went through my current running schedule, seeing my regular coach hasn't got back to me recently....grrrrr. Anyway, I now have swimming after the gym on Tuesdays and running as well as gym on Thursday's together with lotsssssss of hills. He was amazing to talk with and very encouraging. His main piece of advice was natural surfaces and hills and only worry about time not k's and take heartrate every morning to check for proper recovery; 5-6 beats out and not recovered so take it easy. Hell that's lots of main bits of advice :-)

Friday rest day and Saturday there was supposed to be 60 mins of hills but I was knackered. WIth the lack of sleep all week it all caught up with me.

And finally today I did 1 hr 30 which was great, nice and slow in the rain. I could do these any day over the hills and harder stuff.

I would like to get faster but i guess that will come in time. Its not even a year since I started running so need to find patience....

Oh yes, I am probably going to do the Rotorua Half in March as a build up for the full and there is a fun run the week before the half which is only 9.4 k's but will be great. Might see if I cant find some speed for that run........

The week that was

Well, I have been slack and not blogging, as MAR so gently pointed out..... :-) thanks!!!

So what have I done in the past week. Monday 15th ran a great 6.5 monitor run which was brilliant. My heart rate dropped heaps which means I am getting fitter. So I should too. It is nearly my first anniversary of running, 11 Feb 05 was the first time I had ever run and now look at me. A brilliant 16 kg lighter and my sights set on Rotorua at the end of April. Speaking of the marathon, I did it, paid my money and I'm in. Tomorrow I book the hotel, thinking I had better get in sooner rather than later because I am sure rooms will be at a premium closer to the event. My daughter and mother are coming with me to be my support crew/cheerleaders. I had better warn them that the stress levels are likely to be through the roof....

Anyway back to the week of running, Tuesday was the gym. Great workout but thank goodness I am getting anew programme soon. It becomes dull after a while doing the same thing.

Wednesday, ran the bush track, 6.1km. Brilliant in the evening in the shade. Its been rather hot here and after running in the sun last week I just wont go there again too soon.

Thursday, my baby's birthday...... my baby being 11 yrs old that is, so the day was doing exactly what she wanted. I took the day off work and we did the shops, movies, pizza hut for dinner then hanging out at home and no running..... Also picked up a friends dog that we had to babysit for the weekend. Damned mongrel thing...grrrrr. He hates cats and tried chewing on mine all of the time.

Friday, assessment with the gym instructor......my chance to perve at him as well...ooops did I say that out loud....:-) Ive lost 7% body fat in the last three months which is brilliant and if I use the scales at the doctors where we had to go Thursday for my daughter, I am 3 kilos lighter than the scales at the gym.....but will take the gym scales..... its all good, my exercise is working. The instructor asked what I wanted to do so told him I want shoulders, Madonna arms and shoulders please!!!!!!!

All that sounds real positive, now for the kicker of the week, not enough sleep. I'm having trouble sleeping and its driving me nuts as well as catching up on me. Knackered on Saturday and didn't run and even more knackered on Sunday so no run either which kinda p's me off totally. Talking of peeves, my coach still hasn't done my programme for the marathon...but I have read Jon Acklands "Personal Best" in the past couple of days and looking 13 weeks out I'm doing pretty well so I need not worry too much at the moment.

So far this week I have done my monitor run, great run again. Cut a couple of minutes off it and heartrate is dropping really nicely, so the knackered rests don't appear to be holding me back too much. Tonight was gym night again and a new programme. Damn has he got me doing arms and shoulders or what.....arghhhhhhh. I will be bulging if I keep this up (may even loose more of my boobs.....yippeeeee), being an E cup makes for chaffing and pain sometimes....... I still have to do my lunges but they have moved to walking lunges and squats have moved to adding a bar across my shoulders...... it all sounds and feels a little hard.

OK, a question, I want to lengthen my stride. How do I go about it? At the end of each run I sprint, or try to, up my street which is about 200m. I really try to extend my stride, pump my arms and get it all going as quick as I can. Anyway, I will leave it with those that know and see what comes back to me.

That's it for now, I know a bit of a rave but what the hell.......

What a killer.....

Man, I think I could have died. Yesterday I had every intention of running 16 km being a Sunday and my long slow day. I was keen as to get out there cause I haven't done a long run since the half. I headed out just on 3 thinking that it had cooled down some, was I mistaken or what.

My coach says that the heartrate has to stay under 150 bpm on these runs, yeah right, as if.... Within 2 k's I was feeling the heat. Just as an aside, I checked my 1 km time and it was 6.22 so I wasn't going mad or anything. I had heard that the day was to be around 25 C so left the run til it appeared cooler. By the time time I got to 5km I had already stopped and walked and my heartrate was through the roof. Of course this could have been because I haven't been sleeping, so tired; or not eating properly but I had made sure I ate all good stuff on Saturday with lots of water this morning; or my fitness has dropped because of the 3 weeks I have done very little over xmas.

Anyway, I made a very wise decision and just do 10 k's. Hell, I don't know that I could have gone much further. Getting home and downing a bottle of Replace in literally one swig, quickly followed by another half bottle of water.

I checked my heartrate monitor to see what the temp was.....well guess what, it wasn't a mere 25 but 'only' had an ave of 35 with a max of 38........my godddddddd....no wonder I was dieing. I felt compeltely drained and bloody knackered for the rest of the afternoon and a tad deflated because of my great intentions being smashed....

Thinking on the bright side of it all, at least I did 10 km even if it was in a dismal time 1:17 with several walking stints added. I did, or tried to do what my coach said, and remain under 150 bpm. The ave was 154. And above all, I experienced running in heat.........not good fun!!!!! Oh and the main thing I learnt was that I have to get up early in the day and run before the heat gets a grip, but that in itself is a mission I have to work on. I am so not a morning person.

Anyway, total k's run last week were 28.5, I guess not to bad for the first week back into it, but I am worried that that is just miniscule to what I actually need to be doing. Time will tell and I have to learn patience I guess.

Week 16

Well, this is my first post of the new year. And my first week of training for the Rotorua Marathon (RM) 28 April. I had a wonderful break over christmas with not much happening except eating, walking on the beach with only dipping the toe in the ocean because it was too damned cold and lots of sitting in the sun sheltered from a yuk southerly wind. I do have nice tan mind you.

Anyway, first week back into it. I havent got a new schedule from my coach so just working on piecing stuff together from what I was doing and reading up on different things. This week is planned to look like this:

Monday - 40 min monitor run. What I actually did was about an hour on the treadmill at different speeds and it felt real good. I forget how good it feels when finished, all that natural buzzy stuff happening in the body.

Tuesday - walk to the gym, workout, then walk home. I live about 3.5km's from gym and never seem to find the time to walk there so jumped on the tready again for 20 mins before and 20 after nd didnt manage to stick to a walk and had to run some. My quads were sore from Monday and even sorer after my workout. Really pushed myself and again it felt great. I think the whole session took about 1.20.

Wednesday - 60 mins bush track. I baled because my quads are sore as and I am tired. First day back at work and I went too hard on Monday with that first run. It really was supposed to be easy but hell, it felt good at the time pushing myself.

Thursday - walk to the gym, workout and walk home.

Friday - rest

Saturday - speed work. 10 mins warm up then 5 min hard 5 min jog x5. I dont like this kind of thing much and would do a long slow run any day of the week over this interval stuff.

Sunday - 1hr 45 min, long slow

So thats what my week is looking like. I do wonder whether I train by time or distance. I will wait for my new programme from the coach

Stir crazy

Its nearly a week since the big event and I am about to go gaga.... This no training lark takes a bit of getting used to and something I dont really like...

Monday is the day with the coach and we will set up training for the marathon in April. I cant wait to get out running again. I am sure my body is grateful for the rest but my head doesn't like doing nothing...

The week since the race has been interesting. Sunday I was knackered and sore but not sore sore, with a throbbing second toe. Killed the nail again; Monday more aches came out especially in my lower back which is purely core strength not being at its best. Also a really lovely dose of every woman's nightmare, the horrible itchy condition that kicks in when wearing tight cloths and standing around wet for several hours, I am sure you know what I mean; Tuesday coming right with with aches and pains; Wednesday doc's for a check up because feeling blah; Thursday heaps better, all the aches and pains have gone as has my beautiful black toenail. Today I am feeling the need to run but will do what I am told and just wait til next week.