My first event after Wanaka this year is the Run to Remember tomorrow, but my buildup hasn't been as easy as I'd have liked.
Challenge Wanaka is changing date next year so this is likely to be my last Run To Remember - for a while, at least.
I had a good couple of weeks rest before starting to get back into some gentle training. I had some aches & pains, most notably a bit sore in my foot with cycling which I may need to get looked at if it carries on too long.
Our house was due to have its EQC repairs start a couple of weeks ago so we needed to start working out what we want to take to our temporary house, plus have a bit of a cleanout. There were also some repairs to do in the garage so I had to shift everything across and clear out the crap in the rafters.
I'm not used to being on my feet all day and it showed. I started in the garage as I had some boxes in the rafters that I thought I'd be able to use for transport and storage. Turns out there had been a rats nest up there and everything was ruined by rat shit. It wasn't the most pleasant of cleanup jobs!
However it did have a silver lining as one of the boxes contained a textbook that I've been looking for for about the past 3 years. I'm not sure how it ended up in there but I do know the box was in a wardrobe before I put it in the garage. Still don't know why I put the book in a box instead of a shelf.
When the packers arrived they got straight into it so I was a little behind the curve. Nobody told me they were turning up at 7 and I was halfway through breakfast when they knocked. The rest of the day was spent keeping one step ahead of them with figuring out the last things we wanted to take, doing more in the garage, and getting lots of little bits & pieces sorted out. In the rush I'd forgotten about my foam roller so that was packed away. I'm still annoyed about that but I survived without it for several years so I'll just have to harden up.
The day after the packers finished it was the movers who came in, and they spent the morning shifting all the boxes to a shipping container out the front. I spent that day moving more things around, getting shelves off the walls and dismantling a desk. Then once they'd taken the container away we were left with the stuff we needed to take with us, so we did a few trips to the temporary house once we got access to it at 3pm. Luckily it's less than 1km away so quick & easy to make trips back and forth and no need to pack the bikes into the car which is fiddly at best. I just rode them each time we moved a carload of stuff.
My first piece of advice for anyone with EQC repair work is to get into your accommodation a couple of days before the packers start. That way you can get your stuff out of the way, and have time to work out anything you've forgotten before it gets packed. You might also find the rental house is a bit sparse furniture-wise - we could have used a couple of shelving units at least. And the bloody foam roller.
The reason I've written all that is to explain why my feet have been aching for the past couple of weeks. All of the crouching, squatting, bending and lifting I've been doing has been a bit hard on the old body so I've been taking it fairly easy training-wise. I wrote out a simple two-week training plan after we moved in but abandoned it early on because I needed more rest.
The Run To Remember
My buildup for the run has been a bit slower than I'd like because of all the soreness, but I've done my longest run earlier this week - from home to the top of the Harry Ell track and back, total distance just over 17km. I used to do this every other week - going hard I'd be under 1hr30. It's one of my favourite run routes.
This time I took 1:54 for the following reasons:
- I took it easy because of the injuries from last year and post-move soreness,
- There's just over an extra km of distance from the temporary house compared to home,
- It was 35°C on Tuesday and I left at 2pm, right when it was at its hottest,
- As such I was carrying more fluids than usual (ie more weight).
I actually quite enjoyed that run. I'd been wanting some really hard workouts to build mental strength. We haven't had much heat this summer so I haven't acclimatised which meant 35 felt even hotter. The forecast had been for 30 so I didn't realise it was as hot as it was. I did have a 1hr hot run in Wanaka but it wasn't anywhere near this temperature. It made me really feel for everyone at the recent Challenge Melbourne.
Before I left I filled my Spinal Tap to its 2L capacity (all the way to 11, you might say). It ran out within the last km so I'd judged my hydration quite well. I was feeling like absolute shit when I got back - I suspect my core temperature was getting a bit high as I was not dehydrated. This place has two heat pumps in the living/dining area so they both went on cold while I slammed down some iced water and did a brief cool down then stretched. I felt a lot better after that. I also didn't feel particularly tired like I used to after that route so I'm obviously a bit fitter these days.
Since then I'm taking it fairly easy so I don't make my feet any worse. I had a sore glute after that run but that's gone away now. Wednesday was a rest day although I did walk to the supermarket. Yesterday I had a swim and today is another rest day before the Run to Remember tomorrow morning.
I might not have mentioned yet that my plan for tomorrow is to run to the start, as I did last year. This time around I'm going to take the run itself at an easy training pace. Last year I raced it, finishing in under an hour, but it caused my achilles injury to flare up again. This year I'm thinking 1:10 to 1:15. After that I'll have a couple of easy weeks to let my body recover. Then I'll make a start on building up to the Christchurch Half Marathon.
