Long time no see, friends!
It has been a few weeks since I have logged a blog because of a bucket load of insanity that has been recently poured into my life.
I am genuinely surprised as to how well we have kept up with our training with so much else going on in our lives and thought I had better catch up on everything that has been going on for all of my loyal followers and readers… cue crickets and tumbleweeds.
WEEK 13: Learning to Run
I got a text from Rhi Monday night about the likelihood of rain the next morning.
Since we have started training, there have been many times Mother Nature threatened to release all hell from the heavens, and it was the running joke that it clearly was never ever going to actually rain. All puns intended.
So I scoffed at the notion, went to sleep and sure enough woke to a beautiful, clear, albeit dark, morning.
By the time I got into the city, the sun had just risen and I noticed some rather dark clouds looming overhead.
By the time Rhi and I started our run, it was starting to spit.
5mins into our run and the rain had turned torrential. Rhi and I were soaked through, and the gardens around the river were creating their own little waterfalls.
Squelching, sweating, dripping wet, and not even at the half way mark, wondering if my phone in its little sandwhich bag was still alive, I mentioned the very obvious wet conditions to Rhi and inquired if, since we were already soaked, we were to persevere until the finish.
Persevere we did.
I have read many articles regarding running in the rain and most of them tell you about all the bad things that will befall you if you are unfortunate enough to experience this. These articles will tell you to wear some kind of plastic or rain jacket. And all of them will tell you that you will ruin your feet if you run an elongated period of time in wet shoes.
Since we were only going 5km it shouldn’t have been an issue, but my shoes reached a whole new level of wet.
We may as well have been running in the river.
At the end of the course, we took a wet #runfie and then hurried back to the office to shower and get changed.
Not an ideal situation for a run, but we both felt accomplished in our perseverance.
It was Chris’s birthday on Thursday, and we celebrated by going out to our local Japanese hide-out for dinner that night. Fear me, Nigiri.
Rhi wasn’t at work on Friday so I smashed the 5km track by myself before work. Five-K, Shmive-k.
Saturday morning greeted Chris and I with near perfect weather and so last weeks rescheduled birthday activity was a Go!
I had organised for Chris to have a Flyboarding lesson down at Glenelg and got Chris’s parents to meet us down there to watch, so we all ambled out onto the jetty and banished Chris to the pontoon in the ocean while watched from a safe distance.
He was a natural, naturally, and had a great time and a good workout. It is harder than it looks. My only regret is that I didn’t organize a double lesson because it looked awesome!
I was pumped when I woke up on Sunday morning because I was meeting Rhi in the city for our first SARRC “StartRunning” class.
We weren’t sure what to expect other than perhaps a truck load of disappointment like the last time Rhi and I joined a running class and got left for dead at the back.
Rhi and I nervously shuffled over to the meeting point by the local footy club and were met by a lovely man by the name of Kelvin with a big grin and a clipboard for sign-in.
People slowly arrived and at 8am, Kelvin decided that everyone was present and started the class with a bit of a pep talk on the club steps.
Introductions and housekeeping over, we left our keys and drink bottles and were on our way for an easy 3.5km run around North Adelaide.
Straight away, everyone found their comfort zone. Some straight to the front, bounding along with confidence and grace, and others keeping to the back with faces at the ground.
Rhi and I found ourselves in the middle, where we wanted to be, and realised that we kept a comfortable pace right behind the front runners. It was a great moment, to realise that I was a part of a group, doing something I enjoyed, and I was keeping up.
Even though none of us had ever met, we were all there for the same purpose. And so we ran.
It became obvious fairly quickly that the groups fitness levels were quite varied.
One of Kelvins house rules were that should any of the group pull too far ahead, he would blow his whistle, and the front runners would have to run around to the back of the group to keep everyone together. He also gave us markers to run to, and should we make it to the marker before the rest of the group, we had to run around to the back of the group again. This happened quite often and, Rhi and I included, had to run around to the back of the group a number of times. Some of the front runners didn’t run the extra distance because they were racing, not pacing *sniff* but I didn’t mind, because it meant that I wasn’t last, and that those who were last weren’t left behind.
Overall, Rhi and I finished the run feeling great, not just about ourselves but also about the group and the sessions going forward. We decided quickly at the end that we should put in a couple of extra kms so after a quick class debrief we kept running past the club, and headed over to the usual track behind the zoo.
WEEK 14: Moving Madness
Week 14 was absolutely unreasonable.
Our workplace was destined to move offices at the end of this week, so I spent the whole week preparing for the inevitable agony that would occur.
Rhi and I completed our now usual 5km run on Tuesday morning and went swimming on Wednesday night after work, but otherwise left all the week’s remaining exercise in the mercy of the office move on the weekend.
By the time Saturday rolled around, Rhi and I had clocked an excess of 50hours at the office, and so with early mornings and late nights and a less than enthusiastic Chris following along to help, we all found ourselves greeting the weekend with a grim determination.
To top it off, the movers were one guy short so I cracked the whip and had all of us grabbing trolleys and moving boxes and furniture as close to the truck as possible to try and make good time.
12.5hours later, 2 truckloads of office furniture, 3 counts of Angry Building Manager phone calls regarding suspected building damage, an RAA callout for a dead truck battery, 38 flights of climbed stairs, why are we always moving to the 3rd floor of every building?? and a partridge in a pair tree, we called it a night. Nightmare over? Nope.
I spent Sunday taking note of every single cut, bruise and sore muscle like a collection of war wounds.
WEEK 15: Our First Race
Officially in the new office Monday morning and straight into the nightmare that is unpacking.
We are sharing our new office with another company who have been in the building for a quite a while, and as such, have filled almost every nook and cranny with their own belongings.
It was like two lovers moving in together for the first time. I was left with boxes and boxes of items that we wouldn’t use because they already had a microwave, silverware, glass ware, etc. Yay.
We had only moved two blocks over in the CBD, but Rhi and I decided we would change our run route on Tuesday morning and have a go at the parks on the Eastern side of the city.
Because our “Start Running” class was supposed to slowly raise our kms to 10km in 10 weeks, we had decided we would amend our kms in conjunction with the classes and until we got past 5kms, we would keep at that distance and work on increasing our pace instead.
Map’O’Meter gave us a route around Rymill Park so off we went. I was actually excited for the new pavement prospects and after the initial awkward couple of kms, got into a steady rhythm that I actually enjoyed. Yup, I was enjoying myself.
Rhi and I both had a day from hell on Wednesday and decided to take it easy and run instead on Thursday.
Rhi was greeted with a sinus infection on Thursday morning so I ran the Rymill track by myself but only clocked 4.8kms. I stopped outside the office door and looked up the street, considering whether I should just run on the spot to make the 5km. Meh, whatever.
Rhi was feeling up to joining me on Friday morning and we thought we would just jog towards Victoria park and see where it took us.
I had never been in that part of the city before, and on the west side of the park at least, it was really beautiful, running down the tree lined shared path, watching other people jogging and using the parks outdoor circuit equipment.
It was the first time that I had run two days in a row, and even though Rhi and I feel like we are acing the 5km, I could feel the soreness in my body and my joints telling me I should have stretched better and rested more with the additional kms.
I love that I am getting to know my body better.
Chris had to go over to Sydney for work Saturday morning, so to stay in denial of the empty house for as long as possible, I joined my Mum and her boyfriend on a day trip down the coast and around all the fishing towns in the South.
I figured I could get away with not doing any crosstraining because, lazy and I wanted to be well rested for Sunday as the day was finally almost upon us to join in the 5km SARRC Dolphin Run that Rhi and I had signed up to.
Our first official ‘race’.
I hate that word. ‘Race’.
I kept telling myself it was just going to be another 5km run. Along the beach. With hundreds of people. And running bibs with numbers on them. And observers. And timers. I think I just vomited a little.
I tossed and turned all night, part because the house was too quiet with Chris working away, and part because of the obvious nerves I had about our first ever running event.
I got up on time, and was ready to head out the door a good 10mins before Rhi came to pick me up which just allowed me some time to sit in an empty house and fret. Excellent.
We got down to the race just after the allotted time for bib collection, and were surprised by the amount of people already there and already warming up. People were warming up? “Gulp”.
We nervously got in line to find our bib numbers and then dropped our stuff in our cars and decided to go for a walk down the jetty since we still had 20 mins to spare before the race was to start.
Our walk took about 10mins, and we got back to the start point just in time to watch the 10km participants leave.
It was instant shock to see these people literally sprinting off the start line. Like, not even just to get ahead, these people were bounding along like bambi and if anything, were getting faster.
We numbly shuffled over to the start gate after our 3rd wee stop,nervous wee’s anyone? and listened to the announcer while we bounced up and down on the spot, filled with nerves.
3 mins to go and the announcer is asking who is running for the first time. Rhi and I ceremoniously throw our hands into the air with a few others and the crowd claps and hoots.
30 seconds to go and people begin frantically messing with their GPS watches and phones.
Counting down from 10…. 3, 2, 1! The horn blows, and off we go.
Should I say, off they go.
In the first 10 seconds, two thirds of the group launch themselves into a sprint and the gap behind them and us grows ever larger by the second.
Rhi and I had wanted to start at the very back, but had been shuffled forward with the crowd at the gate which resulted in a very disheartening first km with so many people passing us.
Rhi even looked around at one point to make sure that we weren’t last!
I was so annoyed in that first 7mins. I thought our pace was getting so much faster than when we had first started training, and it still seemed like we were so behind.
After the first km, our bodies had finally settled into rhythm, and the group was spread enough that if not for the bibs on our shirts, we could have told ourselves we were just running a usual Sunday morning track by our lonesome.
Because we were running on such a popular beach in Adelaide, we had to fight the pavement with other runners, walkers, prams and even one woman on land skis. Each to their own.
It was great to see how many families were doing it together and how many kids were tagging along giving their mums big smiles of encouragement.
We also made many many canine friends.
The half way mark was a welcome sight and just a cone in the middle of the path to run around and we started our way back.
By this stage people were started to slow, and even walk. Racing, not pacing!
The way back felt so much quicker and before we knew it, we were rounding the bend onto the grass for the home-run.
Away with the determined grimace, and in with the insane assassin grinning gazelle – the finish line was in sight and Rhi and I sprinted for it, while I madly giggled and scared small children.
All of a sudden we were done! A woman with an electronic paddle scanned my bib and we panted over to the drink table to get some water.
All the runners were still congregating around the finish line so Rhi and I decided to go put our stuff in the car and stretch on the grass.
I was in shock. It was done. It was over. Our first ever official running event and we participated and even better? We blitzed our Personal Best (PB) and made the 5km in just over 37mins.
That was almost 2 mins quicker than we have ever run the same distance. High five!
Next week, Rhi and I will be joining back with the Start Running class which we intend to keep up with until the Clare Valley 10km race.
That’s right. I have read about it, but I just lived this bizarre moment.
I ran, I pained, I panted. Then I finished, and within a few minutes, was talking about signing up to the next one.
After an imaginative suggestion of super hero running nicknames by Rhi's friend, Brad, we also decided we might get some custom running shirts made up for our next race.
Rhi will herby be known as Runnanon, and you can call me Samarathon.
Ok, crazy lady.
