So it goes

Well, it has been 3 days since I updated, and I have managed to do a run a day since then.

On Monday I ran the Upriver Loop, it was pretty standard, nothing too exciting! I had a Cavaliers trial game later that day, which was a bit too late in the day for my tastes, it finished at 10pm, I didn't get home till half ten, then in bed at 11... And slept terribly.

On Tuesday, I headed out on a new route. I followed the river up to Rutherford Street, then followed it up till Opawa Road, then headed up and over a small hill on Port Hills Road and back home via the river again. If you could do an aerial view of the run, it would look like an 'o' that a small child drew, not round in any way, but sortof 'o'ish.

Today I headed around the Bottle Lake Forest track. I hadn't been around it since it reopened post-quake. There is a landfill there, which is being used to store the liquefaction and the rubble from the quake, so there were large areas fenced off, as well as a steady stream of trucks. The track was completly different to the one I last ran (sometime in February I think); and unfortunatly got somewhat lost once! So despite having to double back at one point, my run was ok. The new track is much closer to the beach, so there is alot of soft sand rather than a track. This unfortunatly is not ideal when you are trying to rehab some hips; so I think this track might get sidelined for a while, just to let my hip get a bit better....

Not sure if I will manage to get a run done tommorow, I have a day of relieving, and then the second trial for the Cavaliers is tommorow night.

Not sure, we will see.

CP

So.

Well, times are a bit tough really at the moment.

I say that, and the thing that makes it so tough is that my motivation for running has hit rock bottom. In fact, my motivation has been attempting to find something below rock bottom, attempting to tunnel through it. Is there a good reason for this? Probably not. My hip has been recovering, my hockey has been developing alright. I am currently jobless, which you would think that would help me run; but I guess the lack of purpose during the day, means I have been lacking purpose in most areas!

What is the solution? Not totally sure. The canterbury representative team has it's first trial on monday, so perhaps that will be the spark I need?

Don't know. Managed to go out on the heritage loop, so at least I have done one run...

CP

A hill!

Well, my brother offered to join me for a run today, and since I have nothing better to do, and it is such a rarity to have someone to run with, I took him up on the offer.

We headed up Cannon Hill Road, and made a large figure 8 shape, following various roads and alley ways up the hill, and then down again. It worked out to being a good 7.5 km run, done in 34 minutes. Not super speedy, but certainly, still a good run.

It also marked the first run on a hill since my rest period. My hip was not sore, rather just it fatigued quickly, and was noticably tired for most of the run. Which, unfortunatly means it is far from 100%. This means that hill running might have to be avoided for the forseeable future, just to give it more time to settle. Thems the breaks however, and I am sure I can cope regardless.

I have a busy night tonight, with more activity, so it only being a short (7.5km) run, that will work out well, here is hoping my hip settles nicely!

CP

And so it continues

Well, getting back into it has been an interesting experience. It is kindof amazing how fast you lose your acclimitisation to doing longer runs. Today I headed out around the Heritage Loop (like so many times before) and although I could run the distance with no real worries, I still felt far more fatigued and a bit sorer than I remember being on a run which (in my opinion) was quite short and flat. It worked out to being a good 12 km, so at least I am starting to keep my distances up!

Not much else to report beyond that, I am slowly getting back into the swing of it, hopefully I can start building back up to where I was before the 10th....

CP

Well... another run

So, another run. After the success of yesterdays run (mainly being able to do it) I figured I would keep riding my luck and head out for another run! I headed out around the up river loop, nothing too excessive! Worked out to being 13.77 km (55 mins), which was actually a bit longer than i intended, but, thats not a totally bad thing. I wasn't too sore really, which is also a pretty good thing.

I should be really busy at the moment, but I am just waiting to see what is going to happen for a few opportunities. I am not a very patient person at the best of times, so this whole waiting thing will get pretty frustrating if it continues on too long....

CP 

Hey look a horse! Perhaps I will get back on it....

Well, today marked my return to running. I headed out for a very, very casual 5km run around the "5km Loop", and felt... alright while doing it.

It has been hard lately to fit runs in, with placement being so very busy, I really felt that I needed a total break from alot of things, running included. It was also made much harder once I started to have some niggles arising especially from the Arrowsmith run, but also from hockey, which has always been pretty tough on my hips. Is my injury gone? Probably not. Physio would certainly agree with that statement! Is it at a managable level? Yes. So, from that perspective, it is going well. It will be more of a case of managing it in the long term.

So, what does that mean for this plan? Well, I am now going to have to get back on track. I was trying to average about 300km per month- meaning I would finish sometime in October (best laid plans); that is still very much feasible. I had such a good first month, and my second was pretty damn good too, meaning I am still pretty much on track to keep up that average.

I also want to run a marathon, sub 3 hours. So, with that in mind, I will need to tailor what I am doing with my running, doing 2 longer runs (25 km) per week, coupled with more smaller runs.

But then again, part of me really would like to get back into focusing on hockey. I do enjoy playing, and as ever there is the chance for higher honours, but I am apprehensive, for the simple reason that I am not confident I will enjoy playing at that higher level. This is a far from definite statement; I don't think I have been playing well enough to warrant selection of late, but maybe with a month or so of hockey specific focus, I could be playing well enough. Which would still leave me plenty of time to finish my running.....

In short, I don't know.

CP

No running

Well, I haven't run for a while, and so haven't been updating this in a while either. The reason why? Because I wanted to rest after the Marathon; and then unforunatly, a problem reared it's ugly head. My left hip has become an actual problem, hockey and running are not combining well at the moment to keep it happy!

So, what does that mean for this? A few more days recovery. I will hopefully start getting out again for some shorter runs tommorow, or possibly even tonight.

I am going to take my time with this, for the simple reason that, there is still over 8 months left in the year, and still 1800 km to go. Which, on both counts is long; and with that in mind, I have decided to try and do something smart (for a change) and actually make sure I don't push it too far.

This all coming from a person who decided to run 3000km in a year, so expecting me to do something smart would seem unlikely....

CP