Memorial Day

Today is a Memorial Day for those lost in the earthquake on the 22nd of February. There was a large memorial service in Hagley park, with the Prime Minister, as well as Prince William, as the Queen's representative. Today then, is a day of remembrance. I was blessed enough to not have anyone in my close family who were lost on that dark day, but friends of friends, people I had known in my past, people who I had met, had shared a drink, or a moment with or had conversations with, I will never have that privelidge again.

But, once tommorow comes, we need to start looking forward, start looking towards rebuilding, reconstructing and restarting our city. It won't be as simple as a jump start to the battery, it is going to be a long process, and once which is going to be immensly frustrating to many, many people! Already we are seeing issues with traffic, which is simply going to continue, because the companies that work on the roads simply have so much work to do, that it will be a long process.

As to today's run. I headed out from my place, up past Ferrymead, then kept following the main road out to Redcliffs. There is a track up which travels up a valley to a cave from the end of Bay View Road. I have been getting frustrated by tracks being closed (so inconsiderate by them!), so when I saw that this track was closed, I thought I would be a rebel and head up it anyway. When I did that up Rapaki track on Tuesday, it was not an issue. Today, it was much more of a problem. The Cave track has suffered very badly from slips, whole sections were missing, wooden bridges lay at the bottom of the valley, far from the track where they are meant to serve. That meant my running slowed down significantly in those bits! I have always thought of myself as a bit of a billy goat when it comes to running on hills, but I was being especially ginger about my footing, I had no desire to end up at the bottom of the valley with the bridge!

Worked out to being 21.02 km, done in 1 hour, 39 minutes. So, it means that in spite of not running for two days, I still managed to get 62.77km done this week. All good really! Also, it means that there is just 36.67km left until the 1000km mark, very exciting!

Hockey tommorow, I think a small run in the morning will be in order.

CP