Wandering Heels: Round The Bays 2011

A few months ago, I got it into my head that I would like to be able to run for more than a minute at a time. So I did the rational thing and downloaded a running app off Itunes. As you do. I secretly worry that I look like a lunatic ala Phoebe from Friends when I run so I've kept to the backroads around the neighbourhood when I do my running. This suspicion did not ease when Lauren mimicked me after she saw me go for a run. She said "This is Ee Ee pretending to run" while running in a totally pitiful way. What the!

Week 1 saw me doing 8 lots of 1 minute runs followed by 1.5 minutes of walks. Week 1 was veeerrrrrrrrry painful. I was so unfit and the half hour sessions felt like an eternity. Week 2 was a bit better for my short attention span with 6 rounds of 1.5 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking. Still very unfit and still wanted to die after every session. I was in Melbourne for Week 3 but I powered through and still did the runs. They became more challenging with 2 rounds of 1.5 minutes run and 1.5 minutes walk followed by a longer 3 minutes run and 3 minutes walk. Then I graduated to Week 4 which was 2 rounds of 3 minutes run and 1.5 minutes walk followed by 5 minutes run and 2.5 minutes walk. Anyhoo I can manage the 5 minutes run but it was a struggle at times.

Viv talked me into doing Round The Bays a week before it was due to take place so I upped my training a bit in order to survive the 8.4 km course. The plan was to follow my app on the day and do the Week 5 training which was three lots of 5 minutes run and 3 minutes walks and then just repeat that until the bitter end. It didn't go exactly to plan.

The run was supposed to start at 9.30 and we rocked up about half an hour before hand. I didn't realise the whole world and their dogs would be out in force AND in costumes!! They don't call it a FUN RUN for nothing. We got as close as we could to the start line and that was probably about a block and a half away. The crowd was just humongous with people representing all sorts of organisations. It was fun seeing what the corporate tees of each company looked like. There was a huge charity presence there too with people dressed up for all kinds of causes. Heaps of parents were pushing their prams.

Word of advice : don't bring your babies! A. It is annoying when you bump your expensive pram with 4WD sized wheels into the back of my poor defenceless ankles. True story. And B. There's a chance that you might slip and cause the aforementioned expensive pram to topple over and propel your precious bundle of joy out of the expensive pram and onto the pavement. *crack*. True story also. St John's was kept very busy.

Anyway back to me. Jason and his cousin ran together as they are manly men and wanted to finish the race in 2 seconds (Yeah right!) so Viv and I ran together. I thought I was gonna be a real burden on the gym bunny but turned out I was quite the energizer rabbit myself!!

Like I said, we were a block and a half away and with the massive crowds around us, we didn't make it to the start line until about 5 minutes after the whistle was blown. At first, we just walked and weaved like a maniac all over the show in order to get out of the slow moving crowd. Once the roads opened up a tiny bit, we started running and kept weaving around the walkers and slow joggers (losers, eat my dust!). We kept this up for FIFTEEN minutes. I was so impressed with myself as this was totally unchartered waters for me. I think it was more distracting with all that was going on around me so I didn't focus as much on how much time was ticking by. Whereas if I was running by myself, the mental dialogue would be like "Oh my goodness, ONE minute has gone by. I am TIRED. I want to die. I want to STOP. Is it FIVE minutes yet? Nooo? Darn it!!!". And so on and so forth.

The rest of the way, Viv and I pretty much walked double the length that we would jog, then sprint for a bit. It was very good actually. I didn't actually push myself as hard as I should have because at no time during the length of the course did I feel like my heart was going to explode. Oh well, I shall aim to improve my time next year. Official time for me? 71 minutes and 40 seconds... hohoho!! Not bad for a former couch potato huh?? Best time was 26 minutes and it was achieved by the dude that won the Auckland Marathon last year. Might do the half marathon this year if I can find someone to do it with me.....

Around 80 thousand people took part in the fun run.... can you see me?????

Enroute to St Heliers' Bay:

Viv got us into Telecom's corporate marquee after the run and it was tres good. There was free food (buns, salads, coleslaw roast chicken, ham, fruits), drinks (soft drinks, water, beer, cider, wine), jelly beans, massages (I got one.. hohoho so good), sunscreen, facepainting (was gonna get one but worried about the paint causing breakouts on my face so I refrained) and a balloonologist (balloon animals making clown), giant bean bags to sit on. It was great to sit back and relax after the workout. Weather was great so it was a very good day.