If I had known about this race series, I would've definitely signed up for the entire series. But I only got to know about it about a month ago, so I only signed up for their 4th race which was held in Waiuku - a nice little outskirt town just about half hour drive from Auckland city.
Ruth did 5k, Sarah did 14k and I did 24kIt's nice to have my flatmates join with me. In fact they signed up before me even, they were so excited about it. So this morning, the 3 of us rose bright and early and drove out to Waiuku. It was gloomy weather at first, with splatters of rain and crazy wind, but I think my luck has been rather good with races, because the weather cleared up about half an hour before I started my race.
It was 24 km and I had had a full on gastronomical adventure in Aussie, and hadn't run much at all for a couple of weeks and really i wasn't feeling my fittest. But perhaps the Kiwi attitude got the better of me and I just wanted to go for a nice easy run. Which I ended up doing. I completed it in just under 2 hours 40 mins. Which was a little slow because the terrain was hilly but not exactly very steep. I think I could've gone a lot faster.
But for some reason my calves were really really sore. I think it could be due to the recent lower body strength conditioning exercises i've been doing. I am helping out a Post Grad friend do his research on Lower Back Pain with relations to core strength. So I've been assigned a 6 week training involving a resistance band and some leg and hip exercises. They're not hard exercises, but I am actually not very well conditioned...haha...so i think these strength exercises can be a bit full on for me.
Anyway...the trail i ran was absolutely gorgeous. I am so glad I chose to do 24km. I really wished I had brought my phone to snap pictures. It started with a huge muddy puddle so my shoes were completely soaked within the first 2 minutes of the race. But then it was dry the rest of the way. It was a really neat pine tree forest next to the sea so the ground was pretty sandy which made it quite hard to run.
I walked a couple of times uphill. And there was a point where I was running by myself for a whole hour or more. And they even labeled that part of the trail as Sleepy Hollow and the pine trees were towering over me, and the leaves were rustling in the wind and the branches creaking. I was really quite scared.
how dirty we got
But overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. Contemplating joining the next one, but $48 just to run again? hmm...i'll contemplate some more.
6 comments:
hey galnexdor, tell me bout the lower back pain in relation to core strength, coz i'm having this pain too - run too much compared to not enuff core training?
well, what this guy is researching is whether a strong core (hips, gluts, thighs) can eliminate lower back pain.
what he did was make me stand in a confined space for 2 hours. then he measured all the muscle activity with electrodes.
now im going thru a 6 week training program. then he's gonna do that measuring thing again after 6 weeks to see if i get less back pain when standing.
but yea, back pain can come from a weak core. so u should do some core ex.
hey galnexdor,
that's some new info for me. i've heard of core stability exercises, so wat do u recommend?
uh...pretty much just google core strength exercises and try them out. haha i dont really do much strength exercises. but swiss ball ones are pretty fun.
lotsa fun with mud huh!! you're getting stronger day by day gal! =)
=) so are u!! man, I really need to start biking and swimming if i ever want to keep u in sight in tris!
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