No sex please, we're runners

I love Runner's World magazine. It's often got impossibly ripped people on the front, and pictures inside of abs the kind of which belong to models and/or elite runners. Eye candy, even if in my wildest dreams I couldn't find the time or motivation (or stay away from the icecream) long enough to train enough to look like that.

But that said, the variety of body shapes and sizes at longer distance events is astonishing, and brilliant. A quote from the a recent Runner's World article by Mark Remy on Rules to Run By includes a gem of a quote: "Not everyone who looks fast really is, and not everyone who looks slow really is." I'd also add that not everyone who looks intimidating and unapproachable really is - appearances can be deceiving in many ways.

Last year I went to a road race event. Local clubs were heavily represented, all age groups and speeds were on course. Once their race was over, a group of teenage lads sauntered around having ditched their race singlets. Unlike many of the Runner's World cover specimens (but probably like a lot of the runners on the inside pages with their shirts still on) these young guys were skinny, pale-chested and ropey, but they were working it, big time. They probably had picked about the most receptive audience-for-body-type possible!

So is there eye-candy at running events? Yes. Does it matter? Only as a side show, or until everyone gets sweaty, snotty and muddy enough that we're all pretty much equal. Grovelling is grovelling, no matter how it's packaged.

I could ask my husband for the male perspective of sex appeal and running, but he's training for the Christchurch marathon and has gone to bed early. Like I said...

Memorable runs - they're not always the fun ones!

Addition to the list of things to guts through - running on late Saturday afternoon. It was hot, well 23C or so (hot for Wellington), and had I not made a pact to run with a friend, I wouldn't have gone. Leaving home when my family were sitting on the back lawn with cups of tea? Less than 20 minutes into the run I was thinking I should have stayed, but I'm pleased I went out.

I would put the grovel factor at about 6/10 (it wasn't that long); the grot factor at about 8/10 (hot and sweaty, and had baked beans for lunch); the company factor 10/10 (love running with friends); recovery factor 2/10 (felt rubbish afterwards).  But there is a certain satisfaction in noting a run the paper diary and in here, especially after two days off (1 planned, one too busy to think).  It'll be a run I'll always remember.

It always amazes me, when I look back over my running diary, that I can place most of the runs, even those on the tried and true local circuits. There's almost always something memorable about each one, either for the delight of a great run, or the happiness of finishing a rough one. Thinking about the last 20 km of the Kepler, these tough ones are probably the most valuable to me - not that I'm wishing for more of them!

Happy trails.

What's wrong with me - and anyone else reading this?

Yesterday I was at the gym on the treadmill (aka machine of unending doom). The guy next to me was doing hill intervals and making noises that people only make in times of great pleasure, or great pain; either way, not noises normally made in public places. Turns out this gentleman has just qualified to represent New Zealand in short-source tri, and is aiming for representation at Olympic distance, too. He outlined a racing and training schedule that made me even more short of breath than I already was, then asked what I was training for.

At the word "Kepler," I swear his eyes bulged, then changed to a look of pity. He shook his head and said "wow, 60 km - you're crazy!" Well, I'm pretty sure he does more kilometres every week than I will do on course in December, and he works across three disciplines, balancing training, nutrition, and wetsuit wrangling. My hat goes off to him! But the question is why something like Kepler is seen as something really, really scary? Is it the topography, the distance, the training required, all of the above?

These are the moment when I wonder whether I've totally overestimated my ability to do this, and/or over underestimated the challenge and that I must be a bit off the margins! I reckon I've got one major advantage, one thing to fall back on: having been at the race briefing, the finish line and the prizegiving when my husband's run the race, I've seen the people of all ages, shapes and sizes, finish times and reactions to completing the race. They're incredibly varied, and incredibly encouraging. And I guess I'm keen to find out what it feels like. And I don't means DOMS so bad you can't lift your feet above ankle level!

So what's wrong with me, and maybe you? I guess we all choose our punishment one way or the other - the tri guy does his hill repeats and I'll do my long slow runs, and we'll continue to wonder at each other's choices. Nice though, that even at the gym, there's camaraderie as we pursue our chosen form of madness. And hopefully have the breath to compare notes!

Where are you, woman in the blue top?

There was this woman in a blue shirt in the last event I did, ten whole days ago. She ran in front of me, steady as a metronome. At first I was bullish, picked her out as someone I could track for a while and then hopefully pick up - and I did. Then I had a spell in front of her, but stopped to grab some food. She tapped past, and gradually disappeared from view. Thinking that she might be in sight again just around the next corner kept me going, though.

I wish she lived around here somewhere. The last 10 days have been a bit frantic and I haven't run at all. I could have, but it was too easy to say 'maybe tomorrow,' or 'maybe when I get this piece of work done.' If she'd been running past my house every day, or I'd seen her running into town while I sat on the bus, I might have been motivated to try and follow her.

Motivation in the face of modern life? All too easily lost!

Upright, moving forward

Saturday's run wasn't pretty, it wasn't fast, but it's done. And I don't have any new scabs on my knees. I'll take that as a not insignificant victory.

The 27 km event was cool: we had fantastic weather, even involving a tail wind through the second half of the race. What could be better? Well, some energy in the legs would have been good but frankly, that was lack of training in action. And the uphill start was a bit hard-out for an old girl like me,

It was an interesting experience during the event of setting the legs into plod mode and then almost chugging along without thinking at all. I seldom dissociate completely during a run, normally thinking constantly about how I'm feeling, whether I can still see the people I'm trying to keep in touch with, where the next km marker is, whether I've had enough to eat or drink. Aside from a hurty section at the end when I just couldn't, no matter how hard I tried, run up the last few slight inclines, it was all a head game. Is is better? More efficient? Or just normal? Tuning in, running out!

Coming back to reality with my kids and husband and other family supporters at the finish line was the best part of the day. And the beer... perfect. Now it's time to build on the event and see if I can't a) keep the momentum going and b) keep me knees clean.