Back on track

This last weekend was a goody. Five hours on Saturday and three on Sunday, and after that lot I feel much better about my chances of getting to the finish line at Tarawera.

That said, when I blogged about the start of the big weekends, I now understand that I had no idea what I was on about. Now I reckon I've reminded myself of Kepler just enough to have a clue.

View of Belmont Regional Park
(from antonykitchener.wordpress.com)

Saturday was a tour of Belmont Regional Park with a great local guide, a guy who did the 85km Tarawera last year and is doing the 100km this year. He's an inspiration and had lots of extremely useful first-hand information about the course, and the ups and downs of a long, good day's running. We had good weather but the kind of Wellington northerly that you can feel whistling through the mesh on your shoes as you get pushed sideways. Needless to say we had some missed steps on the ridgelines!

Sunday was a different story with drizzle AND wind, so I stayed mostly off the hills. This was also a nice preserver for my tired but still functioning pins. I ran about half the time with friends training for the Rotorua Marathon and the company and the pacing was very welcome.

Today I'm totally functional and not sore at all. Stoked with that. In fact I'm quite looking forward to the series of big weekends to come, every second weekend from now on. And a few extra 'mental health' runs in between, just to convince myself that I'm doing enough. The old saying is true:  it's really as much about the head as the legs.