Partners in Crime
At this point, allow me to introduce my Flatmates:
Alex "Awall" Wallace (who, luckily, answers to "Wallace" as I can think of no better name) - He's a lithe fellow with striking cheekbones and a regally pointed nose. His gaming face (an emotionless glare that misses nothing and flinches for no-one) gives away the intensity of his competitive spirit. Known for ruthlessly gutting his competitors in conversation, he has been judiciously backing up his trash talking with recent PBs (PRs) of 4:08 in the mile and 8:20 in the 3k.
Josh Van Dalen - Lucky enough to have the second manliest name I've come across (though still far behind "Mack Brickly"), he looks the part with the makings of a promising goatee, rugged legs (shaving is all too common a practice here), and a commanding (heh) voice. Never one to hold back, you'll be lucky to get a word in listening to the banter back and forth with Wallace. Generally, there are lots of references to "smashing" people and "gutting" performances of the past. Coming off a 4:16 mile this weekend, he's about to bust into the sharpening phase of his training. He also suffers as our under-appreciated flat-chef.
Post-XC Race
Stefan "Fano" Smith - Pretty boy XC warrior who found himself not only the winner of FloTrack's weekly photo challenge but top choice for the whole 3 month contest! Unfortunately, you only see him from his left side, which I'm sure is the only reason he didn't land on the cover of SI. Instigator of many a debate, you'll likely find Stefan pouring through LetsRun, FloTrack, NZRun, and Facebook, ruthlessly pillaging any running result he comes across. He's attacking the longer races this year and is hoping to make the NZ world XC team. His gutsy 5th place finish today at the trials puts him in a good spot.
Jesse "Fish Lips" Patel - Loves us so much he's willing to spend $60 a week getting in and out of Wellington (though he is known to cut down on that cost by sharing a bed with Josh on occasion). Sparing no effort or expense, I think he best represents the saying "for love of the game". His performances of late on track and on our gaming systems have been average at best but his attitude is so happy-go-lucky you can't help but get behind him. Quite inspiring.
Parliament
That's the who's who of the flat. I realized about 24 hours into my stay here I'd found something special. I've told a lot of people I'm having a great time here with a good bunch of people but that would be understating it a bit. Not only do I have an excellent location (living across the street from NZ's parliament (and well-manicured lawn), a block from downtown (Lambton Quay), within 2 miles of a great pool/gym, and 3 miles from the track), but I'm also in an ideal material setup (great showerhead/water-pressure, unlimited cable internet, awesome room/desk, excellent appliances (including valuable dishwasher), and of course big-screen TV with extensive gaming equipment).
However, what really makes this situation special, is that I'm in a runner-centric little niche. We all have the same priorities and enjoy (roughly) the same trivia and conversation topics. We all understand the importance of just resting with the day's focus being the workout. I love that these guys rip on people so freely, with little lasting regard for personal insult (This is a key point). It's all in good fun and when it comes down to it, it's clear that everyone in NZ supports each other's progression in the sport. Just like with brothers, you're gutted if you lose to them but that's quickly overcome by the love of seeing them do well. I also personally enjoy the fact that they don't care if I just get up and hunker down in my room for an hour or two , then come back and blend right back in.
Well, I think I need to write a bit more on this personal column. I'll give a big running/training update soon (Disclaimer: "soon" is a relative word).
What’s He Up To?
Not much. Training and Resting. Literally. Let me give you a sample day:
7AM: Grumble about the light and bury myself deeper into my pillows.
Weetabix
8AM: Look out the window: Cloudy'n'wet? Roll over... Sunny? Woohoo! Unfortunately, I now already find myself at the hardest part of the day: pulling my achy-breaky body out of bed. Eventually I usually succeed and stumble into the kitchen for some Wheetabix or toast or something. Once armed with carbs, I'll sprawl as luxuriously (some say awkwardly) as possible across one of the free couches (Alex and Josh are usually up before me) and bring my mind up to speed with some Southpark or Cricket Results (depending on Josh's mood).
10AM: Regardless of the buildup I'm usually out the door for a morning session by 10. Today Mitch called for:
am - AB 55' >< 65' start @ slow end of pace zone, end @ fast end
+ stretch
+ ice achilles
The run went really well (considering I had to massage both my achilles to life before starting the session). I've been having some problems starting these longer pieces off slowly (especially when I know they should be picking up). Problem is I usually get to 12min in and realize I've come all the way down to the bottom of the pace zone. Oh AB = Aerobic Basic, 5:20-6:00/mi. Today I just decided to stay 6:00 for first 30min. Around minute 40 I hit the track and got a speed check. 85.5 lap so 5:51 pace. Good. Coming back home I dropped a 20:20 to finish up the 5.8km back to the flat. Finishing up 5:20 bang on. So I'm really pleased.
Noon: Whatever the workout, eventually it will come to an end and, as per the Seb Coe plan (zero extra-curricular energy allowance), it's straight back to hard core lounging. The only question is the form of the lounge. And with that, we come to my one decision of the day: Sit down in the power chair and crank out some web work? Or re-assume my splayed position on a couch and trash talk it up with the locals. The decision largely comes down to: Will I be disappointing anyone by not working? Is Stefan Smith here and likely stirring up trouble? (surely yes). Either way, I have 5 hours to kick my feet up before the next session.
5PM: Sessions number two, which carries on for at least 2 more hours total (maybe more if I have to get to and from Freyburg pool), takes me all the way to dinnertime.
Today I have:
pm - GR 25' >< 35' easy
+ Lift 1
+ stretch hip flexors
+ ice achilles
Most went well, I think I strained my back a little bit with the squats and my left achilles (getting quite bad now, gotta talk to Mitch) couldn't handle the calf raises. Strong effort overall though and I'm feeling pretty powerful. Upon getting back to the flat, it is a tradition of Alex and mine to whip up some fortifying milkshakes in hopes of gaining some recovery carbs.
8PM: Time to craft some sort of meal, which is a group effort though usually under the supervision of head-chef Van Dalen. After that, it's kick back again and take a peak at what horrors Mitch has concocted for me the tomorrow. More sports and banter to finish off the day and then off to my room by 11.
Midnight: Despite my best efforts, I usually don't end up falling asleep until midnight or so as some email or blog post requires writing.
But with that, you have a nice template of my average day.
Wellington Welcomes You
My bus ride back to Wellington couldn't have gone any better (especially in comparison to my trip out) as I arrived in Wellington 10 minutes early(!) on a beautiful day, having happily slept 7 hours of the trip. In fact I had hardly awoken for the second time when I was greeted with "Wellington Welcomes You" (a road sign I may have made up to suit the purposes of this entry).
Wellington Welcomes You
I'm settled and unbelievably happy to kick back and relax for a bit. More than that, I've been looking forward for quite some time to being able to sink into a nice living situation, organize my stuff, catch up and stay current with work, and (most of all) finally put training first in my life. I've felt guilty ever step of the way, tossing workouts aside because there was no track handy, skipping sessions because it's impractical to get to a gym, staying dry because there was no water deep or safe enough to aquajog in. Well no more! And after 3 full days here, I know I've landed in a good situation in a great city. If I'm not careful, Wellington might turn me into a bit a city guy. I have nothing negative to say about it at all.
I should mention that my flat mates for a time are Alex Wallace and Josh Van Dalen. They've been game enough to house me in their mate Aaron's room (who'll be gone for ages) until I find a permanent home. I just hope it comes close to what they have set up here. Right now I couldn't be happier. I'm at an awesome desk, perfectly suited for my system, I live with a couple of runners, and the location can't be beat, 1 block from a grocery store across the street from Parliament, and 3 blocks from the beautiful Wellington harbor waterfront. I should mention Josh is a bit of a cook as well. Seems the rumor about NZers being a bunch of foodies isn't too far fetched.
With this situation, however, I have begun to focus my attention on various computer projects I've been interested in diving into, some paying, some not (Sadly for you, I will not be releasing the details to anyone but my closest confidantes... and that has nothing to do with how boring it would be to read). The result is that I think my time writing about the NZ experience is largely at an end. I'm going to divert my time at this point to the more elitest pursuits of aquajogging lanes, coding textbooks, and Photoshop tutorials.
But! This personal journal is not over! Just simply scaled back. I will try to have a bit of an update weekly (mostly for fretting parents), and today marks week one.
So check back every now and then, and I'll have something curious for you to mull over.
Cheers!
Coromandel Trip
Please humor the lack of catchy prose in this post, as I'm writing it way too late to remember specifics...
AC/DC mansion
Today was my last day of real honest-to-goodness tourism. Ian rounded up the troops and hustled us into the car for our big trip to the Coromandel Peninsula (but not before I got in a quick 50min run @~5:45 pace and a good strength routine). We were not 10min down the road when he showed us to our first attraction: The mansion of AC/DC. The place was quite impressive, one of the most expensive I've seen in NZ thus far (though I know others are out there. Shania Twain owns a huge ranch somewhere on the south island I believe). 10min in and we're already getting treated.
Eventually, after a delicious hill-top picnic of turkey sandwiches Ian and Jane put together, we arrived at our destination for the day: Pauanui beach in the heart of the Coromandel. The town of Pauanui is known as "rich man's playground" and with Yhats anchored outside houses in man-made canals, I began to believe the hype. The beach itself was unremarkable but had system of really cool sandbars that were fun to play in during high tide. We sunbathed 'til 4 and some of us even fell asleep in the slight breeze. It was incredibly relaxing.
On the way back we stopped at the main beach to change (about a mile down the way) and were pleasantly surprised by a series of brightly painted cars hawking their wares for free. At the time we were there, the only item up for grabs was spicy chicken chips. I had a few, and could see the appeal, but my mouth burned and I quickly turned to the support of the other free handout: water.
L&P and an ice cream. Can life get any better? I wager that it cannot!
On the way out of town we dropped by this amazing gated retirement community built around a golf course. I think it must have sprung up in the last decade as everything was very new. Ian said the location was a possible landing zone once he decided to settle down permanently. I didn't see any reason not to.
The final attraction of the day was a giant monument to NZ's most popular home-brewed cola: affectionately referred to as L&P. We all took our seat at the base of the monolith and I may have been too lazy to move for Jane's turn...
And with that, we arrived safe and sound back at Ian's. Now, it's pathetic, but I cannot for the life of me remember what we had for dinner that night, but you can bet your sweet buns it was something amazing and crafted in the capable hands of Ian Carter.
Milling About
Today was a pretty lackluster, overcast day in general. Cary, Jane and I made our way into downtown Tauranga to just walk around, sample various bakeries, and wait out the weather. Much of the morning was spent listening to Jane hate on Starbucks. Much of the afternoon was spent smiling knowingly at her after she downed a Starbucks "Tall White Chocolate Mocha Soy".
The "main event" of the day ended up being a viewing of Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, and Rachel McAdams (At $15NZ, I can safely say movies are more expensive here. Based on number of people filling the theater I would say they could afford to jack that up a little even. Conclusion: Kiwis love the movies. Likely corollary: technology [entertainment systems] is/are more expensive here). Not really worth reviewing; it was entertaining, but long and had a weird ending. Actually, it was just the ending, really, because the climax hit, and then the movie started wrapping up... and wrapping up, and wrapping up, to the point where the tension was once again starting to build... before abruptly ending. Well, aside from that, it did entertain for almost 3 hours so... mission success!
The training I was supposed to do today involved a gym, which is not very handy around here. So, despite my efforts, I will have to start the lifting routine when I get back to Wellington in 2 day. However, I did ramp up the run to compensate a bit.
5' stretching. 2' warmup followed by 38' solid AR/AB pace probably hovering around 5:45/mi (3:33/k) effort twice around a golf course. 7' slow jog home. 6mi, 47'
10' luxurious stretching and ice achilles. I have also begun to take 3x400mg Ibuprofen starting yesterday. The achilles was in very good shape for the run. Afterward, it both calves were tight (but not weak!) so I'm not going to count this as the first of 3 workouts at 100% achilles.
Aqua-struggle
Today was another great beach day, bookended by two aqua workouts.
Oh the pain!
or not
11AM: 2min warmup. 4x4min@AE effort, 1min rest. 2min cooldown.
Followed up by the strength routine. Cary got a few photos of the routine so I thought I might elaborate.
1-leg squats, 20 each.
1-leg hip-flexor toe-reaches (balance on one foot and reach as far out in front of you as you can with the other foot and come back, all without touching the ground). 20 each.
10x"the neal" each foot (pumping your arms while leaning forward and back on each leg)
2x1min alternating each leg eyes-closed balancing (there's got to be a better way to say that, w/e)
Thats it.
6:30PM: 2min warm up. 7x2min@AB effort, 1min rest. 2min cooldown. Had some very inquisitive Maori's around jumping off the dock and marveling at my ability to stay in the water for just 20min. One was named Azzee and one named Zeair (those are American spellings of American ears hearing Maori pronunciations soooo, could be a bit different in reality).
Had a delicious sandwich today at a beach cafe that was served with all the innards piled high on one piece of toast. The other piece (the one you would usually use to cap off a "sandwich") was cut up! and laid to the side... Ummm, not even God could have eaten it like a sandwich. But I eventually managed to dribble it into my mouth and like I said, it was delicious.
Long Run and Done
Woke up against my will today having agreed to do an early morning "Sunday" run with Cary, Malcolm, and a girl named Lisa at 9AM. After some stretching, we did a 10k loop plus a little addon very easy in about 50min. I wanted to simulate a long run after talking to Nick a bit yesterday and learning he was still in base phase cranking miles. I'm beyond the point where ramping up the mileage in the next 2 months will help me a ton and it will be tough to crank with so much time in the pool. So Lisa showed me to a dive pool where I was bull-headed enough about swimming there that I didn't care that I had to hire (kiwi term for rent) out the entire pool for an hour for $20. It was a really good setup for me though and I took 45min of that hour to continue to aquajog.
So 50min run, 45 aquajog.
The pool also had a conveniently located bar about 4 feet out of the water I could lunge up and grab to do pull-ups. I did a bunch of those to break up the monotony. All in all it was a really good setup but prohibitively expensive. Tomorrow I'll look for another solution. Oh, I did a bit of core and a bunch of stretching once I got back at the track. Iced the achilles and took preventative Ibuprofen. Achilles continuing to hold up pretty well but both calf muscles are tight. Interestingly enough (and encouraging), my lower legs felt very evenly tight. Balance is always good to have...
Rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I took a 3 hour nap to catch up on sleep. Tomorrow I start the training Mitch so carefully laid out for me.
2010 Debut
Woke up today feeling unrealistically good at 9AM, bade farewell to our fantastic New Years hosts (I failed to mention earlier that we crashed for the night in an incredibly conveniently located flat owned by an (ex?) runner named Clive. Interesting note: his gf is from NYC and they're going strong after 9 months and amazingly they find time to get together every 2 months or so. Good news for a couple love birds I know... This is pushing the limits of parens...), and started to shuffle around the once again thriving beach town.
So at this point, only thing on my plate is the 3k Cary and I have been planning to run. Obviously, race prep up to this point hasn't been ideal, and we continued to have no regard for our bodies as we basked out in the sun (still in jeans) while we waited for Ian to come pick us up. It wasn't until 2PM we made the connection (I'm guessing Ian's new year celebration was pretty epic as well. He's saying 3AM bedtime for himself. Understandably took him a little while to get going the next morning), so I'm talking a good amount of sun too. However, we did get a shower and a good 3 hour nap before rising at 5:30PM for our date with the track.
Once we got to the track I began to feel like a runner again for the first time in a while. Honestly, I haven't really felt the fire of competition on a track since last spring. But this was a legit meet with all regular events and a couple hundred fans in the stands. I actually didn't know how legit it was until I got there, and once there I was a bit repentant for the abuse my body had suffered in the previous 24 hours. That said, I didn't actually feel that bad and I had hydrated pretty well for the last 3 hours, so I was hopeful for a decent performance.
The 3k had a bunch of good runners in it, including a few fellows from the 5k in Christchurch, and some Ramblers with good PBs ( = PRs). Oh and of course Nick Willis. He ran the 800m about 45min earlier in a sit a pretty even split 1:52 (57,55). I did a good 12 minute warm up with a minute tempo toward the end of it. Legs felt pretty fresh after the day off. Abbreviated stretching routine and 1 set of strides. The short warm up was once again due to the fact that there was no woman's 3k beforehand. I don't really understand why they split up the schedule like that. Maybe fans can't handle two LD events in a row? Anyways, toed the line with about 25 other guys (packed) and interestingly enough we weren't assigned any order on the line. "Fast people in front." and I just took position 7ish on the line.
Gun went off and we were into it. I fell really nicely into 2nd place and was amazingly given breathing room as well. I think a lot of other people enjoyed New Years to at least the extent we did because the race ran a cautious 71 and 2:22 for the first 800. Cary took over at that point and dropped 69 69 69, leading me around for another 1200m. It was really fun to have us American's 1-2, that is until 1000m to go when Willis decided to disrespect us. He took over aggresively with a great move going into the back turn. Forcing me to wait until the end of the turn to get around Cary. I took off after him staying about 7-10m behind for much of the next 600m. With a lap to go Nick put it into casual overdrive and started on what I bet was about a 61. It would have been quite optimistic to assume I could have stayed with him, and I had promised Mitch I would take it easy with a 90% effort. So I cruised in maintaining 65 pace for what I believe was about a 8:31. I know I was 7:59 at the 200m-to-go mark and I'd like to think I maintained pace. We'll see if we ever get results. We're 30 hours out from the meet and for a $15 entrance fee, you'd expect a little faster service. Oh well.
I don't usually put my competition on a pedestal (other than Peter Kosgei), but it was an honor to warm down with an Olympic silver medalist. Hope to be equals someday.
I went on to run 5x200m in 30,31,30,29,29 (last two with Cary). I was just trying to maintain form at speed. Felt pretty easy and I like today as an overall effort. Cary also ran well, running 8:39.55 by his own watch. He also took 5th in the race.
I did some drills and stretched a whole lot before coming back home and icing the achilles.
Ian spoiled us once again with a Chaffee family reunion favorite of corn on the cob. He soaked it in butter and Cary and I each had 2 ears. What a day.
The Author
I'm a runner who's managed to escape the NE winter for a NZ summer. This is a chronicle of my travels.
Cheers!
Cell: +64.021.123.1347
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