Kiwi Nationals Day 1
In Debriefing...
That first post was meant to be put up prior to the event so I could cement my mindset. However, lack of internet stifled my ambition. Since then, I've been tying up a ton of loose ends, emails, little requests and other whatnot, and at the same time, trying to minimize the amount of time I sit in this chair (possible cause of fatigue). So I apologize for the tardiness of this entry.
I actually booked my flight with Alex Wallace for Friday morning knowing that I would get to the city, move into my room (planned on the colorful GO Hotel), and scamper off to the track for my 800 heat. Luck would have it that Awal was being picked up in a Wellington-sponsored van from the airport so I tagged along to get closer to the city. Upon reaching his destination: the impressive Camelot motel, I slid open the van door and jumped out.
No sooner had my feet hit the ground than I heard a familiar voice, "Mack Daddy!" - JVD
Camelot
The van had dropped us right at the doorstep of room 744, home to the Scottish ringleaders (Scottish being one of the Welly running clubs). "Where you staying, mate?"
"Haven't booked a room yet. Thinking about ..."
"Oi, I reckon we have an extra bed, eh Josh." Fano was way ahead of me.
"Uh, nope."
"Noooo, it's you, Japes, and Scotty downstairs so just me a Luke up."
"Yip, and there's only 2 beds upstairs..."
"Nooo, there's three beds you idiot."
"Nope, I remember. There was only two."
"I sleep up there you <beep> retard."
"Shall I check? I'm gonna check."
2 seconds later from the balcony, "Aw, yup. K," to me, "You should stay."
Love to. I immediately cut a deal: I would pay for the room's groceries as my part of the cost and we would live like kings! The next three days really reminded me of spring break a bit. Just chillin' with a bunch of runners, trying to relax between sessions, eating food, watching tele, sipping beers. Great times. Great times!
After an hour of catching up we all headed off to the track for day 1 of competition. For me it was just an 800 heat.
Now I was thinking about running in my Piranha flats prior to getting to the track, but once there I had a very pleasant surprise. Turns out, one Nicholas Willis had scratched from the 800m, choosing instead to head back to the States to focus on his training and nurse his knee a bit (I completely understand). Not only that but 1:49 runner Tim Hawks was still feeling worn out and would not be running. Between the two of them and a Canadian with a 1:48 under his belt, I think a lot of Kiwis were scared into the 1500m for their chance at a national title. So now the 800m was suddenly wide open! I was pretty confident about making the final and if I couldn't do it in the flats, I really didn't have any business racing anyways. So in 24 degree heat (no more conversions for lazy Americans) our two heats went off.
I was in the second heat and I smiled a bit as the first went through in 60. Sweet. They finished up in 1:55 and I was all but in to the final. My race goes and I tag along in back at what was probably a 56.
Nope -- 58.
The heat+flats scared me with a lap to go, which was a good thing because I finished in 1:56 after straining down the home stretch. I would have been more worried about how hard that 1:56 felt except that everyone else was panting after their equivalent times as well.
Grabbed a light calf massage (more of a rub) from the Wellington masseuse (the second mooch off the Wellington squad. I owe them big time), and tried to relax with a beer in the hot tub back at the Camelot. Tomorrow, big day! (And don't worry, I hydrated well after the beer...)
Kiwi Nationals 2010 Prelude
Prelude...
Look at me being proactive about my writeup! Well today, for the first time in many moons, I was forced to see the unholy hour of 7AM. My flight to Christchurch is scheduled to leave at 9:15 (in about 9 minutes) and so far so good. One incredibly suprising characteristic of Kiwi airports is that the flights are easy to find, easy to board, and easy to ride. The security is lax (to the extent that officers would probably be taken out and shot if they were executing with the same level of friendliness in the States). But then again, I suppose that in NZ, you have a high chance being remembered when you inevidably meet again on this island nation. But get this, they're playing light rock/pop music videos as we're finding our seats. The experience is similar to what I would expect a private jet to be like. You can just walk up, hop on, and be on your way with less than 20min of waiting. The difference between this and a private jet? Here you only pay $35USD but no hot air hostess flirting with you.
Buildup to this ultimate NZ event has been lackluster. I've done significantly more mileage that I did pre-ITM but it's a far cry from what Mitch would have me doing if all was well. I also didn't meet his expectations for my Tuesday workout. However, I have begun to feel a little more powerful again (though only for up to 25 minutes at a time). With 4 races ahead of me, I have no idea how well or poorly I may fair. The really important thing though: I'm excited about racing right now. I believe in my abillity to race well, even if I'm completely lacking the fitness to finish a tempo at the moment. We'll see how it goes...
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.
My Apologies
First, I want to apologize to my mother and anyone else that may have been shocked by the content of "I'm On A Boat". I did promise myself I'd keep this G and that video was far from. Sorry Mom. I'll be good in 2010.
I woke up early but quickly went back to bed today. You see, it was overcast, and I'm on break. The whole rest of the day took the same tone.
I went down to the pier to aquajog at 10:30 but the tide was low and I lost my motivation. Did a bunch of strengthening/balancing stuff and some good stretching. Achilles at about 90%, quads sore.
PM: I went back down to aquajog at high tide at 6PM. I was in the water for 10minutes before I saw 3 jellies. After calculating the odds one might brush by me and evaluating the chances to be greater than Perlis writing 'AA' sometime today, I jumped out of the water and settled for settling today. 10 minutes aquajog. 1 mile run
Extra-athletic activity today was getting a tour of the Western side of Tauranga. It's houses are quite new. It's residents, quite old. We all thought of Florida.
Looks like tomorrow will be sunny again.
Nightmare on Taupo Street
.
.
...10AM. That's right, I decided to stay up all night and finish everything (haha, success!) before heading off and sleeping for our 8 hour bus ride at noon today.
The one time I left was to print a couple postcards (get excited) and have dinner with Jane and Cary. Jane lived up to and surpassed her last dinner, with a delicious pasta dish, chocolate covered strawberries and dark & white chocolate drizzled Oreo balls (far more smoothly shaped that the ones Ryan and I are used to). She also spoiled us with a "cass" of wine.
One of the cool sights along the way was Mt. Tongariro
The day really got interesting when we jumped on the bus. Let's see, itinerary: Ah, nice! We're supposed to arrive in Tauranga at 8PM. Sounds great...
2 hours in: "Why are we turning around?"
2 hours 10min in: "Why are we turning around again?"
2 hours 12min in: "Why are we stopped?... Oh, the other bus broke down. Oh gosh, make way for the new load." Our bus went from being half-full to no vacant seats as we absorbed a bunch of people that would have been trapped on the bus that broke down. Oh well, no I'm really uncomfortable and hot but at least I'm enjoying V for Vendetta with a couple of Mouri boys around me. They loved the netbook and proceeded to pour through my music video collection after we finished the movie. I find this hilarious: their favorite artist: Lonely Island. Ya, the SNL rap group. They pumped (OK, I use the term pump very loosely as our sound system is my netbook speakers), they pumped I'm on a Boat [warning: explicit] at least twice.
5 hours in: "Why are we stopped?"
"Shhh, we just got pulled over." Yeah, I drove for a dozen hours a reckless speeds on the South Island, only to get passed by Kiwis with cars that could actually accelerate uphill, and the silly police on the North Island pull over a bus driver (making 70 ppl late) for going less that 10 over. Another point for the South Island...
7 hours in: We finally arrived in Taupo and things would have been alright if that was our end destination. Unfortunately, we had to wait for about an hour for the broken bus driver to get himself and his few remaining passengers up to Taupo.
The next leg of the trip really killed me. I was getting really antsy and miserable. Here we are, Christmas Eve, and we're stuck on a bus... Sanity was only preserved through commiseration with our neighbors.
We ended up getting picked up by Ian 30km short of Tauranga at 11:15...
We got in 10minutes shy of Christmas and welcomed in the holiday chatting away with Ian, happy to have made it.
Anyways, no running today. I did do about 40minutes of balancing and drills though in the morning.
Day 26: Hostel Relations
Today was our final night in a backpacker. Hopefully for quite some time. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the living part of backpackers, always meeting new and interesting folks. But once you get out of the nature-loving, bed at 10, ultra-considerate personalities on the West Coast, it becomes increasingly difficult to sleep soundly. Something always creaks. Someone always grumbles in their sleep. And light always makes it's way into the room just when you're dreaming about dragon lairs, resulting in your premature roasting, your limbs flailing you back into reality. Good luck falling back to sleep...
Tonight was no different with a window behind the far bunk being slightly ajar and jostling a bit with each occasional gust of wind. Worst part was, it would happen just when you finished being angry with the last gust, finally forgot about the situation, and lost your previous resolve to close it "if it happens one more time".
Good to be going home
Well, we hit the road early as we needed to take those pics at the lookout, get gas, and speed back to Picton to turn in the car and make our 1:10 ferry.
Everything went swimmingly and we even enjoyed some glorious sun on the deck of the massive ship (This time we had the latest and greatest, though apparently finicky ship). I didn't take any photos but it was like a nice hotel in there with mirrors and glass and hard stone everywhere. Wind was quite intense as we were making our way through the Cook Straight, and the captain exclaimed that we would be entering "less than favorable water conditions." The boat rocked enough to make walking hazardous, and there were a few sea-sick individuals curled up with little white baggies. I was uncomfortable enough myself to hold my tongue right now describing their faces. Got over it by lying down for ten minutes before getting up and enjoying walking through oscillations of weighing 50 and 100kg.
Wellington
Let me say right now, Wellington is such a cool city.
- Nelson had great weather and a cute little strip but overall, I'd rate it as just a big town. Also, the population was generally older and less likely to be out or at least visually appealing on weekends.
- Queenstown is indeed very pretty. I could become a recluse and feed off the tourism out there. Lots of money and youth coming through but the excitement was lacking when I was there. Either way, definitely NOT a city.
- Dunedin kind of sucked. The waterfront was horribly industrious and downtown not very pretty. The school wasn't even that attractive to me. The fellas that took us in, however, were awesome! I had a great time kicking it with you guys.
- Christchurch was impressively lovely. Unfortunately, once you get beyond the numerous parks, gardens, and canals, it was like any other city in the US. Grid-like and no real high-rising buildings. In that sense, I can see it being pretty boring after a while.
Well, that's a pretty brutal breakdown of the cities I've seen so far. Let me definitively say they certainly beat most American cities I've been in (certainly beat Boston). But Wellington is awesome! Really stylish, exciting, and diverse downtown district, with suburbs that rise on sharp, steep, twisty-turny hills that tuck the city in. Great waterfront too! I think Cary made a great choice when he settled down there who-knows-how-long-ago.
Alex kindly picked us up from the ferry and we headed straight to practice.
Thought about just swimming but my achilles felt good, it was a circuit (not much running?), and I was there without option so I joined in. Actually turned out to be one of the most brutal... anythings... I've done since Bee Hill.
1 mile warmup.
3min uphill tempo "as far as you can go".
Tony set up a devilish set of cones, 100m apart, to sprint between, doing exercises at each end. Let's see if I can remember some.
20sec "press-ups" (push ups). sprint. ah, I already forget. sprint. Squat thrusts (mountain climbers). sprint. Something. sprint. 45s rest. fast feet in ladder. sprint. half-squats. sprint. 45s rest. v-ups. sprint. side crunch. sprint. burpies. sprint. high knees ladder. 3min rest
repeat 3min hill "tempo".
repeat circuit.
repeat 3min hill "race".
half mile cooldown.
5miles total?
Exhausted. Shower. Computer work. McDonalds with Shane. Computer work. Cereal. Computer. Take a dump from McD. Computer. Brush. Bed 2AM. Zzzzzz.
Day 23: Out of Place
Today we made our lethargic way to Christchurch where we'll stay the night before our debut track race. On the way we hit up two more attractions. Both were decidedly out of place.
First, was Larnach Castle, sticking out rather absurdly on the top of the farm ground that makes up much of the Dunedin peninsula. The price to get into the castle was absurd, calling for $25/person if you wanted to actually walk within the walls. However, the visit was Cary's idea and he was actually a lot more interested in the grounds and gardens for, you guessed it, the shrubberies. So all pictures are from the castle grounds. The unbelievable thing to me, was the number of people checking out this historic fixture.
For me, I couldn't help but marvel at the cookie-cutter life of William Larnach. You know, the one so many movies, books, parents, and pastors warn you about. Larnach had 200 people working for 3 years on his dream home and master European craftsmen spent 12 more years embellishing the interior. Basically, no expense was spared. Some of the stats on the castle are absurd. Yet! Larnach had 3 wives and 3 divorces before eventually killing himself at some parliament or something (I forget). Listen to this though, his kids let the castle go into ruin and it changed hands 2 more times, each time being refurbished for a brief period of time, before it was found, let me repeat that, FOUND!, completely abandoned in 1967, its main ballroom being used to pen sheep.... But damn, if I could buy a car here, then I'd REALLY be happy
Splintering Boulders
Moving on, we also stopped at a random beach that had nothing interesting but some surreally spherical rocks. I didn't hear about why they were that way, but they are. Some have some cool cracks in them that pretty closely resemble a soccer ball.
We got into Christchurch, carbo'd up, and got a twin room for some good uninterrupted sleep. Tomorrow, we race.
Oh, no running or training to mention today. Resting up for the race.
Day 22: Training Day
Today was a bit more down to business. I got up early due to the cot situation and our flatmates rescuing me from my restless slumber around 6:30AM. Sucks they have to be at their construction job by 7:30. Pretty brutal.
In the morning I made some good egg/ham sandwiches and hacked away at my computer for a while. By the end of the morning i was ready for a nice little run. I ran down to the waterfront, which was quite industrial and unattractive where we were, and back with Cary. My achilles felt particularly bad, but I persevered for 30min. We finished on a nice grass field though and,
I did about 45 min of stretching, core, balancing, and drills. Good morning. 30min, 4 miles RE.
Who knew?
After cleaning up, Cary and I investigated the downtown attractions of Dunedin (duh-NEE-din). We took a lengthy tour of Otago Museum, which was mostly devoted to the history of the Otago region. The museum wasn't really my cup of tea. For the most part it was devoted to "natural history", the ecological and geographical changes over the past millions of years. Right up Cary's alley though. I did learn that ancient Polynesians and Melanesians used to "bowl". And they also played darts. They were way ahead of their time.
We saw a large selection of exotic birds at the Aviary in the Botanic gardens and also traipsed around Otago University. Unfortunately, all students had already abandoned the college for their summer holiday two weeks earlier. Oh, college students are "uni students". We also checked out my local store, and put our Carolla through the ropes on the world's steepest hill. It passed. Good thing, cause I don't know what we would have done if it didn't...
Around 5 we headed to the track for our workout at 6. For that hour I mostly just worked my achilles and soaked up the rays. Tony Rogers was calling for 8x300m@45,45,44,44,43,43,42,42 with 3min rest. I really don't think I want to be doing that much speed work and I know I have a bit of a weakness in the tempo range (maintaining speed for an extended period of time), so I decided to fall back onto the Mitch special. Aerobic Base for 30minutes. I ended up running 27:40 and finished with a 5:12 mile. Here's how it broke down:
1.5 mile warm up.
5:22 mile on the track followed by 5:30ish pace (faster effort) running a 2.2k loop around the complex twice. Then I came back in and finished with a 5:12 mile on the track. In total, the distance was probably just under 5 miles/8k.
1.2 mile cool down.
I didn't push and run another 800m as I didn't want to put too much strain when I was tired on my achilles and I was happy to do a little less looking ahead to the 5k this weekend. Other positive was I did it in trainers, so a good flats workout would be a bit easier. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this one.
7.5 miles
Chillin in the flat
Grabbed some food and got another great night's sleep in the comfy bed.
Day 18: Queenstown, Extreme-ly Restful
Today, my good cousin and I found ourselves in the often touted "most beautiful town in New Zealand". There's no doubt it deserves that name. To it's other: "Extreme Sports capital of the world", however, it wasn't quite what I expected. Sure there are bungies and cliff swings, multiple opportunities to skydive, even a skatepark that has a cute little stream running through it. For us, however, it was nothing but serenely beautiful.
I believe the summer is actually an off-season for Queenstown. Each one of the dozen or so lodges and hotels jut out with the same angular wooden architecture familiar to Vermont's ski-topias. The kind of architecture that suggests the structure must deal with knifing through dozens of feet of snow each year. It very well might.
Today started early for me. Too early after a Saturday night, but once in a while the parents must know it's not a monkey banging out these posts. So at 7AM I woke myself up and groggly got up to speed with the happenings in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. That was the only difficult part of the day, for today, we do not travel! Instead, I perused the internet, something I have not done enough of. Looked at the results of Club nationals in Kentucky. Shout out to Chris Ellis-Ferrara for PRing through 5miles on the way to a 31 minute 10k, and Clay and Lisa Burnett for their performances in a distance they haven't had to run in who knows how long. Oh and Brian Harvey, for proving DIII guys can step up to the 10k. EYOP was about to kick off and I wish I didn't only have 4 of those. As a matter of fact, I am approaching the longest I've been away from Williams in 3, yes 3, years. Feels time.
Queenstown water front
At about noon we headed out on a run that took us along the waterfront.
47min, 7miles I did have 5minutes of shakeout 5:15 effort (AB). All in all not too bad after that beast of a run yesterday. Quads feel like I have corks in them.
We tried to get a free trial of the local Les Mils but got shut down by the one worker there. It was really small anyways (sour grapes, I know).
After a shower and a little more lounging we went out on the town at 4PM. We wandered the streets and took some photos before heading to the main attraction of the day: the gondola and luge.
The gondola was nice and the view impressive but I absolutely loved the "luge". Now, if you're like me, "luge" means sled-on-ice. So I was thinking sled-on-slide-with-anti-static-mat. What it really is, is far better. It's go-carts! Skyline Luge I wisely purchased two runs (because the first you can only go on the "scenic" course). The second you can do "advanced". Cary and I got in our carts and familiarized ourself with the ingenious breaking system. Actually, I can't really render a good description, but in the simplest terms: pull the handle-bars back and you break, push them forward and you go. The entire downhill run takes about 2 minutes at leisure. And we had some fun and took a few shots of each other.
La Luge
The next time, on advanced, I went for raw speed. This course was incredibly well designed! There are some risers where I actually was able to get some air, or at least feel like I got some freefall. And the turns were well banked to allow you to keep your speed. I made it down in 1:35 and immediately asked the employees about course records. They hadn't the faintest idea.... Are you KIDDING me. Two mid-twenties workers, with all the free rides they want, don't race?! Real extreme.
After that experience we stopped at the highly recommended "Ferburger" restaurant, where they literally serve you more fries than you can eat. We got the leftovers of 2 people around us before we even started on ours and threw away more than we started with. The burgers were cheap and awesome too! Well worth it.
Afterward, I quested for some unlimited bandwidth as I had a queue of downloads I needed to perform. God thats a nerd-worthy sentence. Rubin would be proud. Anyways, that quest put me on the doorstep of Patagonia chocolaterie boasting "free internet". Took me forever in there to find the signal and get online, at which point I abruptly lost it again. Asking a chocolateur, she mildly informed me that while the store (I had asked earlier) closes at 10PM, wifi shuts down at 8PM... Whatever, they did serve an incredible hot chocolate worthy of Juliette Binoche (If you get that reference, you're either a girl or Paul Rudd[If you get that reference, you're me*]).
Well, I packed up the netbook and headed to an internet cafe I saw. Those places are the ticket. In NZ at least (being fresh out of college where free internet is everywhere I can't speak for the US), bandwidth is a commodity. And usually an expensive one. However, at the internet cafe, you walk into a dimly lit room (deja vu) and the asian at the front desk (5/5 with the asians so far so it's OK to make that generality. Also, 4/5 times, they've had take out brought to them. Now that IS a coincidence. I don't spend THAT much time in these places.) the asian says 8, meaning you are assigned to computer booth 8. To this I say, I have my own machine. "Booth 3", the response. I happily sit down, plug in, swap terabytes at blistering speed with the world, and after a while get back up. I payed $2 NZ. Incredible. All this time, I've sweated KB on expensive YHA plans, and I just did $30 of transactions in 15min. Speedy, efficient, and cost effective. Awesome. (So far, I've managed to stay under my $30 2G limit YHA plan).
Back to the dorm for a little work and a good sleep before the crowning jewel of NZ scenery: Milford Sound.
*Julliette Binoche is in 'Chocolat'. Paul Rudd loves 'Chocolat' in 'I Love You Man'.
Hush, it's dark and I can't sleep.
Day 10: Full Nelson
As the title suggests, Nelson (which was a generally positive experience) did throw us several curveballs. I must also admit, the first few titles I came up with were far too likely to come from the mouth of Steve Rubin for me to grace the general public with. "Epic Fail" and the like... Anyways, these failures were:
The Big Tahuna (pre-dance)
- We took two tours of the park before finally finding the “athletic track” for our workout.
- The Hostel was out of bulk rooms so Cary and I ended up getting a twin, which is very different from a “double”, something we almost took by accident. You can imagine one is far more romantic than the other.
- We went to the coast to pamper ourselves with a nice seafood dinner. We had 3 restaurants targeted. Let's see, the first had the doors ominously closed with no sign. But we heard laughter from within. After a moment we saw balloons leading around back. When we made it inside we discovered a lovely wedding party. Sadly we weren’t invited, and a bit under-dressed to look inconspicuous. We griped about the lack of a sign and wandered down the boardwalk to place number 2. We started chuckling at our bad luck when we saw “For lease” signs outside a really rather nice, modern looking restaurant. Place #3 didn’t actually exist, error in the pamphlet we were referring to? Cursing nothing and everyone at the same time, we walked into an Italian shore-side bar where we heard general merriment. Cary laughed, “Watch this be booked for a funeral...” He should have knocked on wood. Dejected and dour (you who know me know that only Brooks can get more spiteful when frustrated), we darkly rode back into downtown and stopped at a supermarket. I must admit, picking out food in a supermarket while chomping on an apple can really lift the spirits. We got a 12 pack of Monteiths, one of the smoothest beers I’ve ever had, and headed back to the hostel to cook up our pasta dish which turned out to be an amazing success… Well that has to be a bullet point record.
- Nelson claims to have a population of 60,000. You’d think on a sunny Saturday night things would be hopping. Well, it turned out that the streets were rather tame, and old. Old people that is. Oh well, to bed at midnight but several drinks and good conversations in. Found out about some of Cary’s Australian adventures.
- Cary wanted to get his haircut. Well, in Nelson, 4/5 places were closed on a Saturday afternoon. The last was a salon which was predictably booked through.
To add to the list of woes, training was, personally, a failure for me today. Turns out that I don’t have the mid-range speed I feel I should have right now, at least compared to Cary.
Workout in Nelson
Workout was 5x1000m 5min rest (600 jog).
I ran 2:46, 2:44, 2:48, 2:46, 2:49. Cary led all but the second one and demolished me with a 2:43 on the last.
Slow cooldown.
7 miles
I did get to meet Greg Laugenslauger who has an amazing athlete success rate with only 5 years of coaching in nelson. He’s sent 5 Nelson boys to D1 schools in the states on running scholarships (note the population of Nelson above… amazing).
Biggest highlight was definitely The Big Tahuna at Tunahuahu Beach. Awesome bands and some great atmosphere. It was also my token burning for the season. I knew it was coming this time though and wisely spent only 15min in the open sun. As I write this I'm positively glowing. But it's the good kind (I know there are many out there who would argue this into the ground with me). We slept really well in our twins.
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.
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