Weekend training with my man

I tell you what- it's great having my weekend training partner back!

This past weekend was a goodie. We ventured out in the rain and mud for a short but good "day's" mountain biking at Woodhill (see Phil's blog for a more informative report) on Saturday. I took awhile to get going, as usual, but I'm finding that I'm getting into it more quickly as well as getting further each time- it's two steps forward, one step back rather than vice versa, and the forward steps seem to be getting longer, as the backward steps get shorter. In the end it was heaps of fun, and I managed to do a few clever-er than usual things too!

On Sunday, it was "long" run day. Last week I had an hour while Phil had 40, so we went out for 40 together and I plodded through the last 20 while Phil went home and stretched. This week, I woke up earlier than Phil and instead of pestering him out of bed, I thought "hey- I could do the FIRST 45 minutes alone and the second half with Phil." Genius.

It worked really well. I ran our Grey Lynn loop backwards and discovered that backwards kicks forwards' butt so hard that forwards runs screaming away- backwards means we climb College Hill and Richmond Rd, and go down through West End Park, and down the Cox's Bay steps. Much better! I did the first 4.34 miles in around 44 minutes, met Phil outside the apartment for a quick drink, and we headed out again. We did a bit of exploring, and our second loop was a little over 5 miles at 10:19/mile pace, which is slow, but I think about right for this run. I was impressed by how good I felt when we went past the 1:30 mark, as I haven't run "long" for a very long time! I'm not quite sure what to expect from my upcoming half marathon, but at least now I'm feeling confident that I can run the distance strong.

In Wellington for the next two weeks. It's going to be interesting from a training persepctive, but I'll do what I can. Also- it's bloody cold!