45 minutes and 41 seconds

Listening to: Run Lola Run soundtrack

On a whim to see how fit I really am at the moment, I did the Round the Bays fun run yesterday.

The course wends 7 km from Frank Kitts park on the waterfront to Kilbirnie Park, via Oriental Bay, Balaena bay and numerous others, hence the 'Round the Bays' moniker.

I did it in 45 minutes and 41 seconds, roughly 6 and a half minutes per K, which isn't bad for a non regular runner. Slow, but steady. I also ran with a backpack full of stuff, after turning up too late to deposit it at the bag check. Running with the back pack was interesting; if I changed direction suddenly the backpack movement would go out of phase with my body, and take a few paces to realign itself.

I finished 2806th out of 10,000 odd runners and walkers. I confess I did not run the whole way, but I never stopped moving forward. I started walling up just after the 5K mark, and stopped three times, walking about 100m each time. I forced myself to run the last K, and ran the last 100m or so as fast as I could, which is supposed to be bad for you, but feels good to do at the time, and I passed about a dozen people on the way to the line.

I had to wait until today to confirm my time, as I totally missed the clock at the finish. I thought I had done it in about 50 min, having anticipated anything up to an hour, so I was pleased to see this morning I had gone faster.

Reminding me that jogging is not my regular exercise of choice, today my quads are very sore.....I have been hobbling a bit all day, particularly down stairs. I was alright for netball, but a little slow, and once the adrenalin wore off the ache has come back...

The first K passed very quickly. I enjoyed the freedom of running down the middle of what are normally some of the busiest roads in the country, to the accompaniment of the sound of thousands of soft slaps of feet hitting the pavement.

Also fun was hedonistically littering at the water stop halfway, gleefully throwing the plastic cup to the gutter. I am normally a fastidious rubbish bin finder, so this was a cheap thrill.

The fire engine spraying the runners near the 6K mark was brilliant. I nearly circled round for a second pass through the water.

Around the 5 K mark I started to encounter the wall, encouragingly not in my lungs, but in my legs. Rather than getting breathless like I used to do, the problem now is keeping my legs going. The same applies to riding up my hill; my legs give up before anything else. This never used to be a problem, as I would always be out of breath before encountering other stresses. Not being quite sure how far there was to go, I let myself walk a bit. Next time I will run further.

I interpret this as good, as it means my core aerobic fitness is up. Seconding this notion is the fact that I can't remember when I last used my ventolin inhaler. I didn't before the run, and it only occured to me as I write this that I gave the inhaler no thought at all yesterday. I haven't been using it before netball for sometime. I am still occasionally syptomatic, but my asthma is very mild at the moment.

Bodes well for the Tongariro Crossing trip we have planned for this Saturday

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Thanks to all for your good wishes and fuzzies about our impending randomly generated new person. It is great to have your support, and I appreciate it.