Haven’t been able to update on what’s been happening so here is a bit of a recap on August and September. August was about maintaining a steady base with some good runs. Through a three week period I was able to maintain 3 weeks of 85+Kms per week. This was a pretty good period with some good hill runs and some speed work done at the local track with some of my buddies. This resulted in a personal best half marathon time of 1:32:06 on the 15th of September at the Pelorus Trust Half Marathon. Previous half marathon PB was 1:33:56 which I ran in February this year.

September Mileage – 3 weeks of 85+ Kms

The Pelorus race course was not an easy course as it ran along some streets and over a railway bridge and on a side of the Hutt river trail out and  back. The back leg was exposed to a southerly head wind which slowed some of the runners including me. My run was pretty good with an average pace of about 4:20min per Kms. This is a pretty good indication that I can push for a sub 1:30 in the coming months and aim to run 4:15min splits.

Coming weekend (Saturday 28th September) is the 40km Abel Tasman coastal classic trail run which is a tough run with some undulating off road terrain in the Abel Tasman national park. My aim is to finish and take it easy through this run. There are a number of people from Wellington Running Meetup who is heading down for this so it will be a fun event. After the Abel Tasman my longer term aim is the 50th Rotorua Marathon in May 2014. I’ll post my training plan for the Rotorua marathon (my second) in the coming months. Since this is my second marathon my aim would be to run a personal best time. Based on my last (first marathon) effort I’m confident that I can aim for a reasonable time. Between now and then I will aim to do some half marathons to keep myself motivated.

In November this year (2013) I am planning to run the Tongariro Northern circuit with a local trail runner Julian Bee who is raising funds for CureKids by running all of the great walks of NZ. The Tongariro Circuit is about 43kms.