Road to Rotorua Marathon

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Run Wellington

Happy 2014 everyone!

With a new year come new running plans, well actually not really ‘new’ but goals for the year nonetheless and events that I am looking forward to. Unlike last year I won’t be planning on doing a lot of events but will choose a few key running events as the year goes on. After my first successful marathon attempt in June 2013 I already had added Rotorua marathon as my second marathon attempt. For the Rotorua marathon it is a significant year as it is going to be the 50th anniversary event. I am currently in a build up phase and it will be 16 weeks to Rotorua (3rd May 2014) from next week. Ideal time to start focusing and get into training mode.

Before Rotorua I am also going to be aiming to run at the Wellington Round the Bays half marathon. This is the local Wellington event that I have done for the last three years so it is only logical that this was in the running schedule for the year. It’s roughly about 6 weeks and then 10 weeks to Rotorua after that.I actually love doing half marathon events, in fact I am probably going to stick mostly with races that are 20-30km in distance apart from the odd marathon maybe once a year.

Goal for Rotorua are to beat my current PB of 3:25 for the marathon. So my training goal is 3:15-3:20 but the Rotorua course is a bit harder than other courses so I will need to keep that in perspective. In any case I will aim to train well and be ready as much as I can be. Beyond Rotorua marathon I have another significant overseas marathon event planned but at the moment I will keep myself focused on Rotorua first.

thanks for stopping by.

2013 running review

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Run Wellington

Since it’s end of the year I thought I will do a recap of my running adventures for 2013. I started my running blog in January 2013. If you didn’t read my first post have a read of “Just keep running“.

2013 was a good year for me in terms of my running. I managed to overcome some obstacles and achieve some of my running goals. So here is how my running numbers looked like for year 2013.

This year I have run a total of 3723km for the year averaging 310km per month. I have climbed 36105 meters during these runs. This is a steady increase compared to last two years of 2011 and 2012. It was 2011 when I started running so overall I have doubled my mileage over the years. The increase in mileage helped with some good personal best times over distances of 10km and half marathon (21.1k).

Running numbers from 2011, 2012 and 2013. Distances in Kilometers.

With this steady increase I have been cautious about getting injured, to avoid this I have used the hard easy principal of training and incorporated a lot of strength and flexibility work in my schedules. I have also tried to run off road and vary the terrain that I do my running in. Here is a breakdown of each month – apart from a dip in June (First marathon) most months were 300kms plus.

2013 Monthly Totals – distances in Kilometers.

At start of 2013 I had one goal for the year and that was to complete a marathon. I achieved this goal in June by running the Wellington Marathon. This was a significant milestone for me. Other highlights was running a personal best half marathon time in September. This was a positive sign that my training was paying off.

In October I finally managed to break the 20minute mark in my 5km time and achieve a PB time of 19:39. Since then I have run 5km races in: 19:41, 19:53, 19:59 so I am confident that in 2014 I can get this down to 19:20 or so, which will put me in good contention of chasing a faster half marathon time and possibly a fast marathon time.

I will update what my goals are for 2014 in my next post. Thanks for reading my blog. Happy new year and best of luck for achieving your own goals whatever they may be in the new year.

Along the coast…

Enjoying a post race recap with fellow trail runners

Xterra Wellington Running Meetup

Taupo Half 2013 – A T-Shirt and Chocolate

My favourite runs in Wellington

Posted on September 3, 2013 by Run Wellington

I’ve mentioned before that Wellington has so many options for running on and off road. Also if you haven’t got a copy of “Runners Guide to Wellington” you should! It’s got the best of the best running routes for Wellington. I’m going to share three of my favourite routes that are easily accessible from Wellington CBD.

Karori Trails

This one is not directly in the CBD but a short drive to Karori and you have access to some sweet trails that is part of the Makara peak mountain bike park.

1.KaroriTrails

The start of this run can be from anywhere in Karori. I usually start from near the Karori supermarket or the Post shop. Run towards Makara and turn left into Burrows Avenue to head into Wright’s hill reserve and follow the trails up to Wright’s hill this is your first climb. Then you pop out into Hazelwood Avenue and connect to the main Makara mountain bike park. Follow the trails all the way up to Makara peak and start dropping down towards Makara hill road connecting to the start of Skyline track. Then down to Karori park and back to start along Karori road. All about 18kms with some decent climbs and sweet trails.

1.ElevationProfile

Tinakori > Wadestown > Aro Loop

This one’s easily done from CBD and I usually start from under the sails in Queens wharf or from Ferg’s when meeting with others for the run. A mix of road and trails with a hill.

2.TinakoriPolhillLoop

Head towards Thorndon from the CBD taking Hill Street past the Beehive and onto Tinakori road. Tinakori hill is pretty easy to spot and it’s a mean climb to the top. Once you get to the top follow the Northern walkway towards Wadestown and start climbing down via Weld Street. Follow Wadestown road to Blackbridge road and connect to Otari Wilton’s lower car park. You can either stick to the road or take the lower trails of Wilton’s bush and connect back to Curtis Street via Old Karori road and take Chaytor street to Zealandia. Follow the Zealandia fenceline (on the outside) towards George Denton Park and head down via Polhill (Aro) back to town. Roughly about 18kms.

2.EP

Thorndon > Wadestown > Northland > Kelburn > Aro Easy Loop

This one’s all road and is a great option when it’s howling a northerly or southerly on the waterfront and you want to get in a decent run. Again starting from the CBD head towards Wadestown via Mulgrave street onto Aitken, Hill street and then right onto Tinakori road and connect to Grant, Barnard which turn to Lennel and onto Wadestown and follow the road all the way to Wilton road, past Wilton’s Bush connecting to Curtis street. Take Upland road to Kelburn and here you can choose to cut back down to CBD or continue on to Aro valley via Plunket street, Raroa road and onto Aro street. Back to CBD from any route you choose. An easy 14kms all up. You can do this loop the other way as well.

3.WadestownKelburnAro

There are so many more options in Wellington and I always try and change my routes to keep it interesting, what are some of your favourite runs?

Revisiting Goals for the Year

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Run Wellington

When I started this blog in January (start of this year), I had a few running related goals in mind. These were:

With the exception of running a sub 20 – 5km race (which I have come close to) I have pretty much achieved the other two goals. Above all one of the most important goals that I set myself this year was to build a consistent high mileage base and avoiding getting injured. With my somewhat high mileage training leading up to the June marathon I was able to get to about 80kms per week on average with couple of weeks of 100kms of running. As I indicated previously after (re)starting my running back in 2011, I have been able to steadily build up my base. This has not been easy, however the perseverance has paid off as now it’s showing the benefits of me being able to do good consistent workouts weekly. The best indication of this is my recovery times from hard workouts such as Tempo runs and Intervals are much faster than before. Since I gather data from my runs I can use this to compare same types of runs from a few years and months ago to now and see the relative improvements. Looking at this information is one of the best motivators that I use to focus on my next goal(s).

On Sunday 4th August I am going to run a half marathon in Taupo. This is not a key race but rather a trial race to see if I have had any improvements, hopefully be able to beat my time 1:37 of the same course from last year.

Over the last 5 weeks my plan has been to build up core/leg strength and also up my mileage again so I can get to an average week of 100kms and a peak of 120kms in the next 6 weeks before the Abel Tasman trail race. I haven’t picked any other events for this year after September. The next main goal is Rotorua Full Marathon in May 2014. I will probably do a few half marathons leading up to Rotorua as well.

Jan 2013 to July2013

This is what my current training log looks like. The dips in Feb and June indicate events. Now I’m on a build up phase again. Do you log your running? What does your log look like? How much do you run weekly?

I’ve completed a Marathon – now what?

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Run Wellington

Some say that immediately after you finish your first Marathon that it’s normal to say “Never doing this again!!” as you slowly crawl out of bed the next day and try to get some movement out of your legs. It hurts there is no denying that, in my case my legs hurt for a couple of days immediately afterwards but this gradually subsided as days went by. I took a full 8 days off running and pretty much gave my body a good well earned rest. Now having slowly started easing into some gradual runs I am looking at what I had initially planned for rest of the year.

I already have an event planned for September (Abel Tasman) which is almost Marathon distance at 40km but unlike a road race is entirely on trails. Long term my goal is to target another Marathon in 2014, this time however with a time goal. (most likely Rotorua Marathon in may 2014). With these goals in mind I have looked at my past training plan (based on a 16 week cycle) and is now essentially putting together a plan (28 weeks from 1 July to 28 December 2013) that will carry me through to end of this year. The last two weeks has been build up weeks with a steady build up in base mileage (building up to about 100k -120k per week) which will continue for 4-6 weeks more. During this period I have potentially two Half Marathons that I can use to tune my race pace. The first is coming up in three weeks in Taupo (4th August) and I’ll pretty much train through it without a taper. Second half marathon that I might consider doing is in September, however it’s one week before the Abel Tasman Trail Run. Based on how I am feeling I might end up skipping that and conserve my energy for Abel Tasman.

Key is to continue building up mileage through winter and then start speed work in Spring to be able to target a couple of races over summer and better my half marathon times. Would be interesting to know how others plan their yearly plans.

Happy running!

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running and other adventures..

Tag Archives: motivation

Road to Rotorua Marathon

Revisiting Goals for the Year