One foot in the door

It is strange to make the purchase of a pair of running shoes as a landmark in 2020, but it context it is probably one of the two steps that would signify confidence in my recovery from injury. I had been very judicious with spending for the first half of the year. With the dread of this unshakeable niggle, I started to doubt whether I'd be training let alone racing.

It started in November and after some testing, and trying various exercises, scanning with x-rays and ultrasound, I decided to give it three months to recover. But it didn't. If constant quarantine did something though it gave me regular walking and the time to dabble with run/walk. With that came successes as well as frustrations and, at the end of the day, progress. My running picked up in April and May and then in early June I got an unexpected reminder: I had a race in two weeks.

Run Auckland events have been a very regular annual series for me, moreso than the Mizuno Half Marathon series which I wish I were doing more of. Run Auckland is cheap, local and social; an event every three weeks leading up to the Millwater Half (where I have done my second and third fastest halves). It should have started in April but the organisers took a punt in March to have re-organised to start in June. And the pitched it to perfection, as if they knew that Level 1 would start when it did.

The rejig put the punishing Sanders Reserve 10km first and yesterday I ran it. It was my second time on this particular course: I missed it due to travel one year, and deliberately chose not to do it another year. It is two laps over a mountain bike course with constant undulation. I'm no afraid of hills but in my very first year my lack of aversion cost me when I wiped out at the bottom of clay slope. Fortunately I lost skin, had some dramatic stigmata-esque palms but I still managed to keep going and finish. That year I didn't pace it right struggling toward the end: the first lap I did at 23:19, the second 24:03. I thought I'd learned this time and felt I took it more moderately and up the hills really slowly and my lack of fitness still bit at the end. Surprisingly I pretty much got the same times, just slower at the end: 23:21 and 24:42. I didn't really feel any niggles. So I bought some shoes.

The only other thing that can top this as a sign would be my entry into the Auckland Marathon in October. We'll see.