Winter words

This is our second winter in our "new" home. When we moved in last year, it was literally on the stroke of daylight saving switching back, we had dark, wet, cold evenings from the start, and the flaws of the house became evident straight away. 

Firstly, there were the leaks: one through the tiles of our roof, another from our washing machine pipes which soaked our garage, and the other into our lower floor lounge. Two of those were easy to address, the other is still a work in progress. 

Then there were the draughts. The joinery of the house was either aged or poorly done from the get-go, and when we lay in bed we felt moving air. In the bathroom, we felt moving air. In the lounge, we felt moving air. To think this was a renovated home, the original tenants must have put up with basically very little difference between the outdoor and indoor temperatures. I put in draught-stopping foams into almost every corner and tried my best to prevent cold moist air getting to the garage. 

During the worst of winter last year my wife was in China I did not really notice whether there was a big difference in temperatures because I am not that sensitive to it. But this year with the first of some really frosty mornings, I'm pretty happy with the general comfort of the house. Its advantage of unopposed sunshine helps of the good days and the general insulation and laminates mean that it never is too cold. We swing between thinking of further changes that we would like to make here as if it were going to be our "forever home" when in fact at a time that suits, we are likely to move on from here. Little changes and fixes are a stressor for me and weigh on my mind. Sometimes what seems like a straightforward thing like getting a shed requires a lot of work. Other things like pruning a neighbour's tree sometimes has more complexity than originally anticipated. Either way, some progress and wins are great, but there is always more to do.

Winter has me in a little bit of limbo. My general interest in current events has been dulled by my pessimism in the politics locally and abroad, specifically the US. While I have another academic administrator at school, there is more to do, so any advantage of time has gone, and there are always perpetual staffing issues, if not student concerns, which are still too early to have someone else attend to. We have an earnest, hardworking teacher who unfortunately likes to bring the topic of pay openly into every work discussion and conversation. It is a bit infectious with others and the talk constantly gets me down. I had hoped that with the relief of many of my duties, I would be able to think about getting back to competitive "over the board" (OTB) chess but it still hasn't happened.  

So pretty much my life is just working, resting and running and even running briefly was not happening. After the Kirikiri Marathon, I ambitiously tried to have a short recovery period, but after a gentle week had a hamstring issue, then had a nasty stomach bug, then just after I got back to it, I had my first re-incidence of ITB syndrome (Ilio-Tibial Band, aggravation of a band of fascia from the hip down to the knee). Fortunately, the later resolved itself with the guidance from youtube videos and I'm only seven days back into regular running, although so far it would appear that all systems are very much working, with three workouts going better than expected. I have resumed my plan of trying to beat my 10km personal best which rests just above 40 minutes. (To be clear, 10km is the only distance yet to be bettered in the last eight months.) I'll look to do a time trial at the track which will be the actual attempt to beat it, and then do a competitive 10km at Western Springs/Grey Lynn, which has a hill and where I'll try to get as close to 40 minutes as possible, but realistically won't be a PB. After that, I'll get back to preparing for the North Shore Marathon in September.

Fifth

A considerable monkey is off my back with a 3:10:59 time at the 2024 Kirikiriroa Marathon, my eighth official marathon. It wasn't the sub 3:10 I was hoping for but, in retrospect, that time was pretty ambitious on this course. Last year's 3:34 apparently was not fresh enough in my mind as I was again surprised with how much ascent there was. It is the second most hilly marathon I've run and I've run only marathons with hills (in order of metres of ascent: North Shore, Kirikiriroa, Auckland then Rotorua, last but famous for its hills). Compared to the others though Kirikiriroa's are insidious - there is no one peak to prepare for like North Shore's Northhead, or the Auckland Harbour Bridge; it just pummels you and your joints with a multitude of ups-and-downs.

The preparation and the morning of all went well. Despite occasional "why didn't I bring that" moments, I still had everything I needed just when I needed it. 

One of the slightly comical aspects of the morning was an incident with my collapsible cup. They promoted the event as a "cupless" event. For those not in the know, most events have water stations with volunteers generously offering runners cups of water or "electrolyte" drinks. Runners who need a drink would swoop in and attempt to drink it either on the hoof or with a brief walk, sometimes tipping it over themselves and almost always not managing to throw the cup in the collection receptacle. Anyone who has run at the back of an event knows that the wastage and incidental littering. Recently there have been more cupless events and fortunately I have a cup for the purpose. I wore a running belt with a zipped compartment and a "cupholder" part which has a particular bottle that matches with it, and in my gear planning chose this to store my gels and to put my cup in it for the run.

Anyway, literally on the starting area no more than 10 seconds after passing through the Starting arch, one of my fingers caught the cup flicking it out of the cup holder and onto the grassy area that was being trodden by my fellow competitors. I didn't see it happen but realised it straight away, quickly seeing it was gone, stopping suddenly and looking back to see it on the ground, then hesitating about going to get it: Did I need it? Yes, I did! And started heading back through the runners. Fortunately, I heard calls of "someone's cup on the ground" and people avoided it, and then one other runner swooped down with one had to bring it up to me, a really awesome act of consideration. (But did I need a cup? No, I didn't really. All stations had cups, but maybe just for the faster runners. And annoyingly they'd offer me cupped drinks instead of pouring it into my collapsible cup. I usually took their cups and emptied it into mine.)

With that start line faux pas behind me, I got back into the rhythm up the climb out of Hamilton Gardens and head south-east, up some more to a residential area and then down into a scenic boardwalked section away from the river. As was the case last year, it is hard to know whether you're running to pace because of the hills. But my problem was bigger than that: my watch's GPS tracking is next to useless. It was telling me I was going rather slow (4:45/km even when I was on the flats, and my target was 4:30/km overall). I was desperately scanning for kilometre markers but hadn't seen any during the first four kilometres. The 5km marker, however, gave me the news: I passed it after 22:00, that is 4:24/km pace, far too fast, especially considering I had gone up hills, too. My watch reported 4:51km, for comparison. So I tried my best to slow down and hope the damage was not done. 

It is said that the halfway point in the marathon is not 21.1km (half the distance) but 32km because that's when the struggle begins. And it was in this race after a weird speeding up at 30km mark triggered slowing and at about 32km dropped my splits below my target average pace of 4:30/km. With all my training and fitness, this slowdown was still to a pace faster than I'd run all my other marathons, but it was gradually eroding the chance of getting below 3:10. One of the quirks of this course is that from 36-39km it goes through the riverside section next to the CBD section which has the most rises and drops. I had hoped to make it through this with a little bit of a buffer to cruise the last flat 2-3km but by then my calves were on fire and I was stiffening up quickly. I did the maths and knew I was going to finish after 3:10 so didn't push it at all.

 

I pulled in for 3:10:59, which was 11 seconds ahead of the next runner who was steaming in trying to catch me. Little did I know I was actually the fifth finisher for the individual runners, although 15 minutes behind fourth place. There were four sub-three speedsters, and then a long gap before my pursuer and I crossed the line... then another ten minutes before seventh and then a lot of runners came in at that point. 

I was exhausted. Even with a bit of a walk around to get moving again, I felt nausea before getting in the car and had a lie-down in the carpark, before getting up and back to the hotel for a quick shower before our "late check-out". The weather which was threatening to rain on the event didn't turn up so we got out and home to rest. All in all, mission accomplished and one for the wall at home.  

T minus 6 days

And in the blink of an eye, I have arrived six days out from my first marathon for 2024, the Kirikiriroa Marathon, which has organically become my "A" race. For the non-athletes out there, an "A race" is the main target race that your training is geared to peak you for, but that is not to say it is the only race that is amongst your training. Huntly Half was a "B race" for me, a race that was to be an indicator of progress. There are even races that you could regard as "C races", which are half-workout / half- race. Coatesville Half for me was a clear C race. Waterfront was intended to be a B race, but due to the niggle turned into a C race. All the parkruns are C races for me because I haven't been specifically training for them, either. So despite I've been making pleasing personal bests in the 5km and half marathon in the first half of the year, none of those are with distance specific training with them as an A race target. I say it has organically become an A race because the scheduled formed around it late last year despite having booked it much earlier.

Last year was my first time running the Kirikiriroa course and I did it with a 3:28-3:30 target. However, my lead-in was pestered by niggles and then I paced it poorly and ended with 3:34. Looking back, the goal was probably about right: my 10km time trial indicated a 3:29 time, and a half marathon time trial indicated a 3:23 time. Looking back at the paces on race day, I did all the same silly mistakes. My pace for the first third was actually as if I were aiming for a 3:14 finish. I slowed down in the middle phases but was still on track for a 3:25 time at the 30km mark (but as I was slowing it was not going to be likely). All of that shows that I had gone out far too fast, well beyond even what the most optimistic target required. Suddenly I'm not as disappointed by my actual 3:34, though I was in a world of pain for the last 12 km, as I did hold on to a vaguely acceptable time after the earlier stupidity. 

This time round my Huntly Half effort indicates I should be able to run a 3:04 marathon which, based on my history, is almost unimaginably fast. It would be an 18 minute improvement on my personal best. But I feel like I've made a breakthrough in my running this year and things have been smoother than any other lead-in. Bearing in mind that Huntly was flat and Kirikiriroa has about 400m of ascents, I'll be strictly targeting 3:10 and if all goes well till the final 2.2km (after the last grinding slope) to make a clean finish below that. If things are more challenging, 3:15 would also be a pleasing B goal, which is still a 7 minute improvement on my best ever. 

Those are all the training factors for success but external factors are looking quite good. So far, the extended weather forecast is for a warmer morning than the frosty start last year. Also, last year I was a bit stressed and overworked during that period of the race, whereas this year with a new Senior Teacher, and just one school to manage, I am feeling less distracted. 

One final external factor is that I bought a new pair of carbon-plated racing shoes, also known as "super shoes". As mentioned before, these are de rigeur in racing these days. I found a sale pair of Saucony Endorphin Pro 3, which had recently been superseded by version 4 so the 3's were prime for the picking. I had only run 5km races and two half marathons (Coatesville and Waterfront) with my old pair of Saucony Endorphin Pro 2's so this would be my first marathon in super shoes. What effect could this have? Well, it could mean that my target pace will be easier to maintain and if I need to ramp up pace toward the end, it may not be as daunting as in normal training shoes. We'll see though.

Overall, for this last week of taper, I'm hoping just to feel fresh and able on the start line. My body, aside from a returning tightness in my right hamstring, feels great. My calf issue of a few weeks ago is all gone. I started my training with tight Achilles but there is no sign of them either. And the hip flexor discomfort I usually get at the later stages of a marathon haven't been evident in my training. This week will just being keeping everything pretty light, with lots of sleep and good nutrition. I have also decided to not have alcohol in this period, too, which will help with the resting and lowering any inflammation in my body. So all the controllable factors are in favour of a good run.

The Huntly Half

As a race that I'd never run, the Huntly Half Marathon was mainly in my imagination till this morning. It had an evocative presence even from the assonance in its name. Its reputation was a fast, flat half marathon where PBs were made. Through the wonders of the running app, Strava, every year I could see others going down and running it with fast times; running great, John Walker, had won it several times.

I cannot think of a year, though, that I planned to run it. It always clashed a bit with other plans and ideas, or simply didn't occur to me. As alluded to in previous blogs, even my entry this morning was a bit of a side project. I just wanted a race three weeks before the marathon to estimate my fitness and pace. Also, I did want to see whether my 1:28:28 at Waterfront was really the best I could do, or whether my hamstring concerns had impacted it. 

My training since Waterfront had been really good right up to this past week, when weather, a family health issue and general bad timing foiled my planned lead-in. Yesterday, I switched to my racing shoes on a "shake-out run" (the run you do the day before an event to keep things loose) but about 6km in my left calf became unusually tight. I ran on and started feeling the starting of pain and pulled the plug. This was not what I wanted the day before an event. I walked and rubbed it. Stretching seemed to make things worse so I just walked for about 20 minutes. I thought for a bit before deciding I'd try and run home. The whole way the calf was tight and on a few strides again I felt pain but not consistent pain. I threw in some pace and did not feel any worsening. I finally completed the test by running up the hill home and got in without trouble. Generally after symptoms like this, you'd have a day or three off to let things settle but with everything set to race in the morning it became a dilemma. In the end I decided to go down to Huntly and run, but with a mind that if it got sore I'd pull the plug and walk back. I decided not to wear the racing shoes and went with standard training shoes. These days, shoes can be the difference between a good run, a great run and a PB so carbon plated shoes are now de rigor, such as my racing shoes that I ran at the Waterfront Half. Here, I was going to run in conventional shoes.

I got there early and this is the best way to race. You have a double-hit of some portaloo action; you have your coffee; do a jog with a few strides; do general stretching and make your way to the start chute without trouble. And it was a great day to do so. There was some morning fog and an apparent overnight temperature of 2 degrees, but when I got there it was comfortable with the morning sun beaming down. In contrast to Auckland half marathons that have you starting 8am at the latest, Huntly started at 9am which was plenty of time for people to travel in to run and for the day to begin. My warm-up runs made me know that I'd be feeling the calf on the run, and when I tried pace I didn't feel like I was able to crank up speed.

Then a misfiring horn squealed and we were off. Gladly I settled into a pace but by the 4km mark, I realised, again, that my watch was not reporting pace correctly. I had thought I had been going a touch too slow but hadn't minded doing so in the early kilometres. But when I saw the marker and divided my time by four, I was at goal pace, or slightly faster. By the fifth kilometre, I casually inquired about the paces on all of the runners that were in our pack and got a multitude of answers. Fortunately, this rate had markers reliably every kilometre and visible so I tracked myself mainly through mathematics. My calf was tight and present in every step, as expected but did not hurt, even at what was a fast pace for me. 

With the early jockeying for position out of the way, the packs and bursts therefrom became the rhythm of the race. My early pack fractured with someone I called Orange Guy burst forward and became a perpetual mark. Later from our pack, Frontrunner (which was written across the top of the back of his shirt) also broke, and then it was a small pack with me at the front. No one particularly pushed, and I was on pace. The plan is always to run your plan and then reel in runners ahead who did not plan well for their ability. And it happened first with Frontrunner. He had a very strong pace from about 4km-9km and then we just mobbed him. The course was an "out-and-back" with a turn at the halfway mark. I felt myself breaking away from my own pack in the kilometres before the turn and when I made it, I realised I had made a reasonable gap indeed and was closer to the Orange Guy than I was to them. I locked in a faster pace and surprisingly Orange Guy must have faded because within a minute I'd passed him, but still on my own. New marks were ahead, "Blackman" (at a distance he could only be a colour) and a female runner who was with him to form a minipack. 

I might have thought I was going fast but another runner, possibly a later starter, "Wanganui", burst past me in a rush to finish. He passed the my two new marks but strangely seem to have slowed down to around my pace because he never really left my sight, about 100m ahead. The female runner stopped all together to take a gel. She must have been struggling and wanted some magic to get her groove back. The sugar from a gel takes quite some time to get into the system. Either way, I passed her in a blink and not long after passed Blackman. I trailed Wanganui for a while, around the same time I felt myself struggle a bit to maintain my pace and around the 19km mark, heard footfalls behind me. My tail kept with me before hitting the gas around the 20km. I tried unsuccessfully to stay with him but that pumped up my pace for the final stretch that brought me across the finishing mats at 1:27:23, a 1:05 improvement on Waterfront. 

I went through the finish line and removed my tracking tag from my show, and soon as I rose from my crouch, my calf turned to stone. The runner who blew through finish line at 15km/hr one moment, limped slowly to collect his bag the next. Compared to Waterfront I held my speed for much longer and the pace fade was only a small loss of time. I won't be doing another half for quite some time as the two full marathons take precedence. 

As for my calf, I think it's a temporary thing and I hope with rest and some treatment it resolves itself. It is a wonder that something that feels so debilitating one day cannot impact much a lifetime best performance the next day. I'm glad though. It is one for the scrapbook.

Believing in dreams

It is perhaps not surprising that some elements of performance can become a part of identity. Like I always say that I am bad driver, as if I haven't improved as a driver in all these years. Or that I am digitally literate even though my capability is rooted in technology that is years old, and I could be reduced to a novice by changes in AI.

For running, for a long time, 3 hours 30 minutes was a part of my running identity. It took me three marathons to hit it but was a goal from the beginning. Even with later efforts, it had the gravitational effects of a mean to which everything will regress to. It is essentially a marathon you'd run if you kept just under 5 minute kilometres, another mean value with extraordinary gravitational power for me. Early on, based on my performances at other distances, race calculators boldly said that I could do faster, well out of the orbit of 3:30, but when it came to race day I was always doomed to underperform the expectation. My personal best at the marathon is 3:22, which itself was an underperformance on a well-trained year. In 2023 with a pile of mileage under my belt, I could only do 3:34 in my best of two performances. 

It is safe to say I've been burnt enough from hope, and while I do think that I will better 3:22 at some stage, there is an assumption in my being that I'm a 3:30 person. And while the benchmark for a serious marathoner is 3:00, that's a cake that does not have a slice for me.

Even with this fatalism, 2024 has come to possibly be the Peppermint Patty who has put a time in front of me to kick to goal. Every metric is pointing to a much better time than I have ever had before. My 5km time indicates 3:11 is possible. My half marathon time suggests 3:06. The marathon, however, is quite different to these events and needs different training to actualise these times, but even my training is indicating it possible. 

Six weeks out from the Kirikiriroa marathon I ran a 33km long run with three roughly 5km sections that were meant to be in the range of "marathon pace", the last of which was to be after the 25th kilometre, when you begin to tire, and should be the fastest of the 5km intervals. This can be hard to judge if the terrain is hilly because, while you have the pace showing on your smartwatch, you never know how the ascents and descents affect pace. This can be fixed with apps which can make adjustments for different surfaces and give you an idea of your "gradient adjusted" paces (GAP) once you're home in the analysis. For this reason, I chose to run along the cycleway by the motorway and return via a flat river valley through Henderson, I had planned to run the first at 4:40/km, then 4:30, and finally 4:20. On the run, I felt I nailed the first two but struggled on the third as expected. Back at home, I got to unexpected news: when adjusted for gradients, the three 5km segments were 4:30, 4:26 and 4:23 respectively. Clearly, the river valley had more undulation than the others and made what felt like a difficult section reflect that I was putting in more effort than the other two. 4:30/km pace, if it becomes my pace for the marathon would be a 3:10 result. 4:23/km, the final pace from the training which should be more reflective of my ability, if it were to become my pace for the marathon would be a 3:05 marathon result. This training run was also apparently the second fastest 30km effort of my life, only achieved before in race situations.

Of course, there is plenty of room for chicken counting. There is still plenty of training to do and improvement to make. But also factors beyond myself could sabotage these possible outcomes. There are three more peak weeks of training and currently I'm still intending to do the Huntly Half Marathon which will be the best indication of a target time. 

If I were permitted to do some chicken counting and blue sky dreaming, I would like to think that I could hit the 3:05 time on a flat course, and with more training, perhaps by the end of the year, I could hope to crack the 3:00 time. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Fortunately tomorrow is a rest day and it's time for me to let my body recover.

Observing a day

It's ANZAC day, which I do observe chiefly in my thoughts although very occasionally at a dawn service. This year I observe it in my usual way with a run with 45 days to go to the Kirikiri Marathon. Statutory holidays are interesting "islands" within a training block, like a little island in a river. A normal week would have its usual pattern of training, which for me usually is a rest day on Mondays, Tuesday to Thursday with a range of runs, Friday with a run if I'm in peak week, then two long runs of different lengths on the weekend. Workdays have a capping effect on distance and effort, with 15km being the maximum unless waking up super-early or leaving home late. But the "mid-week" medium-long run is really useful and fortunately that is what statutory holidays like ANZAC day can bring.

My ANZAC day running last year was a fizzer. The year had started pretty much the same as this year with consistent strong running and I had great hopes. But on the 22 April 2023, I ran with my friend Aaron J and he introduced me to a route called the Concrete Monster, which ascends steeply into the Waitākere hills. He is a natural runner of the kind that I'll never be - and when running with him I'm always trailing a bit behind and usually running faster than I would normally. The run itself is something I'm still pretty proud of, but the next day my quad was tight and sore and it took time to figure out that it was just a tight knot and not an injury. ANZAC day was thus a quite day at home in a week that I should be beginning my peak period of training.

It's 45 days to go to the Kirikiriroa Marathon so basically there are three weeks of "peak" training to go and then three weeks of taper. In 2023, Kirikiriroa was my sixth official marathon but my first since 2019, and the first time I had run that particular event. Training had been solid up to the Concrete Monster, but that quad issue, then an ankle niggle a few weeks later compromised the peak weeks. In the end I ran 3:34. I'd felt like a million dollars for 30km and then re-experienced "the Wall" that all marathon runners know so well with a struggle home in the last 12.2km. My target had been 3:28-3:30 but I shot well over.

If my recent hamstring issue was a reminder of anything it is that strength and conditioning are always going to be useful not just for the race, but more importantly for managing my way through the peak weeks without issue. None of the niggles in the last year and a half have been injuries fortunately but every niggle that requires days of rest and recovery takes away the momentum.

My run today was a confidence booster. 24km with 10km at what I hope will be my marathon pace of 4:30/km. If I can achieve this, I'll have a sub 3:10 marathon PB and a foundation to look at the benchmark 3 hour mark on a flatter, faster route. Even without the coming weeks, training calculators with my recent Waterfront and Parkrun performances, I should already be at 3:10 fitness, so I think aiming for it would become a conservative goal and give me the chance to check myself after the last hills and push the time lower if I feel I can.

I have the opportunity to put another half marathon race into my schedule as a time trial three weeks before the marathon. It's the Huntly Half, a famously fast run, which I haven't done before. It can be done and returned from in a morning and, provided the peak weeks go well, will be a great barometer for what I should be able to achieve in Kirikiriroa. I am pretty confident I should be able to better my Waterfront time if all things are smooth with training if I did it. I would aim for 1:26-1:27.

Anyway, just have to do the strength and conditioning, avoid rakes and uneven pavement, Covid, cyclonic weather conditions etc. and hope for the best!

To live, to die

I am a reader, yet for the occupational tumult that I've been in, I've had to make prioritising choices not to read much in the previous few years. Whenever things got busy, reading gave way to working and running. In 2022 it was only audiobooks that I "read". But injury and holidays give me an excuse to get back to it. 

Over Christmas I read Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, and a Chinese book, The Chronicles of a Blood Merchant (许三观卖血记）by Yu Hua (余华), The latter was the second book I had read by Yu Hua; the first was during the start of the pandemic, his most famous book, To Live, that was made into a movie. It was a delightful almost child-like read of some very serious topics, and in some ways it was an echo of my wife's grandfather - the protagonist was the son of a landlord who lost everything in the Revolution. (But as opposed to A Gong, the protagonist was a ne'er-do-well who wasted his money.) The Chronicles of a Blood Merchant and another book of Yu Hua, The Seventh Day, had sat on our bookshelf for four years until the present period to be read. I'm glad that holidays and then this hamstring niggle have given me the chance to read them.

The Chronicles of a Blood Merchant is another child-like tale of a simple man who discovers that selling his blood can give him money to address the crises that arise in his life. China at the time did not do blood donation, and in fact the act of giving blood was considered expending life energy and not an advisable thing to do, hence the buying of blood for the medical system. That weird premise is just a background detail of the sacrifice he made as his life tracks the Chinese Revolution, the Great Leap Forward and then the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution, surely not some small moments, to get his family through. It is really the family focus that hits home in the most peculiar way in this story, as he discovers that his first firstborn of his three sons is not his. (The result of a rape by his wife's previous admirer.) And how he struggles with first rejecting him, then showing partiality, to accepting him as a son, then almost loving him at times beyond the sons that were his flesh and blood. Also it is a thorough exploration of how people see self-sacrifice and denial in their lives.

The Seventh Day was unexpected after these but it made sense by the end. It opens in the most peculiar way that, as a non-native reader, it made me question whether I understood the Chinese correctly: 

"It was thick and foggy when I walked out of my rental home, into a city that was wriggling awake in empty chaos. The place I was going was a funeral parlour, a place called a "crematorium" in the past. I received a notice to go there by nine a.m. The time of my cremation was half past nine."

It is a strangely beautiful book even if written from an ambivalently afterlife perspective on the life lived before and the affections with the world that has been. Again it was written child-like and the elements of surrealism that were in his other works are exaggerated here. 

I had read most of it before the Waterfront Half. My debilitating "hamstring injury" was addressed by a few specialised exercises and stretches, and just like my hamstring after Coatesville, it has not made a peep since. But I had new reason not to run much. In a great display of irony, the ankle on my other foot caused me a lot of angst. It started just after the race when I had a massage at the venue as a pre-emptive especially for my hamstring, but coming of the massage bench I put my left ankle on the ground and a bolt of pain almost sent me to the ground. I could walk but it felt as if I had sprained it. After a little walking I was manageable. My arch was sore and my upper ankle tight. The rest of the day was fine, I felt it tight the following morning but could still run 10km, but at work I couldn't walk naturally. The next day was the same, and on the third day, and another 10km run it finally felt a bit more normal. I managed to read a few more pages of The Seventh Day and got to the end tonight.

I ran 24km up one of the steepest roads in the Waitakeres with no trouble to my hamstring or my left ankle. My hip, well, it was cranky on the way down the hill. Looks like I've got some strengthening and conditioning to do!  

On the water front

Even in this scientific age, some feeling of superstition is hard to avoid. People talk about not jinxing things, and whether it is to avoid the risk of reputational damage, or just not to feel stupid, we don't generally state things in certain terms about the future. My last blog was published on a Sunday two weeks ago with a lot of expectation about an event, the Waterfront Half Marathon, which was beckoning to be yet another performance ceiling breaking event. Everything was auspicious for this - a clean sub-90 minute half marathon. My big talk was of a sub 1:28 result which would be a cathartic breaking of the 1:30 barrier that had always been such an issue for me. 

Well, if I had a decent memory, I should have the lead-in wasn't actually so auspicious before the last blog: my Coatesville Half run was marred by a hamstring issue. And I should have recognised that as a bad omen, or at least an important issue to work on, because just three days after the blog, and eleven days before the race, I set out in the morning on what would be my last real effort run before the event and promptly had an issue. The run had initially felt really good as my body demonstrated that it could handle pace and sustain it. But then just as I was about to take my foot off the gas that feeling in my hamstring returned, a tightening, the feeling of something bunching up, and then pain. It was exactly what had happened last time. So I stopped, stretched, and then as it was a work day tried jogging back the 4km home while not trying to aggravate it further... The whole return journey I was bothered by the fact that this was happening just eleven days before the Waterfront event and I would be losing some of my preparatory running.

Thinking back to the Coatesville hamstring issue, it had got better quite quickly with a post-race massage, a rest of a couple of days and some light running. So I tried repeating this treatment plan this time and while in Ashburton three days after the issue returned, I tried running gently and felt the issue come back on the run, and the sensation linger for a day. I tried some of my own exercises and stretches and on the following Wednesday, one whole week after the recurrence tried running but gave up after just 2km. I "gave in" and went to the physio. It was just four days before the event and I was feeling rather negative about the whole thing.

But the physio was great and she reminded me it was two years since my last visit! There was a good logic in my understanding of the injury (it was aggravated by pace and braking going downhill) and the treatment (strengthening at the lowest point on the hamstring which was not strong enough and improving flexibility). There was a nice new exercise, the neural stretch, that I enjoy doing and I'll probably include it into my strengthening regime. This whole episode made me think that I was very resilient physically last year but had upped my pace pleasingly in the last three months, but that I hadn't really done much to improve my tolerance of these kinds of efforts. 

So anyway, Thursday I did the prescribed exercises, Friday again. Saturday morning I went on an 8km fitness test/shake-out run. The tightening was there after two kilometres but I continued to run and found it didn't get any worse. I put three "race pace" 400m sections and it still didn't worsen. On that basis for the first time since the injury, I was positive to run the Waterfront Half, which was actually just this morning. 

Having run it before, I knew what to expect pre-race: in a word, pandemonium. They close Tamaki Drive and all the parking along it so when you add the vehicles of the 2500 runners and event staff, it makes for a stressful parking spot hunting expedition. Similar to Coatesville, I was a bit rushed, but fortunately managed to do everything I needed to do, and get into the starting chute through a side-branch. 

Ever since my recent fall, the GPS tracking on my watch had become very finicky. On this occasion, when 0700 hours ticked and the race began, my watch was still searching for signal after two fruitless minutes. I sprung my way through the early bunching, although a traffic island almost took me out (it looked like a clearing ahead - just didn't see the reason for it). My pace still looked slow on my watch but I knew from some familiar faces around me that I was going pretty quickly. Slightly worrying at the time was that I could feel tightness almost straight-away but it didn't affect my gait or pace. And in fact, not long after I didn't even think about it at all!

My biggest piece of luck was a running friend, Aaron J, noticing me and ran beside me. He is definitely in a faster class of running, and was unnerved that we were apparently in the same bunch so I asked him what his watch was giving him as a pace, to which he said: 4:04/km. (My watch was still finding its bearings with 4:29!). Now, for reference, 4:16 was my Coatesville pace. 4:10 was my goal pace for this race to get to 1:28, and I was going significantly faster than those times. It felt easy - and despite trying to slow down, the objective timings after the race showed I wasn't decelerating at all. I did 5km in 20:28, a pretty good parkrun time, and ran the second fastest 10km of my life, 41:08, in the first 10km of a 21.1km race... Aaron, though a very fast runner, had not been training much but is the kind of runner who can more or less, roll out of bed and run faster than most. He had humble goals and was happy to run with me while he found what pace worked for him. After about 10km I told him I'd drop back and until about the 14km I found it easy enough to sustain pace (which turned out later to be 4:06/km pace, which would have been a 1:26:30 finish if I had the gas to maintain it!). 

But after 14km my pace started to drop, at first without my feeling any difference. My watch started to indicate it and I was a bit worried that I might really start to decelerate. My hamstring was not even perceivable, although another quirky issue (my right hip flexor) did start to have some impact. Fortunately, though about 15-20 seconds per kilometre at times I still managed to recover and push towards the end. I cruised in the finish at 1:28:28, a personal best by 1 minute 30 seconds.

Now, 30 seconds faster would have gotten to my pre-injury goal of sub 1:28, but just getting to the end of the race without issue was the real prize. The PB was the cherry on top. I have confidence that my running has not been derailed and with continued conditioning I can build up another string of training for the Kirikiriroa Marathon in June. But I'll leave prognosticating about how that will go to.... after the event this time. 

Milestone

On Thursday, I crossed an interesting in my running, the "1000km for the year" mark. 1000km annually is not a big amount - for context, you can achieve it with just 20km a week and have two weeks to spare. In 2017, my first full year of running I was proud to break 2000km by New Years Eve. But with aspirations of being a 4000km a year runner, the 1000 mark is quite a critical one. In 2023 I crossed it almost right on pace, 1 April, which was a personal record. The years since 2017, 1000km has come up at a wide range of times:

2018 - 30 June

2019 - 6 April

2020 - 22 September

2021 - 27 June

2022 - Did not run 1000km

2023 - 1 April

2024 has so far been a wonderfully smooth start to the running year and on Thursday 21 March, I again crossed the 1000km for the year mark. Of course, it is an empty record if it doesn't confer any actual ability or potential with it. 2023's record did not translate into a faster marathon for me at either Kirikiriroa or North Shore, but the solid year that it was is probably the reason I performed well with my mile PB in December, Coatesville in February and the Hobsonville Point Parkrun. 

Since my performance at Coatesville, I have been very solid. I shook off the niggles quickly and stacked three weeks of mileage over 100km and kept working on my speed. The Waterfront Half awaits me in two weeks where I hope to translate this work and training into something symbolic.

I've only done the Waterfront Half once before in 2019 (see here). It remains my Personal Best time for the half marathon distance, 1:29:58. That is a speed of 4:16/km, which though I more or less achieved that at Coatesville, daunts me numerically. Based on my fitness now though, I should be able to beat it by two minutes with an average pace of 4:10/km over 21.1km. It is one of the mentally difficult things about running that you are preparing for something you never do in training. Every peak performance is in effect a leap of faith. If I am to go under 1:28:00, from beginning to end I will need to be right on, or thereabouts, a pace I have not maintained for more than 10km at any time in my life. On my run yesterday, I ran a 3x2mile run - this is where within a long run there are three segments that are specifically faster for 2 miles - and the fastest of the three two mile segments, on the flattest part of the run, was run in just over 4:10 pace, and once it was done, I was pretty done, too. So 4:10/km stands in my mind as a challenge. 

The secret sauce though is the taper. It is important for me mentally to think that the run yesterday was (a) a good run; (b) done while my body is still coming down from a fatiguing three big weeks; and that come race day, my body will be fresh and peaking, loaded with adrenalin and with fast people racing alongside me keeping me pegged to the target pace. That was the magic of Coatesville, too. In my head, a 1:30 on that course was not possible till I was on course, disbelieving my pace, and then still somehow managing to keep it going till (almost) the very end.

For perspective of what taper is looking like:

The week starting 26 February: 102km (6 days running)

The week starting 4 March: 114km (6 days running)

Last week: 115km (6 days running)

This week: 92km (5 days running)

Next week: 80km (5 days running)

Race week: 50km (4 days running), prior to the Sunday race day.

Fingers crossed that all works and my body rests well and is ready come 7 April.

Another record falls

Two weeks ago I ran my best effort but didn't record a numerical "personal best" for a particular distance. Yesterday, I ran my 13th ever parkrun, this time at Hobsonville Point, and carved 10 seconds off my previous record.

Parkruns are 5km timed runs that occur in parks all over the world (well, 23 different countries). It is a delightful story of organic growth of a good idea. Most runners, myself included, train for "big" events and are not primarily interested in the social side of running. Parkruns were started by an Englishman, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, who just wanted to have a regular, timed 5km run. The early advocates had volunteers to record times, but since then it has become more organised happening without fail at 8am on Saturdays, and now you can get your personalised barcode that you can take anywhere there's a parkrun, run and get your time. For serious runners, that's great but the unexpected benefit is that people who did not have a time as the main goal, but just wanted to have a routine social run. There will be people from all walks of life, some running, some walk/running and others just walking, chatting before, during and after. 

I have friends who are regular parkrunners. Some have it has part of their purpose. Others are just in-between a focussed training plan and just want to keep the legs turning over. Others are "retired" from focussed training and just want to maintain their fitness and identity as a runner. It hasn't really played a role in my running as evinced by my meagre 13 events in almost 6 years. For me it barely had a function in my running. Saturdays were the days I wanted to run long, and if I were to do a "race" I wouldn't just participate, I would want to do it as a time trial, or if a friend was in town. This occasion it fulfilled both of these purposes.

I have run several parkruns, Cornwall Park, Owairaka, Western Springs and even in Hagley Park (although unofficially). Hobsonville Point literally had its inaugural event on the same day as I recorded my previous 5km PB on the same day at Cornwall Park, 19 mins and 54 seconds. I was always planning to check it out but almost five years later, mainly with the motivation of running at the same event as a high school friend, I went. But it also fit well in my training. I was not yet cranking up my mileage on the weekends, I wanted a bit of a measure to consolidate my understanding of my fitness and generally felt I might be in a good place to break the five year standing PB. 

Before you start a 5km race, you need to have an idea of the pace you think you can maintain. For a runner, the margin of error with pace gets more difficult the shorter the event. There are calculators to figure out, based on a previous event, how fast you should be able to run. Based on Coatesville, I should be able to run 5km in the range of 19:00 to 19:30, which sounded surreal for me, maybe something in my mindset that I need to challenge. It demands a sustained sub-4 min/km pace for almost 20 minutes, when even for 10 minutes it'd be a challenge. The last kilometre of a well-paced 5km is very close to suffering.

But I had to trust my training and the information I had gained from my previous run. So after finding the course, chatting with my mate, under perfect conditions I started the run. I had imagined Hobsonville Point as a flat coastal track. I was a little bit wrong, though not hilly, it's got its fair share of undulation. And there are six sharp turns, which slow you down and force you to accelerate back to your pace. My pace for every kilometre were: 3'46" 3'59" 3'53" 4'01" 4'07" The last two kilometres were in the suffering category but I'm glad it didn't balloon as it can easily do. The final time, 19:44, just 10 seconds off my Cornwall Park PB of 2019. This was a relief but I was disappointed not to be able to hold on better to get it into the 19:00-19:30 area. But, as with my Coatesville effort, as long as I stay injury free, the signs are good for the rest of the year. I have a great foundation for all my events.

My return to Parkrun coincides with a controversy. My description above I hope shows how wholesome it started and how most people would take it. Unfortunately, any platform can be contested ground in the culture wars. Parkrun had built in records for male and female participants for their general metrics. Even though registration at Parkrun allows a range of responses to the gender question, either from suspicion or actual events, transgender females were believed to be recorded among "biological" females, which was thought to be biasing average results, taking records and introducing an element of unfairness for those who valued their statistics and standing.

I pity any organisation that suddenly has such quandary cast upon them because of the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't aspect to it. Parkrun opted out of it completely by taking away the gender aggregated statistics altogether. The topic came up with my high school friend but I hadn't followed and just said that transparency is always the best approach. After writing this, I felt more about the participation focus of such events and now think Parkrun did an appropriate move. Individual records are viewable, just not the course records by gender, or your standing within your gender. But in saying that it is silly that everything has to be contested. Those who reject transgender participants self-identifying taking part in a range of events might not have realised that since you don't generally confirm any of your details against a birth certificate, all categories of information for all but the Olympics is trusted when it is submitted. 

One critic however tweeted: "Rather than give females their fair sports results from parkrun – where it would be very easy to add course records for non-binary categories, they have removed all records, I hope parkrun will listen to the fact that the vast majority want a fair sport for all based on the biological reality of the bodies we run/race/compete with." Being a cis male, I am only speculating from the sidelines, but there is no compulsion for someone who identifies contrary to their birth certificate to put "non-binary" (which would be inaccurate, anyway) and not just put what they identify as. 

Back on track

2023 was a strange year in my running. It on one hand was the year that I ran the most, 3850km, more than the 3,111km in 2019; yet on the other hand, a year where I ran only two events and did not run my best. To be clear, I wasn't looking for personal bests - I was looking for a consistent year of running, and had two goals: a mileage goal of 4,000km in the year (not achieved) and a climbing goal of 52,000m ascent for the year (achieved) and that good performances might be a by-product. When the mileage goal started to slip out of reach, I switched to a new goal: pace.

For most of the year, I had been noticeably slower at the fastest part of my range compared to other years. To put some numbers to it, at my best I could run 5km in less than 20 minutes, but in late 2023 I would not be able to go under 21 minutes; in a half marathon at my best I could go under 1 hour 30 minutes, but I would struggle to go under 1 hour 40 minutes in 2023. These margins might seem small but the work to get them down would usually take a long time. So, I switched to pace training in December. The implications of this are that mileage comes down a bit and very specific work-outs are used to sharpen up. Such an example might be 10x400m, or 3x2mile runs, where you run particular distances at fast paces with rests in between. 

The surprising thing was that the fruit came quickly. I ran a mile in 5:49, a lifetime best. At the end of the year, I almost broke 20 minutes for the 5km park run (where humorously all runners had to squeeze past a van and its trailer on two parts of the route). My pace training continued into 2014 to prepare for my main target event, the Coatesville Half Marathon. 

I have a lot of affection for this event. Early in my running in 2017, I ran the Coatesville Classic (8km), which I described here: Crypticity's abound: Comeback and then the Half in 2019 (Crypticity's abound: Mark). Quoting myself for brevity: "The Coatesville Half course is notorious. It is the hilliest course of the series with one significant incline at 3km, another at 10km, another at 14km and another at 16km." In 2019, I ran 1 hour 37 minutes, which was a solid performance in what would be my best year in running, so I was looking for the run this year to be a bit of a bellwether for the year ahead.   

The lead-up through January was very good. In a time-trial I ran 1 hour 35 for a flat half marathon distance. On the Saturday eight days before the run, I ran two training runs that surprised me in pace that exceeded what I thought I was capable of, a 5x1mile and a 2x4mile. Unfortunately on the last one at the very end of the last 4 mile I felt a tightening in my hamstring and I jogged home very gently. I gave myself a two day rest and then did some light runs to test it out again. I felt OK so continued with my normal "week before" taper runs. And then we come to the day of the race.

After a poor night sleep, I woke naturally at 6:12am with a start. My shock at the time jolted my heart and mind into action. Somehow, my 5:30am alarm had not vibrated me awake. In fact, it claimed it had and was doing it every eight minutes, as if self-snoozing itself without any fuss. I had to leave by 6:30am to realistically get to the venue and be ready for the 7:30am race start, so I exploded out of bed, changed, coffeed and threw everything in a bag and left the driveway at 6:32am. So far no speeding tickets have been received, so my arrival in the Coatesville Pony Club car park at 7:07am can be said to have been smooth and without issue. I grabbed my racebib and then to the back of a very long queue for the portaloos. I tried my best to do some dynamic stretches while in the line, and then after a quick prep in the loo, jogged over to the middle of a tightly packed starting chute at 7:27am without any real warm-up. 

Perhaps due to the adrenalinised chaotic start to the morning, I was much faster than my race plan, which was to aim for 4:30/km pace (which would have me on a 1 hour 35 min finish speed) until the downhill speedy finish and go sub 1:35. I had to first push through the mid-pack runners to the front 10% to find people of a similar pace, and that meant my speed at the start was a bit reckless. Fortunately for me there was an easily recognisable Zimbabwean female runner, Ketina, who usually is about my pace, so I used her as an initial measure where I needed to be and I caught up to her and dropped a bit of pace for the hill. 

There began the very familiar pattern of my usual strategy: slow on this hills (letting my pace peers pace me) and then reeling them in on the flats before passing them on the downhills. Ketina disappeared after the first such iteration, and once I was at the top of the first hill, I sped up and didn't slow down. Looking at my watch, I was clearly in the 4:10-4:25/km range - too fast but feeling strangely comfortable. I kept going pulling past more pace peers to the halfway turn when I had a rather cruel realisation that I should have anticipated. My watch had measured my distance 200m short of what the marker was indicating. This was a problem because that meant I was going even faster than my watch was telling me. I could have been going 5 seconds per kilometre faster than I was reading off my watch. 

For any race, the best indication of whether you are going too fast is your breathing (and also one of the best ways to know if your running companions might be entering into a struggle phase). I checked myself and thought I was still breathing quite evenly so I held my pace for the last few hills and then made the final turn onto the downhill home straight. It was then that I knew that it should be just a matter of cruising to the finish line, a certain PB, probably a couple of minutes under, and done on one of the more difficult courses.

It wasn't to be though. About 2km from the finish, I felt the tightness in my hamstring return. I couldn't but cut pace just a little; then, a pain radiated out from that point, and I shortened my gait and cut pace once more. By the time I had entered the Coatesville Domain I was not enjoying running and would have had a noticeable limp. Only one person passed me though and I got over the line at 1:30:12, my third fastest half marathon time. 

For perspective, despite the niggle, I would say this is my best performance. My other two fastest times are 1:29:58 at the Waterfront Half, the flattest possible course. and 1:30:04 on the trickier Millwater Half. But none of them are like Coatesville. It's kind of amazing that after all these years though all three PBs are clustered within 14 seconds of each other after different 21.1km races.

I gave myself a break of four days from running and then ran 5km on Friday evening with hamstring sensations but no pain. This morning I ran 22km with only mild sensations that never amounted to anything and then a massage and some strengthening work. I hope the hamstring is just an oddity that with a bit of rehab I'll get back quickly onto a regular routine.

So the omens are bad/good. Bad that I picked up a niggle/weakness of some sort. But good in that I have the best foundation for a year of good performances. My next chances to race are:

- Hobsonville Point ParkRun 24/02/2024 (goal: under 19:30)

- Waterfront Half Marathon 07/04/2024 (goal: 1:27)

- Kirikiriroa Marathon 09/06/2024 (goal: under 3:20)

- North Shore Marathon 15/09/2024 (goal: under 3:15)

All with ideal training...

 

 

“You’re not actually legally obliged to have an opinion.”

Thus spoke Bill Maher in his show Real Time. He claims that social media has forced individuals, and corporation, to feel like they need to have a thought and a stance on every current event, whether it be the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the marital situation of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith and Elon Musk's running of the app formerly known as Twitter. You could easily argue that any consumer of news was similarly exposed in pre-social media times. His point is that people for some topics it has become obligatory to have an opinion, even when there is no realistic need; worse, to not have an opinion, presumably in some circles, is to be not caring. 

Having recently watched the New Zealand movie Uproar set in New Zealand at the time of the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand, you can imagine a time where this country was divided and those of an anti-tour opinion would see status quo or disinterested positions as actively supporting racism through a lack of a denouncement. But you could say that public opinion or making a bigger "scene" could trigger a symbolic cancellation of a tour or, more long term, political change locally, or even political change in South Africa. That was completely outside of the social media era but also it was a bit closer to home. 

The topic of apartheid in South Africa was probably understood well enough by both sides. Pro-tour people justified themselves that sport should be separate from politics, and even could argue that if anything rapprochement through sport could lead to the ends of the anti-tour position. Uproar touches on the irony of that time that many of the anti-tour activists have been focussed on the South African apartheid and blind to racial discrimination at home. 

The Israel-Palestine situation is one of the topics that Maher though was talking about, especially critical of university students in the US who protest against Israel in support of Palestine, without any condemnation of the 6 October attack by Hamas that "started" the current situation. Worse, the retaliation for the attacks have apparently reawakened the latent antisemitic tendencies in some parts of humanity. For New Zealand, while there are Israelis and Palestinians here (one of my colleagues of mine is half-Palestinian) and our Government at some stage will have to decide in what way it will support one or both sides, it seems strange to think that we must have a stance on the rights and the wrongs of it. 

I regard myself reasonably knowledgeable on the history of the region where Palestine and Israel sit for an average guy but still I would not want to say any rights or wrong overall. The Hamas attack was abhorrent but the situation prior means that asymmetric attacks (and defence in the case of human shields) were always probable. The government elected by the Israeli people was unhelpful but expectable in the context. The government elected by the Palestine people was unhelpful but expectable in the context. Zoom back to President Clinton's attempt at Camp David, the decision by Arafat to reject the deal was unhelpful but expectable... and you can go back further and further in the karmic cycle. At the end of the day, choosing to support either side sounds like supporting a side in a toxic relationship for a couple who cannot separate or divorce, but may well kill each other. Any support is just based on limited knowledge of the rights and wrongs.

The magic ingredient

No, the magic ingredient is not alcohol despite the photo. I’ve had a breakfast of 肠粉 (rice rolls), 刀切糍 (not sure if there is a name for this) and 烧肉 (pork belly); then a lunch of fresh bamboo shoots fried with two kinds of pork, sautéed gaaichoy and two kinds of pork, friend together. It was something rather perfect. It might just be something latent in the crockery. But probably not. It is the taste of home. 

Strike three

In perfect conditions, I completed my eighth marathon distance this morning. It was never going to be one where I was expecting to cover myself in glory; the eleven weeks between the Kirikiriroa Marathon and this one was blighted by a fall, a cold, a niggle and generally lacklustre training. And from my learning from the Kirikiriroa race, I had steeled myself to restrain pace from the beginning. Despite thinking I was doing this, the final quarter rhymed with the previous race: it was a struggle.

The North Shore Marathon route is now equal with Auckland Marathon as the event I have done the most. The Auckland event starts with a bit of undulation through the Shore, a cruise along the motorway to the Bridge, then after the Bridge it is basically flat to St Helliers and back. The North Shore event is simpler: First you start along Milford Beach (beach section 1) then climb onto the road to Takapuna then run the full Takapuna Beach, then you climb out of there to Takapuna Grammar, then drop down to Narrow Neck Beach (fortunately not on the sand), then you climb out of there before dropping onto Cheltenham Beach for an interminable soft sand section, then you are rewarded with a climb up and around Northhead... and then you do it in reverse, and then back, then in reverse. Three beach sections time four, two Northheads. In some ways, it should be the easiest one to pace as you are fully aware of what is in store after you've only done a quarter... yet every time this event gets me. 

My first attempt was in 2018 where I felt well trained and plunged in and started struggling after my second climb of Northhead (about 31km in), and even walked at around the 37km mark, and pulling into finish around 3:44. (My blog of it: Always crashing the same car) 

The next year I wanted to remedy this and ran what is still my best attempt completing the course in 3:32. Cruelly this was not official because the full marathon event was cancelled due to the threat of a weather event. I missed the memo, as did others who turned up early to run. Sixteen of us decided that the weather event wasn't going to materialise and ran it anyway. It went smoothly until about the 37km and I slowed down but was still proud of the effort. (Blog: This is number five and I'm feeling quite alive...)

So, what happened this time? Basically it was a rehash of my first attempt but with a slower pace for the first three-quarters, and never walking from fatigue this time round. One annoying thing was that my watch recorded 20.6km for the first half. This means either it was shorter than a marathon, or my watch hadn't quite tracked it accurately and I was actually running faster than I should have been. 

Will I be back? Almost certainly - their Super Earlybird price is pretty super so it "won't hurt" to join it. And I want to nut it out. But this will probably be my last marathon for 2023. One interesting thing about this year is that I've only done marathons - no halfs, no ten or five kilometre events. Not surprisingly I have not really regained my pace from previous years despite having run high volumes. So I would like to try getting that speed back in the last four months of the year, and I would like to see if I can settle my score with the Omaha Half Marathon in December. 

Normies

I remember the era that I went into the ESOL industry well: I'd just come back from Taiwan, just turned 21 and the International student boom had just begun, and schools were literally taking anyone. Yes, it would have been far more aggrandising to say that I met some stringent standard but I more or less just walked in. And it was great! I was surrounded by a whole lot of students in their late teens and early twenties from other cultures, not dissimilar to me. I had a fascination with cultures and languages from Asia. I made friendships; I had students at my parties; I was invited to parties; they took part in my events, and it was a pleasure to be in the throng. I was still finding myself at the time. I got into a relationship for the first time, not with a student although I felt close to several early on, and had moved out of my parent's home for the first time. And to be clear, I never "crossed the line" into the emotional and romantic sphere with students, but I did many things that in these days a teacher would be fired for. I have a collection of photos of my crimes: I had a weird send-off for graduating students where I picked them up into my arms for a photo. (In my defence I picked up not just the girls but the guys.) In a ritual I cannot remember the origin of, there is a photo of a female student and I holding the same two cubes of Cadbury chocolate between our teeth. And a certain infamous Mt Eden photo, there were students. Back then I was never spoken to about my conduct with students quite possibly because there was tacit approval to "engage" the students and make sure they have a good time. Or maybe they just didn't know. That is me, but at the time to my knowledge, one maybe more, of my colleagues in my first school were crossing the "relationship" line, and there were certain students who were known to not mind crossing it either. 

The relationship line is a bit of a hairy line to cross in any event, whether in the inappropriate teacher-student dynamic, or just in general life. Making a move or a pass on someone, whether there is someone deliberately on the search for someone to be with, or interpreting signals from someone you are receptive to the interest of is one thing. And there is plenty of less nuanced behaviour that can result when one side is infatuated. Already this year I have had a teacher report an irrational, infatuated student to me, which was very distressing to him. But regrettably it is usually the other way around.

Norms are funny beasts. It would be interesting to know how much #MeToo was a watershed moment, or whether it was just emblematic of the changes in society, where we see much more thinking about consent in all respects, autonomy, mana and hauora. Thinking back to my AIESEC days, people were compelled to do things they did not want to do whether it was to drink an "eggly" (a disgusting raw concoction), drink, strip or whatever. Some would say this was the secret sauce in the organisation to bond people. Others might have trauma from some of these. And then there was the stuff that might happen behind closed doors, perhaps with different degrees on insobriety. I think it reflected quite a bit about the expectations in society around the time. You still hear about some organisations, such as law firms, where there is still a sense of this where only recently some people have stood up to say "no".

I find it quite jarring looking back on my early teaching, and the culture of AIESEC because norms have shifted even in this short time. However, those things might be tame when put next to things seen and done "teaching in Asia". Simply put, there are those that go over to teach or experience the world, but there is also a group who go there mainly for love, either the fleeting sort or something more permanent, and often seek it within the student body. To be clear, they and colleagues are the main people you spend your time with as an expat teacher. Just like my first teaching, a lot of them are going into a group of students who are a similar age to them. There might have also been some who found love within the student body incidentally; they may have been in relationships when going over (either with partner in tow or in a newly established distance arrangement), but who discovered something fresh and new in their place of teaching. Either way though, it was something that was explicitly told to teachers they could not do and yet was something many did anyway. 

Since coming back to New Zealand I have found that within the English teaching area there are so many ex-expats, and it is among them that regrettably there is the highest rate of crossing the line here. Regrettably I know of five individuals who have done so - I won't say the time or name people, schools or anything identifiable. Three were caught revealed and disciplined; another one was known although the complainant did not want to make it an official complaint so no action could be taken directly; and the final one we only knew about after he left while being disciplined for some other piece of unprofessional conduct. What do they have in common? Well, beside being cis-white males (I don't think that's too much to identify them), they are travellers, most ex-Asia. While there was clearly one ratbag, the other four were generally sincere. One even was the "grass" who helped a student report the conduct of one of the others of the five, and who said that he thought it was unacceptable that teachers behave that way to students... 

If I had to categorise this limited group, I'd first say there are the ageing "players", gents who have probably had a way with the ladies in the past, generally handsome, even charming, but with that expectation that girls should like them, and when their fancies are roused, that girls must like them. Then there are the older men who just do not read signals well. There is a certain Asian feminine virtue to be polite, engage positively and never to say "no" explicitly. One such case is referred to obliquely here: Crypticity's abound: Swirling in the calm. The oddest experiences from this was genuine confusion by the teachers involved; one seemingly blaming the complainant: "She just isn't mature enough" (to understand his sincere intent in asking her, his student decades younger than him, out.) The other one most awkward of all, in a disciplinary meeting triggered because he was infatuated so much that in the meeting the teacher was saying "I don't know what went wrong - everything was going so well. And then she stopped responding to my texts and calls." Having to explain to a man who was on his second marriage, not just about ethics and the staff handbook regulations, but also that she just isn't into you, at all, and never was and never will be. And no, you cannot meet her to say sorry because your presence creeps her out. 

And then there is the one case that doesn't really make sense at all without something lying underneath that is unknown.  

Inevitability

2018 was the year when I fell four times on runs. The first was a pre-dawn fall in the Domain; a vehicle came up behind me with lights on and I moved to the verge, my own shadow making me oblivious about the drain I was about to put my foot in. That was interesting because I was fine apart from a bit of a graze at the time, but my knee swelled up a few hours later at work. Then there were the two minor falls on daytime long runs: one I was crossing a road while fiddling with my waist pouch and looking out for traffic; the middle of the road had a raised section which I clipped my foot on and had me in a heap in the middle as concerned motorists stopped on either side, but not grazes to show for it. Then less than a week later, my foot hit the base of a sign on a Great North Road footpath sending me again into the pavement but with some lost skin. Then what was the most catastrophic of the series, I was waiting for the Omaha Half to begin and jumped up onto a boardwalk only for my feet to slip out from under me and a heavy fall on my buttocks. I completed the run but the delayed effects of the fall put me out of running for some time; it took almost two months to get back to it. It was freakishly high to wonder whether I should really be out there running at all. Yet in all the years around it, 2016-2017 and 2019-2022, I only had one other fall, a wipe-out on gravel at a sharp corner in an event. 

The forces of probability over a habitual action are worthy of us all to consider, just like speeding on a windy road, even one that you know, could eventually end in disaster. As a runner, and morning runner at that, there are many factors that raise the probability of a fall. There is visibility, which, even with the waistlamp I bought after the first fall in 2018, cannot illuminate every threat in a timely way. Little unevenness on the path is enough to catch a shoe and unbalance. Even with illumination, you can be dazzled by headlights, twilight can cause less visibility than in darkness, and rain or fog on glasses or in the lightbeam are dangers. The moisture factor boggles the mind: I don't know if it is shoe technology or sheer intuitive skill that means the many thousand footfalls on wet footpaths do not regularly result in slips. However, three of the four 2018 falls happened in broad daylight, some surfaces are perilous and distractions can lead to misfooting.

On the 29 July this year I had the fall that broke five straight years without hitting the ground. It was inevitable, thinking of the above, that I'd have another moment of grazed hands, but this felt almost unavoidable on a practical level: I entered a trap. On one of my regular pre-dawn loops I turned onto Portage Road crossing it earlier than usual. I would usually take a newer footpath on the outside by bus-stops but it hadn't yet started and traffic was coming, so I ran onto an older, inner footpath that passed businesses. It was a bit cracked and a copse of trees were to its side blocking street light illumination but I charged down it with only my own light. It was going to be tricky because I'd have a sharp right-hand turn at the end (so not to run onto the road) but not something I hadn't managed before. As I approached the turn my lamp revealed late that the end of the footpath was a stretch of shiny mud, but it was not like I hadn't run in mud before. I slowed and took it with caution but as soon as my first foot hit the mud it slide out and my momentum took me face first to the pavement, my hands fortunately bracing the impact. There was a half second of fright and then a half second to rise and run, and another half second for the burn on palms to register. I was still five kilometres from home and still had work ahead. The result once at home and in the light was several wounds, three on my hands, both elbows and a knee. 

I ran the loop again in broad daylight and I can only conclude that running it if ten normal runners went through that path in the dark, at least five of them would come to grief. It allayed some worries; I knew it just had my number and now I had its. 

A river run through

The north island was blessed by a massive high pressure system that just stalled above it, granting blue skies that had long left our memories, frosts that were absent last year and for us in our home at least, a respite from the fear of wind and leaks. It was also perfect for a run.

But it wasn't just the weather. The last few days of running were good; after some hesitation, I chose what turned out to be the right pair of shoes to run in; my sleep before was smooth; the trip to the venue went without hitch. The only hitches were that it was rather cold, 5 degrees at best; and the Hamilton Gardens where Christy was going to wander, brunch and wait for my arrival wasn't going to open until an hour after the start of the race. 

And so I began my run across frosty grass until a beautiful blue sky along a route that had a scenic inland 14kms, which is seven kilometres to and back from the Hamilton Gardens, and then 28km along the river and back.  I knew a bit of the river section from runs - I knew that there were more slopes than you'd expect, although no "hills". But the fact is that it has more ascent than Auckland or Rotorua marathons. It was a beautiful route, though.

As we got going, I tried to lock into my target pace and get to know the people in the general pacing that I was in. The pace was the tricky thing - I felt like I was running easy but my watch indicated I was going too fast. One runner mentioned that we had gone into a low coverage area so the GPS distancing might be off. We had different paces on our watches. The one runner I knew well, who I will call Cherie, I expected to be faster than me, so intended to just keep her in sight, and during the inland phase slowly ground her way out of range. 

By the time we had looped back to the Gardens the pack had thinned so there were only pairs of runners, with solo runners in between. The river section near the city had its undulation and as it was now mid-race, the legs really started to feel it. I was aware now that I had probably gone too fast on the first part and I tried to rein it in. Worse, during this section Cherie reappeared in my sights, at first 200m away on some of the longer stretches, then 100m away, then 50m away and finally towards the turn back, I passed her. She, who I had thought of as a pace marker, had gone out too quick and had hit the wall, now 28km into it I was slowing and still passing her.

The burn in my calves felt evident around 32km and though I tried to maintain effort, my pace was dropping, later my right hip flexor started to feel creaky. And then the city section undulation hit. I did the largest bump with a very slow grind up the slope, but one slope, the second to last real slope during the 38km, my will broke as my calves screamed for relief. I walked, the first time I had stopped in this fashion in a marathon since 2018. Once I was to the top of it though I got going again and didn't stop till the finish line.

I crawled into the finishing area just after 3:34, about nine minutes slower than I had planned. If I had paced it better I still think a 3:25 time would have been possible but who knows. I was knackered, a bit speechless and a bit sore. I walked around in circles a bit before eventually having a lie on the ground. Fortunately despite a few niggly sensations on the course and a lot of fatigued muscles and tendons, there was no damage or injury.

Despite the mild disappointment, I'm happy to notch up my sixth official marathon. (My 2019 North Shore Marathon was cancelled due to weather but I still ran it.) North Shore will be my next one at the end of August.

Get a niggle on

Three more sleeps and I put on my shoes and run the Kirikiriroa Marathon, Kirikiriroa being the te reo Māori name of Hamilton, kirikiri being a term for gravel, and roa for long, so maybe it was a long gravel stretch, maybe by the riverside, which if so is now a sometimes paved and, yes, sometimes gravel path. 

My path to the start line here there is a curly one. I had got the supercheap earlybird for 2020's edition, but got injured in the December of 2019, and then I had the blessing of the pandemic, the lockdown knocked the event and my entry back a year. 2020 was an average year of running but I still intended to run it when the postponed event of 2021 arose. Fortunately 2021 started very well with my running till a few weeks before, I sprained my ankle coming down Mt Eden. I forfeited my entry and when I eventually started to run again the rest of 2021 was rather uninspiring running-wise. I entered 2022's event more in hope than anything else, but in the Auckland Half-Marathon a few months before the event, I felt my Achilles flare up and it put me off training and knocked me out of running the 2022 Kirikiriroa event. Unfortunately/Fortunately, Omicron wave surged to New Zealand shores and in an abundance of confidence, they postponed the event, and all entries, to 2023. So my attempted entries were alternately stopped by pandemic, injury or both.

Saying it like that makes it sound like I'm always hurting myself, but there are long stretches of wellness in between. The dilemma of niggles and injuries is part and parcel of being a runner. Injuries  can be accidents like the ankle sprain happen, but they can arise out of overuse such as my Achilles flare-up. 

But niggles are a different kettle of fish. As you train and slowly stress your body more and more, parts of the body inevitably go through the adjustments and aches and pains arise. These can sometimes feel like injuries, but are not; or worse, may appear to be niggles but are actually the early signs of an injury. As such, there is a lot of anxiety when the first niggles appear. My training this year had its early minor niggles but my first moment of uncertainty was in late April when after the Concrete Monster run, I had some tightness near my knee that felt like a possible strain. I rested a few days and massaged the area and only via that did I realise it was not an issue of the tendons around the knee but a muscle knot deep in my quad. After releasing that knot, the issue disappeared. A definitive non-injury niggle. Two weeks later the hinge point of my left ankle felt sore after another challenging run. I rested it a couple of days before running again to the same issue, but while running I thought about a solution of using heel inserts temporarily, and also that my usual work shoe insoles had been swapped into the running shoes. After putting in the inserts (which I wore for two weeks) and changing the insoles, the feeling disappeared. Another niggle. And then just last week, after my last "fast" workout my right lower calf was tight. This time I more or less "ran through it" (i.e. I didn't change my training or add rests) and a few days later it resolved itself.

One of the key lessons from my many trips to physiotherapists is the wisdom of the "3/10" on the pain scale. Pain has various levels and though subjective, there is a descriptive spectrum that people use, and 3/10 is the highest degree of pain that one should persist in an activity, although depending on how the body part in question feels after and the next day. For many niggles and injuries, it is in fact better to be active and potentially taking your body to the 3/10 as a way of healing rather than rest. All of my niggles were in this zone and fortunately were nothing worse than an unhappy muscle or joint. 

Even with the niggles, it has been a smooth training block more or less. But strangely I'm not 100% what time I should be aiming for for the marathon, I would say it's a broad aim for 3:28 and see how I feel at halfway, which is not how it should be as my MP (marathon pace) should have been something I had my training set around. This morning before one of the few runs this week, I also realised I hadn't even settled on which pair of shoes I should run in, an important consideration. I guess I've been distracted from the basic decision making for the race though clearly still going through the motions of what looks like good training. Almost four years since my last full marathon, I guess I should be just glad to finish the distance under my perennial target of 3:30 and do so with ease.

The Ding Dynasty

Anyone who has watched The Queen's Gambit knows that the Russians are a chess superpower. It wasn't always like that though. The first official world champion (in the nineteenth century) was an Austrian, the second a German, the third a Cuban and the fourth a Russian who defected to Vichy France, then just before the war, an honest Dutchman became took the throne (commonly thought to be the weakest world champion ever) before the man he defeated took it back and before being the only man to die on the throne. But from 1948 to 1972 the Russians held the crown.

It was only in 1972 that one extraordinary player emerged outside the Soviet Union to smash their dominance for one cycle. That was Bobby Fischer and he obliterated the opposition before disappearing from the chess world completely and became the first champion to refuse to defend his title. After doing what he did you could almost imagine he had already declared his mission accomplished. The second stanza of his life was quite bizarre and probably helped create the chess player archetype of an extreme intellect who does not follow conventions. Cue another 30 years of Russian dominance, the summit of which was the Beast of Baku, Garry Kasparov, generally considered to be one of the greatest of all time. It was 2006 before there was another undisputed world chess champion not from Russia. An astonishing Indian, the rival for Garry as the GOAT, the next level Norwegian Magnus Carlson. 

Magnus has been the highest rated player in the world and, for parts of that, the strongest player in the history of the world. When someone says the word "unrivalled" it is genuine. All of the contenders who have challenged him have failed in his ten years as champion that ended this year. In the time, he has beaten the challenger, usually a very strong player who successfully outscores the world's other best players in a grueling "Candidates Tournament", winning seventeen games and lost twice over five matches against four different players. In 2022, on a podcast he let drop the megaton news that he was unlikely to defend his title as it was too tiring to prepare for and little interest for him. Some took it as a bluff. He even added some spice to the mix by saying it would only be interesting if it was against a young Iranian-French player who was at the time rocketing up the rankings. In the end, the contender from his 2021 match won the Candidates again and Magnus confirmed he wouldn't defend his title. Instead, a match was arranged between the winner of the Candidates, Ian Nepomniatchi of Russia, and the second placed player, Ding Liren of China.

This made everyone and everything extremely awkward. How can you have a world championships without the strongest player? When Fischer refused to defend his title he wasn't even playing - Carlson is still very active and whoever becomes "champ" will probably be losing to him, and probably not dominating the chess world like a champ. Making it worse, Magnus had dismantled Ian in the 2021 match. But it was a date and Ian and Ding were in for the championships.

Ding Liren is a interesting player. Chinese men for a long time were not in top chess - it was in fact a Chinese woman who did the Fischeresque act of breaking Russian hegemony that had existed from the first champion in 1927 until it was broken by Xie Jun in 1991. Since then China has had the womens crown more often than not. The womens world championship this year will be an all-China affair. Yet the Chinese men for a long time did not have a player even close to the top ten. But in the 2000s the first strong players emerged and in the last five years Ding has been a powerful force. But the Covid period was not kind to him and his chances of qualification for the Candidates. He never seemed supported by the State to begin with and struggled to get outside of China to play chess. (Some other Chinese players managed to base themselves outside and keep active.) He played many online events but to qualify for the Candidates you need to fulfil a complicated set of qualifying categories such as winning the chess equivalent of the Majors. Initially he missed out on that before a Russian player who had qualified said outrageous political comments in relation to Ukraine and was removed leaving a space open. One way for him to qualify was to be the strongest player by rating besides Magnus, which Ding was, and who had also played a minimum required number of games, which Ding had not. In a method that many criticised at the time, tournaments were set up for him to play at short notice for him to play the required number of games. And then after a slow start he won a must win game at the end to scrape into second place and thus put himself in the world championships match against Ian.

Prior to the match there was a lot of speculation that the match would be a fizzer and struggle to grab the imagination. But it quickly became quite the spectacle. In fact, it became quite the slugfest with five decisive games in the first seven, with Ian winning three and Ding winning two. The last of this brutal phase was a loss for Ding where in a strong position he "froze" - he only had four minutes for about nine moves and inexplicably thought for five minutes for one move, a bad one, after which he quickly lost. Ding is quintessentially Chinese from the movies - inscrutable, composed and unflappable; yet he was in a visible collapse. Many thought that the match would be a collapse but a sequence of fighting draws began. It was to be the best of fourteen, and if that was tied, they'd go into a "rapid" play-off (a faster time control). Until the twelfth game, Ian held his lead but in that game, with black, the less advantageous colour, he put Ding's king in a vice and all he had to do is squeeze. Now it was Ian's time to do the unimaginable - he did what has been one of his greatest strengths but also his Achilles heel: he played fast. Ian must be uncomfortable to play because you never rest - he is always thinking on your clock and soon as you move, he sips his tea and then blitzes out a move. Here, a few impulsive moves turned his commanding position into an equal position, and then a single move played after just seconds reduced it to rubble. It was now his turn to visibly shatter. Ding equalised and after two draws, it was 7-7 and they had to go into the rapid play-offs.

The rapids were all played on a single day, for me it was Saturday night. And compared to the play in the "classical" fourteen games, the quality perversely improved with the players having less time to think. Three tough draws led to the final game of the rapid play-off; if this was drawn, it would be down to a blitz play-off that wouldn't end till there was a champ. The final game, Ding with the black pieces, was a complicated affair with Ian strong in the beginning, before Ding wrestled him to equality. It could have been a draw but Ian kept trying to win; it could have been a draw but Ding after wavering decided to play for the win, too. Ding under pressure found some extraordinary moves quickly that Ian, unused to being the one with less time for once, struggled to find responses, too. The final scenes of that game were complete disintegration for Ian. Ding became the champion.

So a spectacle it was between two less than superhuman players of immense chess strength. To be clear, the quality of play was roundly criticised. Magnus matches demonstrate clinical precision; this match was two guys playing below their strength. It remains to be seen whether Ding can regain his previous powers with the title now weighing around his neck. 

This weekend I'll complete my 1500th kilometre of the year. This has been my fastest year to this milestone, a whole one month faster than my best previous year, 2019. However, I don't feel as fast as 2019. In that year I did more events by this time whereas this year it has been just training up to this point. In fact, that year I had already completed a 3:27 marathon in Rotorua, my best back then. Would I be able to do that now? I am a bit doubtful but have done some rather good efforts, including conquering the Concrete Monster at a pace that had me doubting my watch. I had a much strong running partner that day, in horrendous conditions, and even towards the end I was able to belt out high speeds. Immediately after that effort though I had my first niggle of 2023, I had some tightness near my left knee, which was actually a hidden muscle knot higher up in my quad. I stopped running basically for five days - it felt like a year - and did other exercises and daily massage until it resolved. 

Five weeks to go basically means two more "peak weeks" of 100km/week and then the start of a gradual tapering of training, which focusses on running less but faster, and focussing on rest. I'm looking forward to this as much as the race. I hope I can keep these weeks "clean" of injury and niggles while also getting my confidence to maintain a good pace. I still think it is possible for me to go below 3:27, or even if things go smoothly, set a new PB below 3:22. Tomorrow though is a rest day after seven days "running" so I get a glorious sleep in to 6:45am.

But the Kirikiriroa Marathon is now five weeks away.