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.