250 DAYS (to go)

Week One:

Put my money where my mouth is and entered the Routeburn Classic (which has now sold out).

Thankfully my race buddies (Lisa and Vanessa) also secured places since we’d already booked our accommodation, shuttles and made a hut booking on the Kepler as we plan to do that a couple of days after the event since we’ll be in the area.

Training wise I’m still carrying a hip injury and this was the first week where I tried to do some continuous running. I had tried some really short bursts of jogging during last weeks walking sessions so I was hopeful that this week I could at least run some intervals.

Started the week with two short 40 minute run sessions where I managed to run very slowly for about 95% of the trail, walking the hillier sections and that went pretty well. The two sessions in the back end of this week were both over an hour and I managed to run a good portion of those sessions as well and although the hip was tight when I finished, there wasn’t any pain, so I’m reasonably confident that I’ll be able to walk/run the Rotorua Run the Forest 10km event next weekend reasonably comfortably (as long as I don’t try and run like an Olympian) .. 😉

Total kms 25.27

Total time: 3:54

Speaking of the hip injury – I’ve been really dedicated to the rehab process and have been doing the strength exercises daily (sometimes twice daily) and making time for yoga/mobility/foam rolling etc. The physio mentioned that I’m recovering quicker than “most” during my last session and I’d say a lot of that comes down to being really diligent with the rehab exercises.

Oh and on the subject of exercises – I got my second cortisone shot this week in my left shoulder. So I may actually be able to do some chest and shoulder work for the first time in months next week .. I’m not holding my breathe though, that shoulder has been out of action for so long, I’ve probably forgotten how to shoulder press. 😉