Running for fun .. wtf?

Back in December I told you that I’d signed up to do the Albany Lakes Run Series with James and his friend Terry.

I convinced myself that in doing so it would get me out on the road to run on a more regular basis than the no running I was currently doing. I think people call it “training for an event” and it actually worked (once). I managed to run about 800m’s and then decided that signing up for a running event was a stupid idea.

So I promptly went back to only running if I was crossing a road and a car was coming or when a coach made me ..

As Race 1 got closer James would occasionally ask about how my training was going and I’d make up some excuse about being injured (usually true), tired or busy (doing something other than running).

Then low and behold the month flew past and Race 1 was upon us …

I’d decided to walk the 5k’s and since James’ friend had piked out of entering I asked if he wanted to walk with me to keep me company and being a good husband he agreed.

We lined up near at the back of the running group as I suggested that we jog till the bunch spread out and we walk from that point, which would ensure we didn’t get stuck on the narrow trail behind all the “actual walkers”.

I’d literally just jog behind someone going at whatever pace they were going (which at the back of the pack was mostly really slow) and then when they stopped I’d jog behind whomever was in front of them.

I wasn’t dressed appropriately to run but since we were running so slowly (6:28 pace) I just kept going until we got to the 3k sign and I decided we should take a photo because it was picturesque (and I was hot) I considered getting semi undressed by the side of the road but didn’t want to scare everyone. 😉

After the photo shoot the plan was to walk the last 2 k’s to the finish line, but I got bored and asked J if we could jog the last 1k to the finish. He just laughed at me and said “You just can’t bring yourself to do it the easy way huh?”

In reality I just figured the quicker I finished the quicker I could get a coffee 😉

We crossed the line in 37:00 and 37:01 respectively and James turned to me and said “You know you could have done that in way under 35:00 if we didn’t stop to take photos” to which I replied ..

“But then it wouldn’t have been a fun run – it would have just been a run”

And anyway you can’t have a blog post without photos .. right?

All in all the morning went WAY better than I expected. I ran (albeit slowly) for an entire 3k’s without stopping, and considering that’s the furthest I’ve run since the Auckland (quarter) Marathon back in October 2012 I’m taking it as a successful outing, especially since I relied solely on my base fitness (which post Christmas is basically non existent).

Next time I’ll *try* to refrain from stopping at the pretty 3k mark and stop at the boring in the middle of nowhere 4k sign.

Till next time