How to PB (twice in one week)
I mentioned in an earlier blog post that James and I ran a modified loop course from the Arataki Visitors Centre in Titirangi, you know the one with the tidal wave sized hill right smack dab in the middle of it ..
![loopcourse](http://i.imgur.com/V5B2nSZ.jpg)
6.5 km loop
Anyhoo we ran the loop on Saturday morning and as it was the first time we had ever run that particular loop it was (quite obviously) a personal best. #boom
It wasn’t a particularly fast time but considering the number and size of the ascents it was ok (especially for moi). James was especially proud of me because I’d run quite a lot of it because he knows just how much I hate hills. I have to admit that was mostly due to the fact James kept setting small achievable challenges for me on all of the ascents – such as “let’s run to that tree with the weird brown thing at the bottom of it, you see it? That weird tree?”
Generally I could see exactly which tree he was referring too but because I was usually gasping for breathe and not mentally ready to run (just yet) I’d quite often “have” to stop and seek clarification … and then (you know when I could breathe), off I’d trot – raising my arms in jubilation when I finally reached the weird tree/post or traffic cone that I’d been challenged to reach.
![hillrunning](http://i.imgur.com/0fjNrD0.jpg)
I think I can ….
Anyway considering I run slightly slower on any new tracks (as I’m unsure what’s ahead and how long I have to go) and I stop more often (because we all know that if you don’t have photos it never happened) we did ok time wise even though I had stop to ask Google Maps how to get back.
But as James said – a PB is a PB
Two days later I decided it would be a brilliant idea to go back and see if I could do the loop any faster. In theory it should have been easy, I’d already taken photos of the entire loop, so I wouldn’t have to stop (unless I couldn’t breathe or my shoe lace came undone) and (bonus) I knew where I was going so I wouldn’t have to refer to my map. The only thing troubling me is that I wouldn’t have James to encourage me to keep going.
So I set off with one goal – (with the exception of the two shoe cleaning stations) to keep moving ..
![pb](http://i.imgur.com/wrGXQUo.jpg)
BOOM!
When I told James I’d managed to PB by a hefty 15 minutes (and 16 seconds) he exclaimed “That’s HUGE! Well done, how’d you do it?” to which I replied
“Oh! I it was pretty easy I only took 4 photos today .. ”
Till next time