Bucket list tick

Hello! Guess what? We did it. My mum and I completed the Tongariro Crossing without any major injuries (just really, really shattered calf muscles), and with only a few complaints.

It was fantastic. It was very tricky in some places, largely because I was a tad worried for my mum who was finding it hard-going. But the views were amazing, and well-worth it.

That's Ngauruhoe in the middle, the one they used in LOTR.

You know what? I never ever tan when I go to the beach, but after I climbed a mountain I got one. Unfair?

 

This one is called the Blue Lake. Not sure why...

This one was probably one of the best views of the day. There are two lakes in this picture, the further away one is Lake Taupo. Not sure what the other one is, although someone did tell me....

Anyway, if you are thinking about doing it, it is definitely worth it! Make sure you have good shoes, that you drink LOTS of water, and take a raincoat and a sun hat. Weather up a mountain in New Zealand can be crazaay.

Tomorrow!

Just a quick post before I do the Tongariro Crossing tomorrow with my mum!
Right now I am packing my gear - good shorts that will prevent chub-rub, my gortex raincoat that Dad got me for Christmas, and two drink bottles. Just one day of work to get through and then we drive up to Taupo/National Park.

Weather is looking good and I'm starting to get excited!

Calves and cake

Sooo... I got an injury.

What is so wrong with me that I get injuries so often? I stretch after every run, I wear proper shoes, I exercise regularly... I don't know what it is.

Last Monday I played Netball, no big deal. The next morning I did some interval training for a short 3km, did some lunges down my driveway and afterwards my calf muscle was a bit tight, so I stretched it. By Tuesday evening I was limping, and by Wednesday morning I could barely walk on it. Thursday and Friday were the same, and only now, Sunday, has it come right.

So that's ruled out any running, walking or leg strengthening this week. Which is unfortunate, as it was my BF's birthday yesterday and we ate like there was no tomorrow. I even made the cake of all cakes: a white chocolate mud cake cheesecake with the most amazing cream ever.

 Looks pretty good, if I may say so myself, and tasted even better. Om nom nom.

He couldn't choose between white choc mud cake and New York cheesecake, so as it was his 25th, I went all out and made both and made them into a two tier cake, which I then covered with cream. This last part may be guilding the lily, but part of the top of the cheesecake stuck to the tin, so I had to cover up a gaping whole. And while I love the look of 'naked' cakes, my one looked just a little bit too natural. So, on went the cream.

And it was divine.

Can you see how dense the cake on the bottom is? It is delicious, and has a block and a half of Cadbury Dream chocolate in it, plus butter, plus sugar, and the cheesecake has TWO blocks of cream cheese and half a cup of cream. Then we had burritos for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, so today I am definitely looking up calf-free strength training videos online so I've done at least something to work off this heart-attack-in-a-cake!

If you are curious, I got the recipe for the mud cake here, although I left out the glaze, and the recipe for the cheesecake I took out of my Alice in Bakingland cookbook, which thank goodness I allowed my mum to treat me to, because a) it is BEAUTIFUL, and b) no where else could I find a recipe for cheesecake that was in NZ measurements that I could trust that didn't require a crust. It ended up a weeee bit sweet, so next time I might add some lemon rind, but otherwise the texture was amazingly soft and fluffy, just like a baked cheesecake should be.

The cream I made up. Not wanting anything too sweet, and being slightly low on cream, I needed to somehow bulk up my mixture. I quickly googled cream with sour cream to check it was a real 'thing' and not a huge mistake, and then went by taste. Eventually I think I had the best cream I have ever had, or at least a tye for first with the brandy cream my mum makes at Christmas.

Here's the recipe if you are curious!

3/4 cup of cream (not the low-fat stuff, because otherwise it won't whip up)
1/4 cup of sour cream
1/4 cup of icing sugar, also known as confectioner's sugar.

Whip that with your mixer or whisk. Then eat some with a spoon just to check it tastes ok ;)

Rapunzel

If you have ever read my very first post, you might remember that running was not my only goal for 2012. The other was to grow my hair.

Sounds pretty stupid, really; it's not like it takes any mental effort! However, my hair had got to the stage where I dyed it so often that it snapped off, and never got any longer than this:

(I know you've seen this photo before, but you have no idea how hard it was to find a picture of me where you could see the length of my hair).

My hair sat just on my boobs, and was really thin. When I was younger, and it was my natural brown, it was super long, full of body and sooo luxurious. I really missed my long, thick hair, so I made-do by rocking my extensions (which didn't look as tacky as it sounds!), and making a NY resolution to get it to grow, somehow.

Two years on, I think it is fair to say that I nailed it!

All I did was stop getting my whole head of hair dyed. Now, I get just a half head. It means there is a lot of brown, but it looks fine :)

And it's so loonnnngggg! I also use Moroccan oil every now and then, and I almost never use hot tools on it. This means I have to let it dry naturally, and because it is sooo thick it takes forever to dry! If any one has any tips to get it to dry faster and not look like Hermione Granger, I would love to know, haha.

On the not-eating-cake track

Right now I am sitting in bed because today is a holiday in New Zealand! 

As such, unless it's a relaxing stroll along the river, I don't have an plans for major exercise. I plan to catch up on my favourite tv show (The Block), go out for lunch with th Bf, then drive down to Wellington for a hen's night. 

This week has gone really well, even if I haven't done a single run (yet!). Preparing for this wedding in the weekend where I'll be seeing lots of my high school friends is a great motivator to stay on track. I know they'll all the photo-crazy so I've been doing plenty of bicep curls and tricep dips and squats and lunges to make sure I look toned on the day! 

I have also stuck to my eating plan of not eating cake every day, haha. It's no news that I love baking (and eating) cakes! 

For example, here is the chocolate cake I made for my own birthday because I didn't trust anyone else (including edible glitter! You only turn 25 once, you know!)

And here is another

And another 

And another! 

They might not look amazing but they definitely tasted it! 

I think you get the picture. So having no cake is the hardest part of eating well for me because after running and Netball it's probably my favourite hobby. But so far I have been successful! Here's hoping I don't go crazy this weekend :) 

How beautiful it is

It has occured to me that it might be nice for you to see some pictures of my race earlier on this week. I only took two on the day, not wanting to look like a dick taking photos of myself/on my own, so the first one is of the real thing, and the second two are from the day after, when  I repeated the track, but instead I walked it. 

 

Can you see the masses of people? Yes, those are people up ahead that look like whiteish sand. Now imagine them trying to squeeze through a gate the with the same width as that of a small car. Not ideal for running. This was at the beginning, within the first 1km. Yes, I am way at the back. Just go read Tuesday's post.

What I really wanted to focus on though, was how beautiful this part of my city is. My house is in the perfect part of town, because the river is honestly a five minute walk away (maybe less), and the centre of town is only 20 minutes. I hear people complain about Palmerston North all the time, but it really is so easy to get around, and find lovely walks and tracks.

This part of the track is along the river, and it is one of my favourite places to be. In October they did fireworks off those cliffs, which were amazing, and we could easily see them from our house. Palmerston North used to be forest and swamp, and the crazy Scandinavians cleared it and settled here. Not a bad choice, IMO! There were Maori living here before that, and they called it "Papaioea", which according to Wikipedia, means "How beautiful it is". They were not wrong!

Today I am off with my mum to walk the track again, as part of our preparation for doing another New Zealand track - the Tongariro Crossing - which is this: /

image credit

 Haha, only joking. Well, kind of. The Tongariro, including Mt Ngauruhoe, which you can see while on the crossing, was used as Mordor/Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings. And I'm going with my mum to walk across it. No biggie!

So, today we are doing a 20km walk to practise how it will feel with our backpacks and coats and lunch. We'll be walking along the river, even though it will almost all be completely flat, and part of the Tongariro is known as 'the Devil's staircase', which doesn't sound as though it's too far from the image above, really... Even so, it will be really nice to get out of the house in our last month of Summer, in such a pretty place.  #hometownlove!

Surprise!

A few weeks ago, when I was feeling overly-confident and perhaps a tad arrogant, I made a bet with my BF that I would beat him at a 7km run. The winner would have to buy the other one dinner. Our local running club puts on 'Super Sevens', which is, I think, seven weeks of a 7km run on Tuesday nights. The course literally starts over our garden fence. Like, for the last three weeks I have been able to watch them start and finish from right out our living room window, which is great. It is so fantastic to see so many people enjoying Summer and running.

So, I made a bet that I would beat him. I started training, but unsurprisinly, that quickly went downhill (NOT in a good, momentum-building way), as I realised I was no where near fit enough mentally or physically to run 7km.  On my practise runs, I was gasping for breath, felt my calves tiring (a new sensation, having never had any issues with my calves before) and had to bargain with myself to make even 5km. My goal had been to run it in around 45mins, but the two 7kms I did manage to do, (with a bit of walk/sprint thrown in as a self-bargaining tool) I came in at 48.37 and 47.13. 

I panicked. I wasn't going to beat him! I would have to buy him dinner! How embarrassing!

 The first week rolled around, and we honestly had totally forgotten it, and had just finished a long afternoon of tennis, so called it a day. When I injured my back the next week, I was glad of the excuse not to get out there, and I am sure he was quite pleased too. But then on Monday, he 'rolled his ankle' on the way to work. However, I had no excuse. In fact, this week was my only option, as I start back at working the evenings next week. He couldn't do it, but I would beat him by going without him. Even though I would be running alone, I headed out our back gate, straight to register.

I saw a few people I knew at the start, asked them about the course, and waited around to start. The first stretch is across a field, through a gap in a fence, and along a thin walkers' track. Talk about amateur hour. There were people with buggies and babies and kids, which was great, I am a big family person. But if you need to stop - don't stop in the middle of the very thin track! Same goes for walkers. If you are going to start and walk, don't do it in a bottle neck where no one can get around you. Maybe I am being unfamily friendly, but the first km took me 7.28, and the second 6.45 purely because I actually had to stop and walk in some places, and was stuck behind people for aaaaages, which threw my pace. It is so so great they got out there, and I know better than many what it feels like to be the walker, but I also remember being very careful not to take up more than my share of the track. So that was a bit frustrating, and it definitely slowed me down.
 
And that is really all I remember for the first 5km. I remember making a bit of an effort to pass the people ahead of me and when I got to the 2km mark I thought, 'Phwoar, that was crazy easy, barely noticed that going by.' I passed some more people, got to half way where there was a drink station, got a stitch in my side, but ran on, passed some more people, and was passed by two blokes.

At around 5km, I could feel someone creeping up behind me, and I knew it was a girl I had just passed. With a couple running holding hands (Really?!!) in front of me, and the other side of the road blocked off for traffic, I was stuck. I could feel her breathing right behind me, and as we got to a slight incline, I moved to the left to let her pass. Killing it on the hills was not in the plan (and never is!)

But when it leveled out, I had a Will Smith moment. Was going to sit back and be passed? Oh, hell no. And from then on, I got deeper in the running zone, and ran harder and harder. I passed her, and one of the men who passed me earlier. After running around 6.20-6.30kms (6.34, 6.23 and 6.27 to be specific!), the 6th kilometre took me 6.10 minutes. I passed a lady and her partner, and when it came to a decline, I thought I heard a kid giggling as they built up momentum and lost a bit of control running down the hill. I smiled, imagining this wee kid having a great time, when the person passed me, and I realised it was the lady and her bloke. She sounded effing ridiculous to me at that point, putting on a baby voice for a male. I could not let her beat me.

From then on, every person in front of me became a target. Even though were were running through a bottle neck, I just weaved and zoomed in and out of and around them. Some I barely noticed, because there were so many, and because I was concentrating on going fast.

It honestly felt like I sprinted the last km, and I actually did sprint the last length back across the field to the finish line. I didn't even look into my living room window to see if George was watching my awesome strong finish. With about 500 metres to go, I did start to feel quite ill, but with such little distance to run, I knuckled under and ran harder.

The last km took me 5.33.Overall, it took me 45.20, and for the rest of the evening I was on a major high. I still am on a semi-runners high, just because I surprised myself and reached a goal I thought was out of my  reach. #Runninggeek! lol


When I walked towards my house, I saw George watching from inside, and I raised my arms in triumph. Between you and me, I reckon I definitely would have bet him, but it felt even better to beat myself... and maybe some of the other runners out there last night, haha. I rarely get competitive when running. But last night showed how much I love this sport, and how much I value it, and how glad I am to be back on track.