Marathon Running

Well, after my little incident up the mountain, my knee is finally back in service. Not quite perfect yet but good enough that I managed the planned 25km run on Sunday. I'm very happy because now I'm back on track with my training plan! The last time I had an injury it knocked so much out of my plan that I couldn't run the Wellington Marathon as I'd planned. Hence, I'm really happy to be back training fully!

Anyway, I've often see race directors for things like the Wellington Marathon or the Round Taupo Cycle Challenge include information about raising money for the Heart Foundation by getting sponsorship for the race. Since the Heart Foundation is one of my favourite charities I thought I'd give it a go.

So, here's a nice webpage where, should you feel so moved, you can donate some money to the Heart Foundation.

Using Google Maps for my favourite running route

I've mucked around with Google Maps to set up my favourite running route. I then happened to find, in the latest Runners' World, some references to some website that do the job. I've now added my route to the USATF site. . FYI: there are other sites at www.favouriteruns.com and www.gmap-pedometer.com.

I now have some new marks.
8.5km: Shell bitumin tanks
12.5km: Small point 100m before short gravel crescent on right hand side of road
13.5km: Small gravel car port just past cable warning sign by building.

Orpheus concert

I recently joined the Orpheus Choir. A friend of mine talked me into it and I decided it wouldn't hurt to do at least one concert.

It's called Venetian Splendour and it's at 7:30pm Wednesday 13 September at the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul. If you're interested then look me up for tickets. I can do them for $25 ($15 for students) instead of $30 at the door.

The music is loud, showy, brassy baroque. Lots of 8 part stuff - even a 12 part Magnificat. The brass players from the NZSO are coming along so it will be quite loud, exciting and somewhat ethereal in that acoustic.

The blurb:
"The programme includes masterpieces by three leading composers of the Italian baroque period – Andrea Gabrieli, his nephew Giovanni, and German composer Heinrich Schütz, who spent several years studying in Venice with Monteverdi.

The music was written to be performed in St Mark’s Venice, known for its awesome atmosphere. Wellington Cathedral has a very similar acoustic, so you will be hearing glorious choral and instrumental sounds in much the same way as worshippers at St Mark’s must have four hundred years ago.

Orpheus Choir is joined by eight vocal soloists and by New Zealand Brass, who will also perform pieces for brass ensemble. "

Skiing

So I went away skiing last week with my friends Adam and Char. Wandered up to Ohakune on Sunday and found our chalet. It was rather bizarrely decorated in all the worse excesses of the '80s. The overriding colour was red - not quite bright red but pretty close.
If it wasn't red then it was red and white - including the duvet covers. The kitchen was tiny and the toilet was so small that if you wanted to shut the door you needed to fit yourself in beside the bowl itself.

It was also surprisingly cold for a chalet. Normally, they're designed so the pitched roof catches the heat generated below so the beds are nice and warm. For some reason this didn't work very well - especially during the day.

Monday was a fairly crap but at about lunchtime we decided to head up on the off chance. The off chance was pretty good so we went skiing.

As we expected Tuesday was a snow day so we stayed in the chalet and all did our respective geeking. Charlotte designed some invites, Adam did some strange things with WiFi and I kept working on my GWT books database.

Wednesday was a pretty good skiing day and we got lots of runs in. I discovered that Char and Adam have a penchant for finding fresh snow and skiing fairly quickly. Which, at the end of the day, somehow left me stuck right up the top of Turoa without being able to get my skis back on for powder. Every single time I went to put my ski on it would either turn over or it would sink into the powder or there would be so much snow caked on the bottom of my boot that it wouldn't bind. I was up there for at least 40 minutes before I got everything back together and I could get down. Of course by that time the visibility had packed in, my sunglasses fogged up, my glasses would fog up inside my goggles so I had to ski down with just my glasses.

Thursday, of all days, got worse. Adam and Char went ahead so I did a run by myself - then we went up the top and they took off like they were sliding off the mountain. I followed along at my own pace and then came to a spot where I didn't know which way they'd gone. They might have followed the piste or they might have gone into the powder.

Being stupid, I chose to go into the powder. Fell once - got back up - skiied a bit more...and then my ski caught and turned into the mountain very quickly. As it went I felt it rip something in my knee and I promptly fell onto the snow.

Then of course I had to get out of there and it looked like heading down the hill would be disastrous. I spotted the bottom of the Jumbo T-Bar and decided to walk to it. Unfortunately I was about fifty metres up hill through powder.

After that I just went home, iced the damn knee and went home the next day.

Of course, I fooled myself into believe it would heal quickly enough that I could get back into running on Tuesday. Heal quickly it did - but not that quickly. I went to the physio today and found out that it was my medial ligament (on the inside of my knee) and that I might be off for a few weeks. He did give some exercises to accelerate things so here's hoping...