Inside the world of runners.

Came across this great set of Adidas ads and thought I would share them with you. Each of them bears the caption 'Runners. Yeah, we're different." Enjoy.

Victory!!

At the start line

I declare today the national day of ice-packs and relax! Yes, I made it. The whole half-marathon, and I'm still a little surprised. Well, maybe not surprised but it feels surreal.

Saturday night I was in bed at 9:45pm. I had my bag packed, my running gear out. My belly was stuffed with pasta and I was ready for the big day ahead. Then I tossed and turned until around midnight without sleep, then when I got to sleep I had nightmares of missing the start time for my race and my whole family were there and everyone was disappointed in me. When the alarm rang I sprang into action, happy and relieved that it had all been a dream and now I had a second chance at making the race on time.

Warghafrassamuggah

 Yep, the race is tomorrow and I am excited, anxious, and somewhat in disbelief. But also confident. I know I'll go the whole distance and I know I'll impress myself...it's just the couple of hours in between the start and finish line that will be difficult.

        Just keeping my mind on this victory picture  ----> 

If you want to track my progress in real-time you can visit this website http://www.mapandrun.com/ or download the app. Then just type in my bib number: 31396 and watch me run!

Level Up!

<----- See this face? This red, tired, happy face? This is the face of a woman who has just reached a milestone. Yesterday I climbed the 1,000 steps aka The Kokoda Memorial Trail without stopping once. It's the first time I've been able to do that since I was ten years old.

Yep, I've levelled up in my fitness ability!

Here comes the panic...

I dragged myself from my warm cocoon of bedding into the howling icy winds and went for a run today. The mantra in the back of my mind has been going for weeks: "you've got to get out there, you've gotta get back into training, every run you go on will make the distance easier..." and so on. But I've ignored these persistent nagging head-voices because it looked like rain. Or because I'd stayed up late. Or because I was sure I had something more important to do...surely...somewhere...oh, here we go, this sock drawer is a mess, sorting it is going to take all morning, no run today! But this morning I went and about half way through it hit me...what date is this?! I realised the Melbourne Marathon is less than two weeks away.

So here comes the panic. Only a few more days and then I half to make the half-marathon regardless of how prepared I am. But with that panic comes adrenalin, motivation, excitement, achievement, and eventually, victory!

A Turn for the Worst

Well, well, well, what week are we up to and what's going on? It's easier to look at things from the other end now. I have four weeks before I'm running a half-marathon through Melbourne. Four weeks. And here I am on my couch without one run under my belt this week. In fact, I should probably loosen that belt a bit...

Local Champion

A blog update is not far away. I'm back in Melbourne now and catching up on schoolwork and my three jobs so it's going to be a few more days hard slog before I can get to a decent writing session.

Meanwhile, check out this Melbournian who has been running 16kms every day for 30 years. What a champ!

Week Nine - On the Road

Well, I'm not going to lie to you...I haven't exactly lived up to the promise I made in my last post to run every day. In fact I've only gone for two runs all week. Much of this can be blamed on the road.

In the past week I have travelled from Melbourne to Alice Springs via Broken Hill and the Oodnadatta Track. However, the pledge to circle Uluru still stands and I'm heading there tomorrow.

Got some 'splaining to do!

Oh dear, what can I say? Almost three weeks have passed by in a flash. They have not been void of training sessions, but these have been few and far between. I've been caught amidst multiple work commitments at the ASRC, plus the Light in Winter Festival, plus organising Melbourne's second Sunday Assembly, and the never-ending onslaught of homework. I've achieved a whole heap in the past three weeks, just not in the realm of running. So, to make up for this mess I've set myself a new challenge...and it involves travel.

Week Six

Seems things have gone slightly haywire in the ole training schedule. However, since I had already written up these tidbits for Week Six, I may as well publish them and save the explanations for the following blog. Meanwhile, here is a nice picture of some cockatoos in a tree that I often pass by. They make such an awful screeching but are lovely to look at.

Week Five: Made to Run

This week has been one of change. I've made changes to my training format and now I'm making a change to my blogging format. Last week, as Viv and I were running together, she said "it just feels so natural, like we were made to do this." And so we are. So I thought I would dedicate a blog to why we humans are such good runners.

Week Four

The most significant change I've noticed this week is that I can now say hello to people as I run. Previously they were lucky if they got some pleading eye contact and a gasp, but these days it's a smile and a "good morning!" without missing a beat.

It's been a busy one, with life once again getting in the way of running. But I'm taking it all in my stride (heh heh) and keeping up the good work, and a variety of other cliches too.

Week Three

The injury from last week turned out to be a pulled groin muscle. Much giggling ensued.

This week was packed full of non-running tasks such as visiting parents, completing assignments, and studying for exams. Still, I managed to slip in a few easy runs despite feeling broken and distracted.

Week Two

Wow, I feel great! After only two weeks of running I feel as though I am functioning at a higher level. My brain seems very agile, grasping concepts quicker and with more clarity. This week and the next are both big study weeks and usually I would be stressed and grumpy. Yet somehow I feel calm and clear and even completed an assignment three days early. I'm guessing it's the exercise I have to thank. Oddly, my brain has been both a hurdle and a helper this week. Great on the study front, making things glide along easier than ever before.  Yet still a hassle when running.

Week One with Zombies

Monday - downloaded Zombies, Run! app and put together a running playlist filled with all the most high-paced songs I have. Lots of metal, punk, and grunge mostly. Mostly. However, it turns out that my HTC Widlfire is a piece of rubbish whose internal memory cannot handle the installation of the game. Plus, they have no option to install straight to the SD card. It was clear I was going to need an iPhone if this app was to be of any use, and I really, really want to use it. I love zombies, and games, so it just seems an ideal way to trick myself into exercise.

Pre-week 1 Run...ish

Technically the first week doesn't start until Monday but a sunny day came along and I felt so pumped about this commitment, the blog, the fundraising, that I decided to answer that nagging question of "surely I can run 1km, right?...right?". Yeah, well the answer is no. No I can't.

The Mission

The Subject
Name: Katie Melbourne
Age: 30
Occupation: moneyless socialite, traveller, student, volunteer
Likes: red wine, beer, rich food, chocolate
Dislikes: exercise

The Mission
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, where I volunteer, hold an annual fundraiser called 'Run For Refugees'. Basically, a bunch of people run a lot through the streets of Melbourne, well before I get out of bed, and people pay them to do it. All the money then goes to the ASRC. Great stuff.

Well, for some reason this year I decided to join them.