The Ultimate Check in #7

We’ve had a relatively coolish summer, which doesn’t get me wrong has been lovely, but this coming week is going to be a warm one.

I foresee early wake-ups to get runs in.

So while I’m sitting here with a nuun on ice you may decide you need something a little warmer.

Go grab a drink, and let’s sit down and catch up for our Ultimate Coffee Date.

If we were sitting down for coffee I would tell you that while Jan saw me blogging every day, Feb sees me doing a blog hop hosted by Kristy at Runaway Bridal Planner.

I’m already discovering new blogs which is what blog hop is all about.  Blogging is a two-way street, you got to give some to get some.

If we were sitting down for coffee I would tell you that I travelled 137.5km in January.  Sure 17.8km were walked. That means 119.7km was run.

I’m logging my walking because it adds to my total for Run Down Under.

What’s Run Down Under I hear you say?  Run Down Under is a fun online running community.  You track the distances you run in a calendar year.  You compete against others, and yourself, all while travelling around Australia.

There is 14,080km to cover the country.  While I will never get that in a year, I have already made it to my first milestone.  Sydney, 286km from where I started in our nation’s capital Canberra.

My first token arrived in the mail this week.
The next milestone is Brisbane, with another 958km to go.  If I keep going the way I’m going, I’ll be there before the end of the year.

In fact, I worked out that if I run a minimum of 30km a week, then I could cover 1560km, which would so totally be awesome.  That would smash all previous running goals I have ever made.

We’ll see, shall we?

If we were sitting down for coffee I would tell you that I’m so happy to be back trail running again.

With a trail race coming up end of March it was long overdue. Last weekend I ran part of the Wonderland Course. Tom dropped me off at the Wonderland Carpark and I ran back to his parent’s house.

The image on the left is after completing “silent street”. They should rename it to “huff’n puff’n street”, because that’s exactly what you do.

The image on the right is me with about 2km to go. Those mountains in the background, yeah I had just run those. So you can tell it was a tough & technical 13km run, but I had a ball.
I bumped into only a handful of people, in fact, I bumped into this really lovely elderly group in two places. First just after I came through the Grand Canyon, then about 1 hour later, I met them having brunch at the sundial carpark.

I think they were very surprised to see that I made it.  While I told them to enjoy their picnic, they told me to enjoy my run.

One thing I love about trail running is that you just never know what to expect.  At least now the next time I run this track, I am going to beat my time.

---

If we were sitting down for coffee what would you tell me?