Earning some trail karma

I had a good run this morning. I had another lousy nights sleep, one of the worst in a string of bad sleeps, but I felt Ok when I got up and was down at St Heliers ready to run 16 km around 8.00 AM. The first 8km went really well and I sat on an almost completely even 5:45 minutes per km. This will be my approximate marathon pace if I can sustain it and I was pleased that I was so consistent without really putting my effort into pace management. On the return 8km I managed to complete a fast km and a slow km all the way back. My return journey was again 4 minutes faster than the way out, very happy with the negative split again. All up I was running for 1:31 which was slightly faster than last week, which is again pleasing, though I did not stop for a drink and a wee like last week. The conditions were great, low humidity, no wind, though further towards town the temperature was showing as 24 degrees.

The tide was miles out this morning, I tried to get in for a swim, but after wading out 50 metres though sticky mud and only being knee deep I gave up and had cold shower on the beach.

I took the photo below from the end of the run, you cannot say that view is bad here.



After a quick feed and an hours ‘rest’ at home, I drove up to the Freeriden bike shop to go out with a few of the guys to do some trail clearing at Riverhead forest. 5 of us cleared the Roadside track which was getting quite overgrown with gorse and cutty grass. I appropriately wore jeans to a track clearing day on the hottest day of the summer. It was an uncomfortable few hours ! I got pretty dehydrated as well, I only took a single drink bottle and that was just not enough. Still it was pretty good to get earn some trail karma !

Hopefully I will sleep well after the running and trail work today, tomorrow I ride.

Here is a shot of the track entrance !



The Gorsenator in action


Some cleared trail.