K8 NZ

For a few years now I have said I wanted to go and do the Queenstown half, feeling that it was unlikely though as it's so far away and expensive to get to.  This year my hubby said "If you want to do it, make it happen".  So with that, I entered us both in May (the event is in November), and booked both flights and accommodation immediately! At the time, I was coming off an ITB niggle that put a bit of a halt on my training for a few weeks, but once I had that sorted, we were 10 weeks out from the half marathon which is a perfect build up for me.  The training went well - building those weekend long runs slowly with an occasional easier week (and a trip to Rarotonga in the middle!) and getting in three other shorter runs during the week.  My longest run was 17km (which I did two weeks in a row), with a two week taper.  The weekend before the race I set a new 10km PB which was a great confidence booster heading in to the half marathon. Then all of a su...

Recently I ran 'comeback' half-marathon (race report here ).  It was my first in two years after I suffered a serious injury shortly after completing my second half marathon in 2016.  Since the injury (which took me out for six months), I'd not had too much interest in running, entering only a 5km and 10km event.  I've had a few setbacks including complications from varicose vein surgery as well which had put the brakes on any fitness gains.  It felt like there was a lot of 'starting again' over the past two years. I felt like I had unfinished business with the half marathon distance, and always in the back of my mind wanted to do 'at least one more'.  However, m entally, I wasn't quite ready to take a chance on training for another half marathon.  The desire was there, but the fear of re-injury was much greater.   After parkrun on a Saturday morning earlier this year, I said to the Great Forest Events race organiser, Chris, that I was think...