When cows attack

After yesterday’s post describing my run through Cornwall Park and avoiding the beasts, I read this, this morning.  When cows attack.

Seems I was pretty lucky and it certainly makes me a little more hesitant to go back out to the park today.  I think maybe rather than going right all the time I’ll head left, that way I might be done with my run before I approach the “cow” section.

Phew, I’m counting my lucky stars right now.  Though from the story it seems it was a very protective mummy cow looking after her babies.  You can’t fault her for that.

Directions as given by a small boy

So here I am.  I’m in Auckland. And finally I’m staying somewhat closer to Cornwall Park (One Tree Hill).

The plan was to run around the park as my location for training today.  I checked with the guys in our Auckland office and it seemed to be pretty handy.  I checked it out on smaps and when I checked into the motel I again asked directions.

From Great South Road I just needed to turn left and then take the 2nd left.

What I failed to see on smaps, or check with the motel owner was how far up the road after turning up the 2nd left did I need to go to find the park.  I also thought the park would be on my left.

So up I ran, and up and up and then I thought surely to goodness I’ve run up enough.  I kept looking to my left because that’s the side I believed the park would be.

Finally I ran down a street on my left and it was a cul de sac (I probably should have looked at the street name, no doubt it was a “Place”).

Running back the way I’d come there was a small boy in uniform getting out of a parked car.

I probably scared the shyte out of him but I asked if he knew the way to Cornwall Park.

First off he thought about it for quite a bit before saying no.  Then he looked all bright and cheery and said:  You know where Burger King is.

My heart sank but I thought how typical of a small child.  Everything is in relation to the nearest fast food outlet

Finally I asked him if he knew the direction, was it ahead of me or behind me.  It was ahead of me according to his directions.  Not the way I’d thought it was.

So back out onto the main road I went and headed the way he said I would find the park.  I had almost given up but after turning up a street that had a Cycle route (50km no less) sign I decided I’d run that way.  Thinking that if I got myself lost then I could follow the signs back.

There was a sign to say there was livestock and to leave them alone.  Hey, never fear.  Livestock and me don’t really go hand in hand I can promise you I’ll steer clear of them.

It was a bit strange really.  Here I was running on proper paths running past sheep going about their grazing business not even threatened by my huffing and puffing.

My feet weren’t hitting the ground nicely.  I put it down to giving them a hammering on Sunday and having twisted my right ankle.

Everything felt sluggish and more difficult than it should have.  My heart rate wasn’t very high and yet it just felt slow and heavy.

The park is much bigger than I thought. Though I made my mind up that I’d travel all tracks heading right.  At one point I was running and cows were meandering across the road.  That stopped me in my tracks and it was a pretty easy decision to do an about face and head back.  Though the girl I had been following as casual as anything just carried on through the cows.

On the way back I detoured to the Countdown supermarket to get food for dinner and stuff to make lunch for the next few days.  Good to see strawberries are no dearer here than back home.

Of course it rained on the way back to the motel and it did a decent job.  My shorts were soaked through as was the front of my top.  Thankfully the room is nice and warm and no doubt it will dry out before I need to pack up.

Swim fitness

Last night at the pool I was the only one of my gruop of 4 that made it for the lesson.

Pretty cool, I got some one-on-one advice.  And it makes up for next week when I’ll be in Wellington and missing a paid lesson.

I had words again about how I’m struggling to do more than a lap of the pool without needing to recover at the end.

She walked up along side me as I swam, even had another tutor observing me.

The upshot is there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my freestyle or backstroke, I’m breathing just fine.

It all comes down to swim fitness.

I’m not sure if I feel better knowing this or not.  I guess I should feel some sort of comfort, it means I just need to get used to swimming and increasing the lengths.  I can swim, I can breath, it’s just I don’t go very far without running out of puff.

And it’s not running out of puff as in air in my lungs, it’s just I’m tired from swimming.

So in time my muscles will get used to the swim action just like I got used to running and biking.

I also tried breathing every 2nd stroke yesterday.  I’m not sure it was much better, I was hoping for a miracle and find that just changing from 3 to 2 strokes would be the cure I was after.

The tutor said that with adults she allows them to decide if they want to breathe every 2 or 3 strokes, but with children they teach time every 3 strokes.

Richard called last night and we’ve decided to add another swim session in.  I need to get the fitness up.  Now I don’t have a rest day, my Friday which was my rest day, now has a swim session in it.  I’m fine with that because I know I need to put in the time to get better and I wont stop the whining about how little I can do without doing more.

I was having a few silent laughs at the pool yesterday in the changing room.  There were a number of 8-11 year olds making sure they remained completely hidden inside their towels so as not to have anyone see their bare flesh.

Yeah ok, I still don’t stip off to the nuddy when showering, but I’m far lest prudish about getting my togs off to get clothes on.

What I was thinking about was the poor pool worker who has to stand about with her hose ready to hose down the floor under the rubber mats.  She must hate her job.  I mean what does she do?  Who wants to look around and see various different body shapes in different stages of dress/undress.  Wonder what highs she gets from her job, cos I reckon that loitering about waiting for people to finish moving about so she can hose the ground must be one of the least appealing parts of her job description.

Toffee Pop Tumble

Have you seen this ad. on telly?  I saw it for the first time last night during the news, or was that Campbell Live?

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Two kids of about 12 or 13 putting a Toffee Pop on their foreheads and then using facial muscles to move the bikkie down their face to their mouths.

I just cracked up.  Mark had a look of horror on his face and just shook his head.

I have to say it, were you never told not to play with your food?

I guess the marketing worked, here I am blogging about the silly ad.

There we go, off my chest.

Have a nice day

I love the flippers

I went to the pool this morning instead of heading to the gym.  Usually I’m a little apprehensive about going swimming but I woke feeling rearing to go. It’s probably out of fear of how bad I am and knowing I have only a few months before having to swim in a small triathlon event.

QEII was again 50 metres so 5 lanes were sectioned off for the swim squad.  Well I presume it’s who uses it.  That left a large area for the aqua jogging (2 lanes not roped), a friendly lane, slow land and fast lane.

I jumped into the slow lane.  There were a lot of people swimming in there.

First up I just got my balance.  Almost immediately I felt a little water in my goggles from a person swimming past me.  Not good.

Before I reached the end I tried the “sweet spot” drill.  I presume it’s called a drill.  You’re on your back and leave your head in the same position by roll your body onto the side.  Your arm is mostly out of the water from shoulder to knuckles.

It wasn’t too bad, I think I managed to roll easier than I thought.  The DVD indicated you might need to use your arms to help you roll.  So the right side out of the water worked not too bad, but my left side out of the water wasn’t quite so great.  I found I had to roll back onto my back quite a bit.

It’s something to practice.  I guess while they say practice will pay off, I’m not quite sure in what way it will pay dividends.  It’s not like there’s a particular swim stroke that mirrors this.

Any ideas?

After swimming freestyle up and back (and with the customary stop at the end of the pool) I decided to have a crack with the flippers.

I moved into the FAST lane.  Yep you heard me right.

As I say the slow lane was chocka with swimmers.  The fast lane had only 2 people in it, one lady who had flippers on, and a guy.

I waited till one was at the opposite end and the other 1/2 way down to the end.  I headed off.  I love the flippers.  Oh yeah I said that already.

I was really trying to focus on relaxing.  Can you relax when you’re so focused.  Now that I didn’t need to worry about getting myself to the other end I could concentrate more on relaxing and breathing.

I really do have the hang of taking a breath every 3 strokes, but I still get tired.  I’m trying to let the air out more slowly and still have a bit left when I pull my head out of the water to take the next breath.

How long do I hang in there doing this?  How long should it take before one day it suddenly clicks into place?  Will it click into place?

I’m not a very patient person and I just don’t know what the expectation is.  How will I know if I’m being too optimistic or I’m never going to get the hang of it????

I guess I should take some comfort in knowing that I can swim 50m and have the same length of stop at the end of the pool.  So I’m swimming twice as far needing the same breather.  That’s progress I suppose.

Anyway, I managed to swim backstroke this morning with the flippers and not submerge myself.  Also I was faster than the guy (the lady had got out not long after I got into the fast lane).  Ok, I shouldn’t make a point of this, after all I had a huge advantage using flippers.

Swimming lesson tonight.  I hope it’s something about breathing and not more backstroke.  As I say, when my head is out of water I don’t find breathing difficult.  I either need some new tricks, someone to explain the breathing differently to me, or I need more practice.  Something’s got to happen to make it all fall into place, and backstroke it’s going to get me to that point.

The only good thing about the backstroke is that it means I’m evening out the muscle development (if any is taking place).

Oh, and just before I go.  I didn’t feel my ankle as much as I expected, but I did feel it - only when using flippers.  It’s been easier to walk on today but not quite right.  I’m sure it’s on the mend.