Petite Feet Runaway

Sister Sister start in Lindau Do you think I can train for a marathon in 10 weeks? Came the message from my small sister, Hillary. Of course I replied in the affirmative. What did I know, I've only ever trained for my first marathon and that was probably ten years ago. Plus, I'd always liked the idea of running her first marathon with her and I was up for another holiday. Hillary had picked the Three Lander Marathon; a marathon that started in Germany, ran through Austria, into Switzerland and then finished in Austria. That sounds pretty cool. Hillary flew from New York, we flew from the buzzing metropolis of the Scottish Borders. It was a good excuse to see each other and doesn't everyone think of Germany, Austria and Switzerland when they think of awesome exciting holidays? No? Let me remind you of those giant pretzels (bretzils?) then.  Buggies were not allowed in the marathon which meant Scott could not run. He looked disappointed to hear this news. I'm not...

I entered the Marathon Hebrides (the first full marathon to be held on the Isle of Harris) while I was still pregnant. Obviously pregnant with my first baby and therefore had grand illusions of what motherhood would be like. I bought a treadmill so that I could train when my future baby 'napped.'  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, said my baby boy. At five months old, he doesn't nap and wakes up every 1-2 hours at night to feed (or cuddle, or just say hi, or something). We haven't even thought about weaning. Oops. Oh well, we'd booked the accommodation, ferry tickets, car hire and my ma to come babysit from New Zealand. My postpartum recovery was not as easy as I'd expected. Turns out running and swimming until the baby pops out aids neither labour nor recovery. Should have sat on my arse and eaten more cake. My training had to start with walk/jogging 1km at 8 week postpartum, a few weeks break as directed by the physio and then a pretty swift leap to 10km after 12 wee...

When the superspeed duo of Ally and Norm sent through their list of 2018 marathon locations, Kiev seemed a no-brainer. I mean, who hasn't wanted to visit the Ukraine? I cannot remember if I was pregnant before or after entering but I clearly thought it would be fine regardless. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly glow during pregnancy and I dragged my feet out on two runs a week, one short and one long. Given that I wasn't particularly fit before pregnancy, building up those long runs felt pretty awful. On one occasion, Scott had to sprint home to get the car during a two mile run while I disposed of my stomach contents on the side of a country road.  On arrival, we paid some extra money at registration for some running travel insurance scam. I'm pretty sure that is what it was! Then I risked the life of my unborn child by taking a Ukrainian taxi through some back alleys. We went to dinner and there were guns on the walls. Some local youths then set the hotel bathrooms on...

Taranaki Round the Mountain  New Zealand 100 miles (160km) Friday 4 November 2016 at 17:00 Undulating road Preperation went pretty well in October. First I entered the race. Then I went on holiday to the Great Barrier Reef for a week. This was followed by a week in Myanmar and then another in Borneo. Three weeks of sweating, having a dodgy stomach and drinking beer. If anything, I'd prepared too much. I pretty much entered because both my father and Sarah love to crew me so much. I thought that it might be nice to look at Mount Taranaki. Having seen Mt Rainier, Mt Saint Helena and Mt Hood in July, I then visited an erupting volcano in Vanuatu in August! Seems that I now love volcanoes so much I want to run the entire way around one. With this being a long race and having no training, I warned them that it might get a little ugly. They were still up for it.  My father and friend Sarah sorted the race logistics while I worked on my suntan, swam with some tur...