Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Walking the St Leonards Hills

Today I left from home and walked all the streets of St Leonards from Gannet Lane to Wren Lane and then St Leonards Road onto SH 88 and back to home. I was amazed at the steepness of some of the hills.

Started 10am Finished 12.25pm Distance 10km (estimated)

Monday, July 20, 2009

Semi-Retirement Starts Today

Today is the first official date of my "semi" retirement. One of my goals is to walk "every" street in Dunedin.

I parked in the main street of Port Chalmers and walked around the eastern portion of Port Chalmers. The walk finished with a 4km walk around the Back Beach

Started 9:10 Finished 11:38 Time 2hrs 28mins Approximate Distance 12kms

Saturday, July 4, 2009

The Rain Won't Stop

This afternoon the walker's group of the Caversham Harrier's Club met at the Southern Rugby Clubrooms. 16 of us headed up Macandrew Road turning left into Forbury Road and headed off to St Clair Beach. As we walked onto Kettle Park the head wind was biting. We travelled along Victoria Road and onto Queen Street. Somewhere down this street we turned left and then onto Bayfield Road. At Prince Albert Road we turned right and then later, left onto Macandrew Road until we hit the clubrooms to complete the 6km walk. It took an hour. It rained for the entire walk.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Club Cross Country

Saturday 27 June

This annual event was held at Brockville Park comprising of walking twice around a 2km circuit. I had my farewell party the night before and got to bed at 2.45pm. I was feeling a bit jaded.

Colin Dick, Gordon Cameron, Dave Russell and myself went to the lead and walked together for half of the first lap. I had no idea where I was going and there were no marshalls. Colin and I broke ahead and I felt I could have gone ahead but chose to stay as I was not comfortable about leading.

I started to feel the effects of the night before with about 1/2 kilometre to go. Colin took off and I was not able to keep up. My second placing for the 4kms was 28:34 which was 14 seconds behind Colin.

There were 17 walkers but 4 were diaqualified as they took the wrong turn.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Brighton - Green Island Race

Saturday 20 June

For the first time I took part in the Caversham Harrier Club's handicapped walking race from the Brighton Domain to the Green Island landfill. Distance 9.6km. I was given the third largest handicap of 9 minutes with Kerry Killhorn. Gordon Cameron had 18 minutes and Colin Dick had a tough 22 minutes. Both Gordon and Colin are the club's quickest walkers.

Kerry and I got away to a great start quickly passing the 8 minute handicapped walkers. Kerry set a great pace which I had to work hard at keeping up. After 20 minutes he cramped up so I sailed on alone. By the time I got to Waldronville I had passed all the walkers in front but was anxious of Colin and Cameron somewhere in the background. To my surprise and delight I managed to come in first in a time of 1:10:17. This was the third fastest time. Colin's time was 1:05:16 and Gordon's tome was1:07:29.

Back at the clubrooms I was awarded a cup for my efforts.

I had my new walking trainers and got a blister on the sole of my foot. With a handicapped race I found it great having people in front and setting goals to try and pass by a certain place on the course.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Christchurch Half Marathon

I travelled to Christchurch the day before the half marathon walk, arriving around 11.30am. I registered in the afternoon at the Town Hall which was the start and end of the race. The forecast was not promising with snow a possibility.

It rained heavily overnight with sleet and hail. I arrived at the Town Hall at 8.15am to get myself acclimatised. The walkers had to start a half block behind the runners. We all had a chip attached to our shoe laces and this recorded when you reached the official start line and at the end. Just as we were about to start a short hail storm arrived. There were 5300 competitors. It took just over three minutes to reach the start line.

I was happy with my start averaging 7 and 1/2 minute kilometres for the first 5 kilometres. I averaged 8 min kilometres between the 5 and 15 kilometre marks. At the 10 kilometre mark I had to use the portaloo.


My small left toe started to hurt with a blister and this slowed me down a bit. I finished in 2:52:45 a personal best by just under a minute. I was the 40th person home and the 13th male to reach the finish line.

The race was very well organised. I liked the 1 km markings which helped me to calculate my times.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

The Start of May

2 May

The walking club met at Port Chalmers and repeated the walk we did in the summer. A good turnout of 30 walkers set off at 1.20pm around the Back Beach, Carey's Bay, past the cemetery, Sawyers Bay and back to the start. It was around 10kms. I managed to get stung by a wasp and it proved to be painful for the rest of the day.

3 May

It was my time to pick the route for Craig and I to walk along. We met at the Nairn Street/Taieri Road intersection at 8.15pm. We walked along the entire length of Kaikorai Valley Road, both ways. A highlight was calling into the Kenmure Intermediate site where "Designer Trees" operate. The school is atarting to be turned into accommodation units. The hall has holes at both ends with bays for various products like soil, fertiliser etc that you can drive up to. We walked for 10kms.