Skip to main content

702 Walk the Talk

25 July 2010


Belinda and i did the 15km part of the 702 walk the talk. The day started off really early with me waking up at 4:15 to be at Belinda’s gran’s (Dawn’s) house by 4:45. We set off to Kieran’s house (Dawn’s son) as he was providing us with a lift to the venue. Four of us squished into the back as Kieran and his fiancée, Nancy took the front. We got dropped off at the corner of Emmerentia, and not realizing that he was going back home had to whip off my tracksuit quickly in the car. The morning wasn’t too cold, despite being 6am, so i didn’t mind being in shorts. We took a walk up the hill to the start, which was about 1km away. Dawn set off at 6:30 doing the 30km walk. Belinda and i hung around at the start for an hour, watching all the late 30km walkers running to the start and start walking once they got to the banner. The crowds for the 15km came with 30 minutes before our start, and the mood was set. To get warm and our heart rates going, Black Eyed Peas, I gotta Feeling played loudly as the crowd jumped up and down, waving hands in the air. Away we went.... After about 3km, there was a water point and people throwing t-shirts. I decided to go to the tables and take a shirt, but this ended up in me almost getting stampeded on. The lady on the other side of the table saw me and reached out at me with a shirt- success! My friend wasn’t able to get one though, and we lost each other for a few minutes through the fight. After a quick phone call we were on our way. The route was interesting and incorporated bits and pieces of routes like Pirates, Wobblers hat race and a Edgars Women day race i did a few years ago, so at times i felt like a bit of a tour guide pointing these things out- “oh, look it’s zoo lake....” Along the way i realized that walking, even casual, is hard work, and could feel muscles i don’t normally use for running, every up hill was a pain in the hips and butt.
The greatest moment though was crossing the finish line and being able to sit after 2 hours 34 minutes. After stretching for a bit, we went in search of something sweet to eat and drink (coffee), then sat at the finish watching the hoards finish. I decided this was the perfect time to try maintain my tan i obtained in Denmark, and whipped off my shirt to lie on the grass. At odd times i would look up and see people looking my way or even Belinda looking at me funny- i remembered South Africans don’t just take their tops off in public like that. This didn’t worry me though and continued lying there until Dawn finished before putting my top back on. We listened to live entertainment for an hour, and it was pretty good, but at that time all i wanted to do was sleep and not party! After the entertainment ended, we headed back down the road and waited for Kieran to take us home. We eventually arrived home at 5:30.

It was a fun filled day, definitely something different, but it was the best feeling to put my sore and tired body to rest at the end of the day.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Grain free Date Bread

A few weeks ago one of my dad's clients baked what we think was a date bread. Although I am mostly low carb and didnt know the ingredients of this bread, there was so much of it and I didnt want it to go to waste. Toasted, it was amazing, almost like a caramel taste. In all honesty, I found my running for the few days I ate the bread actually improved - I felt more energetic and had more endurance. I searched for a low carb or gluten free version that I can make myself. Carb wise you looking at about 15g on average per date, making it basically your enemy if you are low carb. Rather opt for cranberries - 13g per cup. As an athlete though, dates are so good for you - in moderation of course as 90% of the carbs in a date is sugar. Medjool Dates are high in Potassium (higher than oranges, bananas and spinach), which is great for heart health and to build muscle and proteins in the body. They are also high in fibre, meaning you stay fuller for longer. You also get an energy

SA Lockdown - Days 1-4

So we have made it 4 days into lockdown... yippeee :) I thought I would recap my first 4 days into lockdown. To start off, I am still working, from home of course, so I still need to be available from about 7am to about 4pm. As such, I try get my workouts in before and after this time except on the weekend and the pre-lunch workouts (which are nice and quick). Day 1 Friday, 27 March My dads birthday - we were planning on going to craft beer library in Linden but of course with the lockdown we were not able to (something to do once we are out of lockdown). I decided to make one of my favorite cakes, an almond cake, but I made it gluten free as I am trying to be 80-90% gluten free following doctors orders. I started nice and early, so that it would be ready for my dads teatime break. The recipe can be found here , but I doubled up because it looked on the thin side: 230g Butter 4 Eggs 2 cup gluten free flour 2 cups castor sugar 4 tsp almond extract Sliced almond

HIIT #1

HIIT otherwise known as High Intensity Interval Training is a great way to get your heartrate up and get a full body workout in a short amount of time.  As the name suggests, the exercises used are often intense and the short recovery adds to it.  Most HIIT sessions are 20 seconds of workout, 10 seconds of recovery. I like to do 2 exercises per set, for 4 reps with 1 minute recovery and 4 sets in total to make up 20 minutes. If you are feeling up to it, you can increase a rep a week, but remember it is about intensity and not about overall time or seeing how much you can do.  Below are the exercises that I did yesterday: The workout I did: Set 1: Hurdles & Cones / Shuttle Runs (4 sets - 20 seconds hurdles, 10 seconds recovery, 20 seconds Shuttle Run, 10 seconds recovery) Set 2: Speed band high knees / Shuttle Runs (4 sets - 20 seconds High Knees, 10 seconds recovery, 20 seconds Shuttle Run, 10 seconds recovery) Set 3: Banded lateral shuffle / Shuttle Runs (4 sets - 20 se