You feel a little niggle, just a little one. Should you ignore it? How long can you tell yourself it’s nothing before it will become too obvious to ignore?
The niggle doesn’t stop you from running, but it’s still there. Just a little niggle, just a little every day. You can’t quite call it pain, just an awareness that something is a bit off.
7am Sunday wake up calls, training done then coffee drunk and home by 11am to make a half-assed attempt at lunch. Throw all the running gear in the wash and start getting on to the life admin that comes way down the priorities list after running and eating and coffee.
A bit off. A wee niggle. Just a little niggle.
Then one day it’s not just a niggle any more. It’s 12pm, five hours since the alarm went off, forgotten and ignored. Just a little niggle got just a little bit bigger while you weren’t taking any notice. When you weren’t taking care, taking time to figure out just what that little niggle was.
Usually you’d be poaching eggs and making more coffee post-run, but today you couldn’t run at all. On a scale of one to ten, one being great and ten being not, you’ve somehow found yourself a seven.
A seven isn’t very good.
When did you so seamlessly slide right down two through six?
Curtains closed, cold coffee, cold toes, the routine has been disrupted and step one – go for a run – has been forgone with the rest of the day collapsing in around it.
Those exciting and ambitious plans you had for yourself, for the day, for the year, are getting further from your reach. That little niggle that you let get bigger might put a stop to all of it.
How bad is it out of ten? If it’s a seven should you still try to run?
Yes.
If it takes you 90 minutes to stand up properly, to get out of bed, pull on your shoes, and a hat to hide your face, should you run?
Yes.
If just two minutes in you stop running because you feel so bad that you cry, and you say out loud there is something wrong with me, this isn’t good, should you keep going?
Yes.
That little niggle, tugging at your shoulders, at the corners of your smile, turning it down, pulling it all down.
Despite that whisper telling you to stay in bed, sleep it off, rest some more, you know that if you try a little harder, push a little more, eventually you will start to feel good. Each minute you keep moving forward will shake out that dull ache, if you can last a little longer, breathe a little deeper, it will start to melt away.
Twenty minutes respite, air filling your lungs, shoulders unfurling from their hunch, even if it’s only temporary it gives you hope that the big niggle will go back to being a wee one.
Getting to know how you feel, what is normal, and what isn’t, will keep the niggle little. A feeling of awareness and not one of pain.
Slight but persistent, is what it is, and slight but persistent actions is how to keep it small.
During my long run one Sunday we (me and my all Girl Power running posse) talked about how sometimes we get tooted at, yelled and whistled at by men when we are out on training runs. I personally don’t get this often, because when I run my face looks like this;
You do not whistle at this face, motherfucker.
I often wonder what men’s intentions are when they interrupt a woman’s run to express what I did assume was their appreciation for what awesome runners we are. What exactly are they trying to achieve with that wolf whistle? What would their ideal outcome be from the sleazy phrases yelled from their vehicles as they speed past? I’ll tell you what they would LOVE to happen as a result of that cat call, because I’ve had hundreds of kilometres to dream up this fantasy.
Get your chamois cream and some tissues, this is going to be titillating.
FIFTY SHADES OF CHAFE
Scene 1: The Esplanade
She had been running for almost two hours. The sky was blooming from a dusky purple into shades of orange and pink as the sun painted the road with a shimmering gold, making the icy rain of the early morning seem a world away. Two hours of feet pounding the roads, thinking about the pain in her turgid thighs, about why she was training and why finishing this run was so important in achieving her goals. Two hours on the grind sweating, hungry and fatigued, just 40 minutes to go.
Right now she wanted nothing more than some cold water, a hot shower, three large stuffed crust pizzas and a guy in a patchy grey Toyota van to yell ‘Hey ya wee skank, nice ass! Come and run over here!’
She really enjoyed being thought of as a sex object by complete strangers. She thought it strange when people did not whistle at her, or comment on how much they would like to smack dat as she ran past. Her wish was granted. He rounded the corner and saw her running ahead of him. Ponytail swinging in a way that didn’t specifically say‘Fuck off, I’m running and I don’t care about anything you have to say.’He saw the chance for romance and yelled at the beautiful stranger.
His wolf whistle cut through the air like the the hem of a pair of Canterbury rugby shorts through an inner thigh that someone forgot to coat in chamois cream. ‘Hey ya wee skank!’ She turned her head, her sweaty ponytail whipping in to her eyes and blinding her for a moment, ‘Hark, I see a voice! Now will I to the curb and I can see my knight in shining Japanese Import.’ What a dream come true! All those hours of training outside with the goal that someone would drive past and deem her worthy of a whistle were worth it. ‘Where does this gentleman live?‘ she asked him. She carefully listened to him recite his street over the rumble of his deteriorating exhaust and changed course to finish the run at the home of her new love interest.
Scene 2: The doorstep
She bounded up the front path, which unfortunately for her consisted of 250 stairs (the story is set in Wellington) and collapsed quivering and dripping in to his waiting arms on the doorstep. Their eyes met, both sets of them very bloodshot but for entirely different reasons. She had needed to poo for about an hour so ran past him inside to destroy his bathroom while he rolled a durrie on the porch. She emerged from the bathroom, having pulled her underwear out of the crevasse it had firmly wedged itself in at the 12th kilometre on her run, she was ready for anything. A bead of sweat tickled down her neck with anticipation, and stopped in when it reached the rest of the crusted up salty sweat that had formed alluring white lines on her collar bone.
She traced a sticky Gu covered finger across his undefined jaw line and chins and over his lips, letting him taste the Chocolate Outrage. She hoped that this would give him the stamina to endure what was about to happen. He moaned softly and screwed up his face at the taste of the Gu, but wasn’t deterred, and lead his sore and salty friend in to the house, and in to his bedroom.
Love potion
Scene 3: Toyota Man’s Bedroom
The smell that seeped out of the room when he opened his bedroom door was rancid, but thankfully after running 25 kms the only thing she could smell was her armpits. He pulled her towards him and kissed her passionately, underneath the Performance Car Magazine centre folds that adorned the walls. She bit his lip, not playfully, but really hard because she was fucking hungry and there was nothing to eat in the entire house (she looked after she had desecrated the bathroom).
‘Why does he have such an unnerving effect on me? She wondered. His over-whelmingly plain looks maybe? The way his eyes seem to look at me as a piece of ass rather than an athlete? The way he can roll a ciggie while driving and steer with his knees?’
He sat back on his sheetless bed to watch her undress. She unlaced her shoes and peeled off her socks, slowly so that the toenail that was about to fall off didn’t get caught and tear off. She ran her fingers along the edge of her shorts, and with one swift motion slipped them off, twisted them in her hands and wrung the sweat out of them on to his carpet. Throwing the shorts at his face so that he couldn’t see, she then started to remove her sweaty crop top.
The Chastity Crop by ADIDAS
Fifteen minutes and several increasingly limp cigarettes later, he watched her with fascination as she struggled to get the crop top over her shoulders and boobs and off over her head. He stepped in to help, and on the count of three he pulled and flung backwards on to the bed, crop top in hand and a fresh wave of armpit smell in his nostrils.
She stood before him, letting him take in every inch of her athletic body, from her messy hair that hadn’t yet had it’s weekly brushing, to her the tips of her mostly intact pretty red toenails. “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” She painfully hobbled towards him, in a sexy way (pain is sexy in this story) and together they collapsed on to the bed in a smelly embrace.
Scene 4: Stuffed and with extra sausage
The tightness in her hamstrings meant that the options for love-making positions would be limited. He purred at her trying to imitate the engine of his Toyota; the vehicle for their love. Her stomach growled back at him and her eyes glinted with the murderous shine of a fitness freak who has been deprived of food for too long.
There was a sudden knock at the door. She grabbed one of the five well worn Pantera t-shirts from the floor to preserve her modesty (and mask the sweaty smell) and tip-toed towards the door. The front door swung open and there with the sun beaming in on him just like the moment Simba is thrust in to the sunrise by Rafiki in front of the Lions at Pride Rock, stood the Pizza delivery boy. The three stuffed-crust pizzas had arrived! She was in ecstasy. The warmth of the pizza enveloped her, the smell made her hungry for more. She nibbled the edge of a succulent oily slice, then devoured it all with ferocity, barely stopping to breathe, and losing sense of time and space. For those fifteen minutes it was like time stood still, and the only things that existed in the universe were those three pizzas and her. After she had finished she lay on the carpet, panting, with strings of chizz dangling from her lips and chin.
This could not have ended any better, she swore on her Nike Zoom Pegasus shoes that from this day forth she would ALWAYS reciprocate the affections of Men that yelled to her from their vans, because they probably had raging run boners too.
Ten years ago (gulp) I was embarking on my final year of high school. I set clear goals for my exams during the year, and a few for ‘Where I see myself in ten years time’. The only one of the long term goals I remembered was ‘I want to have a dog’.
I do have a dog, her name is Ellie and she was my very first running companion.
Me and my main girl
When your human siblings turn you down, the family dog will never decline the opportunity for an adventure. Off down the dusty gravel lane we would go, past the wool shed with it’s exciting smorgasbord of poo smells, climbing over wooden gates, (or squeezing through wire fences) scattering sheep, re-capturing escaped lambs, rolling in fragrant dead ones, and running all the way out to the concrete bridge. Conveniently located at the bottom of a large hill, this bridge signified the halfway point and an opportunity for one of us to jump in the creek to then sprinkle the other with a cool refreshing mist.
When the urge to explore took over (or we thought we saw a possum) we would run past the bridge off the road and up a hill, along the tiny single tracks worn away by sheep plodding in single file, through matagouri and red tussocks and stop to take it in. Sitting there, tongues out and panting we’d take in the everything and the nothingness that is the Northern Southland landscape. I remember thinking ‘It’s just me here, wow’ as I looked across ploughed fields, and steep tussocked hill faces that stretch to the pinnacle of rocks; beyond the skyline would be another farm with more hills to explore. At that moment it was just Ellie and me; no traffic, no people, the only interruption an unenthusiastic solo ‘Baaaaah’ from an old ewe.
(Photo taken from Nokomai Station- By Shellie Evans)
This is the moment when I think I started to love running. Although I didn’t run regularly again for another 6 years, that feeling is the same now as it was then.
Ellie is getting old now, and can’t run because of her arthritis. She got really sick six months ago and couldn’t go to the toilet, it was around the same time I had a stress fracture in my pelvis (from running). At the time the thought of losing the ability to run and losing my doggy friend was a bit overwhelming. When Mum txt me to say that the dog had finally taken a shit it was the best thing I had heard in months, she was going to be ok.
I have a few new running companions now. None of them chase possums (although they all have strong looking teeth, and could take one down if they wanted to), and I yell at them when they try to roll in rotting dead animals. All of them are just as enthusiastic as Ellie is to be outside running with friends. Having friends to run with is great, it keeps you motivated and it makes the time pass a lot quicker if you have someone to talk to on a long Sunday run.
Look at all my friends!
This is how I found my running buddies
Stalk people on Twitter that talk about running. Meet them in a remote carpark in the dark at 7am and run for 90 minutes, instant friends!
Offer to walk someone’s dog. Every day. And for three hours on a Sunday. Make sure you feed the dog so it doesn’t get too skinny.
Join your local harriers club. If your favourite colour is yellow or the Lion is your spirit animal you can’t go past Scottish Harriers in Wellington.
Hitting people with a stick you found in the pine trees doesn’t motivate them to run. Try a softer approach. Like rotting fruit or small stones.
Talk to people at running events, like the girl who passed you going up that big hill, offer to teach her some sort of skill while learning all her hill running secrets so you can beat her next time.
Who do you like to run with? Do they have nice teeth?
It’s been 28 hours since it happened. Since my partner decided to go Paleo.
It happened too fast for me to realise what was going on. One minute he was sitting down to our traditional Sunday roast – Hell Pizza and Powerade- the next he was slapping sandwiches out of my hands and yelling ‘Pete Evans is a GOD!’.
There’s only room for one restrictive diet in this household, and it’s mine. I’ve been vegan for over six years, I think we’ve firmly established that I hold the title as most awkward person at the restaurant, owner of the animal friendly eco friendly sustainable compostable ergonomic bamboo toothbrush, and shunner of bacon butties.
Friends won with this salad, at least three.
I was ok with this whole diet change until it started to affect me. We were out for a walk, and he had taken my bag of vegan jelly beans out of the car. I thought he was going to eat them; which I was ok with because sharing is caring, and you need jellybeans when you’re running for a little bit of energy. But it was much, much worse than that. He THREW my jelly beans in to a rubbish bin. A PUBLIC rubbish bin (seven second rule does not count in there). WHAT THE HELL!? I would have gone in to retrieve them had there not been a suspiciously urine-coloured pillow in there too, I just had to walkrun away and remove myself from that horrible scenario.
‘Why did you throw away my jellybeans?!’
‘Why were you just eating cancer Amanda, CANCER. That’s the old us, the new us would never eat that.’
He says he’s doing it because he cares. I think he just wants to punish me. Retribution for five years of living as an omnivore with a vegan. He survived the 6am pre-run raw smoothie stage, he pulled through the raw-food-only month in the middle of a Wellington winter. He held his tongue through many a failed fettuccine and vegan-ised Italian dish, and he has stayed.
I’m hitting reverse now with ‘sharing is caring’, after five years of dairy-free dining I am not about to let someone else in on my CoYo (Coconut yoghurt) and my dairy-free ice cream stash. I saw him eyeing it in the freezer, with his cave man drool. I pelted him with sugar cubes until he retreated and left it alone. Now I’ll have to eat all my treats in one sitting or I may not get any, thanks Paleo.
Oh wow, so many things we could eat together! Like parsnips!
I don’t think we could ever eat out at restaurants again with one of us Vegan and the other Paleo, the chefs would hate us. That being said, I would take great joy in taking the newbie Paleo to a vegan restaurant full of soy products and seeing him scan the menu before saying with a woeful downcast look,‘I’ll just have the salad thanks’. Ha.
I think I could show a little more patience with the Paleo ‘thing’. I don’t think I realised how hard it can be when someone changes their diet, and how much you have to learn to accommodate them and their bloody irrational new eating habits. I am trying to put things in perspective by putting myself in his shoes, what if he was as unsupportive as I am with this diet change?
I ignored your dietary requirements and made a delightful fresh basil pasta for tea, oh well, if you’re hungry you’ll eat it!
I ignored your dietary requirements and made a delightful fresh basil piglet for tea, oh well, if you’re hungry you’ll eat it!
My strategy from here is to buy all of his favourite dairy laden foods for an entire week and try to drive out the Paleo demons with Holy Cow water. I’ve been pouring chocolate milkshakes and discarded single-use kitchen appliances on the front doorstep to mark our territory ‘No Palaeolithic things in here thanks’.
I would talk about being vegan and running a lot and my diet but I’m too sugar deprived to think right now, I just want my jellybeans back 😦
Not so long ago, only twenty moons ago in fact, preparing for winter in the life of Amanda meant buying a good range of tea bags, making sure my scarf matched my coat, and getting the cosiest spot on the couch after work. Now it means finding the right running gear to make sure I can keep running through the hail storms, the rain, the wind, and inhospitable temperatures that are a New Zealand winter.
When I set out on a cold morning I first poke my head out the door to test the air. No matter what the temperature is I always wear the same thing; crop top, singlet or T-shirt, undies that are old and saggy so that they don’t get sucked in to my bum, an old Glassons merino from 2003, light jacket, gloves, head lamp, SPI belt, head band, socks, aaaand shoes.
I tend to over prepare, but what if? What if I’m running around the bays and sprain an ankle? I’d be metres away from fifty or so houses, a main road with regular traffic, dog walkers, and spanky spandex cyclists going by. I’d have to survive for minutes, perhaps even ten minutes in the elements before being rescued and whisked off to safety.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail! Wear all the things!
I wear my best snow storm outfit, then I set out on my way. Ten minutes in to my run it feels like I’ve stumbled in to a sauna and it’s time to re-think my attire. I pull of the headband, gloves, jacket, merino and singlet, all while still running and simultaneously checking my Garmin so that I’m sticking to the right pace. I tie these in an arrangement to my waist, tuck them in my undies, and wrap them around my wrist until I resemble the contents of a clothes dryer.
Not uncomfortable or chafe-ey at all!
Runners wear event T-shirts, they wear no shirts, they wear skivvies, jackets, woolie jerseys, gloves, hats, caps, compression socks, sleeves, bandanas, crops and tights. Runners need a whole arsenal of clothing to get them through all four seasons.
HOT FASHION TIP!
Seen around the Wellington coast, shoulders are in! Stretch your top down so that it covers your fingers, reveal your white shoulders and obvious sports bra tan line. No top has sleeves long enough. It’s as if somehow by bunching as much fabric as you can into your fists you will regain feeling in your finger tips. This also makes the top ride up above your belly button, meaning it is necessary to wear it with your longest singlet as a combo. Who’s torso and arms was this garment designed for?
Shoulder warmth being sacrificed for thawing frozen fingers
I expect a lot from my running tops. I expect that they will expand around the middle to accommodate 1.5L of banana smoothie post-run; have sleeves that act as a handkerchief, be light enough to tuck in to the side of my undies when not being worn and not pull said undies down below crack height, keep me warm, not make me sweat too much, not stink of sweat after being washed, AND make me look like an olympian.
Lululemon have a range of tops with names that appeal to (and aptly describe) me like Pace setter, Swiftly and Run Wild. I settled on the swiftly because it would look good with my banana tights (it does). These tops are light weight but warm enough to wear without a jacket, even warm enough that your nipples don’t pierce through the fabric on a cold day. The Lulu tops are pretty and nicely cut so that you can wear them in public and almost go undetected as someone who never changes out of their gym gear.
Thought I should wear my medals for this photo shoot
The best feature has to be THE SLEEVES! They are long enough to cover your wrists and they have thumb holes, holes for thumbs!It took me a few goes to work out that I need to wear my Garmin on top of the Swiftly so that my incessant checking of my pace can continue uninterrupted by excess sleevage.
Check out those CUFFS
I don’t know how I coped running through last winter. Actually I do. I was averaging 25-30kms per week so if my memory serves me correctly, I only ran on ‘Can’t beat Wellington on a good day’ days, and opted for the treadmill when the weather was crap. Fast forward one year, it’s more like 100km per week, and spending 8 and a half hours on a treadmill each week is just not that appealing.
Since I’m putting in 8 hours a week of my blood sweat and sweat in to this running thing so I’m learning about the importance of clothing pretty quickly! Requests for advice and modelling shoots can be left in the comments section.
A special thank you to Nathan Meffan for taking the photos, and to Ben Terry for your perfect aim with the hairdryer for the ‘Windswept’ glamour shots.
The idea for this post came to me, believe it or not, while I was running in the wind. Something happened to me. Something I had previously thought was a physical impossibility, it happened to me.
If you run in Wellington you can’t avoid running in the wind.
Some runners spit when they run, I am one of those runners. Sucking in air like a vacuum cleaner with a full bag means you get little spittles around your mouth. This is fine, you use your tongue muscles to collect them in to a nice little ball in your mouth, then you launch that ball off the side of the pavement. Look both ways in case any people are near. Look right, look left, look right again. Now you may spit.
Now add in 95km/ph winds that gust and change direction; you realise you have taken the care-free spitting for granted.
Males quickly learn about wind direction as soon as they are out of nappies, so have honed their skills in judging where a stream of saliva (or otherwise) will fly in a projection. Females are not so practiced at this.
I have misjudged the wind a number of times and my target of the pavement has been missed. What I have managed to hit is my legs, shoulder, chest, chin, neck, arm, cheek, and most recently, the inside of my ear. One very large, and very stringy, 17km’s worth of hard running’s built up saliva spit ball straight in to my ear hole. GOAL! I’d almost given up on spitting in to my ear, thinking it was in the category of ‘kissing your elbow’, but I have finally added it to the ‘Impossible is nothing’ list alongside running an Ultramarathon and never eating bacon again.
Number of times I have spat on someone else: 0 Number of times I have spat on myself: 42 (20months of running, one mis-fire per fortnight)
When you run in the wind, you are either fighting a head wind that makes your eyes water and blows the snot clear out of your nostrils, or flying along in bounds with your hair streaming behind you like a victorious flag. Unless you run in one direction and get a lift back, you’ll have the pleasure of experiencing both.
A particularly windy day up on Car Parts trail in Wellington
When I encounter wind I try to lean in to it, like I’m running up a hill. Through teary eyes I focus on not being blown into oncoming traffic, ignore the sea water being blown over me and sniff deeply or employ the help of my sleeve to prevent having a sticky booger face. I put my head down, put one foot in front of the other and remain positive, thinking about the run back with a tail wind and all the energy being generated by those wind turbines.
Tips for being a champion wind runner
Tuck in behind someone so that they bear the brunt of it, and you can run in the ‘slip stream’
People with long hair- put it in a bun or it the wind will whip yo hair back and forth across your face, ouch.
Lean forwards a little, you won’t fall over unless there is a big gust of wind, and that’s only 60% likely
Purse the corner of your lips into an Elvis sneer if the wind is hitting you from side on to prevent spit from escaping
Don’t fear the wind! The more you get use to running in it the easier it gets.
If you are getting the tail wind, you’re prancing along like an excited pony and you run towards someone struggling against the wind, yell some words of encouragement! Or perhaps just give them a thumbs up in case they have something in their ear.
I have a few words of wisdom for those in the market for running gear for their legs. There is a reason that most people wear black 3/4 tights to exercise. There is a reason why rugby shorts are for rugby, and running shorts are for running. There is a reason for everything!
SHORTS CHAFE!
Yes they do! This will almost always happen at the mid way point on a really long run, you’re a few km’s in and you feel that first little burning sensation on your inner thigh. Too late now mate, those babies will looked like plucked chickens dragged over hot tarseal by the time you get home. Once it starts there is little you can do to stop it, just keep running towards wherever you can get away with wearing no pants for a couple of hours.
Tucking your shorts in to your undies so that you look like you’re running wearing speedos is a method I have used to relieve chafe. It didn’t improve the situation at all, but I felt a sense of freedom running in almost-undies so I left the shorts firmly wedged in there.
Wearing your brother’s old Canterbury rugby shorts to run in is great when you’re starting out. Spot the Southlander careering around Wellington Harbour. The leg holes should be big enough for both legs at once, and the stiff cotton will act like a saw blade. You’ll have a line on your legs so gruesome that the sun will not light anything beyond it.
AVOID BUYING GREY TIGHTS
I love BodyPump. I love it so much that I stand right at the front of the class, every class, and when I hear the music outside the gym I start trying to do rotator raises with butternut pumpkins at New World Supermarket.
Don’t ever buy grey gym tights. The reasons may be immediately obvious to you, but just in case they aren’t, this is why.
When I lay down to do the core workout in the BodyPump class I thought ‘That’s odd, I don’t remember peeing myself during the class.’ Wait a minute, sweat patches! One nice, visible from space, contrast set to high, crudely shaped like a heart, sweat patch, right in my groin. Complimented by a little sweaty arrow pointing to the spot between my butt cheeks that had acted as a funnel to channel any sweat to the pool gathering a little further down.
Before and after a run
Sweat patches are nothing to be ashamed of, they should be aspired to! Peeing yourself is slightly less acceptable, and the two are easily confused.
And the back view
Those $15 tights don’t seem like such a bargain now, do they?
Pick the right equipment for the job
Loose shorts are comfortable, and allow your legs and balls to move freely. Yes I said balls. There has been many a stray nut seen in the gym and the culprit is always that magic combination of loose shorts and no undies. No undies Monday stops when you set foot in the gym. Ladies, same goes for you. Please pick a sensible combination of underwear and over-wear for your bottom half, save the genital flashes for Snapchat.
My advice on choosing leg wear-
Pick something with few seam details or different panels of fabric on them. This means fewer parts to chafe and irritate your skin while you work out
Dark colours, patterns or horrendously/ gloriously/ heavenly bright tones hide sweat patches.
Check that they fit over your thighs properly and don’t sag around your fanny, you’ll end up hoisting them up like panty hose
POCKETS! Pockets are great for car keys, energy gels, your ipod and bus/coffee money, all of which you will put through the washing machine in a tired state after your run or gym session
Go for quality, if you can afford nice gym gear then do invest. It lasts longer, and there is less danger of it splitting or ripping while you’re in a group fitness class of 100 people mastering a roundhouse kick
Side note; I keep running around in these tights intending to get a picture for this blog, so there have been many sweat patches that have gone undocumented, but certainly not unseen. These ones were after a very windy 20km around the Bays in Wellington.
The Tarawera Ultra is just over a week away, and it seems ridiculous that right now I am mentally preparing more for not running this race than I am for running it, the thought of missing out is terrifying to me!
If you have seen me this week you may have been subject to a tantrum. Not being able to exercise makes me an irrational a-hole. I realise now that the world isn’t ending, nobody is going to die, and there are plenty of other races that I can enter this year if I can’t do this one. I’ve apologised to Ben for being a brat, to Hinano for saying I hoped that a Lion bit off her legs because she can run and I can’t, and I am making plans for how I can be a great support person on the sideline.
If you’re a good kid the week before Christmas, Santa will forget that you pushed the trampoline through the biggest window in the house trying to block out the sun and gave your brother his first black eye. Running should be the same right? I have been doing everything right for the past week and I feel like this means the past six months of never getting a massage, not stretching properly and completely overdoing it should be discounted.
I have been walking around with K- Tape racing stripes on my legs, missing long runs, eating heaps of cookies, and I even went to get acupuncture yesterday. I don’t really like needles but if it means I can do what I love then it is worth it. When I mentioned to the acupuncturist that I am planning to run 60km across trails in ten days time, she gave me a Britney look.
You think it’s a good idea to run 60km on that ankle?
After reading Eat and Run, I have no reason to believe that I can’t run hundreds of kilometres with ribbons tied around my feet in place of shoes, with my only sustenance coming from chia seeds stuffed in to my eyelids. My mind believes that I can run for days and exist on dried apricots and peanut butter dinners. My body says otherwise. I get so exhausted from training that sometimes I fall asleep on the floor after my run, or just cry like a baby because I’m overtired.
The ‘Harden up’ mentality is alive and well among trail runners, the acupuncturist would stick needles in her eyes if she read some of the conversations I have read.
‘I ran 210km on a torn calf’
‘You think that’s bad, I broke my arm during the Kepler when I tripped over a Takahe. Still finished.’
‘When I was running the Bedrock a boulder fell on me and I had to sever my arm with the jagged edge of a Gu Chomps packet. I kept running and got a course record.’
I may have embellished a little, but you get the point. All of this makes me think a little niggly achilles might as well be a paper cut. But you need to think about the bigger picture, is one race, on one day, out of the 365 days I could be running worth doing permanent damage to your body?
Is being among the best athletes in the world at the sport you love, running the same course as them, seeing all your running friends, making new ones, and drinking in the spectacular views across 60kms of bush really worth not being able to run/walk properly for a few weeks? I’m not sure yet!
Do you have a favourite piece of clothing? One that you have worn and loved so much that threads are coming away at the bottom, holes are beginning to appear, and oily pizza fresh organic blueberry stains splatter the front?
If you use something a lot, it tends to suffer somewhat in the looks department with all the loveand attention it is receiving.
Background: When I was 9 years old at Mararoa Primary School, Jenny the school secretary came to my aid once when I stubbed biggie (my big toe). When I tearfully presented my toe she laughed and yelled in her shrill Southland secretarial voice ‘Lila, LILAAAAH! Come and look at this girl’s giant TOE!’ And so began years of foot loathing and shoving my feet back in to the safe anonymity of my sneakers as soon as possible.
I’ve never considered feet to be an aesthetically pleasing body part. I do love mine for letting me run far and wide but when I wear jandals I’m aware that my runner’s feet aren’t going to be front and centre of a Havaianas poster any time soon. HOWEVER, despite me thinking I have ugly feet, I have garnered a small but enthusiastic following of foot fetishists to my Instagram account. Is it because I have really ridiculously good looking feet? I’m not sure, but I’m avoiding posting foot pictures right now as I feel my little piggies are under close scrutiny.
Perfect ten
Your precious feet are treated to a variety of ailments when you run, here are the main ones;
Blisters
Sometimes you won’t even know when they appeared, and other times you will feel that blister grow with every stride. Blisters are just skin you don’t need any more. Sometimes it’s painful to say goodbye but you should know that other skin will come along. There’s plenty more skin in the sea?
Sock Tan
Unless you run barefoot you will have some degree of sock tan. Sock tan is sexy, you might not see Beyoncé rocking it but that’s because it has to be earned; money can’t buy a sock tan. If you have a sock tan you are awesome. Sock tan also helps you to define where your leg finishes and your ankle starts when it’s swollen from injury (I’m typing this with one ankle-less appendage raised and iced on a chair).
Toenail death
I like to paint my nails. Like painting a piece of furniture, any blemishes are covered by a few strategic licks of varnish, and if your nails are REALLY bad you can also add a bit of glitter. Each time you take the polish off it’s like unwrapping a really awful present, and you get to see, for a few minutes while the nails are in their natural state, just how attached they still are to your feet.
The first toenail I lost made me feel really cool. I pinned it on the wall next to my race numbers like a trophy, complete with it’s sparkly blue polish, there it was glinting on the wall (it’s that dot below them both down the bottom). I took it down because of all the nasty comments ‘That’s disgusting Amanda’. Actually no it’s abject art and you’re all mean.
The question on your lips now is ‘Amanda, how do I become a foot babe and have people leaving adoring comments on my toe selfies?’Here are some tips for you to try.
Use hashtags and keywords like ‘toejam’ and ‘toeswag‘ when you post foot photos
Never not wear socks, if your feet look like they could be a different ethnicity to your legs you’re doing well
Have a point of difference, like a ginormous big toe, a missing toe, or lots of long and luscious toe hair
Just give the people what they want, at the first mention of ‘nice feet’, go ahead and make a full colour calendar with your foot photos.
Run! Run on trails, it makes your feet irresistibly beautiful. The more rocks you kick and tree roots you trip over the more perfect imperfections your feet will have
Everyone has a different reason as to why they run. You might be running to lose weight, to train for a race, relieve stress, keep a healthy heart, boredom, or enjoyment.
To run is a beautiful thing, we’re lucky to be able to walk, think of all the mermaids out there in their shell bras who wish they were running like you! To be a runner, well, it’s not always beautiful. There are a few physical characteristics that you’ll encounter as a runner, and this is part one of your definitive guide on running aesthetics.
Part one, Facials
I saw this advertisement by Nike a few years ago in a women’s magazine;
Run yourself ugly. Run until your face looks bee-stung, sea-sprayed and contorted with eyes squinting framed by a veiny temple, and every kilometre you’ve run has etched a new line in your forehead.
In short if you remain photogenic while running you’re probably not doing it right. I think I’m getting there. The photo in the pink shirt is from the Wellington Half Marathon in June and that was giving 110%. Could be a bit uglier but this is a great effort from me.
I try to smile at people when I run past them, and it comes out like a dog baring it’s teeth at an intruder. While I do feel like I personally own the Southern coastline after running so many kilometres on it, I will still share it with other runners. If you see me coming towards you, the whites of my eyes glinting in the sun, saliva hanging from my teeth, flared nostrils and breath coming in murderous rasps, just smile at my rabid running face. I’m harmless.
My tips for having a pretty running face for race photos;
Moisten your gums with your tongue before smiling so that your lip doesn’t stick up there like a curious rabbit
Flail all limbs so that your running form is so poor nobody will notice how your face looks
Pull a face, you’re going to look odd either way so you might as well do it properly
Raise your eyebrows, the look of surprise might make you forget how painful that moment was
If you feel particularly horrendous, cover your race number with your arm as you go past photographers so they can’t match you with your photos. Ha.
If you see another runner, give them a smile. That little acknowledgement helped me to keep going through so many long hard runs it’s amazing what a smile can do!
My Romance With Running 