The Month of March

Really - where has this time gone!  And what a month it has been.  I feel I have achieved so much over this past month in terms of my running.

*   At the beginning of the month I decided to swap one of my mid week runs for a core strength workout.  I have done these workouts at least once a week for the month and while I'm not sure how much they have benefit they have been I can say I did it.
*   I also aimed to run at least 100km again over the month and was lucky enough to clock up 121km.  This is outstanding given I was running twice during the week and then one longer run on the weekend.  And that longer weekend run was usually about time and not about the distance!
*  I also took part in my first ever park run.  It was called the Feilding 5's and ran for 5 Thursday nights with the option of running one 2.5km loop or completing it twice to reach 5km.  I was very nervous about doing this by myself but rocked on up the first night (my birthday present to myself) and really enjoyed the challenge it gave me.  It was mostly running on grass and I never realised just how hard that could be.  I completed 4 of the 5 nights and while I had hoped for a personal best on the last night I was surprised that we ended up running the circuit in the opposite direction which was hard mentally and left me with my slowest run of them all.
*  I ran trails!  And they were hard trails!!  First up was the Manawatu Gorge track from Ashhurst through to the Balance end.  That was hard going and I really wanted to give up at times but of course once you start there is no backing out.  Then there was two hours of trail running around Palmerston North with Kate.  This once again challenged me but I needed to remember all the good it was doing me.  And I can proudly say that even falling over 7km into this run (resulting in some nasty swearing) I did get up and carry on until we had covered the trails we planned.
*  Our 20km run!  Well I have written all about this before and head back a couple of blogs and you can read all about it.
*  I've also had some very surprising and fast paces over this past month.  Those certainly help to boost your confidence from time to time.
*  I think most importantly I have achieved all of this while still spending quality time with my family and working full time.  At times I don't know how I achieved it all but somehow I managed.

Now for April and my second time running the Great Forest Event at Waitarere.  This time next week I will be making sure my gear is all sorted out, drinks sorted, and quality dinner in my belly (well not quite at this exact time as I will be just rapping up my Kindergarten disco!!).  The things I do for my fun!!