Tigy’s Blog

Had Race 2 of the Run Auckland series in the weekend. My god it was cold!

The course was mainly on walking tracks which was great as I was feeling a bit sore in the legs and my new shoes hadn’t arrived yet (any day now!!). Took on the course a bit more aggressively this time and really wanted to break the 50:00 barrier, was pretty much on track I think but lost heart at the 7.5km mark when I thought I had gone a touch too slow, tried to push hard for the finish but ran out of steam.

The lesson here is trust your training, keep steady and don’t give up! Turns out I was on track, with a couple of hundred meters to go I realised I could get there under the magic 50 minute mark and sprinted in for the finish. My stop watch measured the time as 49:59 but the official time was 50:31, probably due to the squeeze at the start line. Anyway it was still a 4:58/km pace which is easily my best.

I’m convinced if I’d just stuck at my pace rather than trying to push hard at the 7.5k mark I would have been able to cruise in under 50min. Basically my mistake was I pushed hard too early, ran out of puff and tired sooner than I needed to. A slightly slower but steadier pace would have been better. Never mind, lesson learned and we’ll see how I go next time!

Well I thought it was about time I got a bit more serious if I’m going to hit my goal of completing a marathon in the next 5 years, so I’ve entered a series of road races around Auckland - The Run Auckland Series.

It’s a series of 6 races of either 5 or 10km. I’ve entered in all the 10km circuits and the weekend was the first race. Having never raced quite this far before, in fact I haven’t raced since I was a kid, I was a touch nervous. But it went pretty well in the end.

The course was in Remuera, around the Waiatarua reserve. They claimed it was undulating, which I now know to mean hilly! I wanted to finish in under 55 minutes and managed 53:52, so can’t complain. Looking forward to the next one now!

OK, so after more than one or two small "drops" out old faithful point and click camera is a bit unreliable. So with bubs arriving in a few days I could justify going out and buying a new one. A serious lack of cash meant I had to go real cheap, but as I want to get a proper camera again in a couple of years time anyway, I don’t mind.

Picked up a Canon A450 pretty el cheapo from tricky dickies. Bang for your bucks seemed pretty good, sure for under $200 you get sweet fa… but as I said 2 more years and I get a real camera again :-).

I took a few sample shots to see how it went, pretty happy with it for a point and click. For the hell of it I posted a few copies below.

The macro focus is impressive, and pretty quick (try getting a 4 year old to hold still for more than 1-2 seconds).		I just like this one, I know its just a mandarin but I like the way the colours came through.
Colours are pretty good and normal focus was very quick.		Handles mixed lighting pretty well too.
Super macro feature is great for close ups.		Again the focus is quick and the colours nice and vivid.
Was even able to capture a quick sad face from my girl who refused to pose for me.		Whiskey tells me the camera smells nice too.

I have to say although its just a point and click it takes pretty reasonable snaps. I haven’t tried it inside yet with the flash so that will probably be a weakness, but that’s not a killer.

I got a message out of the blue from a old friend the other day. Someone I hadn’t heard from in over 9 years. Someone from a stage in my life that I hadn’t realised until that moment was almost lost to me.

Its funny how time passes and life condenses, how the past not so much fades away as becomes transparent. How sometimes the lessons learnt and experiences had can become distant.

It got me thinking about me. It got me thinking about who I am. It got me thinking about all those people who made me who I am today. It got me thinking about whether I had become the person I wanted to be back then. It got me thinking about a lot of things.

Life’s a funny thing, its the greatest journey in the world. Its all about living, about experiencing and discovering. Its a journey that’s full of discoveries about the world around us, about the people we meet and about yourself.

It also got me thinking about whether or not anyone ever really gets to know themselves. I mean we spend a lot of time together, but do we take ourselves for granted? Perhaps we do, perhaps we should pay a bit more respect to ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong, life is good. Its got its up, its got some downs, but that’s what makes it special. That’s what makes us who we are, and we should all be happy about that. If you can look in the mirror each morning and see someone you like and respect then that cant be a bad thing, if your not happy with who you see then one of you has to change, just accept it, just do it.

I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, I don’t know if I’ll actually post this, but you got me thinking, and when I think I like to write.

It was fantastic to hear from you, you reminded me of some great times and some great things and hopefully we’ll meet up again some time. KALO TAXIDI.

Yes I am still alive and still wanting to post. What with kids, new baby arriving, study, work and the fact I’m trying to get back into my running again I just haven’t had time.

Anyway, just to let you all know that I care about you here is my top 10 list of things I wish I had written about but just didn’t get time to:

1. Paul Potts - Quite wicked and I can see why he’s famous. He’s done a record that I wouldnt mind to hear but the clips they play on the radio make it sound a bit cheesy.
2. Police chases - Look I really, really feel for the family of the kid who died in a police chase the other day. But when are the press here in NZ going to stop blaming the cops for pursuing the guy and start blaming the idiots who run away from them. If we tell the cops to stop chasing what the hell would you do when they go to pull you over, run away because you know they cant chase you!
3. Awww damn it… only got to 3 and I gotta go again. I’ll be back soon… promise…