My plans for the weekend were to have a run with MBRR on Saturday morning, then go up to the Dusk To Dawn at Caboolture with the kidlets to cheer on Hubby who was doing a 2 hour relay leg. I would take the kidlets home  at a sensible time, and I’d go out with Anja for a run on Sunday while Hubby caught up on some sleep. Didn’t quite go to plan, but as it turned out, that wasn’t such a bad thing.

I got up at 4am to get into Redcliffe on Saturday, did a comfortable 8km with Catherine, and enjoyed a vanilla latte and croissant afterwards. The sun is rising later and later and when we start running at 5.30am, it’s just starting to rise over the ocean. Gorgeous.When I got home, I received a call from one of the MBRR members to say that one of their relay team members had to pull out and could I fill in for them. Okay, I said, as long as they realised I’d never run for 2 hours in my life, and they were okay with me doing what I could. 

We got to Caboolture around 5pm, and set up a tarp and small shelter for the kidlets. I figured they would crash at some time during the night. I met up with Sharon and Mary (my other team mates) and Hubby sorted things out with Will (his team mate, who also had a son there) so there would be someone to be with the kids while the others were either running or lap scoring. Hubby ran second, and I did the 10pm to midnight leg for my team. That lap scoring takes a lot of focus - Mallani, you did great to do it for 12 hours for Nic, I only did 2 1/2 hours and was looking forward to being replaced. It was a nice night, Hubby did his run and looked great - nice legs! He’s really strong, and did 48 laps of the 500m course.  The kidlets did a lot of running!!! They ran with Hubby several times, got his water bottle, and generally were really good. They were still awake at midnight; I think they’ll be paying for it for a few days. So will I.

I started my run at 10pm, I was a bit tired but had knocked back a V which I think kept me going. I planned on having a play with some gels to see if they helped; I’d also read they could upset your guts. I had one just before I started - it was foul. I think they’d taste a bit better cold. I had another at 11pm, and I do think they gave me a bit of a lift. No sign of any gastro upset either, which was good. I’d said to Will that the longest I’d run was 15km in 1 1/2 hours, so I hoped to do a bit more, maybe 18km. I was really comfortable while running, no pain, wasn’t puffed, and just kept going at what seemed like a fairly constant pace. The first hour passed quickly, the scenery was getting a bit familiar - 500m track around some old buildings over and over again, so for the next hour, I grabbed my ipod and listened to more Andrew Denton.  Still felt comfortable, but the balls of my feet were starting to really hurt. I kept running cos I figured they’d hurt whether I walked or ran, but by the end of the two hours they were burning and I could barely walk on them. When I asked how many laps I’d managed, Roy told me I’d done 40. I had to ask him again, I thought I’d misheard. That’s 20k, the longest I’ve run without stopping. I was blown away, and the icing on the cake was that our relay team came second in the women’s category. We got to bed at 2.30am, 22 1/2 hours after I got up.

It was a worthwhile exercise, even though my legs are knackered and I needed a nanny nap in the afternoon. I’ve got the half marathon distance wrapped up for April, so that was confidence building. My legs are weary and a bit achy, but not sore. And, I know I can function for almost 24 hours on my feet, so I should be able to go a little longer and stay awake for the Kokoda Challenge. I just need to figure out what to do about the balls of my feet - that really needs to be fixed.

I think there’s been a bit of a mindset shift too. I’ve sort of felt that I was just going through the motions of running but I really wasn’t a runner. Yeah, I’ll do the Brisbane half marathon, I thought, but it wasn’t really real. I could do the Kokoda Challenge, but that’s because I can walk for ages, but I don’t think I really believed I could do a whole lot more than what I was already doing. Having surprised myself so much on Saturday, I’m starting to think that maybe I could do this running thing, and maybe I really could do a half marathon. Heck, maybe I could even do a bit more sometime. That probably makes absolutely no sense at all, but it does to me.

I’ve got Guinness booked into a sheep herding weekend in March. He’s eaten a toy dinosaur this morning. He’s 10 months old now and if he keeps that up, he won’t see 11 months!!

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