Happy New Year!

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Seasons greetings to everyone.

The last two weeks have been a flurry of activity over here, and while I am already behind schedule in my Canberra marathon campaign, I have been keeping up the running, albeit short runs only at this stage.

The time between Christmas and New Year was spenting land crewing for a K4 (four-person kayak - see pic below of my crew) crew in the Murray Marathon, an annual 404km/5 day kayak/canoe race along the Murray River. This was quite an onerous undertaking as it turned out, almost as arduous for the land crew as for the paddlers! Typical days inlcuding getting up at 5 am, cramming in a quick 5km pre-dawn run before preparing breakfast for the crew, cleaning up, breaking camp, getting the crew and boat to the start line, getting them on the water and then rushing off to the first of 3 or 4 checkpoints, battling bulldust, rough bush tracks and hundreds of other vehicles trying to get to the same checkpoint in order to battle for position on the water; awaiting the arrival of the boat for a 2-3 minute pit-stop during which we changed their drinks, fed them, did running repairs to boat and paddlers, got them on their way again and repeated the whole process another 2 or 3 times. At the end of the day's racing we'd get them and the boat off the water, back on the support vehicle (and you need a massively long trailer for a K4!) off to the next camp site, set up all the tents, get food prepared, paddlers massaged and generally pampered back to good health and so on until we all crashed around 9:30pm ready for the next early start. In 5 days I lost 2-3kg and I wasn't even paddling!

I have started kayaking myself however as cross-training, and went out for my first serious one hour session this morning, complete with paddling coach who is teaching me proper technique. One thing is already clear - I need much stronger core/abdominals, so it looks like a pilates session or three is needed, as well as more upper body strength work, which I have let go somewhat in recent months. It's good fun though, and certainly provides a welcome distraction from the running sessions.

With only 15 weeks to the Canberra marathon (April 19) I need to get myself better organised. Still a lot of work to be done!

Thus far however, feeling fit and injury-free.