Originally posted on May 15, 2015, by cruisingrunner
OK, I admit it. I AM a bit bitter now. I’m bitter over how my running experience turned out in New Zealand. New Zealand has sidewalks and roads and trails. So many trails. New Zealand has cooler weather, so runs could be longer and more comfortable. It was supposed to be a complete running extravaganza for me, and it started out in such a fine way. I quickly found good places to run in Opua and worked my way back into long run territory, my longest being about 15k. And then we were going on a road trip! While everyone else lounged around camp each morning I could don my running shoes and hit a trail without even a dinghy ride to shore. And how great would it be to run in so many new places around New Zealand.
Yeah, that’s not how it turned out.
Before our road trip really got into full swing I got sick. Really sick, with a chest cold and cough that would not go away. I wrote about it in the blog post “Sick in Taupo” but at the time I had no idea how long term its effects would be. It slowed us down on the road trip and the boys are probably happy over the fact that I ended up not pressing for lots of long hikes. I feel like I coughed for the better part of 2 months. When I started running again they were very short runs and my chest would often get tight and congested. Sadly, my last two runs during our final week in New Zealand I finally had strong lungs and was able to complete a full 5k each time. No, that’s not a typo. 5k.
And now we are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on our way to Minerva Reef, where there’s basically just a reef and no where to run. After that it’s on to Fiji, back in the tropics and stiflingly hot runs.
Sorry for the big huge “wahhhhhhh.” Since the blog IS called cruisingRUNNER I thought I should write about running every now and then, and this is what’s on my mind right now from a running perspective.
(Did I really just complain about going to Minerva Reef and Fiji!?!?)
Gresham Family Exodus 