Gresham Family Exodus

Originally posted on February 3, 2015, by cruisingrunner

When I run, I carry one of those contoured water bottles with a neoprene handle that theoretically fits comfortably in your hand. It holds about a 1/2 liter of water, which can generally get me through a 5-8 km run quite easily. Well, here in New Zealand, that is. Back in Mexico, I can remember doing some beach runs where my goal was stop at 5 km or when I ran out of water, whichever happened first, and I almost always ran out of water first. Sometimes I barely made it a mile. Anyway, here in New Zealand where the summertime weather is much more mild, I’ve been gradually increasing my mileage. The other day I headed out with my trusty little water bottle with the intent of going 12 km (~7.5 miles). It wasn’t especially warm, but it was especially humid, and I went into water conservation mode at about 5 km (meaning I didn’t just chug whenever I felt like it), and I totally ran out of water at about 9 km. I run-walked the last 2k and was never at any risk of dehydration or anything, but as I made my way from the end of my run to the marina showers, the significance of this event occurred to me. I am now back into “long run” territory, the boundary between “regular” run and “long” run being defined by the necessity of donning the camel back instead of the water bottle. I’ve been using the camel back for long hikes, but now it’s time to break it out for my runs. I love the camel back. It’s comfortable and has convenient pockets for snacks and a cell phone and it has gotten me through many memorable half marathons and one full marathon. Maybe with the camel back my next 12 km run can actually be a full 12 km.

Originally posted on January 31, 2015, by cruisingrunner

New Zealand has been good for me. I have reached a running plateau of 8-10k, so as much as I hate to admit it, it’s time to add speed-work back in. I despise speed work while in the act, but I always love the strength and speed I get from doing it. Every time, I mean every time I have PR’d in a road race it’s been after extensive interval training on a track. The interval distance I would choose seemed to make less of a difference than the fact that I was doing it at all. So, yesterday I pumped myself up and headed out behind the Opua boatyard to the cycle track and did 5k of the following intervals:

1 x 0.2k sprint
1 x 0.1k walk
1 x 0.2k jog

Felt good. Today will be a “long run” if/when it stops raining.

Originally posted on January 28, 2015, by cruisingrunner

Tonight we are anchored in the picturesque harbor of Whangaroa. We had a normal school day and then hiked up to a peak which gave us a spectacular 360 degree view of the harbor and the surrounding countryside. We barbecued chicken and sausages for dinner, but if that’s surprising given the fact that we ALWAYS have some sort of tasty, fresh caught seafood on board, just know that we also prepared some yellowtail kingfish poke to marinate in the fridge for lunch tomorrow afternoon. After dinner, the boys started their nightly dishes ritual, which starts with heating up some water on the stove and rinsing off the dishes in the sea water from the back swim steps. (Lady Carolina boys, Kyle and Joel, oh how they miss you guys!) As I was sitting in the cockpit enjoying a glass of wine while this was going on I heard Brenden exclaim, “Oh no!” When I asked him what was wrong, assuming perhaps a dish or utensil was dropped overboard while getting rinsed, he responded with, “…the little fishy almost swam into the tentacles of the jellyfish!” I responded, “Wow, that’s quite a show you’re watching there.” He said, “Yeah, I can’t really see them anymore…”

A few moments went by with all of this seeming perfectly normal until I had a total internal freak out moment. Holy @#$! My son is watching sea life drama unfold while he’s doing dishes, and this is all totally, perfectly normal. This was sort of an extension of a mini-internal freak out moment I had the other day when a fellow cruising mom made the comment to me about her family being a bit boring. The cruising life becomes so normal to us sometimes we forget how different our lives really are from the mainstream. Boring!?!? Not a chance.

Now that we are over the halfway mark of our journey I sometimes wonder about the reintegration process. Have we been gone so long that the connections I had to people back home might be strained? Can we even understand each other anymore? I worry and wonder.

-D.

Today we were stuck walking around town with a brochure and a camera. here are the pictures we took. Brenden and Alex.

Originally posted on January 21, 2015, by cruisingrunner

Mangonui is a cute little tourist town. It has a small grocery store, a small liquor store, a couple coffee shops, several restaurants (fish and chips, burgers, Thai, Indian, and Mexican), and an abundance of holiday accommodations. There’s also a small boating community here as evident by the numerous privately owned mooring balls and the small Mangonui Cruisers Club whose windows I peered through this morning before they had opened up for the day. Like the town of Russell, there is a lot of history here. And although Mangonui lacks most of Russell’s charm I can still see it’s draw as a relaxing getaway destination. The people at the visitor information center give you that small town feel and are happy to chat with you about this or that and point you in the direction of whatever interests you. It’s been a nice place to get in some short, leisurely runs, but it would be a tough place to get in a long run without doing laps or running along the highway. I’ve been in many places where I’ve had to do laps, but since coming to New Zealand I’ve been pretty spoiled so far.

Also like Russell, Mangonui has a “Heritage Trail,” which is basically just a self-guided walk about the area to marked historical sites, ranging from 100+ year old re-purposed buildings to views across the harbor of Maori Pa sites. Since we were going to be here a few days, I had what I thought was a great idea for a school project for the boys. Instead of doing their regular daily school work I gave them the option of taking a camera to shore and snapping photos of each of the sites on the Heritage Trail and then making an electronic photo album. They didn’t choose that option in Russell, but if it’s the only alternative to their regular school work I thought maybe they’d bite. Not a chance. They grudgingly chose to do the Heritage Trail, but only after asking me how long the trail was and how many sites there were and figuring out that it would be quite a bit less time than regular school. I tried to pump them up about it. I told them they could be as creative as they wanted with the photos. The ONLY criteria was that each of the heritage sites were captured in a photo. I didn’t care who or what else they might decide to include. They still weren’t biting. They moaned and groaned about how boring it was going to be. Then, I even suggested they take “Little Woof,” one of Brenden’s favorite stuffed animals, and put him in each of the photos. Nope. More moaning and groaning. I couldn’t believe this was less than 24 hours from when I was writing about how great my boys are for stepping up and salvaging a fallen cell phone. As they continued to moan and groan about how boring this would be, I finally just told them that it would only be as boring as they make it. They have the opportunity to make this fun. It’s totally up to them.

As they dinghied off to shore, I was still hopeful, but alas, it was not to be. They came back with boring photos and made a boring photo album with boring captions.

I guess I failed at young teen motivational tactics. But they also failed at wearing down mom, so at least I have that.

-D.

Click here to see their complete boring photo album.