Summer 2013

As much as I love it, running is not my whole life. Sometimes running has to take a backseat when the other parts of life need attention- even if it is just a holiday!


January went pretty well as far as training went - I hit over 100km during the month for the first time in ages. While 100km is not huge volume, it was the first month that I hadn't struggled with injury.

Main Beach, Merimbula

I took all of February off. No kids means holidaying outside of peak season, and my family (Mum, Dad, sister, Dan and I) spent the first 10 days in Merimbula. We've been holidaying in Merimbula for the last 10 years, so it is almost home away from home now. The weather was perfect, and the water spectacular, crystal clear and warm. Lots of time relaxing on the beach, eating at our favourite holiday restaurants and a little bit of running. I had planned to run to Pambula and back along the bike track most days, but I changed my mind once I remembered how boring that path is. Who wants to run beside the highway when you can run near the beach?

Pambula River

My sister had never been on the Twofold Bay Cruise so we travelled to Eden and spend a lovely morning on the boat. While we didn't see dolphins we a couple of seals hanging around the boats for an easy feed of fish guts! Although we do the same cruise each year it never gets old; who could get sick of the natural and man made beauty of Eden. We had lunch at the Great Southern Inn which according to Good Food has some of NSW's best hot chips. They were pretty darn good, crunchy on the outside, potatoey on the inside and hardly oily at all.

Edrom Lodge, Eden

Dan, Bec and I took a joyflight on a seriously small plane- Mum and Dad had been up before but the three of us enjoyed the scenery of a round trip to Eden. Pambula River looked spectacular from the air and we got a bird's eye view of a massive Navy boat docked at Eden. 10 days flew past and before we knew it Mum, Dad and my sister left for home.

Dan and I made our way up the coast heading for Myola; a tiny seaside village in Jervis Bay. We were heading to Huskisson's half ironman festival; friends of ours were competing over the weekend and we had planned to run the 10km fun run the next day. We had found a caravan park in Myola right on the beach, and after setting up our tent we wandered down to the water. While Myola is just a few kilometres from Huskisson they are separated by a river with no car crossing. After concluding there was no way to walk across we found the jetty for the ferry across and walked back to fire up the BBQ for our dinner. Apart from the thousands of parrots we also had some uninvited dinner guests!


The race was Saturday afternoon, so after killing time in the morning we headed over to Huskisson around lunchtime for the 3pm start. We shopped at the expo, watched the end of the sprint triathlon, cheered my friends' daughter in the under 12s and watched with dismay as the rain rolled in. While the rain dropped the temperature I wad stressing out about running in the rain. The worst past before the gun went off and was completely gone shortly after we started. The course was not my favourite, two laps of an L-shaped path, give me an out and back or a single loop anyday. Dan and I started conservatively, and apart from a mini-walll at 7km, we had a strong back half. We picked off quite a few runners and finished in a new PB time of 54.25. I was so very pleased to get my 10km time under 55 minutes and we celebrated with dinner at a milkbar-cum pizza-cum Thai restaurant in Culburra Bay. We spent the next few days around Jervis Bay. We saw a pod of very active dolphins on another cruise, bushwalked around the weapons testing range on Beecroft Peninsula and I saw my very first wild wombat (and a snake!) in the Jervis Bay Botanic Gardens. 

Monkeys!

From there we made our way to Kiama, a favourite day trip destination when my family lived in Sydney. On the way we made a spur of the moment decision to stop at Nowra Zoo and it was such a brilliant decision! We got to hug a cute little baby wombat and sniff a koala's fur, but the best part of the day was feeding the Marmoset monkeys. I am not a monkey lover, but my other half is, so we coughed up to get in the cage to feed and play with the monkeys. I thought they'd be like climbing rats, but by the end of our visit I was won over.


Our campsite was almost literally on the Kendall's Beach, the view was spectacular and sound of the pounding waves almost drowned out the snorer in the next tent! We spent one day on the scenic drive along the coast. The next morning we went snorkelling at Bushranger Bay, a grey nurse shark sanctuary, and spent a fabulous afternoon in the Minnamurra Rainforest hiking to the waterfalls and hunting lyrebirds. We sadly made our way back home to Canberra via Robertson, where I got 'attacked' by leeches and experienced my first leech bite! Gross! After a very short rainforest walk I sat down to eat morning tea, looked down and freaked out- I had about 20 leeches crawling up my shoes! 

So after a good running start to February, I slacked off to enjoy my holidays. I was still pretty active; beach walks, ocean swims and rainforest walks kept away from running and I only managed 44km for the month!