What doesn't kill you, chocolate will make you stronger

Mt Herbert - "North face"

The weekend has consisted of 3 runs around the flats of Ashburton. Today I took advantage of a board meeting in Diamond Harbour to go for a run up Mt Herbert. This is the highest point on Banks Peninsula, east of Christchurch, at 920 metres. Mt Herbert was named after Sir Sidney Herbert, the British secretary of war who was responsible for sending Florence Nightingale to the Crimea War. Thus, indirectly he was responsible for the birth of the nursing profession.

View of Southern Alps - stretches across an area 3x the size of Switzerland

The day started with benign spring warmth which progressively disappeared. The area is quite spectacular with its views but the hillsides are quite bleak having been denuded from fires and land clearances in the distant past. I ran past an area of skeletal dead trees which gave a graveyard eeriness to the run.

What trees there were certainly gave no doubt as to where the prevailing wind came from, as this stunted mountain totara , below, shows.

Fortunately as this was an "out and back" run/walk/stagger,  and the wind direction did not change,  I did not end up bald on one side of my head.

Running back up Mt Herbert after going partway along the peninsula summit track, I hit the wall.

Internal question : Why am I feeling so terrible?

Internal answer   : Because you nearly fifty, running up a stupid hill , it is  cold  and you are hungry

Internal Solution : Eat CHOCOLATE

Result                 : Yum. Caramello never tasted so good. Feel Better

Fortunately from thereon the run was all down hill so the 4 hr 17  min run saw me cover the grand total of 24 km with 1238 metres of ascent. This was one of the toughest outings I have done for a long time, so hopefully this will improve my endurance. Total of 94 km in the last 7 days. Managed to snooze through the board meeting without snoring.

Kia Kaha