An eventful year

While in Cape Town I spent a day with a buddy that was totally 'frivolous'. It started with a productive 6am run with friends on the trail above Newlands on the side of the mountain. By 9am I was hooked up with the aforementioned buddy for eggie breakfast (soft boiled eggs with 'soldier' toast). We hit a market to check out stuff, meandered over to Hout Bay for lunch, via another crafty market in Constantia. Had lunch and meandered over to Kalk Bay to listen to music and hang out with peeps. Back in CT by dark and then I spent the evening chilling with other friends and watching stuff on telly.

In short, this is the kind of day that I rarely have. I enjoy shooting the breeze but for the most part my weekends involve events (ok, on this mentioned weekend I did a trail race the day before and then the mountain run with friends the next morning) and if I'm at home, then I'm usually tied to this computer doing something or other - although I have made a concerted effort to get off this computer and do other stuff - thus my crochet hobby. When I pronouned that, 'This is so decadent to just hang out and do 'nothing'" my friend asked, "So, how many events a year do you do?". Whoa! Good question.

After three years of Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge and then getting FEAT off the ground for Oct last year and running straight into the second FEAT in CT in Feb, I was hammered. Absolutely and totally pooped. I decided not to do any events - as in adventure races, except for the sprints with my girly team and orienteering - and to just chill for a few months.

When there's a gap, I fill it (hahaha) so I took up ashtanga yoga through my initiation to acroyoga (initially by Team Yogaslackers in Abu Dhabi). Ashtanga is so me and I went to classes twice a week for most of the year. I have really experienced great benefits from the practise. The wheels fell off the cart just before FEAT in October because I just had so much on my plate and I live a 30min drive (in no traffic) from the studio. Some Saturdays I did run or bike there but when time got tight it was just too much. So, I didn't do much in the way of events but I did go to yoga and most of the informal acroyoga sessions, which we had every two weeks or so in the first few months of the year.

I began the year with my fun, 'Seven days, seven friends, seven runs' project. This expanded to become '35 days of running' in the lead up to my 35th birthday. I'm going to do this again this year - '36 days of running' - starting on Monday, 14 May 2012.

To celebrate www.AR.co.za's 10th birthday, I organised a metrogaine. This is a time-limited, urban, point-scoring orienteering event. The first one rocked and so I organised another on the winter solstice. 72-odd runners braved the dead of Jo'burg winter to run and demanded more. I organised the third and final metrogaine for the year in October - almost 140 runners and walkers participated. I've got the first two of the three for 2012 scheduled on 11 April and 21 June 2012.

And, of course, there's orienteering, with events about every second Sunday on average. I went to a number of the short course events, which are easy navigation with fast running and are usually held in parks or on school properties. Surprise-surprise I won the senior category - but keep in mind that I was certainly beaten by a junior or two and a veteran or two. I didn't even think that I'd run enough events to complete the log.

In terms of the longer colour-coded orienteering events, which can take 1-2.5hrs and are held in more bushveld terrain, I didn't go to many of them in the last half of the year but I did run Gauteng Champs on my birthday weekend with one terrible run (on my birthday) and one ok run - nothing dazzling.

On the event side my girls team took part in the five-event Kinetic Adventure series of sprint adventure races. At only 20-30km, they're fun and fast and we have great fun and Team AR won the series overall.

I skipped the Kinetic Full Moon, Double Moon and Expedition Africa 500km races; and also the Ystervark events - all adventure races. I did run the inaugural Fish River Canyon Ultra - 65km run down the Fish River Canyon in Namibia - fabulous! That was at the end of August. And then it was through to the annual foot and bike rogaine in October, with Sarah.

I started a casual 'Full Moon Run' thing in February - inviting friends to run with me after dark on a full moon night (or a night near full moon). It went well in summer but fizzled in winter and then I got bogged down so I was slack about coordinating more. We did have one November... I'll probably bring this back for the first few months of the year.

In April I got away for my first non-event weekend away in some time. A bunch of us went to the Drakensberg over Easter weekend. We walked the trails and enjoyed the scenery - lovely ;)

As for workshops/classes; I still teach a once-a-week pole class (been three years now!), I taught three (or four?) navigation courses, attended an advanced pole workshop with Suzie Q (Australia) and two other pole jams/workshops; and some other odds.

So, for a year with  a reduced amount of events... at a guess I probably participated in 25-30 events, organised a bunch more and attended this and that. Oh goodness... when I reflect back - no wonder I've been so damn fried this month - so friend that I have not done a single of my intended 'December projects'.

I haven't had a proper holiday in a very, very long time. Like a two week holiday - away from home, email, computer... I know exactly what I want to do and where I want to go - it's about making this time for me and just booking that ticket. I really battle with stuff like this. True to my nature it won't be a total feet-up affair, but with just enough activity to keep me occupied. Now just to pick a date and book it...