Day 40 of '40 Days of Running'

Today is Day 40 of '40 Days of Running' and while most days have been smooth, some days my motivation definitely flagged, especially if I was really cold. But, as always, within 10 minutes of hitting the road I would be warm and into it.

For Day 40, I ran with my husky friend, Kiska. Warm afternoon sun, the tug of a husky on a leash and good companionship -  a great combination.

These 40 days have been very good for me. I've needed to commit to myself. I've needed a kick in the priority department - running priority department. I always appreciate the reminder that getting out for a 20 or 30 minute run, even in the dark night and cold of winter, can be done. It is all about defeating those lazy monkey voices and taking them for a run instead of listening to them!

I've also been doing yoga regularly with classes on Tuesday and Friday morning. This too is adding to my feeling of wellness.

This is on annual birthday challenge that I won't be passing up any time soon. I appreciate the benefits of having this focus in so many ways other than just fitness and exercise.

A very happy re-birthday, to me. To me.

My Saturday morning unfolded like this.

I got up really early on Saturday morning to take my turn as Run Director at our Parys parkrun. Poor Celliers gets roped into helping so he was up early too. We opened a gate, put out the turn-around signs and headed for the start. Celliers left me here to set up the start/finish while he went to open another gate.

Two smiling, familiar faces rock up. Iselle and Peter (aka 'The Red Fairy'). Yay! Jo'burg Forest Run friends to enjoy our local parkrun. We get many visitors to Parys parkrun. Some weekenders and others drop in just to run - parkrun tourists. It is always nice to have friends visiting.

The runners set off and the next hour is busy with runners returning and the usual finishline stuff.

Celliers stands chatting to Iselle and Peter. And then Fred rocks up. Yay! Another friend visiting. Fred meant to arrive in time for parkrun, but he took a scenic route.

Celliers tells me that we're all meeting for breakfast.

"Cool," I reply. "I'm just going to quickly process the results and then I'll find you about 20 mins later."

"No," he says. "Results can wait. You're coming to breakfast."

I'm hopping between legs.

"OK."

After packing up, Celliers and I go off to lock a gate and I ask him something about whether he knew they were coming through. He said he knew. I thought he was pulling my leg so I didn't really believe him.

With everything parkrun wrapped, me, Celliers and Fred head up the road to find Peter and Iselle at a table. 

My eyes settle on this awesome table decoration. It looks like a tall, round cake with a sparkly purple-green-blue icing and with lavendar stalks and flowery-looking puffs.

"Ooooohhh, This is neat!" I exclaim as I'm about to poke a finger into it to see what it is made of.

"It's REAL," says Iselle.

My finger halts millimetres from the 'table decoration'.

"It's your cake," she adds.

"Your birthday cake!"

And so the penny dropped.

This was a surprise for my 40th re-birthday (I was away in Chile on my birthday day this year - 18 June).

What an absolute surprise!

And even more of a surprise was that Celliers had been in cahoots with Iselle and he knew all about this surprise. My mom knew too, but with friends and relations visiting for her birthday (this past Sunday), she didn't join us for breakfast. Other Jo'burg friends were also part of the scheme but were unable to make it. Fred and Iselle did pass on their warm wishes.

We started breakfast with cake and tea. An absolutely delicious and colourful four-layer cake! Amazing texture and taste and icing. 

Eggies followed, accompanied by fabulous company.

Even more wonderful was their kind donation of five massive bags of maizemeal and an envelope of money for the little school in my Forest Run area, Mponeng Primary Farm School. I dropped these off at the school this morning together with the crocheted creatures (a dragon and a cow) that I made. They'll find a good home in the little children's class.

As we hardly made a dent in this impressive cake, I had loads to share with my neighbours.

Iselle, Peter, Fred and Celliers - thank you for my very surprise re-birthday. This was a very special surprise that I'll treasure for a very, very long time. xxx

Fabulous turning forty

We celebrated my 40th birthday in style today with a wonderful walk around a volcano crater (Raihuen), through the crater and with views of volcanoes all around. It would be hard to get better than this!

We stayed on Friday night (and tonight) in a cabaña on Lago Puyehue, near the town of Entre Lagos.

Late morning we drove to the Antillanca ski resort through the most spectacular forests. From about 30km before the park we could already see the clouds clearing and as we climbed upwards and upwards we were graced with blue skies and wispy high clouds. Below it was 2°C but up at the resort, in the sun and above the clouds, it was probably 8 or 9°C.

There is next to no snow around at the moment - no skiing is happening. It is a walker's paradise.

The area around Volcan Casablanca is complex - a bunch of cones and craters as well as the volcano itself. There must have been a lot of volcanic activity here at some stage.

We walked the 3km road to the Raihuen Crater and then enjoyed trails to the top of two 'cones'. From both of these the views were spectacular! We saw Volcan Orsono (the one that looks over Puerto Varas) as well as Volcan Puntiagudo and Volcan Puyehue. From this angle I'm not sure if we saw Volcan Calbuco too, which we saw beautifully yesterday when leaving Puerto Varas. There were some other snow-capped peaks visible but I'm not sure that they were volcanoes. Still, seeing and identifying four volcanoes on a birthday afternoon... what a win!

We walked halfway down the crater, descending down what looks like old lava flow from an eruption of Volcan Casablanca. And then we walked across the crater. Absolutely magical experience.

We had a delicious dinner at the small restaurant attached to the place where we're staying.

We haven't eaten out much so this was a treat. We've found restaurant food to be very expensive but also very good. Celliers has really spoilt me for my 40th birthday. 

Tomorrow we continue heading northwards and will pass through the small 'cities' of Orsono and Valdivia. We'll probably stay near Valdivia for Sunday night and then closer to Santiago for Monday night. We fly out Tuesday afternoon.