Half Way Point - On Location in Matarangi

Week 9/18 of marathon training is done. This week was a bit disrupted because the family and I had been invited to the Whitiangi Scallop festival over the weekend. As part of this we were staying with friends at their bach in Matarangi. Of course I brought my running shoes for the off chance of getting my long run in. I did get to go running but was a little constrained by time pressures.

The scallop festival was quite good - typical food and wine thing with a scallopy theme.
My 5 year old son was getting bored by around 1pm so we headed to Matarangi early. In the afternoon I had convinced my wife I was only going to go running for "about an hour" and went for the following run. Put together the route by looking at one of the local tourist brochures.



A couple of moderate climbs in the middle to keep it interesting.

15.37km / 1:20:05 / 5:13min/km

Should have taken my camera the scenery was absolute magic. Pretty rural along the gravel/dirt Bluff road. Not exactly the planned 19k slow run but I didn't get in too much trouble by taking longer a little bit more than an hour. All about compromises ;)

Probably just as well I was a bit short on the distance - a few days running in a row is pushing things quite a bit so had Sunday and Monday as rest days.

Normal programming resumes this week.

We went for a walk on the beach later that afternoon. As you can see it was absolutely deserted. Bluff road follows the coast at the end of the beach.



Great to get out of Auckland for a weekend. Matarangi is a nice place too and a little off the beaten track compared to some of the more popular places in the Coromandel.