Happy Thanksgiving a few days late! I spent Thanksgiving at work *sadface* and had pasta for supper. I did manage to bump into a couple of fellow Americans that day though and we enjoyed reminiscing about how nice it would be to have turkey instead of work :)
I meant to post this a month ago when said weekend occurred, but my schedule in general has been rather marathon-ish since then so I am just now getting to it.
Back in September I agreed to be the horizontal harp player for the Orchestras final concert this year (horizontal harp because I was playing the harp part on a keyboard instead of a harp as there are unfortunately no harps to be found in New Plymouth). Then in October I decided to join the Powerco team for the Round the Mountain Relay. This was all well and good until I realized that both events were the same weekend. But I had committed to both already and chose to keep the commitment, so I was left with figuring out how to fit it all into one weekend.
Each spring, there is a relay around Mount Taranaki organized. Teams from businesses or just groups of people who want to form a team can enter. There are walking teams, running teams, and composite teams. This year there was also the option to do a solo run, which meant you were running all by your lonesome for a very long time.
The walking teams started Friday evening. The composite teams started at 11pm Friday night, and each member of those teams would run one leg and walk another. The run teams started at 230am Saturday morning. There were 21 legs to complete, for the running teams you could have up to 16 people, so a few had to kindly offer to more than one leg. The total distance was 150 kilometers. Our team completed it in 14:22, 13th out of 15 for the business class. We were just glad to not be last!
Saturday evening was the Last Night of the Proms orchestra concert. It was a combination New Plymouth Orchestra and New Plymouth Ars Nova Choir combined concert which also featured four local vocal soloists. It was an England/New Zealand patriotic concert which featured well known tunes from both sides of the pond such as "God Save the Queen" (same tune as My Country 'Tis of Thee, but notably different words!), Sea Shanties with Rule Britania, and Pomp and Circumstance also known as Land of Hope and Glory. The program also included classic works such as Wagners Bridal Chorus and Flying Dutchman overture and opera excerpts.
So how did all this fit into a terribly busy weekend?
Well, I had just enough time to grab dinner and a cup of tea before heading off to orchestra for the evening. Rehearsal was scheduled 7-10 pm as we needed to coordinate everything with the choir in terms of tuning, balance, sharing the stage, etc. We also had to sort out lighting and sound issues and run the program from start to finish. We managed to finish by 11pm, yippee.
I had a powernap and then met up with some of my fellow runners at 2am. The team had been split into groups for organization and transportation purposes as we were sharing company vehicles for getting to and from starting points. Our first runner got himself to the start of the relay as it was in town, so the plan was for us to head to where Leg 2 started, which was the bit I was running, for the first handoff. After the first 4 legs had been completed, we would all head back to town so the next group in our vehicle could take over (we were scheduled to be back just past sunrise, around 6am).
My leg of the relay was 9.5k long. I started at 315, finished at 405, which I thought was quite good since that was the fastest I'd run that distance in several weeks of training. I am quite certain that half the reason I ran so fast is because I was so cold, when I got to my finish point it was 40 degrees! Considering what it was though, I can say I did have fun. This was my first official "race" so it was a new experience for sure. There were people all along the route to offer encouragement and ensure it was well-lit. We were also equipped with plenty of lighting as well as reflective gear. Knowing there was a whole group of people running with you provided both a bit of competitiveness to keep going, and motivation in knowing you weren't the only one wondering why you were up at such a crazy hour to run. I had three hills, but it was dark enough I did not know for sure how big they were, so I kept assuming it was going to get worse than it did, which also seemed to make it a bit easier. When I got to my finish point, there was coffee (which I declined, but did have a snack), water, and plenty of encouraging congratulations.
I got back to town in time to warm up with a cup of tea, have a shower and breakfast, then I was off to orchestra again, armed with a coffee and some snacks to keep me awake. The rehearsal was planned from 9am - 1pm, but lucky for me we finished at 11am due to the hard work from the night before. So I was off to home for a nap. I found it surprisingly hard to go to sleep, but managed a couple hours and a good bit of relaxing before it was time to get ready for the concert.
I had to be at the theater by 7pm, as we started at 730. By the time I got home, it was nearly 1030 so it felt like a long night, but it was a good, tired accompanied by a feeling of accomplishment, and great plans to sleep in the next morning. The orchestra played well, the house was full, and the audience was enthusiastic. There was red, white, and blue decorating the theater, but it was in the wrong pattern :) Once we got past the classical selections on the program, I was not familiar with many of the tunes, but enjoyed observing the obvious pleasure from both listeners and performers with each new selection. I'd only heard Pomp and Circumstance as a graduation walk piece, so it was interesting to hear it performed with a choir. The New Zealand national anthem was performed in Te Reo (Maori) by a high school girls choir. Both the New Zealand anthem and God Save the Queen were arranged by an Australian (one of the conductors for the evening), which we found a bit amusing :)
I do not have plans to repeat such a schedule anytime soon, but looking back, I wouldn't have given up either experience simply to have a bit more sleep on Friday night :)
Happy Holiday season, and see some of you very soon!
