Anampofepistat

Matilda Bay 10k 2012

2012-01-22T16:40:00.002+08:00

It's been 'lite-n-easy' for me since 6 inch - first couple of weeks planned recovery and third week thanks to stepping on a bee.

2 weeks back of 70k each, and on to Matilda bay this morning.
I found the weather fairly oppressive - 25 and humid, even wearing my lightest mesh type singlet there was no evaporation.

Started out fairly fast - sitting 20m behind DB - 3:26/3:36/3:37. Things were quite congested, but the 4k runners turned off and it spread out.

At this point I started to feel the heat, and slowed down 3:46/3:50/3:51, gradually slipping further back from DB. Was passed and held onto the guy for a little while but started to blow up a bit with 3:56/3:53. During this section I was passed by another runner.

Turned at 8.4k and saw I had about 150m on the next guy behind me, and had a bit of a second wind finishing with 3:47/3:40.

Crossed in 37:30 (18:13/19:17) in about 10th spot.

I'm happy enough with this. it's interesting looking at pace adjustment charts for heat/humidity - most made by people in the US not too accustomed to heat, they tend to allow too much - one giving me a minute per mile for this temp!. I suspect I could have run between 5 and 10 sec/k faster today in perfect conditions, which fits with where I feel I should be.

DB ended up about 45 sec ahead of me, Roberto won, Gerry Hill second. I did beat big Kev, but i see on Coolrunning he ran a long run yesterday so I wont take much away from that.

Good to see the medical community running - Paul, Laurie and Tim all putting in solid performances.

2011 in Review

2011-12-31T17:07:00.002+08:00

Another interesting running year. My overall impression is of disappointment, but by the numbers it was another breakthrough year with PB in pretty much every event other than the marathon

Highlights:

March - Half marathon PB 1:22:03 Darlington
May - HBF Run 4 a Reason 13.9k 51:20, 43rd place, 3:41 min/k average (thru 10k @36:40)
June - First Place Lake Gwelup fun-run 6k - my first every fun-run win
August - Perth City to Surf 12k 44:26 PB
November - John Gilmour track 10k, 36:36 PB
November - Penninsula 5k, 17:29 - 2nd place
December - Six Inch Trail Ultramarathon 3hr45, 2nd place

Less successful outings:

Boston Marathon - I think a misguided attempt to protect my knee by training mainly on the flat and grass backfired, as the quads exploded in the last 10k

Perth Marathon - just missed sub 3hr

Run For Gold 10k (July) - 38:20

Some great progress in running this year esp from Clown and Biscuitman, as well as TB
All the best to B'man for a great marathon in Houston

Six Inch Trail Marathon 46k (47k!)

2011-12-18T12:18:00.002+08:00

What an interesting/fun day.

My leadup had been good, minimal niggles. I'd been a little anxious after the start list was published as I thought I might be in with a small chance of winning, but a last minute addition of Gerry Hill actually took some pressure off and I could relax re just running.

Managed 4hrs sleep overnight and left at 3am, getting a lift from my Dad down to North Dandalup.

I'd identified several runners around my level - Kevin Matthews, Brett Coombes, Lauren Shelley, Nate and Michael Barton.

The start is straight uphill for a couple of km, and unlike previous years I quickly found myself out in a clear second place. I dont necessarily love running in groups so I went with it and cruised along.

Unfortunately just 5k in I missed a turnoff and ran about 800m before luckily crossing path with Bernadette in a race control vehicle coming he other way - she stopped me, I jumped in and took me back to where I'd missed the turn. Garmin tells me I lost 5min10sec here and I rejoined with runners about 15th-20th.

Adrenaline got the better o me at this point and I ran like a man possessed through the field, such that by 13k I was second again, but had obviously had to run that 13k 5 mins faster than the others.

There was a pack of Nate, Michael, Brett,Kev and a German guy, but I decided to go past them and push on.

I stayed in this position through the 23k/halfway drink stop (1:45). Here I was told I was only about 5 min behing Gerry - so I guess if I'd not got lost I'd have still been near him at this point. I'd also gapped the others a bit.

Unfortunately at about 28k, coming on to Scarp road, I wasn't 100% sure which way to go, and spooked by the earlier experience, I waited for the others to make sure. Garmin tells me I lost 4min here, although only ran about 200m extra looking each way for arrows on the ground.

So I found myself back with the others at 30k, and again I tried to open up a lead. I was less successful this time, starting to get pretty tired in the legs. I hit the second aid station (2:44) and stopped briefly to exchange powerade bottles (50second stop on GPS). As I left the station, te others arrived. Brett didnt stop and was right on my hammer, whilst the others stayed for a while.

So I found myself with Brett with about 9k to go. I have to give him a lot of thanks here as I was really struggling with motivation and with hammered quads from the hills I told him to head off ahead. He wouldn't hear of it and cajoled me to keep pace with him, a pattern we maintained for the rest of the race. As in 2009, despite feeling pretty shot at this point, we were ran 5min km average for the last 7km. I had a faster running pace so would run for 500m-1k, stop for a walk and Brett would catch me running slowly but continously.

In the last 500m I pulled away - I suspect thanks to Brett letting me, and finished in 2nd place in 3hrs45min flattish. (Gerry did 3:31)

So it was an up and down race - big PB and second place. Had I not got lost or waited for the others, I still would have finished second. How much faster I would have finished is not clear. Probably not the full 9 minutes I lost in my 2 misadventures , but I would like to think I would have been under 3:40. I did benefit from running with Brett near the end, but also I think was forced to overdo things early to recatch the bunch.

Either way it was a great day. TB ran his 6th race in a big PB, Mark O'Keef who I gave a lift to ran very well. I overheard Lauren say she took the early going very easy, being her first ultramarathon, but she flew home to finish only about 3 min behaind me. I think BigKev sffered the effects of a big season and finished in a similar time to Lauren, and Nate just missed his sub 3:50 goal.

An afternoon sleep in front of TV is looking good about now.

Taper for SixInch

2011-12-04T21:23:00.002+08:00

Week One 107k@4:30

Tues pm intervals - 400 reps - went a bit too hard and cut it short at 5

73, (400m float 104sec) 72 (104) 74 (104) 73 (standing recovery) 75

Wed - 16k treadmill run first 8k increasing incline by 1% every km, second 8k flat and increasing speed - last 5k at 4:00

Sunday 30k solo long run - too lazy to go and race at Deepwater

Week Two 87k@4:29

First taper wek pre Six Inch - had my first day off for a few weeks, more due to busy work than part of taper plans. Every run this week was done on the hills and 'trails' of Bold Park (such that they are trails) except Sunday

Tuesday the track was partly closed, so I did 5x Raebold Hill repeats - kept an even pace throughout.
Mon/Thurs/Fri/Sat were runs of 10-16k as mentioned around Bold Park
Sunday - was timekeeper for the Founders run so ended up doing 20k pm on the treadmill. 1st 10k at 4:30's with progression of incline, next 10k flat at 4:00s.

Friday night didn't end up making it down to the track to race a 1500m (forgot to join a club online in advance), this may need to wait until the New year.

Two weeks until SixInch now - taper fits well because I've lost a bit of my training Mojo - I dont seem to be able to sustain a block of more than about 6 weeks of full training.

Penninsula 5k Race

2011-11-20T15:52:00.002+08:00

A couple of weeks since I posted

Week 1 103k@4:34

Tuesday night 6x800m intervals on the track 2:43/2:39/2:41/2:41/2:39/2:32 - jog recovery for half, standing for half. I ran these in the Saucony Hattori (barefoot type shoe) which felt very fast, but left me with very sore calves for the next 3 days

Sunday am 32k@4:40 with Clown - ran on the flat 'round the river which felt easy - reminds me how undulating my usual runs are.

Week 2 94k@4:29

Tuesday pm Mona interval (20min) on the track - 5.56k on the track (Garmin read 5.86!) - new Mona PB for me, and still felt controlled. Again ran in the Hattori and again took the rest of the week for the calves to recover - think I'll persevere and hope this improves

Sun am Penninsula 5k Race 17:26

Didn't really taper for this - ran 15k tour de Bold Park loop on Sat am.

Arrived at 6:15 and did 7k warmup with a few strides at the end
The 10k went off 5 min before the 5k, and most of the good runners (Roberto, Chris O'Neill and Stephen Stockwell) were in that, leaving a fairly small 5k field, even though the 5k was the club championship race.

I tried to squeeze in the front line at the start amongst the kids who invariably seem to fill it, and ended up starting just behind Tommy Lovekin, who'd run 33min at John Gilmour.

Started out fairly fast to ase the congestion and by 1k I'd settled in to 3rd place. Tommy was way out ahead (he stopped to do up his lace at 1k and still was ahead once he got up - must have done 3 flat) then a guy who seemed to be running comfortably in second - I later found out was Matt Di Masi - who won the B race at John Gilmour in 35:xx.

I was feeling pretty good, 3:22 then 3:40 slower prob with the turns onto the bridge. There was a reasoable easterly blowing so I was keen to push early on knowing there'd be a headwind 2.5-3.5k.

The race was well set up motivation wise - Matt was 30m ahead of me coming to halfway so I had someone to focus on, and unusually for me I never thought about someone behind me catching up - I was focussed on second.

Halfway hairpin in 8:50 - although I didn't look at my watch once during the race. Running back into the wind I focussed on holding ground on second, planning on a final km acceleration.

3:26/3:30 kms 3 and 4.

I accelerated down the hill off the bridge and strated to make some ground on Matt - passing him and trying hard to make the pass stick (something I thought about after B'Man passed me last race - need to keep going by the person you pass). Tommy had obviously blown himself up a bit with the fast start, and was only about 10 sec in front of me and looking behind. I was no chance of catching him but it made me feel good about my finish. Final k 3:20 (plus a little extra on Garmin)

Felt really happy with the result - my first podium in a non-handicap WAMC race. Went for an easy 5.5k cooldown before collecting my medal (!)

Met Dan Macey afterwards who, despite training with Big Kev at times, is a very nice guy. He's doing some Friday night track races this summer and the discussion reconfirmed my desire to do a track 3k and 1500m in the next couple of months to round out some PBs.

John Gilmour Track 10000m

2011-11-05T13:13:00.004+08:00

36:34 - pretty much a par effort on predictions. PB offically by a minute, although I've run the first 10k of city to surf(12k) and Run4aReason(14k) in sub37 this year

I had a little scare at 4am Friday when I was woken by a calf cramp. I'm lucky in that this is only the second true cramp I've ever had, but boy are they painful. After the minute or two of stomach-turning pain, the upper calf was sore all day. Luckily this didn't affect me at all whilst I was running. It was pretty sore afterards though.

Had a 3k warmup with B'Man then did 2 laps with a run through down the back straight. My legs felt flat so I stopped it there.

The field was pretty impressive, and almost immediately 2 separate packs formed - the first dozen then a gap to my pack which I was near the front of. Unfortunately the guy in front of me pushed the straights then propped on the bends, a pattern which continued for about the first 4km. I ended up running wide quite a bit. Luckily when the main pack passed us he tried to go with them, burnt out, and fell back behind me.

I started 82/85/84/85/86/88/88/88 (3k in 10:38) and maintained 88s til halfway in 17:58 - just where I planned to be.
From 5-8k I slipped to 90 sec lap averages, slowest 91, and was a bit in no mans land as I waited for B'man to catch me. I didn't feel too bad, never felt like I wouldn't finish it off, and I suspect if he caught me earlier I might have run a few seconds faster.

B'man caught me bang on 8k, and immediately took a 10m gap, which I was able to hold for 4 laps. I thought I might have a shot in the last lap, but he took off hard and got out to 30m, and I didn't narrow that (last 2 laps 87/83)

Pleasingly I felt pretty good afterwards, but think I ran pretty close to my current potential.
As per last year it was interesting to see how fast Roberto Busi runs (he won easily despite stopping to tie his shoes) and impressed again by Cody's effortless style in second - he even offered a word of encouragement as he passed me - the best I could do was raise a hand in thanks.

So that's my first PB of this spring/summer - think I'll do the 5k at Penninsula Run in a fortnight to break a soft/old 5k PB (I think my official 5k PB is 18:57 from a couple of years ago!)

Everybody's shuffling

2011-10-30T13:00:00.003+08:00

97k this week - only ran 5 days

I've been playing tennis on Sunday arvos the last few months, and whilst doubles is fairly sedate, last week it was singles. My tennis gameplan is 'keep it in at all costs/wait for my opponent to make a mistake' ( I dont have much of a 'weapon' in my groundstroke arsenal). This means I end up scrambling around the court. Last week I twinged my hammy running for a drop shot - so I took Monday off as a precaution.

Tuesday I ran a double to compensate - am 10k easy, pm 15k including track intervals - 3x1600 with 500m jog between - 5:20/5:40/5:30
Wed 17.5k @ 4:32
Thurs 10.5@4:39
Fr 12.5@4:38
Sat - felt a bit viral - went for a 'power walk' with Mrs Epi, and a couple of km on the treadmill
Sun 30k@4:30 including Hale Rd

Nice to log my first 30k for a while - rewarded myself with my favorite post long run treat - frozen raspberry drink from McDonalds

Still running mainly in the Saucony Kinvara 2 - on my second pair after going somewhere between 800 and 1000k in my first pair. I may have mentioned previously that these are the only shoe I run in without orthotics. I seem fine in these for track intervals to long runs and everything in between. I still alternate days in DS racers and Mizuno Musha.

My mum is popping over to the US soon, so I might get some more, although would also like to try the brooks green silence, new balance 1400s and saucouny a4.

Friday is the track 10k race. I think I'm in 36:40 form but would love to break 36, and intend if feeling good to run the first 5k in just on/under 18 and see what's left in the tank.

Building a little base

2011-10-23T22:14:00.002+08:00

4 weeks since the last post, and I've progressed generally as planned
Unfortunately week 1 was affected by a viral infection - jet lag and straight back to work didn't agree with each other obviously.

week 2 90k, all easy to mid paced and a 24k Sunday long run

Week 3 102k,
Tuesday solo interval session on the track Tuesday - 3k in 10:28 then 4x400m,
Sunday 27k long run including Hale Rd

Week 4 104k
Tuesday solo interval session - 4x1k/200m float - covered track 5k in 17:58, 2min standing recovery then 2x1k with 200m float, similar pace.
Saturday 10k tempo in 39:10 - midday run in somewhat warm/humid conditions
Sunday 25k long run over Hale Rd

I feel I'm probably back where I was before my holiday now, with 10k race on the 4th November a little earlier than I'd like in terms of fitness, but should still be able to break a 'soft' official 10k PB of 37:30

On a side note, I bought a scond hand treadmill today. I was a little reluctant to post this as I know treadmill running is anathema to many running purists, especially in Perth. I really just dont cope with the hot weather in Perth summer, and have suffered before from the results of trying to get out there on very hot days.Last year I took several trips to gyms esp for afternoon runs on treadmills.

After a bit of research I was left to decide between a new 'home' treadmill from Orbit/Elite/Rebel etc or a second hand 'commercial' one. I ended up getting an ex-gym Life Fitness treadmill which is one most of us will have run on at various commercial and hotel gyms over the years. It was cheap but obviously, without a warranty, only time will tell if it was a bargain!

Planning My Summer

2011-09-25T19:12:00.003+08:00

Just back from a 3 week holiday - including 2 weeks Mediterranean cruise. Fantastic holiday although didn't do large amounts of running.

I ran twice in Hyde Park/Kensington Park in London, one of the two being in the heaviest rain I've ever run in. Despite this it was a great environment to run, better for me than Central Park. I also ran twice in Villa Borghese Rome - which despite being smaller than the aforementioned 2 parks, was perhaps the nicest of all 3 to run in.

Then it was on to the boat and, as Sling Runner terms it, the dreadmill. Although the treadmills were set up to look directly forwards from deck 9 with some spectacular scenery at times, I still couldn't manage more than an hour in a session. Overall managed about 210k for the 3 weeks, so hopefully not much lost in terms of fitness. I do feel a little flabby after 24hr/day free food and excessive amounts of alcohol, but the scales suggest I've only gained about 1.5kg, so this should be shed rapidly in Sober'Tober.

So my thoughts turn to the remainder of the running year. The basic plan is - solid training block in October, John Gilmour 10k track and Penninsula 5k in November - hopefully to round out a year of PBs in all distances other than the marathon. It also seems that Masters track Tuesday nights will now be on the synthetic track at AK reserve, rather than previously on the grass at McGillvray. If this is the case it will be perfect to swap current track intervals on tuesdays to some track races at the same time and place. Potentially this could have me setting PBs in 800,1500,3k,5k,6k,8k,10k,12k,14k and HM this year (although many of these will be the first time I've run these distances in my adult life) Finally if the body holds up I'll round out the year with the 45k Six Inch trail marathon.

My mantra for the summer will be plenty of short races and only medium mileage training, without taking things too seriously. Let's see how things pan out.

Perth City to Surf 2011 - 12k

2011-08-28T16:00:00.003+08:00

A bit of a prologue - I'd had a bit of trouble getting a 'priority start' for this race. I entered 3 weeks in advance online and thought I'd got a priority start, but a check email received mixed results - 2 people replied, one saying I was and one that I had missed out. Going to the expo on Friday I picked up my number and found I was just in the general start. I proceeded to the help desk where I told the girl I was supposed to have a priority, so she took out a yellow sticker and wrote - 'approved for priority' on it and slapped it on my bib. In the end I didn't need to prove a time at all.

On to this morning. Arrived early and did about 3k easy with 5x100m strides. It wasn't clear to me where the priority starters were to assemble, so I went o the front of the 'a' section. There were several other priority guys around me and I saw B'Man and Sugar nearby, so I felt safe. A voice came over the speakers saying in a few minutes the priority runners would be called to the start. A few minutes went by and the same voice sadi 'all A group runners to the start'. I exchanged confused looks with the other priority runners around me and tried to dash in with the 5000 other runners. Coming on to St Georges Tce I madly dodged/pushed through people and had got to perhaps 15 rows from the front before the gun went off. In the rush I hadn't set my gps, and stupidly was wearing my new Garmin 610 - which I've only worn twice, and gave up trying to just start the stopwatch on the run.

The first 2k was spent passing people, and at 3k I came up to Biscuitman . I could see DB about 50-100m ahead - he stayed pretty much exactly that distance ahead of me for the whole race. Midrace I concentrated on not going too fast, and sat aroung Lauren Shelley - who was the first woman.

The 6k hill was a bit of a shock to the legs, but I passed several up it, although most repassed me back down the other side. As many have said, the turns through Perry Lakes and the grass section lost rhythm/momentum compared with the old course.

On tho the last set of hills and although I slowed a bit, I held my relative position over them, and felt I was sprinting down the other side, although not gaining on anyone.

I didn't have a final srint but wasn't passed through the finish line.

Unfortunately I didn't see the finishing clock and had no watch, so I'm not sure of my time. Lauren apparently did 44:22 and DB said he did 44:15, so I'm pretty confident I was under 45 - which was the goal.

Felt pretty good afterwards, and after watching family members finish their respective races I jogged the 6k home.

Perth Marathon 2011

2011-06-19T17:35:00.002+08:00

First up - congrats to Biscuitman, who ran a sensational PB today. It was well deserved after the most disciplined/thorough training program focussed on this run that I have seen by a runner of our level.

And commiserations to Sling Runner who made the journey over despite physical injurie and environmental hazards, only to be forced to pull out fairly early on.

As for me - it was an interesting run. I ha the lowest key leadup ever for me an a marathon. On saturday I worked til lunch, spent the afternoon dealing with the ins&outs of a Mother-in-law in hospital, and then went out for a family dinner to celebrate my little sister's 21st ( held myself to one glass of red only). So there was not alot of time to ruminate on the run.

At the start I headed out with Laurie Dembo - unfortunately I lost contact with Sling from the very start. I had been expecting a 3hr pace 'bus' of sorts, but there was none really to be seen - I was running at about 4:10s for the first 15k and there was a group well over a minute ahead, and another a reasonable way behind. Unfortunately this meant I ran the entire stretch along the freeway alone, only towards the end seeing Mick Francis and one of the leading women abou 100m ahead

7k 29:12
14k 58:30 (29:18)
21k 88:07 (29:37)

These were Garmin distances, which reads a little long
I ran past the half way clock in 88:50

I was feeling OK for most of the first half, but it seemed there were no pre-dropped drinks at the Como station, which left me without a drink from 6k-18k, and I was starting to feel it. Luckily I had drinks at 18,23&28 so caught up a bit.

During this middle section I passed a few people, including Mick and the aforementioned female runner. I also saw Geoff Reynolds falling back after his very fast start and focussed on slowly reeling him in - hoping to be the fastest doctor in the race at least!

Doing this I had sped up a bit and ran the 21-28k 7km split in 29:07. I had decided I wasn't in the mood for pain and thought I'd get over the Canning Bridge and to 32k then walk/jog home.

Just as I was preparing for this, DB came by on his bike with some words of encouragement and rode with me for 600-700m, just enough to get me back in some rhythm and a more positive mindset. I also started making some ground on 2 guys ahead.

Next came Clown, again as I was fading mentally - and I gratefully accepted his offer of running along with me (ironically, after dismissing the idea when discussed on Friday night!). This really helped my mindset, and I decided at least to push on to the Narrows and 36km before adopting the walk/jog strategy. In the process I passed the two runners and then a third at the narrows.

28-35k split 30:05 so still on pace

I managed to run on to about 37k when my mind and body ran out of juice and I walked a few seconds and had a drink, but got going pretty quickly. I did this again one more km down the road, although the splits didn't slow too much - 4:21/4:42/4:37 for 38/39/40th kms

Next ahead was Colin Francis, and I managed to pass him too, although one of the runners I passed earlier was resurgent, passing me when I stopped and me returning the favour when restarting. I managed 4:46 for the 41st km and unfortunately knew that I was going to just be off the pace. Despite picking it up to 4:00 pace for the last 600m, I came in 3:00:30 by the Garmin

For those who like 5k splits: 20:53/20:57/20:52/21:13/20:47/20:58/21:35/22:34/10:37 last 2.4k on Garmin

So I'm happy with the result,and although I would have been very happy to run a minute , I'm not upset as I may have been with other marathons which I had trained specifically for. It was my 7th and fastest Perth Marathon.

Now for some rest

1 week 'til Perth Marathon

2011-06-12T21:20:00.002+08:00

78k this week
Mon 6k race as previously documented
Tues am 10.1k @ 4:29- last 5k of city to surf 12k course and back
Tues pm 7.8K @ 4:36 - had a jog/chat with DB prior to his interval session
Wed pm 13k @ 4:24 - Bold Park loop
Fri am 10k @ 4:18 - as per Tues
Sat am 10.9k @ 4:18 - challenge funrun loop
Sun pm 14.9k @ 4:23 - Bold Park loop

I must admit to having some second thoughts re Perth Marathon - I have done one run over 20k in the 8 weeks since Boston, and although I've got great remnant 10k pace, I'm not sure about endurance. Add to that my little sister's 21st B'Day dinner the night before the marathon.

But two things bring me back to doing it. Number one is I still want to do 10 years straight (this will be 7). Number 2 is that Sling is making the journey from Singapore, despite significant injury, and so if he can get up to run it, I damn well should be able to drive the 15minutes to run with him! HTFU Epi.

I know even if I dont run well I'll be happy to have been out there a part of it, whereas if I dont, I'll likely regret it. And I'm certainly not discounting the possibility of a sub 3 if I have good day - my short distance form is good enough and you dont really lose much fitness in a few weeks of reduced mileage.

DB has told me there are a couple of others interested in heading out at a 4:10min/km pace - including Tony Stahl who DB tells me is pretty obsessive with keeping to exactly to his planned splits - so hopefully there'll be a bit of a 'bus' going at least for the first 30k.

The running itself has been very pleasant, played some tennis as part of my goal to de-prioritise running in my life, and apart from a bit of persistent left hammy soreness the body feels good. The knee continues to be behaving, thus my continued hilly runs through Bold Park or if in the dark along the last 5k of the City to Surf 12k course and back (up over the oceanic dr hill).

Lake Gwelup Fun Run (6k)

2011-06-06T16:55:00.003+08:00

Started this week well, with 50k in the first 3 days, including a good interval session on Tuesday night in the Hattoris - 16k all up and no problem with pain.

Unfortunately got sick with a virus on Friday and only ended up running 70k for the week.

Today was a public holiday in Perth (Foundation Day, soon to be 'WA day') and I decided on a funrun:

Feeling better after a virus in the last couple of days, I decided to still do Lake Gwelup. My practice is in Gwelup, so lots of the kids and their parents are my patients – a certain amount of pride involved.

This was a 2 lap event. The start was fairly congested but luckily the caller asked the 6k runners to come to the front seeing a sea of kids at the starting line. So I had a fairly free start, although at 1k I was about 12th .By 2k I was 6th and at the end of the first lap there were 2 in front of me, both running the one lapper, and a two lapper by my side. This turned out to be Kyle Eager, who’s a 36-37min 10k runner (ran 36:40 at Bridges this yr).

I knew things would get congested at in the last 2k, so I tried to keep the pace up for the 4th km, and from the rceding sound of Kyle’s breath, had gapped him by 50m or so.

Very quickly came the traffic of walkers and pram-pushers, on a bike path with very little space either side. I picked my way through, slowing a bit because of this. Things opened up again in the last km and I ran most of it on the grass on the side of the path.

I kept a little in reserve in case I was chalenged, but never heard his breathing again, and won by 15-20 seconds.

22:10 was good – I think about a minute faster han B’Mans time of a couple of years ago, although these days he’s have been faster again. For me this was more like 10k effort today, which was pleasing.

Splits: 3:22/3:35/3:35/3:42/3:51/3:39/+100m

I think I benefited from there being a number of runs this weekend and a marathon 2 weeks away. Certainly surprised a few of my patients who dodn’t know I ran!

Now to taper

3 weeks to Perth

2011-05-30T10:05:00.002+08:00

Ran about 85k this week - nothing too exciting to report

10k am, 11k pm Tuesday each 4:25-4:30
16k@4:25 wed
12k Friday 4:30
11k Saturday 4;30
23k Sunday 4;35

Achilles and left hammy giving me some strife after last Sunday's race, so it was all easy/medium, but nearly all on hilly terrain around Bold Park.

Sunday's longer run felt terrible - combination of little carb intake the night before, none on the morning, and the after effects of a tennis game on sat pm.

I expect to run similar mileage the next two weeks before tapering to 40-50k in the leadup six days to perth

I've decided to aim for just under 3 hours, hopefully running with Sling and Clown

Run For A Reason 14k (13.9k)

2011-05-22T17:34:00.002+08:00

13.9k in 51:20 (3:41min/k average)

It was a bit of a last minute decision to run this, entered midweek. My intentiona had been to run at tempo effort.

Wasn't sure what to expect - very little running last 2 weeks (about 80k total) . I've decided pre-race issues make no difference for me in this sort of race. I cooked dry aged beef last night, with about 4 standards of red wine, little carbs other than some mash. I had nothing other than water this morning pre race. I did no warmup as I wanted to be near the front of the start and hadnt organised a seeded start. I took nothing during the race. I ran in Kinvara without orthotics - I've only done 30k in them. Despite all this I raced really well and dont think doing the 'right' things would have made me any faster today.

I arrived about 7:30 and went straight into the start corral near the front. Saw the 'elites' B'Man and Sugar ahead. Once they let the barriers down and we shuffled forward I was about 4 rows back from the start line, and not impeded.

My plans of an easy run went out the window early as I saw B'Man about 20m ahead and decided to stick to him for a while (I knew he was looking to run hard, and is in great shape)

3:26/3:38/3:39/3:46/3:34 to be 18:02 at 5k - with BMan and feeling OK. Went under the tunnel and coming out up an incline BMan took me and I thought I might have gone out too hard. But I resisted the urge to go with him and just kept pace, slipping about 5sec/k further back for the rest of the race.

3:38/3:41/3:46/3:45/3:41 - got to 10k in 36:34 (I think the marker was actually 36:42) - a big 10k PB for me. B'Man was probably about 10-15 sec ahead of me here.

On the course I thought I was actually 37:42 to 10k and still felt happy with that! Just needed to hang on.

3:49/3:47/3:46/3:23 (3:39pace last 900m) to finish 13.9k in 51:20

I lost 3 places in the last 4k. Just before the 13k mark someone flew by me at 3min/k - was Mona who had started with the masses and started trying later in the race! I was very happy the finish had changed this year to be 500m shorter.

So overall really happy with the effort - more residual fitness than I gave myself credit for and a big 10k PB along the way. Only body issue is really sore calves thanks to the Kinvaras low heel:toe drop. Otherwise they felt great, and so stable I feel OK without orthotics. This means they are effectively my lightest shoes as with al other lightweights I need the orthotics.

Belated Boston Report

2011-05-16T13:41:00.001+08:00

Whoops - belated report from Boston - put it on Strands a while back but neglected here. The delay might indicate that I was a little disappointed:

A belated post on the marathon. Lots of potential excuses for a disappointing performance, but in the end two most likely reasons. 1. Inadequate hill training – thought I was protecting my knee but ended up having my quads give out on me at 32k. 2. Unrealistic pace expectation – for a number of reasons I wont go intoGood conditions on the day as well documented, felt OK. A little jetlagged but i dont think this affected me. Ran pretty steady and at the pace I’d wanted for the first half, but at the first sign of hills knew I was in some trouble.The big difference to last year was that then I was able to maintain a sub 5min/k pace when I ran into trouble. This year my quads cramped rather than hiting the wall per se, and I was reduced to a straight-legged scissor like gait that was so slow walking was nearly as fast. Lots of time was lost.Clearly I was pretty disappointed with the outcome, although my effort was at least as much as last year, so I cant be disappointed about that. I know what I need to do in training to run the marathon faster, but I’m not sure I have the dedication to do it – I certainly don’t at the moment.

Darlington HM

2011-03-14T15:05:00.002+08:00

Again apologies for my blogging laziness.
Training since last post has been average 100km per week. Have got in a few 30k plus long runs including 36k last week at 4:25s with Clown. Monaghetti camp was a bit of a bust after I sprained my ankle on the Saturday morning. It didn't stop me running, although it's still a bit swollen and sore if I turn sharp corners.

Darlington HM yesterday was a key run for me, my only race in the 4 month leadup to Boston. I came in with 70k Mon-Sat and my first day off in over a month on Thursday when I felt a bit off colour. So I was pretty fresh. I PB'd in 1:22:03

Here's my strands entry:

Pleased with this result. I'd set a goal for 1:22:30 - to be 3 and a half minutes/10sec per km faster than last year on this course, and meeting my 2:54 aim for Boston (HMx2 plus 9minutes for this one as it's a hard course)Wanted to run by feel, not pace. Set out fast enough to clear the crowds onto the kitty litter track for the first 3k. Then turned to the steep down and up loop that B'Man loves so much - at this point my shins were screaming and I was glad Clown didn't run. Next section was the 5-11k steady uphill. Sat in a pack with BigKev and B'Man (although I didnt realise he was there!) I ran at the front of the pack, perhaps stupidly taking the brunt of the wind, but I dont think it mattered much. Around the turnaround the pack broke up, and it was a matter of concentrating on maintaining pace. Big Kev flew off int the distance, and I knew Simon was just on my tail. I still felt steady and strong until abut 17k when I started to struggle, although I wasn't passed. I passed one guy at about 18k, then went onto the trail again. I really concentrated on my footing after the recent ankle sprain, and waited for Simon to catch me, thinking I had nothing left in the tank to go with him.I found out afterwards that he was feeling just as bad at this point. I turned to the finish with the clock at 1:21:55, and didn't quite manage to go under 1:22. This was an all out effort really, didn't have much more to give . Last 10k in 37:25 - faster than my 10k PB!5k splits (2010 in brackets)
19:55 (20:38)
20:17 (21:05)
19:02 (19:58)
18:34 (19:38)
4:10 (4:30)

I see this as consistent with a 2:53 target for Boston. It also makes me wonder what I could run a flat/ all road HM in currently, although I've always set PBs on hilly courses so it might not be much faster.

5 weeks to Boston and things look good. Mona told me to respect the HM effort and take things easy this week. He also suggested the last really long run should be 6 weeks out, so I'll do 32 max this sunday, 28-30 the next and then taper from there,

Training well

2011-02-06T14:24:00.002+08:00

A bit of a while since my last post, but training is going OK

I had a bit of a scare with a small hamstring tear in mid Jan, but really only stopped me for a couple of days, and off fast stuff for a week & a half.

Still managed 426km@4:32 average in January, and 105k@4:30 this week.

This week included a solo 10k tempo/tempoplus timetrial in 37:50 to make up for missing the 10k race at Matilda Bay, would like to think I'd sneak under 37 in a 10k race on current form

I've done 30 and 32k runs the last 2 sundays, and hope to do another 6 in the leadup to Boston

I've continued to include barefoot running on grass in pretty much all of my recovery runs, doing 15-20k of this each week. I feel it is helping my recovery and makes it much easier to do 10k recovery on the days I feel like crap. Mild strain on the achilles initially has disappeared now.

2010 in review

2011-01-06T17:20:00.002+08:00

Belated New Years post - just got back from a week down south.

Managed 117k for the last week of the year, and 430km for December

Running in Albany was great, Yallingup less so, but managed o run every day and just did holiday running - no sessions per se.

2010 Review - 'an interesting year'

January - Knee injury and surgery - pretty much no running for the month
Feb - started running again with Boston as target
March - big training month and great HM run at Darlington, Mona camp was a highlight
Stress reaction in femur/'thigh splints' made me stop running entirely
April - mixed blessings - almost no running in the 3 weeks leadup to Boston, but still managed a great 3:01
May - recovery
June - 3:11 Perth marathon off 4x70km weeks was pleasing
July-September - flare of knee, moving house meant little running, no races
October - back to training gradually and an 85min HM showed promise
November - 10k track PB 37:30, 28:02 7.5km race and more consistent training
December - 430km, consistent interval sessions and the body holding together

2011 Ahead - the goal is sub3hr at Boston (a more aggressive goal is PB, and mre aggressive still is 2:54.

My plan is 100km plus weeks consistently whilst managing the knee, hopefully will bring back in a medium long midweek run, perhaps at the expense of Tuesday intervals.

Target leadup races : Matilda Bay 10k 23rd Jan, Darlington Half Marathon 13th March
I'll also be doing the Monaghetti camp again in March

Eyes on Boston

2010-12-12T16:24:00.003+08:00

Flights and hotels booked, 18 weeks to go - ready to start thinking about Boston

Last 2 weeks have been the start - 86k last week (@4:30), 100k this week (@4:33)

The body is holding up OK - knee niggles intermittently, some problems with right adductor.

Those who have followed my running over recent years know that I don't follow specific training plans per se. I tend to have a general direction of training and decide day to day how I feel.

So for this time -
Rest of december will be becoming comfortable at 100k/week.
Jan-March:
1. As much mileage as my body can cope with injury free (not sure what this will be - 100, 110,120?)
2. Long run weekly the focus - looking to vary terrain, pace, length
3. Midweek medium long run hopefully peaking at 25k MP
4. A second quality session of tempo, fartlek, longer intervals or hills.

Taper will be quite severe - after my experience at Boston this year - I felt so fresh on marathon day having done about 25k total on treadmill in the leadup 7 days.

2 light weeks in training will be week of Matilda Bay 10k and of Darlington HM.

Only getting in to USA on th Thursday before the Monday Marathon, so will need to look at jetlag coping stategy

Deepwater Point 7.5km

2010-11-28T21:29:00.002+08:00

Two weeks since my last post - I was struck down by a Norovirus gastro last weekend - missed out on the Penninsula run and wasn't back to full training until Wednesday

Deepwater Point today, note from my Strands account:

For the second time in 2 months I braved the journey South of the River. As usual I was surprised how normal people are down there. Sure they may be missing a few teeth and have an extra finger here and there, but they seem nice and the Banjo music is soothing.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect, it was a bit windy but in the end I don’t think it affected my performance much.

Started out fairly fast to avoid congestion, and was overtaken by Clown and B’Man within a km. Over the next couple of k they moved out to about 50m ahead of me. Luckily for me, Biscuitman stayed in sight and I had some sort of motivation to keep pushing. It seemed I was going to stay the 50m behind, but quite suddenly it seemed in the 5th km I was suddenly upon him, and managed to sneak ahead over the bridge.

In the process I went through 5k in 18:23 on the Garmin, so a new PB. I was expecting to have a nice tailwind for the last 1.5k but it was more across me, and I resorted to counting breaths to make it through the distance.

On the plus side my last 3.5km were very evenly paced at 3:45s and the 28:02 is pretty much on a par with predictions given my recent 10k time.

The Zoots felt pretty good, a little slappy on the footstrike when I was getting fatigued (again as a midfoot striking shoe they dont work too well if you fall back on your heels). I’ll try the fasttwitches this week.

Clown cruised at a pretty consistent 5sec/km faster than me for a great race for a man with only 9 functioning toes, whilst after looking very comfortable at Clown’s pace for the first couple of km, B’man slipped back a bit over the last 3km.

Looking at the elevation chart from Garmin, it appears I dove 40m below sea level at 3k (Mt Henry Bridge)! Had I stayedat sea level I might have won the race:)

The referene to the Zoots is one of my 3 new pairs of shoes. Dad went to the US last week so I got him to bring back some shoes - Mizuno Wave Elixir, and Saucon Fasttwitch. $80 each, hard not to get given the current exchange rate. My cousin, who is a triathlete, ad a spare pair of Zoot shoes (one of his sponsors) that he wasn;t wearing, so I got them too.

The Zoots are a midfoot striking type shoe, in a triathlon style with elastic laces/slip on and an inbuilt sock. I have really enjoyed them on my 2 outing so far, although with little heel rubber they are only good for faster stuff.

The Mizunos were a decision after seeing Sugar running in them, and my recent experience with Mizuno Idaten racers (now discontinued I think). They are a lightweight trainer with some support for pronation. They felt good but quite firm ( I likened them to running with a bathroom tile strapped to your foot). I'll need to gie them some more time. On the upside they fit quite well and have a good heel-forefoot transition.

I'm yet to wear the Sauconys but everyone who's anyone is wearing them right now. What happened to the days of everyone weaing Asics?

These new shoes mean I've run in pretty much all brands now. I've never had much success with Brooks - always seems to have poor transition leaving my feet slapping the ground. Nikes have had a narrow toebox although I'd like to give the Lunar series another shot. Adidas - good. Asics - very good. New Balance - yet to find a model I like - too clunky generally. I've nt run in Reeboks - maybe my next speculative buy.

Holding back

2010-11-14T14:32:00.004+08:00

I feel a bit like a bull at the gates right now. My motivation to start Marathon training in earnest is high. I want to run more, get up to 100k plus a week.

But it's not the right time. I'm recovering from a knee injury which still reminds me it's there on each run. It's too early to start a Boston prep (assuming I get there), and I have some short race PBs to achieve.

So 75km this week @ 4:26

Mon 7k@4:34. The lunchtime experiment isn't working, will try to get back to morning monday recovery
Tues intervals - 3×100m/100m float, 1 min rest3×200m/100m float, 2 min rest,3×300m/100m float, 3 min rest.Repeat.

Times including float (lap distance not Garmin)
500m 1:40
800m 2:39
1200m 4:03

500m 1:42
800m 2:37
1100m 3:38

I usually pace myself quite well at intervals, but this was an exception. Really struggled in the last set to keep pace and fell behind the leaders. Overall ran the session too hard and if it was winter would have picked up a virus later in the week due to dip in immunity.

Wed 9.3k@4:39
Thurs rest
Fri 11.1k@4:34
Sat 11.38@4:28 - I'd meant to do a session today, perhaps mirror Biscuitmans mile repeats from earlier this week to get a handle on whether I can try to stick with him in next weeks 5k race. Legs felt too heavy for this, but they loosened up later, so I went back onto the Bold Park hilly loop for the first time since I hurt my knee and did some fartlek type efforts - ended up quite a nice session

Sun 24k@4:34. Same course as last week plus 2k extra. Ran alone and found it a bit harder mentally. Still made it over Hale Rd OK but didnt do the fast 3k thereafter and really dragged my feet 20-24k.

I'm not sure how much/little to do leading into a 5k race next Sunday. Any ideas on a structure. Should I skip intervals Tuesday?

John Gilmour 10,000m

2010-11-07T20:25:00.002+08:00

New PB 37:29 - Friday night

Had an easy leadup in the week - Mon, Tues and Wed 10k runs with some fartlek.
Thursday off

Friday night headed out for the 7:15pm 'A' race at Cannington. I'd been motivated by TB's first lap sprint in the other race.
I've not done a 10k track race before, but was looking forward to it. Felt pretty good on the night.

My aim was 37:30, luckily 90 sec laps so no complex calculation necessary. First lap 80 sec and I made sure I slowed down straight away, didn't want to get sucked in to staying with Big Kev or Jockster.

I then ran 91-92sec laps for the next 8, and came back to target pace. I maintained the same pace for the next 8 and was 10 ec behind pace. With 8 laps to go I started to push the first 100m of each lap to pick up to 90sec laps, and kept at the 10 sec behind. Final 2 laps picked things up and with an 80 sec final lap came in at 37:29.

I was tired but not knackered, and felt very happy with the performance, a very small negative split.

other thoughts from the night:
-Sore shins from 2-4k, then settled (wearing Mizuno Idatens)
-Struck by how fast the leaders went, esp Roberto Busi who ran 30:22 or thereabouts - I got a much cleared impression than ever before of how fast 3min/k is.
-Knee gave me no real issues
-Again a good 4 week block of training seems to be enough now to get me into reasonable form

Sat 10k recovery
Sun 22k with Clown, over Hale Rd hill, finished a reasonable week - 75k@4:28

Next up is 5k race at Pennisula, and I could end up my 'annus horribilis' with 3k, 5k and 10k PBs!!!

Didn't kneed that

2010-10-31T21:50:00.002+08:00

Monday morning I ran an 8k recovery run, and on the hill back towards home I suddenly felt something tear under my kneecap and within 10 paces couldn't run due to the pain.

It felt exactly like what happened at the start of the year, leading to my knee surgery.

I went to work where the knee started to swell over the course of the day. Needless to say I was thinking the worst.

Luckily with the aid of anti-inflams things settled and I adopted a very gentle approach to the week, running all on completely flat grass surface of McGillvray Oval. On the flat, things are OK, but a bit of hill and it hurts. I can only presume I have a small tear in the fibrocartilage that has filled in the articular cartilage removed in my operation. This type of cartilage is much 'softer'/fragile than the original cartilage.

67.66

05:03:54

avg. 00:04:29

avg. 13.40

Sun	October 31, 20106

21.29

01:34:35

00:04:27

13.50

Fri	October 29, 20104

11.65

00:55:54

00:04:48

12.50

Thu	October 28, 20103

0.00

00:00:00

0.00

Wed	October 27, 20102

9.68

00:41:12

00:04:15

14.10

Tue	October 26, 20101

8.18

00:35:40

00:04:22

13.80

Mon	October 25, 20100

7.74

00:37:25

00:04:50

12.40

There should be a saturday 9k@4:15 session in there as well

So a 67km week, not bad considering. The highlights were screaming at a dog owner on McGillvray who's massive German Shepherd ran 400m to jump all over me while I was trying to do a 1k interval, and this morning's 20k with Clown - the 4:25 pace was pleasing.

As you can see from the crudely cut&pasted table, I'm trying Strands again for my running log. The first time I found it fed into my obsessive/TypeA personality traits too much, especially at a time when I was coming back from injury and really needed to be holding back.

This week, 10k track race is on the cards. I'm not sure if the 37:30 goal is appropriate or not, but I have found running on a track to be pretty fast, so I'll just see how things go. Clown may even decide to do a tempo ( or is that MP) run and pace me to 37:30

FunRunning

2010-10-24T21:34:00.003+08:00

Running is going well for me right now. I've done 3 consecutive weeks over 80km each, making October my second biggest mileage month this year already (more a reflection on a crap year than an exceptional month). I even improved my average pace over the week this week to 4:30, with Tuesday's interval and Friday morning tempo over hills being the highlights. I still haven't felt physically or emotionally ready to approach a true long run, so each of the last 3 Sundays I've done a 20k morning and 10k evening run. This morning I ran over Hale Rd hill for the first time in ages, managed to do it without a stop until the oasis at Churchlands Primary School with it's refrigerated water fountains.

I hope to maintain 80km weeks for the next 5-6 weeks with 10k JG, 5k Penninsula and 3k JK track run (assuming it's on) on the radar before a taper for SixInch

Hope B'Man had a good Rotto,

Boston Chaos

2010-10-19T15:48:00.003+08:00

Talk about lucky! In case you didn't hear, Boston entries filled up in 8 hours! - compared with last years 6 weeks, and up 'til 2006, didn't fill up at all.

I only just remembered by chance that it was opening last night, and logged on. Like many, I had to try about 10 times, each time it was rejected, all the info was cleared and I had to fill the form out all over again. I gave up, went to bed, and thought I'd try again today. Luckily I couldn't get to sleep and had one last try, with success!

I was only enetering as insurance, thinking that I could always defer by a year, but for the first time ever they won't allow deferral for any reason so I guess there's more motivation to get there, even if I end up doing it on the cheap.

I certainly think this will make the BAA tighten their qualification criteria. There was an article on message from Mzungo last week suggesting the female qual's were already too lax - 30min slower than equivalent male times when women's performance is generally only about 20min slower. Also, given that people dont hit peak marathon performance until about 40 (or exactly 40 in Clowns case) I think that the qual. time under 40 should all be the same.

Overall, I'd rather see the qualification times come own rather than a lottery - there are lottery runs around already, the popularity of Boston is due to it's aspirational aspect. Similaly I dont think increasing the field significantly would be good either.

Perhaps linking the qual times to a percentage over the worlds best for that age group would be better (eg world record plus 50%), although messier.

World records age male female (BQ)

all 2:03:58 (3:10-15) 2:15:24 (3:40-5)
40 2:08 (3:20) 2:26 (3:50)
45 2:14 (3:30) 2:28 (4:00)
50 2:19 (3:35) 2:31 (4:05)
55 2:25 (3:45) 2:52 ( 4:15)
60 2:36 (4:00) 3:01 (4:30)
65 2:41 (4:15) 3:12 (4:45)
70 2:54 (4:30) 3:45 (5:00)
75 3:04 (4:45) 3:57 (5:15)
80 3:39 (5:00) 4:36 (5:30)

A little confusing, but you can see that the steps up with WRs dont necessarily correlate with steps up in BQ. Anyway, it's not up to me.

Off to intervals tonight, repeating the mantra taken from Craig Mottrams talk last week - maximum 80% effort. Last week I ran 4x1000m with 2 min walk recovery in 3:15/3:16/3:16/3:15. Garmin made the track 1:02k which makes me think it was a bit short as Garmin generally overestimates round tracks with measurement error, but even with 5sec xtra each, thats closer to 100% effort, and I paid for it with a flare of viral symptoms and swollen neck glands later in the week, as I do when I push too hard.

Addit... Intervals for my future reference
10x400m, 75sec recvery
74/73/71/73/71/72/73/71/73/72
Pretty happy with this - did exactly the same session 2 years ago and av 78s, so at least I'm faster than then!

Booyah

2010-10-10T22:21:00.002+08:00

Congrats Clown on a massive Melbourne Marathon!

6 months, 3 marathons, 3 PBs and taking his running to another level. All thanks to hard work and dedication. I'm rapt to hear about the run.

This has again given me some much needed motivation. I'll put it out there - 10k PB at John Gilmour, aim 37:30. It would be a big step on current form and training, but let's aim high.

Congrate also to TB, and I'm yet to hear if Sling ended up running the half.

Freo HM 2010

2010-10-03T16:30:00.002+08:00

A bit of a last minute decision to run today - entered Friday lunchtime. Having pulled out of Melbourne I thought why not? The HM is the distance I have always performed well at, and this would give me some confidence and benchmark my current fitness position.

I'd run 55k leading up, having returned to WAMC/JK intervals on Tuesday with 2x400, 2x500,2x600,2x500,2x400 all with 90 sec breaks. Was surprisingly solid and surprisingly similar pace to 2 years ago when I last regularly ran here. The rest were easy-ish runs through Bold Park

I decided to run today without looking at my watch too much, just run by feel to maintain a consistent HM pace

5k splits 19:52, 20:10,20:25,20:23, last 1.3k@3:48 total time 1:25:42

Nice day for running and I felt solid without going into the red zone. Although I slowed slightly in the second half, I passed 8 people in the last 10k, 3 in the final km. No-one passed me after 3k (except one frontrunner who must have stopped for a pee). I think my recent bold park running has helped as I powered up the few little hills in the final 1.5k - which is how I caught the last 3.

Sugar looked good but I note not quite on PB pace - 145km weeks will do that to you. I was mightily impressed by the female winner - Clare McKay- who finished less than a minute behind me and came home like a train in the second half. She said afterwards that she'd run the C2S half in 1:30 and was happy to beat that - I suspect she'll be winning a few races in coming times.

My pace today was very similar to that which I ran last year with Clown, and gives me some confidence moving forwards.

I'm still in a quandry re track this summer. I looked at last years Masters McGillvray results and I'd have won the middle distance race every week by some way - most competitors were in the over 50 category. I dont really fancy being in that situation. Looking at the Friday Athletics WA meets at AK I'd be near the back of the field with several near my pace and not dead last. This might be the better option although I dont know about Friday evening running - thats usually prime summer beer and BBQ time!

Happy B'Day Clown and good luck next week - hope it's a good present to yourself!

Buster

2010-09-30T20:46:00.001+08:00

I just received the email re Buster being in Perth. Anyone interested in making a table?
I think I'll go anyway.

No Melbourne, looking ahead

2010-09-27T16:43:00.004+08:00

I ended up deciding not to go to Melbourne.
The running's been OK in the first week and a half back, but I don't have a marathon in me physically or mentally.

So moving ahead... my plan is to keep to a lowish 70km per week mileage for the rest of the year. I'll do some shorter stuff - not yet decided if I'll go Masters track ( would be Tues at McGillvray - work late thurs evenings and Coker Park is a bit far), WAMC/JK intervals tues pm, or some self directed track intervals, or maybe a mix of the 3. I might do a couple of WAMC events (perhaps the track 10k), and I'll hopefully do Six Inch again, although I am going to U2 the night before so it may be a challenging run.

I've been thinking about track events and goal times. VDOT seems out of whack for this. Whilst my 3k, 5k, 10k and marathon PBs areall pretty much on a par with VDOT 54.3, and the HM PB a little quicker, these would predict a 73sec 400m, 2:32 800m, 3:13 1000m and 5:01 1500m. These all sound a little slow

At highschool I ran 2:06 for 800m and 4:21 for 1500m, but this seems a litle too fast

Perhaps a 3min 1k (2:22 800, 4:40 1500, 10:00 3000m) is a more challenging goal. Anyone have insight into this?

What I think I might do is head down to the first week of summer masters track next week and do the 1k as a time trial, with pretty much no speed training, so I have a starting point but hopefully still quite a bit of improvement.

Good luck Clown, Sling and TB in Melbourne!

Scratching?

2010-09-19T21:53:00.002+08:00

I dont think I'll make it to Melbourne.
The last couple of weeks have been very frustrating illness wise - one virus after another, really getting me down physically and emotionally. I took a full week off any running, then did one run and felt worse again later in the day. I've run yesterday and today - beautiful days and felt really good - but so one should, running 10k after a week and a half off!

This leaves me in a quandry. At best I was going to be borderline to run OK at Melbourne, holding out some hope to run with Sling for at least the first 30k of his sub 3hr attempt. This seems off the cards now, perhaps for both of us. My other great fear is that after a winter of recurrent infections, a big effort will lead to another infection in the followup. But I'd like to be there for Clown's birthday, and I haven't had any time off since Boston, so I could do with a little holiday. Switching to the half would be an option, but that's an expensive trip for a non-PB half marathon.

We'll see - luckily the flights can be cancelled right up until the day, and a hotel room shouldn't be too hard to come by at the last minute, so I can reserve judgement for a while.

Treading water

2010-09-06T13:16:00.002+08:00

I felt i should post an update, but to be honest there's not much to add

Since my last post I have moved house, so my priorities have been other than running. I managed to get out and watch the City to Surfers pass by, as documented by others it was a tough day all round.

I've not managed to lift beyond the 70km per week, no quality session mark over the last 4 weeks. The aftereffects of a viral infection, some lingering aches at the site of my stress fracture and the demands of setting up a new house have prevented a stepping up that I'd been half-heartedly considering.

My average paces still sit 4:35MIN/KM, althoug in the last week my average run has changed from flat around the river to hilly through Bold park, so i hope that maintaining the pace represents a real improvement in fitness by a few seconds.

On the days when i dont feel viral my running actually feels really smooth and fun. The negative is that the longest run has been 22km.

I've paid for my fares to melbourne though, so I'll be there and may well head out at 3hr pace for the first half and see how long I hold on. I'm probably no worse prepared than Boston (3;01), but far worse than C2S 2009 (2:57)

Going to Melbourne! (probably)

2010-08-15T17:23:00.003+08:00

It took a series of things for me to decide to run Melbourne.

Firstly, I was keen to be there to celebrate Clown's milestone birthday. Then I thought... if a middle aged guy like him can still run Marathons, so should I.

Second, I've not had any time off since Boston, and don't have any planned until New Year, so a weekend away is due.

Thirdly, I read Sling's post about entries running out, and thought I better sign up just in case.

Luckily, although the website says the field limt is 4500, I was allocated number 4591 - so either they exceeded the limit, or not all of the low numbers were allocated.

In the 2 weeks since my last post, I've run about 70km each week, all slower than marathon pace, average 4:37. I've set no specific goal in training or on the day, we'll just see how things pan out. Just need to arrange the flights and accomodation

Meanwhile a very long weekend at the new house has seen a transformation from dusty wasteland into huge lawn and neat garden bed. I might have to look into Jim's mowing!

The Winter of my discontent

2010-08-01T21:46:00.004+08:00

It felt good to get a couple of runs in this week.

Despite my best intentions, 2010 continues to be my annus horribilis in terms of running.

Since my last post I have suffered from my winter occupational hazard - recurrent viral infections. The first two were minor colds requiring a couple of days off running, but the third was more severe - a glandular fever like illness leaving me sore of throat, swollen of neck and enormously fatigued.

I didn't take a single running stride for two full weeks - which I think beats my post knee surgery recovery from January. When I did get back to running this week, my muscles were aching - abductors, adductors, flexors, extensors - you name it!

It is a great frustration, particularly seeing my running peers in 'all time best' form, and not being able to join in for training sessions and club races.

Luckily the rest of life is going well - the new house is finally ready and in a couple of weeks we'll move in, after 16 months living with the in-laws. I have had more time and energy to devote to work, especially after hours, than I did when training more. I tend to have a bit less patience and more irritability with higher mileage training, something Noakes talks about in 'Lore'.

Anyway, C2S marathon will be a no go - the bit of residual fitness I'd been riding the first half of the year is well and truly gone now, and it will be a week or two after moving in, and I'll have a long list of chores from Mrs Epi which will be tough enough without post Marathon fatigue. I might run the half with my brother in law.

Looking forwards, I'm not making any more 2010 race plans for now, that might just be tempting fate. Lets just hope that, like the speech in the title, the winter of my discontent is over.

Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York (Richard III)

Perth Marathon 2010

2010-06-20T17:25:00.003+08:00

First to the important bit - SUB 3 CLOWN! Congratulations well deserved
As Sling mentioned, only one of the class to go.

I decided I would run at the start of the week. I had been thinking of what to set as new goals, and decided on more, rather than faster, merathons - for now. I don't know that focussing on Melbourne and potentially doing a minute or two under my PB (but potentially not) would be all that satisfying. The future goal of 10+ Perths is something I'm more interested in

So on the back of 50k/60k/50k/70k then one week taper, I wasn't expecting too much.

Luckily I quickly settled in with Gunner and (?) Brewer who were looking at 3:15 pace. This seemed easy and we passed halfway at 96:40. I kept the same pace but they slowed a bit, so I tagged on with a guy running his first marathon. We continued together until 35k, speeding up from 4:34s to 4:30s. He then dropped back and I pushed the pace to about 4:25s 35-41k.

It was a great feeling to be finishing fast, as I overtook about a dozen in the last 10k and was only passed by the top 3 relay teams. I sped to 4:15 for the 42nd km then at 3:45 pace for the last 200m.

Time 3:11:20

Halves 1:36:40/1:34:40

5ks 22:49, 22:47, 22:54, 22:54, 22:48, 22:51, 22:29, 22:12

7ks 31:55, 31:56, 32:09, 31:50, 31:42, 30:51

After feeling a little ill immediately at the end fter my sprint, I quickly recovered and felt fine the rest of the day.

I was thinking about Sling's comment re average weekly pace and marathon time.
For me, a top marathon effort equates to about 15sec per km faster than my average weekly pace in the leadup (e.g C2s weekly pace 4:25, Mara 4:10.)

Today I ran only about 4sec/k faster than my leadup paces (4:35-4:31) - hence the easier effort. So I probably had 5min up my sleeve if I wanted to push myself to the limit, and that makes me happy given my very poor leadup.

My plan now is hopefully to get another 5 weeks trainingx70k in after a week off, and run City to Surf marathon with similar perceived effort and hopefully a similar time or a little faster. That will be road Marathon #10 and #13 including my six Inch trail maathons

Oh and kudos to Biscuitman and Sugar - first place relay !

Slowly Slowly

2010-05-30T22:02:00.003+08:00

Main reason to post this week is to give a shout out to Clown - congrats on the massive 10k PB - a long overdue race reward for great training form, and hopefully a big step forward in your running.

My week was similar to last - 60k in 5 runs, all easy, still lacking rhythm - I feel uncoordinated at the moment. There are some minor niggles in the return to more regular running, but the thigh pain is behaving itself.

Surprisingly my best 2 runs were in Nike LunarGlides - the Boston special editions which I bought more as a casual shoe than a runner. I'm running in them without my orthotics (unheard of) They are extremely light for such a stable shoe - probably as light as a DS trainer, but in my case even lighter because I dont need the orthotics (when I tried them I felt my foot was being pushed too far into supination)

Run for No Reason

2010-05-23T21:17:00.003+08:00

Back on the road this week after my month off to allow my stress fracture to heal

The leg isn't normal yet, but the deep bone pain has gone and it now just feels like an adductor strain . I am stretching and strengthening ( I'm getting some funny looks walking corridors at work sideways)

Ran HBF Run For a Reason today - paced my Brother in law to go sub 5min kms - did 1:11:15 for 14.59k - so under target pace by about 2 minutes.

It was interesting to run a race so comfortably - it provided a different perspective.

I went to pick up my number and was given a category B bib as they ran out of category A ones. At the start line 2 separate officials interrogated me about why I was in the A corral with a B bib, and they got narky when I told them to bugger off! ( I may have been a bit rude)

I was interested to see Sugar and B'Man say the km markers were off - I found the first 5 were exactly in sync with my Garmin - but then the garmin went haywire through the tunnel so I wasnt sure about the rest. Having said that they seemed pretty good to me as we stayed a pretty constant amount below the target times through each marker.

I felt so good at the end I jogged the 8k home .It ended up a nice, if very slow, 22k for the day, and the first time since Boston that I've felt any real comfortable rhythm in my running - perhaps all is not lost!

54k for the week at 4:45

In terms of plan from here - still not sure. I feel like I have the angel on one shoulder saying don't run Perth because I'll be markedly underdone and injure myself, and the devil on the other saying I should run my sixth consecutive Perth to keep the series going. Luckily at the moment the angel is winning (It's like having Barlow on one shoulder and Tom Swift on the other - one a winner and the other a talentless hack! - I'm sure Clown knows what I mean)

I'm thinking maybe Melbourne (the marathon, not the club)

More Photos

2010-05-09T11:15:00.005+08:00

R&R

2010-05-09T11:06:00.002+08:00

Three weeks post Boston and I've really enjoyed the Rest and Relaxation. This is probably the most true rest I've had for some time. Although I missed a lot of running at the start of the year, I was very mentally focussed on running and rehab, and did a lot of non running exercise/rehab.

The last 3 weeks I've done very little, and very little cross training. I flew back in to Perth Sunday and went back to work monday - so a week of jetlag and catchup work meant I didn't have time or energy to exercise - a good rest for my femur (although it still aches at night suggesting the stress fracture hasn't fully healed yet)

Boston photos attached!

The hills really are alive!

2010-04-25T05:17:00.002+08:00

Driving round New England is a great way to recover post marathon - last 2 nights in Vermont at the Trapp family lodge - where the real van Trapp family settled after fleeing Austria.

I had intended not running for the rest of the trip, but the trails beckoned. There are a bunch of Cross Country Skiing trails ( no snow currently) and Mountain Bike Trails which were great to jog around. 10k in TB style with plenty of walks and exploring. My legs have continued to be very sore after this marathon compared with most, but they warmed up nicely.

Today the right thigh/stress reaction is aching pretty badly, so I might need to go back to the plan of no running for a few weeks.

Meanwhile the diet of 3 cooked meals a day and plenty of wine should leave me needing to drop a few kgs when I get home. Back to the gym I guess.

Boston Marathon

2010-04-20T20:20:00.002+08:00

3:01:06 - have to be happy with that!

Rob and I got on an early bus and chatted nervously for the 45 min drive to Hopkinton.
Had a bagel, muesli bar, coffee and gatorade before the run. The 3 hours at the village went fairly quickly as we tried not to freeze and took turns going to the toilets. They must have improved on last year as the longest I had to wait was 5 minutes, and that was just before we left.

We split at the clothes drop-off and made the long walk to the start - got to the corral 20 min before the start, just in time for the anthem and flyby. Two guys next to me peed on the ground in the corral - just as Sugar described last year.

Suddenly we were off, and I was surprised to be on a good pace within a few hundred metres. My thigh was aching on the initial downhill kms, but there was too much going on to notice.

I ran at the pace of those around me - and before I knew it it was 8km. There had been a continuous wall of people lining the roads. The kms kept coming fast as I looked out for the various landmarks described by others -Ashland, Framingham, Natick, the mirror to check out your form.

I have to thank Sugar and B'man for their suggestion re putting my name on my singlet. I had large clearly printed Craig/Australia on my singlet and had pretty much continuous callouts and cries of AussieAussieAussie. Initially I was calling back OiOiOi, later just Oi, later just raising my hand, towards the end just grimacing. I think I gave out more high fives than I have in my entire life. Especially at Wellesley - where I didn't stop for a kiss, but did high five continuously for about 500m.

I knew I was likely to hit the wall in the second half, but decided to enjoy feeling good for as long as it lasted. Initially that was to do a decent half, then 25k, then 28k, then get over heartbreak hill. I managed to do all these, to my great surprise.

I ran into Newton xpecting 3 hills, and thought they were a long time coming. Finally there was a decent hill and I got over it OK, expecting 2 more. But someone on a microphone called out that we had got over heartbreak hill! They really were little hills.

After 35k is when I started to really stuggle - and it was my quads that went. I was kind of hoping that it was all downhill from here and I had enough in the bank to go sub3. But there was enough flat and uphill to make me struggle. First I walked through a drink station and started cramping up as I got runnng again. Then over the last 5k I stopped 3 or 4 times. Each time the crowd would scream at me - dont stop Craig! another advantage of my labelled singlet, and when I started shuffling again they would cheer. I suspect if this was Perth I would have ended up doing 3:05-3:10. I still held out hope of scraping under 3hrs until 40k, but the little underpass around that part was too much for me and I walked a little again.

As Clown described, turning in to Boylston I felt a surge of excitement, but the finish line seemed to be like a mirage until I finally passed it.

At the finish I realised how cold it was, and started to shiver. I went and sat on one of the chair in the medical tent before getting my gear and meeting Rob and the girls. Had a quiet afternoon and a fun dinner. Have to say that my legs are the sorest they've been since my first marathon - driving is going to be a challenge.

Congrats Rob on a PB, although it wasn't quite what you hoped/deserved, it will happen!
Personally I am ecstatic I ran as fast as I did on the prep, and have no regrets. With that little training in my legs over 4 months I knew I was going to hit the wall and am only amazed I got as far as I did in good time.

More holiday for me now - hope to see all in the coming weeks. Many thanks for all the support.

Boston Marathon - preamble

2010-04-20T05:19:00.005+08:00

First of all, my apologies for my 'radio silence' of the last 3 weeks. This came down to two things. First - I spat the dummy to some extent. Having used all that emotional energy to get back from the knee surgery, to then injure the other leg was pretty gut wrenching. But I knew if I was going to get to run Boston I needed to take the last 3 weeks pretty much completely off running. The way I am, if I was to continue posting, looking at other's blogs and strands updates, I was going to be sucked up into training more than I should - trying to keep up with the Jones's, as it were (or keep up with the Clowns).

So I stopped logging and blogging and actually did what I intended - ran very little.

3rd week out I did elliptical trainer every day, and tried a couple of runs. An aborted Sunday run with Rob was the last straw - had to walk back at 3k because the thigh was so sore.

2 weeks out I did 4 days elliptical, one day running treadmill.
Final week 4x treadmill runs total 20k - the thigh hurt, but was bearable

We were lucky to have 9 days in the US prior to the run. I didn't focus on it at all and enjoyed New York, and food/wine with my brother an his family. Only when we made it to Boston and caught up with Rob did I start thinking about the run at all.

The expo at Boston was huge, and I think I carbo loaded quite well just on the energy bar samples. We also had pasta dinners the two nights preceding the run.

I had no idea what to expect - I had run less than 20k each of the last 3 weeks off a short base. But I knew from Darlington that I had the ability to run well off little training

Three weeks 'til Boston

2010-03-28T16:30:00.002+08:00

Not much to report since Friday.

First of all congrats to Sugar and Biscuitman for their Bridges results, and to Sling for another near miss to go sub3 in the Marathon - it's beckoning this year.

I ran Sat morning to test the thigh out - did 1km jogs interpersed with stretches. In the 8k I ran the only moderately painfree part was a km I ran barefoot on an oval nearby, obviously the more forefoot gait is less of a strain.

This morning I managed an anti-inflammatory assisted 20km, although the whole session took nearly 3 hours - my wife was about to send out a search party after I told her I'd be out for an hour and a half. I hobbled down to the Scotch college playing fields and ran 1km loops on the grass, again the best and fastest were the 2k run barefoot. I had a good patch from 10-15k run continuously then the thigh got worse again.

So that's the last 'long' run per se in my prep - will try to run 4 days this coming week and if by some sheer chance things are feeling better I might try for another 20k next weekend, but I'd rather not chance it if there's a chance of making things worse. Hopefully I'll get down to the gym for some bike and elliptical in the interim, or even some water running.

On a side note, humorous bargain of the week : Tiger Woods/Nike golf gift pack (golf shirt, cap and Nike 1 balls) reduced from $140 to $30 at Rebel. When your stocks are down, they're down! Great B'day present for Dad though - the golf balls are worth the price alone and the TW logo on the shirt is pretty subtle. Anyway, once he wins the Masters he'll be popular again.

(I note the media knew he was reconciling with his wife when she started wearing Nike shirts again)

Trouble

2010-03-26T14:25:00.003+08:00

The thigh pain was not a mere muscle strain
I think I knew this already, but once my antiinflammatories wore off on Wednesday's run I knew things were worse - couldn't run home due to the pain - a deep ache in the thigh

I organised an MRI and it showed a periosteal stress reaction on the femur - a Grade 1 injury where Grade 3 is a stress fracture. (pre-stress fracture you might say) There were no changes in the cortex (middle) of the bone. Classic scenario with altered gait fr4om the other knee and rapid increase in mileage after 4 weeks off.

To my surprise, the specialist thinks I can still run Boston. Without cortical changes this is unlikely to progress to a full stress fracture. I will need to markedly reduce my training from now, though, so the plan made with Mona is out the window. With 3 and a half weeks left it's a long taper keeping the legs turing over with minimal stress on the leg.

So aim will be back to just finishing, I'll be watching my pain closely, but hopefully I can still run Boston!!!!

Steve Monaghetti Camp

2010-03-21T16:11:00.002+08:00

I can honestly say that the camp exceeded all expectations for me.

From Friday night's recovery run where I ran the first couple of km at the back f the pack, chatting to Mona about my running, the whole weekend continued with running as the focus.

Without going into too much boring detail, lessons/impressions:

MONA
Steve was incredibly accessible, humble and down to earth. He helped me devise a shorter, more severe taper taking into account my short preparation and travel commitments in the last week. One overwhelming message was that running more easy paced total distance will help improvement far more than any session. He ran twice a day, 200k per week, week in week out with 19k/10% each week quality - a Mona fartlek or 400s, and a timetrial on a rolling hilly course of 8k, plus fairly frequent short races mainly cross country.

RAF
Unexpectedly for me, Raf opened up a new insight into running culture for me. His passion for WA running is compelling, especially for the nurturing of potential young elite runners. Certainly my perception of his store and the Frontrunner coaching groups has changed, and a number of us seem to be considering getting involved in some way, so I guess the camp achieved that purpose for him - to make it the centre of distance running excellence in the state. (Much was spoken about the deficiencies of the WAMC in catering to certain runners which was also very interesting). Mona mentined that in some ways it's sad we have one big running club rather than several small ones who could compete in various events more often, as is done in the Eastern States.

Physio/Dietician Sessions
I dont think a description by me would do justice to the nutrition talk - but it certainly had us all talking about it for the entire weekend - which must be good! I now know that Mexican food is ridiculous and Thai food is a joke!
The physio session was refreshing in that the focus was on running as the best thing to do to help strengthen running muscles, and that a small number of strenghtening exercises, taking a small amount of time, is all you need to do if not currently injured.

Participants
Great group of people all talking about the same stuff, nearly all 'mid-pack' runners, of varying ability

On to the running -
Monday 6.1k@4:58 - pretty stiff and sore post HM
Tuesday 20.1k@4:36. Still felt stiff and sore but it was such a glorious night I kept on plodding
Wed 12k@4:21 with 3k at 4:00 and later 1.5k@4:00 - knee felt pretty sore after this, so I took Thursday off
Friday am 10.25k@4:37 - easy
Friday pm 8.7k@5:17 - easy group run at camp on gravel road, rolling hills.
Sat am Mona fartlek with Mona - how cool is that! Partly on gravel and partly on grass - did 5.35k in the 20min all up - worked pretty hard. 4k w/up, 3.7k c/down
Sat pm 10.58k@4:53 - Rob and took a wrong turn on this recovery run after we split from the group, but it was a lovely evening to run and we got to use the breadcrumb function on our garmins

Sun am 20.6k@450s or so (accidentally stopped my Garmin for a bit) This was hilly and more intense than a usual long run, hence the shortness. My knee struggled on the steep downhills on the trail.

So 101km for the week and 319km for the month so far, with two more weeks of full on training. Mona suggested in the next two weeks I try to fit in an extra long run midweek one week to make up for my lack of distance - my speed seems more than adequate from the HM and the Fartlek session.

BOSTON BIB NUMBER

2010-03-17T19:45:00.000+08:00

2379!!!

This one's for Memphis and Mav

2010-03-14T15:33:00.003+08:00

Darlington HM this week - my only hitout prior to the Marathon, so I felt psychologically it was an important race to do.

Mon Mar 8, 2010	10.02	48:03	4:47	X
Tue Mar 9, 2010	10.00	46:11	4:37	X
Tue Mar 9, 2010	11.00	48:00	4:21	X
Wed Mar 10, 2010	13.50	59:30	4:24	X
Fri Mar 12, 2010	14.04	1:02:01	4:25	X
Sat Mar 13, 2010	10.09	47:18	4:41
Sun Mar 14, 2010	21.26	1:25:56	4:02

Total 89.90km	Total 6:36:59	Avg. 4:24

Monday and Tuesday am I was pretty stiff and sore - took an antiinflammatory on Tuesday after the am run

Tuesday pm did a treadmill interval effort, a bit like a Yasso. Continuous 5x1k at 3:38 with 500m at 5:15 recoveries at 1% gradient. The 7km session was just over 28 min (although treadmill easier than road)

Wed pm ran too fast in too hot conditions, hit the red zone and felt hot and nauseous all night. Lucky to escape without catching a virus as I usually do after a session like this.

Thurs off to ensure recovery from Wed

Friday am still hot - 29 degree minimum, but hit a really good rhythm thanks to my first rest day in a couple of weeks. Felt smooth for once

Sat am held back nice and easy

Today - first mistake was to have curry the night before a race. Didn't bother me before or during, but had a pretty uncomfortable time for a few hours after the run - spent some quality time with the doulton.

2 k warm up then assembled to start. Wanted an effort based hitout to see where I was. Took off fairly conservatively for me, and hit a comfortable rhythm quickly. Shocked by the route change with a steep down then steep up at 4-5k which stunned the legs a bit, but I soon got into the swing of the slow uphill on which I seem to thrive. I was sitting 50m behind BigKev and his minions for most of the race, picking off a couple of stragglers but not making ground on them.

Hit halfway going at 4:10s or so and was a bit tentative initially going downhill, was rapidly overtaken by a couple of longstriders, despite me doing 3:50s. Colin Francis passed me like I was standing still.

Struggled a bit with the quads and took a 20m walk at the 17k drink station although this only slowed the split to 4:00. Hung tough down the final 3k dirt and managed to pass Peter Sullivan with a couple of hundred metres to go - he said something to me that I wasn't sure if it was encouraging or disparaging about me trying to gain a couple of seconds in the final couple of hundred metres - either way that guy is always intense!

Pretty pleased to scrape in under 1:26 - a fair way behind last years time albeit on a slightly harder course and more difficult conditions

3:55/4:16/4:10/4:08/4:03 20:32 (up 70m)
4:03/4:15/4:13/4:14/4:11 20:56 (up 90m)
4:02/4:03/4:02/4:00/3:51 19:58 (down 17m)
3:53/3:51/4:00/4:01/3:50 19:35 (down 110m)
3:51 (down 30m)

It has been suggested to me that I might be back on the sub3:00 trail for Boston, and to be honest if my prep continues well I'll defintely put myself in the position at 32k to do it if I have the legs, but lets knuckle down to a couple more training weeks first (a bit of Mona magic should help too)

Longer, Stronger

2010-03-07T15:12:00.002+08:00

True to my word, I focussed on endurance and strength this week

126km @ 4:40

Mon Mar 1, 2010	28.11	2:14:12	4:46	X
Tue Mar 2, 2010	16.08	1:13:54	4:35	X
Wed Mar 3, 2010	14.11	1:04:02	4:32	X
Thu Mar 4, 2010	10.05	49:01	4:52	X
Fri Mar 5, 2010	2.97	14:19	4:49	X
Fri Mar 5, 2010	10.00	42:05	4:12	X
Fri Mar 5, 2010	1.69	07:45	4:35	X
Sat Mar 6, 2010	11.05	52:43	4:46	X
Sun Mar 7, 2010	32.01	2:30:55	4:42

Trialling Cut&Paste from Strands

Monday long run see last weeks post
Tuesday pm medium 16k run along the river. First 10k easy then sped up a little to keep up with someone who passed me, although splits dnt really reflect this
Wed pm medium 14k run. Was an easier effort than Tues but faster
Thurs am First true recovery run for a while - nice in a way to have really aching legs
Friday am. Intended longer tempo. After 3k warmup set out at 4:00s and lasted 1.5k sore shins and knee so I pulled back to a jog. After a few more km I felt good again and did 5k@4:00
Sat am recovery
Sun am. Long run with Clown. Wet back to the old hillier route Kings Park-Bold Park loop - North to Scaborough - back to Hale Rd and up over the tw stage hill then back to Kings Park. We took it fairly steady and did quite well. Even managed 4:10s for the last 1.5km.

The body has coped OK with the mileage. Left (bad) knee sore on downhills only. Right quads quite sore right in the middle just above the kneecap (quads tendon) - a different type of quad pain than I've had before.

My week has probably been influenced by my rereading of Lydiard's book, and I intend to push on wih 100km plus weeks with only one tempo/faster session and no intervals foer the next 3 weeks. I'll not taper for Darlington in mileage but will keep the pace easier this week.

I'm starting to get used to Strands despite it being ridiculously slow and the interface being a bit clunky. Despite this I intend to keep up my weekly post - a nice way to look back at how I was feeling beyond reading the numbers. My only other concern is the rise of miles as the running unit for Clown and Biscuitman, for example Clown ran to finish 20 miles today rather than to finish 32km and did a 5 mile tempo rather than 8k - what country are we living in - pull your head in Clown :)

Grist for the mill

2010-03-01T17:11:00.003+08:00

The treadmill, that is.

Had a couple of treadmill workouts this week to beat the heat, although with only an evaporative A/C at the gym, it took 35 and dry to 25 and humid - not sure which was worse. On one of the sessions I sweated so much my feet were slipping on the treadmill surface!

70km@ 4:36

Monday rest after the long Sunday run - felt OK
Tues am 9.85k@ 4:43 - easy
Tues pm 11.5k treadmill - warmup then 5k@4:00, 2k@4:00, 3k@4:00. Most was on no incline so easier than running that pace on the roads. It was hot. Damn hot. Hot and wet - good when you're with a woman, not good when you're on a treadmill ( to paraphrase Robyn Williams)

Wed pm 10k treadmill 4:30s overall but did 2 progression inclines - each one minute increased gradient 1% until 6%/6min, at 4:00s

Thurs - rest.
Friday 13.8k@4:43 flat
Saturday 14k@4:45 including Kings Park loop
Sunday 10k@4:48 treadmill - didn't run morning as was watching Mum do the short course womens triathlon up at Hilary's - was one of the few 60+ and for a lifetime non-athlete she did impressively well.

Monday am 28.1k with Rob. Included 2x9k Kings Park loops and 10k flat along the river. Was OK until after the 19k stop when Clown decided to pick up from our 4:45-4:50 pace to 4:20-4:25s for 5k - I fell behind a little but gradually wound up some speed. This knackered us for the last section back up to the top of King's Park so after a little walk/jog section, we walked back to the car.

Tues-Mon almost 100k (if I include about 3k run along the side of the bike leg on Sunday) first of this volume for some time.

The knee is holding up OK, body is coping OK. I feel a little flabby although have only gained 1kg on the scales - not sure how that happened with the higher mileage but will go off alcohol for March to rein that in.

My aim is a 400km+ March focussing on endurance and strength. Long runs, longer tempo and Kings Park runs will be the foci. I know it's too little too late for a sub3, but a solidly finished sub 3:10 would be nice.

Question for Biscuitman and Sugar - How were the drink stations at Boston? Very congested? Better to go for early tables or the late? Did you find the Gatorade 'Endurance Formula" noticably more salty than normal electrolyte drinks?

...and finally, I was struck by the efforts of TB,Nate,Dave & Co at the track ultra. Not sure if awestruck or dumbstruck is the right word, but struck either way. 6 or 12hrs in that heat is crazy - made this morning's effort seem pedestrian. Kudos to you all

Top of the wazza

2010-02-21T22:08:00.002+08:00

Better week - 80k@4:39

Mon 10k@4:50
Tues 9k including 5x1k intervals. 3:41/3:35/3:44/3:39 final one only 500m
Wed 10k@4:40
Thurs rest
Friday 12k with 6k tempo. Garmin out of battery so not sure of pace. Expectations exceeded ability inthis one as I thought of last years 20k tempo efforts
Sat 10k@4:50
Sun 30k@4:44. Sore knee after saturday run made me wuss out on running with Biscuitman - decided to stay closer to home in case things went awry.

First 5k in 4:55s until I met Clown, running at his fast clip we went up to 4:30's or so for the next 6k then slowed down to 4:40-4:45s for the rest. Felt surprisingly good for the first 25k, then struggled a bit to the finish

So the mileage has really picked up, and although the knee swells and pains after the run, it's generally well behaved whilst I'm running. I must admit to breaking my self imposed rule and took an anti-inflammatory yesterday, may explain today's pain free effort

Tempus Fugit

2010-02-14T15:50:00.002+08:00

Only 9 weeks 'til Boston!

55km in 4:40 this week

The week started badly - lasted 300m on Monday morning before having to turn back with pain under the kneecap (the aftereffect of my longer sunday run)

Tuesday 11k easy@4:45
Wednesday (pm) 11k with 5k@4:05 and 2k@4:00
Thurs (pm) 11k easy @4:45
Friday rest
Saturday 22k@4:40 - ran along the river to the belltower and back. Was briefly tempted to venture up into Kings Park but decided to play it safe. Took only one break at 16k mark - happy with that.

This morning I kept time at the Point Walter run, seeing Clown and Biscuitman both run 5k PBs although both would seem to have room to improve on these.

I trialled my new Socceroos shirt (EBay) this week as a potential Boston shirt - it's the lightest of any of the Green&Gold shirts I've come across although still fairly baggy and heavy compared to running specific shirts - we'll see how it goes on a less humid day

I'm Back, Baby

2010-02-07T12:15:00.002+08:00

... in the immortal words of George Costanza.

Well the return to running plan is already out the window. 44k in 5 sessions. All easy 4:40-5:00 whilst running, plenty of breaks for stretching.

I started carefully with 3k treadmill then 5k treadmill/2k road Mon and Wed respectively

Friday 10k on the road/paths in multiple small sections, max 2k at once (out there for well over an hour)
Saturday 10k, max 5k at once
Sunday 14k, max 7k at once

Knee a bit niggly first 5-10 min until it warms up, then OK unless steep up/down hill
I've obviously got some altered gait/abductor weakness as my inner heel is scraping the inside of the other leg/calf unless I concentrate on form.
Niggles in plantar fascia, calf,hamstrings and glutes are all to be expcted after a prolonged break but nothing I'm getting too excited about.

I'm going to upgrade my return schedule, would like to get up to 70k/week in the next 2 weeks then back to the 10% rule and if all is good start adding some hills/tempo intervals.

Ready and raring to go

2010-01-31T15:29:00.002+08:00

OK - 17 days since the surgery, ready to go.

Stitches came out on Tuesday, have done some crosstrainer, water running, and a little exercise bike (although this still hurts a bit at the point of maximum flexion).

I can hear you all asking - have you run? Of course I've tried! I have little self control. So much so that I told the trainer at the gym to pull me up if he saw me trying to run on the treadmill this week. I did and he did.(I didn't get far before he noticed)

The wound which leaked has healed, but the area still balloons out when I do a ew minutes on the crosstrainer. Strapping it helps a little.

This week I intend to start some gentle running. I'll try to stick to treadmill initially, then some grass running down near Steve's, progressing to flat running on the path around the river. Hills will have to wait.

I've drawn up a fairly conservative return to running schedule,

Feb Wk 1 20k 4x5k
Feb wk 2 30k 4 runs, long 10
Feb wk 3 40k 4 runs long 12
Feb wk4 50k 5 runs long 15
Mar wk1 60k 5 runs long 18
Mar wk2 70k 6 runs long 21
Mar wk3 80k 6 runs long 25
Mar wk4 85k 6 runs long 30
Mar5,Apr1 90k 6 runs long 32

April wks 2 and 3 taper

Looking at it, maybe not so conservative. I suspect I'll be keen to do more in weeks 2 and 3, but then may be hit quite hard by the progressive mileage increase thereafter. I intend to make marathon goal pace 4:30s for now, and may not do anything faster than MP, certainly not in the first 5 weeks. If I'm training well and the knee is good I woud rather start adding in hills at MP at that point rather than tempos.

The only race I'll consider doing is Dalington half - my long run should be up to 21k that weekend and if things are good I'd look at doing it in 95.

Anyway, these plans are almost certain to change to some extent - but it's nice to have some direction.

In preparation I've been looking for running shoes. I've decided despite many pairs of shoes, they are all wrong or worn out, and I'm going back to Asics2130 exclusively. So I've been watching out for a bargain.

Back when we were down south at NewYear I found a pair my size at the Dunsborough sports store for $120, but since couldn't find any my size in Perth, only 2140/2150s. Then I noticed you could buy 2 pairs womens 2130s for $100 at JimKidd - WTF. I did some research, wnt down and am now the proud owner of 2 pairs size 12 (equiv mens 10.5) wide womens 2130s. They are a couple of mm narrower in the toe box but otherwise pretty much exactly the same as he mens.
I did need to get out the black laundry marker and make the colour scheme a little more masculine, but I'm keen to get out and try them.

It's a bit weird. I've read that more womens then mens running shoes are sold in Australia, but they obviously like buying new. Another example was DS trainers, never on sale in mens ($220) were $109 in womens!

But I digress. Hopefully a positive post next week about how well I've coped with returning to running!

(PS - I've enrolled for the Mona training weekend)

Scuppered

2010-01-21T16:00:00.002+08:00

WARNING: This post may contain discussion of surgery and medical conditions. I have been reminded over the last week that not everyone is comfortable with this.

My plans of an accelerated recovery program (ala Jana Pittman ) were scuppered this week when I literally sprang a leak. I'd had Thurs-Sun effectively off my feet and seemed to be going well. I was allowed to go to work on Monday, but walking out to the car I felt something rip in my port wound and out came an obscene amount of honey-like joint fluid.

This fluid leakage continued unabated for the next 24hours, soaking dressing after dressing, even when I was asleep. The only positive was that the swelling was going down! I went to see the surgeon the next day and he put a stitch in the wound. For those technically minded I had developed a synovial fistula

Positive - the leakage stopped. Negative - Minimal walking, no cycling/cross training for another week and no swimming for another week until the stitch comes out.

So here I am slowly going crazy with lack of aerobic exercise. I joined the gym and tried the 'water wheel' ergo - like an exercise bike for your arms - but my upper body is so weak I last about 5 minutes and have to stop. I have also rediscovered my dislike of upper body weight training.

So delayed again - shouldn't be a big deal but given my hopes for a Boston finish each further week not running is a further two weeks lost in return - one to regain fitness and one to improve from there. Looks like it will be six weeks gap between runs, four between reasonable aerobic activity.

Cool pics

2010-01-14T15:48:00.004+08:00

Screenshots from my DVD!
Amazingly little pain, home watching the cricket by 11:30

1. Hole in cartilage (probe in the hole). There is a second hole/fissure lower left

2. View from another angle

Flattening out/'chomping' the edges

A view of the finished product

Under the Knife

2010-01-12T20:08:00.003+08:00

It's been a rollercoaster of a fortnight.

The MRI scan surprisingly showed my lateral meniscus was normal, but a large chunk of cartilage had torn off from the lateral part of the patellofemoral joint - lateral femoral trochlea. (ie under my kneecap).

This seemed unusual to me. Most cases of patellofemoral injuries I come across are to do with bad biomechanics and seen in new runners, often overweight. To have gone so long without knee pain and then a sudden tear seemed wierd. A couple of factors sprang to mind. Firstly I did have a 'sticky' feeling in the knee on descent in Nepal - with the added weight of the pack this activity put a lot more stress on the knee. Secondly I tried a run without orthotics - I think it was the day the pain first came, if not it was the preceeding day. Having run in orthotics always in the last 5 years did this change the forces in the knee?

Anyhow, I am now both an inveterate and a degenerate runner.

An intercurrent gastro infection contracted from one of my nursing homes delayed the visit to the surgeon. In the meantime I have now gone 2 weeks without any running of note. I've headed out a couple of times since the swelling has settled down, with 3k the longest distance covered running. I fashioned my own deepwater running flotation belt from a cheap lifevest I bought at Anaconda (cut off the shoulder part) and have done a couple of sessions - lots of fun but difficult to get a cardiovascular workout of any note.

I saw the surgeon today. My options were twofold. With a large fragment of cartilage floating about inside my knee joint (it has moved to the back), and with the size of the defect in the cartilage, leaving it be was not one of the options. The option I took was to have arthroscopic surgery to trim the edges of the defect and remove the fragment. The second option was for a MACI graft - they harvest some of your own cartilage, grow it in a lab, then graft it back in a couple of weeks later. The negatives of this are 1. cost 2. 12 months until you can run again. Being, as I mentioned, an inveterate runner, this was not my option.

The surgery is first thing Thursday morning (quick but good). The surgeon is confident I'll be running 3-4 weeks after the surgery and thinks I'll be OK to run Boston, although clealy not in PB time with over a month no running then a gradual buildup. I'll be happy to be able to run it at all, and would think best case scenario 3:15 (but there's a lot of water to pass under the bridge before that)

The surgeon told me one of the Eagles players had a very similar looking injury on MRI and recovered successfully. A quick google search shows both Kerr and Brett Jones have had arthroscopic surgery on this area behind the kneecap - Clown may have a better idea given his deep and abiding affection for all things Eagles.

Next progress report hopefully 7 days postop and starting some deepwater running!

2009 in review, challenging times ahead

2010-01-03T15:02:00.002+08:00

Belated 'year in review' post, I've just returned from 4 days down at Bunker Bay.

2009 was obviously a breakthrough year for me.

The springboard was good fitness coming into the year. This had been a weakness in previous years, and I used SixInch 08 as a goal to help this.

Jan/Feb - A very solid training block (including 42 consecutive days). Matilda Bay (38:21) 10k PB

March - PB for HM Darlington (1:23:06). Running in my best form ever at this point

April - Canberra in April (DNF) was a disappointment - perhaps a case of getting ahead of myself.

May/June - some good training interrupted by an ankle sprain and a flu

Jul - Perth Marathon (3:04:08) was also a bit of a letdown, despite being a 10 minute PB.

August - City To Surf Marathon (2:57:51) was the clear highlight of the year,

Septmber - a 10k PB at Freo (38:03) capping things off

October - light/rest month

November - Everest Base Camp trek with Clown was a non-running highlight.

December - third consecutive SixInch trail Marathon was a nice way to finish off an all round great year.

2010 has got off to a bad start. On Tuesday morning I felt a few twinges in my left knee. That evening the knee joint developed an effusion (fluid on the joint). Since then I have been unable to run for more than a couple of hundred metres.

It appears I have torn my lateral meniscus (cartilage) in the left knee. Most of the time this does not heal itself and requires surgery - Henry/Homo went though this a couple of years back.

I'm not sure where this leaves me. First up I need to see a specialist, probably get an MRI and discus the options. My initial thought was that Boston was off the cards entirely. More research suggests that I should wait and see. People have got bak running a week after this type of surgery.

Most famously, Joan Benoit won the 1984 Olympic Marathon Trial only 17 days after this type of surgery in 2:31, then 4 months later went on to win the inaugural LA Olympic Womens Marathon.

Update in a week!

Six Inch 2009

2009-12-20T13:24:00.003+08:00

Well I did it - couldn't help myself. As expected it was a tough morning on the trails.

Saturday night I made my appearance at the family Christmas Party, got to sleep about 10, up at 2.

It was a hot morning in Perth, luckily a little cooler in Dwellingup, about 16C at 0430 start, 25 by the time I finished - but felt pretty hot in the exposed sections in the last 10k

My race went probably as one would expect - good speed from the good year, lacking endurance.
Starting up the long hill of the first couple of km, I fell into 5th/6th place with Nate - similar to last year. Just as per last year those in front of us - this time Big Kev and Brett, missed a turnoff. I missed it too - but Nate was close behind me and called me back to make the turn. This put us in 3rd/4th (somewhat undeservedly)

The 23k station was 1hr52 - 7 minutes faster than last year, and nate caught me there. The next few km we played yo-yo as Nate passed me up the hills ( I walked up) then I pulled back to him over the down/flats.

I made a little gap at Oakley dam and tried to push on to the second drink station ahead of him - in 2hr45 again about 7 min faster than last year.

I really started to struggle from here on in, walk-jogging the rest. I had a scare with 3k to go when I saw someone about 400m behind me. I mustered up all my remaining energy and finished ahead of them, ony to find out it was the leader of the 11k race, and that Nate was several mintes behind me - needn't have hurt myself so much.

Overall time 4hrs3 minutes -about 6 minutes slower than last year - I dont really believe I lost 13 minutes on last year in the last 10k - unfortunately I lost all my Garmin data from 08 so I can only go by what I wrote on my blog.

I feel sore in the calves, quads and hammies, but luckily no specific tendon or loint niggles (had a stiff feeling knee during the week)

Kudos to Dave for winning, Bruce for second despite cramps, and Nate for fourth. Commiserations to Kev and Brett - I'm sure they would have beated me had they run the 5k less.

On an entirely different front I went down to Perth's new runners store this week and couldn't go past the KSwiss Kona in Australian flag design - as seen in last RFYL magazine. First impressions are light and firm, quite stable for the weight. I've had brief thoughts of running Boston in these, but they might lack a bit of cushioning. Need try them on some longer tempos

I also bought a Nathan brand fuel belt style water carrier with 2x300ml bottles. Wore it today and found it surprisingly good. Much better than camelback and the Target waist pack I used last year. I may even try it on a long run rather than carrying the Powerade bottle

Back In the Habit

2009-12-13T13:04:00.002+08:00

Like Whoopi Goldberg or Robbie Coltrane.

This week was about the body and mind getting used to running regularly again. Luckily I rediscovered my mojo at the start of the week and finally had some spring back in my step-

Mon rest
Tues 10k@4:12 (fartlek) - included 2k@3:40 - felt really good, finally shaken the virus. PM played golf for the first time in over a year and did surprisingly well (for me)

Wed am 10k@4:18 (fartlek) - included 2k@4:00, 2k@3:50
Wed pm 9k@4:25 - consistent pace
Thurs am, 5.5k@4:45 - legs shot by the last 2 days
Friday am 8.5k@4:40- still pretty fatigued, but in a good way
Sat am 11k@4:30 - tried to hold back a little for City Beach

Sun am City Beach funrun 8k. Hot one! About 27C at the start, 30C at the finish.
I was keen to make sure I toughed out the full 8k and not stop after one lap. Met up with Sugar, Sas and Biscuitman before the start. My plan had been 345 first km, then slow down to 3:55-400s until the last km and finish fast if I had the legs

Garmin Splits were 3:42/3:51/3:41/3:43 14:59 halfway Garmin 15:14 on course

This is where the struggle began - had felt I had controlled things OK til here but the heat was biting and the 6th km was the killer (for all I subsequently discovered)

Second half 3:56/4:02/4:08/3:55 - 8k by Garmin 31:01
Race time 31:17.
I walked 10m at the 6k hairpin, but it didn't slow things down too much

So the overall race was about as expected. I'll be interested to see the times of the leaders as many seemed a bit slower than usual - perhaps making my run a bit better than at first glance

Nice to see Biscuitman returning from injury with a controlled effort, Sugar ran well but didn't push himself too hard.

This week I'll try to run every day. The hot forecast has strengthened my resolve not to run Six Inch, although there is a little part of me that wont completely discount it yet.

In two minds

2009-12-06T16:11:00.003+08:00

regarding Six Inch.

On the downside:

I have a persistent (Khumbu) cough and nasal/sinus congestion still present now 2 weeks after return from Nepal.
My Resting HR is still not down where it should be.
I'd not run more than 21k since the C2S Marathon in August (until today)
As previously documented, I am unlikely to be able to hold myself back on the day
Running may cause a significant 'bump' in my base training for Boston, or at worst an injury
Tiff would like me to attend the family XMas party on the saturday after bailing at 8pm the last 2 years

On the upside:

I managed 6 runs totalling 88k this week without major issues
I ran 28k today feeling pretty good
Running SixInch last year really launched my good year
I enjoy supporting the race as it grows, and enjoy the race day itself

This week -

Mon, Wed,Fri, Sat 10k each at easy pace (4:30-4:45)
Tues pm 19k@ 4:24 through Kings Park
Sun am 28.2k@4:40 through Kings Park

Today went off at 6am - was already 20degrees, but cooler than yesterday, was 25 at the finish.
Brief drink stop at 13k, toilet stop at 24k only, ran solidly the whole way and felt I could have run 5k more at that pace. Recovered well.

Right now I really am undecided. I'll see how this week goes health and running wise, see what the weather forecast ends up being, see if Clown is up to running (wasn't looking promising last I heard), and see what quality wine is being consumed at the party!

Om mani padme hum

2009-11-26T14:32:00.002+08:00

Picture at KalaPatthar 5545m - Clown, Me, Dad

Back from Nepal, and spiritually re-energised. Physically, not so much...

Another great trekking experience.

I even managed to do a couple of treadmill runs in Kathmandu (1400m) after the trek - Friday am 10k in 5x2k at 4:00, pm 7k easy

Sat am 6.5k mainly easy

Unfortunately it's been a struggle so far upon return. After no sleep overnight on the plane I tried to go for a run Sun afternoon. I lasted 8k then had to lie down on the grass by the river for 10minutes as I felt faint, and walked about 4k home. Since then I've been a bit off colour, resting HR up to about 60, and have run twice 10k very easy.

So it's a little over 3 weeks til Six Inch and it's definitely going to be a training run. I hope to put in some medium long runs the next couple of weekends, no point going too long aqnd damaging the legs, no real point tapering more than a couple of days. I really have no idea what to expect - might have a better idea in the next few days as my body returns to normal. I should have great oxygen carrying capabilities, it dependsa more upon whether my legs pick up quickly enough.

I definitely want to go back to Nepal again - tentative plans Mera Peak (6461m) 2011!

Off to Sagarmāthā

2009-11-01T10:57:00.003+08:00

Quick update post before flying out tonight.

Not much going on running wise in recent weeks. Once I realised that the John Gilmour 10k track was postponed until after I'd left, there was no event to prepare for.

I ran 250km in October - mainly 10-15k runs - easy, medium, fartlek. On Friday I ran a 6.5k tempo at 3:50s which felt a little harder than it would have 2 months ago.

If we can find somewhere nice to run, and I can throw off yet another niggling virus, Clown&I might do a couple of light jogs in Kathmandu, before the trekking starts in earnest.

My Boston Marathon confirmation has come in the mail and they've taken my money, so that's well and truly in my thoughts already. I've downloaded some elevation profiles from MapMyRun (each a little different as the Garmin altitude function isn't that great) and also of Perth runs, to find some corresponding hills to train on. I was surprised to see the significant overall altitude drop at Boston, and that the gradient of the hills doesn't match the two in the City to Surf Marathon, although they do come later. I'm sure Sugar and Biscuitman can give me a blow-by-blow of these hills!

Anyway, back in 3 weeks relaxed, fit, and ready to launch a short but concerted training block for SixInch

Freo 10k

2009-10-04T20:38:00.002+08:00

38:03 - PB but not quite my potential best at present

I started the week on Monday public holiday playing squash for the first time in about 8 years.
The rest of the week was spent limping with aching hip abductors (glutes and piriformis) - it's amazing what muscles you dont use running that do get used in a lateral movement sport.

I managed to hobble through 10k jogs Tues, Thurs and Sat am, started loosening up on Saturday

This morning started off poorly as I forgot my Garmin - so I ran blind (didnt even have a normal watch). I did about 5k easy to try and loosen the backside up ,so to speak

The start was as congested as usual , but things freed up after 700m or so and I hit a reasonable rhythm. I had been planning on staying in touch with biscuitman, but sadly his injury prevented him running, and Sugar was out of my league. I ran the first 5k keeping pace with the girl eho I think won the 5k womens event, as well as with the young blond guy from intervals (Clown knows the one!). They both stopped at 5k, which I passed at 18:45.

I started the second lap about 100m behind the leading female runner. One of the female marshalls yelled out a couple of times that those of us behind her were being 'chicked' and that we should try to pass her to save ourselves embarrassment. I thought this a little inappropriate but I did set my sights on gradually winding her in. I was also just behind Felipe Jalpa - who has a style which looks like he's jogging, and with Mike Haederle . I plodded along and gained about 20m on the leading female each kilometre, passing her with about 400m to go.

I thought to myself that this must be what it's like for Clown when running - it was my legs (or more specifically my upper butt) that was limiting me rather than my cardiorespiratory system. The good thing was that I felt fine afterwards, and even played another hour of squash this afternoon (paying for it now)

So I think I have another 30-45 seconds in me over the 10k, and am toying with the idea of focussing on the John Gilmour 10k track race to set a PB.

Congrats to Sugar on third place and a PB, even if not quite the target time
Good luck to Clown, Sling and TB next week in Melbourne - three PBs coming up

And on a final note, a couple of the fast young 5k guys were wearing nasal strips as pictured. My thoughts:
a. Breathe through your mouth
b. I dont care if it makes you run faster, you guys look like dicks

Go the Mighty Cats

2009-09-27T21:50:00.003+08:00

An up and down running week this week - and it started with the 'up'

Tuesday night ran for the first time at AK reserve - the replacement track for Perry Lakes. The surface was great, and fast. Apparently it is the same surface as at the Beijing Olympics -

It's a "dual-durometer" construction made of asphalt and stone base, polyurethane (PU) surface and a butyl rubber layer that helps with high return of energy during striding and exceptional shock absorption.

The track surface is finished with embedded ethylene propylene diene monomer granules for advanced traction. Unlike sheet rubber applied to asphalt with glue, PU is chemically bonded to the asphalt. Because PU is poured into place, if offers a seamless surface without tripping hazards.

The redoubtable Biscuitman was running a Yasso 800 session at 2:40s, so I decided to join in for the ride. I went in thinking I'd do 6 or so, but ended up doing the first 5, then skipped the 6th - jogging 800m with Rob instead, and returned for the last 4. So 9 of 10 - but a nice little break in the middle.

Splits - 2:37/2:40/2:41/2:39/2:39 (break) 2:42/2:43/2:39/2:37

I knew it was going to be fast when the warmup 3.5k was at 4:10s!
The 2:40 jogs were just under 600m

I felt a bit intimidated initially running on a real track - then I thought why be intimidated by a bunch of teenagers? Luckily we'd finished when some of the big guns of WA distance running started their session. (Kudos to TB and Clown for a good interval session too - perhaps we can start our own Tuesday interval group this summer)

What I got out of the session (apart from confirming the fact that Biscuitman is a gun), was that despite the limitations of the sesion as a predictor, I feel I still have a bit of marathon improvement in me if I can tap into that potential.

Anyway, the other thing I got from the session was a virus on Thursday - a sure sign I pushed too hard. So the rest of the week was a bit of a write-off, 3x10k easy 4:45-5:00 pace runs.

On the non running front - the Cats had a well deserved win yesterday, and today we did the Nepal Trek shopping - spending inordinate amounts on trekking gear.

Freo 10k next week? maybe...

Freo HM

2009-09-20T14:27:00.002+08:00

Happy enough with this week

Tuesday Tempo 10k in 38:45 -eased in with a 4:08/4:05, then 5k in 18:40, and had to work the last 3k into the wind in 3:50s. This was to test my knee pre the Half, and things were fine

Thurs and Fri 12k each 3 laps around the tan. I did one fast lap on Fri am but I forgot my Garmin charger so not sure how fast it was. Ran anticlockwise this time which feels the harder way to do it.

Sun - Freo HM in about 86 flat. No exact time as I didn't enter - in Melbourne wed-fri and working sat am, should have entered online but didn't ,and they've stopped on the day entries. Felt a bit of a freeloader running without entering but I only had about 3 plastic cups of water en route and would happily have paid had they let me.

I ran with Rob as a bit of a pacer - 19:34/19:44/20:40/20:46 the 5k splits. I felt fine most of the run but had to dig a bit in the last 2k into the wind as Rob pushed things up a notch. I tried to be surreptitious finishing to the side of the chute, but a few people gave me some funny looks.

Great PB for Rob who's injuries didn't slow him down much this time and hopefully builds some confidence for Melbourne. Also solid efforts from Gunner and Coops - both looked comfortable each time I crossed paths with them. TB was handing out drinks - many thanks (looks like you've lost some weight - can see it in your face)

Go the Cats!

Sore Knee

2009-09-13T18:31:00.003+08:00

I've been paying for my great Marathon over the last couple of weeks. Initially I thought it would be the left groin/hip flexor which would bother me, but that can be run through and settles with stretching.

More annoyingly is some pes anserinus tendonitis/bursitis in the right knee. It doesn't appear until about 8k, but when it comes it's quite nasty. Akin to ITBS on the medial aspect of the knee/proximal tibia.

On the plus side, I've got another overuse injury to add to the collection - I've now become much better at diagnosing and treating sporting injuries in the last couple of years.

So lots of stretching (esp hamstrings) and no runs beyond 10k - 38k total last week, 54k this week.

Apart from this the body feels good on easy runs, but after trying anything approaching a quality session I feel it the next day

I was hoping to run the Freo HM with Clown next week, but will have to see how it goes. An option may be to run 'til the knee gets sore then pull out. A quick trip to Melbourne for a couple of meetings Thurs and Friday mean I also have the opportunity to beat my Tan lap time.

Looking more closely at those High School times from my last post I'm beginning to question my memory - surely I never ran that fast. I'll take a look and see if I have any records to confirm their veracity. I cant imagine ever being as fast as Sugar is now!

And finally, speaking of fast - I saw the Triathlon World Champs on TV -Alistair Brownlee won with a 10k of 29:04 - that's pretty impressive after 1500m swim and 40k cycle!

Official result

2009-09-01T18:01:00.003+08:00

Your Net time: 02:57:51	Your Gun time: 02:57:54
Your first-half split (Net Time): 01:28:59	Your first-half split (Gun Time): 01:29:03

That would make second Half 1:28:52
7 second negative split

So I've consumed some fatty food and some very nice wine, and celebrated as well as possible with wife away in US/Europe

Having achieved a goal which took 5 years and 8 marathon starts to achieve, there is a considerable let down feeling and sense of aimlessness
Luckily running is such a part of my life that I couldn't fathom not continuing to run regularly
Boston is the next significant goal, and with the sub 3 out of the way, and Clown's sub 3 on the way, we can relax and enjoy it.
Beyond that I guess it's hard to go from there. There is no great marathon milestone in my reach, unless averaging sub 4 min/km counts

5k and 10k runs don't really push my buttons. Ultras are attractive but very hard work
I did toy with the idea of challenging my year 12 school athletics results - 2:04 800m and 4:21 1500m

I entered the marathon time in the VDOT calculator - comes in at 54.3
Predicted times
5k 18:34
10k 38:31
HM 1:25:13
1500m 5:01
3000m 10:44

Short term I've got a nasty left hip flexor strain with a noticeable swelling in the groin (get your mind out of the gutter), so I expect a couple of weeks before I'm running again

My finest hour

2009-08-30T14:46:00.002+08:00

2:57:59 by my watch. How do you like those apples ( I almost said this to the girl giving out fruit in the recovery tent a la Matt Damon, but took pity on her)

Leading up to this one, I wanted to focus on 2 things - mental discipline not to go too fast in the middle third, and adequate nutrition.

I decided to use 7km chunks as my targets, as indiviual kms were too variable with the hills. I wanted Nothing under 29, nothing over 30 for each of the sixths.

29:14/29:16/29:09/29:22/29:18/29:15 by the Garmin - all within 2 sec/km of each other.

So I started conservatively, feeling quite good. I tucked in a group of about 6 - mainly South African guys who I expect are stalwarts of WAMC/Darlington. I heard one had run 2:17 in his younger days. I'm not a chatty marathoner, so I just listened.

Nothing really happened in the first HM. I took powerade at every station, and grabbed a Gu at 15k and had it with some water at the next station. I didn't walk any of the stations, often needing to take 2 paper cups to get adequate fluid after spillage.

It was a buzz to go pass the assembling hordes before attacking Market St. I've run it several times in training and took a head down approach. The aforementioned ex2:17 runner bounded ahead up the hill, but we reassembled in Kings Park. We made up some time on the downhill, and after the U turn at the bottom of the hill, I found I had pulled ahead of the group. I didn't speed up so I assume they slowed for some reason. I ran the rest of Kings Park solo.

Turning into Kings Park road we were partitioned off from the 12k runners, but then the fun started. On the pre race map it said we took a little left detour into Thomas St, but this didnt happen. We turned right and merger into hordes of walkers/joggers. Knowing we had a Barker St turn left I moved to the path on the left of the road, but there was noone ther telling Marathoners to turn left. I did but I pity those who weren't familiar with the course. There was a guy 100m ahead of me down Kings Park road who obviously go lost in there beacause he was nowhere to be seen when turning into Barker road just a few hundred m ahead.

Running thru Subi I felt good, but again turning into Hay St we merged with the masses, and I spent km 34-38 weaving through joggers. This didnt slow me down much and helped distract me from the big hill. The problem was that the 2 drink stations along here were packed with people stopping and I went about 7k without a drink.

So we turn down Stevenson and I'm alone again. I suddenly became acutely aware of the fact I was at 38k, on pace and feeling pretty good (I had a left groin niggle quite badly in KP but it faded on flatter terrain). I was in a new situation for me whereby I started picking off runners one by one. The first was Verity Tolhurst, who I had run near in Canbeera this year before I blew up. I started feeling the pain at the 40k hill towards WC highway, but I wasn't about to stop.

At this point I was glad to see Clown running towards me and he said some encouraging words. At this point I was pumped. My shoe had picked up a long piece of sticky tape flapping about but I wasnt going to stop and pull it off. I even managed to find some energy for sub 4 pace in the last 500m, and took 2 guys in this last bit.

Surprisingly I felt OK afterwards, apart from an incredibly sore right groin/hip flexor which I suspect is going to be very annoying in the coming fortnight.

So my 5 year goal is complete, in style, on a hilly course. I guess I do better with hills - my PB in HM and Mara are now on hilly courses, and in retrospect in School Xcountry I always did best in the hilly ones.

Why today? Luck, lighter weight, no virus in the leadup, good weather, disciplined pacing all played a part.

Congrats to all those I saw out there - Gunner and Coops, Craig/Duffer with a Mara PB, TB I saw at the start and not the end. Sugar and Biscuitman I look forward to your 12k reports. Clown thanks for coming down and supporting despite not running the HM - you'll go sub3 in Melbourne. Homo - next time. Sling - you'll go sub3 sooner or later.

I'll post my official time and HM split when available

Looking for inspiration

2009-08-23T12:14:00.002+08:00

I'm not getting it from the Eagles, the Aussie cricket team or the Wallabies.

I am finding it in Bolt, Bekele and Hooker.

It's been a fairly uninteresting fortnight from me

Week 1 71k@ 4:28
Mon 10.1@ 4:26
Tues 20.1@ 4:24 - Kings Park - held back
Wed 10k@4:17 with fartlek total about 2.5k@5k pace
Fri 10k@4:38 - preflight to Sydney
Sat 20.6k@4:32 - Sydney Botanic gardens and Harbour Bridge

Week 2 77k@ 4:32
Mon 11.6k@ 4:21 - with 3k@10k pace
Tues 10.4k@4:26
Wed 19.3k@4:36 Kings Park even easier
Fri 10.1k@4:26 - 4x500m 10k pace
Sat 10.7k@4:33
Sun 15.6k@4:42 - with Rob - last 7k of marathon and back

I felt fairly heavy in the legs all week up til yesterday. Have some fears of having a race like Slig's half - perhaps not enough rest post Perth

Of note in this prep compared to my one for Perth -
1. No illness for the first time ever in the 4 weeks leading up to a marathon
2. Average pace 4:30 over the last 4 weeks compared with 4:19 in the 4 leading up to Perth
3. No really hard efforts this time - last time 20k@ 4:01, this time 4:11 - 3 and a half weeks out
last time 39k@4:24, ths time 34k@4:32 3 weeks out.

So more kms (426v373 in last 5weeks) at slower pace.

I don't know what that all means, but I'm still heading out with the plan as per 2 weeks ago - 88:xx flat first half, hopefully hold sub 3 times to 35k, see what happens from there

This week - max 10k runs Tues-Fri, easy pace with strides

Where to aim?

2009-08-09T18:01:00.002+08:00

85k this week ( was on track for 100 until today)

Mon 6.2k @4:50 - recovery
Tues 20.3k @ 4:11 - through Kings Park marathon loop at a bit faster than MP
Wed 12.2k @ 4:31 - felt really lethargic
Thurs rest
Fri 11.7k @4:15 - MP - Garmin had some sort of malfunction so ran on feel - sportstracks interpreted the run properly and had gone faster than I expected
Sat 34.3k @4:35. Had to move long run to unfamiliar Sat am due to marshalling duties on Sun. Drizzling at the start, some heavier showers and clearing towards the end. Very similar course to last week - mainly on marathon course. Felt pretty crappy today so was happy with it all in all and hade a bit of a secong wind at 30k which was promising.

Sun - marshalled at Womens Classic ,meant to run in the afternoon but work and family commitments prevented it. Felt in a funk all day - very annoyed with constant work calls and just couldnt relax.

So I'm starting to think about the race plan for C2s. Up until now I've said that I wouldn't worry about the time, but that would be disingenuous. I would like to set myself up with a chance for a PB but not put pressure on myself.

Given the course, I think a first half of 1:28:xx would be the plan. Then I would expect to be able to hold on to sub 3hr pace through KP and subiaco. My plan then is to see what happens with the last 6k. Either I have some juice left and kick on, or I'm struggling and lose as little as possible.

The alternative would be to take it out really easy and finish strong, but I would still like to give myself the possibility of a sub3 finish - as unlikely as that is.

City to Surf Marathon (probably)

2009-08-02T11:31:00.003+08:00

I'm 90% decided on running the marathon at the end of the month.

I managed 105k this week, and that was one of my self imposed criteria (the ability to do a couple of 100+ weeks) for trying the full Mara so soon after Perth.

Thanks for the comments last week - many were along the lines of what I was thinking already. Craig - I appreciate your input - and I'm certainly very aware of the over fast speed I tend to train at. Sadly there continues to be a disconnect between my intentions and actions. Terming my 4:19 average run as 'Easy' last week is evidence of this - 'easy' was my intention, the result clearly wasn't.

I'd like to say I was successful in slowing down this week, but it was only true to a very limited extent. The only way I've really been able to slow down is by running with my brother-in-law on saturday, who is training for a sub 1hr 12k C2S.

Mon 8.7k@4:37 -easy(ish)
Tues 20.2k@ 4:23 - though Kings Park for the first time in a couple of years
Wed 15k@ 4:25 - again through Kings Park
Thurs rest
Friday 12k with 3x1k 3:33/3:28/3:33 - I still find it amazingly hard to run fast this early in the morning

Sat 15k@4:55 - including 10k through KP with Luke at race pace for him - looking good

Sunday 33.5k@4:35 - solo long run - basically ran on the marathon course - started at the 14k mark through to 30k mark, then the start to 14k mark, with 2k each way from home.
This felt like a real plod, despite the speed, my legs complaining about the recent mileage and introduction of hills. Tried to minimise stops - only a quick water fill at 20k and again at 30k.

I had been 100% about running the Mara yesterday, but this mornings effort with some pretty fatigued legs scared me as I imagined being at the 33k point of the race feeling like that and needing to get over the hills to come.

On the non-running front, I'm back on the sauce - celebrated with some Moet and a bottle of 1997 Keyneton Estate - a little past its prime but still a lovely drop. Hopefully I will limit myself to weekend drinking only.

I'm a little concerned at the City to Surf plans. Mara starts 0730, 12k at 0900. This means i will be running up St Georges Tce exactly as the 12k starts, as was the organiser's plan to add to the atmosphere. The intention is that the 12k runners will all be on the right hand side of the road, and we'll stay on the left. Having experienced several City to Surf starts, I have my doubts over the organiser's ability to stop 25000 people spreading across the lanes. The site FAQ says that there will be a physical barrier or median strip to stop this happening - if it's just the median strip I have my concerns especially on the first hill. I think that after the KP detour things will be fine - and the courses do diverge through Subi

Looking at my GPS record I'm also reminded that it doesnt like running down St Georges Tce - poor signal with all those buildings - wont be able to rely on it there.

What to do?

2009-07-26T21:29:00.002+08:00

Wound it back up to 88k this week

Mon rest
Tues 14.8k@ 4:06 with 10k in 40min tempo
Wed 20k@4:22
Thurs rest
Fri 10k@4:26 easy
Sat 10k@4:18 easy
Sun 33k@4:35 - long run with Rob

Feeling not quite recovered 3 weeks post Mara - paces for effort 5-10sec slower than a month ago.

More importantly the motivation ain't there to do a full on marathon prep. To run Monday and Thursday for me requires a deal of willpower as these are my long work days - wasnt up to it this week, and after puttin in for the first 6 months of the year I'm leaning towards settling down to 80k weeks in 5days running

This still doesnt decide my City to Surf decision - it would be nice to run a slower, more controlled marathon (if such a thing exists), would also be nice to target a fast 12k, or I could hitch on with Clown and Homo in the HM.

Then Clown has thrown a spanner in the works with his plans for Melbourne Mara in October.

Lets wait and see.

Dry July

2009-07-19T19:15:00.002+08:00

Three weeks no alcohol - a record for me for a long time - and on the downhill run to the end of the month. I finally registered on the Dry July website and put my money where my mouth is (the money I would have otherwise spent on wine) - so I can't stop now.

On the running front I've taken it nice and easy post marathon - weather, busy work and a 4 day weekend in Melbourne helping to keep me from doing too much too soon.

Week 1 40k total - mainly easy, a little fartlek, did some without the watch to keep my mind off the pace.

Week 2 - 55km total. As above plus one obligatory lap of the Tan in Melbourne - did 13:55 for the 3.82km, 3:38 average - pretty pleased as I was running by myself on a surprisingly quiet track.

As Clown mentioned on his blog - great sporting time of year - two reasons to stay up late - the usual Tour, and the Ashes. Tonight will be a big one - outside of Cadel and Lance, I'm an Andy Shleck fan. I'm also holding out some hope for an improbable result at Lords - weather and umpiring permitting.

We watched collingwood v hawthorn last night at the 'G, and the Pies fans behind us reinforced their reputation as the lowest common denominator as they treated the children with us (and their own children) to an education in swearing. Unfortunately after they spent the pre match discussing how their amateur boxing bouts went down at the local town hall went this week, we weren't game to say anything. On the upside, they all left at 3 quarter time (to 'avoid the traffic' apparently, rather than to see their team get shellacked by a resurgent Hawthorn). I'll never complain about Dockers fans again!

As for me, I'm lacking a bit of direction in my running right now - will see if I have the energy to ramp it up to 100km+ weeks in the next fortnight to help me decide C2S 12/HM/Mara

Perth Marathon 2009

2009-07-05T19:09:00.004+08:00

3:04:08 - 10minute PB but not quite what I was aiming for

The leadup week was OK - Tuesday ran too fast 8k in 3:55s, so took Wed off, 5.5k@4:30 Thurs, 7.5k@4:30 Fri

Saturday I had a sore throat and felt hot and sweaty, I convinced myself I had a virus and wouldn't run today. Of course I woke up feeling fine

The warmup was unremarkable other than one contact lens slipping to the side of my eye such that I couldn't retrieve it, and forgetting my Ipod headphones.

We started off OK - hit 10k bang on 42 mins. We were running in a small group on the cyclepath. At about 14k this guy came up on the right of me - I was running alongside Rob. He proceeded to veer to his left towards me, knocking my elbow with his, and really pissed me off. I muttered something but he stayed there. I fell back a little but he slowed a little too, then I sped up a little and he did the same, still knocking me with his elbow. I swore and sped up significantly under a burst of adrenaline. Sadly this was about the same time Rob's groin hurt and he never caught me up.

Anyway, I fell into a rhythm that saw me get to half way in 88:35, and I continued at 4:10-4:15s for the next 10k. At 32k I was 2hrs15 and thought I was still a realistic chance. I started to struggle at this point and didnt really find someone I could tag along with. I passed Dave Kennedy, but he wasn't having a fast day after a very recent 100k ultra.

I slowed to 4:30s and at 36k was 4:33 and realised it wasn't going to be sub3 today. The last 5k were 4:50-5:00s and my left quad cramped up big time. For good or bad I was still passing those around me even at this pace - I think in the last 10k I passed 5 people and only one passed me.

The cramp really developed in the last 500m such that I limped through the finish and couldnt sit down for a few minutes. In my usual style I could barely talk or sit up afterwards - so again sorry to you all who wanted a chat - I dont do well post marathon!

I went home and slept for a couple of hours and rewarded myself with my first fast food in several months - a chicken burger from Hungry Jacks. I also wasn;t tempted to break my Dry July and will continue off the alcohol.

Congrats first to Sling for a top performance at Gold Coast. Clown for persevering through groin pain. Homo for battling the stomach cramps. Gunner for another solid Mara in his leadup to Busselton. The Sugary Biscuit team for their 3rd place. TB for leading the field at the start ('cos that's how you roll') then toughing out another long day at the office.

5k Garmin splits (read 400m long)
20:33/20:51/20:57/20:42/20:46/21:21/22:14/24:10
Halves 88:35/95:33

My immediate thought is to never do another - so let's give it a week or two.

All the hard work is done

2009-06-28T15:49:00.002+08:00

Taper week - 65k@4:20

Monday 10.1k@4:10 - fairly consistent effort - felt great after my week off
Tues 10.2k@ 3:51 - 5k tempo 4:06/3:53/3:46/3:44/3:44 - 19:19
1min break then 2k 3:42/3:38
1min break then 1k 3:38
1min break then 2k home 4:20/3:57
This felt surprisingly controlled

Wed 10.8k@4:09 - didnt feel great - took a little walk at half way
Thurs off
Fri 7.8k@4:24 - easy
Sat10.3k@4:24 - easy
Sun 16k@4:47 - gentle run in the breezy conditions with Homo and Clown - resisted the temptation to farther or faster

So... light runs <10k Tues,Wed,Fri this week.
The plan on Sunday is out in 88:XX and take things from there

Rob, Henry and I will be having a pasta dinner Friday probably at Valdarno in Dalkeith at 7pm - if anyone wants to come and shoot the breeze, let me know.

Good luck all with the last taper week.

Swine Flu Part 2

2009-06-21T17:30:00.003+08:00

I made a comments to Clown last week about the rituals involved pre marathon - Friday night Carb dinner with other runners, entering the day before at Runners World, dropping off my self prepared drinks, race morning breakfast etc.

The one I forgot about was my pre Marathon virus, which has happened every Perth Marathon, somewhere between 3 and 1 week out. This one came on Tuesday, and was complicated by my contact with Swine Flu - such that on wednesday when I developed fevers and muscle aches, I had to have swabs and be quarantined. I don't think I had swine flu ('novel H1N1' to be politically correct) but advice from the health dept said I needed to stay away from work. So I started my Tamiflu and stayed at home, eating and watching DVDs for 3 days. Guess I'll find out this week if I did or not.

Running wise I played it safe - 12k@4:10s on Tues then no running whilst sick. Feeling better this morning I headed out for 12k@4:25 with Rob and cruised, felt energised by the run after only one run in the preceding week. I really wanted to head out for a second this afternoon but decided to play it safe.

My understanding is that I should have lost minimal performance with this time off (?0.6% or one minute over the marathon!). This week will see running 5 or 6 days with shortish sessions with plenty of time at MP and tempo pace (total 60k). The good news is that my achilles and hamstring tendonitis is much improved.

Swine Flu!

2009-06-14T21:23:00.004+08:00

Swine flu scare this week proved to be nothing to be concerned about (perhaps like the 'pandemic' itself) I tested some patients on Monday and was called later by the lab to say they came back positive for swine flu - luckily I had been wearing a mask when I plunged a swab into the deep recesses of their noses and throats.

On the running front - a good week. 99.3k@4:17

Monday 8.4k@4:39 - recovery
Tuesday 20.1k@4:01 - this was planned as a MP run. After last weeks 4:21 pace I decided to start faster than my usual 4:40s. On a perfect night I found myself in the zone and flying. At 15k I encountered Homo running the other way and as I stopped and we chatted I became aware of just how well I was going. I immediately picked up where I left off and powered home. It felt effortless at the time, but subsequently I developed a niggle in the left achilles which stayed all week

Wed 8.5k@4:24 - recovery
Thurs rest
Fri 11.3k@4:07 - did 2x1.5k intervals at 3:35 pace, but felt hampered by the achilles
Sat 11.95k@4:13
Sun 39k@4:24 - easy 8k before meeting Rob then we ran together about 20k at 4:20s or so. Pushed a couple of km at MP and then 2k 34-36k @4:05s then back to average pace for the last couple.

After my Canberra debacle I'm keeping expectations in check. This week 85k similar pace.

YTD 1999k@4:32

Back in the saddle

2009-06-07T21:34:00.004+08:00

So I'd pre-empted the pod's advice and ran anyway this week

105km@4:24

Monday as previously documented the 3k of race@3:39. After coming home I ran down to Mosman Park easy 10k@4:37

Tuesday 12.3k@4:22 - MP for 10k of this (2k warmup)

Wed 20k@4:20 - MP except for a section of running into galeforce winds - tempo effort, slow pace. The only plus was that the cyclists seem worse affected than me and I passed a couple of them

Thurs rest
Fri 12k@4:17 - MP
Sat13.7k@4:20 - MP after 2k warmup

Sunday 34.5k@4:30 - tough start after a cousin's 21st Sat night- little sleep and a little nauseous. No Rob to push me along so I headed down to Lake Monger to give me a target of sdome type. Saw Rob there and as we warmed up and chatted he missed the start - my bad! Running back I hit a second wind and ran the last 10k in 43 min, with the last 5k@4:12.

So it was largely MP running this week, and a bit of a confidence booster - my first 100k+ since early March. One more similar week before starting to reduce. Foot feels fine

Had my running shoe bargain of the year this weekend. Went down to Rebel Sport in Claremont and on the clearance table they had a pair of DS Trainer 13's in my size for $29.99 - the tag was labelled Blackhawk but I checked with the salesguy and he said the price stood - bargain!

No stress, I'm in my cubist period!

2009-06-05T13:44:00.003+08:00

No, I'm not Picasso, but I am happy

Saw Darryn S (podiatrist) today re the foot and he told me he's 100% sure it's not a stress fracture. It's a cuboid subluxation syndrome , brought on by that high mileage week and probably too much running on the left camber road to rest my medial ankle sprain.

So I got some mobilisation massage and strapping and I'm free to keep running on it! Yay!

NEPAL 2009

2009-06-03T20:22:00.003+08:00

Enchanted by the scenery, clean mountain air and gentle manner of the Buddhist Sherpas in 2007, I'm planning on heading back to Nepal this year.

This time I'm taking my father, hopefully my brother-in-law who went last time, and anyone else who might be interested.

The options are:

1.Everest Base Camp - 20 day trip, 15 day trek, 5545m high point - the classic trek and the same one as we did last time - I'd be happy to do the same again.

2. Annapurna Circuit - 24 day trip, 18 day trek, 5416m high point - said to be more scenic than Everest but with less prestige.

3 Everest Circuit - 25 day trip, 20 day trek - Base Camp trek plus over ChoLa pass and Gokyo Lakes

I'll do any (like the sound of #3), but time availability may be a limit for some. The planned time would be starting late october/early november.

Clown I can forward you the World Expeditions Book if you're still interested. The everest base camp treks fill up reasonably early, there are places left on the departing 2/11 and 16/11 treks. Annapurn has spots departing 29/10, 5/11. Everest circuit 4/11.

There are great entry level mountaineering trips, and trips to the more isolated Tibetan and Bhutan Himalayas that I'd love to do in the future, but this year these somewhat easier ones are on the cards!

Glass Half Full

2009-06-01T12:20:00.003+08:00

I was definitely in the half empty camp the last two days, but a beautiful day today can only make me optimistic

The week started well, after my good Sunday run last week. The ankle was barely an issue and I started running a little on grass and less even surfaces

Mon 10.1k@ 4:35 recovery
Tues am 9k @ 4:25 with 3.5k tempo 4:00s
Tues pm 5x1k intervals 3:29/3:33/3:33/3:33/3:30 - 60sec walk recov, 2.25kw/up, 2k w/down

Wed 11.5k@4:08 - 6.5k then 2.5k@tempo 4:00 - 60sec between
Thurs 7.5k@4:37 recovery
Fri 10.2k@4:28

So at this point I had run 110k in the past 7 days with some good quality sessions thrown in
With 300m to go on Fri am I developed a sudden pain in my left lateral midfoot, such that I couldn't run. The rest of the day I was barely able to walk - couldnt transition from heel to forefoot and push off. The pain and tenderness was initially diffuse ,but since has localised to the cuboid bone and the base of the 5th metatarsal, which is where peroneus muscles insert.

Hopefully I have peroneus tendonitis, as the alternative, a stress fracture of the 5th MT, doesn't bear thinking about. i've since read that peroneal tendinitis often occurs in the context of recovery from sprained ankles - assumedly I've changed my gait to protect my ankle, and strained the other side of the foot in the process

From what I've read I should take a week off then gradually restart running. But that was never going to happen. I took Sat off, than tried a little jog Sunday am - lasting about 5k bafore stopping with the pain.

Today, I decided again against my better judgement, to go down to the Lake Gwelup funrun. Our practice is just down the road and were a sponsor. Bob&Tiffany from TBL were there as well, and I wasn't going to miss my chance to see real B grade celebrities in the flesh.

The run was one or two laps of the lake - 3k or 6k. Biscuitman was there, looking fit. We took off in a crowd of little kids and I got a bit caught up at the start. Coming up to the 3k in 11min flat just ahead of biscuitman, I decided the ache, although bearable, wasn't a good sign and I pulled out there ( I was also buggered). Perhaps I should have gone on because Biscuitman ran a great 2nd place in about 23:30 and the next runner was some way behind him, so I could probably have held onto third.

Having made it through the 3k, now with the foot up and iced, I'm a bit more optimistic. I'll probably get an XRay tomorrow just to exclude a fracture (as much as an XRay can), and then try running 5x10k or so during the week. I've got a feeling it wont be too bad, the fact it came on so suddenly makes me think it was an acute tear/strain, and thus should go quite quickly.

At least I have another injury to add to my collection - it makes a great difference when a patient comes in with a sports injury if I can say 'I've had that' - although I still advise them to be more conservative in their recovery than I am with myself.

Saved by the long run

2009-05-24T11:53:00.003+08:00

Wussed out this Thursday and Friday - afraid of a little dark, wind and rain I elected to stay in bed. Luckily I redeemed myself this morning

Mon 10.75@4:24 recovery - felt great, maybe thanks to using the skins again for recovery on Sun
Tues 20.1@4:18 - MP run after first 2k. Had to tough it out a bit in the last few km
Wed10.4@4:30 - recovery
Thurs - wussed out
Fri - got up at 545, got dressed, stepped out, turned around, went back to bed for another hour!
Sat 12.1k @4:28 - heavy rain, for some reason sore shins, but moved to tempo for the last 4k
Sun 38.2k@4:35s - with Rob, around the river
Started off a bit slow and struggled in the first 15k thanks to a hangover, but then found some rhythm and felt really good, longest training run ever I think and could have gone further had there been any point.

Overall 91.6km @4:29

Lets see if I can toughen up this week and go 100k+ again

Ready to go

2009-05-17T15:48:00.002+08:00

2 weeks post injury, back to near normal and ready to log some mileage
80km this week

Mon 10k@ 4:45 with walks
Tues 18k @4:30 pretty sore by the end
Wed 10k @4:22 - did about 3k at tempo pace and paid the price with a flare of pain
Thurs off
Fri 8.5k @4:20 - stopped short as still sore
Sat rest
Sun 33.8k@4:27.

Long run with Rob, very happy with the consistent pace, over most of the run. Minimised stops as the ankle gets more sore when it cools down. It felt good except on a couple of winding sections and any sharp left turns. Rob pushed the pace up to 4:10s 28-32k, and I almost held on dropping only about 20m.

This week I'll hope to get up to 100k, staying at MP fastest and on flat straight roads and paths. I'm feeling alot more confident after todays run, and glad this sprain was minor compared to others'. Having said that, I can see why in other sports (eg football), ankle sprains are such a worry, because I still cant do any significant lateral movement.

Sprained ankle

2009-05-10T15:54:00.002+08:00

Apologies to any residents in a 1km radius of me on Monday morning, who were exposed to a string of expletives more familiar at a Freo wharf or a Pilbara minesite.

Last Sunday morning, after a good long run, Clown and I sat by the edge of the river and discussed the dangers of injury running on dark mornings. The very next morning up at quarter to six, I decided against my better judgement to hop up onto the soft grss on the verge. Within 5 steps I had steppen into a hole and rolled my left ankle ( eversion injury). Luckily I'd only gone 800m by that point and hobbled home.

Running was not possible in the next four days - each attempt was met with sharp pain. Saturday morning I managed a walk/jog (ankle heavily strapped) on flat surface for a few km. This morning I managed about 12k, again with plenty of walks, and was running with a limping gait by the end.

I really need to get a bike - I did no exercise at all in the intervening days and felt absolutely awful, a reminder of the strength of addiction to exercise.

One sidenote is that I realise now if I were ever to take up triathlon and shave my legs, Mrs Epi would leave me - the comments about the shaved left ankle/calf have not been complimentary to say the least!

Hopefully gradually back to comfortable running over the next 7 days.

Hopefully I can gradually get going

Like falling off a bike

2009-05-03T14:56:00.002+08:00

Back to training - just like falling off a bike -you never forget

Had hoped to run every day but a busy return to work schedule blew that away
Still 89k@ 4:24

Mon 11.1k@4:26- recovery
Tues 16k@ 4:19 - MP after the first 2k
Wed 9.5k@4:30
Fri 17k@4:15 - overall MP, although middle 6k stretch at 4:00s
Sun 35k@4:30s - Ran with Rob around the river, felt pretty good throughout other than sore quads, which has been a feature of the entire week. Was surprised at how spritely I felt in the final 2k after Rob & I parted ways

I'm looking at developing the Tues and Friday sessions to 20k+ at MP on a regular basis to make me feel more comfortable at that pace, with 35k+ sunday runs and filling the rest of the week with easier runs. This means intervals will go until after Perth Mara, but thats OK.

Garmin died this morning, apparent battery problems although I'm going to get a mains USB charger and see if that can kickstart things - apparently charging thru the USB port on the computer is a lower voltage and may not be enough to charge a completely empty battery. Otherwise it's a decision between another 305, a 205 or wait for the 310xt

Reload

2009-04-27T15:12:00.003+08:00

Trying too keep a positive outlook from here - no point dwelling on the past. Having said that I'm keen not to get too hung up on the goal time for Perth

I returned on Saturday evening after a week of gastronomic indulgence in Sydney, with 7-8 weeks of full training before taper for Perth. I guess I'd like to think that most of what I'd been doing before Canberra was right, and it was mainly tactical error, and poor mental toughness on the day which caused the poor result.

So I'll be back into it this coming week. I'll hope to put in a bit more total distance to help the endurance, hopefully fit in a second 20k+ run at some point most weeks (and push that total mileage up)

This week (self flagellation week) 63k@4:23

Tuesday 8.2k@4:30 - treadmill set on (very) hilly mode - self punishment workout
Wed 10.2k@4:16 - around sydney harbour in light rain - got caught up racing another guy for about 4k (4:13/4:02/3:52/3:47)
Thurs 12.3k@4:19 - similar course - sprinted the stairs at Harbour Bridge
Sun 32k@4:25 - 10-30k section at 4:20s. Forgot that the Perth 32k was on today or I might have run it. Headed out early and actually passed the start line 5min before the race (but by this time I'd run 15k already). Ran back on the course and at the end of my run stopped to watch the leaders go by. Legs really suffered in this run.

DNF

2009-04-19T18:02:00.003+08:00

Hmmm... not sure whether I should put the optimistic or pessimistic spin on this one - both have been through my mind today.

Preparation went OK - Mon, Wed, Fri 8k runs at some speed, flew in Friday night, slight delay on the plane (flew with the Dockers - Pav and Sandi go 1st class, the rest economy!)

Pasta dinner the night before, slept OK, no toilet issues like last year. Started near the front after being stuck back last year - actually front line (?first mistake). It was cool although there was a nasty wind at times.

No excuses - I simply went too fast and was cooked at 27k. I then had a decision to struggle on, drop to a 3:10 finish and have beaten up legs needing long recovery, or cut my losses and pull out, with the ability to slip straight back into training. I stopped once, changed my mind, ran on another km, stopped again, changed my mind, ran on another km, then decided to stop for good.

Walking back I was rueing the decision - 5 road and 2 off road marathons in the past and I have always finished, family here, should I have pushed on?

Splits -
5k 20:19
10k 40:53 (20:34)
15k 61:48 (20:55)
20k 82:48 (21:00)
(HM 87:XX)
25k 104:07 (21:19)

stopped about 28k.

Felt pretty embarrassed talking to the family afterwards, especially as I felt physically fine. I think Tiff was more upset than I was as she has seen the 16 weeks of training I've put in. I walked about 8k over the rest of the day sightseeing (as there were 5 of us I refused to take the taxi and walked from place to place as self imposed punishment)

I think I suffered today from setting my sights too high (perhaps falsely buoyed by the HM result), and being too rigid in my goal.

Oh well - only a running race!

Taper madness

2009-04-16T12:09:00.004+08:00

I've been feeling depressed, niggly, sinusy and without confidence in the last few days.

I've come across the following article online, which describes it perfectly

Taper Madness

As the support team for a Marathoner you are entering a very tricky period. Your Marathoner has been training hard through the summer and into the fall in preparation for the big day. The hard work is behind and TAPER MADNESS is ahead.

Marathon training is a stair-step type process where muscles are broken down for several weeks and then an easier week is thrown in for recovery. Finally three weeks before the Marathon, one last long run is completed and it’s time for recovery. The last three weeks are a period of descending running mileage. This period allows the body to more fully recover and rest in preparation for the Big Day, it is called the Taper.

This all sounds well and good, however, the Taper is a period of great anxiety for many Marathoners (first-timers and veterans alike). Over the course of training for a Marathon, an athlete becomes accustomed to running many miles each week and constantly feeling the rush of endorphin driven highs and the persistent fatigue and soreness of effort. The athlete becomes somewhat addicted to these emotions and considers them normal.

The Tapering Marathoner will be irritable, anxious, nervous, overly emotional, short-tempered, restless, tired, cranky, depressed (even more than normal). Sounds like a great three weeks doesn’t it? It is not unlike the addict going cold turkey. This is a span of time where most Marathoners go a bit crazy. For most it passes after Marathon day. Of course there are the post-marathon blues, but that’s the subject for another day.

The first week is not too bad. It’s really like most “easy weeks” following a twenty mile run. Recovery is critical and the mileage is not dropping by a large amount. Nerves may begin to fray but the best is yet to come – trust me!

During the first part of Taper Madness you will hear about every small ache and pain and how it may be a broken leg or torn ligament or some other traumatic injury. Every twinge becomes a reason to think about postponing the marathon effort. Every sneeze, sniffle, cough or pimple becomes a life-threatening virus or infection. Tight hammies, inflamed ITB, tweaked Achilles, plantar fascitis, black toenails, bloody nipples, chafing, and this is just during breakfast.

The second week starts the deep depression. The tapering Marathoner starts to really miss running. There are no more double-digit runs before the marathon for most. The longest run for the next two weeks will be 8 miles. Just 8 miles, how many used “just” and “8 miles” in the same sentence prior to training for the marathon. The body is really starting to recover and therefore has more energy than needed. Therefore, the Marathoner becomes restless. No “extra” running is allowed. The tapering Marathoner can feel the fitness draining out of their body. Ask them, they will tell you, they are getting slower every day! This is not happening but the feelings are real. Physiologically, there is nothing but positives from a 3 week taper prior to running a marathon, however, it feels quite the opposite. This restlessness often becomes frustration and a very short-tempered athlete. Understand that this frustration will be projected at anyone and everyone within reach. It’s nothing personal; it’s the lack of mileage talking.

So it’s now seven days before the Marathon. The last 8 mile run is done and all that’s left is 3 easy short runs and the BIG EVENT. For the first time Marathoner and some experienced folk, this week is nothing but self-doubt and worry. “I’ll never make it. My foot hurts. My nose is running. I’m not ready. My last 20 miler sucked, I’ll die out there. I’m getting fat and slow. My shoes are dead, my shoes are too small, my shoes are too big,” These are some of the things going through the mind of a Marathoner in their last few days. Not to mention the nervous energy that is overflowing. Not to mention that there may be a couple of extra pounds after cutting back on the running for 3 weeks. Not to mention that the trips to the bathroom are increasing geometrically as the hydration dance starts in earnest. Many find concentrating on anything other than the upcoming race difficult. By the way, Marathoners in the final days before a race often make poor babysitters.

Two nights before the marathon are critical to the marathoner. This night is probably the last chance for a good nights sleep. The night before is typically restless and worrisome (what if the alarm doesn’t go off). A sleepless night preceding a marathon will not have a dramatic impact on chances for success. Adrenaline will offset missing that night’s sleep and get the Marathoner through the race. The morning of the marathon is all about getting some food, using the bathroom and getting to the race. My suggestion, don’t get in the way.

I am sure your marathoner appreciates all the support they have received during the training program. The last few weeks are critical to a successful marathon effort. Please understand that the emotional wreck will disappear after the marathon. The Taper can be especially difficult and frustrating for everyone. The good news, it ends with the race.

I hope this sheds some light on TAPER MADNESS. Sometimes insight makes things a bit easier to understand. Of course, your experience may differ greatly but I’ll bet it doesn’t.

I dont remember getting it this bad in the previous marathons but perhaps I've wiped them from my memory

Tapering

2009-04-13T16:47:00.002+08:00

An enforced strong taper this week. Woke up Tuesday morning feeling flu'ey, and remembering the adage that you cant gain anything in last 2 weeks training, I ended up doing a total of 37km this week. It worked, and I felt fine by Friday

Tues pm - 8.3k @4:50 - very light jog down to watch intervals and then home again, and to wish sugar and sas good luck
Wed pm 7.7k@ 4:05 - a little too fast - supposed to be MP
Fri am 9k@ 4:13 - farewell run round herdsman
Sat pm 12k@ 4:18 - happier with this, after first 2k ran at MP without going too fast

Luckily I've been distracted by moving house this week - haven't thought much about the marathon. I need to get used to running through the mean streets of Dalkeith for the next year until the house is built.

Canberra forecast - fine 6-19 degrees C

Feeling OK - plantar fasciitis has flared for some reason in the right foot, but I can run through this

Good luck Sugar, Sas and Biscuitman

This week - ran 9k today, will probably only run twice more before the race.

2 weeks to go

2009-04-05T17:15:00.002+08:00

Short and fast week this week - 81k@4:22

Mon 10.7k@ 4:33 easy
Tues 12k@ 4:10 - intervals 10x400m (or a bit shorter as the track had to be changed)
Did most at 79sec, took it a little easier than usual, although that's hard for me

Wed 10.1k@ 4:17 - MP run after the first k
Thurs rest
Friday 13k, with 10k tempo in 39:25
Sat 10k@4:30 - progression run
Sunday 24k @ 4:30 - medium run with Rob, long break in the middle at the 5k mark of the bridges. Did a few MP km in the second half

My inability to hold back in races stopped me from considering the Bridges today - probably a good thing because had I been running, I probably would have killed myself trying to keep up with Biscuitman and Sugar (and would likely have failed to). Great run!!!

The tough thing from here on in is holding back. I expect I'll do most of my running at MP in the next couple of weeks, so I just need to really limit the kms. If you see me out there running - tell me to stop and go home.

On the shoe front, I've gone off the speedstars and will probably go back to a known quantity - the 2110s - old, heavier but I've run all 5 road marathons in these so they are a known quantity.
Once the marathon is over I'm going to experiment with Newtons - I think when I run tempo pace or faster these days I'm more a midfoot striker.

3 weeks to go

2009-03-31T21:48:00.003+08:00

Apologies for the belated weekly update - been busy
Last week was due to be the last big one, but I had a bit of a HM 'hangover', leaving it OK but not great

93.4k@4:30

Mon 10.6k@4:43 - recovery. Tired legs
Tues 13.3k - intervals 400hard200easy400hard200easy200hard - 1400m x4

4:56,4:53,4:53,4:56 - 3:20to3:25 pace including the slow bits. This was tough.

Wed 10.1k@4:43 - easy
Thurs - wifes birthday - no run as a present to her !
Fri 17.1k@4:13. 9k@4:00 then 4k@3:55 plus 6k up/down
Sat 10.1k@4:36
Sun 32.2k@4:37

Long run with Rob, who slotted back into long run pace easily. We cruised at 4:30s the first 15k, then purposely slowed down as this was supposed to be an easy one. Did 3k at MP near the end just to stress the legs a bit.

So in the 13 sundays this year - 9x30k+, 1x28k, 1x24k, 2 races both PBs

This week brings the start of taper, although as the last 2 weeks have been mileage light, this will still mean 90k, with 24 on sunday - as last year with a stop in the middle to watch the bridges runners pass by.

Darlington HM 2009

2009-03-22T16:14:00.003+09:00

1:23:06 - big PB, big confidence booster

The week started with me continuing drop my bundle with the funeral on Tuesday and family staying with us. I decided to cut the training and taper properly for the HM - no point trying to fit in runs at the expense of adequate sleep.

So it was 45k leading up to today, with just a Tuesday tempo of 7k@3:52 then 4k@3:55 as quality

I had put a bit of pressure on today's run this way, as there was no excuse for poor performance.

Conditions were perfect, fine, little wind and 10-15 degrees. My aim was to head out at a little harder than usual HM effort and hold on down the hills. Sugar was running a MP run after 35k yeaterday, so I thought I could hold him up the hill then pull away in the second half.

Usual fast start 3:46, then the 2 gravel kms 4:15,4:14
Quickly settled into a bunch 5th-9th led by Sugar, next 5k 3:55/4:02/4:04/3:59
At 8k I pulled away with another guy on a bit of downhill - 4:05/3:45 - 10k in 40:10

I had in my mind that it was all downhill from halfway but soon remembered the first couple had some up, 3:59/4:00/3:53/3:57. At 14k I was bang on 4min/k and felt that if there was any decent uphill from here I'd be dead - luckily there wasn't

3:47/3:48/3:46/3:54/3:44/3:43/3:45 plus change. I was passed by 2 guys down the hill, both with long strides and both disappeared quickly in the distance (and I thought I was running fast!)

I'd not really looked at my watch in the last 3k gravel as I watchd my feet and counted breaths to get to the finish. It was a big surprise as I turned onto the grass to see the clock tick onto 1:23.

This was definitely a 100% effort run on a decent taper, and is a big confidence booster for Canberra, which I needed psychologically. VDOT would equate this to a sub2:55 mara, which is less tight than prevous predictions.

Now I need to make sure this wasn't my peak race ( as was the case in '06 at FreoHM) - so I will try to make this week a 100k plus before starting the marathon taper.

42:34/40:32 up/down by GPS (42:54 turnaround on course - past halfway)
8:30 min PB on this course and big HM PB

Challenging week

2009-03-15T12:53:00.002+09:00

I was going to write difficult week, but challenging sounds more upbeat, and in the end, the running wasn't too bad.

When it hits, it all hits at once. I've noted the gastro already, which luckily only affected me Tues and Wed. More importantly, and sadly, my grandmother died on Tuesday night. It was expected, and in many ways a blssing, but still took it's toll and with family members flying in from o/seas and interstate for the funeral, time and sleep have been short. And of course this had to be the week where I was covering for a colleague on holidays, and exams have started again so spent 5hrs supervising exams yesterday.

Anyway, enough complaining. I'm healthy, and managed to fit in 95km running this week at 4:31min/k average. Most of the running was in the dark!

Mon am 10.6k@ 4:54 recovery
Tues am 10.5k@ 4:34 - the gastro started soon thereafter - had to skip intervals
Wed pm 9.4k @ 4:33 - looks better than it was - took 2 stops to slow down HR
Thurs am 10.55k@ 4:18 - 2x5k progression to 10k pace
Thurs pm 11.2k@4:12 - nighttime run knowing time would be short friday. 7k@3:55s plus w/up and down
Friday - no running. I really wanted to fit a run in somewhere, but with catchup work, airport pickup and catching up with family it didnt happen
Sat am 10.6k@4:36 easy-ish
Sun am 32.4k@4:36

Dragged myself out after little sleep (dont know how TB does those long runs on almost no sleep) and felt like a piece of poop. I was concerned by the forecast of 37, and already 22.5 at 530, but luckily things stayed around that temp the whole run, and the fresh breeze made it feel cooler. I ran exactly the same course a last sunday, trying to use those times as a motivator. I set out faster than last time, as I didnt have the oomph to run at MP later. Things went smoothly til Hale Rd at 25k - made it up the first hill fine, but ended up walking 100m of the second section. Once again I didnt have a gel (really need to get some in bulk) and again felt it after the 28k stop. I skipped a little final loop I did last week and shuffled home. Although the running time was a little quicker, last week the 2 breaks were about 2 minutes each, this week significantly longer, plus the walk up the hill.

So I cant really complain - for my 'bad' week, the running is fine. The first half of this week will be similar, then get ready for Darlington!

(AdizeroTempos - felt good but insecure/slipping at the heel- I'll try heel lock lacing next time. Speedstars felt great on thurs pm run. 2140s fine this morning, although a large blister due to the sock I think)

Marathon Shoe Dilemma

2009-03-11T11:57:00.002+09:00

An unusual midweek post for me.

Unfortunately I have picked up a gastro bug which had affected about 20 of my patients at a nursing home last week - pretty unavoidable to get it.

It's not too bad, apart from the gastro I just have some muscle and joint aches. I'm taking the running easy for a couple of days, but I've also had to stop patient contact 'til I'm better - my inner workaholic doesn't handle that well!

After reading Biscuitman's post I thought again re marathon shoes. All my marathons, including the trail ones, have been run in Asics21xx series - they are a known quantity. Wearing the 2140s for the first time on sundays long run I was immediatel reminded how comfortable they are, despite my foray into other shoes over the last 12 months.

Here are my options from current collection:

Mizuno Idaten 200g (too light and lacking support)
Adizero Mana 210g (a bit more supportive but more a 5-10k shoe)
Asics Speedstar 265g
Asic DS trainer 290g
Adizero Tempo 295g
Br0oks Adrenaline 330g
Asics 2140 340g
Adidas supernova 350g

The 2 adizero pairs were picked up cheap at Harbourtown today - I've been eyeing off the tempos as a midweight marathon shoe with reasonable motion control for a while now, and will probably try them at Darlington. The Ds trainers were my shoes at Matilda bay, but are old. The speedstars are similar and an option, whilst the 2140s are a safe bet.

The other issue is weather. It rained last year at Canberra. Previously the Ds trainers have really slipped in the wet and I suspect alot of the racing type shoes dont have great grip, so I'll probably need to take the 2140s in case.

Lacking some self control

2009-03-08T12:05:00.003+09:00

107k@4:34 this week. I'm not complaining, but Im annoyed with myself that planned sessions changed due to a lack of self control, in particular the elusive longer MP run

Mon 14.2k@4:33 - took advantage of the public holiday for a midafternoon fartlek run through bold park. Very enjoyable but the heat took it's toll and I felt a bit crappy in the evening. Legs felt the hills as I've been running exclusively flat the last couple of weeks for Canberra

Tues 10.4k@4:10. - WAMC intervals. Due to a lack of the fast guys and my improvement, this was the first (and potentially only) time I was the fastest runner on most of the intervals. 4x300, 4x400,4x300. 100m jog/60sec or 90 sec recovery. I sped through the first set, leading the way in 50-54s. I tried to keep pride in the second set but came second in 2 of them ( 70-74). I was timing the recoveries (poorly, as I didn't have my garmin on interval mode) and obviously was making them too long so 3 guys started the last set 10 sec in front of me, but the faster young guy stayed with me and kept me honest -he hit higher gear and pulled away in the last 2 300s(51-53). Nearly vomited on the last one, and was too stuffed to even do a decent cooldown.

Wed 10.1k@4:42 easy
Thurs 10.7@4:54 easy and the slowest recovery I've done in a while

Fri 17k@4:17. This was meant to be the MP run. Headed down to Lake Monger, which I rarely run round despite it being so close. Started the session in 4:10s for the first 4k but gradually increased the speed and finished 10k in 40:20, more a tempo effort in the end. Had a drink then did another 2k in 8:00 then 3k cooldown. Hopefully next week the 20k@4:15

Sat 10.6k@4:46 easy
Sun 34.2k@4:37. Went back to the old route with Bold Park and Hale Rd hills, aiming to minimise breaks. 17-25degreesC with a gusty NE wind in the second half. Started easy with thoughts of a longer 40k'ish run, did the 1st 10k in 4:55s. Felt good once I hit the coast and sped things up, running at MP for a few km until my first stop at 18k, and 4:20s for the next 5k. Slowed down a bit over Hale Rd hill but then a couple more 4:15s leading up to the second drink stop at 28k. Last 6k slowed down to 4:35s. I was disorganised today so had no gels, just ran with the one powerade, after 18k was just running on water, so I'm pretty happy with the second half. Could have used a gel at 28k.

This Friday, work allowing, I will control my pace and run a 20k MP run. May need to start out at 4:20s just to force the slowness, and pick it up to 4:15s in the second 10k.

Commiserations to training partner Clown, who was forced to cancel Canberra due to injury. Perth will have to be your sub3 effort.

Tough Day at the Office

2009-03-01T21:49:00.002+09:00

96.9km this week @ 4:33 average - pretty fast week for me

Mon 9.4k@4:52 easy
Tues am 10.8k@4:39 - easy
Tues pm 9.9k intervals

800/400/400/600/300/300/400/200/200
2:42/1:14/1:13/1:54/54/55/ 1:14/35/ 35

As usual intended to take it fairly easy, ended up running my guts out, stuffed at the end.

Wed 10.1k@4:28 - supposed to be easy but got sucked into racing a guy around the lake did last 3k in 4:00s

Thurs rest day (second non running day for the year, worried re overtraining)
Fri 17.5k@4:21 - 6k@3:57, 1k easy then 4k@3:57
Sat 10.6k@4:40 easy
Sun 28.6k@4:40 Hot and humid morning. Drank a lovely bottle of '01 Bin389 by myself the night before to celebrate finally selling the house. Rob&I took plenty of breaks on this run. Did manage 4:15s for 18-20k and 21-25k.

I'm in sub 3:05 form now, just need to take it one step more to be ready for the goal.
The aim this week - a 20k midweek run, mostly at MP

Record Week

2009-02-22T14:39:00.004+09:00

114.5km this week - record for me

Mon am 10.5k@ 4:52 recovery
Tues am 10.6k@ 4:48 easy
Tues pm 11.9k - 4.4 w/up, 2.6 w/down.

Whistle type session - 2x2min, 2x90sec, 2x60sec, 4x30sec with 1min jog or 30sec jog between.
I perhaps overperformed in this one, mainly because I treated it more like a Mona fartlek session, with a float rather than a jog between.
Total 4.9k in 18:30 (@3:46) continuous

Wed pm 13.2k@4:45 easy
Thurs am 10.6k@4:47 easy
Friday am 12.3k @ 4:22. Tempo run - 5k in 19:50, 90 sec break then 3k in 11:40
Sat am 10.1k@ 4:46
Sun am 35.2k@ 4:44.

Long run - started alone and ran the first 13k easy in 5:00s before meeting Rob and accelerating to 4:35-4:40s. We split at 25k, and I pushed 2k MP then returning to 4:40s for the last 8k. I took 2 gels again today at 20k and 30k, and noticed the benefit, but again more so the crash once the first wore off - I felt a sudden fatigue in the legs, which quickly disappeared with the second gel. As I noted in a previous post I think, if I start taking them I need to keep doing so. In the marathon I think I'll probably stick with pre-dropped off sports drinks which should give me a more consistent carb intake.

Great to see Clown running so smoothly again (looks good for Canberra), and Sling starting to return to form.

If anyone hasn't seen this YouTube video, it's a current favourite of mine - I think I initially stole it from my cousin's site (chris-berg.com)

Matilda Bay 10k

2009-02-15T16:34:00.003+09:00

Very light week this week, not specifically intended to be a taper, rather workload with meetings and some evening call-outs limiting my running. I had my first non running day after 42 straight on Tuesday thanks to an early morning meeting and an evening callout.

Mon 6k@5:07 recovery
Wed 13.2k@4:43 progression
Thurs 10.7k@4:39 easy
Friday 10.1k@4:28 progression to tempo pace
Saturday11.2k@4:45 easy (plus 700m @5k pace)

Sunday 13k total

about 19 degrees and 95% humidity, but luckily no wind to speak of

Felt heavy in the legs this morning - but I must admit to never feeling particularly lively before a race.
Started reasonably controlled in 3:37 and found myself just ahead of Chris Maher, who subsequently ran on my shoulder until 9.75k - this was a blessing as it kept me going.

3:36/3:47/3:51/3:51/3:54 (19:01) but went past 5k marker at 19:10
3:49/3:50/3:52/3:50/3:43 (38:09) plus 80m

Passed the line in 38:21 (more than a minute PB)

Very happy with the run - obviously painful but breathing was good first 8k, only the shins complaining a bit. Went into the red zone in the final 2k, passing 2 guys and being passed by then re-taking Chris to finish first in my little group. Really happy with the even pace in the 3-9k section.

Chatted to Rob afterwards then had to rush home to get my wife to the airport for a little Melbourne shopping holiday - leaving me a week to be able to do some late evening runs if necessary to fit around work and therefore hopefully fit in a bigger week.

I was going to go out for a pm run, but with that long awaited PB done, I decided to treat myself!

What a difference the weather makes

2009-02-08T11:38:00.004+09:00

Two weeks this post - and an end to the song titles ( I can hear the tears of sadness)

The weeks go quite well together, as my recovery week was contained across the two - triggered by a strained right hip abductor (probably gluteus medius)

Week 1 (26/1- 1/2) 88.4k @ 4:43

Monday 10.6k @4:50 recovery
Tuesday 12.9k Yasso Interval Session 6x800m in 3min with 3min jog recovery. Felt crap throughout, no rhythm.

Wednesday 10.7k @4:40 recovery
Thursday 10.5k @4:26 - 4k tempo pace (watch not working so estimated time from IPod songs!)
Friday 10k @4:43 easy - very sore right hip abductor
Saturday 10.3k @4;55 recovery - still very sore hip
Sunday 23.4k @4:46. Hot humid day, running solo and with a time limit to drive down south for our holiday, I really struggled. Still very sore hip

Week 2 (2/2-8/2) 96k @ 4:45

This week saw my first holiday since last May, if only for four nights. Sadly I hadn't arranged cover very well and by the end of breakfast on monday morning I had fielded 8 calls and was not feeling very relaxed. Things did improve though, thanks to company (family), setting (Bunker bay) and plenty of wine. The area was quite hilly with some nice trails as wel as the northern end of the Cape to Cape trail, so I enjoyed some slow trail, hill and barefoot beach running. I went slowly to ease the hip.

Monday 10k @ 5:35 - explores some narrow trails which had me walking a bit - thus the slow time
Tuesday 12k@ 5:00 - included 4k of barefoot beach running
Wednesday 12.2k@ 4:33 - the last 3k was downhill - 3:52/3:40/3:37- 11:09 for 3k!
Thursday 10.25k @ 4:27 - back in Perth too soon! Progression with 4k @ MP
Friday 10.22k @ 4:25 - 5k @ MP this time
Saturday 6k@5:00 - perfunctory run to keep up the record
Sunday 35.2k@ 4:39

Today's run was the reason for the title. The 9am temp was 9 degrees lower than last Sunday and far less humid, much better to run in. I knew this was a chance to get a quicker long run in, and ran from home to UWA then around the bridges plus Windan bridge loop.

first 5k @ 5:02
then 12k@ 4:43
then 10k@ 4:19
last 8.2k @ 4:42

I wanted to do 10k at about MP, and although it was a little slower, that pace for the 17-27k section was pleasing. More pleasing was the fact that I finished fresher than any of the 30k+ runs so far this preparation. First stop for water and gel at 22.5k, second stop at 27.5k, third stop/second gel at 31k.

January total 422k
Current sequence - 42 consecutive running days.

Run To Me

2009-01-25T15:11:00.005+09:00

Bee Gees 1972 - Oh Yeah! (YouTube it)

98.2km @ 4:44 this week.

Monday 10.6k @ 4:54 recovery
Tuesday 12.85k @4:15 - intervals

Back to Perry Lakes group for some shorter intervals. Big crowd, lots of fast triathlon guys.

2x800m 2:44, 2:42 (?recov time 2min)
4x400m 74/74/73/74 (90sec)
6x200m 38/37/37/38/38/36 (30 sec )

Too fast! Especially the 400s and 200s which were more like VDOT 60 pace.
Felt it afterwards, paid for trying to keep up with the flying Clown

Wednesday13.1k@4:37 - supposedly easy
Thursday 11.6k@4:47 - easy
Friday 9.8k@4:33 - 2x2k tempo intervals
Saturday 6.1k@5:15 - drills - knee lifts/butt kicks/fast steps/bounding/strides

This was my answer to needing a rest day but being obsessive about running every day in Jan - was fun but looked weird down around the Lake jumping about

Sunday 34.2k@4:51

Long run with Rob - felt OK. After my usual slow start we did the longer Bold Park loop , sped up along WC Hwy and went over Hale Rd fine. Took a gel at 21k and really could have done with one at 28k. I think once you start taking them you need to keep on doing so regularly or your sugar crashes. About 27C at the end and with little wind, felt even hotter. Struggled a bit mentally last 3k after splitting from Rob.

I felt quite a bit of ache and fatigue Thurs-Sat, not sure if this was from overdoing the intervals or from the 26 days straight. Luckily this morning boosted my confidence again.

I know I need to program in a light week, wondering if it can wait til the week of Matilda Bay 10k ?