Last run of the year!

Since I missed out on my recovery session yesterday I opted to do my 15km Tour de Ryde run again to beef up the week/month/year final totals.

Headed out a little later, still some early morning US work stuff that had to be sorted. It did seem quite warm/humid but the legs were pretty fresh after a full day of recovery after my back to back hill rep sessions.

I consciously tried to run it just a little faster, the course is pretty tough with some good undulations to make you work for your pace.

Finished off with a time of 1.12.5 (over a minute faster than on Monday) avg pace of 4.53 min/km and avg hr of 168.

So the end of another week, quite disjointed with all the xmas/holiday/work stuff going on and ended up with 48km for the week. The Parrot predictor has me at a 3.28.40 marathon time. Day off tomorrow and then the Cherrybrook STaR on Sunday, aiming for full 30+ with the 6:10am group.

I'll write up my end of month/year analysis in a separate post.

MTG Bay run

Wednesday and Summer Series is in mid-summer hibernation.

I think the excesses of Christmas caught up with me overnight, felt pretty crappy Wed morning (literally, sorry for the detail!) and did not feel like running at all. As the day progressed things improved and decided to head out to the bay to run with the MTG.

Pretty cruisy start but then discovered they were running hill reps up (the infamous) Lilyfield Rd, ouch I did hill reps on Tuesday. Went out way too hot on the first rep (77 sec), levelled out for the next four at around 88 and then died badly with the last 2 at 98. Was supposed to do 8 but pulled the pin at 7 as things were done and I was feeling a little shaky (think it was low blood sugar after my gut problems from the morning and the limited diet through the day as a result).

Paced back to the start ok and felt a lot better after downing a pepsi on the way home.

The blister on my right heel is now really S****ing me and is painful to walk on, let alone run. Decided to cut it and drain it to try and let it dry out, did the same for the LHS and it has healed up nicely.

So with gut and heel problems tied in with a critical day at work and it was pretty easy to opt out of the scheduled recovery run today.

Feel a lot better tonight, finished off the EOY work stuff (YIPPEE!) but the heel is still a problem after being cooped up in business shoes all day.

Will try for a longer (15-20km) run tomorrow to round out the week/month/year. Scheduled rest day on Saturday, not going up for FAT ASS, then the STaR on Sunday at Cherrybrook, which from memory has some nasty hills in it!

A recap of the running year in tomorrows blog, something to look forward to....

Back on track

Christmas time is always going to drawn out for our family.

Christmas day at Justine's mums with her family, boxing day with my family and now we have Isaac's birthday on the 27th! I'm pretty much partied/eaten /drunk out! The kids had a great time and Isaac soon worked out what the deal was (he is 2) and was an expert at pressie unwrapping by the end of yesterday.

Anyway back to the running, I was hoping to get out on boxing day but it was just going to be to hard to do, I could stil have done it, but the wrath of the wife would not have been worth it as she would then have had to prep for my family lunch by herself.

So I had 2 days off but snuck out yesterday mid morning for my 15km Tour de Ryde! A nice undulating course to keep you honest and it was quite a warm/humid day as well.

For some reason the Timex watch had a problem with avg pace tracking today after I stopped/started early in the run so I switched to just monitoring my splits. Felt pretty cruisy pacing along at just under 5 min/km pace.

The stats
14.9 km in 1.13.11 (avg pace of 4.54 min/km) and avg hr of 164.

A sleep in this morning and tidying up/shopping to replenish the shelves etc cut out a morning run. Late in the afternoon the opportunity came up to head out, opted for the gym for a 1km interval session on the treadmill but the gym was closing up when I got there. Ran back home (the gym is only about 500m away!) and dropped off the towel etc and headed around the corner for hill reps. The problem in this was I forgot what I was doing for recovery times after the reps but opted to have 2 min jog down/backs.

Knocked out 8 reps @ avg of 85.8 secs which was pretty much the same as I did 2 weeks ago. However I found out when I got home that last time I actually had an extra 30 secs recovery on the way back down, so certainly a harder session today with similar times a nice improve on the benchmark.

Back to work tomorrow and no Summer Series so yet to work out what I'll do yet.

Xmas eve lunch time run

A late night last night with work committments and also heading down to the fish market to pick up tomorrow's lunch saw me finally get to bed at around 1:30am. At around 2:30 the wife poked me in the ribs as my mobile was ringing, ah the joys of working for a US based company....

Hit the snooze button and finally got up when yet another US based call came through, too late to go for a run now so I decided to try at lunch time.

The great thing about working in North Sydney is the accessibility to the scenic harbour so I ran across the bridge, onto the Cahill, down to the Opera House and then arounf Lady Macquaries chair up to St Mary's and then everything in reverse. Felt really good on the way out and then (yet) again started to develop a blister on my right heel. This is really starting to irk me, I'm headed back to the podiatrist as this has only started since the new orthotics.

Anyway it was quite warm and humid but I pushed it out coming bakc up and did just under 15km in 1:11:39 (4:50 pace) which considering the struggle yesterday is a good turnaround.

End of the training week for me, tomorrow is a designated rest day!

59km for the week, and the "Parrot predictor" says a 3:19:54 marathon time!

It will be a struggle to do a quality week next week but we'll wait and see.

Merry Christmas to all who actually devote themselves enough to read my ramblings and get to the end of this post :)

What a difference a couple of days make!

Recovery run time this morning and headed out on my normal loop.

Straight away I could tell that last night took it's toll on me as I struggled to run at the normal pace. At one stage thought about short cutting but decided to push on, fatigued legs are something I need to get used to.

As a nice diversion it started chucking it down with rain during the LCNP portion of the run. I really did slow down and just focussed on form as I struggled home.

Finished off with 56.25, as compared to Monday's time of 50.48 for the same course. Of interest though was my average HR for both runs was the same, 157. So it was certainly the legs.

Aiming for a longer run tomorrow of around 15km, given no STaR for me this Sunday due to festive celebrations!

The Slopes of Balmoral

The final Summer Series hit out at Balmoral, this course was tough last year with quite a bit of shuffling up and down the different streets and paths on the Balmoral Slopes. Last year I climbed early, went too far north and thus ran out of time badly so this time I decided to do the flat stuff out first and then come back, thus having a down hill run to the finish, but also a whole heap of shorter routes back to the finish if I was running late. Here is a copy of the map with my route

http://www.users.bigpond.com/dmbray/balmoral.jpg

Very happy with the run and on a much more demanding course than last week, only real choice was when I got to 11 and still had 4 minutes up my sleeve so opted to pick up 15, otherwise I would have been back around 2 minutes early!

Ended up 1:45 late, losing 20 points, so 15 did not make a difference. Overall scored 520 less the 20 late penalty gives 500. Again keeping the leaders in sight with one score at 580 and then a 530, 520 and 510. Gives me 86 points in the yearly point score.

To contrast against last year I did pretty much the same route in reverse and finished with 350 points as I was back so late. I'll attribute most of the improvement to my fitness but I am also getting better at route selection and "spiking" the controls.

Running stats
7.6km in 46.46 gives an average pace of 6.11 min/km.

Pretty knackered at the end of it, those hills were tough!

30/30's

Another new session and time for a another new benchmark with the 30'30 session.

The concept is to run pretty much flat out for 30 sec, a recovery jog for 30 sec and then repeat until you are knackered.

One thing about this is it is pretty hard to "measure" the session but I tried anyway :)

Managed 15 reps and a rough distance according to the gps was averages of 136m fast and 77m jog. This came out to around 3:40 pace which would not be too far from the truth.

Rotary park seems to be open again, or at least I did not see any signs to the contrary. However the after effects of the maintenance work are still there with quite a bit of dirt on the track. About halfway through my session Spud showed up and started on 400m reps.

The calves/shins felt a little tight on the warmdown run back home but hey, I've run 7 out of the last 8 days and have not done that for a while. Finally also seemed to have my blister problem on both heels sorted out, the left being much better after I drained the fairly large blister last night.

So I've done my first 30/30 not sure if it will be a favourite but will mix it in for variety. Now for the last Summer Series of this year at Balmoral and trying to plan a route on the slopes without too much up being repeated. Found out yesterday that I finished 3rd at Ermington, only 30 points behind one of the "guns" so I'm back and on the improve!

Recovery run

Back out today for a recovery run over my normal loop out through Nth Ryde and back through Lane Cove National Park.

Felt pretty good on the way out and consciously slowed myself as I was starting to average close to 4:30 pace (it is supposed to be a recovery after all!).

Finished up with 10.5km @ 4:48 min/km and avg HR of 158. For interest this time last year I was running 10km training runs at around 5:40 pace and I actually ran Canberra @ 4:47 pace. Also goes to show that for whatever reason I did not run well at yesterdays 10km race.

Speed session tomorrow, not sure what style yet but there's still plenty of time for that.

Last race of the year

Back to Smithfield to exorcise some demons from my last DNF but running the 10km today in a somewhat vain attempt to knock off the 40min 10km goal.

Quite a field and everyone was pretty scattered from the start. I was a little slow off the line, which is a change for me, but settled into a fairly good rhythm about 5-10 m behind Horrie who was a similar distance behind MPHaz, Lone Wolf and Superflake. Started to drift going up the hill and could not reinstate the pace going down the other side. A pretty similar story on the way back, keeping Horrie in sight but seemingly unable to pick up the pace. Finished with 43:30 and was just in front in the end of Mr G with an awesome performance to back up after the Ultra last weekend.

The funny thing is, I actually could have kept on running at that pace for a while, so speed and hills will still need the focus. While it was slower (much) than hoped for looking at it optimisticly I seem to have recovered from the groin problem and I also did the race off the back of my first serious training week for quite a while

Splits were
1 4:09 4:09
2 3:56 8:05
3 4:07 12:12
4 4:14 16:26
5 4:39 21:05
6 4:39 25:44
7 4:39 30:23
8 4:18 34:41
9 4:28 39:09
10 4:21 43:30

Good time at the end spent chatting with various Cool Runners and Striders, in particular introduced myself to Ray and had a good talk about training and prep for Canberra.

I'll save my 2004 review and 2005 preview for later this week the goal is another consistent week of running, starting with a recovery 10km tomorrow morning!

Rest of the week

Thursday was my first "recovery" run rather than opting for a complete rest. Decided to head down to LCNP to suss out a possible 3km TT course for tomorrow. A cruisy 2.5 km run down through Scribbly and then out along the Striders 10km course looking for the 7km marker. The aim was to run the last 3 km in reverse and avoid including Scribbly Gums. Found what seemed to be the 7km mark but was a little vague as to the 8/9km marks. Funny how you run past these all the time in a race but have no idea as to where they are when you're actually looking for them. Finished up with close to 11km at 5min/km pace.

Swapped some emails with Action re the marker placement and upon his recommednadtion decided to actually run the last 3km of the 10km course. Could be a fairly fast 3km as perception is it is all downhill....

So Friday rolls on and a warmup of 2.5 km down to the designated start. I noticed I was sweating considerably, given it was a warm up (about 6 min/km pace!). Did a quick stretch and tied up the laces again. Time to go so reset the watch and off I go. Splits were

1km 3:54 3:54
2km 4:02 7:55
3km 3:51 11:46

Seemed to struggle to get on pace and forgot all about that "hill" after the Scribbly turn off in km 2. I think I also hit the watch a little late at the end of km 2, which means it was actually pretty even splits.

Sad to say, but a little disappointing for me, hoping more for a 11:15 to 11:30 type time. Looks unlikely for a PB on Sunday but we'll wait and see. At least I have yet another benchmark to measure against.

Work has been pretty crazy as we head towards end of year and today had Stella's school xmas concert with a small gap and then the work xmas lunch. Shuffled off after lunch which was at Hunters Hill to the triple H (Hunters Hill Hotel!). Much to my surprise I found a large group of people that I know from my previous job at Clarence St/Trek. A lot of these guys are/were runners and triathletes and my customers. It was good to catch up with people I hadn't seen for over 10 years (they were having a 20 year training group reunion). Quite a few people who were Striders in the early days and some who still are, allbeit inactive.

A few too many wines/beers etc today so a rest tomorrow for sure and I'll contemplate what distance I race on Sunday, although leaning towards the 10km to try and at least post a 40:xx if not a dream of 39:59!

A look at the training log says this week (60km) is the most km since the week of Willy to Billy in mid Aug and then all the way back to April before Canberra taper for a higher week. So maybe that can be my excuse for the below planned 3km time....

Super Summer Series @ Ermington

Summer Series this evening at Ermington, an area previously only known to me due to "The Ermo" aka Ermington Pub a favourite of the guys that worked at the warehouse we ran in my old job.

No quiet ales today, although the weather was actually reasonable for a change. A quick scan of the map and it looked like a lot of running with some hills near Marsden Rd if you headed east.

Sorted out my "optimum" route which had a few short cut options on the way back if time got too much. To pick up good points you really needed to venture to the other side of Silverwater Rd and crossing points were highlighted on the map. I was still running away from the start/finish at the half way point but had a much straighter run back, with those planned shortcuts.

45 minutes clicked over about 750 metres out with 2 controls worth 50 points still to be found on the way home. For the last third of the run I kept on crossing paths with one of the better vets but after we sorted the last point I really opened up to try and minimise any further point loss. Ended up finishing with 49:53 and I think he just squeezed in 5 secs later! Felt quite good really striding out, sort of like the 400's I did last week.

Anyway the stats were 9.7km in 49:53 which has an avg pace of 5:09, my fastest SS pace! My score was 450 less the 50 points for being late which gave me 400. When I left I was on top of the leaderboard with the next best score of 380 and then a few 340-320's. This was indeed a first but there were still a few fast guns out running.

Recovery day tomorrow, I'll do a reccie for the 3km I'm planning for Friday.

Also got my follow up with the Sports Specialist Dr but am more confident by the day that even if there is a slight problem it seems to be improving and I'm stepping up the training.

Hill reps

After the suffering on the hills in the last couple of runs I thought it was best to add a hill rep session into the mix. As tempting as it is to drive over to Leichhardt I actually have a Lilyfield Rd style hill just around the corner and that makes things a little easier when trying to get through the morning and out the door with the rest of the family.

By my "expert" measurements the hill is around 300m long and pretty consistent in regards to slope, some traffic but not too much, minimal on street parking and footpaths on both sides.

My last session on the hill was at the start of September 2 days before I damaged my calf at North Head and I did 10 reps at an average of 85 sec with an average 2:40 jog back/rest. This time I decided to shorten the recovery piece down to 2:30.

The reps were
1 86
2 83
3 86
4 84
5 84
6 87
7 87
8 88

So average of 86 sec for 8 but also cut out 70 seconds recovery which seemed to make a difference. The last couple were real tough and you could really feel the lactic starting to burn. Another km or so warm down via a little loop back home.

Here's the bodylink HR data, you can see my time at the top increased as the reps went on and I tried to get my breathe back to be able to jog back down.




It also was certainly a lot warmer than when I did these last in September, even at 6:30 in the morning and it took quite a few minutes under a cool shower to reduce the copious sweat output.

Pretty happy with the session and not too far from my "peak" performance in Sept, another good benchmark for the months ahead.

I've decided to mix up 5-6 different sessions to rotate through on my "hard effort" days of Tuesday and Friday, these will be
1km intervals (treadmill) - building up to 6 of these (@3:40) and then decreasing recovery to 1 min, then increasing pace
800m intervals (track) - aiming to get to 10 @ 3:00 with same recovery (aka Yasso 800's), this is a supposed benchmark for a marathon time
400m intervals (track) - build up to 8 (@80 sec) with 90 sec recovery
30/30's aka Pat special - hey everyone else seems to be doing them...
Hills - just get up to as many as possible around 85 sec per rep up to an hour long session for some real consistency
2nd long run - 15-20km @ 5min/km over good undulating ground

So there you go, Summer Series tomorrow night at Ermington/Rydalmere, not a lot of bush to be seen, or even hills for that matter, should be a fast/longish course.

Edit... Belay that fast/longish thoughts it seems the course will be set in the area between Marsden/Victoria and Silverwater Roads, I know for a fact there are some good hills there!

Catch up time

A busy end of the week, with a visit to Melbourne, and then the usual crazy weekends around Christmas see a bit of a backlog on my reports so here's the abbreviated catch up.

Sunday
Today's STaR is the Xmas Brunch run which starts from The Spit and winds around the harbour to Shelley Beach through Manly. This is about 21km and given I was not going to do the "long cut" I thought I'd step up and run with the 6:20 gang. All was pretty good, although it was very humid, until we got to Clontarf. Then quite a few people wanted to divert off the course and run the bush. Well there would have been close to 20 people in the group, might have been a record for 6:20. But running through the bush that early over quite undulating tracks saw everyone string out. Sure enough large gaps appeared and a subset of us regrouped and moved back to the regular course near the large park. A more even pace all the way to Shelley Beach, where a few people continued to take the long course while the rest of us turned back. There were Striders all over the place as different groups took different options but in the end got back for just over 20km in 1:55, avg pace of 5:32. That surprised me but we really ran slower over the up and down bush track, even though it was harder. The main thing to take home from this run was I really need to improve my hill climbing, really struggled on those up hills.

A great morning then for the Striders presentation morning then a dash home for a BBQ at our place with a couple of families from Stella's primary school. Much eating and drinking and eventually everyone left at around 6pm, I was knackered!

Friday
A big presentation first thing Friday morning in Melbourne for work so headed down on Thursday to finish prep and do some general admin. Up at sparrows however and down to the closest Fitness First for another 1km interval session. Felt pretty good for the first couple, again at 3:40 pace but really started to stuggle on rep 5, only making it to 700m before pulling the pin. Was not real happy at the time as I thought this was one less than I did last week but as it turns out I did exactly the same. Next time I'll have a real crack at hanging on to finish rep 5 and I reckon that given the standing recovery I'd make it most of the way through rep 6. So 4.7 reps of 1km @ 3:40 with 1:50 standing recovery. When I get to 6 reps I'll drop away my recovery time to 90 secs.

Wednesday
Summer Series around North Ryde. Nice and close to home so I jogged down to the start. After reviewing the map for a while I realised this was going to be tough as Mike had set a real good course. This becomes apparent as there is no clear optimium route that stands out, even after looking for 30 mins. Anyway picked a route for outbound and inbound and the rest would fall into place based upon how I was going. In the end went a little too far out into a little too much bush and was pressed for time coming home, finishing 8 minutes late (ie -80 points). Quite a few had the same problem though and I'll wait for the scores to see what panned out.
9km in 52:39, again over quite a bit of singletrack bush and then some very nice hills!

This week the program looks like
Mon Rest
Tues Hill reps @ Cox's Rd
Wed Summer Series at Ermington (should be a faster course!)
Thurs Recovery run
Fri Thinking of maybe a 3km time trial...
Sat Rest

Rotary Park

Time to get serious here and so up at 6 to do a quick warmup jog down to Rotary Park. As I leave it is slightly drizzling. When I get to the park I do a few stretches etc and then notice how much I am sweating after a 1km warm up, man it was humid!

The plan today is my maiden set of 400's and so headed off. The times were

82.44
83.21
80.82
81.31
82.33
84.22

After the last set I was pretty much a basket case and about the same time Spud and his mate from work Padraig (?) showed up for km reps. At that point I could not even remember how many reps I had done so that was enough and I did a couple of warm down laps and headed home.

Pretty happy for that to be my line in the sand starting point 6 x 400m @ 82.39 avg with approx 82sec standing recovery.

Update on the injury saga, had ultrasounds and xrays yesterday. The guy that did it is supposed to be the 'guru' on groins and was very meticulous. From what he told me there is nothing massively obvious that is causing my problems but there is a "slight" bulge near my pain spot when I load my abs. I'm beginning to think that it's something that I'll live with while I continue to rehab/strengthen etc but have to wait for next week to confirm with the sports doctor. The delays in getting appointments is quite frustrating and I'm learning a few tricks for next time (hopefully neve!).

I think the acid test will be a hard race pace hit out over say a half, so SMC will probably be my litmus test. I've managed 5km races, hilly 30km training runs, 8-9km tempo/fartleks and now 400m intervals not much left to do under injury....

Summer series tomorrow night and it's pretty much in my backyard!

Barrenjoey Bashed

The title of today's STaR is the Barrenjoey Bash and it goes from Mona Vale up to Palm Beach and of course back again. For the uninitiated this area can be quite hilly!

I was interested in how the different groups would form up, given the Striders email discussions during the week. An amazing group for 6am, I reckon close to 50 with the MTG shifting to 6am now. Most of the faster runners from last week migrated to 6:20 and so we had a nice compact group of 7. Was pretty sure I was going to do the 30 today but waited to see how the run unfolded before the turnoff point. It always amazes me how a lot of STaRS have a bugger of a hill right near the start!. Once we got over that it was down to Newport and we had pretty much already caught the 6am group and should have kept running as they had just finished their water stop at the surf club. But we stopped as well and then did catch the end of the conga line just as we reached the narrow bush track section around the headland between Newport and Bilgola. We didn't get clear as a bunch until Bilgola but from there it was pretty smooth sailing, just a tad under 5:30 min/km pace.

At Whale Beach it was decision time and 4 turned off, just leaving Phil (Spud), Adrian and myself. We kept rolling along pretty well but I really struggled up the first major hill climbing out of Palm Beach and the others slowly ran away from me. I kept them in sight and as the 6:30 & faster 6:20 guys came through on a nice long downhill I tagged back on but knew it was a matter of time. Had a big fuel stop at Careel Bay, downing a gel and then managed to take a slight short cut by accident, which in the end was handy. The Gel kicked in around Avalon and then the rest of the 6:20 caught up. Then there was an absolute mother of a hill coming out of Avalon around the back of Bilgola where I really blew up. From there it was a case of just bringing it home.

The stats :
30.5 km in 2:51, avg pace of 5:36 min/km.

All in all, quite happy, my longest run for quite a while and after a very refreshing swim and an Endura Optimiser on the way home the legs actually feel quite ok!

Tomorrow is the ultrasound and xray time to determine if I have anything serious to worry about before I start to pick up the distance.

Returning to the Dark Side!

Yes folks after an offer from Spud to go for a ride, I went to the garage and dusted of the trusty road bike. It hasn't seen the pavement in around 4 years but the tyres/tubes were still ok and after a quick spit & polish it looked brand new (which it pretty well is anyway!).

The plan was to meet up at the Delhi Rd on ramp but I waited near the middle and Spud and his workmate cycled by below as they came up from Lane Cove. Sort of realised this a little late so headed off by myself. The first couple of km was really wierd, been a long time since I have been on a true road bike but, hey you never forget how to ride a bike.

Rode up to Windsor Rd and return, quite a bit faster on the way back it seemed and finished off with 33km and avg speed of 31.2km/hr. Decided to focus on technique rather than speed and as such sat in the lower gears with a cadence of around 100rpm. Pretty happy with the ride and I'm sure I'll do more, purely for cross training purposes off course :)

Was so excited by the ride that I decided to do my intervals today as well, knowing it would be very unlikely to do any running tomorrow after drinks tonight.

Over to the gym at lunch for the regular 1km intervals with half the time standing rest. I decided to up the ante to try and get more leg speed so went from 3:50 min/km last time to 3:40 min/km today. Very happy with the results, did the same distance as my last 3:50 set which was around 4.7km, I do have a problem hanging on when things are really grim. But another positive is again the injury was not very noticable. The standing rest was 1:50.

Still doing the ultrasound on Monday just to eliminate any possible major problems lurking in the background.

Next run is the STaR up the beaches, not sure whether I'll wimp out at 25km or push on for the 30km, will depend on the pace that the 6:10 sets out at I suppose.

Back to Summer Series

After the success on Sunday of running the STaR and a couple of cautious days of recovery I thought it was time to do some Summer Series again. This week had the added advantage of being run in the same area that we also did the STaR in.

A bloody hot day in Sydney had me concerned but as I was getting ready to leave I noticed on the harbour that the southerly had arrived and so a much cooler run than it could have been.

A quick review of the map and decided to opt out of running down to the long trail that we finished up with on Sunday and rather stick to collecting the rest of the controls that were mostly street based. Of course, in a brain spasm, just before I started I thought I saw a way of getting some of the trail based points without running the entire length.

Off to number 12 first and immediately lost a couple of minutes looking under different rock ledges which were not all marked. Down the poorly marked track and went straight past 20 without seeing it, but was not too worried about that as I knew I was coming back that way. 29 and 7 were pretty easy and 20 was easier to find going up than coming down. A nice little climb then out to the streets, once I got to some reasonable pace it was obvious that I was not going to be able to collect all of the controls I had planned for. Up to 25 and then downhill to 24 and 18. A nasty climb up 2 sets of stairs to 6 and some nice flatter running past 16 and down near where the STaR started at 13. Saw a few people coming the other way and took a little too much time looking for 21, which seemed to be mapped a little incorrectly. Opted to not do more bush and cut out 2, climbing out on the oval for 26. Some good fast running with a heap of points between 27 and 23 in not much time. Probably then went the wrong way aiming for 30 with (yet) another climb and then flat out back to the finish getting in just under 3 minutes late. In hindsight I should have left 30 and picked up 14 & 8 (and maybe even 17) with a flatter run.

Here is the map and my course

http://www.users.bigpond.com/dmbray/twocreeks.jpg

Ended up with 440 points less 30 for the late 3 minutes. Distance was 7.3km, average pace of 6:29 min/km, quite a bit of that chewed up at #12 and then some of the slower bush running and those nasty hills!

It seems a lot went the trail option and so got back badly late and for a while 410 points was top of the leader board until one of the "guns" Julian Dent somehow managed 550! He is in another league though and has placed very highly in several world championship events. When I left no one else had broken 500 and 440 seemed to be the next highest score so I think I faired pretty well.

Slight tightness around the hip/abs and so iced up when I got home, having a rest day rather than even a recovery run. Will run tomorrow though probably some sort of interval type session.

Taking it easy

Quick catch up with not much really to say.

Monday was always planned as a rest day and a good idea as the calves and hammies were complaining about having to do some work again... Got a good beat up by the physio!

Tuesday - had good intentions of heading down to Rotary for some 400m intervals but when the feet hit the floor still felt Sunday's effort and went for discretion over valour.

Good news is no ice at all last night and still no twinges from the injury area. Planning to race the Summer Series tonight which coincidently is based around where the STaR went on Sunday, just no where near as long, but it will be hot!

A new start?

Well after a week off, and even abstaining from the 5km challenge around the bay I decided to see what was happening and run the STaR on Sunday. This week it was Davidson Recreation and is based around Lindfield, Killara and Roseville with a nice piece of trail running along the upper reaches of Middle Harbour to finish.

I opted for the 6:10am group who are supposed to run @ 5:30 pace. Quite a few usual faces with Cool Runners and other Striders in the mix. After a little encouragement gnscon also joined us as we headed out. The first few km were fairly undulating and also the pace at the front was a bit faster than it should have been. Apologies to Rob (gnscon) as I was struggling a little myself and did not notice him drift off the back. At about 8-9km it was obvious that those setting the pace were still a little keen as we posted close to 5 min/km. Had a little chat with them but did not make any difference so just hung on. By this stage it was also obvious that it was going to be pretty hot so at least we stopped at every marked water spot.

I decided to peel off at the 20km mark where we were still just over 5 min/km pace and take the 25km option. Another Strider Ron joined me and we made our way down to the start of the bush section. Through here we eased off a little and eventually some of the next group caught us about 2km from home on the steady uphill. My legs were starting to struggle by then as well so I let the others go off and just focussed on getting back, the heat was certainly starting to get to me.

Finished off with a nasty uphill/stairs bush track section but did the 25 km in around 2:20 running time.

You'll notice, not a word on the injury, well because while it was still there, it did not seem to bother me and if anything the further I went the less I felt it. Best news though was once I cooled down it still did not seem to be sore, certainly in comparision with the rest of the body.

So I hope this is the start of a new beginning, I was pretty happy to run 25km at a fair pace over a difficult course and still being able to walk after my recent traumas! Saw the physio again today and we'll keep on working on core stability etc and I will probably have an ultrasound just to be sure. I'm pretty convinced that my injury is/was tendonitis of the conjoint tendon and with the icing and NSAIDs I'm now effectively managing the problem.

Even happier with the effort now that I've reviewed the last 3 months of training.
September 87km - injured calf/achilles on Sep 4, recovered enough for Sydney half and PB
October 139km - not much training with Aus Orienteering champs, just starting to get going again when injury at Nike 10km. Another half PB in Oct though!
November 92km - will probably finish with around 100-110 a struggle with the recent injury

Am feeling a lot more chipper about things, especially running and will attempt a "normal" week this week, maybe even try and slip in a ride with Spud and MPHaz...

Tri reminiscing

Our regular program schedule is being disrupted due to urgent repairs.

Please enjoy this rerun while we attempt to repair the damage.

Reading through Plu's blog and seeing the pictures from his tri career archive prompted me to send him an email to see if his much better record keeping also managed to snare some of my performances from the mid eighties. He found my times from the Sri Chimnoy tri in 1986.

Disclaimer, 85/86 was first year uni time, much more time invested in partying than training or studying. I did manage to only fail one subject....

2.3km swim in 53 min (bloody cold swim in Lake Burley Griffin before wetsuits were the norm!)
59km cycle in 1:55 (shivered on the bike for the first half hour as body temp returned, no tri bars then!)
16km run in 1:35 (remembered walking a bit for that one!)

Total time 4hours 23 min

Did manage to find some of my own certificates!

Ride 'N' Stride 1985

Hawkesbury
8km run 38:00
30km ride 1:02:40
8km run 1:05:20
Overall 2:46:00

Nepean
8km run 30:30!!!
40km ride 1:04:00
7km run 1:15:30
Overall 2:50:00
Much faster! But I busted myself on the bike leg I'd say.

Anyway, thought that might be of interest, given the recent tri postings of some other bloggers.

Regular running info will resume shortly! (typing this with ice pack applied and enjoying a glass of red) . Thanks to Plu for all of the info he has found on my early tri career!

DNF

Sydney Marathon Clinic time and was unsure what distance to run, even when I got there!

In hindsight I should have gone short but opted for the half. A heap of Cool Runners and Striders there and went out at about 4:20 min/km pace which seemed ok. Got to the first turnaround fine, slowing a little but when we hit the return hill it was a real struggle to maintain my pace. Down the other side and could not stretch out and I noticed other areas of the body were not happy (probably adjusted my stance subconsciously to compensate). Anyway the good thing is the next turnaround was near the finish and so I opted out at the 10km mark, with a 44:30 10km. This is actually my first DNF in this running life, but when I had cooled down the LHS ITB and achilles were also sore so probably a good thing that I stopped. Very depressing, especially since everyone else seemed to be smashing PB's :( and now a number of guys have gone straight past me timewise.

Now very sore across abdomen and have booked for ultra sound (unbelievable 2 weeks wait to see the "specialist"!) so a week of stretching/core stability work and NO running. That also trashes my hopes of doing a exploratory 6 foot run next Sunday. The goal is to now really sort this injury out so I can eventually commence my Canberra training program, Six foot is now looking more and more like a social run for me at nowhere near race pace. So until further notice the following sign applies to my ability to do any running.

More rest than planned

Still tight Friday so no running, saw physio who was positive about progress being made, but he got a note back from the sports Dr and they are both worried about my conjoint tendon...

Absolutely no ab work whatsoever allowed, well it hurts even to sit up from lying down.

Anyway keep on doing the exercises etc and still allowed to run, although it is starting to depress me again. I am aiming to run tomorrow at SMC, not sure what distance but the half is looking unlikely.

Summer Series - Butchers Block Point

Flew back from Melbourne just in time to go for a Summer Series run at Longueville.

Here's a copy of the map

http://www.users.bigpond.com/dmbray/butchers%20block.jpg

Initially it seemed that the whole lot was unachievable, headed out in an anti clockwise direction and things went pretty well, even through the first section of bush. At that point I should have headed from 24 to 13 and then picked up the SW points before coming back but was a little too optimistic (read got greedy). A major snafu going between 27 and 26 where I took a wrong turn. Ended up having to go through heavy steep bush and then came out to far north of 26. Lost probablya couple of minutes at least as well as the 30 points. Time was now tight and second stuff up was from 14 to 12, stayed down in the bush rather than taking the easier option. Already running late and so passed on 22 and 3, getting back 14 minutes late (ie -140 points) and collecting 440 points so final tally was 300. If I had gone to 13 from 24 I would say it would have been much closer time wise and probably would have ended up with more overall points. The top score was only 410, lots of people back late....

The stats for the run
9.19km in 58:50 with avg HR of 175.

Given the heavy bush component and the extra sidestepping etc the ab/groin/hip area was a lot tighter last night and is still today so a complete rest day today. Maybe a hill session tomorrow morning but we'll wait and see.

Gunn Runners 5km

Down in Melbourne today and given it's a Tuesday then I also get to run with the Gunn Runners tonight!

A pretty cool idea run by Fitzcameron from CR and hosted from a pub (more of that later!). Tonight is the first of the daylight saving run which means a lap around Albert Park lake, where they hold the Aussie F! GP, plus a little bit for 5km. A very flat course but it seems you always get a headwind from either the north /south. Also it is mostly on a crushed rock type surface which seems a little slow.

Despite the niggle I loaded up the GPS so I could try and run as even as pace as possible with the goal to do a sub 20 min time. Last run here was a 21.xx on a cold night with a howling northerly to run into for the last 500m.

These guys are pretty informal and when the start horn went off I had to dodge past a few slower people who stationed themselves right at the front! Anyway one guy shot off and I settled straight into my target pace about 4th/5th. As each of the guys in front started to slow I just kept the pace going until at the 1km point I was running just off the shoulder of the guy in second while the leader was slowly pulling away. Stayed that way for the next km until we hit the headwind where the guy in front started to slow so I went around him. On target at 3km but still has another km of headwind which hurt and then just tried to keep it going to the line. Ended up with 20.28, pretty close! After catching the breath, remembering the comments from CR about not doing the hands on knees look, had a look at the distance as I seemed to recall the 5km split sounding a little out from the finish line. Ended up with 5.084km on the timex and with the last 84 m in 16.5 secs was damn close to the 20min mark. Pretty happy with that given the lack of any decent training.

Splits were:
Dist Split Total AvgHR
1km 3.57 3.57 172
2km 3.59 7.56 183
3km 4.03 11.59 187
4km 4.10 16.09 188
5km 4.03 20.11 188
Finish 0.16 20.28 190

Here is the output from the Timex, pretty consistent HR and pace!




Tomorrow night, Summer Series at Longueville/Riverview!

Oh and I forgot the best bit of the Gunn Runners, a free beer included in your entry fee back at the pub and then lucky draw prizes as well! (they do also provide iced cold water as well...)

The Prognosis!

Monday morning and while there was a little tightness (I'll avoid using the words stiff and groin in the same sentence!) still felt pretty chipper but was off to the highly recommended sports doc Ken Crichton at Crows Nest.

Had a letter from the physio and then talked through whats been going on. He got me to do all sorts of left vs right standing exercises and then on the table for some hip/groin flexibility tests.

The end result is that he thinks I initially had an injury in the hip joint area which has subsided but the lower abs seem to have a strain from compensating for the initial injury. Some tenderness in the area where a sports hernia (do a google on that!) normally occurs but he did not have to scrape me off the ceiling and so thought it was unlikely.

The diagnosis, keep on with the core muscle stretches/exercises as already identified by physio, think about visiting an osteo for a hip alignment. If it does not keep on improving then in around 2 weeks head off for xrays/ultrasounds to check for more serious stuff.

The best news was that I could get running again, don't go crazy with big increases in mileage but speed sessions and races are also ok!!!!

Back into it tomorrow.

Harbourside Hike STaR

Set the alarm for 5am as I had decided to run with the 6am group as there were many cut back/short cut points if I needed to use them. Hit the alarm but went back to sleep, waking in a start at 5:20 so rushed around and chewed on a Power Bar on the way in the car. The Harbourside Hike is unusually named given the first half of it is running through the suburbs to bring you out further up the harbour and then back along all the points etc.

Arrived with minutes to spare so did some stretches and turned on the GPS. Fellow CR's gnscon and Amjan were there as well as a few familiar Striders. Didn't feel too bad and had a couple of good chats with people including John about the preparation in mind for 6 foot and then Canberra, especially about my approach of some more focus on speed work. Next thing we knew we were at the first short cut. I bid most of the group goodbye and about 6-8 of us headed back. At this point the pace had been slow (compared to my more usual STaR's) and we were just over 6min/km pace. A nice hill as we head up to Greenwich and I pushed it pretty hard with no ill effects and waited at the top. As we went on the pace seemed to slow down further and I decided that when we left Berry Island I would run the last 5km pretty hard. It was good to stretch out and ended up doing close to 5km in 22 and a half minutes.

Another little athletics thing on so had to leave before everyone else got back. The funny thing is I did not tighten up through the day and actually felt pretty good. There was still some background tightness but maybe I realigned something in running faster again?

Monday and a visit to the Sport Dr for his take on the whole episode...

End of the week

Not as sore on the Thursday as I was the week before but back to the physio while it was easier to identify pain cause and effect. He worked over my lower back etc and counselled against running again while also agreeing that I should see a Sports Doc to eliminate any more serious conditions. So opted to take it easy Thurs/Fri and then also took Saturday off given an earlier start for Little Athletics. The goal was then to run the STaR on Sunday, maybe 7am or if more confident the 6am group for around 15km.

Backtrack to Last week

Ok folks a bit of catch up to do...

Last Tuesday I was planning to run (despite my physio) but not sure when/how.

Was a little bit unsure to select between the MTG round the bay with hill reps vs Summer Series at Callan Park (coincidently also near/on the bay). In the end the Summer Series got the nod.

Now I remember this map from last year and quite a bit of good planning was required as they ran us around all sorts of buildings . Could still certainly feel my "injury" and so opted for not a lot of warm up but a little appropriate stretching and a conservative start. Looking at the map it seemed that collecting the lot may be achievable, even at a slower pace!

Here is a scan of the map for those interested.

http://www.users.bigpond.com/dmbray/callan%20park.jpg

Off up the hill near the start to number 18 first. First mistake shortly after that where I ran back down the road rather than going cross country (the dotted line) to get to 8. Pretty much run, write, run, write for a while until 23 where I went down the wrong side of the outcrop and then had to climb up and go down on the right side. The hip/groin was still tight but not really limiting my running. More steady going until 12-14 which was up a fairly step bush track and that seemed to stimulate the pain somewhat. Then some more fairly open running all the way to 28. Timing was looking good and so decided on heading to 29. As I got near Lilyfield Rd made my second mistake. Saw the MTG doing hill reps and for some reason ran all the way down the hill rather than my planned shorter course (again a dotted line).

Time was now getting tight but I still had enough up my sleeve to at least pick up 19 and then also decided to push on to 10. Now was the time to really stretch out on the way back through 9 but still could not run at full pace and just made it back under 1 minute late. So picked up all but 20&30 which gives 450 - 10 for being 1 minute late ending up with 440.

A number of people scored the full 600 with one runner doing it in 36 minutes! I'm sure that I would have picked up my first 600 points and back in time if I hadn't made my 2 mistakes but more importantly if I wasn't limited in my pace, anyway they're the breaks.

Back home and immediate ice treatment as I had started to stiffen up while cooling down,

Injury Update

The scene : A well guarded and highly confidential medical facility. Inside a group of doctors are clustered around a lifeless body on the operating table.

Someone is heard to say "We can rebuild him. We have the technology.We have the capability to make a sub 40min 10km runner. Dave Bray will be that man. Better than he was before. Better . . . stronger . . . faster. "

Yes folks my main physio is back from holidays and his assessment makes me more confident in getting running again sooner rather than later.

It seems to be the age old "core muscle" imbalance problem and he wants me to primarily work on my right side which he says is causing the problems on the left. Doesn't want me getting straight back into it but I'm pretty keen to have a hit out tomorrow evening so bugger it! However I am doing my exercises and will try and run with some level of restraint....

Back to the physio

Despite the ice last night the hip/groin were still noticably tight and it was easy to stimulate/replicate cause and effect of pain.

Spoke with the physio when I got into the office at lunch time and booked for late afternoon appointment and also got a referal to a good sports doctor in case (made a booking for the next available appointment with him which is 2 weeks away). Still very worried (and just about convinced myself that I had a Sports Hernia).

Anyway after reviewing everything the physio seems convinced that it is a Hip Flexor strain/tendinitis. Recommendation is a complete break from pretty much everything for at least a week. So this means pretty much certainly no Striders 10km on Saturday or STaR on Sunday. Looking on the positive side at least this has happened before I was starting to get serious on the training program

So limited update for a little while until I actually have something to report.

Summer Series Artarmon Creek

Still a bit tight in the hips/pelvic area so opted to head over to the physio for a better informed assessment than my searches over the internet (things like Oestio Pubis and Sports Hernia sounded very scary). With the extra day rest it was starting to be harder to isolate the pain and cause of the pain. Anyway the physio was not keen on me running but I thought the worst that could happen would be for the pain to return and then at least it would be easier to isolate cause/effect...

The start was based at Naremburn and most of the running would be through the Artarmon/Naremburn area around the Gore Hill Freeway and Hornsby rail line.

For anyone interested here is a link to the map

http://www.users.bigpond.com/dmbray/Artarmon%20Creek.jpg

If you look you can see the controls are broken up into 3 groupings and I decided to hit the closest group first as it seemed you would probably struggle to pick them up on the way back from the other 2 groups. The start/finish is the triangle in pretty much the centre of the map.

So a quick warmup with no traumas and I was off.
Pretty easy early up with 1,11 21 and 7. Then down the hill and under the freeway for 15 and a lap around the sports ovals with 22,6,23,10,24,14,29 and 25. The hip was starting to complain a bit but headed back under the freeway, picked up 16 after a little thinking and then along the outside of the freeway sound barrier to the next grouping with 2 very obvious.

Number 3 was a complete pain, on a rock face which was obvious on the map but there were about 5-6 rock faces and the one with the control was a little further up than expected. Spent too much time here, but also actually cooled down a little and when the running started again it was noticably more painful.

Picked up 13, up and back to 30, across to 4 and then 19 and then a good run up to 28, but I struggled to stretch out. The plan was to get 8 and then17, 27 but being a little distracted I turned the wrong way coming out under the railway and ended up relocating to 5. 20 was easy but time was really running out and I lost a lot of time (5-6 minutes) at 26 and 9, in fact I did not even find 9 but found out afterward went pretty much straight past it. Picked up 12 on the way back was pretty ticked off for a multitude of reasons. Ended up with 520 points but was back 11 minutes late and so probably ended up with 410 points. It looks like the top scores were 530.

Once cooled down it was obvious whatever my problem is was not good, headed home for ice. Early client meeting tomorrow morning on site so I'll have to wait and book with the physio once finished. At least it will be easy to identify cause/effect.

Intervals again

Stayed up a little later last night working on some spreadsheet enhancements for the Summer Series website with a glass or 2 of red wine (well maybe 3 or 4!).

Just as I was ready to go to bed Isaac (22 months) woke up distressed and so it took me another hour or so to get him back to sleep. So the alarm went this morning and I ignored it, knowing that I had a meeting at 10am at Gladesville so I could leave home late and thus go for my run a little later.

Headed to the gym for another 3:50min/km session. First km was fine at 6min/k pace for a warm up, nothing from the tender area from Sunday and so I cranked it up to 3:50 pace. Almost immediately I could feel some restriction but thought bugger it, lets get going. It seemed I was unable to fully stride out but made it through the first 4 sets, savouring the 1:55 standing break. The fifth km seemed ok but just past the 500m mark I started to struggle and unable to stretch out or seemingly pick up the pace and hit the stop button at 700m. Waited about 2 minutes and then did a km warm down and the dodgy hip area was still sore as I cooled down so I walked home.

Started doing some quick research on the net as to what it could be and did not like what I found so will go into denial and hope it goes away. Summer Series tomorrow night at Artarmon which should be a good tempo/fartlek session but will need some sort of warm up.

Got the Bodylink working again so here's what the HR looked like.


Interesting to note my max was just over 180, I've hit a lot higher than that so maybe I'm being a little soft on the treadmill (doesn't feel soft though)

Rest Day

Nothing much to say after the title of this post. Still quite sore at the left pelvic/groin area from last night and also still beating myself up for the run itself. Was going to aim to do a Pilates class but thought better of it given the soreness and that is an area they tend to work on in Pilates anyway.

Race Report!

Straight from the trenches a report on the Nike "The Race That You Want" at Sydney Olympic Park.

Alas it was actually the race that I didn't want :(

All good intentions up front but just got myself too hyped up. The signs were there with my first km split at 3:42, way too hot and even though I eased up the second km was still below target pace. As I posted on Cool Running the lungs then started to complain and I dwindled away to running 4:30 km in general and finished in 44:00. Very frustrating that this was the same time I did for the first 10km in my recent Half PB over a tougher course.

Not much more to say, other than while I had to wait around forever to get my bag back (Grr) I have seized up and the left hip/groin is quite stiff (no stiff groin jokes thankyou very much).

Time to completely rethink my 10km approach. I seem to have the longer runs sorted out but cannot manage myself over the shorter distances.

Just for posterity and a continuing reminder for me, here are the splits and avg Hr for each KM

1km 3:42 3:42 166hr
2km 3:56 7:38 175hr
3km 4:18 11:57 178hr
4km 4:25 16:22 178hr
5km 4:40 21.02 175hr
6km 4:37 25:39 174hr
7km 5:03 30:41 174hr
8km 4:38 35:19 174hr
9km 4:18 39:37 179hr
10km 4:24 44:01 176hr

End of week

A quick recap of the week over a glass of red wine (well for me anyway!).

51km done over 5 days. The neat little "Parrot" predictor from my tracking spreadsheet suggests a 3:23:54 marathon. This is based upon the fastest 42.2km I ran this week and I have heard of a few people that endorse this theory, so being a sceptic I'm going to track what it says. It actually predicted roughly a 3:30 time for Canberra so it may not be too far from the truth...

So a light week proportionally to begin, but that is without a true long run. Short term goal stuff this coming week with now two serious goes at 10km dashes in 7 days and a PB chase. If nothing else the Parrot time should drop.

Longer run

Friday will usually be when I have my second longest run. Today I'm heading for around 15km on another one of my well worn paths. The thing I do like about running in the Ryde area is there are no shortage of hills, so there is always something to think about. This run is no exception, headed through LCNP and following the bike path up a nasty little pinch to the northern side of Lane Cove Rd before heading towards Macquarie Centre and then another bike path to Quarry Rd (with another nice hill with a great view towards the city before heading down to the Field of Mars).

Target pace for my longer runs is also 5min/km at the moment. It's again slightly cooler today and I'm pretty comfortable with the pace but do have to work at it on the slopes. I'm on pace but there's a nasty little down/up section right at the end (I sometimes do my hill reps there) which does hurt!

Stats were 14.75km @ 1:13:50 (4:59min/km) with average HR of 161.

Now that perplexes me a little, the avg hr is lower than a shorter/easier recovery run the day before!

Usually I'd have a deeper look through the Timex Bodylink data but for some reason the data did not upload correctly and was automatically deleted (I've changed that option now).

Just for extra benefit picked up a Pilates class today at lunch time, boy that is a good workout on the abs...

Rest day tomorrow (heaps of stuff to do around the house) and I've decided to be serious about the Nike run at Homebush now that the course has been revised slightly so no STaR Sunday morning and a concerted effort to lower the 10km PB, maybe even below 40min (I wish). A good hit out in prep for the Striders 10km at Lane Cove next Saturday.

Another day another recovery run

Back out this morning on my usual 10km recovery run. Somehow managed to incite a muscle spasm in my neck before getting up which is just annoying more than anything else.

A great morning for running, a little cooler with a nice breeze but plenty of daylight. As usual once I get into LCNP barely see a soul, but there was a lot of branches etc on the ground as a result of yesterday afternoon's high winds.

The stats
10.2km @50:24 = pace of 4:56min/km and avg hr of 166.

Interesting, a faster pace than yesterdays effort but a much lower avg HR, goes to show those hills yesterday were deceiving....

A longer run tomorrow (say 15km) with a rest on Saturday and then I'm in 2 minds for Sunday. I've entered the much hyped Nike 10km run. Not sure to treat it as a full on race to see how I might go for the final Striders 10km next week or to go out and do the STaR and have a bit of a hit and giggle style run for the Nike. The course looks flat and so a PB could be begging but it will surely be a lot more crowded than the usual Striders 10k at Homebush.

Summer Series Abbotsford

Wednesday afternoon in summer for me means the Orienteering Summer Series. This is a 23 race series at different venues around Sydney so you get to see a lot of place you would not normally see. Today we raced at Abbotsford, just towards the end of the Great North Road.

For the uninitiated these races are great, you have a flexible start time, anywhere from 4pm onwards and with daylight saving this means you can start up to around 6:30pm and still have daylight. You get given a detailed map with 30 control points placed at various objects, each control point has a point value (1-10 = 10 points, 11-20 = 20 points and 21-30 = 30 points). The goal is to accumulate as many points within the 45 minutes allotted time from when you start. The big trap though, is for every minute or part thereof you are late you have 10 points deducted from your score. More info here http://www.sydneysummerseries.com.au/ (not a bad website even if I say so myself). For those familiar with Rogaining, this is like a sprint Rogaine.

Anyway enough of the plugs I hear you say what about the run?

Quite a warm and windy afternoon and I get the map and do a quick planning session as to my proposed optimum route to get the most points in the least time. Quite a few hills/steps and I identify a couple of cut back points if time starts running out. I run these now with the bodylink on to try and get a feel for my pace and also distance run. Head off and try and maintain 5min/k pace which will be tight given some of the terrain and also because you have to slow down/stop to find the control which is usually an inverted painted pot plant bowl.

Midway through the course I'm a little behind the schedule but have done the worst of the cutting back portions and also the hills so some faster flat running. Opt to leave out 2 x 20 pointers that would require quite a deal of climbing and cutting back and in the end have to sprint to the finish, already running late with about 2 seconds to spare to avoid losing 20 points.

End up with 550 out of a maximum of 600 points which is above my par from last year. A couple of guys picked up the 600 in the required time and I probably would have been a little closer with slightly better route choice.

Run stats were
8.6km in 45:58 which gives an average pace 5:21, not too bad for what was a challenging hilly course. Average HR was 179, probably a bit too low....

Managed to pick up a blister again on my left heel, bugger.

Recovery run

Normally Tuesday is supposed to be speed/intervals but this week is different and so after the treadmill session it's a 10km recovery run. I've established a good route which is just over 10km and takes in some undulations around North Ryde and comes back via Lane Cove National Park, out via Scribbly Gums.

Trying to pace my recovery runs at around 5min/km pace and even though the batteries in the GPS died today was pretty much bang on the mark. Struggled a little up Scribbly but other than that did not feel the effects of yesterday too much. It certainly started to feel a little warm towards the end and Justine is again wanting to include an outdoors shower feature in any renovations or new house design....

One side effect of yesterday's session was DOMS in the abs and calves after the post run weights session, not unexpected but shows the extra work had some impact.

Tomorrow a tempo style workout with a difference running the Summer Series event at Abbotsfield.

Starting off and already I've changed the schedule!

Yes, one day into the program and I've varied from the "core" plan.

With good and planned reason however!

Sunday saw another one of my existing commitments finalised as I had agreed (in a moment of weakness 9 months ago) to do the course setting for a Come and try it (CATI) orienteering event based in Gladesville/Putney. Truth be know while it was a good experience it actually happened at a bad time in terms of work and family activities. Anyway, up at sparrow's to put out 40 control points in the very wet bush areas on Sydney Harbour/Parramatta River. Quite a deal of driving, stop, dash off with 2-3 controls, place them in the right spot, dash back to the car and onto the next point. At the end of the day everything had to be done in reverse. Finished just after lunch and most people seemed pretty happy with the way I set out the courses but I did not feel like going for a run (it had also started raining again) on Sunday afternoon.

So had good intentions to get up and do intervals this morning but had a horror night with the kids not sleeping, which means we didn't either. So packed the bag to go and pound out the reps at lunch at the gym.

First set of intervals since the calf injury where I was doing 6 1km reps at 3:50 with half the time (1:55) standing rest. Lunch at Fitness First in North Sydney is pretty packed but I sorted out a treadmill as far away as possible from the crowd. Started out with a 1km warmup at 6min/k before hopping off and adjusting the shoes, mindful of my recent blistering problem. It seemed very warm in there, and I'd only just warmed up!

Knocked out the first four with no problems, however the recovery HR was starting to creep up and I was now sweating like a pig. Rep five just started to get tough with about 200 metres to go and the HR did not drop as much as I would have liked before time to go on rep six. At around 500 metres I realised I had started drifting towards the back of the belt and at just after 600 m hit the stop button as I was really struggling. Had a couple of minutes to suck in the O2 and then did a warm down of 500m.

Overall, given it is close to 2 months since the last session like this and I was still pretty close to what I was doing then so not too shabby! Finished up in the weights area doing a little extra abs, lower back and calf remedial work trying to cool down before showering and heading back to the office.

10km recovery run tomorrow morning.

Twenty Four Weeks to Go!

Wow, that sounds like a long time, almost half a year....

First things first, state goal races.
1. 6 foot track (19 weeks away)
2. Canberra Marathon (24 weeks away)

Current PB's are
Marathon - Canberra 3:22:01 (2004 debut)
Half Marathon - Striders Internal Half 1:33:47 (2004)
10km - Striders 41:24 (Homebush 2004)

Current weight 77kg

Coming off a fairly low recent base after a calf injury, followed by shorter runs over the Australian Orienteering Championships but did manage my half PB just over a week ago! (also have run just over 1750km so far this year though)

So the major targets are to run 6 foot (not flat out, but more for the experience) and then return to Canberra to better my PB above. I'm assuming other PB's will drop along the way as the training takes hold. Also this time last year I had only just run my first half and was just starting my campaign for my first marathon at Canberra.

Given Canberra is the main target I'm going to base my preparation on a 18 week program from "Advanced Marathoning" by Pfitzinger/Douglas. So this gives me around 6 weeks to build a solid base before the milage starts creeping up. Given work and other commitments however I'm sure I'll be adapting the program as required.

It seems that everyone is starting to Blog after Mart started the trend and since I set this up quite a while ago it will now also serve the dual purpose of saving my wife, Justine's, sanity through letting me vent/obsess via this Blog!

So the first phase of my training will look something like this :
Sunday - long run with the Sydney Striders (STAR)
Monday - rest and Pilates class
Tuesday - Intervals/Speed/Hill work
Wednesday - Tempo run with Summer Series Orienteering
Thursday - recovery
Friday - 2nd longest run and Pilates class
Saturday - rest/recovery

Should see me at around 60-70km per week. The Pilates classes are designed to maintain and strengthen my core muscles since I did experience problems last year from core muscle imbalances, ITB to name one. I'll also look to supplement with spin classes when/where I feel the urge and have the time.

A start or an end?

Well I thought for a lark I might set this up, no idea if I'll be motivated or have enough time to actually do anything with it.