2005 review and 2006 preview

Time to get retrospective and then look to the future!

2005 started off pretty well, on the build up after injury in late 2004. A great race in the Arizona Rock n Roll Half saw a nice new half PB, along with a few others picked up along the way as splits. From there the build up for Canberra continued with the intention of running Six Foot Track as a long "training run". Well things did not go to plan, entering Six Foot with no taper and the racing the first section, causing me to blow up pretty spectactularly on the climb up Pluviometer.

However the recovery from Six Foot seemed good and the build up for the Canberra Marathon seemed to have fallen into place. On ths day things did not go to plan, went out probably a little too fast for the conditions and then experienced tummy problems that then extended to cramps etc. Finally dragged myself home but it was very ugly :(

Then replicated my post Canberra slump from last year, still running, but much lower training which resulted in an appropriate performance in the SMH half. This time however I decided to renew focus on a build up for Sydney and commenced this by running the first 40km or so of the Poor Mans Comrades Ultra. The focus on Sydney resulted in some good lowering of times for the City to Surf and Willy to Billy. A more conservative plan for Sydney which was working until again the condiitons on the day made it difficult to stick to the original goal. Am still quite happy with my actual run on the day, even though it was not a PB.

Once again a post marathon slump before turning the corner late Nov on a schedule for the 2006 Six Foot Track.

So to summarise (the above looks a little too negative!)
Highlights - PB's for 5km, 10km, Half Marathon and also a number of individual races over different distances courses
Lowlights - Lack of success in longer races and the continuing slump on focus after these longer races

Total distance - 2660km, an increase of around 25% over 2004, impressive in itself even though I was hoping for 3000!

2006 is currently a bit of an enigma for me at the moment. The start of the year is in place with plans for Six Foot, Canberra and the the SMH Half. The middle of the year is undecided, a full Poor Mans Comrades or another Marathon at Gold Coast are options. From there I would say City to Surf, Willy to Billy and probably the Sydney Marathon will round out the year. Other events to think about are some of the Rogaines scheduled for this year, maybe an Ultra (or 2) and possibly some bush Orienteering. A goal this year is to try and break the post marathon slump I have had so far. One way to do this will be to try an break that 3000km total running in 2006.

Certainly there is also the prospect of non running related events (family/work etc) taking precedence over any plans. Bring on 2006, lets see what happens!