Yet another long time between drinks, after Six Foot, I then competed in the Australian Rogaine Championships in the Snowy Mountains. My partner and I were going very well until about 2am and then managed to get tragically misplaced, stumbling around for a few hours until we opted to stop, have a snooze and wait for sunrise. With light we finally determined we were about 2-3km off course....
Then backed up for a fastish 10km the following week, best time in the last few years, however the following day during the STaR I noticed my RH hammie was quite tight which extended to the lower back. This continued over a few weeks and with quite a bit of travel over April saw me with no training and in fact the back worsened leaving me with no choice but to withdraw at the last minute from the TNF 100 :(
The back pain continued through June/July and motivation (and running) was at a pretty low point, but with some help from a return to my witch doctor I finally got back out on a regular basis. While the back is still sore seems running now does not impact it and vice versa! August has been a lot better and I am now much more motivated and have entered GNW 100 again as a goal!
Have also adopted a sugar free (or at least much less sugar) diet and have stripped off 2-3kgs in the same amount of weeks. Not as successful on reducing alcohol intake to the same extent yet though. The build up to GNW will include a tilt at the Sydney Marathon amongst other things and really all is part of a buckle run at Six Foot and lowering that PB by quite a bit more....
Sunday I joined the 6:10am group for Clovelly Canter, have not run the full course before. A real tough first half which goes down the coast line from Tamarama to Maroubra and lots of short climbs and steps etc. I was perpetually struggling to stay with the group on each climb but kept in touch on the downhills & flats.
Eventually the rubber band broke as I slowly drifted off near Pagewood, keeping the group in sight but not able to stay at their sub 5 min/km pace. Ended up doing the 30.3 in 2:41 at average pace of 5:20, not bad given the stairs etc in the first 10-15km.
4 comments:
About time you gave that dodgey old marathon PB the flick at Sydney. I hate the stairs on this STAR, same as Vaucluse actually.
Welcome back!
Good to hear from you Dave. Missed you at 6' this year - maybe because I was closer to the sweep end of the field. Hope the back does the right thing for your GNW prep. And haven't you heard there is sugar in alcohol?!
nice to see you back mate! Hopefully we'll have that long-delayed catch up soon
Post a Comment