Mid December progress

So as per the Central Coast race report December has been all about working on a base for the Six Foot Campaign (tracker on the left <-----) Progress has been good with longer runs on Saturday to take the edge out of the legs for the long Sunday run. Have also been continuing with orienteering summer series on Wed night and the last couple of maps have been a lot more encouraging. So to the weekends... (other runs during the week happening but not covered)

Sat 4th - was going to drive up to Ourimbah with the Striders 6ft group but slept in and so instead did a mini lap around Garrigal NP, about 20km of mostly single track running with only about 2km of tar!
Sun 5th - again managed to sleep through the alarm and missed the STaR so went out on a solo run version of the Chatswood Chase STaR starting from home. Very humid and warm and lost about 2.5kgs over the 30km!

Sat 11th - Joined the Striders 6ft group this time for 2 laps of Quarry Road, ran at a comfortable pace, walking the steep sections. Was quite surprised to see when I downloaded from the garmin that I ran about 6 min faster than the same time last year but also finished a lot more comfortable!
Sun 12th - Striders Xmas Star, pretty flat run and shorter than usual, at about 15km the leaders at the front really started driving the pace and so on the last hill coming out of Great North Rd back towards the bay I had a dig coming home at HM pace :)

Fri 17th - Decided to bash the legs up a little on the Friday before a heavy weekend and so opted for my 10km hilly tempo run around the roads from home. Was a tad warm when I went out but still quite pleased to slice off 20 seconds on my previous best from a few weeks ago, down to 43:43! Even better is comparing that back to when I kicked off the running resumption in August when I did 48:27...
Sat 18th - A great run around Terrey Hills with some of the Northern Beaches Beer Betters. Included a tough and testing run down and then back out of Smith's Creek which had a climb of around 1.2km, a real quad and lung smasher!
Sun 19th - Back to Striders for the 10 Bridges run, A good sized bunch at 6:10 which grew a little when we caught the 6am group at the Harbour Bridge and so at the turn off for the short cut there were still around 10 of us going long. As we were running through Pyrmont I noticed the left leg of my shorts & skins seemed to be foaming, which wouldn't stop, much to the amusement of everyone else. Think it was probably that the shorts had not rinsed properly in a wash and had some soap residue left. Anyway as we ran through Gladesville and Hunters Hill the pace started to pick up and after the killer short hill at Riverview there were 5 of us left to run home through the bush. Another positive reinforcement that despite the heavy schedule over the last few days that our time was about 18 minutes faster than when I ran the same Star last year.

So in summary, everything seems on track, benchmark runs and times indicate I'm headed in the right direction, the weight is down a little more, now hovering around 75kg. Just need to keep it going through the excesses of Xmas and NY!