Annoying Shoulder

After lunch I got to the gym for a full body wts session. While doing my smith machine squats, this lady stood behind me and watched. Then she started asking questions. It got a bit unnerving when she remained there while I finished my sets.

Overall the workout was good but my right shoulder is aching again. It's been happening after each wts session for a few weeks now so I've booked with 'Mick the torturer' for Thursday morning. Time to contribute to his car deposit....again. TA

Oh what a beautiful morning...

Late last night, I let my beloved into a deep, dark secret - I wasn't going to accompany her on her "8km hard effort on hills" run this morning. Instead, I remained in bed while she braved the cold and the steep. I've come to the conclusion that I am the proud possessor of just one niggle, but it keeps moving from location to location to keep me on (or off, as the case may be) my toes. Right now, it's taken up residence in my left groin, and the only time that I notice it is when I lift my leg up in front of me (like putting on a shoe) or when I run hard. Somehow, I think that 8km of hills just might have put me out of circulation for a little while.

Talking to Tim (freespirit) last week, he said that the reason that I have these niggles is because my legs aren't strong enough and that I should join a Gym and get working. Part of me says "Of course I'm strong. I'm a bloke, and all blokes are intrinsically strong", while the other part says "Nah, you're weak, and getting strong would be just too much hard work. Might as well forget it". Right now, the latter voice is winning, probably because I hate gyms. I belonged to one for a year, once, and found it totally repetitive and dispiriting. I wonder if there are any programs of leg exercises that you can do at home...? I wonder if I would bother if there was...?

sfG

To Blog or to Sleep

Sleep won. I try for a min. of 7 hours a night so blogging sometimes misses out. So here is the readers digest version for the last few days.

Thursday 26/5 - Run Club (see sfg's). Tim gave the Halfers photo awards. I decided after the Half I should try to run with group 1 even if I'm at the back. My 200's are usually 44secs - tonight they were 40/43. It was really hard but I think I need to try and persevere. Stuck our award on the fridge!

Friday 27/5 - Upper body wts. I got to the gym at 6am to find it closed and everyone waiting. Apparently the girl slept in. I decided I'd give her till 6.30 and she got there at 6.25. Cut the session to just upper body. Pec deck dropset was probably my best yet. Increased wts on seated row and lat pulldown. Late night and yummy dinner out with friends at the Banjo Patterson restaurant:-).

Saturday 28/5-PT with Tim. (No CR5k today as I had to work.) Today we were running. Correction - I was running and he was on the bike because of the flu. The session was a 5k course at 5min/k - steady flats, slight backoff on hills and make up the deficit on the downhills - and the return journey(4-4.5k) was steady with 2 lots of 3x30sec firm/30sec backoff thrown in.

The 5k was tough. When I first started running a couple of years ago and wanted to stop I'd ask each body part if it was really hurting and eventually learnt it was mostly the mind complaining. Today I felt crap and every part said they did too but the brain said 'stuff you lot we have to keep going!' I thought I had about 500 to go but Tim said pick it up for the last 200m so I did and then he said oh it's a bit further so pick it up again. I did my best but had to stop when I couldn't decide to spew or wet myself:-(. Luckily we had covered 4.98k in 24.40. I felt wrecked but once we got going again for the return journey I felt better.

We finished the session with one set of upper body wts and Tim said no abs because of the run. Stupid here said but I thought you were meant to do them when fatigued. NEVER TEASE A TRAINER - it's like a red rag to a bull. Good session :-).

Sunday 29/5 The plan said an easy 60mins and no more. It had to be done early to fit it into our day. It was a 2 shirt morning and we got into a rhythm after a couple of ks. About halfway thru we decided to go home via the bush.
Bit cold in there but nice running. Took us much longer than expected and I began to worry about getting to work on time. We emerged from the bush with still 2ks to get home. Actually ran for 80mins (naughty) and was only 5 mins late for work.

Monday 30/5 I really had to talk firmly to myself to get out of bed today. It was freezing outside and I had 8k of hard hills and rolling in between to do. Everywhere out here is hilly - the trick is to pick a course to suit the session. I took the hills hard but sometimes struggled in between. I don't think my body liked backing up for 3 runs in as many days

On a personal note we had a guest preacher at church last night. After he spoke he challenged us to pray and ask God to help us become an 'extreme' christian. God laid a couple of things on my heart and then this guy came around and stopped at me. God gave him a vision of my life and confirmed things only I knew. God is good but I'm not sure yet about Cambodia...

Weaker than I thought

Rode to work today (West Pennant Hills to Balmain). Normally I start to feel a little leg weary around Hunters Hill. Lately, it hasn't been till Drummoyne, so I've figured that I'm geting stronger. Well, today I started to feel it by the end of the M2 :-( Still, I guess that's not unreasonable after the weekend.

Track session at Run club tonight. After all the normal warm up, drills, stretching, etc, we did 2x1200 pickups (each 400 stronger than the previous one), 2x200 hard, 2x800 pickups and 2x200 hard to finish off. Normal Abs work was replaced with lunge walking because the ground was too cold to lie on, but then we lay down to do stretches anyhow :-)

I was really stuffed going into the 2x800. I just felt like I didn't have anything left in me, and according to Tim, I "got a bit untidy" in the first 400. Managed to pull it back together though. For all that, I still felt like the 200s went really well - maybe you don't have time to get tired :-) All my life, I've "known" that I couldn't sprint, but Heather beat that out of me a month or two ago at run club by dragging me through some 500s in times that I never would have thought possible. OK, I'm no Matt Shirvington (at least in the sprinting dept ;-), but I'm a whole lot better than I ever thought I was! Thanks Heather.

sfG

Enough rest, time to work

Tim scheduled in a bike session today. I timed my arrival at the gym to do the bike workout and then do the 20min abs class held on the gym floor. The bike session was warmup, 2x10min AT, 3min easy spin between and 10min cooldown. Last AT I aimed for 150HR but this time Tim said I had to go on feel. So AT = heavier breathing, lots of sweating and wishing to hell I could stop but also knowing I can make the time. 10 minutes seemed so long.

Today's abs class was 12 exercises of a minute duration each (some stretching between) followed by a 1min crunch test and cooldown stretches. For the test you had to do as many crunches as possible in the minute. He then said remember the number for next time and see if you can better it. I managed 64, so was quite happy with that.

My calves are much happier today-not feeling like lead weights. TA

First run

Did 2 or 3 k's this morning, nice and easy, just to see if everything was in order. Seems to be OK, so I'll ease into things at run club tomorrow night, and if that goes OK then I'll give it a push at the CR5k on Saturday morning.

What's the next big thing? Gotta be City 2 Surf. After how good I felt going up Hunter St, I think that this is finally my year to tame heartbreak hill and possibly get down to last year's (failed) goal of 75 minutes net time.

sfG

p.s. Oh, here's a couple of the photos from the SMH half. The bottom one is the two of us approaching the finish line - I've in the process of squeezing past the girl in black. Unfortunately, TA's face is in the shade. Otherwise, it would have been a really good one.

Easy Days

I have amazed myself and pulled up quite well after the Half and the 2 days of active rest (Monday and today) have felt good.

Monday saw an easy 30min swim on my plan, so after waking early I decided to go before work. As I arrived at the 'outdoor' heated pool it was 10deg. and I questioned my sanity, but the water was lovely and warm and it was nice just to mosey along and stretch out a bit.

Today was an easy run and with sfGnome still not 100%, I invited the dog along for my run. North is walked by the Micro TAs for about 20 mins every day yet comes home full of energy. When he walks with me he comes home and immediately lies down on the floor to recover and usually falls asleep [I know how he feels - sfG]. He was very excited to start running today and tried to drag me along but I kept pulling him back to easy pace. After 1.5k he started to trot beside me and after 2.5k he was beginning to lag behind. By 3.8k he was stuffed so we walked the last 500m home. A quick drink of water and he put himself to bed!! Don't think either of us will be too keen to run together for awhile.

Had a massage tonight from a fellow Aunty Karin had recommended on CR. Very thorough and said my leg muscles were in good nick and the tight calves will be fine. When he was doing my back he commented how great it was that he could feel my lat ab muscles - a bit of a rarity apparently. Wants to do more work on my right shoulder - it concerns him. I know it pulls sometimes during a weight sessions but it goes away just as quick. Maybe next week. TA

The night after the morning before...

36 hours later and I'm still on a high. I keep on looking for more reports on Cool Running, just so I can relive it all again. Mind you, re-living it hurts less than the first time around :-0

TA's report is pretty complete, so I'll just rave on for a while and add a couple of personal things. If it's too long, feel free to skip it... :-)

Pain - I was expecting the thigh to play up at some stage. I guess that in my heart I knew that resting it for a week wouldn't fix it completely, so I was always conscious of the reality that I may have to pull out. I'm not sure that I was really emotionally ready to quit though. Steve (26miles) said to me before the race that coming up out of the domain for the second time would really test any niggles, and he sure was right. It was about that point that I had to think "no, this is not body-damaging pain, this is just stress pain. I can keep going". I had to concentrate pretty much from there on to make sure that I didn't start favouring the sore leg - getting unbalanced with 5k stil to go was a sure recipe for disaster. The sharp turn around in College St really hurt, but from there I knew that it was a nice run home.

TA talked about how we used Tim's tips to help us pick up lots of time down Hunter St, but the truth is that I couldn't have done it any other way. The only way that I could cope with the pressure on my quads was to lean forward a bit, up my cadence to billy-o and let gravity take over. Worked a treat!

Support - I know that lots has been written about the support of the CR cheer squad (and they truly were soooo good), but it goes so much further than that. In each C2S we've done, we've been two in 60,000 - you push on, stay inside your own head and get to the finish. Because of TA's accident last year, I ran it on my own, and the combination of my inability to reach my goal time and my general alone-ness was overwhelming. Contrast that with Sunday. Everywhere we went, there were calls of "Go Cool Runner". People who's running prowess I am in awe of would call out encouragement as we passed. I even remember thinking as we passed the leaders (well, as they passed us) how cool it was that they were wearing the same colours as us. It's a bit like going to the footy, except we are the players, not just the bokes on the terraces. Maybe, just maybe, we really are runners :-)

Recovery - This morning, I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. We've run the distance & the pace before (though never concurrently :-), but I really knew this morning that we'd been in a race. I can't wait to get back into some gentle exercise to start to work all the kinks out.

Anyhow, it's now ridiculously late and TA will shoot me when she sees this (maybe I can roll the time back a few hours... :-)

sfG

SMH Half and other miracles

It's very late and I should be asleep (as is the sore sfgnome) but today was amazing. In brief, my first Half marathon was awesome, my swannies won and at church tonight Micro TA was touched by God in a real way. How good can a day get :-) (this is the only brief part - apologies now).

Today was our first Half marathon. sfGnome was really keen to do it although my training is geared towards 10k's at the moment. The deal was to treat it as a training run. We met up with fellow runclubbers (runners and cheerers) near the start and our coach Tim (Freespiritfitness) joined us for some last minute encouragement and to tell us where he'd be on the course.

We headed towards the start and met up with fellow CR's - Gronk, Omni, Horrie, Belinda and Lil'elf. Got off at a nice steady pace and felt strong up Hunter St, saw Tim near Art gallery Rd and he reminded me to use the downhills. Went past the 5k mark & was happy to be under split time.

Spotted Andy and Daz with Tim on the way back out and got a 'beautiful form' in return for a wave. Flew down Hunter St using the tips Tim had given me in a session (felt like we passed 100's runners)and soon came round to be greeted by the award winning cheer squads for Cool Runners and Run Clubbers. You guys ROCKED!! Made the 10k point about 55 and then 11k just under 60 - quite shocked.

An advantage of being towards the back of this race was that we got to see the elites. As we came down Hickson Rd, Brett Cartwright lapped us and went in to win. We were past the finish gate before Scott Westacott and Mona's came in but it was so exciting to be there and hear it all. Now for our second lap.

Past the awesome cheersquad again and Hunter St was tougher this time. Missed Tim up on the corner and headed into the Domain. Saw fellow runclubber Angela up ahead and yelled we were coming. At the 15k we were still sub our splits so it was beginning to look like Tim was right about sub 120. Angela was desperate for a sub 120 in her 3rd attempt so she hooked on with us hoping to be able to bring it home. We were all feeling a bit sore in spots but decided between the 3 of us we made up one set of good legs!!

Turned into Macquarie St to hear 'OK Sue, it's a time trial from hear to home - just start picking people off'. Yep Tim was back offering encouragement although when I spoke to him he told me I wasn't working hard enough if I could talk. Some training run!! I appreciated it though because I guess it made me forget about the tired body and refocus. Hit Hunter St and started to really work the downhill again. Tim called out something about 'that's good, just like in training, keep the cadence up' and this woman near me started making comments about that girl and her coach so I headed to the other side of the crowd away from Tim and when we got down the bottom I asked him to go away. I didn't want anyone getting their knickers in a knot over it.

Another great cheer from the squad and it was back up Argle Cut- really tough here and my back was uncomfortable on this hill so sfGnome placed his hand on it and that helped. We'd lost Angela and was hoping she wasn't too far behind.Down in to Hickson and sfGnome suggested a sub 5min final K. No worries and we crossed hand in hand for 117 something our time. We had done it and Tim was right :-).

8 runclubbers ran - Rob, Dilly & Munch doing 91's with Julia, Kelly, Us and Angela doing 113-118. 26miles who helps out at run club did low 80's- absolutely awesome. We were all estactic and grateful to Tim for all his encouragement and we really enjoy the community that has grown from runclub. We then topped off the day catching up with many CR's for drinks.

I wonder what I could do if I actually trained towards one of these ?? TA

Half Homework

Tim's first words to me at PT were 'Here's your homework for the Half' and handed me a DVD of Steve Prefontaine to watch before bed tonight. Good stuff!!

Because of tomorrow's race, today's PT was an upper body endurance session followed by a short jog, 4x70m sprints and a walk cooldown. I'm hoping the 100 (girlie) pushups don't come back to haunt me tomorrow.

sfGnome and I have been discussing our Half times. Our esctactic time is 120, our happy/expected time is 130 and our 'not happy Jan' time is 140. Tim thinks a sub 2 hour result is a definite. Based on my 10k PB ( 52.14 at North Head, a relatively flat course) he reckons I should do 56 for each 10k and sub 5min for the last, which means 117. I'm not as confident as him but is the teacher right??

TA

How's this for togetherness

Here I sit at one computer, while TA does her update of the blog over to my right. I wonder who'll post first? :-)

The long week of ice, massage and no running is finally coming to a close and the leg is feeling much better for the rest. I had to walk about a km yesterday, so I broke my own rules and jogged it "just to see how it was going"... really :-) The good news is that it felt fine. Now all I have to do is repeat that 21 times on Sunday.

If I wasn't already getting excited by the race, then the last week of reading Cool Running can't help but make me so. When someone like BlueDog says that just thinking about it was making him tremble with excitment, what hope has a poor beginner like me got? Anyhow, they say that we've got to get lots of sleep tonight, because there's little hope of getting any tomorrow, so it's goodnight from me and it's goodnight from her :-)

sfG

Last Run before Sunday.

Yesterday while reading CR I looked at the "SMH-last run before Sunday" thread and came across Freespiritfitness's posting about triathletes who do 5-6x400m to increase blood flow in the legs and thought 'I bet I know what's on at run club tonight'. I WAS RIGHT.

After warmup, stretches and drills(where the theory is the sillier you look, the better the drill) Tim described the main set. 2x400m firm, 5 mins of hard straights/float the curves, 2x400 firm, 5 min of 30sec hard/30sec rest, 2x400 firm and 3min 30 sec hard/30 sec rest. For those of us doing the half we swopped the 2 30sec sets for 800 easy each time. We finished with strength and stretches.

Another night of solid work, chat and laughter with running buddies. At last count there are about 9 of us from run club doing the Half and quite a few of the others are coming to cheer. Should be a good day.

TA

They lie, the Bay Run is quiet.

I started the day with a solid upper body wts session and then met sfGnome for yummy lunch at Nood in Balmain. Afterwards we picked up our Half race packs and I dropped him back at work before going for a run. Tim had suggested an easy 8k this arvo if I felt like it, so since I was already in Balmain a lap of the doggie length Bay Run(9k) seemed a good idea.

The rain stopped and the sun shone. The wind howled on the Drummoyne side and blew off my CR cap. Luckily the only thing I lost was a bit of my lunch :-(. I only saw 5 runners and a few more walkers - very quiet. Got back to the car a bit quicker than expected and did some stretching.

Popped into work on the way home to see how the boss's holiday was. He enjoyed it so much I walked out having agreed to work another 10 days straight in June. These running endorphins have a lot to answer for!!

TA

Back to normal

I didn't have to go to work today!!! It was so nice to sit down with the 14 yr old this arvo and catch up with each other and watch one of our favourite shows. Being a mum is such a privilege :-)

Mid morning I got to the gym and did a bike session. Having done a lower body/abs session yesterday, I warmed up on an easy level for 10 mins then did 3x5min AT with 3min easy spin recovery between and then a cooldown. I aimed for HR of 150 for AT and the sweat just poured off me. Hope I remembered to wipe the bike down :-0

sfGnome is still looking after his leg with ice and massage and if that doesn't work I guess he will raid our drug cupboard for Sunday.

TA

Life's ups and downs

Our last long run before the half and it was disappointing to part ways after 20 minutes. sfG hobbled off home and I headed down in to the valley running rolling hills before biting the bullet and heading the only way out - up Coonara, a rather long & nasty local hill. Managed a nod to the brave soul doing hill reps on it! From here I ran along the ridge for a while to give the legs a break before heading down and then back up to get home.I stretched while sfG continued to ice :-(. For his sake I hope the rest helps.

TA

Slip sliding away...

"You know, the nearer your destination, the more you're slip sliding away" - Neil Simon.

Depressing way to start, but it aptly describes the way I'm feeling at the moment. TA and I went out for a 90 minute run this morning (at 6am so she could get back for work and me for church - wasn't as cold as I was expecting), but unfortunately the thigh started screaming after about 4k and I had to bail out so only ended up doing about 7k. Lots of ice, lots of massage (massaging it during the sermon - hope the pastor didn't take my grimaces of pain for reaction to his talk :-)

It's OK to walk on, but it's pretty sore when going up and down stairs. I think that all I can do now is go to 100% taper mode and not run again before Sunday. I might try the bike on the wind trainer mid week, and if it doesn't cause any pain then ride to work on Thursday. However, I'm not doing anything that might stop it getting better (enough) by Sunday. I've made the mistake of investing too much emotional energy into this race to walk away now.

I've just had a thought... Do you think that TA will wait on me hand and foot for the week so I can avoid any potential damage I might do getting up out of the easy chair?? :-)

As an aside, I can't whinge too much. On the way home from watching our beloved Swannies beat Port Adelaide, we visited my dad who's recovering from brain surgery to find him up and running around like a spring lamb. Pretty cool! Who needs thigh muscles... :-)

sfG

PT Pyramids

My long hours are catching up with me but Tim said today's PT session was designed with that in mind. After a couple of k's warmup, we did a pyramid style running session.We started with 1min good controlled running followed by 30 sec rest(15 sec walk/15 sec float),2 min run-1min rest, etc up to 5min running. I think Tim set a 5min/k pace. I just ran and stopped on demand :-).

We then did an upper body circuit session of chest flyes,shoulders presses,reverse chins,triceps dips and pushups-no abs after yesterdays set.

With my focus on 10ks, Tim said the SMH Half is a training run, not a race, so I still have a PT session the day before. I guess that takes the pressure off!

This is what we run for... :-)

I know I said that this was a rest day, but I got some serious exercise in tonight - mainly lifting a fork to my mouth :-) TA and I went with my Sister and Brother-in-law to a resturant in Paramatta. Pretty good food, but we realised afterwards that there was no complexity in the taste - there was just the dominant flavour and that was it. I even ended up eating the greens(!!) just to get some flavour variation. Ah well...

TA did a gym session this morning. Her program at the moment includes 200 crunches and 5 x 1 minute bridges (hurts just thinking about it). Abs of steel!!

Rain? What rain?

With TA's work committments, she couldn't be at run club tonight, so I missed my normal Thursday morning ride into work (I ride so that we only have one car after run club - and to get the exercise of course).

Pulled out of the garage at work tonight into torrential rain. Thinks, well I'll just go down and see who's dumb enough to be there... For the record, those dumb enough were Martina, Lorna (Owl), Caro, Fiona & yours truly. We decided that a run around the bay in the rain seemed like a good idea (actually, I'm not sure exactly who thought it was a good idea, but under the pressure of looking like pikers, the rest agreed :-)

Anyhow, to cut an already lengthy story short, we took it easy and did the bay and the canal loop at about a 6 minute pace, chatting all the way (no! :-) It rained on and off throughout - I like my Dryfit clothes. In the torrential parts the singlet stuck to my chest a bit, but they never got heavy. If it's a wet day for the half, I'm ready.

Found out on our return that it was the longest that Martina had ever run. Much applause all round.

My thigh started to whinge a bit about half way round, but it wasn't a killer. Iced it when I got home. It's a bit sore now, but it'll be OK with a bit of rest (I hope!). Nothing more now till Sunday.

sfG

Tour de Hills

Up early for an easy 10k before work. I'd arranged to do the middle 4-5k with a friend and I'd make up the rest getting to and from her place. By the time I got home I'd done 7 decent hills including my old nemisis and one I'd never quite made the top of. I felt very chuffed with myself however sfGnome queried my definition of 'easy'.

TA

Work or a Life?

This fulltime work really mucks up having a life.

I have to admit I have a great job and a fantastic boss. He is very supportive of my extra activities and happily swops days so I can race. I guess he deserves a week's holiday :-)

Anyway despite the long hours, training goes on. Monday night I went swimming after work. I haven't swum for about 6 weeks, so Tim suggested doing (1x100 drill, 200 swim) x4 with warmup and cooldown. Swimming doesn't come easily to me but it was nice to feel smooth and powerful at odd times.

Tuesday I took a rest day as I had an after hours CE diabetes lecture to attend and was lucky not to fall asleep in it.

Got out early before work today and went to the gym and did an upper body session while sfGnome went for a 5.5k run @ 5min pace. He was happy with it but still iced his thigh as a precaution. He is soooooooo looking forward to the SMH Half.

All systems go and countdown recommences

It looks like my body is better at repairing itself than I gave it credit for (either that, or there was nothing wrong and I'm just getting jumpy as the SMH half approaches). The thigh pain was less on Monday, but I still rang the physio for the earliest possible appointment - amazingly, today at 8:30am was free (this never happens :-)

Anyhow, by this morning, the soreness had mostly worked itself out and although the sadist found a few pain points to press, it was all pretty right and I can return to running immediately :-) :-)

Apparently, although I have always paid a lot of attention to good posture and core stability when I am running, he said that my core was just not strong enough, and hence I was over stressing all the various stabiliser muscles. He's prescribed at least half an hour of core strengthening twice a week for a while, dropping back to a maintenance level after that. TA's loving response was "Well der... You've never done enough abs work!" :-)

Anyhow, it's up early tomorrow for a 5k see-how-she-goes run, which means that trying to get the photo on the blog profile will have to wait for another day.

Tiger angel is working full time this week (over 60 hours when the boss goes on holidays), so I doubt that you'll see any musings from her for a while. What I can tell you is that her trainer included a swim session in this week's programme for the first time in what seems like months, and she could hardly get out of bed this morning. Maybe I should say "Well der... You haven't been doing enough swimming!" Then again, could choose to shutup and live... :-)

sfG

Happy Mum's Day

What a weekend it has been. sfGnome has aptly described Saturday, though I also fitted in a session with Tim during the morning. Tim had that knowing smile when I told him my new 10k time.

Today was a glorious sunny day just right for running the Domain. I had told my 4 kids I didn't want a MD present but asked would they do a 4k run with me instead. Their gran has had Breast Cancer and I thought it would be a nice tribute to her. So with great threats of death over my head, we all did it today and finished!!!

Despite their protests, all the kids came home happy with their times and a feeling of satisfaction. They had Maccas on the way home to celebrate!

After doing a similiar course at the April striders and then backing up from yesterday's Striders I was hopeful for close to 21 minutes. Micro TA and I had an amazing first 3 k's (equal to my 3k PB on a FLAT course) but then my legs died, so I told him to go off on his own and win the family race. My last k sucked but I was stunned to come in at 19.40 (on my watch). So one happy Mum.

Had a lovely lunch with my Mum and family and tonight sfGnome took me to see Tap Dogs. Gee's can these guys move. The variety of ideas and changes to props just kept coming and we sat there spellbound for an hour and a half. A great way to end a very exhausting 2 days.

Now I'm off to bed to get a goodnight's sleep. This week my boss is away so I'm in charge and jump from 23 hours to 60 (plus my training). Mind you I'm excited that Tim has reintroduced a swim into this week's progamme.

Up hill and down dale

This morning I was feeling very happy. Tonight? Well, I think morose would be a good word :-( This morning, tiger angel took 90 seconds off her 10k PB, knocking it down to 52:14. She's been told that she should be able to get sub 50 by the end of the year, and I believe that's true.

Looking at the splits, we had the traditional slight fade around 6 & 7 k, but the really odd one was 9th k, when we dropped a good 15 seconds - and this was when we thought that we were picking it up for the run home?? Very odd, but the Polar don't lie :-) Still, the last was done in 4:50, so that picked things up a bit.

Breakfast was fun. I got to put faces to some names that I've been reading for a while - gnscon, amjam, djl, etc - and queen bee kindly took a photo of us that will shortly grace the blog, just as soon as I get a chance to put it up. Then off to microTA's footy match. This was a rather one sided affair, but it did mean that micro, who normally plays fullback, got to play two quarters at full forward, much to his joy.

Alas, on to the morose bit. During the game, my thigh started to feel sore, and despite masage and stretching and walking around and sitting down and anything else I could think off, it's continued to get worse. When we got home from micro's game, we had to turn straight around and head off for the Swans' match, so here I sit now at 11:30pm, with ice on it finally and for the first time.

This means that I'm not running in the Mothers Day Classic tomorrow (which is in itself a blow, because all the kids were joining us in honour of their grandma), but worse still, I have a horrible feeling that it's put paid to the SMH half, and that's just criminal. I've been running so strongly and we've been putting in all the training, and now to potentially lose it. I am soooo frustrated! Still, it was a great day for tiger angel, and tomorrow's going to be pretty good too, so I guess I should just pull my head in and get on with things. Ah well...

sfG

Rest Day

Rest day today (well, it didn't feel like resting at work, but I wasn't running :-)

Early to bed, so we can early to rise for striders - the start of a very long and involved weekend.

Life's a Rollercoaster Ride

I love going to runclub. MicroTA doesn't complain so much about going anymore (especially since he started thrashing me :-) and we have made some good friends and we all just enjoy being together and picking on Tim!! As sfGnome described, tonight was a rollercoaster session. I joined group 2 as usual. Somehow I feel comfortable there but I also wonder if I'm being slack not going at the back of group 1. I uploaded my HR monitor when I got home and I was happy to see my times were consistent. Tim, as encouraging as ever, predicts a PB at striders on Saturday.

On a different tack, this morning my friend's hubby rang to tell me that Sol passed away last night after a tough battle with cancer. She had been in severe pain for weeks and had lost the use of her legs. When I'd visit, I'd massage her feet and legs and 3 weeks ago she told me how much she envied me that I could exercise. So the best I could do for her was to lift her into a wheelchair and take her for a walk and a coffee. You should have seen her beam.

Later this morning I visited my father-in-law in the dialysis unit and massaged his feet as we talked about the op he was having this arvo to remove a brain clot.

Later still I walked throught the local shopping centre with my gorgeous 18 year old daughter who grabbed my hand to hold and didn't care if anyone saw it.

So today I didn't just run a rollercoaster, I lived one and pray there will be many more.

God bless you Sol, you are home pain free.

TA

The one day of the week

Thursday's my heavy day, exercise-wise. Starts with a bike ride from the Hills into Balmain. Had a close call with a truck in Hunters Hill, but I can climb gutters faster than he can :-) Still, lesson learned, and I'll be a bit more careful with trucks on bends from now on.

In the evening I get to knock off early (6:30) and head up to run club. Always good company and good exercise. Did a "rollercoaster" session - 200, 400, 800, 400, 200, etc, all at still-be-able-to-accelerate-at-the-end pace. I'm still feeling good when I run! I know that's suposed to be the norm, but I'm still getting a buzz out of it :-)

Rest tomorrow, Striders 10k on Saturday and Mothers Day 4k (with the whole family!) on Sunday. Lucky that they let us off running the boundary at microTA's footy match on Saturday arvo - it's an 80 minute fartlek session. Not for the faint hearted.

sfG

Rest Day

Today is the first of my 2 scheduled rest days this week, so I took the opportunity to catch up over coffee with my cycling buddy, Jan. Jan and I normally do a 30-40k ride together each week but since I decided to get more serious about my running, we haven't done anything for a month or so. Maybe I will have to take her running if I want to see her!

TA

Please sfGnome - can I borrow some testosterone?

With sfGnome back in the door from his run, I headed out to the gym to fit a weights session in before doing Canteen at MicroTA's school. I had doubled checked some aspects with Tim (CR Freespiritfitness) at my personal training session last Saturday and felt more confident with it today. The chinups still suck but that leaves lots of scope for improvement. It's times like these I wish I had more male hormones! Saw my good friend and occasional training partner Leonie (CR Cheetacat) there suffering at the hands of her trainer. We chatted a bit after her session and organised to go to Striders together on Saturday. Probably shouldn't have talked for so long as I had to cut out most of my abs work. Oh well, I'm sure Tim will rectify that at our next session :-).

TA

Pain free Gnome

One of the really nice things about the last week or two has been the feeling of starting to run without hurting, and running without hurting, and not hurting after runs... It's been 8 months since I was able to say that (apart from the striders 10 at homebush - done on bulk nurofen plus and panadeine - I floated around the course), and I'd forgotten how nice it is.

I went for a 5.5k run this morning, doing one minute bursts every time there was a flat-ish stretch (they don't call this The Hills for nothing :-) Took almost 30 minutes to do it which suprised me - it felt faster - but guess I started fairly slowly. The beautiful thing is that I've done about 40k in the last week, and I haven't felt uncomfortable at any stage. All up, this is a pretty good lead up to the half. Hope it continues :-)

sfG

Back on the bike - sorta.

Got up early to fit the gym in before work. sfGnome was having a rest day but I had a spin session scheduled for today. 10min warmup, 8 lots x (2min HARD,1 min easy spin) then 10 min cooldown. The first interval sucked, so went down one level to accommodate for yesterday's long run and I only had 7 to go. In a strange way I enjoyed the session even though the legs wobbled a bit when I hopped off.

At least there was no creek to fall into unlike yesterday - more bruises :-)

TA

Is this the start, or just a passing fancy...

This blog is basically about our running and the people that we meet through running (and the muscles that we pull by running :-)

So why start a blog now? After all, nothing's much different to what it was yesterday, and not much different to the day before that. Still, things keep happening, so now's as good a time as any to start this, and who knows what'll happen??

The current focus is the striders 10k at North Head next weekend (and the Mothers Day classic with the whole family the following day), and then the SMH half marathon two weeks after that. That's a long enough horizon for me.

Yesterday was CR5k time trial (24sec PB for tiger angel and a totally new benchmark for the Gnome) followed by a pleasant 5k jog back to the car (and breakfast). This set us up for a long run today - somewhere I read that a few weeks before a half, you should do a medium run one day and a long one the next to boost the endurance, so that's what we did.

We decided on a 2 hour run, as that was the longest that either of us had ever run, and it also hopefully will be about the time that we run for the half (not bothered if it's longer though). I (gnome) also wanted to run through bush, as the last time I did that it was lots of fun and a break from pounding pavement. However, about 1 hour in, I started to get archilles pains (never had them before) so we doubled back to a recently-noticed exit path and re-entered the world of concrete and bitumen. Archilles pain disappeared so I guess that it was just the less stable surface that was causing it. I'll have to keep trying it to strengthen that area without pushing it too hard. Anyhow, got home pretty much spot on the 2 hours, feeling challenged, but quite confident that we'll handle the half OK (albeit slowly :-)

sfG