2 Runs and 3 PBs

[Caution, long report - but it took me much longer to write it than for you to read it :-)]

This weekend was a double bunger. We had the CR5k on Saturday morning and the Bay Run on Sunday. So it meant being up at 6am both days to be at the Bay by 7am.

We got to Drummoyne rowers in plenty of time Saturday morning and went for a quick warmup run. I managed to bring my breakfast up during this but thought nothing of it.I started in the 25min group with Caro and a couple of others and felt ok in the first k but from there on the 'stomach discomfort'( as nicely put by vat-man) began. I knew I was a bit slower than last month and just aimed to do sub 25. Got to the end at 24.53 and went straight to hang over the fence. Mr G came up next to me and gave me the look as if to say "Well done, you look stuffed!" He was sooo lucky not to get a technicolour answer.

I remember thinking at the 4k mark that at least Gnome hadn't caught me like last time but that was because he started a minute later this time. He is really running well at the moment and managed to bring home another 18sec PB to do 21.53. He said he ran alot of it with a guy named George from NZ and they were able to help push each other. He later told me he managed to eat enough for me as well at the post run breakky. Well, at least one of us was eating.

After work I went to MicroTA's footy game. He is a pleasure to watch these days. His coach has developed him into the dominant fullback and with the improved fitness and confidence in himself that has developed since going to runclub he is exciting to watch. He knows how to contest the ball and usually wins it over the full forward and is then able to clear it away, sending it up the field efficiently. Yesterday he was on fire and to top it off he was only 1 of 2 boys of a team of 20 that stretched down while the coach did his post game summary - another thing he has learnt from runclub.

Later that night we enjoyed a house warming at Wildthing's with Caro and Owl and then we met up with Caro and Owl at 7am Sunday morning to go to the Bay run (7k).

Still not feeling 100% my hopes were not high for today. Gnome wasn't particularly motivated by this race so was happy to just wing it. Secretly I hoped for 35 something but was prepared to expect 37+. We caught up with Munch, Andrew, Patch and the Professor before heading off for a warmup. Just before the boys started Tim found Owl, Lorna and myself and wished us luck and promised to cheer us on the course.

I just kept a steady pace and was strangely comforted when I reached the CR5k markers. These gave me a chance to check my pacing but at the same time put me off distance wise. I remember thinking I must have been about halfway and my watch said 20mins and I was so disappointed. Then I saw the 2k mark and realised it was under 3ks to the end and 35 was a chance. Spirits up I headed home. Saw Tim on the home stretch and suggested he run with me but no. Instead he told me I was strong and to kick it home. So dutifully I obeyed the trainer and came home in 35.31. YES!!! A new PB and Gnome had one too at 31:30(ish) . He said he enjoyed the sensation of choosing someone and picking them off ( me too!) and at the CR3k he overtook a guy who latched onto him but was pleased to kick in over the bridge and drop him.

Met up with Moondust at the end (who'd come to cheer) and then Owl, Caro and ourselves dumped our bags in the car and did another warmdown lap of the bay before heading off for a well wanted breakfast.

Another great weekend over. Next Saturday is Lane Cove Striders and another attempt to do better on the long hill.

TA

Time flies when you're busy and get extra sleep.

Gnome has taken MicroTA to another band competition this afternoon and told me I had to blog. Yes Sir !!

Sat 23/7 - After a great week at the snow it was back to PT. After no running for a week, Tim said there was 2 ways to cope with an absence and that was either return gently or smash the door down. So he chose the latter - a Bay run with a couple of fast k's thrown in and a bit of tempo work followed by wts. Seriously tired that night!

Sun 24/7 - see Gnome's Busy Day. Go Swannies :-)

Tues 26/7 - After Monday's rest day, Gnome and I headed out for 12ks of rolling hills and 4x3min efforts thrown in the middle. I decided we'd include 2 more hills we've never done before on either side of the efforts and on the first one Gnome suggested it was more of a cliff than a hill! As we headed home we just seemed to pick up the pace and did the last couple of k's at our 'efforts' pace. A good solid run.

Later that night while MicroTA was at footy practice I popped into the gym and did an upper body session. Very blokey place at night.

Wed 27/7 - As a parent you need to be sneaky sometimes. Angel doesn't use the gym quite as often as she used to but is happy to come with me. So the trick is to work out when she'll be free and tell her you're going and will probably be there for about 50 mins. It worked this time and she did cardio while I completed my wts session of legs and abs. I caught up with my friend Leonie while there which was nice.

Thurs 28/7 - Run Club. See Gnome's entry but watching the Guz was awesome. The only time I went passed him was during his 1 min recovery :-). As for our session I was really happy to run consistent 800s and the 30hard/30rec are always fun.

Fri 29/7 - Thursday night I set my bike up in the back room on the wind trainer ready for Friday morning thinking everyone would be asleep while I did it. Nuh - Gnome and MicroTA were up early for work and band so they got to eat breakfast to the 'pleasant' sound of my bike workout. Warmup, 7x30sec hard, 45sec spin and a cooldown. Poor old North (dog) wondered what his mum was up to.

Tim commented to me a couple of weeks ago that 7 hours sleep/night was not enough so I jokingly suggested he write it into my training program. He retaliated with 8.5 hrs a night and a 40min nap at 3pm each day. (haha) Strange thing is that at the snow we always slept at least 8.5 hrs and since coming home I've only slept less than 7.5 hrs twice. Mind you it helps to walk away from the computer.

TA

Blown away

You know how, when you're standing on a platform a bit too close to the edge and a through train roars past; there's the shock of the unexpected followed by the frisson of excitment? Not rare on a platform, but utterly suprising on an oval. You can read the Mad Guz's blog and marvel at the times that he considers a slow run, but wait until he runs past you. WOW!

Be nice to think that we were training together (I guess that's what I'll tell my grandkids :-), but we just happened to be at the same park at the same time. Back down to earth gnome...

The session was firm paced 800s, interspersed by 2, 4 and 6 minutes of 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off hard intervals. I was delighted to discover that I really enjoyed them. Maybe it was the fact that you got the reward of stopping every 30 seconds - sure beats waiting 30 minutes or an hour for the same reward, and then you only get it once :-)

CR5k tomorrow. I'm torn between running off 23 again on the assumption that I'll be slower this time (PB last time at 22:11), or going off 22 and maybe getting left behind??? I guess I'll wait and see who's running what. Definitely not confident like I was last time though. Ain't the brain strange...

sfG

Gnomie's busy day

Sunday was just one of those days that you need a holiday after. Pity we'd just arrived back from one! It wasn't a bad day. In fact, it got off to a great start and then just got better and better. It was just jam packed and not a little wearing.

First thing was up early and into Rushcutter's to meet the Owl, Lulu & Go Girl for a run through the C2S route. They've all covered it quite adequately in their blogs, so I won't repeat. What I will say, though, is that I haven't run with the Owl (or Wol, to steal Aki's homage to Pooh) for a while, and I was surprised with the ease with which she ran. This is the new, more powerful 2005 model. Never tell Wol that there's a downhill after this uphill or you'll have to work to stay with her as she powers away. Quite startling really!

As with all good morning runs in company, this one finished at a cafe. New lesson learnt. Don't attempt to rehydrate with coffee. It wastes a perfectly good coffee going down the gullet without touching the sides. Next time, lots of water first.

After a lift back to the car courtesy of Lulu, I took TA into the SCG to secure seats for the Grand Final Preview (aka Swans -vs- West Coast) and then headed home to help MacroTA fix his car which had mysteriously died the previous night. One broken heater hose later, I was back again to town to catch the last quarter, bask in the reflected glory of supporting the winning team and pick up TA & microTA.

Back home with just enough time to grab a shower and make a sandwich for tea before heading out to church, then leaving it early to drive to the northern beaches for a nephew's concert (part of his assessment for his music degree). Finally arrived back at about 11:30pm, 17 hours and a couple of hundred km later. I'm glad it was a rest day today so we got to sleep in till 7am :-)

This week looks reasonably easy for me. 12k tomorrow morning with rolling hills and 4x3min efforts, run club on Thursday and then the CR5k and the Bay Run on Sat & Sun. Not quite so cruisy for TA because she has weights, cycling and PT as well, but that's why she puts Wonder Woman to shame :-)

sfG

Back in one piece

For those traditionalists amongst you who think that a running blog should only be about running, I'll say "running makes you fitter, and thus a more capable snow rider". Feel free to turn off at this point. For those that want to know more about the non-running stuff, read on... :-)

We're latecomers to snow sports, only attempting it for the first time 5 years ago. In fact, this whole health/running schtick came about in part from a failure to be able to cope with the physical load of snowboarding, but that's a whole other story. Each year, we've improved both in technique and in the ability to cope with the physical side, but this year the difference was phenominal. We generally try to go from first to last lifts for the full five days, so we're also generally barely able to drag ourselves to bed by about 9:30 (so much for the night life on the slopes :-) This year we have both had a fair leap in fitness thanks to runclub and freespirit, and we were able to go flat chat for the whole time without collapsing in a heap. I think that may also have had something to do with the lack of injuries, because I think the added strength gives added control.

The weather was super-kind to us - lots of snow before we got there, lovely clear, windless days, cold clear nights, sleeping to the dull background roar of the snow guns running all night... Wonderful! Just to whet your appetite, here's the view from our bedroom window as the rising sun catches the clouds from the snow guns :-)



One of the advantages(??) of exercising 8 hours a day was that I chose to eat a fair bit more than I have been, and be a little less picky about the nutritional value of the stuff I put in my mouth (ie chocolate was definitely back on the menu). I don't know whether the kJ in equated to the kJ out, because I havn't got around to weighing myself yet, but before I do, I'll post this picture of the dessert I had on Thursday night while the runclubbers were doing their 1,000,000 x 400m track session :-)





Finally, one of the highlights of the week was catching up with GoGirl for a coffee one lunch time. She was easy to find in the crowded cafe. She was the one with the brightly coloured headgear (and the husband trying to hide with the embarrassment of sitting with someone wearing a CR running cap at the snow :-) Maybe we should ask Kevin Tiller to make a CR helmet. Not much use for running, but it would be easy to see on the slopes :-)

We'll be running the bulk of the C2S course tomorrow morning with Owl and Lulu and others. It'll be interesting to see if snow riding muscles are the same as running muscles :-) The calendar for the next few weeks is;
- next Saturday, CR 5k challenge.
- Sunday, Bay run fun run (7k).
- Following weekend, Striders 10k at Lane Cove.
- Following weekend, City to Surf (14k).
- 4 Weeks later, Blackmores half (21k).
Did anyone notice the monotonically increasing length of those races? I think we'd better take a breather after that or in about a year we'll be running to the moon!!

sfG

There's Snow in the Air Today.

Arrived at the Bay for PT about 4pm this afternoon and it was freezing and extremely windy. M was just finishing her session so we set off for a yak while she did 2 cooldown laps and I did 2 warmup laps. It was nice to catch up.

Tim explained the idea for today's session was to sharpen me up for the snow without making me sore - a mixture of upper body weights, a bit of running and some abs. For the weights we did supersets of medium weight and high reps. The shoulder remains good.

As for the running , alternating orange and green cones were set up covering about 250m around the track. Orange meant easier pace and green faster pace. The "easier" cones were farther apart and the "faster" cones closer at the beginning but as you progressed around the track the "easier" length decreased as the "faster" length increased. A mixture of float/pickups, 10k pace/3k pace and 10k/flatout had me breathing hard. It was so windy it was almost like doing hills on the flat.

Tomorrow we go to the snow and we are very excited. Where else can you go and do a squat session for 6-7 hours a day combined with high altitude training :-). We have arranged to meet up with Go Girl in Thredbo where we're both staying. So keep an eye out for a 'CoolRunners in the snow' photo.

TA

Getting better

Run club 3k time trial. Tim asked TA before the session "how's your throat? Are you sure it's better?". TA doesn't lie. Her throat is better. Really? Really! She just didn't mention the ongoing gastric attacks :-)

Anyhow, after the normal stretches, drills, runthroughs, etc, we wandered over to the start line. Tim put the mockers on me by predicting sub-12minute. The thought was in the back of my mind, but I put it in the 'pretty unlikely' category. TA was hoping for any kind of PB after being a few seconds outside in every run she's done lately. I call it consistency. I think that she has other names for it.

Last time I went out too fast and died progressively and badly through the run, so I worked on starting a little more sensibly this time. I wanted a 4:05 for the first, and was happy enough when it was 4:10. Picking it up, the second was 4:05. Hmmm. OK as a time, but I was now 15 seconds behind Tim's goal. That's OK. I'll do a 4:00 home and get the 12:15 I was really hoping for. Unfortunately, although I thought that I was going quite a bit faster, that last k was also 4:05(ish), giving me a 12:19 overall and an 11 second pb. Let me review. My pacing was even. I negative split. I pb'd. So why am I so ticked off about a missing 4 seconds?? Dumb, dumb gnome :-(

TA likewise ran a really good even race, missing her pb (again!) by just 8 seconds. However, the first and third k's were the fastest that she's ever done (with the exception of the first at the last time trial were she, along with every one else, went out way too hard), so all up it was still a very good run. The thing that pleased her the most was that she felt comfortable all the way (working hard, but comfortable) for the first time in a race. I get the feeling that we're on the cusp of something new :-)

sfG

A Mixed Up Run before lunch with sfGnome.

I've been fighting a sore throat for 4 days now - not worse but not better. When I got to PT, Tim asked me how I was and I promised to tell if he promised not to change the session. I got the look and fessed up. He said he would slightly modify the session accordingly but tomorrow had to be an extra rest day. Apparently his pneumonia started with the same symptoms and he wants me to be very careful and besides I don't want to be sick at the snow.

Today's session started with an easy 5-6k run including a mix of hills, 30sec pickups and one longer pickup before we headed back to the park to do some downhill running practice. We then finished with some squats, lunges and stretching. I also got warned NOT to get injured in the snow otherwise I'm in big trouble!!

Angel (our daughter) walked the Bay while I was training and got back as I was doing a downhill run. She later said ' You looked like you were going so fast mum but did you have a sports bra on? It must have hurt.' Had to laugh. The funny thing is that when I first started running I was conscious of my breasts moving but now I never think about it. Guess it helps to be older and more focused on form than bounce :-)

We then headed into Balmain to have lunch with sfGnome and MacroTA at 'Nood' or as we affectionately call it, 'The Hole in the Wall'. Yummmmmmmmm.

TA

Why arn't the Hills flat?

It's a year exactly since I was diagnosed with a stress fracture in my right tibia and shin splints in both legs and I remember going to the snow 2 days later and alternating between an hour's boarding and then sitting with my legs in the snow for an hour to ice them before boarding again. (Stoopid I know). In the past, while at the snow sfGnome has done his knee and I've crushed muscles in my butt.

Well today (after work/church) we went and bought helmets, wrist gaurds, gloves and socks for our snow trip in a week and decided this year No Injuries were Allowed from anyone. Wish us luck!!

sfGnome and I eventually set out about 3pm today for our 2hr run. It was still very windy and cold but a bit nicer than this morning. sfGnome asked where did I want to go and I said not too hilly and he said good. But as we talked we both had secretly wanted to head down the valley, so off we went. As we got close to home almost 2 hours later, we reckon we had chosen the hilliest run to date. About halfway thru I decided to just repeat in my head the word 'strong' with every out breath as we went up the hills and that helped.

I managed to stay awake in church tonight but came home to find sfGnome sound asleep on the couch. We caught up with some Tour highlights and we reversed roles tonight with sfGnome heading to bed early and me watching tonight's Tour and catching up on the blogging. Thanks heavens tomorrow is a rest day - pity we have to work.

Ooh, just looked at the time. Think I might lie about sleep in the blue diary ;-).

TA

21 today

Friday I messaged Tim to see what I needed for PT and got back the message 'running shoes and a bucket'. Yikes!! Images of vomiting sprang to mind and I began to wonder what was ahead. I decided it must be 1k intervals as those can make me chuck.

I wasn't far wrong. The session was to be 3x1200 tempos and then weights. After 2 laps warmup and a few run thrus I started. It was extremely windy on the oval and then the rain came. The first 1200 was 6.03 (HR 170), 2.5min walking recovery and the next one was 6.09 (HR 169). Tim said that was enough. I immediately quipped 'that crap hey' but he assured me my form was good and I'd done what was needed and besides I'd run track Thursday, hills Friday and he wanted me to do a 2hr run Sunday as well as a good wts session next.

For weights we did 21's. These are fun. You do a warmup set of the exercise then do 7x full range of the exercise, 7x top half of the range then 7x bottam half of the range. A short break and repeat. Boy, you feel it in the targetted muscle. We started with the smaller muscle groups and finished with legs before doing some ab work and a lap cooldown. A really comprehensive workout and my shoulder has been pain free since.

TA

Cheer, cheer, the red and the white...

Just back from watching the swannies annnnnnnnihilate Geelong at the SCG. Yesterday morning was a 1 hour run with hills. Well, we've got the hills, so might as well use them :-) Feeling more and more confident with every passing day (and every hill run) that we're finally going to conquer heartbreak hill this year. Watch this space!

We've pretty much wrapped up our fund raising for Bear Cottage this week. We signed up to be part of Team Bear at the City to Surf. All that really entails is asking people to sponsor us in the race (and collecting the money beforehand, so if we succumb to injury or something, Bear Cottage still get their money). For those who don't know, Bear Cottage is a hospice for terminally ill children at Manly which is run by The Children's Hospital Westmead with no government funding whatsoever. A very worthy recipient of any spare cash you may have.

I made a couple of posters that TA and I put up at our respective workplaces, and in two and a half weeks (and with pretty much no arm twisting), she's topped $1000, and I raised $200. Given the opportunity, people really can be so nice! I feel like we have to pull out something special in the race this year (does running HBH count??), just to do justice to all those wonderful people. Just 5 weeks to go :-)

sfG

Teacher's Pet

It just goes to show what a little advertising can do! A small article in Saturday's Herald on Freespirit's Run Club drew about 15 new people. It was kinda funny going back to the whole basic technique/drills/etc for an entire night, but I think it was a really good session for them all to start with, and it didn't hurt us "old" (Tim's description) people to have a whole night concentrating just on that.

All the fast blokes piked out tonight, leaving yours truely at the head of the pack (a most uncommon position, I can tell you!). We did 3 simple drills (upright, butt kicks and high knees) with 3x400m after each one to consolidate the lesson of the drill. I like running 400s these days. I started fairly conservatively, but even though I pushed each new one harder than before, I really don't think that I reached my max. These are interesting days... TA was pretending to be annoyed at my new-found speed, so when Tim remarked that I had 'leaned up' and later commented positively on my style, I copped the whole "Teacher's Pet" thing (all tongue in cheek, I should add :-). Obviously it's time to start eating more and running less just to get back in her good books :-) :-)

The ride into work this morning was really strange. I started cramping in my calves half way along the M2. This is really strange because
a. I never cramp, and
b. this is only about 5k into the ride and it's all pretty much down hill or flat to that point - in other words, I hadn't even begun to work hard yet.
I felt crap all the way in, but still got there in the same time as usual. I'll never understand. Anyhow, it's a 10k hills run in the morning, so I'd better go to bed a few hours ago :-)

sfG

Sunny Swim

I decided last night I really wanted to see the 'Tour' so got into bed about 11pm with MicroTA hopping on top of the covers next to me to watch as well. We lasted about 30 mins before falling asleep :-). Luckily Gnome came in about 12.30pm and moved MicroTA and I woke up enough to watch the rest of the team time trial. It was absolutely engrossing and I felt so sorry for Zabriskie when he went down so hard.

So after waking at 9am this morning I headed out for a gentle swim. In the back of my mind I'm toying with the idea of doing the Nepean Tri in November this year but the thought of a 1k swim has me really scared. I'm not a confident swimmer and it's 5 months since I've done any swim training. Back then the only 1k time trial I did took me 22.54.

I'd checked with Tim if I could replace my rest today with a paddle. All I want is to just get used to swimming the distance without any aids, etc. I decided to swim the 1k at a comfortable pace today doing bilateral breathing for the first 500m then alternating between breathing one side for 50m, bilateral for 50m in the second 500m. I didn't have my stopwatch with me but rough time was 23-24 mins. so I'm quite happy with that. Finished off with 300m pull bouy and paddles, 100m kick (no fins) and 100m freestyle. A most enjoyable morning in a very empty but warm pool. I could get used to this.

TA

It's Tour de France time.

I had a go at my new weights program early Monday morning. Tim had given me the choice of doing the gym abs class or his exercises for the abs section. I'd timed my workout on Monday to finish just before the abs class and then it got cancelled, so I did Tim's version. It looks like a good comprehensive weights session. (maybe that's another way of saying long :-)

As I was away on Saturday and Tim's got school holidays we organised a PT for this morning. With Tim being an avid 'Tour de France' fan, it was mainly a bike workout. After 2 laps of the oval for warmup, I jumped on the bike and did lots of warmup spinning followed by some Lance Armstrong pedal drills to find the dead spots in my spin - far too enlightening! This was followed by 10 lots of 30sec Hard, 45sec spin and cooldown. Tim kept a check on my HR and was really pleased with it peaking at 160. I just kept pedalling, changing gears and feeling the sweat drop off my head. I haven't been on my bike for ages and was pleased with how the session went. Apparently we will build this session up to doing 45sec hard and 30 sec spin and increasing the number of reps as the year goes on.

Another lap of the oval and we moved on to some form work. Tim is always encouraging and says my running is looking good and he's quite happy with my style. Today however we were able to work on landing on the midfoot and pushing back off as I rolled through. That is right, isn't it Tim? It felt really good running this way but it's something I'll have to consciously think about before it just becomes routine. It's a bit like practising times tables in Primary School.

Another lap to cooldown and PT was over. I really enjoyed today and it was so nice doing the session at the Bay as the sun was shining and it wasn't too cold. Made me feel good all day though I'm a bit tired tonight. Don't think I'll last to watch the 'Tour' tonight - just have to settle for the highlights tomorrow at 6pm.

TA

RunClub makes the Paper.

Despite missing out on GC, we had a great 30hrs! in Tasmania. One of our many nephews was getting married and it was a great chance to catch up with far flung family. We only got 4 hours sleep on the friday night before heading to the airport for a very early flight Saturday morning.

We were keen to see if the article on 'RunClub' was in this Saturday's herald so we bought it at the airport. It was in the Spectrum section and despite some hideously incorrect statements on form like 'neck and back straight' and an 800m?? track, the last paragraph sums runclub up. It's testing but fun. We certainly have learnt so much and we really enjoy Tim's easy going but determined style. We've also made new friends and now we go to races and actually know people :-).

As for the rest of the weekend, it was busy but fun. We checked out Salamanca markets in Hobart before having lunch and then headed to the wedding. As expected, everyone looked gorgeous and the whole event went extremely well. (apart from the swans one point loss ;-(. We were very tired bunnies that night and slept 10 hours straight. Gnome and I managed to go out for an hour's run about 10am and just kept heading up and down hills around Kingston until we found a creek to run beside for about 20 mins.We did 9-10ks with a couple of 1k slight pickups. What really made the run interesting was the variety of houses in this obviously newer suburb. The local architects had had a field day with both design and colour.

Lunch was a bar-b-q followed by a game of cricket and a kick of the footy. Good family stuff!! and then it was time to fly home and catch up on all the GC/Striders stories. Sounds like everyone enjoyed their races and weekend . Thanks for sharing your stories with us and congratulations to all. I believe the cheer squad spun their magic again and added that much needed boost to CRs.

TA

Preparing to fly...

but in the wrong direction :-( It's not that I don't want to be going to Tasmania to see my sister and celebrate Duncan's wedding, I really do. It's just that I'd like to be doing that on a different weekend to the Gold Coast Half. Go well, CRs. We'll be thinking of you.

Tiger angel's program called for a 12k run with 4x3minute pushes today, so we did it this morning early. Not sure about how exact the 12k was, but we ran for 75 minutes so I guess that's close enough. Pushed it nice and hard for the last k just for fun. Another nice run :-)

I had another one of those 'bing' moments yesterday. I was prodding a girl at work to sponsor me (We're raising money for Bear Cottage - a hospice for terminally ill children run by the Children's Hospital - by getting sponsorship for running the City to Surf). She looked at the poster I'd made and said "Is that you? Are you a jogger?". Without thinking, I said no, I'm a runner. I don't know what made me say it. I'm not even sure what the difference might be, but it's nice to think that even my subconscious thinks of me that way :-) :-) Very chuffed, but not exactly sure why :-)

sfG