OUCH

Ooh.... have my quads been sore. At work Monday I almost told any customer that wanted a medicine from the bottom shelf to come back later in the week. It hurt so much to bend or use stairs and to add to it, my chest still wasn't right. So I joined Gnome and MicroTA and started on antibiotics. The house is much quieter without the three of us coughing :-). Enjoyed a rest day.

Tuesday morning was a bike session. Warmup, 8x (30secs hard/30 spin), 2 min spin, 4 x (60secs hard/30spin) cooldown. Someone suggested I put a towel under my bike when using the windtrainer at home and I now know why. The sweat just pours off but I like this session. The quads felt a lot better after this but were still a bit sore at work that day.

Today was another rest day and at last I'm walking and not wincing. I've decided it's time to start thinking about tri's again and rang Jan to arrange a date to start cycling together. She's got a big music exam late Sept and isn't risking riding (she was with me when I had my accident and is wary) till after that. So hopefully I can get a couple of rides in before we start - then I may be able to keep up with her.

TA

Climbing back on the horse

Well, a week and a half later, I finally felt good enough to venture out for a short slow run this morning. Wasn't it gorgeous! Beautiful weather. Why would you live anywhere else :-) Actually, if the truth be known, I've been wanting to run since Sunday, but Tiger Angel kept her foot very firmly down and wouldn't let me out until I really was better.

I just did my standard 5.5k loop at what I thought would be about 5.5 minute pace. Refused to look at my watch during the run and resisted all temptation to speed up. Very pleased to find that I completed it in 27:40, so I couldn't have got much closer to the 5.5 minute pace if I'd tried.

Run club on Thursday, Striders (Nth Head) on Saturday, and Blackmores the week after. Getting excited again (I really should get out more... :-)

sfG

R U Completely Well ?

This text arrived about 2hrs before my Saturday PT session was due while I was watching MicroTA's team win their semi-final. " I think I'm fine" " Ok cu at 4". Yes we were on :-).

As I hadn't raced that day Tim said it was a good chance to concentrate on lower body and maybe a bit of upper stuff. After 3 laps warmup it was alternating butt kick drills and run thrus to help program in faster cadence before doing some downhill running practice. Followed this with multiple sets of step ups, squats (with Barbell), wall squats and lunges ( with Dumbbells). We then finished with upper stuff and some abs. Tim suggested I might be a bit sore on Sunday.

Sunday morning I woke to feel twinges in my glutes and quads and a slight reoccurence of the chesty cough. I was only to do a 75min run today so with Gnome still crook I decided to run after work in the local area. I popped on my HRM aiming to stay around 150 as I was conscious of not being 100%. If I started to struggle or hit 160 I backed right off even walking for 20ms a couple of times. I eventually couldn't be bothered finding another direction to go and got back to the car in 70 mins having covered 11k. I enjoyed a lazy afternoon and the cough has settled. A rest day tomorrow (apart from work ;-) should see me 'completely well'.

TA

Dropping like Flies.

sfGnome and MicroTA are both still fighting the lurgy so only I went to RunClub. With the lights being off on the track we set off to the Time Trial course. This of course meant long intervals. The new plan was 2x2k then 4x500m. Tim always checks if there's any niggles, hurts or illnesses and based on one cough declared me unwell. I as usual protested.

Angela, who did admit to a cold, and I set out together. 1st k was 4.53 and Tim told us to keep that pace and we finished the 2k in 9.50. Rest . Second 2k and our first k was 4.47 and we came home in 9.30. I felt stuffed and sat down immediately to recover. Ok time to admit I was not as well as I thought but after our rest I was ready for the remaining 4x500's. Not to be - Tim told me I'd done enough and to put my top on and sit out the next part which he changed to another 2k. Angela did it in 9.22 to which Tim told her I'd obviously being holding her back. Rude man ;-). Finished the session with lunges, hovers and stretches.

When I left I got told to rest Friday and maybe we'll do PT Saturday. Too right we will!!

TA

Snow Bunnies

Arrived at the snow 9am Tuesday and left 5pm Wed. Gnome and I always try to get a 'weekend' in, sans kids. Snow cover was good and we were able to move quickly in the lift lines not having to wait for all the family to gather. I had another leap forward in my boarding as I enjoyed attacking the mtn more. A highlight was my 20m stomach slide down the Crackenback bowl after losing an edge :-). Gnome particularly enjoyed getting in some faster runs with some friends of ours who were down there for the week. Best of all, we once again came away uninjured. Only 11 months to go till next time...

TA

Catching Up

Thursday 18/8 - After usual warmups and drills at Runclub we started the session. It was a series of timed intervals with timed floating recoveries. We'd done 4x1min, 1x4min, 1x3min and into the second 3min the oval lights went out. We trotted over to the TT course and Tim told us it would be just 1x1k interval. We all went hard and I did my fastest k (4.27min). Everyone was panting madly when Tim told us we now had 2x500m to do. "It's good to run when fatigued and teach the body to clear lactic acid" or words to that affect . He held back the faster guys and then paced them to finish in front. We all finished well despite the early doubts. After run club a few of us went to the pub for tea to farewell Polly who's returning to England. Much fun and laughter all round.

Friday 19/8- Upper body and abs session at the gym.

Saturday 20/8- PT with Tim was a mix of hills, efforts and wts. First we attacked the Leichardt oval short sharp hill and then moved onto Lilyfield Rd hill. That was to be done as continuous loops turning around Tim who gradually worked his way up the hill and as he descended I had to increase the speed for variation. We then headed back to the park throwing in a 3min, 2min and 1min effort with 30 sec rec. At the park we finished with some upper body work.

Sunday 21/8 - Gnome was still crook so I headed out for 1.5 hrs on my own. Stuck on the mp3 player and enjoyed moving along to my "running songs" compiled from recommendations on the CR running songs thread. I also got to enjoy another great Swannies win!!

Monday 22/8 - Angela and I headed out for a 10k with 2x2k (race pace) and 2 min rec thrown in. There is only one road around here that is reasonably flat and a bit over 2k long and not on a main road that we could do this on. Both of us had gone to a PT session on Sat and done a long run Sunday and were feeling it a bit in the legs. We warmed up over 2-3 k and hit the start point for our 2k effort. We came in at 10.01, 2 min recovery and returned in 9.45. We were glad to finish but pleased to have done them and in that time. This also confirmed that the undulations were slightly more downhill on the return journey. We went home a different way and as we got into a rhythm we kept going up around the church. I later realised we actually covered closer to 12k.

Tuesday/Wednesday - Hi Ho Hi Ho it's off to snow we go.......................

TA

like death warmed up...

Yep, that's how I'm feeling :-( :-( just lying around sleeping. Why do these things happen on a weekend?? Can I make it back to upright before I'm supposed to be snowboarding on Tuesday? UURRGGHH... :-(

sfG

Stoopid Instructors!

The alarm went off at 7am today but I didn't surface till over an hour later when the dog jumped on me. I'd even slept thru MicroTA's trombone practice! I grabbed some breakkie and headed out to the gym to do a weights session. I'd thought yesterday that with my quad not 100% I'd probably skip the leg weights but after receiving an email from Tim in response to my blog I was definately not doing the leg weights.

The gym was really quiet and I managed to join in the abs class on the mats with 6 others. The class involves heaps of different exercises usually done for 30-60 secs each. I'm lucky to have had good trainers who've emphasied the importance of core work and therefore know what I'm doing but today the instructor bordered on useless. The poor girl next to me was out of her depth and the instructor never bothered to advise her. Towards the end I couldn't stand it and helped her thru the last couple. When we finished she stayed there and we chatted for a while.

The wasted effort of incorrect form really bugs me when I see it at the gym and I guess I'm very grateful for the legacy Matt started and Tim continues. This may also partly explain why I've booked myself in to start Cert III in a couple of weeks.

TA

Revenge on HBH

What a difference a year makes. This time last year, TA had just fallen from her bike and broken her wrist and her face, and I was faced with running the C2S on my own. This, of course, allowed me all sorts of grandiose ideas of a super fast time (based on the sum total of one 2km run around the block). Needless to say, about 2k into the real run that year I started to realise the size of my error, and I became progressively more and more depressed as the morning dragged on, swearing that I'd never, never do that stupid race ever again.

Luckily, emotions like that fade fairly quickly. Even more luckily, TA persuaded me to get involved in this run club thing that she'd read about. That lead to an increasing involvement in CR and Striders races, and a lot more disciplined training. Thus, this year I approached the race with knowledge and experience as a foundation for my dreams. Like I said - what a difference a year makes!

I had a perfect build up week. No niggles. Really good nutrition and hydration over the last 3 days. Good (for me) sleeps the previous two nights, and a really solid 3k time trial on the Thursday previous. I just knew that it was going to go well, and did it ever :-) :-)

The start was fantastic. The organisers are to be congratulated on splitting the A group in two, and erecting the barriers that stopped all the people pushing in from the side so that we were able to walk immediately, and be runing within 20 metres or so. I got a shock when I saw TA sooner than I expected, but on reflection it made perfect sense. Heartbreak Hill lost its reputation for once and for all, and I just flew along Campbell Parade. What a buzz! Published time was 66:51 in 3329th place, for a 14minute pb.

But the best was yet to come. I just had time to grab a drink and a sanger from the esky, looked up, and there was TA, fresh in from her 76minute triumph. I think that I ran faster to her than I had anytime on the race. I don't think that it's possible to more proud of someone than I am of her. What she has achieved over the last three years is incredible, but I have the feeling that it's nothing on what's coming...

Like I said - What a difference a year makes.

sfG

Angela's Debut

Monday morning saw me hit the pool for a recovery session of 10x100 with 20sec rest and then some pullbouy and fin work to round it off for a neat 1.5k. When I got to work I made up a sign congratulating my customers on raising over $1500 for bear Cottage.

As mentioned before Angela was coming to run with Gnome and I on Tuesday morning. We didn't get to bed till midnight after having MacroTA and his wife over to celebrate her 21st and had to be up for a 6am start. Both ourselves and Angela had dreadful sleeps obviously worrying about being on time. My left quad has a small niggle in it after c2s so I was prepared to bail if and when necessary because today we were doing 12k with 3x4min efforts (2min rec) thrown in. We took Angela along one of our regular routes. She usually runs in a fairly flat area and when we got about 4k in warned her about the longish steep hill that was coming to which she replied what do you call the others we've been up!! At about the 5.5 mark we hit a 2k stretch that is reasonably flat so that's where we do the efforts. They went fine until I hit the road at the end of the second one. Took a 4min recovery here (had to wash the blood off) and then we completed the last one. If my quad was hurting the pain in my hand soon let me forget about it.

We continued our run and showed Angela the hill that used to kill us when we started running. She had a good laugh at the almost flat section of road. Started our usual sprint over the last 150m but backed off when the quad slightly twinged. I hope we didn't scare Angela off It was nice to have the company. We grabbed the paper and checked out our c2s positions. Gnome came 3329th (66.52), Angela 9850th (79.54) and I came 7744th (76.01) . All quite chuffed especially to be in the first 10000.

Ps. One advantage to having a blood soaked hand is you can see whether you cross the midline or not. Proud to announce all the blood on my *white* top was at the side.

TA

Forgive me Father (this is long).... I actually enjoyed c2s!

As c2s is not a target race for me, I had PT as usual Saturday arvo. The bay was at its beautiful best and the weather perfect. The session was c2s friendly made up of circuit work, easy laps and some form/run thrus. I really enjoyed the boxing part especially the kick boxing. Tim made some remark about me hitting hard, only for me to actually knock the pad off his hand seconds later. Better be careful Gnome :-).

As for my confession, it is running related and relevant to c2s. For 21 of our (almost) 25 years married I had weighed more than Gnome, had never been able to keep up fit wise and despite all his wonderful support had really low self esteem . 2002 I decided to change that and did. Gnome said he would run with me as support and we did our first race together - the 2002 c2s. Since then he has always run with me until he decided a couple of months ago to lose weight and start doing some of the shorter races on his own. All of a sudden I felt I was back at sq. one and it has taken me awhile to realise that it's no big deal and I can do this on my own :-).

Just as well because Gnome was in A2 at c2s and despite my applying to be with him I got A1. We thought we would probably meet about the 10k mark and Gnome decided if he was on for sub 70 he'd keep going otherwise he'd stay with me and we'd finish together. I have to admit I felt abit of a fraud being in A1 group but there was not much I could do about it. I was delighted to catch up with 26 during our warmup and was then lucky enough to spy Munch and Belinda from runclub in the A1 pack and was entertained by them while waiting. Mind you Belinda entertained plenty of people as she tried to discreetly change out of her trackies into running shorts !!

A1's criteria was 75min or faster for the course . I knew it was theoretically possible for me but on this course not realistic. So I wrote out splits for 75 and 80 expecting 77ish. People streamed past me when we got going but I was happy to let them go. I was under 75 time at 3k but knew HBH was ahead. I got an awful shock when I heard "Hello beautiful" at the 6k mark and there was Gnome beside me. I couldn't believe I was running so slow but he said they had started earlier than we'd expected and I was still on for my 75 time. He hesitated as if to stay but I just yelled GO a few times and I think he decided to run away in embarrassement. Mind you I think I slowed slightly watching him go so smoothly up the hill. I hit the 7k at 39.26 a bit over my 75 min split but wasn't worried. I was prepared for the hills that were coming and just worked towards each top knowing I could recover my breath on the downhill ( I love downhill running). Yelled to the cheersquad as I descended into Bondi and just powered along Campbell Pde. I still cannot believe how strong I felt at this point and came home in gun time of 76.01. My watch said 75.48 which meant a neg. split - 36.22 for the last 7k!!! and 14k does not seem as far as it used too. Couldn't believe a 11.10PB from 2003. That can only come with a big thankyou to Tim :-).

Gnome and I hugged each other knowing we'd achieved more than expected. We spent the rest of out time meeting up with CR's and Striders and enjoying the vibe of the day. We also got to put faces to so many fellow bloggers and managed a quick visit with Horrie and Belinda to the Bear Cottage Tent. They are looking at reaching $40,000 from donations.

To top it all off we got home in time to watch the last quarter of the Swans thrashing of Brisbane. Then we sat and watched the tape of the c2s and Gnome spied me running off at the start. A nice end to a good day.

TA

It's a good day

Yep Gnome had a great TT last night and I was also happy with mine. Angela and I run fairly close in times and like to use each other on the TT course. Last time I beat her, so tonight she stated it was her turn. Fine by me to come in at 13.59 with fairly even splits ( 4.37, 4.44 and 4.38) . Only my second time under 14 and only 4 secs off the PB. She missed hers by 2 secs so we vowed that next month we'll both go for gold. Angela is also going to join Gnome and I for our Tuesday runs as her regular partner moved to Melbourne (Hi Kellie :-).

Decided last night to not take the swim option today but to take North for a good 30min walk as he'd missed out for a couple of days. Despite waking with a headache about 4am and finally getting back to sleep I managed the walk before work. It was gloves and beanie weather but beautifully sunny. Then I get to work and one of my older customers , Mr C, brings me in some homemade almond bread for my morning tea (carbo loading!) and another comes in with $20 towards my c2s Bear Cottage run. I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of my customers. So far they have contributed $1400 (with a bit more promised) towards Bear Cottage and they are all excited I'm doing it. Quite a few have dropped in this morning just to wish me luck, so I've promised to do my best and hopefully bring them home a PB :-).

TA

Uncontrollable

TA's first words to me when we got in the car after run club were "you've got to stop saying in the blog that you aren't going to pb..." as if I was somehow practicing some devious kind of reverse psychology on myself. I wasn't, really. I honestly thought that I'd run the time trial at a comfortable pace and not risk myself, but I hadn't counted on the wind...

Our TT is run on a 500m stretch alongside Iron Cove, so we go up & back 3 times. Tonight, the (very cold) wind was blowing straight along the track. Consequently, the first 500 was lovely and easy so we went out at a cracking pace. The turn into the wind was tough, but the time on the first km was pretty encouraging and the next leg down wind was easy again, so...

All thoughts about taking it easy just got blown away like they weren't there. I didn't have anyone to chase (all the fast blokes were having a night off) so I just concentrated on keeping the cadence high and the form good. 2nd km split was less encouraging, but the run down wind was easy, so...

Flat chat for the last 500 into the gale - I think it's the hardest I've ever worked. Paul had been a few metres behind through the whole run, and he put in the most amazing sprint over the last 100 to just blow me away! In my dreams I can sprint at the end of a race, but tonight I didn't have a single spare gram of run left in me. It was a fantastic end to a fantastic run.

16 seconds off the pb for a 12:03! Sooooo close to the 4 minute km, and soooooo far ahead of anything I ever thought I'd be able to achieve. I'm very, very happy, and very, very, very tired. Hope I recover by Sunday...

I'll leave TA to report on her run because I couldn't do it justice and she's gone to bed early (did I say anything about being tired :-)

sfG

Is this a record??

I had a choice last night. I could either

• do my 12k in the cold & dark starting at 10pm
• get up at 6am and do it in the colder (though not darker) then, or
• go to work early and run in the warmth & sunshine at lunchtime

Hey, guess which I chose! :-)

I tried to measure out the 12k using that beaut new measuring tool based on GoogleEarth, but unfortunately the satellite photos of Balmain/Rozelle are quite poor, so trying to trace the roads was more guesswork than anything. (If you don't know about the tool, here's a link to TA's run yesterday). Anyhow, the run went well, if a little breezy.

I was conscious of not pushing myself - this was not supposed to be a hard session - so I stuck to what I think of as my '3' pace, ie breathe in for three steps, breathe out for 3. It's not quite a 'chat easily' pace, but it's also not a 'shut-up, I'm trying to run' pace either :-) There'll be plenty of time for that tomorrow night as it's 3k TT night at Run Club. For the record, I think it's definitely not going to be a pb. This close to the C2S (one of my target races), there's no way that I'm going to risk some dumb injury. (I'm getting so excited about Sunday - sad isn't it! :-))

Anyhow, what's the record that I referred to in the title? I ran around the bay and through Balmain and Rozelle, and I didn't see a single cool runner. That's not normal... :-)

sfG

12k - It must be Tuesday.

Training seems to be developing a pattern lately for sfGnome and myself with long run Sunday, 12k Tuesday, RunClub Thursday and then something on either Friday or Saturday as well. For me I also throw in a PT, a weights, a rest day and sometimes a bike or swim. I guess we are lucky in being able to find the time and the desire to do it.

Today I got a sleep in so didn't head out till about 9.30am for my run. I'd been told to do easy 12 with rolling hills. So I google mapped out a course (12.1!) and got back home 1.11.38 later. I grabbed a drink, North and his lead and went for a 2k walk warmdown. Had to laugh when I guy asked me who was getting fitter 'you or the dog'. He got a shock when I said it was my cooldown after the 12k run.

I think Gnome will do his run tonight. He had his first ever massage last night with Inge who works as a massage therapist, a personal trainer and a stunt woman. Yes, there are many one liners in there!!

TA

Another Good Weekend.

Having read the Melbourne/Canberra blogs we can hardly complain about a 1 or 2 degrees morning but it was freezing at the Lane Cove Striders 10k on Saturday . We rolled up about 6.30am, had a quick warmup with Lorna and left everything on till the last minute and then joined the masses at the start line. Gnome was running this race with me as he has each 10k or longer.

Althought I felt stronger up Scribbleys this time I was surprised to be 5-6 seconds slower at the 3k than in June but things improved from there. I picked up to be 4 secs faster by the 5k mark and then picked up another 13secs coming home. The last 3k was particularly pleasing despite the undulatons in 8-9k. Got home in 51.31 a 17sec PB on this course and my fastest 10k yet. Lorna, had a brilliant run to come in at 59.01, her first sub 60 10k. Very exciting and so glad to be there to share it.

It was great catching up afterwards with lots of CRs and I even got to chat with The Mad Guz which was a highlight, especially when he complained about the 5-6k hill :-).

Next month we will be official Striders and we're looking forward to further reducing the 10k time.

Later in the afternoon I had PT with Tim. It was a weights session with some walking laps thrown in. I wasn't too impressed with having to start with squats and lunges but Tim ( with a wry smile) said it would be good to fatigue my legs properly.

Today we only had a 1hr recovery run planned. The nicest thing was, that after doing it, we went home and had a leisurely lunch and watched some footy and caught up on some blog/CR reading. It's been a long time since we've had a lazy Sunday afternoon.

TA

We couldn't finish early, could we... :-)

Auntie Karin joined us at Run Club tonight, and welcome back too to Rob (Mr Wildthing). Gee it was great to have you back in your rightful place at the head of the field :-)

A different session tonight, and it felt quite strange to start with. After the normal 800m warmup and stretches, we normally do multiple reps of drills where each goes for maybe 20m followed by a 20m runthough. However, tonight we did;
- a single drill (buttkicks) with a 400(!!)m runthrough
- 1200m picking up the pace every 400
- another single drill (hands behind head) and the 400m runthrough,
- 800m pickups
- another drill (high knees - glad we didn't have to do them for 400m :-) and the now-obligatory 400m runthrough.
- a final 800m pickup.

This all went a bit quicker than expected, so Tim decided to finish off with five sets of one minute hard, 30 sec standing recovery, before all the normal strength and stretching exercises. These intervals are fun, because you can go as hard as you like knowing pretty much when the whistle will blow and you can stop.

Tim ran with Rob for part of the 1200, and then with me in the first of the 800s, pacing me to really pick it up in the second half. That was hard work! My legs felt really fatigued by the end of that 400, but the rest of me held together OK (I wonder what effect the 25km ride in the morning has on my run club performance?).

TA thought she did "OK" but nothing out of the ordinary until she started looking back through her training diary. There she found that a month ago she did some 1200s in 6:06 while tonight she did them in 5:42 (ie a 4:45/km pace). So cool!

Rest again tomorrow, then the Striders 10k on Saturday down at Lane Cove. This is where we set our pb last time, and I've seen such a change in how TA takes the hills in the last couple of months that I'm really excited about this one. (I'm also going to be dead meat when she reads this because she'll think that I'm putting the pressure on, but I'm not, really. I just know, better than she does, how good she really is :-) :-)

sfG

Hill Practice and my new Shoes

After our 2 weekend races it was nice to have an active rest day on Monday. I went to the pool after work and did a mixed set of 5x300m. I made the mistake of using fins early so when I just wanted to do freestyle to finish my form was crap.

Tuesday morning saw Gnome and I head out for a 12k run with rolling hills. There are plenty of hills around here and today we decided to include the longest. Coonara Rd hill is 1.5k long and goes from down in the valley to the ridge along Castle Hill Rd. It's also steep like Shores Hill (Balmain) near the top. To simulate both Lane Cove Striders course and C2S we aimed to hit the bottom of it about the 4.5k mark. I found the last 15m tough but got there. I walked for 10m then we started again. Gnome accused me of picking the pace up a k or so later but it felt comfortable. We managed the second half 5 minutes faster but I don't think there were quite as many hills in it.

Today was a rest or weights day for me. I had to stay home today waiting for a tradesman and a nice surprise was to receive the shoes I'd won in the R4YL draw. I'd won a Reebok pair but couldn't find a local store that stocked them so after reading different shoe reviews I chose the Premier Road Lite and as a bonus they came in Swannies colours. I knew I shouldn't run so I decided to compromise and take North for a decent walk and do an abs session when we got back. Even managed to convince Angel to get her head out of a book and come for the walk. Mind you after already accusing me of going the long way she then queried which way home. She got a choice of 2k on the flat or 1 k including a hill. Apparently the lure of Oprah was too strong so we took the hill. As for the shoes it'll be interesting to see what they feel like to run in. Might be hard to beat my kayanos.

TA