Undulations

Run club tonight was all about undulations - preparation for striders at North Head on Saturday. As expected for this time of year, there were no lights at the oval, so we headed for the street lights of Callan Park. 6 or 7 down hill runs on a gentle slope to get the legs turning over well, then off to the "nice little loop".

The "nice little loop" is theoretically a 500m circuit that includes one steep(ish) little pinch - which got steeper as the night wore on. I say theoretically, because we were running it in about 2:15 according to the times Tim was calling out, and even with the hills, we should have been able to do 500m faster than that.

Anyhow, the session was one 7 minute at aerobic threshold (AT) , followed by a good recovery break, followed by 14 minutes at the same rate. The idea was to be able to complete twice the distance in the second period as in the first. In the first, Paul and I ran together, with Dilli disappearing off in the distance (he looks soooo smooth), and with a new bloke who's name escapes me (so I'll call him Steve) half way between. In the second period, Paul picked it up a bit so we stayed with Steve and a bit closer to Dilli.

I was OK for the first 3 loops. On the fourth, I started to breathe a bit harder. On the fifth I was starting to hurt, but I figured that I could be strong and hang on. By this time, we'd dropped steve a bit, though he kept coming back at us. However, it wasn't to be, and on the last time up the pinch, Paul pulled away, followed shortly by Steve. In the blink of an eye, I was back about 20m. It's amazing how fast it happens when you run out of puff. Anyhow, I pulled myself together and at least held the gap over the last lap, but I was pretty down on myself for not being able to hang on to the end. Ah well...

Tiger Angel is still showing slight signs of the cough and stuff, and Tim stopped her about 10 minutes into the second period. She's definitely getting better (almost there), but there's still some doubt at this stage whether we'll be able to do North Head. I hope so. This flu is not the ideal preparation for Blackmores :-(

sfG