One to remember

Hey, it's Tuesday and the CR5k was on Saturday, but no one said I had to set a pb in updating the blog... :-)

The bad news about the end of last week was that tiger angel had a bad nerve inflamation in the back of her head that results in excrutiating (and untreatable) pain. It's one of those times when "pharmacist, treat thyself" doesn't work, because there isn't a drug that'll touch it. Consequently, although she laid out her running gear in hope on Friday night, there was no way that she was getting up when the alarm went at 5:45 Saturday morning :-( The good news is that the problem does go away over time, and she's back to her bright and bubbly self again.

I guess if I tried to think rationally about it, then I should say that Saturday morning was mixed for me. I had convinced myself that it was going to be the day that I broke 20:30, and possibly even broke 20:00. I'd even found myself visualising the run during the week, and imagining myself at the 4 k mark and feeling the pain and deciding to break through it... (I think that another word for this is daydreaming :-)) Anyhow, the long and short of it is that I actually ran 21:03, 15 seconds slower than last month. Like I said. Mixed. Not bad, but not what I wanted.

But the truth is, Saturday was one of my highlights of the year. This may not be entirely easy for others to understand, but one of the things that I've really enjoyed about the running community in general and Cool Running in particular is the way that accomplished runners are so accepting of the lesser skilled amongst them. In many ways, I'm much more in awe of someone who I know to be genial and helpful who goes out and runs something spectacular than I ever would be of some stuck-up sporting machine who did the same or better. I was blown away on Saturday to find myself lining up in the 21 minute group with Johnny Dark, Uncle Dave, Eagle, Miss Skarmel and Queen Bee (plus some other no less worthy souls whom I have not watched long enough to start idolising yet :-)

As for the race itself, I spent most of the time playing cat and mouse with Nicho and Evie, with Uncle Dave and Ray leading Papa Luigi way off into the distance, to yet another very well deserved pb. Somewhere between 3 & 4, Nicho dropped off a bit, Johnny Dark went past and Evie and I continued our arm wrestle. I was pretty confident at 4k that I was going to be pretty close to the pb, though all thoughts of smashing it were long gone. Then, we hit the wind...

That last k was such hard going! Straight into a southerly. Instead of doing the 3:50 or 3:55 I was expecting, I think we did 4:15 or something like that. Nicho found an amazing burst of energy and roared past like we were standing still (I love seeing people do amazing things like that). Johnny Dark and I both did our best to catch him, with JD being the more successful by about a second :-)

It wasn't going to be the day that I broke 20 minutes, but it was the day that I ran in exalted company, and I have the feeling that I'll remember it longer than I remember some passing PBs.

sfG

On the road again...

After Saturday's aborted long run, by Wednesday night I figured that the old body was back under control and that it was safe to head back out. (I was also fairly keen to get out because I didn't want to go into Saturday's CR5k with nothing under my belt). I figured that a nice slow 5.5k loop at a 5:30 pace was the shot. Apart from being a bit lethargic at the start, everything felt good and I was congratulating myself on a complete recovery until I got to the 4.5k mark, where things started to get a bit uncomfortable :-(

I made it home in time, but I was a bit fearful about run club tonight. Turns out that I needn't have worried, which is the last I'll say on the matter for the time being.

The ride into work this morning was just awful. I know that it takes a little bit of time to get in rhythm, but I felt very tired just riding down the road from my house. Not a great start. Never lost the tiredness all the way in, and to make matters worse, I started getting cramps in my calves that stayed with me for the last 15km. Not a fun ride.

Run club to the rescue though. I felt (and still feel now) pretty ordinary, but somehow when you start on those intervals everything else just floats away. We did 3x400 firm with 200 floats between, followed by 10 minutes of 1 min on, 1 min off. I ran most of the time with Stephen and a new bloke James, and it was just the right speed for me. Loved it.

The highlight of the night was the tyre races. Tim had purloined a couple of car tyres from somewhere (somewhere there's a car up on bricks, but what do you expect in a hooligan place like Balmain :-) :-)), and we had to take it in turns to drag the tyres out and back along a 50m track. That's hard work! Wildthing was a revelation. She'll claim that she's not running well at the moment, but you should have seen her drag that tyre. There's a phenomenal amount of power in those legs.

It's ten to eleven, and I've decided to have a shower and go to bed well before midnight tonight. You never know, I might even be feeling moderately alive by Saturday if I keep this up. Wish me luck :-)

sfG

Itchy Feet.

I had college today and all that exercise talk gave me itchy feet. Grovelled and tried to get out of this rest stuff but to no avail. "Walk the dog" was the answer so we're just back from doing 3.7k in 32 minutes and poor North is lying on the kitchen floor as he's too tired to climb up on his bed. Hope he's recovered enough by tomorrow for another one :-).

TA

In the Doghouse.

Spat the dummy last Friday morning and decided that Gnome was doing more rest in his week than I was in my active rest stage ( my fault ). So after a rest day on Friday, I reassessed and am now on dog walking duties in the house till Thursday . Spelt out for myself that means no running, cycling, swimming or gyming. The question is can I get a new PB of 6 rest days in a row?

TA

Grumble, mumble, rhubarb...

Too crook to come home from work early yesterday (couldn't afford to get caught in traffic away from the amenities). Felt a bit better today, so went out at 6pm for an indeterminate long run (expected to be 90 - 120 minutes). 5 minutes from home, felt like crap, turned around and only just made it back in time. Hrumph! :-( Maybe I'd better just wait till the body says that it's ready to play ball again.

sfG

MicroTA's great leap forward

I'm sure that it is right and proper to be immensely proud of your children, so I'm going to go ahead and do exactly that :-). Micro isn't always the most willing participant at Run Club, often whinging as only a 15 year old can. Since the end of the Footy season, the only exercise that he gets is at Run Club, and there's been a clear tendency for him to slow down and take it easy.

Last week during the track session, he asked "can I run with you next week?" (ie at the 3k time trial). Now I do have to admit that that provided me with a bit of a conundrum, as I was soooo close to the 12 minute mark last time and I had a feeling that I could get under it at last this week. However, I was pretty sure that MicroTA would be unlikely to get within a bull's roar of that kind of time. His best so far was 12:43, and that was months ago. Anyhow, when he asked me again last night while we were warming up, I couldn't say anything but yes.

I knew from last week's run that he was quite capable of the speed (damn those long legs he inherited from his mother!), but I wasn't sure that he could carry the distance. It was an absolutely perfect night - still, and cool but not cold. I figured that I try to take him through in 4:05s and see what happened. Well, I got a huge shock at the end of the 1st k when Tim said 3:50! It just didn't feel that fast at all. I immediately said to Micro that we'd slow it down a bit and so we ran the second in 4:15. It was about this time that I noticed his body starting to rock around and his breathing getting a bit erratic, and to be honest I pretty much expected that he'd drop off before long.

I watched him carefully, talked to him incessantly and made sure that he was running beside, not behind, me. To give him his due, he hung in there even though I know that he was hurting, and we brought it home in a flat 4:00 for a extraordinary new pb of 12:05 - 40 seconds off his previous, and minutes off what he's been doing lately. (I was really pleased too, in that while it was not a pb for me, it was only 4 seconds off it, and I was talking all through the last k and still had heaps in the tank at the end. Pretty happy with that).

Tiger angel's evening was no less extraordinary. She had the second of her Hepatitis injections yesterday, and with hindsight probably shouldn't have run (but hindsight's a wonderful thing, isn't it :-). Notwithstanding the jab, she proceeded to run the fastest 2k she's ever done, and then only missed her 3k pb by 10 seconds when her body started to disintegrate in the last k. Not a bad week, with a best ever time on the Bike on Wednesday and a new best for 2k on Thursday, and this in a phase when she's not supposed to be achieving anything! Maybe TA doesn't stand for Tiger Angel at all; maybe it's Terrific Achiever, or Totally Awesome. Any way you look at it, she's amazing :-)

sfG

That was great!

Had a bit of a dodgy night with a headache but was ready to ride with Jan this morning. Jan rides 5 days a week so is pretty 'competent' and is always ahead of me on the hills. Too her surprise I asked if we could do the M2 and she readily agreed. It is not as flat as one thinks and there are quite a few long slow hills, so despite the threat of rain and lots of wind we set off. We were constantly riding into the wind as it was swirling and we never got respite from it and there was quite alot of traffic today so we cut it short before the toll gates and only did 30k.

The great part was I coped with the hills better than I ever have and even managed to catch Jan on one and then later overtake her on her favourite hill. I was stoked!! The hills just didn't seem as big as I remembered. So when we got back to the car we realised that we had done the 30k in 67 mins at an average of 26.7k. That is just above my best from last season so I am one happy girl :-).

TA

Competent - a crap word to say I'm qualified.

Before anything, I have to say my vomiting is not as heroic as it sounds. It appears to be a way my tum copes with allergies. I've been like it all my life so it's no big deal and we just laugh it off but thanks for your concern.

After runclub, sfG and I took a rest day on Friday. Saturday came and sfG stumbled around for half an hour wishing it would end as his ankle was not at all comfortable. I had PT in the afternoon mostly concentrating on mid foot running. It was sensational at the Bay - just the best weather to be out there exercising.

On Sunday we met up with bennyr and spent a pleasant 90 minutes on our bikes exploring Homebush and Newington. When I complained about bottom soreness at about 80mins, sfG suggested it was time to find the coffee shop. Good idea and a very pleasant way to round off the ride with the 3 of us drinking, eating and chatting.

Monday we took another rest day and today (Tuesday) we ran with Angela. I haven't run much distance in the last couple of weeks ( I know - active rest!) but today we aimed for a 65min easy run. We decided to take Angela on a new route thru Beecroft. We live on the edge of a plateau and to go to Beecroft you actually drop down off the edge of it. I'd remembered we'd have to come back along Copeland Rd ( 1.6k of eXtreme undulations ) but forgot that we then immediately turned right onto Pennant Hills Rd and started the climb back up to the plateau. Just to prove how silly we are, we then went home via John Savage Rd which aptly describes its hill. The run was good and sfG's ankle held up ok but in hindsight it was probably way too many hills for an easy run.

However the good news of the day was that the lecturer I spoke to last week grabbed my resubmitted papers and marked them quickly for me and I am now 'competent'. In nicer words it means I passed Cert III and am a qualified gym instructor. Now I have to get registered, insured and start my professional practice subject for Cert IV in the next couple of weeks. Apparently I have to complete about 20 hours of stuff. We'll be busy Tim :-).

TA

An astounding new PB (I'll bet Glen Guzzo's never managed this!)

It was "stiches out" day today. Rode the pushy to work as normal for Thursday - went OK, ankle only hurt during the twist to unclip. Sucessfully avoided any further contact between my leg and the sprockets!

The Doctor was suprised about the amount of swelling and tenderness around my foot, but she was certain that there was no infection. Her diagnosis was that I was either allergic to the sutures or that I've chipped a bit off my ankle bone (she actually said"...or you've broken your ankle..." but I think that's just a bit melodramatic. The directive is to wait till Monday. If the symptoms haven't started to subside by then, then it's off for an X-ray. When I suggested that there wasn't much point in an X-ray as there wasn't really anything could be done for it, she said "but then we'd know how long you'll need off to recover". I don't like the sound of that :-(

On a more positive note, Run club was fantastic tonight. You know how occasionally everything just comes together and running is superb? Well, I got a few minutes of that tonight! It was the first time back on the track for months, and I've found that I really like track work. It was drills, 4x400, drills, 4x300, drills and 4x200. Something clicked during the 300s - my legs were coming right up, my shoulders were down and I just felt like my centre of gravity was sitting about a foot lower. It was just the most awesome feeling. MicroTA ran with me the whole night, and I think that he was enjoying the track too. I dropped him on the last of the 300s, and he repaid me by blowing me away in the last couple of 200s. In the last one I put every ounce of sprint I had in to it and picked up a couple of metres, by I just couldn't make the last metre. I think that he was pretty chuffed at beating the old man, and I was absolutely ecstatic at the way he was running.

TA's night was a little less perfect. She managed to set a new PB by vomiting 5 times during the course of the evening. As she said, "hey, I feel fine afterwards, so why not keep going?". I think that she started to feel better as the night wore on (load getting lighter?) so she was really disappointed when Tim dragged her near the end and she wasn't able to complete the last of the 200s. She knows that it was for her own good, but it's hard to get your head to rule your heart sometimes. I guess that's what we need trainers for :-)

sfG

"Active" Rest for the last few days.

What does active rest really mean? It's not sitting around on your bottom all day and it's not doing hard stuff. It's meant to be doing things but at a very easy pace. So instead of an easy run go for a walk, etc. So Sunday I went for a 30min walk and Monday I did nothing.

Tuesday I only had time for a 50min weights session as the rain had thrown out my transport options for college. Talking of college I got back my final assignment for Cert III but had to resubmit 4 of the 35 questions as they were marked 'Not Yet Competent'. Bit dissappointed as I thought they were on the right track but... Anyway I decided to check one of them with one of the lecturers before handing it in and she just looked at it all and said I should never have had to resubmit. Apparently the marker I had is over zealous . Very frustrating because I now have to wait a couple of more weeks before getting my official Cert III forms and only then can I start my professional practice subject for Cert IV. Oh well, it will all come together in the end.

So today sfG and myself got up about 6.30am to take his 4 stitches for a run. Luckily it was an easy 3ish ks as I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a bus. Both I and the stitches came good and got home in one piece! Just rang sfG and he is still alive. Looks like the foot was quite happy with its run today.

Later this morning I met up with my riding buddy Jan. It's over 6 months since I've road ridden and hence ridden with Jan. She has missed me. (Awww shucks) .We had a great time at Homebush going all over the place including Newington and Silverwater Bridge. I think we found most of the inclines in this flattish place. We did about 31k in 85 mins (av 22K) yet seemed to be riding at 28-30k alot of the time. It appears the leg strength has improved but the muscles weren't always happy with this new action. Mind you I think we probably worked harder in parts than we should have to qualify for "active" rest.

Next week we are staying more local which means lots of hills!! Maybe I'll have to do the Homebush hill as practice when sfG and myself go for a ride with bennyr on Sunday. Oh and my new cycling shoes and pedals were so comfortable. I second CJ's sentiments that they make you ride better. I'm also happy because now they look a bit dirty. Far too silvery and shiny for my liking :-).

TA

Forced and Negative Reps.

Saturday is PT arvo for me whether I race or not. I usually train 2 friends and then have my own session with Tim afterwards.

Despite still not wanting to eat at lunchtime I did throw down some fruit and yoghurt because I'd planned to do a 5-6k run with one of the girls. We just did an easy run throwing in a pyramid of efforts in the middle couple of k's. We were able to do this today because I'd checked with Tim that my session was purely weights, as it normally is if I've had a race that day.

While I've being learning things at college I often chat to Tim about them and he sometimes incorporates them into my training. So today we did forced and negative reps.Forced reps are where you push out a very heavy weight while someone spots you (ie they give a bit of support to help you lift the weight) and negative reps are where the spotter lifts the weight for you (it's too heavy to lift) but you have to lower it down at a slower than normal rate and the spotter catches it at the bottom when the muscle fatigues.

What this actually means is you lift very heavy wts after pre-exhausting the muscles. For example we started on the chest muscles. I did 60-70 modified pushups, then dumbell flyes with 7kg wts, repeated with 9kg wts, then incline chest press with 9kg DBs and then decline chest press with 9kg DBs. This was all to pre-exhast the muscle before doing the forced and neg reps. For the forced and negative reps I did a chest press using a Barbell (28-30kg) and it was hard. We then did the same for shoulders, biceps and triceps and for good measure some squats with Barbell on shoulders and some ab work ( even using a 5kg plate in there at some stage). This isn't a session you would use with most clients but I'm enjoying trying out what I am learning lately. A good guinea pig I think :-).

So my goal this year was to feel comfortable with doing a 10k race without feeling I needed weeks of training for it and to hopefully reduce the PB at the same time. That has definately happened (thankyou Tim and runclub and striders) and with the striders series over Tim has suggested a couple of "active rest" weeks to give the body a break after 9 months of constant training. I'm also going to up my daily carbs just a little ( a lesson learnt from my experiment).

TA

Experiment Successful

For all you fellow science boffins, an experiment is successful when the theory is proven absolutely true or absolutely false. So my carbo loading experiment was successful.

I know carbo loading is usually reserved for marathons but I have been having trouble lately with energy depletion in races so this seemed an ideal chance to give it a go as the outcome was not a major deal. I also chose the carbo option that did come with the warning that it may not suit individual performance races. What that means is that both the race and I were stuffed!!! So today I did a PW for the year ( 3 mins off PB ) but I learnt heaps.

Yesterday I woke up and thought I feel great, today I woke up and my stomach was so full I couldn't even fit in a quarter of a piece of toast and even during the 10k I grabbed some water but spat it straight back out as I was too full to take it in. The rest went over my head. So even a couple of hours later I still can't face food.

However the scientist in me is happy. I now have practical experience of previous text book knowledge and will use it to adapt a better plan.

TA

Dumb, dumb, dumb :-(

So, why am I up posting to the blog at 12:30 in the morning when we have the last Striders 10k for the year in just a few hours time? Because I did something dumb, that's why!

Riding to work on Thursday on TA's shiny flash bike (with its very sharp sprockets), I stumbled a bit while easing it over a gutter and drove the aforementioned sprocket into my ankle, opening up a nice big hole that needed 4 stiches to close it again. Damn, damn, bother and blast. Hrumph. I *like* running at Lane Cove, and this makes two races in a row there that I've been out of action. Hrumph again :-(

Still, the week was going well up to that point.

1. I realised on Wednesday night that I'd done a marathon during the previous week (3x10k and 2x6k - I know that's not much for the gazelles, but it makes me happy) and
2. Following on from my iffy reaction after the last two hard runs, I've increased my carbs a fair bit and it doesn't appear to have affected my weight. Now all I need is another hard run (and an ankle to do it on) and we can find out whether that's fixed it.

I guess I shouldn't complain, but that's never stopped me in the past... :-)

sfG

The Guinea Pig

Tuesday morning saw Gnome and I head out the door in different directions. I went to the gym for a wts session and he headed off for an easy 10k with Angela. Gnome always wears his CR cap running and on this run got spotted by Spud and reported on the thread re non-racing CR's. Had to laugh when he fessed up to getting hot and sweaty while out with another woman.

Wednesday was a rest day for me and Gnome went for a run at night via his folks place to fix their DVD, etc.

With this Saturday being the last Striders 10k for the year, it would be nice to reduce the PB a bit more. So with that in mind and having learnt about Carbo Loading at college it seemed a good time to experiment and become a guinea pig. Tim and I discussed it and I'm now on day 6. The idea is to deplete the body's energy stores over 3-4 days then reload furiously for 3 days and race the next. It doesn't make you faster but it's meant to allow you to keep up your maximum output for longer. At the moment I'm body weary as I've done the depletion stage and have only done one day of carb stuffing. I think I'd better go and eat some more otherwise Saturday maybe a PW not a PB.

TA