Lessons learned, soon forgotten.

Tuesday - As promised, TA took her dodgy ankle to the gym, while Angela & I set off for an undefined run (sorry to all those who consider every run should be for a defined purpose - I don't think that I'm that organised :-). We headed off into the bush, popped out again about half an hour later and wandered the streets for another half an hour. Because of the bush part, I have no idea of the distance, so we'll call it a conservative 10k for the sake of the weekly adding up.

I always like the bush running, but I have found in the past that my archilles gets a bit sore. Remembering something that TA said about landing on the forefoot stressing the archilles more, I purposely switched from mid foot to heel landing (having spent the last year learning to do the opposite) and it definitely made it easier. Gives me a bit more confidence about my debut Quarry Rd run on Christmas Eve. With the high-powered guest list for that run, it'd be most embarrassing to turn around and walk back out...

Wednesday was another of TA's group classes, but this time I was needed to make up a pair, so no running that night. I found most of it to be easy (these are not fit people) but I'm still sore from the overhead tricep extensions and pushups, 'cause I don't do any upper body work at all. Just goes to prove that being reasonably fit doesn't mean that you can do everything :-)

Thursday was lesson-learning day; day of the work Christmas party; evening of the run club (join the dots :-). It was a very nice party, with loads of food. I don't like alcohol, so I stuck to soft drinks and coffee, but by 6pm I was very, very full (and very, very well hydrated). In hindsight, I guess that doing Run Club was not one of my better ideas. I sloshed my way through the warmup, but as always, I came alive when the track session started. We did drills, 1 x 800, drills, 2 x 400, drills, 2 x 200 (including one where Tim held Micro and me back and then paced us through pretty fast), drills (starting to feel a bit off at this stage) and 2 x 400 (definitely not going well by now). The last run part was a series of stride-outs, of which I finished only one. My first DNF at run club, but if I'd taken another step, I think that I would have revisited lunch in a most lurid manner. Core strength and stretches finished the night.

Felt better today, so I'll try to squeeze in a 10k tomorrow morning, and then make an appearance at SMC on Sunday. I'm pretty sure that I'll do the 1/2, but I'm keeping the 10k in the background as a fall back. It's interesting, but as I've never run either of these distances by myself, I have no idea what it feels like to push hard(ish) for that length of time. I'm hoping it will give me a bit of a picture of how I might go with some plans I have for the new year.

sfG