Brief (Good News) Update

I managed to get an appointment with Dr Pain at lunchtime, and the good news is that I don't have shin splints, but a small tear in the Soleus (which ties in with the sudden-onset pain during the hill reps). Thus, I am allowed to continue running the long stuff, and can reintroduce the higher intensity work gently as long as I promise to pull back if it hurts.

I'll give it a shot tomorrow morning. Mood? Relieved :-)

Gnome

Transmission will resume after a short break...

I won't be training this week. Going on strike. That'll show 'em!

My little niggle from last week has turned into shin pain that isn't going away, so I have two options - a) Rest, Ice, Elevation & Voltaren and hope that it gets better quickly enough that I can still get in some reasonable training in the remaining weeks, or b) continue with lower intensity stuff and try to nurse it through.

The danger with a) is that it might take 6 weeks to come good, and then I'm up the creek. The problem with b) is that, although I have some experience in nursing my shin through, I don't really want to go there again :-( . Hence, I'll go with a) at least for this week and see what happens. No running 'till a gentle trial on Wednesday evening, and I re-assess in the light of that.

I'm confident that I'll be OK one way or the other, so the entry form is still going in this week. I am going to Canberra (but no, I won't be stupid :-))

Gnome

[EDIT] p.s. I shouldn't have omitted to thank Cptn Chunderbolt for escorting my mate Darren around the CR5k course on Saturday morning. Muchas Gracias, mate. Shin pain notwithstanding, I had a ball running with Kit & Eagle (big PBs like that are especially fun when you're not the one doing the hard work!! :-) On top of that, I think we set a new PB for breakfast - I think I got home about 11:30...

The Good, the Good and the Ugly

Big news of the week is that tiger angel ran tonight for the first time in about 2.5 months! Dr Pain finally gave her the go ahead to start 1 minute on, 1 minute off running and to build it up. The Achilles is obviously responding to treatment. It's a pity that the total exhaustion isn't... :-(

She came to Run Club tonight and did snippets of the session, covering about 2.8k over the night. She was a good girl, keeping it slow and controlled, and I think that she'll live to run another day :-) Happy, happy, but it'll be nice for her when the lethargy starts to respond to treatment too. Dr Quack thinks that it may take a couple of months before she starts to see a significant difference, but at least a significant difference is expected. :-)

Tuesday - Oh, my aching butt! I'm coming to the end of my stamina phase and starting to move into a speed/strength phase. Angela came over as usual at 6am, and we jogged 2k to the bottom of a nice little rise. The aim was to do 6 to 8 repeats with a walk down recovery on a 210m hill (don't know the elevation - sufice to say it was adequate :-)

We ended up doing 7 repeats, all within a second of each other at 48 or 49. It got harder and harder as the repeats counted up, so to maintain the pace was very pleasing. Ange covered a 200m distance in about 53s, which was likewise cool.

We quit after the 7th because I felt a bit of a stab in my right calf on that run, and there was no way I was going to risk anything more. We jogged a bit home, but I didn't want to risk the leg so we ended up walking most of it.

Wednesday - The intent for today was a nice, clean 14k, not thrashing myself, but not just floating either. Beautiful run at 4:55 pace on a rollercoaster hills circuit. No niggles, but my glutes were feeling it after yesterday's hills.

Thursday - Still feeling the glutes a bit (looks like I'm going to have to work these hills a bit more :-)). Ride to work uneventful.

Run club was the ugly bit of the week. Well, not Run Club per se, but me at run club! Right from the word go I just felt heavy. After the normal warm up, stretches & drills, we did a tempo session. 2 x 400 at 1:30 each (a little too fast), then 20 minutes on a 1k loop with a rotten little hill in it, another 400 (1:39 this time which is more my pace) and then straight into another 10 minutes on the loop. I was a little slower than the last time we did this session. Hopefully that was just because it was on the back of a fairly solid week.

Rest day tomorrow, and then the CR5k on Saturday. I have a friend who has taken up running over the last 6 months or so and has been pounding the pavements by himself, so I finally persuaded him to come to the 5k as a preparation for the striders 10k next week. He is expecting to take about 27 minutes, and, to be honest, I was trying to work out how I could get out of running with him because I was keen to see how I'd go at the 5k this month. Well, after tonight, I've decided that running with him would be the only honourable, friendly (and easy) thing to do :-) So, no 21min heroics for the Gnome this month - but there's always another one in four weeks :-)

Gnome

p.s. Cirque asked "what question could possibly take two hours to answer"? I told you it was a simple question! It was "how did you get into running?" (and no, I'm not going to answer it here. Blogger doesn't have that much room :-)

Small change of plans

I had Saturday off as planned, but I decided to run with the Striders on Sunday morning instead of heading out to SMC. The way I saw it, what's the point of going to a race and not racing when everyone else is, when I could be running with a convivial group? Besides, the Striders have better food at the end :-)

I ran with Johnny Dark for the whole distance. Poor bloke, he asked a simple question at one stage - I warned him that the answer was long but he said that we had hours to go, so I ear-bashed him with the answer for the next 2 hours. If his ears are looking sore when you see him next, you'll know it was my fault :-)

It was supposed to be 29.5k, we took a wrong turn which added an extra k, but we still ended up 2k short at 27.5k in pretty much spot on 2h30m. I still don't know where the extra distance went! Overall pace was 5:30, but we did the last 8k at 5:00 or less. I'm not sure why we sped up - it must have been the tractor beam of all that food at the end :-)

The extra rest day on Saturday must have helped as I had no niggles until right near the end. However, behind my knee was a bit sore this afternoon, so I think that I'll try to get a precautionary appt with Dr Pain this week. Rest again tomorrow.

Overall for the week - 62km.
Average over last 5 weeks - 65km

Time for a break

Tuesday - TA is still a fair way off running, so I introduce Angela to the joys of the Mona Fartlek. We did a 2.6k warm up, then the 20 minute session on a track and finally a 3k cool down. Ange averaged 5:08 pace over the 20 minutes, so she was pretty happy with that. I did 4.6k in the time at 4:20 average - very pleased. It's amazing how quickly the 20 minutes passes in this session. It's a lot of fun.

Wednesday - This was tough. I felt really flat from the word go. Legs like blocks of wood and feet like bricks. The intent was to do 2k warm up, 5k tempo (~4:20 pace) and 3k cool down on a hilly course. In general, it all went according to plan, except that I once again mis-read my watch and quit 300m short of the 5k. (I think I have a special part of my brain that feeds misinformation to my eyes when I'm stuffed :-)).

The first 4 k was tough but fine, turning in a 4:18 average. The last 700m (up a loooong hill) was a fairly disgusting 4:50 pace. I'd like to think that the 300 I didn't do, which was flat, would have brought that down a bit, but it does look scarily like I was blowing up at the end. Not happy with that at all.

Thursday - I decided on Wednesday night that I'd still do the normal Thursday - ride to work and Run Club at night - but then I'd take both Friday and Saturday off to give my legs a chance to recover a bit. I've been feeling a bit of tightness in my left hammy - nothing major, but enough to make me be careful. Anyhow, the ride to work was a little faster than normal on account of me meeting a work mate half way there and trying to keep with him. Seeing he's been to the Australian mountain biking championships, that's no mean feat! :-) Then this evening, the rain came...

I knew from looking at the weather radar that Run Club would be dry, but I also knew that lots of other people wouldn't know that, so it was likely to be called off. I figured that Mr WT would probably be there, so a nice run of the bay was on the cards. Somewhere along the line, I formulated an idea that if one lap would be good, two laps would be better as long as I took them easy. How right I was!

Run Dave, Mr WT and I headed off at a tad over 5 minute pace and chatted our way around for 1 3/4 laps. Mr WT commented that we were tending to speed up as we neared the end, and promptly made it a self fulfilling prophesy by taking off like a scalded rabbit, with Run Dave and I in hot pursuit. Alas, I only held on until the bridge where a sea of niggles came crashing over my legs. Discretion being the better part of cowardice, I backed off and trotted the last 500m :-)

It was a great run, no doubt, and I'm really pleased that we did it (13.7k @ 5:10 including a few water stops). I'm also really pleased that I've got two days off now - I don't think that I'm supposed to be so excited about not running, but I am, and I'm also excited that I'll be feeling better on Sunday for SMC. It's a 25k this month, and I've been wondering how I was going to do it. Should I go for it like a half marathon, or just treat it like a long run, or what? However, in the light of my little flock of niggles, I think that I'll just aim for an easy run pace (~5:10) and let the world stream out in front of me :-)

2 days of a nice walk and then lots of stretching (and maybe even lots of sleep)! I could get used to that :-) :-)

sfG

Hannah's handywork

Sorry but I realised the other day that I've never shown you the beautiful graphic work that Hannah did for my new business just before Christmas (ie days before she went overseas). This is my business card, the logo being two stylised people exercising together. I absolutely love it!



I apologise for graffiti-ing over the contact details - at this stage I'm not comfortable with them being up on the web - but of course if you want to contact me feel free to leave a comment :-)

TA

Slightly smashed...

Saturday - I need to get some strength sessions in, so today's fun was 11k of rolling (big) hills. There's a road near us which is 1.5k of roller-coaster, so out and back on it was as good a place as any to start (following a 2k warm up). Then it was down into the valley for 1.5k of recovery, before 2 more k of rollercoaster along the valley floor, and then the 1.5k constantly rising killer hill up out of the valley again. I defy anyone to run it and not be busting a gut by the time they reach the top. What a shame that I had to pause a moment for a car to cross a drive way just after the top. Of course, I wouldn't have stopped if it hadn't been for the car... :-)

Average pace for the run was 5:15, and for that hill it was a bit under 6:00. Mood after run? Tired, but pretty happy. The one concern was the effect it may have on Sunday's long run.

Sunday - and it didn't take long to find out! I left home at about 5:50am to run down through Castle Hill & Baulkham Hills to Parramatta, one lap around Parramatta Park, and then home via Carlingford. Right from the first steps my legs just felt tired. They settled into rhythm before too long, but there was never any 'floating' feeling - just hard slog. I really started to feel the hills from about 25k onwards. To add insult to injury, the route home was about 4k shorter than the route out, so having reached within spitting distance of home, I had to continue on and find another 4k, and in my addled state managed to pick another one of the local rollercoasters. Still, that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and I ain't dead yet! :-)

Total distance - 32.5k at 5:45 (including a couple of gel-and-drink stops).
Total for the week - 73k (both new distance records for me).
I'm feeling OK now, but geez I'm glad that tomorrow's a rest day. 8 weeks to go, and then I've told TA that I'm not going to run anywhere for a month (she doesn't believe me).

sfG

A New Baby!!

Well, if Ange and Brad can buy babies so can I :-).




Ps Starting to turn the corner and feel like normal.

TA

Now *that* was a pretty good week...

...Why couldn't I have had that week, over, & over, & over... (after Bill Murray - Groundhog Day).

Tuesday - about 3 minutes past 6am, I realised Angela wasn't coming, because she's always spot on time. I checked the phone and sure enough, there was a message. Pity. She missed a really good session. I jogged over to a local park, and walked slowly around it once to get an accurate measure on the garmin. I was aiming for 5 x 1200, and guessing that the oval was probably a bit over 400, decided on 3 laps per rep. As it turned out, 3 laps was only 1125, but I guess I'll survive without the extra 75m :-) I was aiming for 4:15 pace, but my main aim was to not slow from one rep to the next. Apart from hitting the wrong button and thus not recording one rep, and then forgetting where I was up to and doing an extra lap on the last, it all went very well.

Pace for each rep was 4:17, 4:13, N/A, 4:07 & 4:12. Very chuffed.

Wednesday - If Tuesday was good, Wednesday was even better. I couldn't run in the morning, so I headed out when I got home from work about 8:30 (if I'd thought, I could have taken gear to work and run around the bay which would have made a nice change from the local hills). Anyhow, I was aiming for a steady run, slower than tempo, but faster than easy.

It was a beautiful night, and I felt like I could have run forever. I ended up doing just under 14k at under 5:00 pace. In fact, it was only two minutes more than my C2S time that I was so chuffed about last August, and I never got beyond a steady 3-pace breathing pattern. I finished up with five sets of strides to round it out. Just one of those perfect nights :-) :-)

Thursday - Ride to work was a little slower than normal, mostly because of hitting all the traffic lights, but also because I was still a little fatigued from the previous night.

At run club, we did a rolling train around the bay (plus dog leg), and I did it naked (well, almost). I arrived late from work when they were just about ready to go. When I changed from my cycling gear, I found that I didn't have my running shoes. However, Tim never throws out a pair, so he loaned me a pair of racing flats that were unfortunately 1/2 a size to small. Still, beggars can't be choosers, so I accepted them with gratitude and off we went. It wasn't until we were a couple of k into the run that I realised that in the kerfuffle with the shoes, I had left behind my hat (vital for keeping the sweat out of my eyes), my sunnies (it was just before sun set and we were running west) and my garmin (so I know the distance - 9k - but I have no idea of the time. I'll get that from Steve when he uploads his and extracts the shared 9k from the many more k's that he will have done tonight).

Once again, a lovely run. If things keep up like this for the next 2 months (yep - Canberra is 2 months from today) then I'll be a happy chappy, no doubt about it!

And just to whet your appetite, tiger angel has some exciting news to tell you all, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow...

sfG

mood (as Gronk would say) => 11/10

A gnome of very little brain *

* with apologies to A.A. Milne (more later, but first...)


The first Striders' 10k for the year was a boomer! We arrived at 6:25 because TA was on marshalling duties, and the cars were already parked back to the roundabout where I normally park when I'm running late! I bet there won't be that many (331 runners) in mid-winter :-). When TA fronted up to the new volunteers' organiser, she found out that she was down for 40minute pacing duties! Given that her pb is 51:30 and she was volunteering due to injury, this was a tad unlikely. She nicely explained that, due solely to her injuries, she wouldn't be able to fulfil that particular role, and ended up on timekeeping instead :-)

I promised in my previous post to divulge my goal, but only after the event. Well, I'm relieved to be able to state that I had expected to do somewhere between 44 & 45 minutes, and that I actually achieved sub-44 (43:55 to be exact). Consequently, I am officially and uncompromisingly stoked! Scribbly didn't seem as bad as I remember, but the pull up to the top was just as gut wrenching as normal. Nicho had shot off at the start in search TA's replacement 40 minute pacer, so I got a suprise when I spotted him up ahead at about the 6 k mark. I gradually reeled him in, reaching him at about 8k. When he saw me he roared off like a scalded cat, setting himself about 30m ahead where he stubbonly remained for the remainder of the race, defying all attempts to catch him :-) Still, it was good for a pb for both of us, so happy days all round.

Today (Sunday) was also a good day, but kinda dumb as well (hence the Pooh Bear reference in the title). Because of the race yesterday, I had nominated this as one of my regular 'down' weeks, and so only intended to do 20k. Still, 20k is 20k, so I headed out to find the striders so I wouldn't get lonesome. Mistake number one was to turn left instead of right when I got to the highway, so I ended up in Turramurra instead of Wahroonga. Mistake number two was not having my glasses so I could read the map and work out where I was supposed to be. The corollary of 1 & 2 was that I arrived at the park just as the 6:10am group was leaving. By the time I found parking, grabbed my stuff & dumped the keys with the hosts, it was about 6:15, leaving me with a choice of either trying to chase them down or run by myself.

Given that the whole point of being there was to run with others, I set off in pursuit. Luckily, I was shortly joined by another strider, so at least the chase wasn't lonely. We finally got the 6am group after about 9k, but didn't get to the 6:10 group until about 13k (right at the 20k turnaround point, so, having caught them, they all kept going and we turned back). We did the entire chase at slightly over 5minute pace, and although we slowed back to about 5:20 pace for the remainder, the damage was done. Even though I've been in the skins all day, my legs are most uncomfortable, and I'm very glad that I have a rest day tomorrow. So much for my 'easy' week.

Total for week - 55k

sfG

A good week thus far

You'll be pleased to know that there'll be no whinging or self-absorbed introspection in this posting. I think that it's time to cut back on the worrying - I was geting too good at it :-)

Tuesday - I was aiming to do a stamina session of some kind, but I wanted to work out one that I could do with Angela (we do tempo work at different paces, and I didn't want to just wave her goodbye at the start - that's not exactly training together!). We decided to do a 3x2k session up and back along the only straight flat road around here, with me doing the 2ks, and her doing whatever distance was right for her in the same time period. 3 minute walking recovery between, and we did a 2k warm up and the same cool down.

I managed to stuff up the first 2k, stopping about 300m early (misread or misheard the watch), but the second and third ones were fine. I ended up doing 4:30 pace rather than the 4:15 I was aiming at, but I've since realised that 4:30 is roughly right for a stamina workout (a fraction slow, but only a fraction). The 4:15 is for when I get to speed work in 4 weeks' time (hooo, that'll be tough :-)).

Angela has decided to work on the next few Striders' 10k series (well, she said the one in 5 weeks' time, but when you've done one, it's hard to stop), so we're going to keep on with the stamina work together on Tuesday mornings. We'll just have to keep finding sessions that we can do separately but together (I hope that makes sense).

Wednesday - Mid week easy run. Feeling a bit heavy after Tuesday, so I headed for the bush and did about 6k out and back along the Great North Walk (10k all up including streets). It's reasonably rough, so you have to pick your way along, meaning both that I wasn't pounding my legs and was exercising lots of other muscles. Very nice, but a lot harder than I guess I was originally intending. Given that this is supposed to be a 'down' week, and so far I'd done two hard sessions, I really wasn't organising things well, was I? :-)

Thursday - Ride to work was a fraction slower (and much squelchier - humongous humidity!) than normal. Otherwise nothing to report.

Run Club tonight was a track session - basically 'speed' in format, but to be held back a bit, concentrating on form rather than speed. After normal start-up stuff, we did 4 x 200, 3 x 400, 2 x 500 (picking up on the final 100) and 1 x 800 with full recovery in between. I was very pleased with both my consistancy (every spilt was within a second of the others), and that the times I did were bang in the middle of my range for sprint workouts over those distances.

Tiger angel set up the wind trainer at the edge of the track tonight and did the session with us - when Angela was running, she had to up the pace and load, and when Angela was recovering, she could drop back to an easy cadence. I can tell you that she was watching Angela like a hawk waiting for her to cross the finish line each time :-)

Rest day tomorrow, then striders 10k on Saturday morning. I'm not willing to publicly predict what I'll do, but I'll tell you after the event whether I made it or not (what a cop out! :-)). On Sunday, I'll limit the long run to the low 20's in preparation for the first of the 32k's (ack!) the following week.

sfG

No Go

When I arrived for my appt with Dr Pain today, he was just seeing his last client off. I thought she was probably a runner by the crop top she was carrying and her very slight frame. Turns out she's off to the Commonwealth Games to compete in 800m and 1500m. I knew Dr Pain was good!

I confessed to using my flippers a bit at swim training and the consequent pain in my achilles :-(. He said the lump is smaller but the calf has tightened up alot probably due to the flippers. He also said the shingles will intensify the pain it gives me. So it's stick to the same stretches, no using flippers and no running. Yes I'm frustrated but I also said I'm probably still too tired to run anyway. Dr Pain had shingles 2 years ago and a reoccurence of the pain last year. He says it takes a while to come good and suggests I do a week's course of daily B12 injections. He said it helped him.

TA