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