Short lived but so good.

Firstly I must say thankyou to everyone for their well wishers towards me. I can hardly believe 6 months has passed and I'm still not 100%. The Docs have instructed me to exercise every day if possible. So Dr Pain (my new best friend ;-) and I have a date each week so that he can work on me and I can have some good days before the yucky ones.

Last week he did a double session as he said " I need more time to cover all the area!" This seemed to give me an extra pain free day and the others not quite so bad. The exciting thing for me is that today ( after training a lovely new client) I felt good enought for a run/walk at the Bay (7k) . I ran very easy and watched others pass me and after 30 mins my back started to twinge so I began to walk but after 1-2 mins felt ok so completed my run and was surprised to finish in under 44mins. I haven't run that far since the Central Coast Half.

I also had my appointment with Dr Pain today and he was pleased too but very gently warned me "this is a good week - be ready to come back here in agony on another day". He has more experience than me so I agreed not to get too frustrated and just enjoy today's moment. Besides now I'm back in ' 24 hr post "Dr Pain" pain' , maybe I won't send that c2s entry in after all :-).

TA

A whole week's catch-up

A week without blogging? I have been slack... I'll try to keep this short for the sake of those who want to remain awake :-)

Tuesday - 1.5k warm up (5:20 pace) then 4k tempo run (4:20 pace). Nice to run something short for a change :-)

Wednesday - 13k super hills loop. I've found a new loop 2k from home that is 2k long and drops down into the valley and then (obviously) climbs back out. Ran the loop 4 times.

Thursday - fresh from yesterday's hills insanity, Run club consisted of (you guessed it), hills. First up, a hills 'ladder' (run up to 1st cone and back to start, then up to 2nd cone and back, etc, working further an further up the hill, and then working back down again). Hard on the up, recover on the down. Then we did 15 minutes of a 800m loop with a 200m hill (seems like 200 miles when you're doing it), and finished with the hills ladder again. Tiring, but a lot of fun.

Didn't really notice it on Friday, but when I lined up for the CR5k on Saturday, the DOMS had kicked in. Ran it slower than normal (21:30) in deference to the next day - besides, it's not often that I get the chance to run with Action and Blue Dog and Professor who were all doing likewise.

I've written a bit about Today's Woodford to Glenbrook 25k race here. I felt OK over the hills and particularly good over the flat last 5k - it seems that everyone can keep going down the long downhill, but an awful lot of people seemed to die when they hit the flat. I think I made up at least 20 places on that part. As suggested in the CR report, I've decided to stop beating about the bush and admit to myself and anyone else that 6 foot 2007 is my long term goal. However, if I've learned anything from Canberra, it's that I can get a little too focused for the good of those around me, so I hereby do solemnly swear that it ain't gunna happen again. I ran today for fun, and I can do it again (and again)!

(quite tired) Gnome

A run with the mad men :-)

Only one run this weekend. I hopped up (late) on Saturday morning (I'd been up watching the AFL till 1am) and decided on the spur of the moment to try and find the blokes running PMC and run with them for a while. I aimed to catch them on Bobbin Head Rd, run with them through the national park and then double back around through Hornsby to make up a 25k run (with lots of lovely(!!??) hills). Alas, home chores delayed me a little, and I missed them, so I drove around to the other entrance, said g'day to Belinda & Tim who were waiting patiently for Horrie, and ran into the park.

I found Truckie, Horrie, Virtual & two others about 1.5k in. We ran together up through Mt Colah to the Lilly Pond Farm, where I left them to head back to 2P who I knew was somewhere behind. I went with him for some way past the lilly ponds, and then headed back.

Given that they were all aiming to run 90k and I was only looking for 25, their pace was a fraction slower than I would normally aim for, so I picked it up going home. Even then, it was still probably the slowest 23k I've ever done - 2:30 on the dot!

I can state categorically and without a shadow of a doubt that there is no way that I am ever going to attempt to run 90k - end of story. However, it was a lovely morning for a run, and it was great to run with the mad men for a little way :-) :-) (Oh, and I got to meet Virtual for the first time too).

Gnome

More news on tiger angel

The various doctors that TA been seeing have all noted that her various chemical levels are a bit strange, but not so far out as to cause the problems that she's been having. She's been booked into a specialist for ages, but, being a specialist, he has really long waiting lists. Anyhow, this week was the appointed time, and he took one look at her various tests and said "there's the problems!"

His view is that, in addition to the problems that I've discussed previously (reactive arthritis, low iron and low thyroid), she is also insulin resistant. The reason that no one else has picked it up previously is that her high level of fitness has masked the various normal indicators. He picked up on an indicator that doesn't get masked, but which obviously is not known outside specialist circles.

However, just because the indicators are not obvious doesn't mean that the problems aren't there. One problem with insulin resistance is that the muscles don't absorb and carry glycogen, so there's no energy stored for when exercise starts. It's no wonder that she's been dragging herself around. The good news is that it, along with the other things, should respond to drug treatment - the doc has promised her that in 4 months she'll be bouncing around like a brand new thing :-)

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This week's been comparatively normal for me. Tuesday we ran with Angela (TA did the warm-up km and then walked on her own for another 1/2 hour), basically just running a hilly course, pushing the up and recovering the down. A bit slower than normal (~5:45 pace). Must have been the cold!

Wednesday, I ran my mega-hills loop. 12k at 5:10 pace. This is the elevation graph!
(and if you can't read it, it's a hundred metre elevation change from top to bottom). That hill at 10k is a killer...

The ride to work was odd today (Thursday). I just felt really lacking in energy; it was like I had to be 2 gears lower than normal the whole way. Boy, was it cold! I had 4 layers on, including my fleecy jumper, and it was still on by the time I got to work an hour later. Brrrrrr :-(

The energy deficit continued tonight at Run Club. We did our mini six-foot (1250m of a mixture - flat, hills, grass, bitumen, stairs, you name it). 3 laps in 18:20 including walking down the stairs for safety's sake. Topped it off with a no-watch km. Boy, did I get that wrong! :-) I said 4:05, and did it in 3:38. And here's me priding myself in my ability to pick a pace and run it. Not tonight! [TA disobeyed coach's orders and ran tonight anyway - did 2 laps of the mini 6'. Still in one piece :-)]

Gnome

As Promised

In the last post, I alluded to plans for upcoming Goal Races; well, here it is. It's a 14 week plan ending with the Sydney half (which I hope I'll be able to run with tiger angel, though that's faaaaar from certain) .

25/6/06 - Woodford to Glenbrook (25k) - basically a trial run of longer distance bush running
16/7/06 - King of the Mountain (35k) - definitely only a long run, not a race. Not really sure about this one, I need to find out more about it,
13/8/06 - City2Surf (14k) - the old favourite :-)
27/8/06 - Willy 2 Billy (35k) - this is the main goal. No idea what time I'm aiming for yet.
17/9/06 - Blackmores (21.1k) - let's see if this is more fun than last year :-)

Of course, all the Striders 10k series and the CR5ks will be included as well. The main training aim over the time will be to maintain endurance while building strength - hence basically a combination of long and hills. It's a bit hard to get in much bush running simply because it tends to be dark when I train, but I hope to start hitting the bush on some of the long runs. This'll be interesting...

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Tiger angel dragged herself out the door early on Friday to go swimming (cold cold cold). Only (her term, not mine) did 1k, not fast. Felt OK doing it, but a bit joint-sore afterwards. Did a PT session on Saturday (again OK, but very weary afterwards). She wasn't good this morning and decided that after this morning's work she could only manage a walk. So we did 4k and she has rested since.

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Saturday was just too cold and miserable to contemplate running, so I found some convenient niggles to use as an excuse. Couldn't do that two days in a row, so this morning (Sunday) I, against any semblance of better judgement that I may possess, crawled out of bed at 5am to get myself to the Striders Star at Concord.

Unfortunately, the group I ran with was really too hot for me. I normally do my long runs at about 5:30 pace, but these blokes dragged it out at 4:45. I hung on until about 12k (didn't want to be running around there on my own - guaranteed to get lost), and when I finally dropped off, Orunner was kind enough to hang back and keep me company for a while (thanks Dave, much appreciated). I pretty much kept the pace until 15k, when I joined up with a group of earlier starters who were running at a better pace for the remainder. All up about 27k, giving a weekly total of 52k. See what happens when you don't run Saturday? :-)

Gnome

Hill Week

I have a feeling that I've got some hills in my future, and even if I don't, I think I need them in training more regularly than I'm used to. However, I wasn't quite planning it this way...

Saturday, of course, was Striders at Lane Cove. That should be enough hill for a month! However, on Tuesday morning I warmed up by jogging around to my hills-session hill and set into attacking it. I was a little (a lot?) frustrated by how it went. The first 3 reps were 44, 42 & 39 seconds, and the last was 43. It wasn't supposed to be the last - I was intending on doing 5 reps - but I clearly was running out of grunt and there was no point in pushing it further. As I remembered, I normally did this hill in 41's so I was a bit dirty on myself.

Did another couple of k home as warm down, and then went back and looked at the history. Believe it or not, my memory is shot. I was wrong about running them in 41's. Each time I've done them, I was doing 47's! It's no wonder that I was exhausted after the 39! Next time (and that won't be far off), I'll take it a bit slower and try to get more done. Geez, I'm thick some times :-)

Wednesday morning was a lovely dry(!), clear, cool morning, perfect for a nice 14k standard loop @ 5:14 pace. Very even the whole way. Very satisfied. Glutes a bit sore after Tuesday's foolishness.

Normal ride to work this morning (Thursday). They've re-re-replaced the fence at the bottom of Gladesville Bridge, but this time they've welded two big bars through the panels. I really don't think that they want cyclists to remove them again. It doesn't stop us taking that particular short cut, it just means that we have to toss the bike over the fence. Glad that I have a lightweight :-)

The lights were not on on the oval tonight for some reason, so we headed up into Callan Park for a hills session (yep, another hills session!). Tim's found a new loop up there that is much better lit than the old loop, but it has a killer hill. The whole loop is only about 800m, but I'll swear that the uphill part of it is at least a km long :-) Anyhow, we did a 10 minute period (2.5 loops, made up to 3) and 15 minutes (4 loops). The times were interesting. I felt like I had no energy and must have been getting slower, but in fact I held it steady and then did the last two quite a bit faster(??). Splits were 3:47, 3:52, 3:45, 3:46, 3:46, 3:39 & 3:24. Apart from the blowout in the second, the first 5 were within +/-1 second, which is pretty consistent in anyone's language.

I feel pretty tired now - I was going to write something about up-coming goals and race calendars, but I think I'll hold that one over for another day and just go to bed now. Goodnight!

Gnome

Just for Tesso!

Last week, Tesso left a comment on this blog, part of which read "you are bludging in the 10k"... (now, to be fair, that quote is taken completely out of context, but if it's good enough for journos, then it's good enough for me :-) :-)). Anyhow, having thus been accused, and having a nice 10k romp on the calendar (Lane Cove? Romp? Yeah, Right!), I set out to do something about it.

As Lane Cove is not so much an out & back course as an up & down one, I figured that the key was in the hills. In previous races I'd done the back half pretty much as fast as I could, so I decided to really push the up hills and see if I had enough left in me to cope with the downs. I went out with Nicho, who, after much chiding from me about his propensity for going out too fast, decided on a more conservative start. Added to that, someone nicked the first few k markers, so we were running blind for a while. I know that I was ahead of 'normal' time because I got to the bottom of Scribbly Gums (a short - and seemingly near vertical - side track used to make up the distance) before the lead runners got back down. I felt pretty good in spite of pushing harder, so I was hopeful that a pb was possible. The hill from 4 to 5.5k (the turnaround) is really ugly, but I got to 5k in 21:40. Now I was sure that a pb was possible.

I rested a bit on the way back down the ugly hill, and then at about 6k I started to put the foot down. Nicho was having breathing problems, so I left him there (great friend I am, huh! :-)) and started picking people off. At 9k, I only needed about a 4:30 to get a pb, and I knew that I could go much faster than that. Seagull was just in front, and I worked on getting on to his back before the final turn across the weir. On the weir, I just floored it and shot past him for the one and only time I'll ever beat him (I found out later that he's been crook all week, so no wonder. Still, I'll take 'em when I can get 'em :-)).

Tiger angel was doing her duty as a recorder, and as I came through, I said "missed by 3 seconds" as the time clock was showing 43:03. It wasn't until later that she found out that I'd actually beaten my pb by about 30 seconds. We're strange people, aren't we (or at least I am). If I'd come through at say 43:25, I would have been overjoyed by taking 10 seconds off the pb, but because I missed a long dreamed of goal by 3, I was disappointed!!??!! Still, I wasn't disappointed for long (maybe 3 milliseconds), and I'm wrapt by such a big slice off, especially on such a difficult course.

The results have just been posted, and they've got me down at 43:09. Don't know what happened to the other 6 seconds, but the finishing order of the people around me was right, so I guess that the clock must have been out. Still wrapt though :-)

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Tiger Angel went out for a walk this morning, so I stayed home (in bed), intending to do my run this afternoon instead. I have to admit that I got a bit annoyed when she got home and told me that she'd run after all (4k @ 6:20), but I find it hard to stay annoyed with her for long ;-). She's feeling a bit tired & sore tonight, but otherwise OK.

The continuing saga of her health took a new turn this week. Added to the other issues that we've discussed over the last 6 months, the docs have now decided that she is also dealing with reactive arthritis brought on by a bout of Salmonella poisioning she got while in Cambodia. This accounts for some of the pain she's been suffering, and also provides yet another bit of hope for the future. Yes, it should go away with time.

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After church (tiger angel spoke; it was wonderful), having lunch with friends and then watching the last part of Micro's footy match, I finally buckled up for a run about 4:30pm. I was aiming for 2 hours, distance unimportant. It's lucky that I wasn't worried about the distance, because I only ended up doing about 19k in the 2 hours. That was a bit surprising, I didn't think that I was going that slowly, but I know that as I was still feeling a bit whacked after yesterday's run, I wasn't pushing it either.

Anyhow, that's another week ticked off (60k). My aim at the moment is just to retain my endurance/fitness/speed while I decide just what I'm going to aim for next. A few ideas are starting to percolate to the top. Watch this space...

Gnome

201 and counting...

I just noticed that we have 200 posts in the blog. Quite a surprise really. Well, it's 201 now :-)

Nice steady week, getting back into the groove. Tuesday morning early, TA, Angela & I crawled out from our respective warm beds - not easy - and started on one of our patented "wonder what we'll do this morning" runs. We did the first 3.5k at about 6 minute pace, chatting about Angela's great run at the half, and then TA turned to walk home. Ange and I were just heading in the other direction when it started to rain, so we turned and found ourselves at the bottom of our "hill reps" hill. Too much fun to ignore, so rain or no rain, we decided to do a few. Didn't time them; just did them for fun :-). Three reps were enough, then we just made it up to about 9.5k, doing the post hill work at about 5:45. Easy chatty stuff. Even though tiger angel finished up at 3.5k, she sounded and looked good the whole way. Millimeter by millimeter, things are getting better.

Wednesday - I just headed out for a midweek marathon pace(-ish) run - 15.5k in 82 minutes. Comfortable and happy, though I felt a bit weary during the day. Post-marathon lack of training catching up with me I guess.

Thursday - ride to work - fine - then Run Club tonight. 4x 800 (splits 3:18, 3:13, 3:16, 3:12 - funny part was that I could have sworn that I slowed down after the first one) followed by 3x callan park hill (splits 1:02, 1:00, dns due to running to amenities instead :-)). Happy with the night, but I'll be even happier to have a rest tomorrow.

Strider's 10k at Lane Cove on Saturday. Tiger Angel will be on catcher's duty, so I get to run and fall into her arms at the end. Sounds like bliss :-)

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On this day, 22 years ago, we pushed and dragged #1 son (Macro TA) into the world. That sweet little baby has become an intelligent, responsible, capable adult, of whom both his parents are very proud. Comes of having a great mother, I guess :-) :-)

Gnome