Something new, something old...

I had a shot on Tuesday at that Hill Bounding I talked about recently. It was quite interesting. We have a small soccer oval near us with a very steep slope for spectators - probably about 20m up at marginally less than 45 deg. Turning right or left at the top of that leads you down a much more gentle 100m or so. After a couple of k warm up, I stretched and then started the session.

Very high knees & arm action, driving from heels on the ground to toes pointing down at the high point of the step, bounding up the slope but only moving forward very slowly (ie very small steps) so that it takes a little while to get to the top. As noted in the stuff I read (and also mentioned by Dr Pain when I talked to him about it), the heart rate goes through the roof pretty quickly, so it's not a session for people on low-HR training. At the top, run down the gentle slope, leaning down the hill and keeping the cadence high. The idea is to continue onto a flat area for a little while, but on this oval you just hit fence! :-) Finally, walk back to the start as recovery, and repeat.

I ended up doing 7 reps, as I felt good the whole way through. After I got home and cooled down, I discovered that maybe 7 reps were too many... The tops of my calves decided that they were going to spend the rest of the *week* complaining. Still, it's exactly the same spot that started to give me grief at the end of the Quarry Rd laps last week, so it looks like it's doing the right thing, and it'll definitely stay in the training repertoire (albeit with a few less reps).

So, that's the new. The old, alas, is that my back decided to go west again on Thursday morning. I got out of bed and could hardly walk. I still managed the ride into work (for some odd reason, the riding position was not uncomfortable), but I had to ring tiger angel and ask her to pick me up at the end of the day. Hence, no Run Club, and no Megalong to Pluvi that was planned for Saturday. I'm sure that run was going to hurt, but not doing it hurts more :-(

I had a chat to Dr Pain, and his words of wisdom were "see me 9:30 Monday, give it lots of warmth and lots of gentle movement, like water walking, running and swimming". Hence, I went to the pool on Friday, doing 10 min water running to warm up, and then swam with flippers for 600m. It felt pretty smooth, though on the last 50 I started to notice a bit of tension in my back. (I did try a final 50m without flippers, which was an utter joke. Any semblance of form went out the window as self preservation and a desperate desire to breathe asserted itself. :-) ).

So here I sit, feeling miserable about missing my private Megalong massacre, but still hopeful of doing it next week (or the week after, or... :-))

Gnome

Addenda

A couple of notes regarding yesterday's post...

1. The swimming is to strengthen my upper body for the mountain run. Nothing more. Sheesh! Interestingly, my weight is 1.5 kg up but my body fat % is slightly down, so I guess that it may be helping. Don't want it to get higher though. It's a fine line between having the strength to handle the hills and carrying the extra weight around.

2. It was Angel (our daughter) who had her wisdom teeth out. Sorry about the confusing nomenclature.

3. Lucky that we ran through Bobbin Head yesterday. Today it's closed (and evacuated) because of bush fires. What a difference a day makes...

Gnome

[edit] p.s. I sent my entry in for 6ft tonight. No turning back now!

So much fun!

I had so much fun today - just like a kid again!

I did a 20k bush run down to Bobbin Head and back with the striders 6ft training crew, but that wasn't the fun thing (that was just hard, but necessary, work). Tiger Angel did her weights session, then tried out a new swim squad, and then ran a gym session for a client, but I'd say that they all fell into much the same category...

Nup, the fun came when she gave me another swimming lesson this afternoon. I couldn't believe it. All up I swam about 600m, which I know is just part of a warm up for some of you, but for me, that's flying! I started to cramp a bit after about an hour (not sure exactly how long - I wan't paying any attention to the time), so we called it quits, but then we started just playing around in the water like kids; you know, stuff like how far can you swim under water, and trying to do tumble turns without ending up in the next lane. (Actually, TA comes out perfectly in line. It's me that gets directionally challenged :-)). I don't recall how long it is since we just mucked about. Really should do it more often... Mind you, TA was a pretty tired bunny by the end of her 4th session of the day.

Fun aside, the most encouraging part was right at the end when TA described a breathing drill where you breathe after 1 stroke, then 3, then 5, 7, 5, 3, 1, etc, so I thought I'd give it a go. Bearing in mind that I'd been breathing unilaterally all session (when I remembered to breathe, but that's another story), I was amazed to find that not only could I do it, but it was probably the best I'd swum all day too! Wonders, once again fail to cease :-)

____________________________________

So what else this week? Working backwards, on Friday morning I accompanied TA on her tempo session (10 min warm up, 4 min tempo, 2 min recovery, repeat, and 10 min cooldown). TA was surprised by how fast she went on the tempo sections - probably a min/k faster than she expected. Good session!

Thursday was a hill sandwich at Run Club. 4 x 400 track, 3 x Callan Park hill (about 250m @ a 1 in 10 grade?), finishing with an 800 and a 400. I was slower on the hills than I would have preferred, but at least I was consistent (0:54, 0:54, 0:53). TA didn't run this session, as she was running it. Hmmm. Let me rephrase that. As FreeSpirit is on holidays, TA was conducting the session, and thus she didn't take part in it. :-)

Tuesday is mid-week-longish-run day, but I shortened it a bit to 12k because I slept in a bit. Average pace 5:26, so not one of the most spectacular runs I've done.

Monday's hills session was cancelled as I was up at the hospital with Micro and Angel, who were both having all 4 wisdom teeth out. Ouch! I guess that's a pretty good excuse for a day off hills :-)

Gnome

Swimming?? Swimming!! (Huh!!??!!)

Guess what? As of this last week, tiger angel has started to teach me to swim. Yep, the old brick himself now aspires to be a bona fide floating, breathing(!), 1000m-in-nonchalant-style swimmer! And what's more, on the basis of two lessons, I think that there's a moderate chance of it happening too. Wonders will never cease (though not such a wonder when you consider who the teacher is).

So what brought on this change? Some Road to Damascus conversion to the semi-aquatic multi-sports? The sight of tiger angel sweeping all before her in her lead-all-the-way victory in last week's tri?? Well, no, actually. It can be actually be traced back to this article (this one is interesting too) which says that good mountain running needs swim & cycle training as well as straight running. As I already do a bike session once a week, I figured that a swim session wouldn't go astray as well, and so here I am... If blog entries terminate suddenly, you'l know that I'm on the bottom of a pool somewhere, trying to work out which way is up :-)

As for the rest of the week, I was tossing up whether to nominate it as a 'down' week, but some back pain made that decision for me. Turns out that a tumble I took last week over an errant piece of footpath put my pelvis out of alignment. A quick trip to the physio has mostly fixed that, though I'll still have to go again this week because there's something pinching down there :-(

Thursday night at run club was a tough opening session for the year. 4x200, 4x400, 3x500 (push the last 100) and 1x800. The focus was on good form rather than top speed, and the recoveries were relatively short (again - not supposed to be top speed). Very happy to be back, and very happy with the evenness (the 500s were 1:31+0:19, 1:31+0:19 & 1:32+0:19), and James and I really pushed each other at the end of the 800 which was a lot of fun!

On Saturday I fronted up to Quarry Rd for a planned 2 laps with the Strider's 6ft Training Group. I've done 1 & 1/2 laps a few times quite easily, and I assumed that the extra half lap wouldn't be an issue. WRONG! I was smashed by that last climb from the bridge to the Hornsby end. A lot of the 6ft-no-worries attitude disappeared during that last 20 minutes. The first leg was 39:04, the 2nd was 5 seconds faster, the third 2 minutes slower, and the last was another 2 minutes slower again (in other words, a 6 minute positive split - not something to write home to mum about!) .

I did a recovery run with TA this morning (7km @ 6:45 pace) and felt pretty blah all the way. Tomorrow's supposed to be hills, but luckily (for me, not them), angel and micro are both going to have their wisdom teeth out, so there won't be any time for running, which means that I have an extra day to recover from Saturday...

Gnome

p.s. Tesso, the CR cap behind TA in the photo was Mouse.

Bling! :-) :-)

I'm not normally lost for words when it comes to writing these posts, but I'm really struggling to get my thoughts in line and down on the page this time. I get a big smile on my face every time I think back to this morning.

Last week, tiger angel ran her first CR5k in a year. Today, she ran her first triathlon (enticer length - 250m swim, 10k ride, 2.5k run) in almost 2 years. Clearly, she is still below her best, so this was to be a gentle "re-entry" to the sport; a metaphorical dipping of the toe in the water, so to speak. The plan, as best I understand it, was to take it easy, not blow up through over exertion, and finish vertical & smiling(ish!). Mostly, things went to plan.

After a late night at a friends 50th (why do people have to turn 50 the night before important races?) and a very early morning (4:45am), TA's nerves were not what you'd call settled, and breakfast (how do I say this nicely? umm...) didn't exactly get digested. Not an auspicious start.

We met up with a whole bunch of CR friends out there - wildthing and gps Rob (aka Mr WT), Ellie80, mouse & nite_time_runner, Nihao & Mr Nihao, and Mango. WT, mouse & TA were doing the enticer, while Mango, Ellie, Nihao & Mr Nihao opted for the longer Sprint version. NTR, gpsRob and I formed the ever present and vital cheer squad. :-)

From my vantage point, I thought that TA was strong-but-gentle through the whole race - ie she always looked in perfect form and control, but also looked like she could easily step it up a few notches if she really wanted to. I understand from subsequent conversation that there were no further notches available; the spirit may be very stong, but the body still leaves a fair bit to be desired... After finishing (in 44:02 by my watch - the results haven't been published yet), she flopped onto the ground and curled up in foetal position, utterly spent, and it took a long time to recover.

So (he asks retorically) am I smiling? Consider these things.

• First in age group (Bling!). Now to be fair, we knew that bling was a certainty because there were only two entries in her category, and it appears that the other lady either didn't finish or didn't start. Either way, 'ya gotta be innit to winnit'. Much more importantly, though...
• Fastest time ever. Yep, a pb in a come-back race running at half throttle! How cool is that! And then, just to add icing to an already overloaded cake,
• Nothing from the achilles. No pain, no tightness, not even noticed at all either during or after the race. This has been one of those little mental niggles (aka doubts) that has been hanging around all through the year. You know the type. "When everything else is fixed and functioning again, will I be able to run, or will this achilles pain stop me for ever?". Well, it appears as though that little bugbear has been put to bed for a while.

I think I'll finish with some photos that sum up the day perfectly...

Power

Exhaustion

Gnome

Out with the old, in with the new

...but first, a little of the "old" (so 2006) stuff to tidy up. TA and I fronted up for the CR5k on Saturday morning - the first time that she's been back there as a runner for a year or so. She ran with Ellie, and by all accounts they happily chatted triathlon stuff the whole way. In spite of aforementioned chatting, they still ran 28:55 (splits 6:19, 5:48, 5:29, 5:37, 5:38, 0:04 (17m)). I like the tale that those numbers tell. With the run home as well, that was both the fastest and the furthest that TA has run since the CC Half in Dec 05. She's feeling a bit stiff now, but that's far from unexpected.

I ran with Wayne & Ray (CRs Johnny Dark & Eagle) in JD's sucessful tilt at sub 21. We got to the 4k mark at about 16:30, and so when Ray suggested that I run on ahead, I decided to see if I could pull out a sub 4 minute k and get down towards the pb zone. I surprised myself again by only missing the pb by 3 seconds (splits - 3:56, 4:13, 4:07, 4:16, 3:50). Next month's run might be interesting :-).

And so to the new year. As part of my 6ft training, I ran the Black Stump Fat Ass run this morning. Having never seen it before, I had no real idea of how long I'd take, but judging by last year's results for people I know, I figured that 4:15 might be possible, 4:30 was probable. I didn't feel overly fast or powerful at the start, and after running the first couple of k with Rob (Mr WT), I suggested that he not hang back. Luckily, I just made it on to the first ferry (bit of a sprint for the last couple of hundred metres), but then a toilet stop ate up most of the time advantage I'd gained.

Somewhere along the leg out to the castle, I realised I was feeling good, and started to pick people up. The further I went, the stonger I felt, which I don't think is the way it is supposed to happen :-). I missed the ferry by about a minute, but used the time to fuel and hydrate - and watch all the people I'd passed catch up. Ah well, swings and roundabouts.

The last leg up the hill is ugly, ugly, ugly - absolute mountain goat stuff - but with the possibility of a sub 4 hour finish on hand, we pushed it pretty well. As soon as we reached the top, I opened up along the road. A quick calculation indicated that a 3:45 was even possible, and sure enough, I stopped the clock at 3:44:22. I don't often yell at the end of an event, but I let out a fair old bellow as I finished this time. That ranks up there with the CC half result last month, both in terms of how good I felt at the end, and the surprise I got with the time achieved. All up, a pretty good way to start a year. I may have mentioned in previous posts that I was having some difficulty drumming up enthusiasm for 6ft, but after today, I'm having difficulty no longer. :-)

And so, to a final look back. It's been a golden year for me, and a lead balloon year for tiger angel. From a purely running point of view, the best that could be said for her is that the year is over. And yet, it was a year in which we saw her guide the training of a growing number of friends, and started to see some of the concrete results of that effort in their lives; it was a year in which we learned (again) just how much can be achieved in the face of adversity; and once again we learned just how strong tiger angel really is.

What's 2007 going to hold for us? Dunno - that's God's problem. Our confidence doesn't have to be in our capabilities, but in his rock solid compassion. Bring it on! :-)

Gnome

p.s. I just looked at my stats for the year. According to the trusty Garmin, I ran 1989.4km in 2006. You'd think that I could have managed to fit in an extra 10.6 k run some time in those 365 days, wouldn't you...