So excited he slept in his running gear!

Yes, dear reader. Last night I slept in my running gear. However, it was not through excitement at the thought of my first longish run after 6ft. It was instead because of a very odd error on my part. The night commenced with me (attired as normal) setting my alarm for 5:20. At the appointed hour, I arose, dressed and had a slice of toast. Just as I was heading out the door to meet the other striders, I glanced at the clock on the microwave. 3:33. Odd. Must be a cooking time that hasn't been cleared. Check the oven. 3:33. Check the kitchen clock. 3:33. Still not believing this apparent conspiracy on the part of these normally reliable timekeepers, I headed back to the bedroom. Tiger angel's clock was also in on the charade, but there was my clock, bravely leading the way a full two hours ahead of the rest. Mutter, mutter. Adjust clock, climb into bed still fully clothed (at least I removed my shoes) and back to sleep...

After all that, the run went fine. It was on a (in parts) hilly course around Wahroonga and although it was mostly run between 5:45 & 6 minute pace, I was comfortable and happy with the hills. I pushed the last k at about 4:30 just to make sure that I could and it was no hassles either.

In the spirit of the reverse taper, last week I did a few 12ks to work and run club on Thursday night. It was 3k time trial night, and I can tell you now that there was no way that I was going to run it as a trial. Instead, I ran it as an upper aerobic workout, sitting on steady 4:15s so I came in exactly a minute over pb, but it felt really good just to stride out again.

Tiger angel talked to all the kids over the last week and asked if they would like to come down to Canberra to watch the marathon. I'm not sure exactly what combination of carrots and sticks she used, but all four of them decided that Canberra is the place to be. As their parents' athletic pursuits are generally just a source of wry amusement to them, it will be interesting to see whether the occasion and the atmosphere finally helps them to 'get it'.

Tiger angel's week was in most part fairly standard - cycling the local hills with her training partner, discovering that she's now "just one of" the swim squad rather than one of the "it's OK to sit this one out" group, and continuing her base building by running to a low heart rate. Like all the 'Haddites' I know, she's hating the super slow pace, but with a little patience it should start to speed up soonish.

TA took her bike back to cycling guru Graham Blackman this week for a re-fitting because she's been getting sore knees after riding. He was happy with the setup except that when the seat post was replaced after she was run into on a massed ride last year, it was put up too high. Hopefully, that'll be the end of the sore knees, but it was his other little bombshell that has left TA thinking. As well as giving lots of good advice about nutrition and training, etc, Graham believes that she shouldn't be competing in anything for the next 10-12 weeks and that she should be concentrating purely on base building instead. This of course cuts right into her plans for the up-coming Tri NSW club champs at Port Stephens. No decision made yet, but I'm sure it will be reasonably soon.

Gnome

p.s. I should have noted in last week's post that the Jimmy Barnes look-alike in the photo is none other than our number three son Micro.

Recovery

I'm in awe of the crazies who have been running vast distances since 6ft ("Oh, I've been taking it easy. I've only done 135km this week, not including the 10 x 2k intervals at 3:55 pace. Like I said - taking it easy...").

I, on the other hand, did a tentative ~4k on Thursday night (felt OK although heavy), an easy 5.5k on Saturday morning (felt OK although a bit heavy) and finally splashed out for an hour's run on Sunday night (felt OK although... :-) ). I'm pretty much committed to Canberra, even though I'm terrified of blowing up spectacularly. This business of doing back to back marathons is moving into totally uncharted waters for me.

On a much more positive note, I got to partake in one of my favourite hobbies on Sunday - watching tiger angel compete in a tri. This one was the Sparke-Helmore in Newcastle, and it was a dead-set beautiful place to run it. Pity it's so close to 6ft, or I could be really tempted next year. Luckily, I'm not totally insane yet :-)

The swim was an out&back & out&back course starting from the beach and rounding some flags on the beach in the middle. Strange, but it looked like fun. Unfortunately, a very large ship decided to take that moment to be dragged out of port, causing some significant waves. Add to that the tide running at its peak and an infestation of bitey things (that's the technical term), and the swim leg was maybe not quite as fun as it looked. Be that as it may, TA has discovered over her last two tris that the swim leg is turning out to be her best leg. I'm no super-trainer, but I have a hunch that's because she trains harder at swimming than the other disciplines. I might be wrong, but you never know... :-)

All up, she was hoping for 1:50 with a chance of 1:45, so hitting 1:48 made her muchos happy! :-)

As usual, I got to take lots of photos, of which this is my favourite.


Oh, and just what was this young Jimmy Barnes saying after the race?? :-)




Gnome

The first leaf in the goal tree falls

This is just a repeat of my coolrunning report, put here for the sake of my own records.

I've had a long time to dream about this race, and now I've finally "been there, done that" I can honestly say that it exceeded all my expectations (including about how much it would hurt... ). This time last year I watched the finish from the 'comfort' of a chair, being unable to be vertical for more than a minute or two and having been told by an eminent sports physician that my running days were over. This time this year, I'm sitting in the comfort of my chair because my legs lock up every time I stand!

My intention was just to take it easy and not break a leg getting to the stairs at Nellies, but somehow I found myself there a little earlier than expected and I also had the opportunity to pass a few people going down so by the time we reached the bottom it was all clear running. Even though I spent most of the day passing people, I don't remember getting held up once and we made it to the river in 1:29. So far so good.

The only time I'd been on the track previously was to run from Caves Rd to the bottom of Pluvi and back, so everything up to there was new. The scenery around Lemon Tree Yards was lovely, and I got a surprise at how quickly we got to the bottom of Pluvi, and even more of a surprise at how quickly we got to the top (2:56)! I wasn't pushing it - just nice and steady - so it must have been that the race-day vibe chopped out a couple of km.

So many have said that to run a good race means to run the Black Range strongly, and so I set out to do just that. Up ahead I could see MissZ and set my sights on keeping her in view. Apart from 3(!) stops to empty rocks from my shoes (note to self - stop once and do a proper job next time), Black Range went really well and I started to think the unthinkable - a sub 5 hour debut. Sadly, as we worked those obscene hills through the deviation I caught my training partner Overthehill who had been attacked viciously by the Cramp Bear. He is such a strong runner that he sure didn't deserve to be back there with us (next year Brian, next year).

The crowds at Caves Rd crossing were a real lift and I had a grin from ear to ear knowing that I just had a little(!!) downhill to go, and downhill is my speciality isn't it... Alas, just as I passed the big 'Jenolan Caves Wildlife Reserve' sign I felt like someone had hit me with a brick. Knowing that I only had 6k or so to go I pushed on, still overtaking people as the opportunity arose, but my upper body started to lock up and shake so that before long all I could manage was a stiff-armed robot shuffle. MissZ was an absolute god-send though this section, encouraging me even though I think she was in a fair bit of pain herself. All I can remember of that ugly half hour was that I have never hurt like that, I have never been as utterly uncoordinated as that and I was so transfixed by the minutes ebbing away that I never thought once of stopping. How stupid is that!

All through the long training, whenever I started to get tired I'd think about the hand rail on the steps at Caves house and how good it would be to reach out and touch it. Somehow, when I finally reached that hand rail my body stopped shaking and my arms relaxed and I was able to stretch out a bit for those last few hundred metres. The shout from my beloved tiger angel told me that I was home, and the clock told me 4:58. All that remained was to sob uncontrollably on tiger angel's shoulder for a minute or two, then gather myself together and try to learn to walk again...

I know this has been longer than an Oscar's speech, but there are a few people who I really want to thank profusely. Without Jim Moody's 6ft training group I would never have put in the volume or quality of training that I did. Thanks Jim and thanks team. MissZ was magic and thoroughly deserves her Womens' Team 1st place award. Overthehill is one of those blokes who just keeps giving of himself - thanks for your encouragement and conversation over all those km. Seeing the tears in Redback's eyes as he crossed the line reassured me that I'm not the only obsessive romantic out there. Most of all, thanks to my beautiful tiger angel who loves me in spite of me; finishing six foot would have meant nothing without you at the end.

Almost there

A good week for me, a pretty good week for tiger angel. TA's swimming is getting better and better with the twice-weekly squads she joined, and as of last Wednesday she had the first of what is planned to be a regular weekly ride with a friend of hers who is a stronger cyclist. They spent about an hour covering a good selection of the hills around Cherrybrook - in fact, around Cherrybrook it's hard to find anything that isn't a hill.

On Saturday she had a long run scheduled so she decided to make use of her prepaid strider's entry and make the 10k at North Head her long (steady, not fast!) run. All went very well for the first 5k, but just after that her breathing got a little restricted and, deciding that DNF stood for Do Nothing Foolish, she pulled the plug. She came good pretty quickly and had no problems with an easy hour this morning, so it was clearly the right thing to do. TA's entered the Sparke-Helmore tri up in Newcastle on the weekend after next in the amusingly titled "Diehards" distance (500m, 25k, 6k). Sounds very gung-ho! :-)

Only three runs (plus X-training) for me during the week just gone, well spaced from each other and all at a little bit higher intensity than normal. The last one was the doosey. Just as the key run last week was the Equaliser, the key this week was the Strider's 10k. Not only did I want a good run to put that last bit of spring in the legs, I also had a sneaking desire to get that PB that I just missed last month, and North Head's as good a place as any to get it.

Normally, I'd look at my PB (42:43 - 20 months old) and aim to pull 10-20 seconds off it, but this time I decided to give it a big shot - go with the 40 minute pacer and see what happened. At the same time, I was very aware of not doing anything stupid before next week, so I wasn't going to beat myself up trying to stay with the pace group for too long. I hung with the group for the first 3k's before I started to drift. At the turnaround point (about 5 1/2 k) I was still only about 20 seconds behind 40 minute pace, so I knew then that a PB was in sight as long as I didn't do anything dumb.

The 7th k was not so good - 4:19 - but that woke me back up and I pulled it back to the low 4's for 8 & 9. Some quick calculations at the start of the last k suggested that if I could hold the 4 minute pace for the last one then I could get a 90 second PB. North Head being favourable to fast last k's, I surprised myself with a final 3:48 to record a 108 second pb - final time 40:55! Stoked!

What made it even better was that I won a luck door prize (they distribute the prizes by pre-selecting some random positions from the start, middle and end of the field plus volunteers) and when my prize was announced, Barb said "prize goes to Bruce, who finished in 40:55, making him our front of the pack winner". No one's ever called me Front Of the Pack before! You couldn't get me in the car for the severely swelled head, and even now there some doubt about whether I'll be able to get my helmet on tomorrow morning :-) :-)

And so I find myself in an interesting position - one week out from the big one, in the best shape I've ever been, with the longest uninterrupted training period I've ever had - to put it simply, I've never had it so good. Does this mean that I'm going to be up there with the big boys? Front of the Pack? Don't be daft! What it does mean is that I'm in the best possible position to do the best I can, whatever that may be. I've had numerous prognosticators divining my finishing times, and as always they are about 1/2 to one hour too fast (but thanks for the confidence anyway! :-) ).

So, one easy week remains. A couple of runs, a couple of cycles, a preventative physio visit, a massage on Thursday and then Saturday morning, here we come! :-) Waiting for Christmas was never this much fun!

Gnome