Failed midweek tempo

Managed to somehow lever myself out of bed to meet Mister G at Drummoyne Rowers at 5:40.

We grumbled our way through a 1k warm up. Got through the first 3k in 11:47 and it was apparent from the last 4 min km that things weren't real flash. 3 minute break, and the second 3k in 12:07, with an awful last 500 metres, with total loss of form in the last 100m.

Elected to pull the pin, and we had a bit of a comic interlude between Mister G and myself trying to locate each other. Ended up doing 12k overall in around 56-57 mins. Disappointing, but I suspect there was enough of Sunday lingering in the system to see me need a day after Tuesday's hitout.

Oh well, to and from work tomorrow. Interesting side note - mileage is about 10% up on this time last year...

Tuesday on the treadmill

Couldn't get up when the alarm went, so on to the treadmill at lunch for me. Did 16 minutes of minute on/minute off, with the minute on working its way up to 18kmh. Not a bad hitout.

Sunday's Equaliser plus top-up, and Monday on the 'mill - again

The Equaliser went okay - description as per Coolrunning:
An interesting event - I missed this last year due to illness.

After chatting to Luke Skyrunner and Action last week, I set my expectations at around the 63 - 64 minute mark - rule seems to be to add 7-8 minutes to your C2S. I'd never seen the course before, so was probably going to be dependant on seeing the usual suspects around my speed.

The opening couple of km basically involved barreling down a hit at a great rate of knots, then climbing back up out of the creek. I found the climb fairly painful, and took a while through the road section to get settled again. Fairly surprised to see Glenn sail past (thought it was Blue Dog!) here. Lost sight of the group I was chasing, and stopped for a moment to check if the course was straight or went left.

Rejoined the trail not long after this and Mohammed went past. Having been a bit sore, and a bit indignant over having to stop to check directions, I had a bit of a sook for 5 minutes or so until the sight of Mohammed's red cap up ahead finally sparked me into action.

I harried Mohammed through for probably a good soild twenty minutes or so. We pushed pretty hard through this section, during which time I worked out I was probably a touch faster down the hills, had a distinct advantage up the hills, but Mohammed seemed to have an advantage on the flat. I figured I'd wait until the last hill before making a challenge.

I slipped past part way into the first hill, but the heart rate went up and I thought better of it. We held in lockstep until the course evened up and the second part of the hill came up. I drove on here, and put 20 metres in to Mohammed from there until the trail flattened out, and eased that out until the finish, which was around 62:30 (forgot to stop my watch!).

Pleasing thing was using Mister G's technique of recruiting the glutes and hammies to drive up hills, and finding once settled back on the flat that the quads were in good shape. Bodes well for mid-March.

Happy with the run. The battle with Mohammed was a good entertaining one, and probably dragged us through a minute quicker than we would have otherwise - the beauty of racing! Good course, too, and a few tumbles.

Met Mister G and Action at Drummoyne Rowers for a fairly gentle 14k (buggered the timing, but I'm guessing around 4:55 - 5:00 per km pace) at 4:15 Sunday evening. Felt pretty good, actually, a combination of the race being on a pretty soft surface and the Bay Run being flat. Good to bring the day's distance to 28k, plus Action and Mister G always make for enjoyable company.

Only issue was my orthotic (which I didn't race with) cutting into my right foot again, right on top of the just-healed blister. Most likely a function of tiring form, as Action pointed out. Oh well, it's survivable...

Monday saw the usual 5 min/k pace 5km 'brain in neutral' recovery on the treadmill at the gym, transfixed by 9 different channels of rubbish....

Friday and Saturday

Had a fairly fitful night's sleep on Thursday night, so couldn't get up to do my proposed 15 mins of 30/30s. Was planning to do them at lunch time, but a particularly comical announcement at the office saw us scuttle to the pub to commiserate. I was feeling a bit bashed up, so the day off wasn't a bad thing.

Saturday saw me get out a touch after twelve for a5k cruise in around 25 minutes to turn the legs over before tomorrow's Equaliser. Felt like junk, but was moving along okay. Glad I got out.

Run Home

Managed the 9.6km run home in a bit under 45 minutes. It was pretty painful to start, but once past Gore Hill and into Artarmon proper the lower legs came good and I started to roll along pretty nicely. Even tackled the hill parallel to Burns Bay Rd in Hunter's Hill that rises up from next to the school to Church Street reasonably well.

Good hit out to finish the day.

Thursday run to work

Bit of a shuffle of the week's program, with my volume-building exercise (with some hill work thrown in) shifted to Thursday to get three speed sessions in.

Pretty grindy until I got up on to the Pacific Highway (at about 7k mark) but once up there started to flow okay. 10.6k in a touch over 53 minutes.

These aren't meant to be 'bash it' sessions, more recovery sessions. Certainly feel better in the legs, so this morning's little jog seems to have served this purpose. We'll see how it goes this evening.

Mid Week Tempo

Early start saw Mister G and myself at Drummoyne Rowers at a humid 5:40am. Quick warm-up jog to the CR1km marker, and from there, 3 repeats of 3km (to the CR4km point just past the bridge, up the canal). Headwind made it difficult to maintain pace. Ran 11:47, 11:41, and disappointingly 12:00 for the last 3 - went to sleep in the middle kilometre.

Still, worthwhile session, and one I'll be looking to repeat and work down to 10km pace. Did reinforce how much speedwork needs to be done in the lead-up to Six Foot.

God damn, over a week?!?

Sorry about that - things have been a bit hectic.

Monday Jan 31 - 25 min 5k recovery on the treadmill at the gym

Tuesday Feb 1 - Couldn't get up in the morning, so after riding home from work did 3 laps of a local hilly cycle for a total of 5.1k in a touch over 25 minutes. Ran with a HRM for the first time in ages, peaked around 166-167.

Wednesday Feb 2 - Ran to and from work for a 54m5s 10.7k in the morning and a 49m10s 9.6k in the evening. It pissed down through the morning run, only to stop 5 minutes after I got to work. In the evening, a wild storm came through and took out the power and a heap of trees through Gladesville, making the last 1.5k of my run an obstacle course worthy of army training. This, after getting drenched in the first ten minutes of the run.

Thursday Feb 3 - Day Off

Friday Feb 4 - Day Off

Saturday Feb 5 - Start of the Striders 2005 10k series at Lane Cove. Good solid sensible run for a 38m32s, 14s outside my PB but a solid PB for the course. 30s negative split for the first and last 5ks, and a sub3m40 last km.

Sunday Feb 6 - Berowra STaR, saw some familiar ground from the Fat Ass run in January. Missing my GPS (see below), I held on to my map and ran with Action and Cam after falling off the back of the 6:20 group. Very tough run, could have done with a second GU, and the last 2-3k were a real battle - who put that friggin' hill there?!?

Monday Feb 7 - Feeling pretty bashed up. Recovery 5k on treadmill at lunch

Tuesday - Attempted 5 x 1k repeats with 90s standing recovery at Timbrell but blew up on the third rep. Ran another two km and called it a morning.

Looks like the double dose of rain did the Garmin no favours. It switched itself on sometime on Thursday and wouldn't respond to any commands. I've mailed it off to the guys in Gladesville who support Garmin in Australia. We'll see how it goes.

Feet are healing up. Seem to be making progress getting used to the orthotics, and hip seems to be improving courtesy of Mr Horne.

Got in touch with Sean of Sweat Sydney about training post-Canberra. Could be interesting.