32 left turns, 32 straights

My most hated speed session tonight - the dreaded 16 x 400. Ugh.

Warmer than expected down at Mackay Oval. Got through a fairly slow and stiff 4km warm up.

Session went:

1:18

1:17

1:18

1:18

1:18

1:19

1:18

1:18

1:17

1:18

1:18

1:17

1:16

1:18

1:18

1:16

Total elapsed time for the intervals was 20:42, ave rep was 77.63, and pleasingly, the average for the last eight reps was 0.75 of a second better than for the first half. The session compares very favourably with previous 400s, with the average slightly quicker than a 12 reps of 400 session from the end of January. Good, solid, sensibly paced session with a decent finish.

Illiacus does continue to play up, though, and I suspect it will need attention sooner rather than later.

Free running

Dropped the car at Woolwich Pier, only to discover two right 2100s in my bag. Oops.

Mmm....so, choices are:
- wait for EliseS to arrive, head home, grab left 2100, and do run. Downside is a later start (and rising possibility of giving up on the evening run) plus I'm not sure when she's arriving
- scarper home, grab left 2100, return to Woolwich, do run. Again, later start, and I'm not sure when she's arriving.

Pondering this, I realised that there was a third option. I was wearing my new 'running' Frees, so it was a chance to try them out. I'd run 10k or so barefooted a week or so without any problems, do my speedwork unshod, and wear the Frees around the office all the time. If there was a problem with them, logically I should have had it by now.

So, I set off. The shoes were fine. They really are like soft flats. - in fact, my feet and troublesome right arch feel the best they have for a while. I ran up through Hunter's Hill, over the Gladesville Bridge, through Drummyone to the start of the CR 5k course, ran to the 1km marker, then turned around and headed back to Gladesville via Victoria Road for 13.35km in 1 hour and 5 seconds (my ability to judge the timing of a run to arrive at home within seconds of my schedule never ceases to astound me). Nice night to run - not too warm, although a bit breezy over the bridge.

I was pretty stiff and battered this morning, but seemed to improve through the day and feel okay through the run, although uphills were a little testing. The illiacus tendon was better after a bit of a stretch last night - will need to keep doing that to stay on top of it. Came up better than I thought I would.

'Character building'

Had 2 hours 45 mins in the schedule for today. Since the STaR was the Balmain Bungle and started at Brett Park in Drummoyne, elected to head off from home early and do it rather than join the squad at Centennial Park. We had social activities around lunch, so I wanted to give myself as much opportunity to recover as possible.

Left home at about 5:50 am and ran over. It was pretty humid, and I was sweaty pretty quickly. Ticked up 5k as I reached the start.

The STaR winds its way through Balmain before working its way through Rozelle, before hitting Leicchardt and heading down to Hurlstone Park and Canterbury, making its way back to Drummoyne via Summer Hill and Lilyfield.

I was feeling it a bit through Balmain, my troublesome tendon (the one that runs from inside the hip down the inside of the thigh - can never remember the name of the bloody thing - answers would be appreciated) giving me quite a bit of grief up and down the hills. James and I let the main group go on the west side of Victoria Road.

I started to battle a bit, and it was a struggle from about 20km onwards. At the canal end of the 5km course, I asked the guys I'd caught (including Johnny Dark) which was the quickest way back - on the east side of Iron Cove, or via the 5km course. The guys steered me up the 5k course, but it wasn't - no need to apologise, guys, we were all feeling it and were a bit befuddled, and I should have known the answer myself.

I ground to a halt just before the 3km marker of the 5k course, and started a very unpleasant, and at times weird, walk to Brett Park. It was 2:43:50 for 33.34km. I had to stop and sit down one or two times - Redback asked after me at one point as I sat in the shade about 1.6km from Brett Park (cheers!).

Believe it or not, I got up the hill and shuffled through a fair bit of the last km, and finally got
to Brett Park. Threw down a tin of Coke and was reasonably coherent again, much to the relief of a number of fellow CRs.

Who knows why it happened? I suspect eating on Saturday wasn't great, so there may not have been much in the tank at the start. Definitely took it too hard through Balmain. Not too bad now (9:10pm) - had a feed, bath and quick nap and was okay for lunch).

Happens from time to time. Sometimes I think it's good to have a training run where you really suffer from time to time - puts things into perspective. Sucks at the time, though.

Alignment

Off to do battle in the official 'squad' race around Queen's Park. I seem to have a bit of a mental block here, consistently underperforming here.

Arrived a bit before 7 to see the Centennial Park side shrouded in mist as the rising sun burnt off the dew - made visibility into the sun practically non-existant.

Got through one of the worst warm ups I've had in some time - stiff and junky, and feeling limited in range of motion. Just managed to scrape under 5:30 per km pace in the last half of the second 2km lap.

Took the shoes off, did strides, and we lined up.

First lap was 7:01, then 7:13 for the second, and the final was 7:20. Wheels fell off about halfway around the second lap. Still, the time was 21:35 for the 6km, a 36 second improvement on previous efforts here. Distance is around 2km, so pace would have 3:36 per km, which is a bit more like what I'm capable of. Funny, I really do seem to be faster in bare feet.

Mohammed ran an equal PB for 21:21.

Next stop at this venue is sub 21, but that might be a little way away yet. Next time I'm here I'll do the old trick of taking the first lap at the average of the previous session, say 7:12, and seeing how it goes from there.

Recovery in the dark

Out of bed a bit after 5:30am to put in half an hour, iPod assisted, around Bedlam Bay oval. Quite dark, and cool but humid . Felt pretty stiff after this week's efforts.

I love it when I have the discipline to get up and get my Friday recovery runs done first thing in the morning - leaves the evening free to sit on my arse...

Short and sharp 300s

Fairly short little session this evening. with 3 blocks of 2 x 300 metres with a minute inbetween, with 3 minutes between the blocks - 6 x 300 reps in total.

So, no excuses for hanging about tonight, just blast 'em out. Did some sums after Tuesday's session and figured I wanted to be under 3 minuter per km pace for the session, which meant times of under 54 seconds or so. That seemed a little soft, so I thought if I could average around 50 seconds per rep, I'd be happy.

Reps went 49,50 - 50,49 - 49,49

Very pleasing. Thought I might have been going out the door backwards after the third rep, but was holding on pretty well for the last 100 metres, passing quite a number of other squad members (admittedly, teenage girls) in the dash for the line.

Happy with that, especially given I felt pretty beaten up during the warm up after last night's effort.

A tour of the west side of the lower North Shore

1 hour 45 minutes for 22km or so - didn't have the Garmin, so a Google Earth based guess.

Started from St Leonards and followed the Pacific Highway outbound (for a bit of a change) and turned left at Grosvenor Road in Lindfield, heading down into the Lane Cove National Park. Followed the Strider course to Scribblys, followed the road to Delhi Road, through the park to Pittwater Road, followed that to Buffalo Reserve, hooked into the Great North Walk, came out at Boronia Park, then over Ryde Road to home.

Nice evening for a run, felt pretty solid although was glad to get it finished. Feeling better at the end of the longer runs, the endurance side is coming good.

Tuesday intervals

Didn't run Monday - was in a bit of a funk and couldn't be bothered. I had a couple of km walk home from the bus in the evening, if that counts.

Rep session was something a bit different tonight, went as follows:

Time	Distance	Pace
00:06:47	2000	03:24
00:05:28	1600	03:25
00:04:09	1200	03:28
00:02:44	800	03:25
00:01:14	400	03:05

Pretty happy with that. I'd been tired and crapped off all day, to the point of having a nap on the train on the way to the session. Don't know how accurate the times are - I'll check the book and come back to you. The times pretty well tell the tale of the session - I felt I battled a bit through the 1200 and the first lap of the 800, but finished reasonably well.

Bit happier now.

SMC 5k

Horrifically humid (high 90s) Sunday morning, temp low 20s. Had been fired up on Saturday but did feel a little 'going through the motions' once I was up. Had a reasonable, if a little abbreviated warm up. Thought I'd try to go out at around2:28 - 3:30 pace and see how it went.

Race started and we eventually settled into a group of three - a young bloke, another CR, and myself. I had pushed to get onto the back of this group at about 1.6km, to ensure I didn't let them get away early.

The young bloke went straight on at the turnaround. I seemed to lose some pace in the 500 metres after the turnaround, losing ground to the CR leader, and the young bloke zoomed past me at about 3k. I bled some pace away through the climb to the 4km mark, and didn't seem to be able to find speed down the hill heading home. The leader and the young guy (who made another wrong turn, going right where the 25k guys turn, but he again turned around and passed me again) were out of touch so there didn't seem to be a lot of point busting a gut.

18:01 for 21 seconds slower than last month - third outright, second in the age group (which was a bit of a crapper - a fourth win would have meant I just needed two seconds to seal it). Bit disappointing.

A hot 30 minutes

Took the sleep-in early shop option, and simply wobbled around Bedlam Bay oval for another half hour for just over 6km in the midday heat. It was warm. It's done. I wore shoes but no socks. That is all.

Friday footloose frolic

A bit of alliteration to finish the working week.

Just a mindless 45 minutes running around in circles around the local oval. Pretty warm, ran shirtless, and for a bit of a change (following on from last night), barefoot (mind you, I got over Victoria Road and the tarmac path there in trainers). iPod kept the mind busy, and it was a bit of a surprise to see pace (according to the Garmin, which isn't fantastic when you run in fairly tight circles) at 4:28 per km, giving a bit over 10km for a bit over 45 minutes. Don't think that's quite right, but certainly did feel comfortable, if a little mindless.

Running in barefoot is a bit odd - almost like you're not taking it completely seriously, 'at play', if you will. Right arch feels the best it has for a while. Might try to keep at it.

Barefoot on a stormy Thursday evening...

Out to Mackay Oval at Centennial Park for reps - session was 600, 400, 300, 200 with a one minute recovery between each rep, a five minute break after the 200, and then through the set again. Times went:

00:01:57

00:01:12

00:00:52

00:00:33

00:01:59

00:01:16

00:00:52

00:00:31

With the rain and wet ground I decided to do the session barefoot, and it felt pretty good. I recommend it. No complaints, held on pretty well in the back half and finished strongly.

Around the Bay

Dropped the car off at Huntely's Point and ran out through Drummoyne and did a lap of the full Bay Run (including the dog run) and back home. Gave it away at just over 15.5km in a tick over 1 hour 12, seemed to feel pretty ordinary once I got back on Victoria Road and the climb over the Gladesville Bridge took a lot out of me.

Plenty of CR spotting - saw tux just after UTS Rowers, legendary Frank Deane, and worked my way through the Striders' MTG Wednesday runners.

Wind was well up from the north east.

Weekend in Melbourne

Don't panic - I haven't stopped blogging. Ducked down to Melbourne for a few days and didn't go near the internet whilst down there.

Only got two runs in:
- a 9.5km effort in 43 minutes on the Friday to the summit of Arthur's Seat from Waterfall Gully Road and back in Rosebud along the Two Bays Trail (through the Seawind Gardens). I do like that little stretch, although there is a pretty severe climb from the dam which borders on terrifying on the way down. Solid pace throughout with a strong finish.
- a 34km effort in a touch over 2 hours 47 minutes on the Sunday morning between Alexandra and Taggerty along the Maroondah Highway, with a little loop in Alex to start with. Felt pretty strong at the finish and wouldn't have had any problems running a full marathon distance in 3h20-25 mins.

Main concern was a knock on the left side of the left leg I took from a cricket ball whilst batting in the nets with my half-brother and his two boys. It was starting to get pretty sore on Sunday (it caught the bottom of my left ITB) and as a precaution I elected to miss Monday and Tuesday - I don't think sitting in the car for 8 hours on Monday did it any favours. It's pretty well okay today, I'll get out on it this evening.

Was hoping to get more training in, but it's very difficult when you're shuttling around like that, staying at three places in four nights.

Trudging around town

Got out the door at around ten to six on a perfect February morning for running - still dark, still, temp in the mid teens. Wasn't in a hurry this morning, with last night's session still in the legs it was going to be a case of just getting through the distance and time on the feet.

Headed east along Victoria Road, did a little loop under the west end of Gladesville Bridge (through Huntley's Point), through Drummoyne and plugged into the Drummoyne Rowers' end of the Bay Run. Bumped into Eagle here and we chatted and ran through the Dog Run extension with occasional sightings of Tim of http://www.freespiritfitness.org/, until Lilyfield Road, where he continued along the Bay Run and I tackled the hill and said a quick hi to Johnny Dark before heading into town via the Anzac Bridge. Through the CBD, onto the Harbour Bridge, up the Pacific Highway to St Leonards.

Sounds easy when you say it quickly. 1 hour 57 minutes for a touch over 24km, with a struggle up the hills from Milsons Point to Crows Nest. Managed to get through without a gu, as well, so endurance is improving.

Long repeats

Coolish night at Centennial Park. Pretty casual 4k warm up, then:

2k @ 6:55
2k @ 7:04
1k @ 3:32

Had visions of doing the session at under 3:30 per km pace, and didn't quite manage it. Had a good rhythm going in the last 3 laps of the first 2k set - seemed a shame to stop! Cruising pace isn't quite there at the moment - it's a bit easy to drift away to 84+ second laps. Speed went out of me half way through the last 1k.

Still, the head wants to go faster at the moment, which to me is a good sign. The body's not quite there at the moment. I just need to keep focussing on doing the work, and doing the right things - getting enough sleep, continuing to trim down, keeping the mind on the big goals.

1 hour 45 minutes - and I've got to do it first thing in the morning. Could be ugly...

Bright and hot

13.44km in 1:02:23 on a very warm Monday evening (30 degrees at Huntley's Point when I dropped the car off). Felt pretty good through the first half of the run over the narrow west path over the Gladesville Bridge through Lyons Road, joining the Bay Run at Brent Road. Just seemed to battle after Le Montage, and it was a bit of a struggle from there onwards, including a bit of a grim battle through Drummoyne and the return climb over Gladesville Bridge. Gutsed it out, though, which is something, I guess. As mentioned previously, I'm convinced working hard through the warm months gives an advantage once it starts to cool.

Right achilles was feeling it a little bit - suspect it was complaining about the two hours on soft surface yesterday. Legs were otherwise okay - amazing the difference the lack of harsh impact makes on the lower legs.

Lunchtime at Centennial Park

We didn't get home from visiting friends until just after 11:30pm on Saturday night, so when the alarm went (I had hoped to get out and do my 2 hours early) I was still sleepy, so elected to go out after we'd done the shopping. Given my experiences of recent months and the comments from the allergist, I'm a little loathe to ignore signals like this from my body at the moment.

Ended up hitting the outside trail at Centennial Park at around 11:30am. I was by myself initially, and ran a big outside loop, including Queens Park and a loop of the McKay oval 1km circuit. Early on in the second loop, saw Greta and Damien, and ran them for a while. Greta was only doing 1:15, so she was pushing. I hung with her for a shorter loop of the outside and let her go. Started on a long outside loop and gave it away climbing the big hill near the bus depot at Bondi Junction, for what would have around 2 hours for around 25km (not 100% sure on the time and distance as I'd forgotten to restart my watch after a drink stop at the end of the first loop) - I really did grind to a halt, and probably should have taken some snakes with me to run it out. I had hoped to run 2:15 - 2:30 for something closer to 30km, but suspect I got my feeding wrong - never been particularly good at getting it right for the runs later in the day.

Went and watched the last two hours of the program at the Telstra A-Series and saw some good racing.

Haven't had a drink for over a week now. Subjectively, actually feel pretty good (if a little weary), with the nose and breathing the clearest they've been for a while. Would have been nice to run something closer to 37 flat on Saturday, but it was a solid run with a strong back half, so there's something to build on there. I consider that my Gold Coast campaign has kicked off with this completed week, and gotten off to a solid start. Guessing I did around 100km this week.

The winter road racing season begins....in February....in a national park....

Getting in the car at 5:50am to dull conditions, very light drizzle and 23 degrees would tend to suggest conditions are somewhat humid (at 6:00am, 76% at Homebush, 98% at Terry Hills, 86% at Sydney). And so they were.

The warm up revealed the legs were about the best they'd been all week, but I was still pretty stiff in the hips and upper legs. Felt a bit better after a warm up and some strides, but suspected it might be an issue heading up to Lane Cove Road.

A big field assembled and we were away. It was pretty jostly through the first kilometre, and I went through in about 3:42 or so. Problem was, I didn't think I could go much harder in the context of a hilly 10k race.

Scribbly's was okay, but the km markers were showing me rapidly losing ground to 3:40 per km pace. I was at about 19:12 through 5, about 30-50 seconds slower than I really needed to be if I was serious about sub 37. On the plus side, the legs felt pretty solid on the downhills, so I thought if I flogged the downhills it would be a good opportunity to break out of the 3:44 pace mould I seemed to be stuck in.

Smashed on the way down, and felt pretty decent. As the hills eased off after Porter's Bridge, I had Jenny Truscott with me. Looking up the road, I could see the lead female Strider, accompanied by Mohammed. They had a lead of maybe 30-40 metres, and I knew we were catching them. I gave some encouragement to Jenny, suggesting that working together we could get her up on to the lead female, and I could latch on to Mohammed. We pushed pretty hard but the hill at the 8km or so (just past Scribbly's on the return) saw her fade, and I was left to my own devices.

I was still catching him, but not quickly enough to be able to get on to him before the finish. I decided to belt out the last 2k or so for personal pride, and the chase pretty well fell out my thinking as we hit the last kilometre.

Going through the gate, I looked up ahead and saw something odd - Uncle Dave was in the process of getting caught by the group in front. I sniffed blood and thought "oh, we might give him a hurry up" and then realised that Mohammed might actually be reachable. This sparked further interest, although it still looked fairly hopeless.

I didn't think it looked possible until we hit the weir. Mohammed had visibly backed off (he later said he'd had a look for me in the last couple of hundred metres and hadn't seen me, so he relaxed) and I got a further boost from the downhill on to the weir. It was enough to give me the speed I needed, and the speed difference was enough to ensure that if Mohammed had seen me he wouldn't have had time to get up to speed to hold me off. The margin ended up 2 seconds, with me passing him in the last 5-10 metres.

Good fun. A bit slower than I was really hoping for, but it's 45 seconds faster than last year, and I had a disrupted lead-up . Good strong finish, too, so plenty positives to take away - humid, too. I'm confident I can find plenty of time at Homebush next month.

Various runs, and scratching it up at the allergists

A couple of scratchy days running, but as anyone in Sydney would tell, conditions haven't exactly been conducive to good cruising. Wednesday ended up a pretty grinding 1:15 run home in warm conditions, started out okay but tanked on Victoria Road through Rozelle and just kind ground it out from there. Thursday saw a 3.2km windsprint session with the squad - I wasn't feeling great, with a late tofu lunch not sitting well, but worked through for an 11:27, and this morning slogged around Bedlam Bay oval for a fairly uninspired half hour in very humid conditions.

As for the allergist, well, I'm not allergic to anything. Nothing, nil, zilch, nada. I was sitting there with about 18 or so scratch tests on my arms, and she said "mmmm, you're not an allergic sort of bloke, are you?".

We chatted at some length, and she confirmed that the issue goes back to the horrendous flu I had last year. Apparently it was one of the worse Australia's seen in quite some years, with quite a number of cases turning into pneumonia, and a 'sprinkling' of deaths, including a few people younger than my good self. The antibodies from that are still present in my system, which whilst helpful in protecting me from the flu in coming years (to a degree negated by training) means that the immune cells in my throat are still on the lookout for it, and overreacting to things that aren't flu infections.

The two main factors in this are fatigue, and alcohol when fatigued. The alcohol issue is that it apparently kills white blood cells, and the immune system is misinterpreting the dead white blood cells as a sign of infection, so *bam* I cop the sore throat and sinus. So, I need to be conscious of how I'm feeling. I'll probably give the booze a miss for a while - I need to get on top of my weight anyway, so that'll help there. Bit of a crapper, though - I do like a drink.

Apparently it's going to be like this for a couple of years. I figure it's probably going to be learned behaviour if I keep at it until mid to late 2007!

Would have been nice to get a good clean answer - something like "avoid prawns" would have been easy to implement. Oh well, at least I have a bit more of a guide.

Back in harness

Tuesday's session went pretty well, 10 x 400 & 2 x 200. It was originally 10 x 400, but SW went to 9 x 400 with the last 400 split into 2 x 200. Dumb-dumb here can't count to ten, so I got sucked into doing another 400. Oh well, a bit of hard work's not a bad thing.

Splits for the 400s went from 75-78, with a blow out to 80 and 82 for the last two. Average was around 77.7. 200s went 35 and 32. Recoveries were generally around a minute or less.

I was intially a bit disappointed with the session, but the average was around 1.6s quicker than the average for the 15 x 400 I did back on Jan 10, so it wasn't so bad. I know my endurance is off, though - I've not done a long run since Jan 8's Ten Bridges. Probably find that out tonight during my 1h15m run home.

Other news is there was a cancellation at the allergist and I'm seeing her tomorrow lunchtime. That's a relief - it'd be good to get on top of this issue. As Tim put it on Monday night, whilst it'll be disappointing to learn that it is actually a shellfish allergy, that's a lot better (and controllable) than a mystery illness that turns up every 5 to 6 weeks.