Kind of over it now

4 days sick, this is getting a wee bit boring now, I am feeling a wee bit better today but no where near 100% Ideally I would probably need another day off but my team, who are all based in Sydney, have a public holiday so I will have to drag my sorry butt to the office. This is not ideal, even worse is that I have to fly to Sydney first thing Tuesday morning but what can you do? Seems I just can’t pick a convenient time to get sick.

I hate this, I really am miserable. With a serious case of cabin fever I ventured to the shops this afternoon for some supplies (lemonade, salada’s and cough syrup) a half an hour excursion that proved utterly exhausting

The Breakfast Club was on TV this afternoon so I dozed on the couch and took a trip down memory lane, funny, it didn’t seem to ooze quite so much cheese 15 years ago, this was hot on the heels of 16 Candles which I watched yesterday, now why do I suddenly feel the need to watch Pretty in Pink or Better off Dead?

Blah, have nasty cramps as well, I really am a total mess at the moment, have spent the last 4 days in a drugged up haze.

Think I might take some more Neurofen Plus, curl up in a ball with a hot water bottle and have a little

I hope I feel better tomorrow.

In the clear

Still sick but getting better, the fever has gone and my body doesn’t ache anymore. As it happens I had an appointment with my sports doctor today and she gave me the once over and said I had a virus and just needed to rest up. This did scotch my grand final plans though, I was going to a mates place for wine, snacks and general merriment, but they have kids, including a new born and I have decided to pull out, not really fair spreading my germs about.

Doctors appointment went well though, no dry needling (always a positive), another blood test to check the iron levels, legs feel fine and I have the all clear to resume normal training again which means I can go back to speedwork!!! Albeit I must still be careful and build up but to be able to start again is a big step and I finally feel like I can call myself fully recovered. Now I have to spend the next 2 weeks in Sydney (apart from a trip back on the weekend of course, for some little race that is on) so it will be another couple of weeks before I can head back to the track, the extra recovery won’t hurt any.

I am loathe to make grand statements as I don’t want to jinx myself but I guess I am finally in the clear, I only need to go back every 6 weeks for blood tests and a general check up now

Still very tired though today, time to put my head down again.

Bleughhhhh

Nausea, body aches, stuffed up head, cough……

Left work early yesterday, had my massage and have been knocking back the Codrals and malingering ever since.

I hate being sick.

Can’t believe I am still contemplating having a run later.

I am an idiot and am going back to my bed.

Can’t remember the last time I called in sick.

Later that day…….
Have slept most of the day, fever seems to have broken and the ache isn’t so bad now. I have been living off weak Powerade and some toast with honey and hopefully will be able to manage some dinner.

Of course I didn’t try to go for a run, I could barely find the strength to get out of bed let alone run

Don’t where this came from I don’t remember being near any sick people in the last couple of days. Major pain in the butt, there goes my 40km week Grrrrrrrrr

Warm and Fuzzy

Distance - 8.1Km
Time - 42:50
Avg HR - 77%
Avg Pace - 5:17

A nice tempo run today as run leader. Normally I look after the slower group but I was feeling good so strode out today with the lead pack. When we got to the 4Km point where the groups split there were only 4 people heading back for 5Km so I left Carol (one of the other RLs) to look after them and I went on with the 8Km group. This was quite a big group and split into 3 sub-groups pretty quickly so an extra run leader came in handy.

I loved my run today, everyone is getting excited about the various events they have entered and I love that the 5Km group is dwindling because I have seen a heap of beginner runners gain their confidence and step up to the 8Km group and speed work. We had a prize pack to give away to a runner in each group, we had 2 for our group because it was so big and I LOVE giving away presents. There is a particular girl who is very quiet and started in the 5Km group, I have watched her get more confident and today she very comfortably finished the 8Km at 5:30 pace so I gave her a prize pack. She was stoked and couldn’t believe she was getting a prize for running, she even gave me a hug

So back to back runs, one easy, one a bit quicker and my legs are feeling fine, the ITB hasn’t niggled again. Tomorrow will be a rest day and I have a massage right after work.

And you know, I was even going to have a little rant today, but I don’t wanna harsh my buzz man, so maybe another time.

I came home to a nice surprise in the mail today too, somehow I have been given a spot in the preferred entry zone for the Melbourne Marathon 10Km, can’t imagine how that happened

There was a questions and answers thingy doing the round of some blogs a few weeks ago, one of the questions was name 5 songs you know all the words to, funnily enough I head 2 of my songs (besides Happy Birthday) today -

Killing and Arab - The Cure (trivia for the day, this song was based on a book called The Outsider by Albert Camus)
Mercy Seat - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

I wish I could only name 5 songs but I have a freakish ability to recall song lyrics.

Thanks for the link JH, no that isn’t the call centre I work for, we allow our agents 2 second break between calls, however thanks to catheters and Nicobate we have successfully phased out both toilet and smoke breaks, now if only we can get them to stop eating……

I did end up watching Apocalypto last night, top film, I enjoyed every second (OK, perhaps the not the human sacrifice bits). Seriously, I have a habit of falling asleep watching films, or getting bored half way through and wandering off. Once a film starts lumbering clumsily towards it’s inevitable conclusion I give up. This film had me riveted right to the end, I loved it and if you get a chance give it a watch. For anyone not familiar it is the film Mel Gibson made recently, it was set at the very end of the Mayan empire and was a good old fashioned ripping story.

Left, Right, Right, Left

Distance - 7.5Km
Time - 43:08
Avg HR - 75%
Avg Pace - 5:45

Slow and steady was the order of the day. After two easy weeks I am aiming for 5 days this week and around 40Km so I wanted to start the week nice and easy. It is kind of hard running at 5:45 pace though, especially hard on the downhill stretch and when I can hear someone running up behind me and the old primal instincts kick in

Work is a bit mad at the moment and my brain is fried, this is all I can manage tonight, think I’ll just go and fall asleep in front of a movie (Apocalypto) - don’t fret Andrew, I am taping The Bill.

Oh yeah, Em Fact #3782
I am terrible at differentiating between left and right, if you are giving me directions I suggest your point. I’ll say Left, but I will really mean Right, so if I am giving you directions I suggest you do the opposite.

My little brother

Rest day today

I have added a new page over there on the right, this is where I will be popping some of my favourite photos.

Brownlow night tonight, for any non-aussies it is the MVP count for the Aussie Rules Football. I can’t believe it is televised, not bad viewing if you happen to enjoy watching paint dry and grass growing

The only highlight is watching the red carpet arrivals as the WAGs, actually more the girlfriends than the wives and mostly the young, vacuous, bleached and fake tanned types vie to see who can get as close as possible to getting their tits out, without actually getting their tits out. Unfortunately from what I have seen so far there has been too much tasteful and not enough trashy for my taste, come on ladies, don’t let me down, we need something to pick on over coffee tomorrow morning.

All things going well I’ll head out for a run tomorrow morning before work, just a relaxed 8Km.

Sadly dinner is not going to make itself and the cats are going mental as well so that’s me done for the night.

Bugger, out of wine and too lazy to go to the bottle shop, oh mercy.

PS
I am the proudest sister in the world right now!

I didn’t say anything because I believe in the jinx, but last week my 17 year old brother had 2 auditions at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) for a Year 12 Scolarship position, he plays the Double Bass. They were very positive in their feedback but he had to wait until today to find out if he was accepted.

HE WAS!!!!!

And he deserves it, since picking up an electric bass 4 years ago and picking out, you guessed it, Smoke on the Water, he hasn’t looked back. He mastered guitar and then turned to the Double Bass. My ever dedicated mother has spent years ferrying him from his classical tutor to his jazz tutor, to Saturday morning classes at VCA and to play either with the Percy Grainger orchestra or Jazz gigs at the Mentone Hotel.

I have mentioned it before, my little brother has Asbergers (sp) Syndrome and the one thing that makes him truly happy is his music. Just now on the phone I almost didn’t recognise my little brother, like his oldest sister he is very reserved most of the time, but even more so than me due to the Asbergers. This evening though he was absolutely bouncing out of his skin, he was so excited and so talkative, he can’t wait for next year so he can spend his days surrounded by other music students.

I am so damn proud and so damn happy for him right now.

PPS - Come now Sara, I would never dis the blonde, I said “bleached”, I could have been talking about their teeth

Clearing the Cobwebs

Time - 57:44
Distance - 11Km
Avg HR - 80%
Avg Pace - 5:15
Ice Bath - Yes

I had a very light running week this week, despite yesterdays great run I was feeling pretty moody and mopey today. I did have the all clear from the doctor to start rebuilding and really should have aimed for 40Km this week, instead I have finished up with only 22.5Km. A few things conspired to get in my way, I took an extra rest day after racing last Sunday and then a trip to Sydney robbed me of a session as well.

No harm will come from it, apart from me feeling a bit fat and frumpy today

Funnily enough though once I get my running gear on I am transformed and feel all sleek and fast and skinny, unfortunately it is not possible to get around in sporting kit all the time.

I had planned on 65 minutes today, however my ITB protested around the 9Km mark and I decided at 11Km to walk out the rest. Owing to the Spring into Shape 4Km last Sunday I missed my long run so it had been 2 weeks since I had tried a decent hit out. So not all that concerned about the ITB, it is not something that has bothered me much in the past, just my body getting used to running for an hour or more again. I have a massage on Thursday, I expect that will get on top of any residual tightness.

So needing to ice my shins (as per usual) and also the ITB and not having that many ice-packs at my disposal I decided just to bite the bullet and sit in a shallow ice bath for 10 minutes. I hadn’t done this for a while and forgot how much it hurts my feet, major pain because other than that it doesn’t bother me, I hoped in and out a few times before I could handle it.

I just checked the preliminary results for yesterday’s relay, the Div 4 girls came in 5th out of 15th, only about 2 minutes separated us from 1st place, not too bad at all for an under strength team

So now that the winter season is over I can concentrate on re-gaining my fitness, by the time the 2008 season starts I’ll be stronger than ever!

Speaking of which, it seems like all of a sudden these iron tablets have started to work. Day to day I feel about the same, but when I go for a run, wow, what a difference! Apart from the ITB niggle I was running so comfortably today, I set out to cruise along at 5:30s and felt pretty sure that is what I was doing, so was pretty surprised to see a 5:15 average, in fact until the ITB slowed me I was hitting a 5:10 average. Earlier this year, prior to the injury I was feeling quite frustrated as I just didn’t seem to be improving at all. Seems the stressies were a blessing in disguise, had I not had them I would not have seen a doctor and I would not have had the iron test and I would have plodded along thinking that I had gotten as good as I was ever going to.

Ok, that’s all I have to say, guess it’s all about running today, looking forward to a good consistent week, no racing so I’ll aim for a 40Km week. I have another doctor visit on Saturday, maybe she will let me return to some light track work. Not that I’ll be able to for a couple of weeks though anyway, I have to spend the first 2 weeks of October in Sydney filling in for my boss while she is on leave.

Tan Relay - Last round of the season

Finally I get to do a proper time trial around The Tan, granted I would have preferred to be fully fit but it is good to have a starting point.

I was team captain for Division 4 and exercising my captains privilege I nominated myself to run first. Some may say that is the most nerve wracking position but I prefer it, standing around waiting my turn makes me more edgy.

The morning was stunning, bright sunshine, barely a hint of a breeze and not too cool. I did my customary warm up too the loos and back, then made sure my team mates, Kerri and Kirsten had their relay numbers and we decided on positions. Being that it was only a lap each timing was easy as we used my watch and I took splits to fill in on the team sheet afterwards.

Turned out that my pool running buddy Jo was also in Division 4 and running first, after all those weeks in the pool it was cool to stand there on the start line together. Funnily enough I was not all that anxious, knowing that I am not fully fit I was there for the team and to enjoy the experience. I always prefer to start any race with a positive attitude but I was not feeling the best today, 2 very busy days in Sydney for work, the flight up on Thursday was horrible (more later) and I flew home last night. I know it was only from Sydney but flying knocks me about, I tried to convince the pilot that as one of Melbourne’s top distance runners he really should do me the courtesy of flying us home at low altitude to keep me fresh, but they just didn’t see it my way Also, I hadn’t run much this week and on my warm up I could feel my chest rattling in a rather disturbing manner.

So the point is, not feeling 100%, but hey not complaining and prepared as always to give it my best. The gun went off and I just took off comfortably, no point killing myself before the Anderson Street hill, Jo was off and ended up about 30 metres in front, I wasn’t going to try and catch her. All the little tackers behind us went streaming through, I felt like Gulliver

As is my practice at the moment I did not bother looking at my watch, as I was only going to take a split for the lap I didn’t pay any heed to the markers (they are every 250 mtres around The Tan) and also I know the track like the back of my hand. The plan was to take it easy until I got to Anderson St, then take it super easy up the hill as I still need to be careful up and down hills at the moment, cruise around until I hit the Shrine, then the serious down hill stuff starts. It was after I hit the shrine that I was able to reel in a few extra spots as some of the other Div 4 girls flagged, I think I managed to take over 2 or 3 on this section and they didn’t catch me again. about 1Km from the end I realised that I was gaining on Jo, only because her achilles was giving her grief and she had to slow somewhat, otherwise she is a bit quicker than me. We ended up neck and neck and hit the finish line together, so we started as we finished

My time was 17:35, am I happy with this? I bloody am thankyou! An average pace of 4:38 on that track at this stage of my recovery is better than I could have asked for and better than I was expecting, especially after racing 4Km only last Sunday. Now, if I had have continued on that pace for a further 200 metres I would have run about 18:30, why am I mentioning this? Earlier this year I did a 4km fun run around The Tan (Super Sunset Series) when I should have been fitter than I am now, I finished that one in a pretty dismal 18:40, today I would have done better!

Again I was also mercifully free of the dreaded finish line dry retching so I was able to finish strong again, perhaps it really was related to the iron deficiency. I did have to stand aside and compose myself afterwards but that is pretty standard.

Got a warm glow really, if you had have asked me prior to the race I would have tipped a time of about 18:30 to 19:00 based on how I was feeling.

Imagine how I will be after a few more months of rebuilding my base and some speed work behind me. I know I keep saying it but I continue to be amazed at the level of fitness I retained during the lay off and continue to be grateful that I did not just give in to the misery and let myself get fat and lazy.

Which brings me to my next point, yes, I did get a letter published in a magazine. I never written a “letter to the editor” before, but in last months Run for your Life magazine there was an article on pool running. After I read it I sent an e-mail to the editor on a whim, I was just getting back into running at that stage and was feeling all warm and fuzzy and evangelical and decided to share. I kind of forgot about it and didn’t really expect it to be published so I got a surprise when I opened my copy yesterday and saw my name in print

After a very slack running week (only 11.5Km so far) I am feeling pretty fresh so at this stage I am still planning on my long run tomorrow, I will try for a gentle 65 minutes, depending on how I feel tomorrow.

Yikes
You may recall on one of my trips to Brisbane about 2 months ago that I encountered some rather nasty turbulence on the flight. Well, that was nothing compared to the turbulence on the flight into Sydney on Thursday morning, I have had some rough flights into Sydney, including a very nasty one where we were held in a holding pattern for 45 minutes in a thunder storm, but this was the worst yet. It was brief, but very violent and only about 25 minutes before landing. One minute we were cruising along nicely then it felt like a giant had picked up the plane and started shaking it like a snow dome. The lady I was sitting next and I crashed in to each other and my newspaper went flying. You know how the plane usually just drops, this time the plane was also jolting from side to side, I was trying not to look at the wings but they were shaking like mad too. I’ll admit I lost my cool somewhat and was muttering a few choice words under my breath and my heart was racing. Other people on the plane were crying out and there were alot of very scared faces. On the other hand the group of 16 teenage boys on a school trip thought it was a hoot, the little bastards Afterwards they were all quoting stats to each other, “you are more likely to die in a car crash, of beri beri, by being kicked by a donkey, hit by a flying saucer etc than in a plane crash”, here’s one for you boys, you are more likely to be smacked in the head by me than die in a plane crash!

Oh yeah, and the old classic, QANTAS have never had a plane crash, yeah, well, there is a first time for everything.

I guess my last post was a bit cryptic, I was on a mood, am over it, for now

Must be the weather

Coz there is no other reason for me being all sooky la la today.

Actually there is but I don’t wanna talk about it, ’tis stupid.

I am off to Sydney for 2 days for work.

Catch you when I get back

Time - 32:41
Distance - 5.7Km
Pace - 5:44
Avg HR - 75%

Cruisy run leader run today, no running until tan relay’s on Saturday.

I love the smell of chlorine in the afternoon

Not really, but walking into the aquatic centre fills me with a the same sense of horror that a certain Brando film instills in me (don’t write in folks, I know Robert Duvall gave that speech).

Still going to the pool voluntarily to cross train and not because I am injured is a darn sight easier let me tell you.

The session today
5 minute warm up
15 by 45 seconds hard/15 second easy
2 minute recovery
Repeat
Cool down until I got bored (3 minutes 17 seconds)

Not too much bother from little kids today, instead it was the teenage boys and girls trying to impress each other that bugged me. Boys dive bombing and girls giggling and pretending they don’t know how to dive, Boys having “how long can we stay underwater competitions”, no doubt as a thinly disguised excuse to check out the girls underwater, give me a break, just snog each other behind the aquatic centre and leave me to my workout in peace

But I worked hard and it was a worthwhile workout, my CV fitness has definitely improved since I started running again because I really had to churn to get my heart rate up.

I think two days rest after Sunday’s hard run is enough and I am looking forward to a run tomorrow afternoon, even if it is just going to be an easy 5Km or so.

I kept forgetting to mention something he last couple of days, something I noticed while running on Sunday. I have been on the iron tablets for about 6 week ago, remember my serum ferratin was extremely low, because of this it is going to take a while to build my levels up again. Day to day I can’t say I have noticed much improvement, though I the light headedness has been easing up lately. Anyway, rambling now, Sunday’s run was an average of 4:34 minutes per Km and it felt relatively easy compared to how I used to feel when racing at that pace. I used to really gasp for air, my legs would feel fine, but I could just never fill my lungs properly. I just thought it was a fitness issue, I can’t believe I put up with it for so long, turns out it was just an iron issue Perhaps this also explains why I finished the race strongly on Sunday and didn’t have they dry retching issues. I just finished watching my new favourite “wrong” TV show, American Dad, made by the same people who do Family Guy, I have a very wrong sense of humour. Along those lines, if you ever get a chance to catch Absolute Power I highly recommend it, I am a massive Stephen Fry fan, I think he is gorgeous, smart, urbane and fecking hilarious and I would watch him in just about anything. AP is hysterical, if you have Foxtel it is on UK TV on Monday at 830, seriously, watch it, get it on DVD if you have to, you won’t regret it, it’s one of those shows you can watch again and again because you laugh so much you miss stuff.