Hmmmmmm

A much needed rest day, I think I underestimated the impact of the Trailwalker hit out last Sunday.

I am eternally frustrated by the fallibility of my body, my ambitions are currently far out reaching what my body is capable of giving me

Though I had a win today I braved the scales this morning for the first time in 2 weeks and have finally managed to sneak under the damn 60Kg mark, 59.7 to be exact, not much more to go.

Injury Lesson #67
It is very easy to become selfish and wrapped up in the delusion that you are the first, last and only runner to ever receive an injury. Every now and then I have to give myself a little slap and remember to get a grip.

Run leading at Jells tomorrow morning, should be a nice gentle 7Km or thereabouts.

In a funny mood tonight, I was just sitting in my back yard reading a magazine (a running one of course!) and having a glass of wine and suddenly realised how much I miss my sister now that she has moved to the Gold Coast. It would have been so much nicer to be having a drink and a gossip with her instead of sitting on my own, swapping SMSs or talking on the phone is no substitute for a lazy summer evening talking garbage over a bottle of Sav Blanc. My niece turns 1 in February so I think I’ll have to treat myself to a long weekend up North to visit both Brother and Sister.

Umm, can I have my legs back please?

Running
Though not strictly sure you can call what I did today running, seems rough slogs are the order of the day this week.

Distance – 10.5Km (was aiming for 13Km)
Time – 57:10
Avg Pace – 5:26 (felt like 7:26)
Avg HR – 85% (gracious!)
Avg Cadence – 176

Within about 3 steps this afternoon it became apparent that sometime in the night someone had filled my legs with lead, damn things just didn’t want to move. I ran Dandy Creek Trail heading towards Jells Park, I did plan on 13 to 14Km and was going to make it a negative split run. There was a Start to Finish session on in the park tonight and I was planning on running by to say Hi and grab a drink before heading back to my car as it would have been the halfway point. By the time I reached the entrance to the park it was pretty obvious I was going to have to cut back to just over 10Km because I was running like shit and there was no point pushing on with crap form (ohhh, 2 poo references in one sentence, the Marquis De Sade would be proud), so I turned back at just over 5Km.

Not moaning, barring injury every run is of benefit and I have the maturity now to recognise a less than stellar day and change the plan rather than stubbornly pushing through when it isn’t coming together. It was damn hot tonight and I was desperately hoping the big black clouds would drop their bounty on me, they did, in the last 50 metres of my run

The other day I found a nifty feature on my new running watch that saves me from taking me resting HR manually every morning. Every couple of days you clip on the chest strap and run a lying/standing test, it takes your HR for 3 minutes laying down then you stand up for another 3 minutes. Over time it will develop a trend and let you know if you are over training, under training or spot on. I have discovered through this that my resting HR is lower than I thought, taking it manually I figured it was about 57, turns out it is 46 (I was way off), I guess this is alright, just something else I can google

Ahhh, rest day tomorrow, hopefully I’ll freshen up a bit and Em’s law will prevail, that is, a great run always follows a crap run.

Has anyone seen Elephant Diaries on the ABC (8pm, Thursdays)? It ranks very very high for the Awwwwwww factor, it is about a sanctuary in Kenya that looks after orphaned baby elephants, critters don’t get much cuter than that.

A little turn

Very brief tonight

An easy little 4Km run on my own before run leading and wanted to check it out. Actually perhaps I should say root as I am constantly being harangued by my fellow run leaders for pronouncing it “rowt”

Anyway, linguistics aside I did a quick sortie and was happy that it would come out at 5Km or thereabouts once I tacked on an extra loop.

45 minutes later we were ready to head out, I explained the new route to Carol and the group, everyone was generally very happy that today there would be no Anderson Street.

I was feeling fine for the first half but then we ran past a car accident where they were having to use the jaws of life to get the door off one car, it looks like 3 cars were involved. This may sound really flakey but I have a bit of a problem with car accidents and from that point on started to feel very sick. By the time I delivered the lead group back I didn’t have it in me to go back for the end group and instead had to dash to the loo to say hello to my lunch again

I guess I had a little turn and now I need a little lie down.

Rack off monkey

Just the facts tonight, always back late on a Tuesday and I need to have a shower and wash my hair.

Running
The session tonight was 2 sets of 4 by 300 metres with 5 minutes recovery between sets.

1st set
71
74
72
66

2nd set
71
71
72
65

I was much happier at the end of the session that I was last week. My goal was to run the first 3 between 70 and 75 and then go harder on the 4th in each set. It helped this week that there were a few more people around my pace so we could work off each other, it makes the world of difference.

So with a much more positive frame of mind hopefully I have got that monkey off my back for the time being.

Mumps update – my brother rang me about 5pm yesterday claiming that people were trying to kill him, this worried me somewhat but he seemed OK after we had a quick chat. I spoke to him again this afternoon and he sounded like his old self again, he said he got a decent night sleep with no smurfs, dragons or murderers to hassle him and he now appears to be through the worst of it. I haven’t had the Mumps myself and by all accounts I better hope like hell that I don’t pick them up.

OK, hair washing beckons (after The Bill of course), when it is long like mine it is quite a rigmarole

PS – did you notice, I did the whole set for my group, not modified, YAY!

Watch out for Dragons

Mondays are a rest day at the moment as I am trying to get my long runs back up there again and as I do speedwork on Tuesday it does seem sensible does it not.

I had to call in sick today, I have only had 4 sick days this year, I suppose that isn’t such a bad track record. Nothing serious, just that time of the month and feeling much crappier with it than I normally do. A good dose of Nurofen Plus, a hot water bottle and bed was the prescription and I am feeling much better now. I was able to take a walk up to the shops this afternoon and then managed to come home without the specific item I went to the shops for, my brain is a bit addled

As I expected after yesterday’s long session my quads are a little tender, after running down a few hills and along trails I expected it and it feels kind of good to have DOMS after a long run again. Another side affect from yesterday is that I have been extremely hungry today, I didn’t eat much after the run/walk yesterday and have been playing catch up today, all healthy of course.

I was able to speak to my brother this afternoon and while he isn’t better he seems to be through the worst of it, thank goodness. He told me about his hallucinations, apparently a Dragon was trying to steal the pain killers the doctor had given him, but the Smurfs had hidden it under his pillow to keep it safe. Later when he was trying to find the pack he looked everywhere then eventually found it under his pillow, where the “smurfs” had left it for him

Hmmm, hungry again, think I might make an early dinner and crash early, hopefully to be fresh and ready for tomorrow. I have been working hard since last week to turn around my negative mindset about how difficult speedwork is for me at the moment. I am looking forward to stepping on the track tomorrow with a plan and not dropping my head when it gets hard, because it will, because it is supposed to.

Jells Park to Lysterfield Lake

Running, walking and bloody flies

3 Trailwalker girls Em, Michelle and Jay met at Jells Park today to walk the first 2 legs of the Trailwalker route today. Owing to a vandalised sign we did take a slight detour and probably covered about 23Km. We ran and walked the whole way and covered about 16Km running at an average of close to 6 minutes per KM, it was easy, low heart rate running for me, I averaged about 71%.

It was a perfect day, not too warm and the sun stayed behind the clouds instead of beating down on us. With 3 chicks there was plenty of chat and the time passed pretty quickly. The company was wonderful and it is during times like this that you learn so much about people. I am lucky to be on a team with such strong and brave women and I have every faith on our ability to get through the highs and lows of 100Km on the trails.

Bloody hell though, how bad is the fly plague at the moment? I swear if we stood still for too long they were going to carry us off.

Here we are setting off, all eager anticipation
I bought those Skins shorts months ago but this was the first time I have worn them, although they are grossly unflattering they would have to be the most comfortable shorts I have ever run in. I was also surprised that once we got going I didn’t even notice the Camelback (actually not strictly true, mine is a Black Wolf) it was extremely comfortable.

The trail today was mostly pretty flat, though there was one rather charming little speed hump of about 600 metres long and folks, this photo does not really do it justice because we had already walked around the corner.

This is the view looking back to Melbourne after we reached the top of the hill

This week I ran just over 45kms, my longest since returning from injury, today was also my longest run, however it was broken up with walk breaks as we covered the 23Km.

I have done over 40Km a week for the last 3 weeks and plan to hit around 45Kms for the next two before moving up to 50Km weeks.

Not just running
You all did a pretty good job of guessing my alliances, I suppose it wasn’t that difficult, though the number 1 did not go in the ALP box. I was surprised at the election result I expected it to be much closer and I owe the Australian voting public by in large a big apology.

Something, someone it is a bit of both really

I just spoke to my Mum, my poor younger brother is having a bit of a battle with the Mumps, his fever hasn’t broken and he is now starting have hallucinations. I have had fever hallucinations myself a couple of times and as amusing as it sounds it is actually quite frightening at the time. It sounds to me like he is in need of some time in hospital on a IV to get his fluids back as he has been throwing up for days as well. Speaking to my sister in law she said the Doctor that came to their house did not think it was necessary. I hate to be alarmist but personally I’d be rocking up to emergency, hallucinations signal a very bad fever and this is not normal, he is also in quite a bit of pain with the swollen glands as well.

Poor little munchkin, he may be almost 31 but he is still my little baby brother in my eyes

Property Madness

A house in the same street as mine was auctioned for an insane price this afternoon, over 40% more than what I paid for my house 4 years ago. Granted it is brick and mine is weatherboard and the land is a bit bigger, on the other hand the house it self is smaller than mine and in “original” condition inside. It also comes with a couple of obnoxious white yappy dogs however I suspect they were not counted in the chattels.

So all things considered I was pretty staggered to see a fairly basic property in my neighborhood go for such a frighteningly exaggerated price. People say, “oh you should be happy the prices are so strong in your suburb”, really! I should? So where does that leave me me if I sell up? It leaves me having to pay an equally insane price to purchase a new property that’s where it leaves me.

People deserve a roof over their heads and they deserve to pay a reasonable price for it, $500K for a crappy 3 bedroom BV in the ‘burbs is far from what I consider reasonable. I just thank my lucky stars that my mother sat me down and forced me to get my act together and buy a house when I did, otherwise I’d be stuffed. I don’t believe in making my money from property, certainly not residential property anyway, property investors have made it terribly difficult for people to get their own little piece of the world the live on. I ended up paying $30K extra for my house because an investor drove up the bidding , it still makes me angry, I had “going once, going twice” against me then an Audi driving tool in a suit decided to drive up the price for me before walking away, thanks mate! Lucky it fell just short of my budget and that I had my mother with a very cool head bidding for me because I was standing behind a tree having a heart attack.

Our bloody state government needs to reduce stamp duty as well, my brother and sister paid about 75% less stamp duty in Queensland than I did in Victoria, my stamp duty ran to 5 figures, I may as well have just flushed that money down the loo for all the good it did

Hmmm, little property tanty from Em today.

Running
Just an easy 6Km at 6 minutes pace this morning around Jells Park as run leader. The numbers were low today and there were 2 run leaders and 2 runners in my group this morning, very personal attention.

Perfect morning for a run and I quite enjoyed it today, my runner loved a chat and she was really pleased with her effort, especially when she reckoned she would have to walk one of the hills and ended up running the whole thing with some encouragement.

Looking forward to my Trailwalker training tomorrow morning.

Election ‘07

Oh yeah, a federal election today, I have done my duty as a citizen and now it is just wait and see, early reports are pointing to a change in government for the first time in 11 years, but it is early days.

As usual I had to walk the gauntlet of party minions shoving how to vote cards at me, until you reach that blessed line that they are not allowed to cross. Of course one cheeky bugger did cross the line and stuck a pamphlet in my face muttering “vote [indecipherable] for lower taxes”, by that stage I was near the ubiquitous sausage sizzle and told him that I would vote for whoever agreed to ban sausage sizzles at polling booths so I don’t have to be assaulted by smell burning pig fat every time I went to vote, he was uncommitted on the subject.

Did anyone notice the What Women Want party on the Senate Ballot? Never heard of them but what a crack up, I am assuming they are standing on a platform of free chocolate on prescription for PMT, a removal of GST on champagne, wine and tampons and state sponsored house keeping services.

I haven’t stated my allegiance however I would be curious to know which way my readers think I swing (politically that is, minds out the gutter please)

Totally random comment

Don’t you hate it when something gets under your skin and no matter how hard you try you can’t shake it? And no, I don’t have a tick. It amuses me to be deliberately obtuse

New Clothes

As you will see I made a change, I just couldn’t stray away from the green theme, it is my favourite colour and it makes me happy. It was also a theme without serif fonts, don’t ask my why but I just can’t stand looking at them, I never claimed to be a rational person.

Gahhhh, what a day, I had every intention of running this morning but then I had one of those just can’t wake up days, I stumbled around the house bumping into things and generally felt totally unco. Then I thought I would do an easy 8Km at lunch time but forgot I had a meeting that went from 11am to 2pm

So after work it was, but only when I got home because I forgot to pack my crop top, you can tell it is getting to that time of the month, I have totally lost my mind (I had it hear a moment ago but can’t seem to remember where I put it).

I eventually opted for an easy 6km because I have run leading tomorrow and a 21Km Trailwalker training jaunt on Sunday which should involve a decent amount of running as well as riding to Jells where I am meeting the girls.

Keeping it brief now, spent too much time choosing my new theme

Tonight’s run
Distance – 6.2Km
Time – 33:31
Avg Pace – 5:25
Avg HR – 80%
Avg Cadence – 178

Time for a change?

Yeah, like I said yesterday, rest today, just got back from my fortnightly massage, a good pummeling and everything is in order and ready for another fortnight on the roads.

I love my blog template, however I am getting restless and am thinking about a change. My conundrum is that they have discontinued my current template so I can’t switch back if I don’t like the new one.

Decision, decisions, decisions.

Hoping to be able to drag myself out of bed early enough for a pre work 10Km. I have run leading on Saturday morning so really need to run tomorrow morning to ensure adequate recovery.

Wish I could lose this last 2Kgs, why why why why does food have to taste so good???? WHY!!!!???? And why can’t I run 90Km a week like I want to? why why why??? Feel like a Dugong, can you tell it is PMT time again

My poor brother has the Mumps, he is 30, we never had it as children. By all description it sounds like a pretty hideous experience getting it as a grown man and he was in hospital last night. I can’t give him a hug so I just have to keep bugging him on the phone until he gets better.

One more thing – there are heaps of adds around the city at the moment for the new Lindt Dark Chili Chocolate, the copy is something like “The only way to satisfy your curiosity is to try it” or some such. Any hoo, I have tried it and it is FABULOUS, you have to like dark chocolate but you don’t have to be a mad chili fan, it is more of a gentle heat than blow the top off your head. Even better is chocolate chili ice-cream, but I haven’t been able to get my hands on it for ages.

Perfect one day

Pissing down raining the next, of course, it could only be Spring in Melbourne.

37 degrees and not a cloud in the sky yesterday, 12 degrees and pouring rain today. Such is the state of our dams that it is politically incorrect to complain about rain in Melbourne these days, it has been raining pretty steadily since late last night, I just hope this is falling in the catchments where it is really needed.

I had 2 runs today, one on my own then about 45 minutes later another as a run leader.

Run 1
Distance – 6.05 Km
Time – 30:16
Avg Pace – 5:00
Avg HR – 81%
Avg Cadence – 178
Rain – plentiful

Pre injury I always used to do a run before run leading on a Wednesday so it was high time I got back into it. This was a run just for me, no real plan just to feel comfortable and enjoy it. Of course I picked the perfect day to start being that it was chucking it down when I started

I don’t mind the rain too much, though it is always harder to get going when it is already raining quite heavily before you even start. I stood under cover for about 10 seconds, let out a little yelp and got stuck in, once I got going it wasn’t a problem and after feeling so bad last night it really cleared out some cobwebs. The rain helped wash the bad vibes away.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see the pace at the end, I was just cruising and it felt slower, I have my 4th gear back, now I just need to work on the 5th.

Run 2
Distance – 5.88 Km
Time – 30:39
Avg Pace – 5:13
Avg HR – 78%
Avg Cadence – 178
Rain – Not so bad

A decent turn out for the training group tonight, in spite of the weather. The group also kept reasonably close together as well, I always run back after I deliver the lead group and tonight I only turned back for about 200 metres before I caught up with the rest of the group. The lead group is not getting any faster so this means the back group is improving. Carol and I were really pleased with them, there was great camaraderie tonight in spite of the weather and we made sure we let every one know how well we thought they ran tonight. I reckon the cooler weather probably helped them maintain a more challenging pace today. We had a new runner today from the Netherlands who was particularly anxious about hills, poor thing nearly died when she saw Anderson St, she did well though, didn’t stop to walk and finished strongly.

I set them all a challenge this week. During the stretches I told them about the importance of core strength, I demonstrated the plank and asked them all to try it a few times between tonight and next week. I set them the task of 3 30 second planks with 30 second recoveries. I would do it all as a group after the run but there is no soft surface where we finish which would make it hard on the elbows.

Thanks for the kind words yesterday, and for putting things in perspective for me. Sometimes I think I should gloss over the bad days, however the point here is to document the highs, lows and in-betweens of my running adventure, so the odd hissy fit slips in from time to time. I wasn’t too well last night, after dinner I felt really sick and ended up going to bed with the bucket in close reach, luckily dinner didn’t make an encore appearance. Then during the night I had the most awful nightmares, the kind that had me waking up in panic with my heart racing. I can’t even remember what about now, some vague reference to nuclear holocaust, needless to say I could really benefit from just putting a bad session behind me and not getting so worked up

I have my fortnightly massage tomorrow so it will be a rest day.