Street-O @ Ruffey Creek

Swapped tomorrow's speed session with a Street-O tonight. Fair swap, I thought, and in hindsight it worked well, because I had new shoes to try, and I've booked a massage for tomorrow morning with Courtlylove's myotherapist.

Not a very good test for the shoes though, because half the terrain was in the parkland, across grass, hills, and the odd pine tree. Slow run, average pace 7:02, and not really one of my better efforts. Still enjoyable though, and a lovely area to run in.

Beat Ian :-). But still nowhere near to beating a powerwalker-turned-runner who's only been running a few months. Not fair! But her fitness level is amazing, so I can't complain too much.

5.3 kms

New Shoes

Following on from a CR post about Walking vs Running shoes, I took feet, orthotics and membership card down to Active Feet with the plan to buy some Fitness Walking shoes. The podiatrist checked my biomechanics for both running and walking and said that I might as well downgrade my current runners to walk in, and buy a new pair of runners.

So, I got a new pair of the Asics Nimbus. The 2006 model, which is a yummy royal blue and silver. (I would have argued against the 2005 model which was a horrible shiny pale blue.)

Will wear them tonight if I get time to re-thread the laces.

Street-O @ Kew East

Not so hot tonight. Started off slow, and didn't ever speed up much, but actually, I enjoyed it! Nice quick leg turnover, maintained my pace on the hills, and had minimal walking breaks.

Was talking to Ian afterwards (he beat me home tonight - slightly better route choice, I think) and thinking that my 2-month enforced break has renewed my enthusiasm for running. I had a pretty crap, blah sort of winter; this major (for me) injury; and now I feel like I'm coming back stronger and ready for more. Bring it on!

6.8 kms. Average pace 6:42, average heartrate 159 bpm.

In cycling news, I bought some street tyres for my MTB, so I can cycle to work once a week. Got back to work to an email from Deb about a club cycle on the trails on Australia Day. And the MTB-O season kicks off in a few weeks too (will need to put the knoblies back on). Hopefully, 2006 will be a cycling year, as well as a running year.

Street-O @ Wattle View

Hot and sweaty. Had a stomach cramp most of the way around, which the "experts" decided might have been caused by holding my abs tight as I ran the first hill. I'm sure dehydration added to the mix as well - I had several meetings today which meant I didn't drink as much as usual.

Absolutely dripping. I walked a bit more than I would have liked - partly due to the heat, and partly because of this cramp. Overall though, a good smooth run. Beat Ian (again); first woman home for C (again). *happy*

6.1 kms. Average pace 6:36.

Sunday Stats

Was considering a trail run today, but by the time I woke up and projected forward three hours, it was too hot. So I had a "do nothing" day.

Weight	74.1 kgs ▲
Walking	14.4 kms
Running	23.6 kms

Portsea Twilight

6.75 kms, 42 minutes.

Ran with Courtlylove for most of the way, although she would surge ahead passing people, and I would get stuck behind some slower object. I would catch her on hills and on the sand, she would race away on the downhills and during our final sprint (ha ha) to the finish. Nice to actually run *with* someone, as I normally run alone, even within a big group.



Happy with the way I ran. Only a couple of very short walking breaks, and I did the hills and sand easily. High tide was at 17:30, so by 19:00 we were still on soft sand, although 1000 pairs of feet before me had packed it down nicely at the water's edge.

However, I think there's room for a PB next year. I alternated between feeling held-back and oh-god-I-want-to-stop, and would have liked to crack 40 minutes. Still plenty of gas in the legs - when I put the foot down to pass people, I could surge easily (except for that final mad sprint!); and I was breathing easily the whole way. Average pace 6:19.

Lots of Cool Runners at the run; and Chilliman, the Lost Boys, and I had drinks and fish'n'chips in Sorrento afterwards. Got kicked out of the pub(!)... because Little Lostboy was under-age, NOT because we were misbehaving. Home by the stroke of midnight.

Elevation

Total elevation change: +256m. Interesting to see that we actually went below sea level at one stage. No wonder some runners got wet feet. :-)

Some interesting stats from MB:

	Total	Ascent	Descent	Flat
Distance	6.75	2.81	2.57	1.36
Time	42:40	18:48	15:48	8:13
Pace	6:19	6:41	6:05	6:02

Reps #4

After Wombat's comment last Friday (before Xmas) about going out fast, I decided to add a bit more structure into my only structured run for the week. Ventured into the Training Center Workouts menu and dialed up a workout that sees me do three laps at 5:30, 4:30 and 5:00 pace. Headed off on the first one, and after the Gizmatic kept bleeping at me to speed up and slow down over the first 100m, I relied on the sound of the bleep to stay at the right speed. Didn't work... at one point I looked down and was doing 4:15! Although I don't think it's particularly accurate over such short distances.

lap	distance (m)	time (min)	pace (/km)
1: "medium"	511	2:22	4:39
2: "fast"	306	*BOMBED OUT*	4:28
3: "medium fast"	500	2:16	4:32

Bonked on the second lap - just couldn't hold it. Obviously need to work on my pacing...

4.0 km total

Morning walkies...

MON: nah. Enjoyed my sleep in.

TUE: 4.3 kms. Got up within a few minutes of the alarm, but seriously considered not doing so. Did a regular route with the plan to extend it to make up the hour, but my feet were on autopilot and led me home early. Passed under a tree making funny crunching sounds, and saw a small flock of Gang-gang Cockatoos, which I haven't seen in the town before. Completely unfazed by me coming within a few metres of them.

WED: 5.1 kms. Took the camera in the hope of seeing the Gang-gangs again. I did, but also in another smaller tree where they were much more easily photographed:



Seville has a lot of plum trees on the road nature strips. I don't know what variety they are, but they're small and fairly tasteless. The birds love them, and some creative person has decorated a barbed wire fence with them:



THU: 5.0 kms. More Gang-gangs on the other side of town. It must be the same flock because they weren't on their original tree when I went past.

female

Street-O @ Lillydale Lake

Cool evening. Had a good run - but oh, it takes so long for me to warm up. The engine was finally ticking over nicely after about 20 minutes. Gave it a good workout tonight - with my average heartrate at 166 bpm, max 182. Average pace 6:38 (slowly coming down!), although whenever I checked it while I was running, it was always in the 5:15-5:40 range, which is good. The slow spots would have been THREE creek crossings, across wet, slippery rocks (and wet feet), and a nasty overgrown hill toward the end.

Ended up running with Ian all the way around. I'm faster than him, but he's more consistent. When he "disappeared" near that nasty hill, I assumed he was doing Course B and off to get 3 more controls. But apparently he got disoriented and ran up the hill in the wrong direction. So I beat him in. :-)

6.4 kms.

Great to see Tiger Boy and Eat'Em turn up, plus the whole Eat'Em clan - who had obviously been bribed with McDonalds for tea. I hope they all enjoyed themselves.

Street-O @ Upwey

Hot and hilly, but strangely enough not as hot nor as hilly as Jindabyne. Also my first run since Christmas, and it was nice to get the legs turning over again.

Tonight's course was a Score event - 45 minute time limit for C Course. Foolishly went for #9 down a back road that looped behind the main road. By the time I'd got back to the main road, I knew I was going to be late back. The nature of the map meant there were no short-cuts back to the finish, so I stuck to my plan to loop around the top of the map and come back down a dotted line (gravel track) picking up a couple of controls on the way through. Well... my gravel track turned into a narrow trail which lead across the creek and back to #2, which I'd already done. Somehow I'd got myself onto an unmarked track and travelled through an out-of-bounds area. At least I recognised the bush near #2, so I knew where I'd come out - it could have been very messy if I didn't know where I was. Ran back to the finish, past #15 and #3 which I'd also already got, was 4 minutes late and missing the controls which I'd planned to get. Urgh. We'll see how near to last I get when the scores are tallied up.

Felt like I was running nicely though. Good turnover, and pulling myself up the hills quite nicely. Heartrate was up - average 167, max 181 - and a few walking breaks to recover. 6.5 kms.