Updated run spreadsheet and a blister on my right foot.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
The miseducation of Dr Phil
Well. Big week for me.
Tuesday run was good. We moved the departure time ahead 15 minutes, which meant on that overcast morning it remained dark well into Sun Valley. The lack of light meant we chose to run straight up the concrete hill, rather than risk an ankle injury going up the side, much to the delight of scam. Managed to roll my ankle anyway down in the valley, and when asked what grade the injury was I replied: I suppose its about a 7 - 7.5. Now, this number was largely arbitrary as I had no idea what a 10 would be, nor what a 1 would be. Time informed me that a 7 usually involves a chopper air lifting me out of the valley. Needless to say, the injury was downgraded once we knew the reference points. In typical (mild) ankle injury style, the pain eases after a short time of running on it anyway, which is why most ankle injuries blow up after the game/run.
Wednesday was a swim at glenbrook. Again, the dedication and discipline of the femme squad put the blokes to shame, as less than 50% of the guys could drag themselves out of bed. My sister turned up to start her career as a triathlete. Having a similar background to myself in swimming and riding, all she has to do is get her running sorted, improve her fitness in the other disciplines and she will be up to speed in no time.
Thursday am saw a different run. Enjoyed this one. Some nasty hills, and a little further than the usual. Sleep declared decisively at the top of old bathurst: "this is my favourite thursday morning run".
Friday was going to be a swim at springwood. Arranged to meet train and my sister early. Thankfully, all 3 of us slept in. I rationalised this as I had to rest for the triathlon on saturday down at Huskisson. Was only entered in the sprint distance, as the long course was completely booked when I went to register. Mixed emotions over this. Part of me wanted to test myself over the longer distance, while most of me was thankful it was only going to be short. No exercise on friday, as I had a narrow timeframe to get a lot of things done, before heading down to Huskisson.
Saturday. Was unsure how I would be in the swim and ride today. I had been concentrating on my running for the last month, so hadn't done many Kms on the bike.
I was grateful the swim was wetsuit-optional. As I hadn't had much opportunity to use my wetsuit since getting it just before Nepean Tri. The bloke next to me at the deep water start made the comment just before we got started that he is likely to get a kick in the guts, being relegated to the second line by all those super competitive guys who feel being in the first line is going to improve their times considerably. Alas, I received a kick to the side of the face which dislodged my right-side goggle enough to fill up with water. Great! Just what I needed. I was in a bit of a situation now: do I stop and fix my goggle and get swam right over the top of, or do I swim one-eyed for the first 150 m until an opportunity presents itself to stop briefly and empty the water out. I chose the latter. I would like to mention, if you are going to put yourself at the front of the wave for the swim, you need to be able to swim fast. The owner of the foot that collected my head (and his mates either side for that matter) was as slow as a wet week, which meant I had to navigate past them using only one eye. Got out of the water in just under 12 minutes. Which is slightly better than what I swam in the pool the previous week. Not bad considering some people found the surf pretty choppy.
A short run into T1 and a quick transition onto the bike. Wasn't expecting great things on the bike but made up a few places, and felt pretty strong the whole time. Averaged just under 40km/h on a relatively flat ride (slight incline on the ride out, with fast descent on the way back).
Into the run, had big expectations. Headed out of T2 in the wrong direction, then hit the pavement on a down hill section running past the caravan park. Just what I needed. Left shin muscle was burning the whole time. Was hoping it would go away, but everytime I stretched out it felt like I was going to have to stop. Dropped the pace off the whole way, as countless people went past me. With all this time, I got to wondering how do people keep bouncing back from poor performances. I concluded that it must have something to do with our memory. Our minds are probably programmed to shut out negative experiences. I mean in general, not traumatic experiences of abuse or torture. But in the everyday memories, what is it that makes people reflect on the past with such a different perspective than what was probably felt at the time. At the time I was thinking, why the hell do I do this. Spend all this money and time on training and getting to these events, only to run like crap. I was reasonably disappointed in myself. But as I finished and the pain went away, I started to see things differently. I didn't actually run that slow, is it that my expectations are greater now? Isn't that how we improve? By constantly setting the bar higher. If that is how progress is made, then surely the pain and dissapointment is part and parcel with having the greater expectations. You cant separate the positive from the negative aspects. It is this cycle of dissapointment and improvement that we call progress.
Ended up coming 11th in the male 25-29 category, which I was pleased with given the horrible run.
Sent out a request to join Sleep for the start of his long run he does on Sunday. Joined him for the second leg of his mammoth 50km run. My usual runners had to be adjusted as they had caused some rubbing during the 5km run the day before. Lack of preparedness meant I grabbed my new race flats I had picked up down at Huskisson. Thought process went something like this: I need to wear my new shoes in, I don't have time to change the laces on my asics, its going to be wet so I don't want to wear socks, why not. Well....turns out that thought process was erroneous. 30 mins into a 2 hour run and some impressive blisters were developing on the arches of both feet. I'm always amused at how blisters feel much bigger than they really are. Sleep, if the zulu warriors wore innapropriate footwear they would complain about blisters too!! As for the Spartans...well there is bravery and then there is stupidity.
Now we come to the theme of this entry in my training blog: education.
Lessons learnt on run with Sleep:
1. wear appropriate footwear!
2. expect the worst when you don't know what to expect! Bees Nest is a killer, so I am going to rename it Killer-Bees Nest! Get it?
3. Don't compare yourself to Sleep Train - nothing good comes of this!
4. "Runners just keep running"! Despite heading in the opposite direction to where they should be.
5. Pain can be ignored - up to a point.
6. No matter how sore you feel, running bare foot will not ease the pain from your blisters.
7. When Sleep eases the pace it means he knows what is up ahead, you would do best to follow his lead.
Thoroughly enjoyed myself on this run. Some personal bars were raised.
Total run time just over 2.5 hours. About 28 km. About 30 mins off the pace...oh well.
Tuesday run was good. We moved the departure time ahead 15 minutes, which meant on that overcast morning it remained dark well into Sun Valley. The lack of light meant we chose to run straight up the concrete hill, rather than risk an ankle injury going up the side, much to the delight of scam. Managed to roll my ankle anyway down in the valley, and when asked what grade the injury was I replied: I suppose its about a 7 - 7.5. Now, this number was largely arbitrary as I had no idea what a 10 would be, nor what a 1 would be. Time informed me that a 7 usually involves a chopper air lifting me out of the valley. Needless to say, the injury was downgraded once we knew the reference points. In typical (mild) ankle injury style, the pain eases after a short time of running on it anyway, which is why most ankle injuries blow up after the game/run.
Wednesday was a swim at glenbrook. Again, the dedication and discipline of the femme squad put the blokes to shame, as less than 50% of the guys could drag themselves out of bed. My sister turned up to start her career as a triathlete. Having a similar background to myself in swimming and riding, all she has to do is get her running sorted, improve her fitness in the other disciplines and she will be up to speed in no time.
Thursday am saw a different run. Enjoyed this one. Some nasty hills, and a little further than the usual. Sleep declared decisively at the top of old bathurst: "this is my favourite thursday morning run".
Friday was going to be a swim at springwood. Arranged to meet train and my sister early. Thankfully, all 3 of us slept in. I rationalised this as I had to rest for the triathlon on saturday down at Huskisson. Was only entered in the sprint distance, as the long course was completely booked when I went to register. Mixed emotions over this. Part of me wanted to test myself over the longer distance, while most of me was thankful it was only going to be short. No exercise on friday, as I had a narrow timeframe to get a lot of things done, before heading down to Huskisson.
Saturday. Was unsure how I would be in the swim and ride today. I had been concentrating on my running for the last month, so hadn't done many Kms on the bike.
I was grateful the swim was wetsuit-optional. As I hadn't had much opportunity to use my wetsuit since getting it just before Nepean Tri. The bloke next to me at the deep water start made the comment just before we got started that he is likely to get a kick in the guts, being relegated to the second line by all those super competitive guys who feel being in the first line is going to improve their times considerably. Alas, I received a kick to the side of the face which dislodged my right-side goggle enough to fill up with water. Great! Just what I needed. I was in a bit of a situation now: do I stop and fix my goggle and get swam right over the top of, or do I swim one-eyed for the first 150 m until an opportunity presents itself to stop briefly and empty the water out. I chose the latter. I would like to mention, if you are going to put yourself at the front of the wave for the swim, you need to be able to swim fast. The owner of the foot that collected my head (and his mates either side for that matter) was as slow as a wet week, which meant I had to navigate past them using only one eye. Got out of the water in just under 12 minutes. Which is slightly better than what I swam in the pool the previous week. Not bad considering some people found the surf pretty choppy.
A short run into T1 and a quick transition onto the bike. Wasn't expecting great things on the bike but made up a few places, and felt pretty strong the whole time. Averaged just under 40km/h on a relatively flat ride (slight incline on the ride out, with fast descent on the way back).
Into the run, had big expectations. Headed out of T2 in the wrong direction, then hit the pavement on a down hill section running past the caravan park. Just what I needed. Left shin muscle was burning the whole time. Was hoping it would go away, but everytime I stretched out it felt like I was going to have to stop. Dropped the pace off the whole way, as countless people went past me. With all this time, I got to wondering how do people keep bouncing back from poor performances. I concluded that it must have something to do with our memory. Our minds are probably programmed to shut out negative experiences. I mean in general, not traumatic experiences of abuse or torture. But in the everyday memories, what is it that makes people reflect on the past with such a different perspective than what was probably felt at the time. At the time I was thinking, why the hell do I do this. Spend all this money and time on training and getting to these events, only to run like crap. I was reasonably disappointed in myself. But as I finished and the pain went away, I started to see things differently. I didn't actually run that slow, is it that my expectations are greater now? Isn't that how we improve? By constantly setting the bar higher. If that is how progress is made, then surely the pain and dissapointment is part and parcel with having the greater expectations. You cant separate the positive from the negative aspects. It is this cycle of dissapointment and improvement that we call progress.
Ended up coming 11th in the male 25-29 category, which I was pleased with given the horrible run.
Sent out a request to join Sleep for the start of his long run he does on Sunday. Joined him for the second leg of his mammoth 50km run. My usual runners had to be adjusted as they had caused some rubbing during the 5km run the day before. Lack of preparedness meant I grabbed my new race flats I had picked up down at Huskisson. Thought process went something like this: I need to wear my new shoes in, I don't have time to change the laces on my asics, its going to be wet so I don't want to wear socks, why not. Well....turns out that thought process was erroneous. 30 mins into a 2 hour run and some impressive blisters were developing on the arches of both feet. I'm always amused at how blisters feel much bigger than they really are. Sleep, if the zulu warriors wore innapropriate footwear they would complain about blisters too!! As for the Spartans...well there is bravery and then there is stupidity.
Now we come to the theme of this entry in my training blog: education.
Lessons learnt on run with Sleep:
1. wear appropriate footwear!
2. expect the worst when you don't know what to expect! Bees Nest is a killer, so I am going to rename it Killer-Bees Nest! Get it?
3. Don't compare yourself to Sleep Train - nothing good comes of this!
4. "Runners just keep running"! Despite heading in the opposite direction to where they should be.
5. Pain can be ignored - up to a point.
6. No matter how sore you feel, running bare foot will not ease the pain from your blisters.
7. When Sleep eases the pace it means he knows what is up ahead, you would do best to follow his lead.
Thoroughly enjoyed myself on this run. Some personal bars were raised.
Total run time just over 2.5 hours. About 28 km. About 30 mins off the pace...oh well.
Monday, February 16, 2009
One more week down.
Tuesday the 10th Feb - morning run with MMC. See table below for splits. Sleep and Time (Dwards) were there. Had fun pushing it hard up to Rickard. I was introduced to the childhood memories of Sleep and Time, reminiscing of the fantasies they used to live out as they would race to the finish, pretending to be some well known runner I had never heard of. I would be introduced to some more memories for these two on Thursday mornings run.
Wednesday night was a hit out in the pool at Springwood. Did 3km straight up in just under 50 mins. With 1km splits of 16:05, 16:49 and 16:52. These are out a little which suggests I either dropped 50m on the first km or picked up 50m on the last 2km (I'm going to assume it was the latter). This isn't particularly quick unfortunately.
Thursday am was the ususal MMC. I was impressed this morning as I managed to cut 13 seconds off the sun valley hill. I had been tormented by the 5 min mark ever since starting this run, and this morning with the help of Time breathing heavily at my shoulder, managed to do it in 4:50. Sleep was making sure we weren't being followed, like a protective father letting the children play around up ahead (maybe he was resting his hamstring for the evening intervals in the NP).
Friday (no work today), had intended to get in a long ride and a swim. Instead I went shopping and bought some rhino roof racks and bike rack for the new car. Now all I need is the new car! Turned out I did nothing all day.
Saturday morning, which has become the usual long run of late, was back in Glenbrook National Park for a run out along The Oaks FT with Sleep for approx 43 minutes. Not sure how far it was out, there is a little hut with picnic benches there, just before the gate? Met up with Zac who is also a fellow Panther's Tri Guy, training up for Port Macquarie in 8 weeks. Like Sleep said, we crept up on him in the dark and rain with his pants down. He was good company for the second half of the run out. I turned back, as I had to get to work by 8:30. Made good time, getting back to the gates in 36 minutes. The gentle descent down the Oaks was welcomed. I did learn a valuable rookie lesson today though: don't wear cotton if its raining. The satisfaction of finishing a long(ish) run (about 17km) before work on a wet morning is fantastic. After umm'ing and ahh'ing at 5:30am over hitting the snooze or the off button on my mobile phone, I was glad I chose to harden up and get out of bed. This is a prime example of how guilt and accountability to training groupies is THE BEST motivator.
Sunday was a rest day. Work was crazy, we were short staffed and fairly busy. Plenty of work to do besides.
Monday the 16th was a swim at Springwood. 1km warm up in 15min, 500 flipper kick and 500 paddle/pool buoy swim, followed by a 750m hard sprint. I wanted to get an idea of my pace over 750m as this is the sprint tri distance, and I've never compared my open water times. Did it in 12mins. Room for some improvement, as most people are swimming 1km in this time. Kicking is the weakest aspect of my swimming. Hard to maintain a steady effective kick. Followed this up with a 100m warm down before the pool closed.
Huskisson is this weekend. Planning on heading down for the sprint distance on Saturday. Was hoping to do the long course on the sunday but, entries had closed by the cut-off date, and I was holding off making my mind up. Don't thing this short "mini-tri", to borrow Sleep's description, warrants a taper in training. An easy Friday should be fine and some carbs the night before. Will see how things go, looks like it will be wet.
Tuesday the 10th Feb - morning run with MMC. See table below for splits. Sleep and Time (Dwards) were there. Had fun pushing it hard up to Rickard. I was introduced to the childhood memories of Sleep and Time, reminiscing of the fantasies they used to live out as they would race to the finish, pretending to be some well known runner I had never heard of. I would be introduced to some more memories for these two on Thursday mornings run.
Wednesday night was a hit out in the pool at Springwood. Did 3km straight up in just under 50 mins. With 1km splits of 16:05, 16:49 and 16:52. These are out a little which suggests I either dropped 50m on the first km or picked up 50m on the last 2km (I'm going to assume it was the latter). This isn't particularly quick unfortunately.
Thursday am was the ususal MMC. I was impressed this morning as I managed to cut 13 seconds off the sun valley hill. I had been tormented by the 5 min mark ever since starting this run, and this morning with the help of Time breathing heavily at my shoulder, managed to do it in 4:50. Sleep was making sure we weren't being followed, like a protective father letting the children play around up ahead (maybe he was resting his hamstring for the evening intervals in the NP).
Friday (no work today), had intended to get in a long ride and a swim. Instead I went shopping and bought some rhino roof racks and bike rack for the new car. Now all I need is the new car! Turned out I did nothing all day.
Saturday morning, which has become the usual long run of late, was back in Glenbrook National Park for a run out along The Oaks FT with Sleep for approx 43 minutes. Not sure how far it was out, there is a little hut with picnic benches there, just before the gate? Met up with Zac who is also a fellow Panther's Tri Guy, training up for Port Macquarie in 8 weeks. Like Sleep said, we crept up on him in the dark and rain with his pants down. He was good company for the second half of the run out. I turned back, as I had to get to work by 8:30. Made good time, getting back to the gates in 36 minutes. The gentle descent down the Oaks was welcomed. I did learn a valuable rookie lesson today though: don't wear cotton if its raining. The satisfaction of finishing a long(ish) run (about 17km) before work on a wet morning is fantastic. After umm'ing and ahh'ing at 5:30am over hitting the snooze or the off button on my mobile phone, I was glad I chose to harden up and get out of bed. This is a prime example of how guilt and accountability to training groupies is THE BEST motivator.
Sunday was a rest day. Work was crazy, we were short staffed and fairly busy. Plenty of work to do besides.
Monday the 16th was a swim at Springwood. 1km warm up in 15min, 500 flipper kick and 500 paddle/pool buoy swim, followed by a 750m hard sprint. I wanted to get an idea of my pace over 750m as this is the sprint tri distance, and I've never compared my open water times. Did it in 12mins. Room for some improvement, as most people are swimming 1km in this time. Kicking is the weakest aspect of my swimming. Hard to maintain a steady effective kick. Followed this up with a 100m warm down before the pool closed.
Huskisson is this weekend. Planning on heading down for the sprint distance on Saturday. Was hoping to do the long course on the sunday but, entries had closed by the cut-off date, and I was holding off making my mind up. Don't thing this short "mini-tri", to borrow Sleep's description, warrants a taper in training. An easy Friday should be fine and some carbs the night before. Will see how things go, looks like it will be wet.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
It begins...
Well, this is my first real attempt at a blog. I have been resisting the blogging movement for some time now. Preferring to spend my time on other things. But I have come to see the value in recording daily occurences, events, achievements, training runs, etc. There is something in the pretentiousness of thinking that someone else would like to read what you have been doing that I want to tap in to. Not being much of a "Dear Diary" kind of guy, to have the motivation to document my life may be a temporary state. But if I can be bothered to keep this updated, then maybe I will see some improvement.
This blog is primarily to record my exercises. I chose this medium as opposed to sites such as MapMyRun or Facebook simply because others are less likely to read what is written here. If you are reading this, I will apologise in advance for many things. I will most likely change tense a dozen times during any one post.
I am going to get straight ito it then. I wanted to record the last week's exercises here, as I am reasonably proud of myself for being able to increase my workload, intensity and even start to see some improvement in my times. Just tonight I did my local out and back time trial run from my house on Farm Rd Springwood to Martin's Lookout in a pretty quick time for me, 22.42. I will have to work out how far it is, I think its close to 6 km, and includes some very slight inclines and declines as well as fire trail and bitumen. It was getting quite dark as I left at 8pm and was only raining slightly. Sleep Train sent out his Blue Mountains Marathon Clinic reminder message before I left, encouraging all to come and join him for an "easy" 10km run before work. I have said this before, "easy" is relative and means absolutley nothing for me when it his coming from him.
Sunday was a light swim after work at Glenbrook, in the cloudy, luke warm water that wasn't particularly refreshing. I only clocked up 2 km as the pool was closing up, but I put in a hard 1km to start off, fininshing around 14.30. Not quick by the standards of many, but I felt good and was probably only at 80%. The day before had been a great adventure run with the father and son effort of Wayne and Mick Donges, accompanied by Scam Bullant and Sleep Train. Hereafter, I shall refer to these two as scam and sleep respectively. Their cute little nicknames are tedious to write all the time. Sorry guys. We started early, which allowed me to get back for work. As they have both mentioned in their blogs, we clocked up a nice run heading out from my place, down Martin's, up the other side, checked out Lost World, and then down to duckhole for a little history lesson and up into Glenbrook. Just over 2 hours in total, with about 15 minutes of stretches and rests and appreciating the amazing views all up. This was probably my longest run in terms of time, and I felt good for the most part. The steps were tiresome.
Friday was the Panther's Tri Club "mini tri". I dislike Sleep's description of the tri as mini. It was more of a training run, as the heat meant they couldn't have the race as they would normally. I lack the discipline to approach a training run at the same intensity as a race, which meant I didn't push it too hard and only ended up running about 1km after the ride. The heat played a big role in this also, the bike ride helped me decide that I would never race when the temp was above 40 degrees. Can I blame the poor performance on spending too much of the day looking at a new car with the wife? Probably not.
Thursday, I missed the Mountains Marathon Clinic (MMC) 10km "easy" run in the morning with Sleep and Scam and possibly Edwards. I had intented to run, yet snooze and OK on my phone were a blur at 5:30 am, hence I slept through. Admitedly, I didn't feel much remorse about this. The morning before was a swim with Sleep, Scam and what has been labelled as the femme squad: a few of the local lasses who are a pretty feisty bunch. Clocked up 3 km, with my usual routine of 1km free straight up, followed by 500m flipper kick, 500m with paddle and buoy, and then a 400m sprint. If I have the energy I will attempt 5 100m sprints and a 100m warm down, however this morning I could only get 2 100m sprints in, so I increased the warm down. The femme squad permitted me to jump on the end of their 100m sprints, I think that was my undoing.
Tuesday was a big day for me. After making it to the usual MMC run in the morning, I backed it up that evening with an approx. 12.5 km run up at Lawson with Mr and Mrs Michael Donges. This was a good run, with some fairly steep hills to finish the run. This was the first time I ran both in the morning and the evening, and they were each fairly big runs for me.
Monday might have been an evening ride, I cant remember. The rides have taken a back seat at the moment due to concentrating on my runs. Perhaps that was why I struggled on Friday at the tri, usually the rides allow me to make some time back on everybody else. I have also been neglecting the bike after the terrible accident on the Australia Day weekend on the M7 motorway, where some triathletes were taken out by a truck. I had ridden this road the morning before with a mate. It just brought the pretty big risks we take when we ride on the roads close to home and made me think about what I had to lose now with my family. I think I would like to stick to the quieter roads and the regatta centre now. Maybe the M7 cycleway, however that isn't terribly appealing. The usual morning ride I do with Mark Hadfield, down to the bottom of Lapstone hill and back, isn't too bad. There is plenty of corner and breakdown lane, and the traffic isn't too bad at that hour. I just need to get in some longer rides now in the lead up to Huskisson. I am probably a little late in my preparation for Husky, and still haven't made a decision. I know I am quite a way off the pace, I just want to get a larger triathlon under my belt as a reference for training and future races. We will see.
The Saturday before this week was the bigger run with Sleep and Scam through Glenbrook NP. Heading out at 5:30 was interesting. But I actually enjoyed the bigger run, and still managed to get back, have a shower and get to work to open at 8:30. Perhaps this will become a regular.
Until next time.
I will endeavour to get the splits up for the MMC 10km Sun Valley Run over the next few days. Sleep wants to see how slow we are running.
Oh..btw.. If anyone is interested I am not a Doctor. I dont have a PhD nor an MBBS. I dont prescribe, and I am not Oprah's little lap dog. I received this nickname from Sleep, and it has stuck. If anyone wants to make me an honorary doctor, I wouldn't say no. I just cant see myself working that hard to become a real one. Pharmacist Phil doesn't have the same ring to it anyway.
This blog is primarily to record my exercises. I chose this medium as opposed to sites such as MapMyRun or Facebook simply because others are less likely to read what is written here. If you are reading this, I will apologise in advance for many things. I will most likely change tense a dozen times during any one post.
I am going to get straight ito it then. I wanted to record the last week's exercises here, as I am reasonably proud of myself for being able to increase my workload, intensity and even start to see some improvement in my times. Just tonight I did my local out and back time trial run from my house on Farm Rd Springwood to Martin's Lookout in a pretty quick time for me, 22.42. I will have to work out how far it is, I think its close to 6 km, and includes some very slight inclines and declines as well as fire trail and bitumen. It was getting quite dark as I left at 8pm and was only raining slightly. Sleep Train sent out his Blue Mountains Marathon Clinic reminder message before I left, encouraging all to come and join him for an "easy" 10km run before work. I have said this before, "easy" is relative and means absolutley nothing for me when it his coming from him.
Sunday was a light swim after work at Glenbrook, in the cloudy, luke warm water that wasn't particularly refreshing. I only clocked up 2 km as the pool was closing up, but I put in a hard 1km to start off, fininshing around 14.30. Not quick by the standards of many, but I felt good and was probably only at 80%. The day before had been a great adventure run with the father and son effort of Wayne and Mick Donges, accompanied by Scam Bullant and Sleep Train. Hereafter, I shall refer to these two as scam and sleep respectively. Their cute little nicknames are tedious to write all the time. Sorry guys. We started early, which allowed me to get back for work. As they have both mentioned in their blogs, we clocked up a nice run heading out from my place, down Martin's, up the other side, checked out Lost World, and then down to duckhole for a little history lesson and up into Glenbrook. Just over 2 hours in total, with about 15 minutes of stretches and rests and appreciating the amazing views all up. This was probably my longest run in terms of time, and I felt good for the most part. The steps were tiresome.
Friday was the Panther's Tri Club "mini tri". I dislike Sleep's description of the tri as mini. It was more of a training run, as the heat meant they couldn't have the race as they would normally. I lack the discipline to approach a training run at the same intensity as a race, which meant I didn't push it too hard and only ended up running about 1km after the ride. The heat played a big role in this also, the bike ride helped me decide that I would never race when the temp was above 40 degrees. Can I blame the poor performance on spending too much of the day looking at a new car with the wife? Probably not.
Thursday, I missed the Mountains Marathon Clinic (MMC) 10km "easy" run in the morning with Sleep and Scam and possibly Edwards. I had intented to run, yet snooze and OK on my phone were a blur at 5:30 am, hence I slept through. Admitedly, I didn't feel much remorse about this. The morning before was a swim with Sleep, Scam and what has been labelled as the femme squad: a few of the local lasses who are a pretty feisty bunch. Clocked up 3 km, with my usual routine of 1km free straight up, followed by 500m flipper kick, 500m with paddle and buoy, and then a 400m sprint. If I have the energy I will attempt 5 100m sprints and a 100m warm down, however this morning I could only get 2 100m sprints in, so I increased the warm down. The femme squad permitted me to jump on the end of their 100m sprints, I think that was my undoing.
Tuesday was a big day for me. After making it to the usual MMC run in the morning, I backed it up that evening with an approx. 12.5 km run up at Lawson with Mr and Mrs Michael Donges. This was a good run, with some fairly steep hills to finish the run. This was the first time I ran both in the morning and the evening, and they were each fairly big runs for me.
Monday might have been an evening ride, I cant remember. The rides have taken a back seat at the moment due to concentrating on my runs. Perhaps that was why I struggled on Friday at the tri, usually the rides allow me to make some time back on everybody else. I have also been neglecting the bike after the terrible accident on the Australia Day weekend on the M7 motorway, where some triathletes were taken out by a truck. I had ridden this road the morning before with a mate. It just brought the pretty big risks we take when we ride on the roads close to home and made me think about what I had to lose now with my family. I think I would like to stick to the quieter roads and the regatta centre now. Maybe the M7 cycleway, however that isn't terribly appealing. The usual morning ride I do with Mark Hadfield, down to the bottom of Lapstone hill and back, isn't too bad. There is plenty of corner and breakdown lane, and the traffic isn't too bad at that hour. I just need to get in some longer rides now in the lead up to Huskisson. I am probably a little late in my preparation for Husky, and still haven't made a decision. I know I am quite a way off the pace, I just want to get a larger triathlon under my belt as a reference for training and future races. We will see.
The Saturday before this week was the bigger run with Sleep and Scam through Glenbrook NP. Heading out at 5:30 was interesting. But I actually enjoyed the bigger run, and still managed to get back, have a shower and get to work to open at 8:30. Perhaps this will become a regular.
Until next time.
I will endeavour to get the splits up for the MMC 10km Sun Valley Run over the next few days. Sleep wants to see how slow we are running.
Oh..btw.. If anyone is interested I am not a Doctor. I dont have a PhD nor an MBBS. I dont prescribe, and I am not Oprah's little lap dog. I received this nickname from Sleep, and it has stuck. If anyone wants to make me an honorary doctor, I wouldn't say no. I just cant see myself working that hard to become a real one. Pharmacist Phil doesn't have the same ring to it anyway.
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