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.
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