Track: 400m reps

I had 8 x 400m reps on the program today. I would usually have 10 but this week is a rest/relaxed week. I managed to get to the oval for a good enough warm up. This morning was probably one of the first mornings where I was debating whether to go to SWEAT or not because I was super tired but ended up going and was glad that I did. My reps for the day were:
1.43
1.41
1.45
1.47
1.46
1.49
1.46
1.40

I started to notice some tightning of my quads during some of the middle reps, reminding me that I'm probably still not 100% over Bulls Head, but still feeling good. I really put it in for the last rep and started to feel a little dizzy afterwards so I was glad it was my last. I joined the girls for a lap around the lake and we got to check on the geese again. I could really feel it for the rest of the day at work that I had put in a lot of effort this morning. I love that feeling.

Running, golfing, drinking, running and riding

Dean and I spent the weekend down at my parents place as we had a 40th birthday party to attend on Saturday night, one of Dean's old work friends. We fitted some beams in their bar room for them while they are away. They have run out of places to hang stuff on the walls of their Irish bar room and are now needing roof space !! I headed out for a 10km run through some of the grass trails in the Croome Rd complex and done some laps around a local oval to make up the k's. It was extremely windy, Albion Park tends to get really bad winds as it is nested in mountain ranges. All up finished the run in 60 min nice and easy.

As soon as I got back from the run I had to quicky get ready for the party. We headed over to their place in Shellharbour which was relatively new and was absolutely huge, I think it had 4 split levels. It was really depressing for Dean and myself as we have always dreamed of owning our own place and we know now we will never be able to afford more than a shoe box. We had a great time and I ate way more than I should have. Also, as Dean and I have been on Bodyblitz (unsuccessfully) we have not been drinking much but we got to have a few drinks which was nice.

On Sunday I had a much needed sleep in and then Dean and I went off to Jamberoo Golf course to play 9 holes. Dean would have liked to play 18 but we had a lot of other things to fit in today and we had to count in that we lost an hour!! He also got to use his new driver that he got off ebay from the US for the first time so he was a very happy boy.

I forgot to mention that I got fitted for my bike on Friday evening...finally. Dean took me out on the street after golf to try and get used to it and I absolutely freaked. I have barely ridden in my life and I couldnt get used to cleats, not being able to touch the ground, my seat being so high I had to start pedaling before I could sit on it, having racing handles etc. so I was a wuss and asked him to let down the seat a little and we took the pedals off my Dad's bike. The cleats will have to wait for later I can only get used to one thing at a time. I dont have very good balance so I was a little nervous about how fast I was going on the bike. It will definately take a while to get used to and I am not looking too confident about Sydney to Gong next weekend. After half an hour of riding I decided to call it quits as my arms and hands were hurting from the different handle bars. I decided to head out for my run straight afterwards otherwise I would never get it in. I set out for a nice 14km in 85 min (5 min quicker than programed) and got home just after 7pm and it was still light. After our drive back to Sydney both Dean and I found it hard to adjust to daylight savings time as we had both slept in so we stayed up and watched some episodes of Arrested Development the series we order from the US as they have stopped showing it in Australia. All up it was a fun weekend as Dean and I dont get to spend time together very often.

I can now bend my legs!!

A quick catch up on yesterday's session.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

I had 7 laps of wild wally on my program. I actually made sure that I turned up early this morning and got in a good 3km warm up but realised when I was on a lap of the oval that the group was leaving and I had to try and catch up. I was generally feeling a lot better in that my quads were starting to loosen up and I could actually bend my legs. I did start to notice a pull in my hamstring in the strides when I was trying to pick the pace up so Sean told me to just take them easy. I decided that I would prefer to do the full 7 reps rather than do a few less at a faster speed as Wild Wally is my favourite session. I done each of the reps in around 3.40-3.50 (20-30 sec slower than usual) and picked up the pace in the last one to 3.27. With a warm down back to the oval it was 10km all up for me today and very enjoyable. I remember when doing approx 28km training for the marathon would have left me exhausted for the rest of the week and this week having raced almost that distance I have recovered so quicky and have not really missed out on any training at all :)

I got a massage from Easy Tiger in the afternoon and while it was quite painful it was very successful when we heard the pop of my muscles separating. My upper back, neck and lats were actually in worse shape than my quads. He noted that my legs are almost normal now. I still have a niggle in my hamstring, but I'm sure I can stretch that out by the weekend.

Friday, October 27th, 2006

I met up with Kerry, Katie and Bernie at Centennial Park this morning as I had 30 min on my program. Last week Sean bumped me up to running 6 days a week but this will be the first week that I will actually do all runs. We headed over to see the baby geese again and finished off with 6km in around 31-32 min (dont have my garmin here). It was a lot of fun but because of my massage yesterday the entire run felt like we were running really quick and I could feel the toxins releasing from my muscles.

I wore my Keyano's out this morning even though I wasnt wearing the orthodics. I was just thinking yesterday that my adrenalines have absolutely no spring left in them and they may be the cause of some of my calf problems lately. Katie was gobsmacked when she fould out I've had them since Canberra Marathon. I have an appointment with Podrunner today so hopefully my orthodic situation will be fixed soon and I can go out and buy lots of spare wheels that can accomodate them.

Short and sweet

I arrived at Centennial Park this morning and after having 3 failed attempts to reverse angle park and having to be guided in by Kit and Kerrie, I knew my brain really was not in sync with my body this morning. I was due to do 90 min on the program today, but after finding out Sean had recommended Bernie only do 30 min, I decided that would probably be the most sensible option for me. We headed to the inside of the park so that we could stay off the road. We ran over and got to check out the baby geese, were pretending to be hobbits (as Kit described it) running through the pines and then ran through a boarded path I never knew existed. Centennial Park never ceases to amaze me, there are so many places in there I havent discovered. After finishing the 30 min, Bernie and I sent Kerrie, Kit and Belinda off on their way to finish their 90 min as they were due to be meeting Kulinda. I felt much better after the run and could actually lift my leg up to my butt to stretch my quad which was a good sign. I am just trying to stay on my feet at work today as much as I can so I dont cramp up.

I have 7 laps of wild wally tomorrow, for the first time ever I am more scared of the downhill than up :)

Pictures of the course

Just stole some photo's of the course from Coolrunning.

Uphill at about 14km (40 for the full) for Bulls Head

Approx 10km (38km full) into Bulls Head looking out to course

Burning Quads

My alarm went off at 5.40 this morning and besides the fact that I could hardly get out of bed, I decided to go to training anyway because by not moving around I would only get worse. When I turned up to training I was slightly glad to see that I wasnt the only one who was walking slightly crippled. It was also good to hear that after speaking to Bernie, I wasnt the only one wearing my skins at work !!

Anyone watching me doing the drills this morning would have had a good giggle. Trying to lift my knees up and also do butt kicks, I just looked pathetic so I wont even get started on how I handled the sprints.

I had 4 x 800m laps on my program this morning. I done them at at the only speed my body knew how, at least I wouldnt be losing my breath at this session :) After doing 3 laps at around 4.30 Sean told me that that was enough for me today and to do a shorter than normal warm down. After doing a few laps of the oval I finished off only having done around 5km today. I spent a lot longer stretching and was surprised that I could actually grab my foot this morning to do a quad stretch !! It was amazing that running was actually a lot easier and less painful than when I had to stop.

R2B - I feel a little slack for not having tackled any of the KJ's mountain running series yet, but having smashed my body on Sunday, I think my quads would disown me if I were to line up for another mountain run on the weekend ;)

As for the Bulls Head course, it was mainly down hill the entire way but there were quite a few flat bits and up hills at points to break up the course. The hills werent really that steep on our course they were just really comfortable winding hills. There are some rather nasty hills as your coming out of the creek that seem to go on forever, but thats mainly because it was hard switching from the down to the up. I heard that some of the downhill from Mt Franklin was a lot more hairy than anything we had to encounter. It was fairly steep in places and was quite rocky. I think its definately one to put on your calendar for next year.

As for my blog, I have put it on the list of blogs on the CR website, I think it popped up at the second page. Was this what you were referring to??? I didnt make an announcement on the Coolrunning bloggers thread as I wanted to wait until I had something interesting enough to say :)

Bulls Head Adventure

Saturday Cont...
On Saturday afternoon Dean dropped me off at Sean and Cindy's place and we were off to Illawong for an Athletics meet to watch some of the afternoon squad race. When we arrived at the athletics field we couldnt believe how cold it was. I had a cashmere jumper on, a borrowed coat and scarf and I was still freezing. Considering this time last week it was 33 degrees it was a huge change. I was worried as I wasnt prepared for it to be this cold. Sean had checked the temperature in the snow fields and it was snowing and -10 degrees at 1600m, similar to the height we would be climbing. We had a call from Fleur, another lady running Bull's Head, and she said she would bring extra gloves and a beanie for us. The guys from the squad ran really well. Some of them even doing PB's in the big winds, with Tiger doing a 15 sec PB for the 3km. As soon as the races were finished we rushed off in the car to head for Canberra with a quick stopover at Goulbourn for dinner. We ended up arriving at the Embassy Motel where we were staying at around 10.00pm.

Sunday, the race...

With Sean heading off really early for the full Brindabella, Cindy and I got a sleep in until 7am. Although, I pretty much didnt sleep at all since Sean left as the nerves started kicking in. It was nice having someone else there to chat to to keep my mind off things as I didnt get as nervous as I usually do. It also helped that I wasnt really thinking of this run as a race but more as an "adventure". We were picked up by Fleur and Thomas at 8am and we headed off for Cotter Reserve. On the way we were given stories of the Canberra fires and all the destruction it caused as Fleur and Thomas are nearby neighbours of Yass.

After getting to Cotter reserve and the weather being quite nice I decided to change out of my long sleeve shirt into a short sleeve. The bus finally arrived late and I got to chat to Bernie on the way up which ensured I didnt get too nervous on the way up about how we kep getting higher and higher.......

As the bus was running late our start was delayed until 10.10. We got to see some of the leaders coming around for the Brindabella. We saw Sean coming through in first place and he got a huge cheer as he was coming through. It wasnt much later that the gun went off and we were on our way. I started out at a nice steady pace and my garmin was telling me I was doing around 6 min k's. I had it set on automatic 1km laps and when it come up and told me my first lap of 5.20 I was really shocked. I could have sworn I was going a lot slower. The next km went past in 5.15. I was feeling a little nervous about the pace but didnt have to worry for too long as we hit some up hill sections which slowed me down a bit. For most of the way I was sticking to around 5.35-5.40min/km. It was hard for me mentally as I have never gone quicker than 6 min k's over a distance like this so I was worried that I was going to blow up. I thought that as long as my breathing feels fine and I feel fine that I should just listen to my body.

I had my first wardrobe malfunction at the 6km mark. I put my hand down and felt sticky liquid all over my pants to find out that both my gels had exploded everywhere. It really was disgusting. I had no other choice but to consume what was left and throw them out. Lucky for me the aid stations were well stocked with lollies and fruit. The next wardrobe malfunction occured when I was dying to go to the loo and decided that I had built a big enough lead from the girls behind me to make a really quick toilet stop. You can imagine my horror when I heard some stitching rip. Luckily everything was still in tact but I was very nearly caught by a relay runner who seem to come out of nowhere. Shortly after this I had my third wardrobe malfunction. I went to clean my sunglasses and the lens popped out. I tried to fix it and put it back in for ages, but I was still running. After almost tripping over a fair few times I decided to give up and put the lens in my GUey pocket and put my sunnies on my head. Luckily I had decided to stop fiddling with them at this point as one of the girls running beside me yelled out "snake" as we all jumped over a grey snake that was slithering across the trail....close one.

All my mishaps happened close to one another and I got to enjoy the rest of the ride. As this was my first proper trail run I was absolutely enjoying it and it was so nice and peaceful being out amongst nature. I had a little confusion when I got to a point around the 12-13km mark where there was a big yellow arrow on one of the tree's pointing to another trail. I had to stop there for approx 1-2 min as I was not going anywhere until I saw another runner. I let the other guys make the decision of which way to go and I followed. I started to stress out a little as the instructions had said that if you didnt see red tape within 500m then turn around and go back. I followed these guys for what was probably 5km. When I finally saw all the cars lined up at the next aid station you cant imagine the relief that I felt. As this was a changeover for the relay teams there was lots of cheers here and I felt really great. This next section of the track was very surreal. The landscape was very barren and eerie as all the trees had been burnt in the fire. It was weird running through these enormous mountains in the open I really felt so small. We finally hit Vanity's crossing at around the 20km mark, the creek that people told me may be up to my waist. Due to the drought, on this occasion I only got wet up to my shins. It was a long winding haul out of Vanity's and I was finding it just a little hard to shift the legs from downhill mode to uphill but was still coping fine. It wasnt until the last couple of K's that I started feeling a niggle in my calf. It started feeling really tight and I kept thinking, "I hope I dont get in trouble off Tiger on Thursday". I got to the point where we had to get over a gate and I felt so sorry for those that were doing the full and had to sum up the energy to climb over. It was at this point that I heard Cindy cheering for me. She was with Fleur and Thomas and they were on their way to collect Sean. Sean had been leading Brindabella up until the 42km mark and hit the wall. They informed me that there was less than a km to go. I still had at least 2km left according to my garmin so I thought they were being nice. When I hit the road and saw the cars in the car park, I thought that we must have to run for a km along the creek, you cant imagine my surprise when I saw the finish line right there !! If I had have known I would have put a bit of speed on. When I finished my garmin was registering 26km, but later on after checking my km splits it was telling me that I had done an 8 min km and 7.5 in parts where I knew I was doing around 5.40 so I must have lost signal for a little while.

I was feeling emotional at the finish line I was so proud of myself that I had run so strongly the whole way and was blown away with my finish time. My official time was 2.37 and my own personal time for training (taking out when I stopped for others to come) was 2.35. Considering I was expecting around 3 hours I am very happy with that.

At the finish line I managed to see Bernie and Blue Dog and followed them over to the creek to let my feet dangle in the water. After very little deliberation and realising I had brought spare clothes with me I decided to go the full hog and sit in the water. It was great for the quads. We were joined by some of the other SWEAT gang and Aki from Canberra. It was great watching Horrie and Seb coming in for the full Brindabella.

I didnt feel too bad after the race but at night the pain started to really hit me. I am really feeling it in my back, quads, glutes and hips. I had to walk down my apartment steps backwards this morning and I rushed out to buy some capri skins that could fit inder my work skirt as I only have the full length. All up I had an absolute ball. The race was really well organised and the volunteers were fabulous. I am really hooked on trail running now as it really has what I'm looking for in running which is the adventure rather than pressure to perform. Some really great runs out there with Fleur coming in first with the Bulls Head with Cindy second. Bernie taking 29 min off her PB and Sean completing his first ultra. I'm definately hooked and now I'm searching the Coolrunning calendar for the next one....

Yappy dog

I was due to do 12km for an hours run this morning, but besides the fact that that is utterly impossible for me (race pace) I decided that a nice slow 7km would do fine to churn the legs over and allow me to do a lot of stretching. ready for tomorrows run. Originally when I entered the Bulls Head Challenge I was just going to treat it as a training run as I had 29km on my program for 3hrs. But, now I'm starting to think that I wouldnt mind trying to set a good time. I suppose I can always compromise in the middle and just run as quick as I can while still feeling comfortable at a conversational pace, after all its my first proper trail run and I dont know what to expect (besides a creek at the end).

Just on my run this morning, I set off for the coastal path walk around my place and there is a loop you can do which is 2.5km. I took my new Keyano's out for a trial with the orthodics as I have been wearing them around work the last few days and they have felt OK. But after 2km they started to really hurt my feet again. I ended up walking the rest home to change into my Trail Adrenalins as I havent decided whether I'm going to wear these tomorrow or my normal adrenaline's. They felt so much better on my feet. The only problem is I dont have a full on blister but the orthodics have rubbed a bit on my arch, so it wasnt a very smart idea to give them another whirl the day before a race.

I also had a run in with a lady on my run this morning, well, my version of a run in (which is pretty pathetic). I all of a sudden had this little yappy dog running at me and barking and it was being really aggressive and I thought, oh its only a little dog, but then the bloody thing bit me !! It wasnt that hard or anything to leave a lasting mark but the teeth made contact with my leg and I felt it. I told the lady that if she knows her dog bites she should have it on a lead. Now, I absolutely love dogs, I adore my little beagle and I think they should be allowed to run around and play. But if someone knows their dog gets aggressive they should have it on a leash. Although I didnt do it this time, my natural reaction if a dog was biting me would be to kick it to protect myself and then I would have been absolutely devastated if I knew I'd kicked a dog even if it was biting me and I dont think its fair for an owner to put me in that sort of position. The lady said to me "oh she must have got frightened", no shit...so was I !!

Oh well, I've booked accommodation for Sean, Cindy and Myself at the Embassy Hotel where Seb (Bandanna) and some others are staying. I can tell its going to be the same as when I stayed at Rydges for the Canberra Marathon and you hear all these alarms going off in sync at 5.30am on a Sunday morning.....could only be runners. Looking forward to tomorrow but nervous. Sadly, I will miss out on the pasta night on Saturday night but we are going to an Athletics meet this afternoon at Illawong first so I will get to cheer some of the afternoon squad on and we will probably have dinner somewhere around Bowral or Goulburn. Well, its off to pack for me now, I just need to make my list of things I will need...

My first tempo run

I slept OK last night but I think the busy week with hardly any sleep really caught up with me today. First thing in the morning I was having trouble even stringing words together to form a sentence. After setting the alarm on snooze for 10 min I still had enough time in the morning to do a 1km warm up. After doing our drills we headed over to the lake to start the tempo session. Sean had put us into groups and I was in the 5.00m/km group whick meant 7.15 per lap. I originally had 4 laps on my program but Bernie suggested that since I was doing Bulls Head on the weekend to only do 3, a suggestion I was more than happy to take on :) Basically we had to stick together as close to the 5.00min/km pace and then step it up for the last km. There were 4 of us in the 5.00min/km group and I was joined by Bernie, Kulinda and a new girl. We came through the first lap about 10 seconds too early and Sean told us to slow it down a tad. We done the second lap pretty much spot on pace. As Kulinda was doing 4 laps, Bernie and I stepped it up for the last lap and ended up doing that lap in 6.54. I was really happy with how the session went as I was feeling really relaxed and comfortable the whole time. My breathing was controlled and my legs werent hurting too much. It gives me some hope that I might try to crack my 4 year dormant 5km PB of 23.43 soon after a few years of slow Nana running. Bernie and I added on a 2km recovery which took me to 8.5km for the day (still 1.5km short but I'm getting there).

One of the things I dont like about the sessions is the fact that I have to rush off to work afterwards (I hate it when work gets in the way of my running). I would always love to stop and chat afterwards and hate having to head off, but the buses in my area are so bad that if I miss one I have to wait 30 min. This morning I had meetings scheduled for 9.00am which I dont usually like to do on SWEAT days. I usually have my breakfast at work and because I had back to back meetings I didnt get breaky until 10.30am. I was one hungry hungry hippo...

Flying Solo

I forgot to check with Kerry yesterday at training whether this morning's group run was still on or not. A lot of the girls werent in training yesterday so I wasnt sure if they were taking some time off after Fitzroy Falls. I decided there was only one way to find out and set the alarm for 4.50 am (yawn). I hardly got any sleep last night, maybe around 3 hours. I need running to help me sleep properly and having those few days off really threw my sleeping out. It was hard getting out of bed this morning but I knew that since I wasnt sleeping there would be no point in "sleeping in" so I headed out the door. In my tired state I took way too long to get ready and was at the Centennial Park gates at 5.17 (2 minutes too late). For a second I thought that the group may have already gone, but judging by the few amount of cars there guessed that no-one was showing up.

I headed off on my own around the outside loop of the park and for the first few km's was very glad to be on my own as the legs were extremely stiff and slow and I dont think I could have handled Bernie and Katie's cracker pace :) It was really nice being out this morning. It was quite humid (and I managed to dress appropriately this time) but there was also a bit of a breeze cooling it down. After about the 6km mark the run actually started to become really enjoyable (except from the exhaust fumes of a bus at the Bondi Junction depot) as my legs had started to loosen up and I quickened up the pace. Once I reached my car I headed inside the park and headed for the inside loop of the park on the dirt. I saw Keith and a few others from the afternoon squad out running. Apparently he is only just starting to get over camp, glad to see I'm not the only one still feeling it. With only a few km's to go I saw Kerry heading into the park on her run and joined her for the rest of my run as she was heading over to see the baby geese that we have been lucky enough to watch growing over the last few weeks. All up I was meant to cover 13km in 1hr 18min and I think I covered it in around 1.19 (close enough).

On a funny side note. In my little amount of sleep I got last night I managed to have the weirdest dream. I was lining up for the Central Coast half and wierdly it went through someones house and through a backyard reserve. It was really wierd as everyone was given an overview of the course before hand and we had to make sure we skimmed the walls of the house and werent allowed to cut corners. In the end I accidentally followed the wrong course and followed the juniors that were doing a shorter course and got pulled out of the run and I was really bummed out because I thought I was going to get a PB. I'm so glad I woke up then.

Dizzy

After having 4 days off from running I wasnt sure what to expect this morning. All the icing and stretching I had done on the weekend seemed to have done me a lot of good and the niggles and sore shins were gone. The only thing was that it had spread up to my abductor on my left leg. I arrived early enough this morning to do 2 laps of the oval with Kerry before the session started. I was down for 10 400m laps today. Since we still werent allowed on the oval we had to do them on the path around the lake which seemed a whole lot harder. After the first couple of reps I knew that I didnt feel quite right. My leg was annoying me a little but just in general I felt really weak like my legs couldnt handle the pace. The other mistake I made this morning was when I woke up this morning I heard the wind absolutely howling so assumed that it would be cold and wore a long sleeve shirt. Huge Mistake. Besides feeling weak, by the 6th rep I noticed that I started to feel quite dizzy. After the 7th lap I told Sean how I was feeling and he told me to sit it out. I think a combination of having a few days off, probably not a substantial dinner the night before and overheating led to my dizzy spells. I ended up finishing off with a few k's warm down with 8 km all up for the day. A tad disappointing not finishing the session, but considering a few days ago I could have been on the borderline to getting an injury I wont be pushing my luck. It was funny on one of the reps where we musnt have yelled "go" loud enough for the 500m boys (they couldnt see Sean) as they missed the start, I was wondering why I hadnt got overtaken :)

Just checked the garmin and the distance of the laps were actually more than 400m in one rep even going up to 435m. I think this was a combination of the starting line nudging back and me moving further to the back to get out of everyones way as I was feeling crap. The times for the 7 I done are:
1.44 (Best 3.21/km) (410m)
1.48 (Best 3.28/km) (416m)
1.54 (426m)
1.53 (418m)
1.54 (435m??)
1.59 (423m)
2.02 (425m)

On a much brighter note, I found out there was a Pauls Warehouse in the city this week so headed off at lunch time as I need to start wearing in a couple of new pairs considering the shoes I bought that are half a size too big now have to be retired. Podrunner told me that now I have orthodics I dont have to stick to such bulky supportive shoes like the Adrenalines so I bought myself some Keyano's. I still needed to stick to my comfort zone and ordered in some Adrenalines in my size just in case, cant go wrong with tried and tested. I am getting in some of the Asics Racers to try as they were on sale for $79 and I have already put in a birthday order for my parents. I'm sure they will love it if I can get them at this price, I just may well have to choose a second present :)

Also some excitement today as I entered online for The Brindabella Bulls Head option. This will be my first proper trail run and I'm really excited. The only problem I have is getting to the race. Dean is working on traffic duty for the Spring Cycle on Sunday so I dont have someone to drive me down there. I tend to get very stressed out finding new places (as well as getting lost) so I have put a post on Coolrunning hoping that someone will be heading down there and can give me a lift. I had an email about a possible lift and will find out at midday tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Oh well, off to do some ab work now including some gut busters. Oh, which reminds me, rung up to cancel my gym membership today. Apparently its not as easy as just ringing up, I have to organise to see a rep sort of like being counseled about leaving. Ghee Whiz talk about being OTT.

Who turned the heat up??

I'm starting to feel a little glad that I have been banned from running for a few days (I'm sure I'll be over it tomorrow when its cooler). I sent a text to Easy Tiger last night to see if I could do a spin class instead. He said I would be ok as long as I didnt stand up on the bike. When I woke up this morning the last thing I felt like doing was going to the gym. I didnt really sleep in but I did lie in bed until 8am because I didnt have the energy to get up.

I went for an hours walk to get some movies at around lunch time and it was bloody hot. I was sweating more than I usually do just from running...nearly. I started to get a niggle in my left hamstring so I done heaps of stretching when I got home and done some icing again. I watched Poseidon. It was Ok, but a lot like Titanic. The other 2 movies I got were the breakup and little fish which I will be watching tonight when Dean gets home.

I officially have absolutley no energy. I was going to do my pilates DVD but couldnt be bothered. I hope I have more energy tomorrow when its cooler. I hope everyone survived at Fitzroy Falls today, I still would have liked to be there even if just to catch up with the squad.

What will I do with myself ???

I went and got a massage off Easy Tiger yesterday afternoon. The good news is that I wasnt as beaten up as he was expecting me to be. Yes, I did do heaps of stretching while I was away at camp. The bad news is that because I was so tight before I went away one of my muscles that runs down the calf into the ankle, where I got the niggle on the last day, was badly tight. He had to ice it while I was in the room. Gary said that while this is not a serious thing, just from a little overuse, if I let it get worse it can lead to a stress fracture. He advised that I have 3 days off running with lots of icing and stretching. It would be silly to waste all the fitness that I gained at camp by going and getting an injury now.

So, now I have no idea what to do with myself. Most of my weekends are centred around doing my runs. I havent got a phone call about my bike coming in yet (even though its been a couple of weeks) so I cant even go for a bike ride.

Oh well, I'm better off being out for 3 days rather than 3 weeks. Besides, its going to be pretty hot on the weekend so I might enjoy going for a walk instead. I am very jealous of all those going to Fitzroy Falls, it is so beautiful in the Southern Highlands.

Taking it slow...

Just some photo's of the dredded Sandhill sessions.

This morning I had 4 laps of farlek on my program. I was a little lazy this morning and didnt get to the oval in time for a proper warm up. Doing the drills and strides was hard as my legs were feeling super tired, I think I was pretty far behind everyone today. I done the 4 laps of 1km each in 21.45. Not too bad considering what I've put my body through recently. I cant really say it was a fartlek session though as I could only manage the one pace the whole way through. I think I quickened up for the last 2 laps though, because I overtook a few people.

I had a nice warm down with Belinda and told her all about the camp and got to hear about how she is feeling for the Fitzroy Falls Marathon on the weekend. I really wish I could be going to this one for the 10km, but it will be hard for me to get there as Dean is working and I hate driving to these sort of places on my own (yes, I'm lazy). I was amazed to find out that Sean will be racing this in his Nike Free's on the weekend !!

Fat...I mean SWEAT camp !!

This post has taken a while for me to type as I am so bloody exhausted my brain is not functioning very well. After having a nice night on Friday going to see Cirque du Soleil with great seats and then onto the Captial Cook Hotel for another $7 steak meal, Dean and I started to get really nervous about the 4 day weekend camp coming up. Dean was cursing me for what I was getting him into.

Saturday, October 7, 2006

We had our bags packed and were on the road at 10.00am for Hawks Nest. We got there an hour early so we went for a bit of a drive around to get to know the area and to head to the supermarket to buy our healthy food. We were really worried at this point as we were pretty tired after the drive up with the heat and didnt know how we would handle a couple of hours on the sand dunes in the afternoon. We went to our unit and met the people we would be bunking with for the next few days Keith, Jim, Craig and Mohammed. Amazingly I found out later that Mohammed was actually fasting throughout the entire camp, no food or water during daylight, as he was in ramadan... dedicated stuff.

We met up for the Sandhill sessions at 3.15 pm. Looking around at all the other runners there I started to get even more nervous. They were all really young except for the guys in our unit and were basically a bag of bones wrapped in a little skin. We set off for our 2km warm up to the dunes which Sean called Nanna pace. Dean and I dropped behind straight away as it was more like race pace for me. Before the session started Cindy pulled me aside and told me not to feel like I need to keep up with these guys and to just do what I can. She said that she just got back from the World Mountain running championships and she cant even keep up with the young guns. The sandhill session was a mixture of a circuit that was around 800m up and down dunes. Some reps up a long dune and some reps over on a short really steep dune. At times I couldnt believe how slow I was running. I was doing the circuits in around 4.40-4.50 even having to stop and walk sometimes. I definately found the sand dunes very challenging. My quads were absolutely burning and my heart was pumping even faster than when I'm in a race. When we were doing the really steep hill it took everything I had in me just to keep going up and not go backwards. All the others were really light on their feet and I kept sinking in to almost my knee's !! This was the first time that I have ever done any barefoot running and I really started to feel it in my feet just below my toes and my calves were really starting to tighten up. We finished on the sand dunes at around 5.00 and I was really really happy with myself that I gave the session everything that I had. Dean didnt quite have the endurance to do the whole session but the ones that he did do he was sometimes in the top 3 because he has a lot of power in his legs. On the warm down back to the units I felt really good. Putting my runners back on and running on the grass felt really weird after running on the sand. I felt like I had springs in my shoes !!

A quick shower and we were off to the golf club for dinner. Sean didnt realise there was a foot path that would take us there and he took us on an adventure through the bush and on sand again to get there and everyone was whinging! After today's session Dean was hanging for a beer and felt weird because no-one else was drinking (besides a lot were under age). For dinner I had guiness beef pie and vegies and boy did it taste good. I passed out at 9.00 and slept like a baby.

Sunday, October 8, 2006

I woke up at 6.20 this morning and felt like I had been hit by a truck. I thought there was no way I would be able to do a long run today. I was scheduled for 90 min this morning, at which I would usually do around 15km. Dean told me not to be disappointed if I only manage 14 or so. We all set off in a few cars as the long run was about 10km away on a rolling dirt trail through some farms. Once again Sean told the group to start off at a Nanna pace. I had my garmin on this time and was registering 5.00 min /km at the start and by 200 m they were going off even faster so I decided to drop off from the group straight away. It was funny because Sean said that no-one should drop off before the 6km mark and it took me 300m :) I really struggled with the up hills at first as my quads were really sore from the afternoon dunes. My calves were really really tight and I felt a niggle in my right one as well. It was then that I decided that I would not really worry about the km's I was clocking or the speed that I was going at this camp and I just wanted to focus on showing up for every session and giving them all my best effort even if its slower than usual. I thought this would be a good lesson for me for when I try my first ultra to know what its like to continually have to run on tired legs with doing 3 sessions a day.

By the time we started off it would have been around 7.30 and by this time it was really starting to heat up. There was also not a lot of relief from the sun along the way with only minimal tree coverage. By the 6km mark my legs started to warm up a bit and I started running my normal 6 min / km pace. I remember that once I stopped looking at my garmin and just tuned out I really started to enjoy the run. It was so relaxing being out there in the country until I heard the stampede of the group coming the other way... I'm pretty glad that I was slow as some of the quicker runners come across a snake crawling out on the track. I think I would have freaked if I saw it myself. Coming back to the start point there were some long hills to climb and I had to stop and walk for a bit as I just didnt have it in me to keep running. All up I ran 14.5km in the 90 min and probably also walked another few hundred metres cause I stop my garmin when I need to take walking breaks. The other guys were absolutely flying through the 90 min and covered twenty something kilometres and because Craig is training for New York Marathon in November he had to add a bit extra on and ran back to the units rather than getting a lift back...ha ha

Back at the unit there was a couple of hours to have breaky before we had our strength session. Dean got back just as we did from a long bike ride and he was pretty buggered too.

At 11.30 we went off to the beack for a strength session with lots of medicine balls in tow. People were staring at us as by now a lot of the locals had begun to see us out and about and were wondering what we were doing. The session consisted of a lot of upper body and abs work with a little leg work thrown in. I was regretting bringing Dean along at this point because he thought it was funny to be pegging the medicine ball at my face and throwing the ball to me like a fotty pass spinning it......Dean, I think you were missing the point of the exercises. We finished off the exercises with a Gut busters competition. Gutbusters is where you have to hold your legs in the air while in a seated position and with a medicine ball be continually moving it from side to side touching the ground. One of the girls there kept going for 10 min and holds the record at 17 min. I held on for a minute and a half :)

We were meant to have surf races in the afternoon, but everyone piked out because they were too tired....ohh boo.. Dean and I went to the beach for a bit of a dip anyway. I only went in up to my waist as I had had enough sun for the day and wanted to leave my hat and sunnies on.

After the strength session I really didnt think I had it in me to do another session for the day. I was hoping that Dean would join me so I wouldnt be up the back on my own but he told me to bugger off and he went and bought himself some beer, chips and dip and settled in to finish watching Bathurst. He had enough of the healthy life already. I thought that since I was doing a short run (the first in a long while) that I would give my orthodics a test drive. At around 4pm we headed out for our 30 min recovery run through a local trail, by which time some cloud coverage had come over and some very strong winds. Once again I had lost the group within around 500m and they were nowhere in sight. My calves were super tight at this point but I was finding that after running for a bit they were starting to feel better. It was really relaxing being out there on the trail, I wasnt caring what pace I was doing. I was fairly sheltered from the winds on the trail and it started to shower lightly which was a welcome relief to the morning's 30 odd degree heat. I got to an intersection on the trail where I had 4 choices of where to go. I am absolutely hopeless with directions, I thought the group might have been coming along the beach but decided to just turn around and head back to the start anyway. By the time I got back the lead of the group was getting back and I had been out for 30 min anyway covering around 4.8 or 4.9km (might as well make it 5). For the last km my orthodics were really starting to rub and gave me a blister on my arch so I will need to get that checked out. A couple of the guys, Jim and Keith, were worried that I would get lost and done a bit extra to go and look for me but didnt see any footprints in any of the other directions. As per after every session I spent a good 15-20 min stretching. Some of the young ones were just heading straight back to the unit without doing any stretching at all. No such luck for the oldies...

Sean had arranged for us to have dinner at a restaurant just down the road which is normally closed but they opened for our group and put on a few pizzas and pasta's. It was amazing that with all the training I was doing I wasnt really feeling that hungry, my stomach was usually queezy from the hard workouts. We went back to the unit early and watched some of "Super size me" but didnt last long and we all ventured to bed.

Monday, October 9, 2006

I woke up this morning at 6.40 feeling like I had been run over by a truck that then reversed over me. I wore my skins to bed last night, but lets face it, they aint miracle workers. My calves were so tight I could barely walk around and the niggle in my right calf was getting worse. I had trouble walking down stairs and was also having trouble just concentrating so I told the guys to go on without me and that I would follow later as we were only on a recovery run this morning. I actually only left a couple of minutes after them but I just needed a little extra time to loosen up my body and I knew that I wouldnt be able to stick with the group anyway. I set off just after 7am on the same trail as yesterday evening. After a while I was actually feeling pretty good so I decided to turn left when I got to all those intersections as Sean told me this will lead to a road. I followed the trail all the way to the road and then turned around and went back. I met some of the guys at the intersection, boy did they not look like they were doing a recovery run. Every run is competitive for them. A quick hello, goodbye and they were flying again. I got back just and had done 6km in just over 40 min. A lot lot slower than I normally do, but I really was treating these runs as recovery runs, unlike the others.

We found out that the beach was closed due to there being high tide so our strength session was at the footy oval today. As I am a woos I didnt go barefoot because of the bindies and had to do my warm up in thongs. The session went forever and Sean was giving us a continual count down, 58 min to go, 54 min to go.... Our abs, butt, and upper body got absolutely caned today. I have to say that I have never been so aware of my abs and obliques before. After the session we headed back to the units for lunch. Dean and I went for a little drive in our free time but where too buggered to do anything too extravegant. We did manage to find some other dunes around 15km away that were absolutely massive. When you were on the top you could see out to the whole of the national park. We made sure that we didnt tell Sean until the next day ;)

Dean joined in on the afternoon session of sand repeats. We done a slow warm up for around 2km on the beach to get to where we would start the session and were responsible for doing the strides ourselves like the rest of the camp. The first rep I had was a 1km and luckily it was with the wind. Kept it under 5 min which I was happy with considering I was buggered. I then jogged around for a bit while the others went back for another 1km rep. I chose to do the rest of the session on my own as I couldnt keep up with what the others were doing and I done another 600m rep into the wind, a 200m rep (racing Dean and he won) and 3 other 200m reps and I was done. When we had finished the session I found out that Dean had gone off chasing a police car that had gone flying down the beach to the rocks. The group was leaving and went off for their warm down run to the units and I set off to collect Dean. When I got there the police and ambo's were looking for some extra hands as a lady had tried to commit suicide by overdosing on pills and was near the edge of the rocks. She was quite large so they couldnt lift her out themselves. By the time I got there they had decided to get a helicopter to get her out. Because of our little adventure it was around a 3km warm down for us. We got back just in time to have a quick shower and head off with the group down to the golf club for dinner. As we only had one more session left I decided that tonight I would have a beer with Dean and had the roast tonight. Got to bed early.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I woke up this morning at 6.30 am feeling like I had been run over by a train and backed over repeatedly. My body was sunk right into the bed as I just had no energy at all. We met up at the usual 7am and we walked to the beach to do our warm up run there. I was so tight and tired that I couldnt even manage to run in the warm up and just walked to the dunes. Doing the strides even hurt as I couldnt even manage to lift my knees up. We had all the circuits up at the beginning rather than split out like Saturday. I only managed one hard one and I was done. I just kept moving my legs while some of the others done up to 4 circuits. I then done 2 reps of the long dune and decided that that was enough for me. While the others were doing the steep dunes and other drills, I amused myself with doing another circuit and other things just concentrating on moving forward. I had started to get a niggle on my leg just above my left ankle. A warm down was just another walk for me and everyone jumped in the water fully clothed at the end.

Once back at the unit it was fun basically trying to eat everything that would spoil on the trip home. Packing and cleaning up was a bit of a pain because it meant continuous trips up and down the stairs. On the way back Dean and I drove through the Hunter Valley and stopped in at the Chocolate Factory (didnt buy much) and some of our favourite wineries, including McLeashes Estate. We were home by 5pm and ordered in pasta as we were too buggered to cook anything ourselves.

All up I had an absolute ball at the camp and I will definately be trying to make it to more of them. It would be good to have more people that are around my level as somtimes I felt a tad guilty, but I always told Sean not to let me hold up the group and was happy to do my own thing. It was great to get away for the weekend and run through some new places and to hang out with people that are obsessed with running as much as I am :) Value for money the camp gets 10/10 from me.

Lappin the Lake

I woke up this morning with an upset stomach again. I dont know what is going on but I have been feeling yuck when I wake up for a couple of weeks now. My legs were feeling tender as well from the massage yesterday so I thought I would take it easy this morning. I had 2 hard laps of the lake with a 6 minute break and then another lap on the program. Each lap of the lake is around 1.45km. Sean wanted us to do a negative split which I managed finishing the 2 laps in 13.50 (just under 3km) doing the second lap 2 seconds quicker than the first (hey, its still a negative split). The last lap I done in 6.44, so much for taking it easy today. Its almost impossible for me to turn up to a session and not give it everything I have. All up with warm up/warm down, drills and the session I done 8.5km today. A little less than on the plan but I'm sure I will be getting a workout on the weekend at camp.

I forgot to mention that on Tuesday I put a deposit down for a road bike. I dont like my chances for getting ready for Sydney to the Gong in time (entering 2.5 months early without a good bike is a little silly), not that I'm worried about what time I get anyway. Its an Azzurri Uno and is blue and white. I have to wait for them to bring in another size so they can fit me up. I'm really nervous about using cleats, I dont like the thought of being so attached to the bike. The guy at the shop said that your pretty much guaranteed to come off while getting used to them :(

I'm off to the Capital Cook Hotel tonight for dinner with the squad. $7 steak and veg sounds a lot better than cooking to me :)

Eatin' red dirt...

I was due to do 12km on Sunday but I am still getting used to the extra milage each week and my body was feeling Ok and I didnt want to push it. My parents were up on Sunday so we went to the Rocks and had a nice walk around the markets. They are off on holiday's soon so we are looking after their bird for them.

Tuesday morning SWEAT session I was down for 6 x 800m. I must admit I was a little naughty and didnt do a proper warm up and warm down today as I was a little pushed for time and my total distance took me to 8km (2km short). Sean had us doing our sessions on the grass near the oval where they had laid some horrible red dirt. For the first 3 laps I was at the back of the 800m pack so I literally got to eat red dirt that was being kicked up at me. I decided to pick up the pace for the last few laps and just like Wild Wally last week I was really surprised with my second last lap where Rachael and I really hammered it. Splits are:
3.27
3.26
3.27
3.24
3.14 (!!!!)
3.24

This morning was another early rise to meet some of the SWEAT gang for 75 min on the program and done around 13.5km. Like usual I found it a little hard warming up at start but after about 3km I was feeling fine. We done an outside lap of Centennial Park and another on the inside around the lakes. This morning running through the lakes I had one of those moments where your doing something so simple and you feel so great and happy to be alive. Its sometimes hard to remember that your so close to the city when in Centennial Park, I could have sworn I was thousands of km's away !!

I had to rush into the city this morning as I had an appointment with Easy Tiger. Long story short, I am way too tight. I have already booked in for a session next week after Sean's training camp coming up this weekend.

After chatting with some people this morning, I am now thinking of doing the Fitzroy Falls 10km run. I have also been looking at the Bulls Head option at Brindabella. I just have to see what shifts Dean is on as I dont think I could drive to these places on my own, I'm really really bad with directions.