Still recovering....

Sean has put me down for a 20 min water run on Monday's from my next program, but I decided that I wanted to start doing it now. After a really crappy day at work Dean and I headed down to Camp Cove at Watsons Bay and I done around half an hour of water running which was really nice and refreshing.

I headed off to SWEAT yesterday morning and I had 6 laps of Big Bertha relaxed on my program. My quads were still feeling quite sore from the run on Australia Day so I wasnt looking forward to this one. I went OK in the drills and warm up. After the first couple of laps I realised that having the piriformis injury has been causing that area and my glutes to become very lazy and I had no strength at all on the up hills as I had no acceleration from my butt (although the area isnt hurting anymore). It didnt help that my quads were screaming. I really felt like quitting early, but I thought I only have 6 anyway so stop being a baby. I tried to have some fun with it and Analise and I tried to chase Pascal down on the last lap. It was funny as when I was going through the laps Sean was calling out "use the power in those glutes"....oh, if only he knew.

On the warm down we had a chat about Sean's camp thats coming up at Kosciuszco National Park over Easter. It sounds like it will be really challenging and a lot of fun. I will think about going if some others from the morning squad decide to go.

After a really crappy day at work again I went home to find out from Dean that the washing machine had flooded our unit. We have one of those ones where the water flows into the sink and Dean left his notepad in the pocket of his uniform and it got stuck in the drain. Later on when I went to cook dinner, I was making a nice risotto, I found that there was a moth in in the packet of rice accompanied by lots of little moth worms. This packet was not even opened. This has happened to us before from shopping at our local Coles, a lot of their food tends to be infested. So, we had to go through our cudboards and throw a lot of stuff out. Not Happy.

I met some of the SWEAT girls at the park this morning for a nice slow 7km. I have to admit I felt pretty crap the whole way. It felt like I had elastic bands around my feet again. We actually remembered to do our strides at the end of this session. Trying to get my way into work caused me a lot of trouble this morning when I waited for over 45 min for a bus and when one finally come the traffic was at snail pace the whole way through. I thought it must have been an accident but no, they had closed off 2 lanes in peak hour to chop branches off a tree. I was late for a meeting at work and boy, didnt I cop it.

On another note, I am starting to get a bit worried about 6 foot. Although the mountain runs I have been doing are going well, I dont seem to be able to recover from them quickly and I cant seem to get my speed back up at training. This has me a little worried as I dont think 6 foot is something you should go into underdone and I also dont want to do any damage. I have been really enjoying training for it though, as it has forced me to get out and see lots of places and on the organised runs meet lots of people. I may have a chat to Sean to see what he thinks tomorrow morning. I read somewhere that it takes you 2 weeks to recover for every week you had off. For me, that means 6-7 weeks to return to normal, and this should be soon but I dont feel like I'm moving forward that much.

Happy Australia Day Weekend!!!!

Well, so far I've had such a great Aussie Day weekend, I really dont want it to end. I was extremely undecided about heading up to the Blue Mountains on Friday, but after thinking "you only live once" I thought is it really worth missing out on an adventure just for a little lost sleep. I got up at 3.45 am on Friday morning and although I had everything ready the night before, still seemed to underestimate how slow I am at that time of the morning and was rushing out the door at 4.10. Equiped with my "Whereis" directions, I was surprised at how easy it was getting to the Blue Mountains (I get lost very easily). It was raining a little and looked as though it had been raining heavily through the night so I had no idea what the weather would be like up there. "Whereis" had me speeding the entire way to get there in the time limits it had provided and I was crapping myself at the thought of it being double demerits. My effort was in vain when I found out I missed the train the guys were catching at Woodford by around 3 minutes. At this time it was still really dark and foggy and I had no idea where the track was so I couldnt head out on my own so I decided to try and race the train up the track. It wasnt looking good when I got stuck behind a truck but was lucky to see the guys running across the road at Wentworth Falls and pumped the horn. A rush of getting ready and we were off.

The guys were definately a lot faster than me, but luckily Terry stayed back a little so that I could still see him in the fog and he could still see them and I didnt get lost. The pace to keep up was quite a bit quick for me (around 5.30 km's on the road) and I was praying that we would hit the trail so that I could start going at my own pace and didnt have to worry about getting lost. We managed to take the wrong turn on the trail for a while, adding around an extra km but soon after Sailaway gave me a map and we were all on our way. I was thankful for the slow down in pace and was really enjoying how peaceful it was in the fog.

The views were spectacular and it made me feel so small being out there amongst the massive mountains. The guys were nice and left a map out for me to let me know where to turn off on the trail. At the next intersection I went to turn right as you were meant to and noticed 3 of the guys running back towards me as they had gone the wrong way. It was at this point that Terry had decided to slow down the pace a little and joined me for the rest of the run. I enjoy running on my own but it was also a lot of fun having some company and we chatted a lot about all things ultra, it made the time go past really quickly. For a lot of the way I was thinking that it probably wasnt training for 6 foot as the hills werent that big, however, once we reached the 20km mark we were met by a very steep descent to the river that saw me matching my right black toe with a left black toe!! From around 24km onwards it was just constant steep hills upwards and we kept checking to see if we were going the right way by looking at the footprints of the other guys. When we hit the road again it wasnt long before we reached the train station and the guys were relaxing in chairs refueling and gave us a nice clap in.

I am not completely sure myself as I didnt have sattlelite for a while but the guys said we done just over 33km and I think I completed it in just over 4 hrs which I am very happy with. Terry kindly gave me a lift back to my car and I was off towards home by 11 am. I am happy with how I went, but realised I didnt fuel properly when I didnt have any dinner the night before as I had a couple of drinks at work and didnt manage breakfast either so was only going on a few gels (besides the tyre around my waist!!!!).

I arrived home to find some of our guests arrived. I helped Dean cook the barbie and it was nice sitting on our balcony that was quite cool in contrast to the heat out west. We headed over to Bondi Beach later on and met up with a lot of other people and didnt leave until 8pm. After having a shower we were off again to the Beach Road Hotel. By midnight I was absolutely shattered and was begging Dean for us to go home. Needless to say, I slept very well Friday night after being awake for almost 24 hours.

On Saturday Dean and I went to Mum and Dad's to pick up Kaos and we took her camping at hte bottom of Macquarie Pass. It was a lot of fun but our new tent (which is bigger than our unit) is too much of a pain in the ass to put up just for one night. We were lucky this morning when we woke up and the rangers come and they were nice and told us that we werent meant to be camping there, as you're only allowed to be camping at least 1 km in.

All in all it was a great way to spend a long Aussie Day weekend, from running in the Mountains, to having a nice bbq on the cliffs, to having a swim at bondi, having a few at the pub, and then on to camping illegally with my puppy. Finishing it off with a roast cooked by my Mum. What more could I ask for ????

Dont need a Gu, just give me some rain....

I met up with 2 of the girls from SWEAT this morning at Centennial park at 5.30 for our mid-week long-run. Since I'm not quick enough at the moment to keep up with the other girls I found that I was missing my mid-week long-run, cause quite frankly I cant be assed to do it on my own. It was really great to have some company again, the time absolutely flew as we were chatting away.

We set out around the outside of the park and kept to where the street lights were until it started to get lighter and we headed inside the park to stay on the grass. I was constantly looking for the bubblers as it was very humid and the rain that fell was welcomed. All up today we done 13.5km today in the 90 min which I am happy with because I felt like I could go at that pace forever. I felt a little stiff to start with but then near the end of the run, with the rain coming down heavier, I started to feel really great and refreshed. Isnt it funny how running in the rain just seems to give you a huge injection of life and energy.

On the personal front things are going quite well. I've finally decided a career path for myself. I am starting my Masters next session and hope to get out and start my own business after that. In the mean time I am looking for a new role and going to interviews just so that I can earn a bit more dosh to pay for all the courses I've signed myself up for. I've got a feeling I will be paying HECS until I die !!!!

Getting there...

I was off to SWEAT this morning. Even though I knew I shouldnt be doing speed work I decided to go so that I wasnt breaking the habit of getting up early. Arrived in time to do the warm up drills and strides. I told Sean that I wasnt meant to me doing the speed work but he told me that i should just give it a go. I was a little worried about this as the memory of Thursday's session with Tiger was still etched in my mind so I decided to take take it upon myself to just take it a little easier anyway.

I had 2 x 2km reps and a 1km rep with 11.23, 11.22 and 5.22 for each of them and finished extremely comfortably. I was finding that as long as I keep my pace around the 5.30 mark my piriformis doesnt niggle as much but when I go further it starts to irritate a little. Even though it was a little slower it still felt like a good session. Lots of stretching will be doing by me tonight.

I'm considering heading up to the Blue Mountains on Aussie Day. It looks as though I might not be able to keep up with the guys going in my current form though, so I may reconsider and head to Quarry Road instead. I will need to be home before lunch though as we are having a BBQ at our place with some friends. Dean has allowed me 1 hours grace of being late, but I would like to be there before they arrive. We've also bought lots of crap to go camping on the weekend, just dont have the tent yet ;)

Lazy Weekend....

I have had a very lazy weekend indeed. It just seems too hot to be doing anything. As I was down the coast at my parents place I went along to Kiama markets this morning and it was nice and cool with the ocean breeze.

When I headed back home I decided that I should get my butt into gear, because I've been told to not do speed work not to not run at all. I headed out for a nice 30 min which was meant to be longer but I was trying out my orthotics that have been altered and they started to rub on the arches so I headed home before I got huge blisters. Although there was quite a fierce wind, I was surprised to see how much I was sweating still. I'm finding that I'm not in any pain at all but I feel like I have elastic bands around my legs that stop me from really being able to stretch out my stride. Cant complain much, cause at least I'm running......

Ouch Ouch Ouch

Was off to SWEAT this morning. We had 3 x 1.2km laps on the program (I actually had 4 but found out the 4th was optional). I noticed that I was feeling really tired in my warm up, I just cant seem to shake the tiredness out of my legs. I'm wondering when I will start to feel fresh again. I honestly dont know what my splits were because I stuffed up doing the laps with my garmin but I think they were around at 5.20-30 / km pace. The last one was a fair bit slower as I was finding it hard catching my breath after the second lap so I hung back a bit. It was a bit disappointing seeing the group I usually run with up ahead, but surprisingly they werent as far ahead as I thought they would be.

I had a massage with Tiger at lunch today. I think its possibly the most painful session I've had so far and he said he was barely touching me. My butt, hips and ITB on the right side absolutely killed. As soon as I'm over the injury I need to start working on strengthening my glutes. Tiger also advised me to stay away from the speed work until I'm completely pain free. I think I might still go to SWEAT so I dont break the habit of getting up early again (Its bloody hard to get back into it) and just do a light run.

Back to SWEAT

I had an easy 6km on the program for today, but after an email from Sean to see if I was coming back to training I decided to head to SWEAT this morning. It was really hard dragging myself out of bed after a month of getting to sleep in a bit. It was really great to see some of the regular faces again, I have defiantely missed training. I also noticed that there has been a big surge in attendance of new people....must be a lot of new years resolutions!!! I found out that we had 4 laps of the lake on the program (5.8km) which we were meant to hit out at pretty hard as an indicator of how our training has been going. Well, if it was any indication of my training over the last month it wasnt going to be fun. In the first lap I tried to take it a bit easy. After the second lap was complete Sean told me to catch the group in front of me. I managed to catch them on that lap but noticed that going fast really wasnt much fun. I really felt like slowing down in the last lap as my piriformis was starting to let me know that it wasnt happy with the speed. I slowed down for a bit and Belinda went past and said to just hang in there so I decided to just get on with it and pushed myself to the finish and finished in 32.50.

Looking at that time, I would say that its pretty crappy, but considering I have not gone quicker than 7 min k's (besides my last minute dash at the 12 hour) for around a month now, I think I should be happy with that. It will be hard to be patient with gaining back the speed, after seeing all the people I used to run with all the way up ahead of me. Patience, patience, patience....

First Quarry Road Adventure

After I completed Coastal Classic Sean called to congratulate me and we had a chat about whats next on the program. He told me to stay away from Lady Carrington and to get out and hit the hills until 6 Ft. I saw on Cool running that Belinda and Horrie were planning to head to Quarry Road today so I asked if I could tag along for the ride as I have been quite curious about this part of the world, having heard lots about it.

After having absolutely no sleep overnight (partly due to noisy neighbours and knowing I had to get up at 4.20), I drove my car over to Centennial park so that I could be picked up by Horrie and Belinda at 5.00 am. We picked up Jen-Runs in the city and we were then off for Hornsby.

Belinda and I decided to take it easy while Horrie and Jen charged on ahead. As I have only ever been sticking to Lady Carrington some of the hills were a bit daunting for me as I tend to slip quite easily. I will have to learn to be more confident when running down the hills. Belinda and I spent a lot of time chatting and on the first lap out we were walking a lot of the uphills. On the way back from the first lap I think we were so distracted that we were running the uphills as well. Belinda was debating whether to pull the plug at having done one complete lap. I was pretty happy either way as I only had 7km on my program so anything else was a bonus. I suggested that we start running out again until we met Horrie and Jen (which I later regretted big time). Near the end Belinda put her headphones on to concentrate to get up the hills. At this point I had Nutbush city limits in my head as it was the last thing on the radio before we got out. The sun started to come out and it was really warming up when we were heading out for the second lap and I hadnt prepared well with hydration and had run out of water. We got to the loo which is about 4.5km out and although we hadint seen Horrie and Jen, we decided to turn around from there as the thought of tackling the next very large winding hill didnt really appeal. I found that it wasnt so much that I was hurting, I was just running out of energy and really needed to drink.

I was extremely glad to see the car at the end. All up Belinda and I done around 21km for just over 3 hours. Pretty good for me considering the run last weekend, and it took me forever to recover from Canberra Marathon. It was great sitting around in the shade at the end rehydrating and Jen brought some snacks with her that were greatly welcomed.

By the time I got home Dean was just waking up from doing night shift the night before and we headed out to the movies to watch Blood Diamond. I wont give away too many details but it was great, very full on and very confronting.

I'm looking forward to heading out to Quarry Road a few more times before Six Foot and seeing the track as well. The run seemed to work well for my lack of sleep lately as I slept like a baby.

Recovering

I thought I would update on how I've been recovering. On Monday morning I was feeling surprisingly good considering I had run 12 hours. The only real pain I had was in my butt (apparently my piriformis which runs through the lower back into the butt) and I had a limp. I was feeling much better than expected and surprisingly feeling better than after the Canberra Marathon. I was getting a wierd look from colleagues with all the different coloured drinks I was drinking.

One of the girls at work had some great news so we got some bubbly to celebrate. I had one glass and started to get hot flushes and a bit fevery so I decided that my kidneys have been through enough for a while and I'll leave celebrating for later.

Early on Tuesday morning I had an appointment with the physio and he gave me some accupuncture on my lower back and butt, some heat pack and then some massage. I also had a massage with Tiger at lunch on Tuesday. Just a nice and light one.

On Wednesday I was feeling much better and the pain in my butt had even started to go away. I have been making sure I do heaps of stretching. The only thing is walking up stairs I notice that I get a tad tired quicker with my heart rate rising more than usual. Dean and I went for a swim at Little Bay on Wednesday night and the water was nice and beautiful. After getting out of the water I noticed that I didnt feel the pain at all anymore. YAYY..

Today I had to run to get the bus and I noticed my left calf where I had the injury all December was feeling a bit sore and I felt it in my hip but by the time I got to work it was fine. Had another session with Tiger at lunch which was a really hard session and I was advised I might feel as crap as after the race. I'm feeling pretty spaced out at the moment, there must have been a lot of toxins released.

I havent started running again. I have just been taking it easy making sure I keep moving and walking around constantly but I dont want to rush getting back into training and risking another injury.

Coastal Classic 12 hour......I DONE IT !!!!!

WARNING: This post may be extremely long, yet strangely quite vague.

For those few that have been reading my blog, you would know that the lead up to the Coastal Classic for me was not ideal. I had been training my little heart out for the race up until the Central Coast half where I suffered calf and shin problems that had me out for pretty much the whole of December. I was really disappointed at the fact that I might not make it to the start line as I had been dreaming of the day that I would do my first ultra, even before I had done my first marathon. I'm extremely glad I made it to the finish line on the weekend and this will be the last that I mention the problems that I had as I promised myself that I would not do the "What if's??" Even if I had the perfect lead up with no injuries, it is very much possible that I would have got the same outcome so I will not dwell.

After doing the Big Bertha session on Thursday I started to get a niggle in the lower outer side of my right leg. I then went frantically searching through the shops on Friday for a so called "Butt plug" (thanks Amanda and Tiger), with no success. Dean and I went out on Friday night to get my long list of supplies and food for the event (most of which was not used) that I put together from reading through lots of people's blogs (thanks heaps to 2P and Tesso). I tried as hard as I could to sleep in on Saturday morning but I'm not really a sleeping in late person so I got up and pottered around getting all my gear ready. Mum and Dad come up at lunch time and we headed off for Gosford at around 2pm. We made a pitt stop at a place to buy a tent. We werent buying a tent specifically for the race but we were wanting to upgrade anyway so we thought it would be a good opportunity. After spending lots of time looking and me getting impatient Dean decided to change his mind as he didnt like any of them and we left with no tent. I was a bit peeved as my plan included having a tent and at this stage I was not ready for change (Yes, you will find out later how stubborn I am). We arrived at Gosford at about 5.30pm. I registered and was given my lovely shirt which was really good quality and will make a nice golf shirt. My only disappointment was that the print for the 12 hour ultra was small and I was hoping for it to be in huge writing to for the entire world to see!! After seeing that lots of people were setting up tents, Dean decided to go ask one of his old work mates who lived in Terrigal if he could borrow a tent for the night. When I should have been at the grounds preparing myself I was stuck in a car while Dean was off buying beer. Also, not the best start. At 7pm we were given our race instructions and told of some changes from council restrictions (we had to use the 3rd lane which was 420m laps) and at 7.30pm we were off.

The first 3 hours went by OK after which I was noticing a little the lack of training I had had but I think it would have started hurting after 3 hours anyway. It was a very wierd experience to be on the same 400m track as people and not see them for hours. My strategy at first was to run for around 20 min and then give myself a walking break for a little while to have a proper drink. I was also making time to stop and stretch every now and then. I told my crew to make sure that I was having a Succeed cap every hour.

Around the 5-6 hour mark I really started to struggle. Taking even 2 laps of walking break was not enough for me. Dean kindly pointed out to me that there was a female walker that was beating me just walking casually. Dean was giving me regular updates all through the night of where I was placed, so I had to kindly remind him that as my first ultra, placing was not of concern to me. I decided to give my body a bit of a change and started to power walk through some laps. Dean said I was going much better doing this than my crappy walks before and started churning the laps out in 4 min. I would then start running again whenever I felt like it.

I cant remember when I went through the marathon point but all I can remeber is that it seemed to take forever. Running around on the track wasnt boring as I thought it would be but for some reason it was really damn hard. Around the marathon stage I started to have a lot of trouble with my glute. Tiger did tell me the name of the muscle but all I remember is its the one that runs from the middle of my back around the glute to the side of my hip and is responsible for the movement when you move your leg backwards. It was extremely painful and I was having to stop frequently. I was trying to stretch it but at the time I was really confused as to where the majority of the pain was coming from, I couldnt tell whether it was my upper ITB, glute or hip all I knew was that it hurt really bad. After taking lots of time off I tried to get up and out there and my leg completely ceased up, I couldnt walk. Dean had to help carry me over to the blanket while I tried to stretch it out. This all happened again and I honestly thought I was finished. I was extremely frustrated as the rest of my body was going through its second (or nth wind) and was feeling quite good. Another wierd thing about ultra's is that your body only feels so much pain before it goes numb and it feels like the clock got wound back to 2 hours.

It was around this time that I heard Jen_Runs scream out for Belinda who was reaching her 60km mark (I was still on 44km). I turned my head sideways on my blanket and saw the stream of people going past and saw Belinda at how great she was looking and thought "Bloody hell thats it". I got up and my Mum asked me "Is your leg feeling better?". I replied "No, but I'm never doing this bloody race again so I might as well make the most of it!". I got up and sort of hobbled my way along forcing my leg to come along for the ride. After it started warming up again I tried it out for a run and while it was still extremely painful it seemed easier to manage while I was running.

When I finally got myself back on the road again it was about 8 hours in. It was from this point onwards that I started running and did not stop until the 12 hour gun. I realised at the 8 hour mark that I had made a lot of vital mistakes. I had been making my breaks too long allowing my body to cool down and tighten too much and stopping to stretch while racing didnt turn out to be a good idea for me personally. I didnt really have a strategy of my own at all. How could I, it was my first ultra. So all through the race whenever I was hearing other people's strategies I would be like, 'Oh, I might try that'. So from 8 hours onwards this was my time to do my own thing. All I can remember over this time was that I barely stopped to walk. I changed my stride every now and then but it was running only. It felt great as there was not many other people running at this stage besides the winners. I was in a great mood and even cracked a joke with an old guy (he didnt appreciate it at 3.30 in the morning). I kept myself entertained by singing to myself (not as loud as the guy in the fleuro yellow top tucked into fleuro blue bike pants). I specifically didnt use an ipod as I wanted my brain to stay active my remembering the words to songs and I wanted to stay in tune with my body. I dont have the final laps yet, but my Dad says I clocked up more k's in the last 4 hours than any other time in the race. I was a little worried that my determination was bordelining on stupidity and that I would end up with an injury from pushing on, but in hindsight luckily it is just tightness.

My garmin concked out after 7.5 hours which actually turned out to be a good thing. As there was a bit of a difference between my garmin and the actual distance covered on the course it was a little depressing when you're being told 'no, your 2km short of that'. Taking the watch off and doing what my body felt like was the best thing. Another thing that I learnt on the night was I wasnt really getting enough updates from my crew. Most of the time throughout the night I wasnt really aware of what distance I covered. It was near the end when I knew my lower goal of 75km could be achieved that I started to get updates. When I went through the 75km mark I have never been so happy, at least I got my qualifier for 6 foot track. My Dad thought I would stop there since I got the qualifier but I didnt come all that way to stop at 11.5 hrs or so.

The gun went off at 5 min to go which happened to go off as I was running right beside the guy. Not a good thing for the heart of someone who has been awake for 24 hours and running for almost 12. When I heard the gun go off I thought this is it and gave the next lap all I had because I knew it would take me to just over 77km. When I went through again I saw that I had done the last lap quite quickly (2.30) and I would have a chance to maybe do another so I put the pace on even more and went through in 2.20 and an extra 35m. It was quite funny as Dad was running over to me because he was going to have to stand in my spot and he was trying to chase me around the field as was Dean trying to get a photo. When the final gun went off I couldnt hold back the tears. I'm not sure if any actual tears come down but I had the whole crinkly face thing going. I even made my Mum cry. I got my official result of 77.7km which I am extremely happy with considering myself and many others thought I would be out after 44km.

Everything after was a bit of a blurr. I remember we werent allowed to have a shower because of water restrictions. Luckily I had bought baby wipes for the occasion and my lovely Mum took me into the ladies and gave my black legs a wipe down and cleaned me up a little before I got in my car. Dean also kindly shouted me a bacon and egg sandwhich.

I had a lot of trouble taking a nap when I got home as my leg was so sore I couldnt really lie on it or move properly. I didnt really sleep well on Sunday night either. Still trying to catch up.

Some takeaway's. I learnt lots in my first ultra. I learnt what works for me, what doesnt so next time I will have my own strategy. I learnt that when it comes down to the crunch I have what it takes. My Dad always knew I was determined but he told me I surprised him with how determined and strong willed I was. I always knew that I had it in me I was just needing to put it to the test.

All up I would like to say a huge thanks to the organisers who put on a really great event. Thanks to Jen_Runs and Will for providing constant cheering. You guys hardly missed any laps. Thanks also to Horrie and Eagle who were always giving me lots of cheering as they were passing through. A big thanks to Belinda for keeping me in good spirits and it was great sharing my first ultra experience with you - see you at 6 foot. And lastly a huge thanks to Mum, Dad and Dean for crewing for me and cheering for me the whole way. I think I would have been tempted to give up at 3 hrs if you guys werent there.

Ahh Heaven...Big Bertha in the rain...

I just realised I have forgotten to update on running this week. On New year's day (extremely jealous of those that were doing the Black Stump) I headed out to do a few laps of the Coastal Path in Vaucluse. I managed to entice Dean to join me for 2 laps which would have been around 4.5km and then done another 2 laps on my own. I felt pretty good the whole way and it felt as though my leg was getting better the more it warmed up. Had to dodge the mess of glass bottles around Christensen Park. Finished extremely happy as I was in no pain at all.

I had an email from Sean yesterday to say that if I wasnt 100% he didnt want me running. Yesterday was the day the physio said I should be 100% so I headed out at lunch to do 5km. I felt absolutlely crap. It wasnt that painful it was more that I felt extremely stiff. I wasnt enjoying it and called it quits. I was extremely disappointed and was almost in tears at the thought that I might not be making it on the weekend. After ringing Sean he said that if I made it through Big Birtha this morning I would be fine on the weekend.

After sleeping in for the last couple of weeks it really hurt getting up this morning. I managed the warm up and drills fine with no pain. I was worried about the session as I had been sticking to flat since I've been back into it so didnt know how I would handle 7 laps of Big Bertha. I stayed right at the back of the pack for the entire run, just taking it easy. I got lapped a few times, but I felt no pain at all in my calf. It was more my quads that were letting me know of their presence as they havent had Bertha for a while. I cant explain how great it felt to be back at training. I never thought I would enjoy a session doing Big Bertha in the pouring down rain so much. After a chat with Sean I got the go ahead for the weekend as long as I just take it easy. I am now super excited and it was great chatting to Horrie and Belinda about the weekend on the warm down.

At lunch today, I am off to get the rest of my supplies. I have a handy list of things to get thanks very much to 2P's great post on the Coastal Classic for 2006. I think I will be prepared as I can be on the gear front.

New Year's Resolutions.......

Highlights of 2006......

While 2006 was a big year for me with running, I am planning for 2007 to be even bigger. Although I have been running for 6 years now and running has always been a good escape from stress and it was fun going to the KJ runs, it wasnt until 2006 that I really started to get completely and utterly obsessed with the entire running thing. I had been wanting to do a marathon for quite a while but after reading "Ultra Marathon Man" at the end of 2005 I decided that I would bite the bullet and make Canberra Marathon my maiden voyage. I made it to the start line in April 2006, finished and I was so extremely proud of myself.

The second biggest highlight of the year was joining SWEAT in August. It took me a while to work up the courage to attend as I thought it would be filled with elite only, but I seemed to have fitted in fine with a great bunch of people that share my obsession. Another highlight was going along to camp where I got to feel like an elite athlete for a few days.

Doing the Brindabella Bulls Head Challenge in October was lots of fun and a highlight for me as it was my first trail run that I've ever done and it was also one of the few races that I have ever actually enjoyed.

Lastly, taking a huge 12 min off my half marathon PB in december at Central Coast was really cool too :)

Some of the downsides were - I realised how much you need to listen to your body when after the marathon I was really struggling to get back into the running and after forcing myself to have 3 weeks off felt great for having rested. The other big downside is getting my first injury which I have been struggling to deal with.

Looking forward to 2007......

Stealing my goals from my post on Cool Running

Distance / Main goal / (stretch goal)
5km - Sub 23 min (sub 22 min)
10km - Sub 50 min (Sub 47 min)
21.1km - Sub 1.50 (Sub 1.45)
42.2km - Sub 4 hrs (Sub 3.45 - starting to reconsider this one)

Other more general goals for the year
- Try and get Dean to take up running
- Learn to swim laps
- Learn to ride my bike with cleats (and without whinging)
- Try and not forget to do my strength sessions
- Discover runs in National Parks I have never done before
- Take my kayak out a lot more
- Do as many fat ass runs as I can
- Enter a lot more races
- Try and not miss many SWEAT sessions
- Go the year injury free
- Complete my first ultra
- Lose 10 kegs to make all of the above a little easier

I'm also looking for a really big adventure this year. I have been suffering for utter boredness in 2006 needing a big challenge that does not require a text book or sitting behind a desk; so I have been looking into a really exciting race that will take me overseas. I will post what the race is once it looks to be a bit more realistic.