Pacing with Gary

Gary was not happy today. I had preloaded the training program the night before so all I had to do is press start in the morning. I had set Gary up to test out his pacing ability. Gary was getting revenge on me from yesterday. He did not let up: speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down. For god's sake man, make up your mind! There's no pleasing some devices, they just try their hardest to make you suffer at any cost!

Well Gary did do me one favour today. I managed to do a 10k pb. This time I took a further 2 mins off my previous time of 53:45 to make it in 51:12. I jogged home for a total of 11.5k.

I am having anxiety attacks over the google earth/ motionbased link. Something is just not working and I have downloaded every program under the sun. I can now get the satelite maps working but can't work out how to save them or how to post them on my blog! I will have another go tonight!

No Gary No, Noooooo Gary!

I went out for some speedwork this afternoon. I have been doing 8 x 400's previously and felt like I might give the full 10 a go tonight. I had set up Gary for the Intervals but I had forgotten about the warm up, so I deleted that and reset Gary for the Intervals after the 5k warm up.

Once I arrived at to the track (my version of the track) I reset Gary for the 10 x 400 Intervals with 1min recovery in between. I set off and was running pretty well and kept on running and running and running!! What the....is going on, I said to myself! I stopped and looked at Gary and it read 427m! No Gary No, that's not what I asked you to do, you idiotic piece of GPS. Of course it had nothing to do with the operator at all! ;-)

Anyway once we were both on the same wave length, I got back into it. So my splits were:

1. 1:44
2. 1:46
3. 1:36
4. 1:44
5. 1:42
6. 1:55 (Stuffed here)
7. 1:37
8. 1:44

Numbers 1,3,5 and 7 were all on a slightly down hill track. The even numbers were on a slightly up hill track. Made it through the 8 then a nice recovery 2.5 jog home for a total of 10k all up. I really concentrated on staying consistant throughout each rep. Trying to not go too fast in the beginning and dying at the end. It's not easy though.

on the way home I noticed that they have started to build some houses now on my favourite running Estate! How dare they. Who do they think they are? The Council or something!!!

Mishy mushy monday!

Missed out on my Sunday long run due to some niggling right foot pain after Saturday's run. Made an effort to Ice and Voltaren all day long and it worked a treat! So up early this morning for what was to be a 15k run but turned out to be a 13.3k run instead. I felt pretty good throughout the entire run and the stats were:

time: 1 hr12 mins

13.31kms

avg H/R: 160bpm - Zone 4.7

Avg pace: 5.24kph

I had to cut it short because I needed to get home and get ready for work. Damn work, it interferes with my trainng program all the time! I downloaded my stats again tonight and once again I had that curious spike in my HR at around the 2.5k mark. I think that CJ is right there must be some form of interference around there. I will have to check it out next time. I'm sure I would have noticed if my heart rate was over 225bpm! My heart rate always seems to be very constant in the second half of the run. Not sure if this is a good thing or not. Maybe I'm not pushing myself enough!

CR 5K Challenge

I finally made to one of the CR 5k Challenges. (That's me in the black) I felt pretty good despite my head cold and the dreaded Garmin curse lurgy that had attacked me the day before. I started out with the 25min group hoping to better my previous 5k time of 25:35. There were 3 in the 25 min group and as we started, the pace was quiet comfortable. I decided not to look at my watch I just wanted to surprise myself at the end. It was good though having the beeps every 1k at least I knew how far there was to go.

The other female runner in our group seemed to go a bit ahead at the 3-4k mark and the male runner stayed with me and was really helpful because he kept me going and was spurring me on, especially at the end. Unfortunately I couldn't talk back because I was trying to breath! I was thinking to myself, "why doesn't he just go on ahead of me?" as it was obvious that this was not his normal pace and he was finding it relatively easy. I finally made it to the finish in a time of 23.21. Gary's readout on the track was just a bit over 5k. So if I took the extra 25 seconds off that, my Garmin 5k time was 22:56.

Splits were:

4.38

4.34

4.29

4.39

4.35

Average Pace: 4.35

Avg H/R: 168bpm, Zone 5.1

349 cals

I was really glad that I went along. At the end I found out that it was gnscon who was running with me. ( It was just a great example of how friendly and helpful the coolrunning community are to runners at all levels)

After the cooldown I ran back with the Owl and we chatted about stuff, stopped had a drink and chatted some more. Then we headed off to the bakery for brekkie!! Yum I had an egg and bacon tart. Very cute! I chatted to Tux over brekkie and briefly met Don Juan towards the end. I also met for the first time; Blue Dog, Auntie, Truckie,Bernie G, Mountain matty,vatman, elises and so many others I can't remember!!!! I'm a very happy Go girl and I will definately be going again next time!

Track time

Go Boy and I have a cuddle just before his race. We had a nice day watching all of the kids running. He's determined to come back next year and have another go!

Hill reps x 10....Go!

Hill reps x 10












Completed 10 x hill reps just around the corner from home. I have decided to start on a hill with a gradual incline and not too steep to begin with. I have some great big mothers picked out for that later on. Felt ok doing this! I think that I need to start challenging myself a little more to improve. Time to move on to plan B....

Go Boy's zone carnival was this morning! He finished 8th in his heat and was very disappointed. But we were still very proud of him anyway. He put in a real gutsy effort against some very talented youngsters.

Wish upon a star

10k H/R Chart












I obviously didn't make it down to the track last night so I did the usual 10k loop instead. Having watched a program all about asteroids and comets on Discovery chanel the night before, I was amazed while running along last night, I looked up at the sky and just as I was thinking how lovely it looked and I saw a huge shootingstar. It was a sign from above! Well that's what my Mum would say anyway. She is very tuned in to that sort of stuff.

Anyway it put a smile on my face and made me realise how we are just another spec out there in the universe. A bit cheesy I know, but It gave me something to think about while running in the dark.

All up I felt rather good during the run. I did have a closer look at the Heart rate chart though which shows a spike at the 2k mark, a reading of 210?? Not really sure what happened there?
I almost forgot to mention, I also did a 10k PB last night. 53:45, that's 15 sec's better than my previous best recorded 10k. Not huge, but an improvement on a training run is always good.

Going out for some 1k Intervals this afternoon. Getting ready for the Zone carnival tomorrow for Go Boy.

8x100m

Bernie Mullane Track















I headed down to the track with Go Boy this afternoon to put in some track work before his 100m race on Friday. It just so happens that my training program had 8x100m with jog recovery. I ended up completing 1k in 4:45 which I was rather surprised because I haven't done any 1k's for while and that is a slight improvement on my previous times. (Even though I wasn't doing 1k's??)

Anyway I felt pretty good tonight and had a relatively medium paced run. I think I recovered a lot quicker than I had expected from the 21k. I might just go down to the track tomorrow night for some pain with Steve. I might just do a 10k in the morning? Depends on how I feel really...

We have maps

I have managed to sort out the map situation. (Thanks allrounder) I also recieved an e-mail from the support people at motionbased saying that there was a problem when I tried to transfer the data from Gary and that they had fixed it all up for me.

So now i have some really cool maps to play with too!

Sunday Long Run - 21k

After a really busy Saturday I decided to sleep in on Sunday morning. I managed to get to stay in bed until 8am until Go Baby woke up. Go Boy and Go Dad headed off early to the cricket nets for some training. So I had a nice morning with Go Baby.

The plan was to do a long run this Sunday and then taper over the next few weeks before the Blackmores Half. I managed to get out at around 4.45pm for a planned 21k.

The first few k's i found it really hard to get into a rhythm. I then relaxed a bit and had a really good run after that. I did 2 laps of my usual loop plus adding in a couple of extra legs up past the shops. I was concious about not going out too fast and trying to do a negative split for the second 10k. I felt really good after the first 10k (54:98) and decided to put in a bit of a surge at the 12k mark. I was surprised how I could keep pushing myself and I still felt pretty good especially up the hills. I made it home in 2 hrs all up for 21.06km. I managed to negative split, just!

• First 10k in (54:98)
• Second 10k in (54:18)

The curious thing is, my heartrate throughout the entire second 10k hardly moved at all from around 156bpm. This is even on the hills. I can't figure it out, it's really weird. If I could work out how to put my maps etc... on here then I would post my H/R chart. I have tried using motionbased but they are not geared up for Garmin TC yet. So no fancy maps yet from me!

5k TT and Saturday Joggers.

Thankyou to all of my readers that have left such lovely comments about Go Boy. I will keep you updated with his cricket progress.

Friday
I decided to do a 5k Time Trial just to push myself a bit and to see how I was going with the speed training. I manged to complete the 5k, which has a few hills:

25:37mins
5.01km
5.06 av pace
361 cals
164 av bpm

In all I felt pretty good, I feel that I could have pushed myself a bit more around the 2-3k mark. Will have to remember that for next time. I am going to go to the CR 5k challenge this month and also to one of the striders 10k's. I think that this type of diversity within my training will help to strenghten and speed up my longer runs.

Saturday
I set off early to Joggers this morning, with Gary. He was so happy to meet the group and they were all asking about his functions etc...It was raining lightly but not enough to worry us, so we all set off at 7am on course F.

I chatted with Martin for a while before he left me on the hill.(again)I did manage to stay within eye sight of the leader pack for most of the way, well at least until the final 2k anyway.

This course took us through the bush for a bit and then back up on to the road then finally back to the club. I was pretty happy to make it back in 36.28 mins for 7.14k according to Gary. My average pace was again 5.06, the same as yesterday. My fastest km was the 2nd one that I did at 4.43 pace. :-) The last time I did this course my time was 45:10mins. Happy go girl!

I had to go straight after the run this morning as it was National Scrapbook day today. I had a great time doing my kids albums all day long.

Cricket Story...

I had a day off work today! Well if you could call it that. The plan was to do some clutter removal and to go for a run at some stage throughout the day.

So I decluttered for two hours then went for an easy 10k. Did I say easy? Well sort of easy. I'm not used to running during the middle of the day and it became rather hot. I could feel the sun really belting down.

Gary assured me that my training could really pick up now and we had our first official run together today. We ran an easy 10k.

10.03 km
58:12 mins
5.48 Avg pace
764 cal
163/bpm Avg Heart rate

The Cricket Story

Go Boy had to go and try out for the Barbarians cricket team on the weekend. The only problem is, he's only eight and has played the "Have a go" beginners series for 3 years now. So he wasn't keen to go back into that group again because they only use those plastic bats and as he says "It's for baby's".

So we asked if he could try out for the under 10's. We had to go along and he had to prove that he has the skills to be able to handle the proper wooden bats and the hard balls.

As we arrived the under 11's were already in the nets playing. Go Boy being really keen asked one of the coaches if he could go in the nets for a hit and a bowl. So off he went.

15 minutes later the under 11's coach was over talking to us saying that he would be more than happy to have him in the team! But he wasn't there to try out for the under 11's. So once we told the coach that he was only 8yrs old, he nearly choked.

He also asked us where did he learn to bowl so well, with both the left and right arms? We didn't even know that he was bowling with both arms, he just did it.

Once they started batting he just smashed them all over the place. So now he's in the under 11's. Luckily he's so tall he doesn't really stand out too much amongst the other kids.

So now, it's cricket season !!!!!

Introducing Gary............

Yes my new friend arrived yesterday, Gary! I could hardly wait to see him. I stopped off at the post office on the way to work to pick up Gary and I bought a newspaper to check the C2S results.

I didn't know what to do first, check the results or set Gary free. I decided to look in the newspaper first. After 20 mins of looking, I got cranky and decided to open the box. I gave the newspaper to my work mate and she tried to look for my name, to no avail.

I ended up emailing Enzuber to find out his approx time so I could look in the same area. Bingo....Found it! I had actually ran slower than I had originally thought, but still happy with the result 77:16. One of my friends had told me to take 10mins off the finish time but that was not correct, it was actually 8mins.

Gary was happy to be out of that box, it had been a long trip from the States. I told him that I was disappointed that he didn't make it in time for the C2S and that he would have to make up for it in the Blackmores Half. He didn't respond though, batteries not charged yet! Slack.... I hope he lifts his game...

So what have I been doing on the running front?

MONDAY: Rest

TUESDAY: 8k, and a dog attack (little snappy fox terrier)

WEDNESDAY: 5k followed by 8 x 400m with Gary.

I'm still working out all of the features on this thing and I spent more time on the Garmin than I did running this morning. So, I got home really late and got to work late..oops!

C2S Report

Wow what a great day! I have just finished reading the coolrunning threads and so many CR'S have set new PB's and had some great runs.

Being my first C2S I didn't really know what to expect. I was glad that I went and had the trial run a few weeks prior. Therefore I knew where I was and what was ahead..eg..Heartbreak Hill.

I met up with Omni,Enzuber and co...at the start and we chatted for about an hour before we set off. Once my legs and feet got the feeling back into them, I found that I had settled into a nice even pace.(As even as you can get doing the dodge thing) I stayed with Enzuber for the first 2-3k then somehow lost him in the crowd after that.

Passed a couple of CR's going up HB Hill and waved to one CR wearing his headphones. I decided to miss the first two drink stops and go on to the one at the top of HB Hill. My feet were sticky from the Gatorade all over the ground, yuck!

Surprisingly I felt pretty good at the 9k mark which is where I then saw Enzuber again, just in front of me. I tried to catch him again but he took off through the crowd and I was happy with the pace that I was going at this stage.

Made it around to the 13k marker where I saw the cheer squad in action. They really gave me that lift that I needed to get up that final hill. I looked at my watch just before the finish and knew that I had made it just before the 75min mark, which is what I was hoping for.

Overall I think that I surprised myself with my effort and I am very happy with the result and I'm looking forward to next year!!!!

Athletics Update

I forgot to mention that Go Boy had a great Athletics carnival run.

He came first in the heats for the 100m, 200m and 400m. He placed second in the final for the 100m and has been chosen for the school zone carnival, held in a couple of weeks.

I am very proud of him!

Walk and stretch....

After having some major shin pain on my last run I decided to have a rest day.

I took a nice walk yesterday afternoon. Walked about 6.5k and then followed it up with some stretches. I feel really good this morning so I might just do an easy 7k this afternoon.

I'm going to check out this new Gym at the Ice Skating rink just near work. I might be able to get in a few pump, pilates or spin classes during lunch times.

Now I know why.........

I love running in the morning! I did not feel tired or lethargic at all. I woke up early for a 7.5k loop of the home track. Felt really good this morning and despite being a recovery run, I consistantly kept on 5.0k pace the entire way.

Heading off to watch Go Boys Athletics Carnival soon.

Just found out that I have to go to Melbourne for work on Saturday. Damn......So I won't be able to catch up with the CR clan on Saturday night. I won't be getting back into Sydney until about 9pm.

Expert Track Advice!

Go Boy asked me for a few running tips this afternoon as he has his Athletics Carnival at school tomorrow. Go Dad looked at me and laughed and said "Yeah Mum, your the runner, help him out" So off we all went to the track.

Go Dad did the timing and of course provided some expert training tips on technique for both myself and Go Boy. Wow, for a non runner, he sure knows a lot about running.(Yes I was being sarcastic) Most of it was good information though. Do you know how it feels to be beaten by your 8yr old son? Well today I found out....Go Boy did one really fast 400m then concentrated on the 100m sprints. With a bit of training he has some real potential. Go Boys time 400m: 1:38

I'm not sure what is happenning this week but I'm so lethargic and sluggish.(Again) I think I need a check up, I'm not usually like this at all. 400's was the plan. Completed 5 x 400m:
1:43
1:45
1:44
1:46
1:43

Although my times did not show that I was abnormally slow compared to other 400m runs, I still felt a lot slower than I normally do. Did an 800m afterwards and then a 2.5k warmdown.

I didn't want to do anything too strenuous leading up to C2S. I would rather conserve my energy and feel refreshed for the race. I plan on taking it easy for the rest of the week by having plenty of sleep, hydrating well, eating well (healthy) and doing a few light easy runs.

10k midmorning jog.

Left home at about 11.30am for a nice easy 10k. I didn't do my usual long run this weekend in preparation for the C2S next weekend.

I felt a bit sore in the calves and had some slight shin pain that stayed with me all the way. I will have to get the ice on to that one. Made it home ok but still feeling the shin pain. I did discover a new path that has been put down. It is perfectly flat and looks to be about 500m on each side and loops around a garden bed separating two streets. It would be perfect for 1k intervals. I will wait for Gary to turn up so that he can let me know exactly how far it is.

Feeling really tired this afternoon, I think it's the sun and the coffee's and the cake that did it. Back to healthy eating this week. Big smacks....Naughty Girl....

8.5k Joggers bush track

Firstly, what do you do when the coolrunning website is down??

1. Chat via e-mail to Ben and Plu.

2. Do not watch Big Brother.

3. Watch the cricket with Go Dad and have the football on as well!
(picture in picture)

4. Go to bed early.

I was a little lost without my favourite website to surf last night! I changed all of the colours on my blog template then I changed it all back because it looked silly.

Joggers Run
Very cold this morning and all of the Licorice legs were out, as Colin calls us.
I was really happy with my run this morning. This run was the D Course and it is about 3k road and about 5.5k bush. Previously my best time for this track was 45.01 and this morning I made it in 43.00. A clear two minutes faster!:-)
And I didn't get lost!

I had planned to pick myself a silent pacer. Someone that I knew was not too fast and that I could just try to stay with hopefully until the end. The lucky suspect that I chose always comes in just before me so I had planned to stick with him today.

The plan went really well until the pace man stopped at the 6k mark and proceeded to have a talk with nature and get a few things off his chest! (so to speak)

Anyway he had served me well up to that point and I knew the rest of the way back to the club so I made it back ok. (I hope that pace man is ok!) He was probably not liking me being on his tail if he wasn't feeling the best and I probably put him off a bit.

Everyone's gearing up for the C2S....Can't wait.

7k afternoon run

After having such a crappy week I decided to get out this afternoon for a slow, easy 7k run. Took it nice and easy and I was just happy to get out and get the legs moving again.
Heading off to Joggers in the morning, looking forward to catching up with group and checking out what the go is for the C2S.

New Toy Order

YEAH!!!!!! I have actually ordered my new toy today.Gary Garmin will be joining me on all of my runs and training sessions from now on. He will definately keep me honest and provide me with some much needed motivation to achieve some personal goals.

Gary will also help me clear up a few speed/distance issues I have been having. I just hope that he wont take too long to get here. Come on Gary! I'm waiting......

The plan is to do at least 10k this afternoon.....Still raining but..I'm feeling a little better today, thanks Miners and Lulu.....

Morning Run

Went for a morning run this morning. I felt really slow and sluggish as I have all week, this week. Not sure what the problem is but I hope it passes soon.

Did a 7.5k very slow run this morning. Having a big stress attack at work and the kids are sick again! Feel crappy, have a headache and I want to go home!:(

What's your Blogging personality?

I took the Blogging Personality Quiz at About Web logs and I am...

The Pundit
I like to blog about a specific topic of interest that I am passionate about - be it business, politics, technology, law, education, entertainment, or literature. I blog regularly and I welcome relevant discussions about my topic. I have a constant thirst for knowledge.

Little Athletics

Headed on down to the track after work yesterday to find that the Little Aths kids were there using the track. I did a few stretches then the usual 2.5k warm up run.

When I returned there was another fellow there running in lane 8. So I asked him if he was part of the group and would he mind if I used lane 8 aswell. Well it was pretty obvious he wasn't part of the group as they were all about 12-14yrs old and he would have been at least 30. He said no problem as he was just leaving anyway.

Just as I had finished some more stretches the kids lined up using all of the lanes for some relay training. Oh well. Time for plan B! So I decided to just run on the outside of the track, a bit rough but still not too bad.

Completed 4 x 200m, 2 x 400 and 2 x 800m at moderate pace. Didn't really feel that good at all. I felt like my butt was dragging on the ground and my legs wouldn't move. Recovery run tonight.

Trackwork will have to be done in the mornings to avoid the congestion at the track.