The week so far

Thank you all for your lovely comments after W2B. It's great to have the support of my fellow Bloggers and CR's. You guys rock! I'm still on a high form the run so I filled in my FFFTM entry form today. I'm sooo looking forward to that one.

Tuesday 29th

I decided to go out for a slow 40min recovery run. The legs complained bitterly and my throat was burning the whole way. I woke up with a very sore throat so I knew that something was definately lurking as it is usually the first sign of a cold or flu. Popped a few Anticol and toughed it out which I'm glad I did because I felt great afterwards.

My legs definately needed the slow run just to loosen them up a bit. I'm not saying that they didn't hurt the entire way because they did.

Distance: 8.1km
Time: 45mins

Wednesday 30th

Something did eventuate - A cold : (

Rest - Massage with Easy Tiger was great. Just what my legs needed although I didn't think so at the time as I was in pain. I always leave there with my legs feeling nice and floppy! Yes, that can be a good thing. I had a lovely chat to Orunner who was lining up for a massage just after me. Now that I have the official "Presidential" invitation to join Striders, how could I say no to that?

I had planned to do some static cycling in the evening however, my legs just weren't up to it and I had really lost motivation by about 8:30pm. A heap of things that I had to catch up on at home were draining my energy levels and I just didn't feel like exercising at all.

Thursday 31st

20mins warmup run
12 x 30sec on x 30secs off
20mins warm down - ended up being about 16mins.

The legs felt great when I woke up this morning and I was ready to give them some more pain : ) I decided that I needed to do just a little sharpener before Saturday because I have really been slack with the speedwork lately. Something I need to work on and become consistent again by adding more to my training program.

Did the whole session on grass : ) Legs felt great, energy levels were good. What more can you ask for?

Distance : 9.1km
Time: 47mins

Recovery

Sunday 27th

Rest day and recovery. I spent most of the day just trying to keep the legs moving although it was little hard at times because they were sooo sore. I tried to do some stretches but simply found that just walking up/down the stairs was a challenge. I was certainly paying for my downhill exploits now!!

Monday 28th

30mins slow cycle - core abs and weights.

The quads were definately feeling the effects today so some stretching was in order after warming the legs up on the fluid trainer. Felt alright afterwards and I might even venture out tomorrow morning for jog around the Ridge.

Official Results from W2B : 3:15:05 14TH Female and 85th overall placing : ) Still smiling!

Mt Wilson to Mt Bilpin

Saturday 26th

I woke up early and had some breakky before Martin turned up to pick me up. In true Go Girl style I left "Gabby" at home : ( but I wasn't too phased because I was just out for a nice fun trail run anyway. I was relly looking forward to it but was somewhat apprehensive because of my lack of consistent training lately and my recent knee/hip injury. So it was really just going to be a "let's see what happens" type run.

The trip up was great, not too far from home. We arrived in enough time to park and catch the first bus up to Mt Wilson and I had a lovely chat to Tuttle on the way. After collecting my race bib I had a nice scone and coffee and chatted to a heap of CR's including :Horrie, Blue Dog, Amjan, Fats, Orunner, Will, Valium, Martin, Sawdust and a few others. It was a real Strider fest out there and Blue Dog trying his hardest to recruit more ; ) Hasn't asked me yet!

The start was pretty cold and I found myself shivering before the gun went off. Once we were away I ran for a little while with Horrie but he soon left me on one of the hills. I really stuck to my stratedgy of "run as much as the hill as I can and walk as soon as I feel the burn" This worked really well for me as I never let my legs go lactic and I maintained a reasonable pace even when walking.

It soon became evident that I was stronger on the flat and the down hill and not so good on the up hill, even to those around me. One runner even calling me "downhill girl" as he passed me on just about every uphill and I then passed him on the downhills.

Another advantage was having my fuel belt. I had 4 bottles all with water and I only stopped at 2 drink stations. The advantage of having my own water meant that I could continue on when others had stopped. I also got to have water when I wanted to which was mostly on or just after some of the hills. I managed to run with Tuttle a lot of the way until we reached the bitumen just before the long down hill. This is where I started to really feel good and picked up the pace a bit. Soon I started over taking people and caught at least 8 - 10 other runners once the terrain levelled out.

The downhill just didn't stop and I loved every bit of it. I was running so well, I was almost laughing to myself.. I soon caught up to another group of runners and eventually over took them as well. I found that I was running very economically not expending too much energy at all and feeling very strong. Then, the fairytale was over.. I reached the bridge and soon realised that it was mostly all up hill from there.

Despite what I had previously been told, I didn't find this part too hard. What I did find hard was trying to forget about the pain in my hip/knee and just press on to make it to the finish. I ended up running with another female most of the way up the hill. Although I did maintain my run / walk stratedgy, I mostly ran this part and managed to catch back up to her even after taking short walk breaks. Once we made it to the flat she pulled away from me but I held on sitting about 20m behind her. Once I could see we were getting closer to the finish line and with about 400m to go I managed to over take her and another female just ahead of me. It hurt like hell but it was fun!

I looked at the clock when I ran over the finish line and I think it said 3:15 something. Close enough anyway. I was so, so happy with how everything went, I just had a great time. It has given me a huge confidence booster now for the FitzroyFalls Marathon even though I know I still have some "Hill" work to do.

Doing some quick calculations (thanks to Gabby) once I returned home. I averaged a pace of:5:34/km. I will be waiting for the Official results to come out before I record anything though.

Preparations

Friday 25th

30 mins slow cycle - Just to get the blood flowing in the legs. Not wanting to do too much before W2B so a nice relaxing cycle was all that I was attempting this morning. I have been trying to carb up and drink plenty of fluids in preparation for the run tomorrow. Still stretching heaps too.

I have arranged to get a lift up with Martin in the morning and the family will be cruising up to Bilpin later in the day and meeting me at the finish. Really looking forward to this run now : ) apparantly they have some yummy steak sandwiches at the end too.

I will be desperately waiting for word from fellow CR nando on Sunday to see how he went in the Adelaide Marathon. Good luck to all runners!

In other news - I went for a job interview on Tuesday and just found ou that I got the job! Really excited about this but it will require alot more dedication to actually getting out of bed early in the mornings to do my training. Very happy : )

Big catch up...

Monday 21st

Rest day - Weights and core abs

Tuesday 22nd

am: 40mins easy run - 8.1km

pm: cycle 30mins slowly

Visited Easy Tiger in the afternoon. He worked his magic again. The leg, knee, itb, adductors etc...feel alot better - still not 100% though, so heaps of stretching to do.

Wednesday 23rd

Nothing?? Too scared to run because the legs feel really good. Had a lovely lunch with Jen_runs.

Thursday 24th

45mins easy run - 8.6km. A slight niggle in the adductors and some slight knee pain. Ordered some new shoes today. "Orange" Nimbus 8.

Soaking it up

Saturday 19th

I ususally have a rest day on Saturdays but I felt like I needed a recovery run after the return to speedwork on Friday. So I ventured out for an easy 10k around the Ridge. It was really nice running in the fresh cool air, a great start to the weekend.

Time: 50mins
Distance: 10.1km

Sunday 20th

As hard as I tried I couldn't get anyone to run with me this Sunday : ( I had spoken to Blues Buffett just before I took off for my run and he suggested that I take the Parkway for a change and head out towards the M7 from home. So I did.

Although a little warmer at 1:00pm I found that I was running mostly in the shade along the Parkway and the weather was just georgeous. I also really liked the little grass strip that runs the entire length of the pathway which I ran on most of the way. Remembering the promise I have made to my legs to treat them with a little more respect, I think they were greatful that I ran on the grass and not the concrete.

Before long I had made it to the M7 cycleway and ran along there for 10mins or so then turned around and made my way back. Taking a slightly different route on the way back I finished up feeling great. The whole idea of the run was to not trash myself, but to get a decent long run in and to taper for W2B. Does that make sense??? I still have some knee, itb, hamstring issues and that was one of the other reasons why I took it easy. I have another appt with Easy Tiger this week to hopefully sort out the rest of my leg/hip issues.

Did a heap of stretches and put the skins on after a lovely loooong shower, nice!

Time: 2hrs 01min
Distance: 22.3km
Avg Pace: 5:26/km

A special day...

Thursday 17th

Rest day - Finally made a mercy dash into the city for a much needed appt with Easy Tiger. He managed to iron out some crackley bits around my hips and helped to relieve some pain in the hamstrings, quads and itb. Felt 100 times better for it and I have another appt next week.

Friday 18th

20 mins warmup run
6 x 2min efforts with 1min sr
20mins warmdown run

Felt great this morning. (yes it was the morning!) Yay me, I made it out of bed for once. I have decided to be nice to my legs after the massage yesterday and I ran on grass (Yes grass Gary!) for the 6 x 2min efforts. I'm really trying to minimise the amount of stress that I put my legs through which is obviously no good for them given the recent injuries I have had.

Had some nice burning lungs at the end of the session, love it : )












Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan. I have been watching the Vietnam stories all week on the History channel and in particular the doco on the Battle of Long Tan.

I have never seen such courage, determination and bravery like these young Aussies displayed in this battle. 108 soldiers from D Company 6RAR fought off approx 2,500 Viet Cong. A truely incredible story and sadly an almost unrecognised part of Australian history. "To the Diggers of Long Tan, I salute you"
18 Australian soldiers lost their lives in the Battle of Long Tan.

Back to training..

Monday 14th

Rest Day! Felt pretty good post C2S. The knee actually felt alright. Did some stretches.

40mins - Core abs and weights

Tuesday 15th

40mins run - This was a terrible run! My knee played up the whole run. I was glad it was over after the 40mins. Did heaps of stretches and massaged the itb. I now have some lovely self inflicted bruises on my legs.

Wednesday 16th

My Official time for the C2S was 66:46 and placing was 3077th. Pretty happy with that : )

Today's run was a little better than yesterday's. I only had to stop 4 times in the first 5k to stretch and re-adjust my knee ; ) Once I got that out of the way I actually managed to run ther rest of the way in little pain at all and I didn't have to stop again. That aside I felt terrible today. I just wanted to get back and have a drink. I need to start bringing my fuel belt on the longer runs in the middle of the day.



Distance: 13.51km
Time: 1hr 8mins
Avg Pace: 5:05/km

On another note: My eldest son (Go Boy) was asking me all about W2B this morning and kept on probing with questions like: "How far is it that you will run?" and "where is it that you will be running?" , "will it be hot out there?", "what if you get lonely?, "what if you get lost?""is it really a mountain?" etc.... All to which I answered the best I could. He then paused a little bit and said to me with a very straight face: "I think I have the craziest Mum in the World!"
I think that was a compliment? We both laughed about it anyway.

C2S 2006

Blurred vision? CR's.....The Owl, jen_runs, miners Uncle Dave (in front) Lulu, DJ and me.

I had a blast at this years C2S. Met up with the PG crowd at Owly's place to catch the bus in to the city with miners. The girls were catching the bus later. After dropping our bags off we made our way to the start to join the rest of the crew for the pre race party at the start line. It was great to catch up with so many familiar faces and it was nice to meet some new CR's and some other interstate runners as well. Digger's group provided some light entertainment free of charge : )

I wasn't sure how I was going to go this year and I wasn't sure if the knee would even hold up but I was soon to find out when the gun went off. I went out a little fast and I found myself gasping for air at the 2km mark where I slowed things down a little bit. As soon as we hit the first hill I could feel the knee twinging ever so slightly but kept up the pace and thought to myself, what the heck, just go for it..

I really struggled on HB Hill this year which was surprising considering all of the hill work that I had done in the lead up to this event. I did walk for bit and managed to stretch the knee (itb) out and then continued on, feeling much better for it. The other hills didn't seem too bad after that and the twinges in the knee had gone. I had reached the 10k mark feeling a whole lot better than I had in the first 5k and decided to really push it all the way to the finish.

The last 4k, I felt great. Can you tell I like the down hill? I ran the last 4 k at almost even 4:15/k splits. It was great to hear the "Go Coolrunner" from the lovely Jen_runs, Rags and Johnny Dark as we ran past. "Go Cheersquad!" Thanks guys, you are the greatest! This run tells me I really need to focus on MORE uphills and some strength work. I guess W2B in a couple of weeks will fix that up!

I ended up finishing with a 66:46 card which I am very pleased with. That's an 11min C2S PB from last year. Woohoo!! Tesso and I wandered over to the Pavillion and took a nice cool shower. (Refreshing!) Met up with the crowd on the Hill and had some of the Owl's apricot loaf. The celebrations at the pub afterwards were fun and overall I had a great day. I said I would say "Hi" in my Blog to the crowd from Brisbane (Diggers group) I hope you guys had a fun trip. When are you releasing your book Digger? "101 Marathon survival tips by Digger" ha ha...

It was great to hear about everyone's experiences of the day. I have pulled up pretty well today and I'm looking forward to going for a bit of a swim this afternnoon. Now, I must go and climb some hills.....

Possibilties...

Just a very quick update...

I have only run once since last Sunday and that was yesterday (Thursday) I ran a slow 10k and my knee hurt like hell! I know it is the itb playing up again so I went ot see the Physio last night. Previously when I had itb it was different to this pain. This itb is a lot more painful and basically stops me in my tracks.

She said I may be able to run on Sunday but I need to continue to self massage the itb for the next two days and do a heap of stretches. I would really like to run on Sunday even if it's just to do a decent enough time to get back into the red group again next year.

So the goal is now to just finish and have fun and hopefully have an "itb" free run. There was no doubt that I was going to have fun anyway ; )

Sorry for not visiting Blogs too, I have had Go Baby at home sick for the last two days with a stomach virus.

RNP Run

Turned up nice and early in the cold on Sunday morning. It was great to see that so many CR's had decided to come out for the run. I was really looking forward to having a decent long run.

I started off running with Nando and Valium with Mr Wildthing and another CR just ahead of us. I firstly noticed my right leg itb starting to complian about the down hill when we reached the Honeymoon steps (Grrr...)

We continued along the track until we reached the turn around gate which was at the 14km point. The knee became porgressively worse but I tried to hold on for as long as I could without having to stop and stretch. Soon thew pain became too much so I had to stop. Valium kindly stopped with me for a while but I didn't want to hold her up so I told her to go on ahead as I knew that Rags and Will were not far behind me and I could just continue on with them.

Pretty soon the guys caught up to me and scooped me up and dragged me along. Nando made an appearance about 4 times running back and forward to check on everyone (he must have run about 50k??) Rags and I made a nice slow climb up the honeymoon stairs back to the spot that we had started from.

Besides the knee trouble it was great to get out in such a lovely part of Sydney. We had a nice Brunch close by via a tour of a few local streets (Blue Dog) It was lovely chatting to the group about all things running.

Distance: 28km
Time: 2hrs 40mins?

(Lost signal a few times)

What a Barry...

Friday 4th

Rest Day (My Birthday)

Saturday 5th

I had an absolute shocker today. Felt like crap from the start, couldn't run the hills and the splits were so inconistant it was ridiculous.
4:29, 4:37 , 5:00, 4:40, 5:19, 4:47, 4:15, 4:15, 4:39, 4:16 = TOO SLOW

Can you guess where the hills were?

Lane Cove, I will be back.

Distance: 10.15km
Time:46:56mins
Avg Pace: 4:37/km

Congrat's to Gronk who had a fantastic run today, he's on fire! I might need to catch another bus for the C2S - A slower one...

The week so far....

Monday 31st

Cycle 1hr 30mins - Fluid trainer - Went flat out - Hills and speed session!
Core abs and weights - 30mins

Tuesday 1st

Rest

Wednesday 2nd

50 mins easy - Followed by some Hills around the Kellyville, Beaumont Hills area. I have found the mother of all hills.. Wilson Rd, Beaumont Hills *Yikes*

I had some problems with my right knee on this run and I had to stop 3 times to stretch it out. It was a really painful stabbing feeling just under the knee cap - strange.

Distance: 10.1km
Time:49mins
Avg Pace:4:55

Thursday 3rd

Another easy run. Just took it really easy in the beginning, testing out that knee. All seemed to be ok so I ramped it up a bit on the return 5k. I even threw in 2 laps of the Wilson Rd Hill for good measure. Nice! (Not)

Distance:10.5km
Time:53mins
Avg Pace: 5:08