Sunday, August 28, 2005

Wedding day dawn run

We had to set the alarm to get up early this morning as our jet-lag isn't waking us up so early any more. We got up at 6 and it was still dark, but it gets hot so quickly you can't leave it any later. We headed out along the beach front, taking a different route to our first run and sticking to the coast for longer. We ended up running alongside the airport and having a jet land over our heads as the sun was rising which was quite spectacular. The road was a gentle incline but enough for me to feel that my legs were tired, perhaps from yesterday's walk, and I also felt a bit dehydrated, and so stuggled to get going today. I was glad to turn around after 30 mins and head back towards the hotel, buying a large bottle of water on the way. We did 8.4kms with an average pace of 6.40/km which shows how sluggish I was feeling today. Plenty of water was consumed all day to make sure I was ready for the wedding.

Lots of wedding day drama as some paperwork had gone missing and we were not sure the wedding would be able to proceed but the Greek side of the family pulled out all the stops and spent the day on the phone. Finally the wedding went ahead as planned although a couple of hours later than scheduled. A late night with Mr Lulu whirling me around the dance floor and definitely a rest day pool-side today. Might tackle that hill again tomorrow and see if I can knock a couple of minutes off my time going up the zig zag road and we'll take the camera this time.

posted by Lulu @ 6:03 PM 3 comments

Walking not running

Thursday we decided not to run after the hill training yesterday and headed into the main town of Fira on the bus. We wandered the lovely cobbled streets and followed the laneways along the caldera to the next town.

In 1500 BC the volcano blew up the island, causing the middle of the island to collapse into the sea and leaving the rim or caldera cliffs rising dramatically from the Aegean. The lost city of Atlantis is said to be under the waves here. The towns of this side of the island are built into the cliff sides. Traditional white and blue houses are crammed together and connected via steps and laneways that weave between them. We decided to see how far we could go along the edge of the caldera, passing through the next village where the wedding was to be held and out the other side. We could then see that there was a path that wound it's way along the caldera edge to the last town on the island, Oia. We didn't know how far it was but decided to see how far we would get. We ran out of water at one point and thought we might have to turn back. Fortunately we found a little bar on the cliff top and bought some more before tackling a steep part of the path where we could see there were no buildings.


This has to be one of the most spectacular walks of the world. Once you leave the towns behind the path narrows and winds it's way up and down the ragged edge of the caldera, the blue of the sea and the rest of the island and it's sister islands laid out below. It was hot and made hotter by the fact that most of the rocks are black and radiate the heat back at you. Over the final hill and we could see that Oia was not far now. After about 3 hours of walking we entered the the classic Santorini town, the one that appears in all the brochures and postcards.

We were meandering rather than walking so although it took us 3 hours I don't think it was more than 13-14km. We found a pretty taverna perched on the caldera and had a fantastic lunch of Greek salad, stuffed eggplant, baded sardines and a bottle of Santorini's crisp white wine, made from the rare Asyrtiko grape. Needless to say Mr Lulu, aka Wine Trail Runner was happy to find some good wines here in Greece!

posted by Lulu @ 5:40 PM 3 comments

Friday, August 26, 2005

That's not a hill.. this is a hill!


At one end of Kamari beach is a steep cliff. At the top of the cliff is an archeological site - ancient Thira. There is a road that zig zags up the cliff and lying on the beach yesterday Mr Lulu said" we could run up that tomorrow" Well I thought we would see how far we could get at least. So this morning we headed out again at 6.20 and ran through the village to the bottom of the cliff and started the long climb. The road zigs zags up the cliff and so isn't too steep.. just very long. Garth was getting very confused with all the to and froing and lost track of distance.. actually going backwards in distance at one point. After 20 mins or so we stopped to look down on the spectacular view.. the sun rising over the Agean sea and over the beach resort. I decided that we may as well carry on and see if we could make the top.. a couple of cars taking workmen up to the top passed us and shouted encouragement.. well I'm assuming it was encouragement! After 30 mins of plodding we made it to the top... Very pleased with my efforts.. slow but we made it and I think it would be somewhere around 3.5- 4km from the hotel to the top.

Coming back down took as 20 mins but it wasn't all that easy as the road was cobble stones and so you had to take a bit of care so as not to twist an ankle. When we got back Mr Lulu said" I was only joking about running up there you know.. but I'm impressed you did it" Very funny.. not!

Speaking of ankles, all the wedding party and guests took a boat trip today and the groom managed to get a hairline fracture of his ankle.. now on crutches.. ouch! Should be an interesting wedding on Saturday.

Rest day tomorrow although we are probably going to walk up the zig zag road, down the path on the other side and try the beach on that side for a change of scene.. definitely a sleep in tomorrow if the jet lag permits.

posted by Lulu @ 2:43 AM 6 comments

Garth does Greece

Our first run of the holiday was on Wednesday morning. Suffering from jet lag we all woke up very early and had to wait for it to get light before we headed out. Garth took a few minutes to locate his new satellites and then we were off. Our hotel is on the beach front at Kamari Beach on Santorini. It's a strange black beach as Santorini is an extinct volcano and the beach is black volcanic stones and sand, but the sea is pristine.

We headed along the beachfront with Mr Lulu leading the way.. first km in 5 mins.. perhaps a bit fast I said and we eased back a bit. The beachfront road ended and turned inland up a gradual incline.. another few km's and I'd had enough. The sun was up and the temperature was rising fast.. the days have been mid 30's so far. We turned around and headed back to the hotel, a quick change and then plunged into the sea to cool down. The water really is beautiful,clear and calm.



6km's in just under 40 mins.. not too bad considering the jet lag!

posted by Lulu @ 2:35 AM 1 comments

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Owl and I on the road!

I'd arranged to meet the Owl on Bondi Road at 7.30 this morning and so headed off at around 7.15 to walk/jog across to Bondi. About 1.5kms distance. Did a quick stretch whilst waiting for The Owl and then we set off up Bondi Rd, through BJ and then around the outside of the park. I didn't realise that Bondi Road had quite such a hill in it! We did one loop of the outside of the park and then a half outside/half inside loop before heading out one of the gates and along Birrell Road. A nice downhill stretch and then a big hill back towards Bondi. The Owl took off up this hill and I had to pick up the pace to keep up with her. Then it was all downhill from there, back to Bondi Beach where we met Mr Lulu to have brekkie.

It makes a huge difference doing these long runs with someone else. We ran for two hours and were chatting away for most of the time and so when I looked at Garth and saw we had done 1hr 45mins I was quite surprised. We took it at a nice easy pace and enjoyed the beautiful Sydney morning. We passed a few of my fellow SWEAT crew in Centennial but didn't see any other CRs this morning.

In total we did 17.3 kms in 2 hours at an average pace of 7/km. The Owl looked pretty comfortable at the end although saying her legs were tired.. she certainly didn't look it on the Birrell Street hill. She'll have no problem finishing the half in 3 weeks time.

Add this to my original 1.5km and I did 18.8km. A very good start to the week, which is a good thing as I'm not sure when or where the next run will be.

Final packing list: Garth..check; Garth's charger...check; running gear.. check; swimmers... check; Mr Lulu..check; That's it.. I'm good to go!

posted by Lulu @ 2:31 PM 3 comments

Friday, August 19, 2005

Back to the CP Fartlek

Now the C2S is over Sean is back to doing Fartlek around the outside of Centennial Park, which I much prefer to the nasty hill circuit we were doing before. I parked outside the Randwick Gates and used this nearly 1km jog to warm up. We set off at a good pace and I ran along with Don Juan. I can actually keep up with them at this stage these days which is an improvement! The group soon took off on the first surge but came back to round me up. The tough bit as usual was going up the long incline alongside the bus depot. My legs are still suffering a bit from the C2S, plus over zealous Pilates instructors ( who all seem to think doing legs is fun this week!). However, I felt strong in some parts of this run and the second half I really felt that I was actually running rather than plodding along. I like the downhill sections and on the downhill surge I ran with Don Juan and we were running at 4.20/km pace and I felt like we were flying. Now I just need to be able to do that on the flat!

Back to the starting point and then a quick cool down jog to the car. Total distance was 10.28km and a total time of 1.04.18. The fartlek session was 8.42km at an average pace of 6.08/km. I'm still really slow up that long hill and I don't get much chance to recover as the rest of the group's recovery pace is my surging pace!

Very happy with that today :)

Total km's for the week was 34.65km with an average pace of 6.37/km. Average time over the week is gradually going down which is encouraging. Pilates again tomorrow and then off for a long run with The Owl before we head off on our hols on Sunday night.

posted by Lulu @ 9:58 AM 8 comments

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Not two but three beaches!

I decided to try the 3 beaches run this morning which goes down to Coogee and then along the coastal path through Clovelly and Bronte and up Bronte Hill. I haven't done this for ages and it's a tough run with lots and lots of lovely hills, steps and fantastic views. I've decided I need to do some more of my running over hilly routes to try and improve my hill running generally, and this is a good course for that. My intention was just to potter along and set a time for the course that I can work on beating over the next few months. Sounds like a good plan.. would help though if I actually started Garth when I set off. Not sure what happened but I was already gone down to Coogee and back up the hill to Gordon's Bay before I realised that Garth was not ticking away. I started the clock at that point and did 4.2km in 32 mins and I estimate I had already done at least 2.5-3km by then. My legs struggled a bit with some of the hills but I only had the goal of running all the way, including the stairs. Not sure it counted as running as I was going so slowly up some of the hills, but I made it.
I'll have to do it again when we get back from our hols to set my course time. Off to Pilates later and I hope the instructor isn't going to do more leg work as I want to do a good Fartlek session with Sean tomorrow morning.

posted by Lulu @ 10:43 AM 2 comments

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

My legs are still working!

I went to Pilates last night to do some abs and arms I thought, but the instructor decided to do mainly legs... ouch. Doesn't seem to have done them any harm as I felt OK this morning on my gentle jog down to the park and back. Even though my quads are still a bit sore I didn't find running too hard, except I slowed down a lot in the last couple of kms and the hills were a tad hard.

6kms 40 mins and 437 cals.. off for some more stretching and some brekkie now..

Running buddies Jen and the Owl are coming over for dinner tonight so we can celebrate the C2S triumphs. My official time was 98.33 which at least means that I would be in the Green start for next year which would make the start easier. I think I might just have to do it again as I took on the C2S and it won this year so I'll have to see if I can rectify that!

posted by Lulu @ 8:13 AM 1 comments

Monday, August 15, 2005

C2S pics




A couple of pics of the C2S taken at the finish.

Beautiful Bondi in the background and a very relieved to be finished Lulu, with Garth!









My running buddies, minus Jen_runs..thanks for getting me there Caro, Wobbly Man and The Owl.

posted by Lulu @ 8:38 PM 2 comments

The ups and downs of the C2S

Pre-race preparations started the night before with a few drinks and a bowl of Pasta in Bondi with CRs Sparkie, The Owl, Wobbly Man, Minersrun, Caro, and Mr Lulu. Good to see everyone and make our plans for race day.

Race day started at 6am with some sports drink, cup of tea and a small bowl of muesli and then back to bed for an hour. We left the house at 8am with Mr Lulu fulfilling his support duties again. We picked up the Owl and Caro from Bondi road and Mr Lulu dropped us about 100 yrds from the registration centre in the Grammar School where Caro picked up her bib and we met Jen-Runs and Wobbly Man.

Then it was the queue for the loo, which I had hoped to avoid but felt the need once we got to the end of the queue. Then into the crush. Plenty of chat at the start and some amusement with a very tall gentleman who was designated chief clothes chucker as everyone passed their clothes to him to throw as we assumed his height would be an advantage. It didn't stop him landing some clothes on a girl's head a couple of times though!

The first gun went off and then after what seemed like half an hour we were off. We walked along to William St and then turned the corner, which is where I started Garth. Then it was the endless dodging of walkers and traffic islands and into the tunnel. Once out the other side we were able to pick up the pace a little and we were all sticking together as much as possible.

I found it hard to get going and getting into any sort of rhythm was impossible due to the constant changing of pace and dodging around people. Caro and I were a little ahead of the others coming to the bottom of HBH, but Caro just left me for dead as she took off up the hill, so I was in the middle of Caro and Owl Jen and WM behind me.

I plodded up HBH, thinking that I would feel better at the top, but in fact I just felt very hot and my breathing felt very tight. The rest of the run was made up of telling myself just to keep pushing until the downhills and then to try and make up some time. This wasn't really possible though due to the amount of people, and I really started to flag over the Dover Heights hills. At the top of the main downhill section I could hear WM, Owl and Jen calling out to me so I gave them a wave and then kept going.

At the bottom of the hill I got a boost from the CR Cheersquad but I was really struggling by now, legs tired and my chest was burning. Thankfully at this point the others caught up with me and I tried to hang on to them to the finish which we hit at the same time. Thanks guys for dragging me over the finish line!

It was great to run with the others, and to meet lots of CRs at the finish including CJ who came and found us by the Striders hang-out. Some great runs by CRs with the SfGnome and Tiger Angel having fantastic runs as did CJ and RoyWorlds.

Jen_runs put in a great performance after all her injury problems, must have been the special talking to we gave her shins at the start! The Owl looked very composed throughout and was still calling out to everyone and waving as entered the finishing area.. I only had breath to keep going, not to socialise as well!

On the downside I was a bit disappointed with my run. I found it harder than the Half Marathon in some ways and really struggled at the end. My breathing was really tight and it took me a few hours to recover, for my chest not to feel sore and to stop coughing. Out of interest I measured my breathing when I got home and lung capacity was normal for me so I think it was just a case of reaching my maximum. In fact, if I had run the half at the average pace of this race I would have been 3 mins slower than my half time, which is very disappointing considering the amount of training I have done. Mr Lulu says I expect too much of myself and you can't compare the two races anyway as they are totally different.

I'm not sure that I would do the C2S again as I really don't like dealing with all the people and certainly wouldn't have handled it as well if I had not had the company of the others. However, a year is a long time and if I make the 100 min cut-off and get into the next group up I might consider it...we'll see.

So here are the stats as provided by my trusty companion Garth!

Total time 91.52
Km splits
8.56
7.10
6.02
6.39
5.58
6.26
7.44 (drink stop I think)
6.51
5.37
6.42
6.30
5.43
5.38
6.15

Official time on card was 106.41 and Mr Lulu thinks our gun went off 8 mins after the initial one so I might scrape under 100.

Not feeling too bad today with a few sore bits but nothing serious and I'll try a bit of a run tomorrow. Off to Pilates today for some stretching and to work some other muscles other than my legs!

Thanks again to Owl, Caro, Jen_runs and the lovely WM for getting me home!

posted by Lulu @ 10:32 AM 5 comments

Friday, August 12, 2005

A crisp Sydney morning

We forgot to set the alarm last night and so it was 6.20 when I woke up . Good thing I wasn't intending to go to SWEAT as I would have had to drive around until I caught up with them!

I knew it was going to be cold so I even put gloves on this morning and headed down to Centennial Park to do a lap of the inside and back up the hill to home. Felt good and so tried to keep the pace up around the park and back up the hill, but without going mad.. there's some big race on Sunday!

Garth tells me we did 7.658km's in 49 mins with an average pace of 6.27/km and we burnt off 578 cals. Shins felt pretty good with one slight twinge at about 25 mins in so I stopped and stretched out my calf and that seemed to sort it out. We'll see how they feel after Sunday's pounding!

A very light week this week only doing 18.2km but it's definitely been the right thing to do as my shins have recovered and other niggles seem to be behaving.

posted by Lulu @ 8:45 AM 4 comments

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Back to the beach

Second time lucky with this post I hope as Blogger ate my last attempt before it went down for maintenance.

Having missed SWEAT yesterday because I had an early client meeting I intended to run later in the day but it didn't happen due to having to help out Mr Lulu with an IT crisis. Didn't do any harm I think as the shins felt a lot better today.

I headed down through the cemetery to Bronte Beach and up the gully for an easy 30 mins. As my shins are feeling more like normal I'll try for an hour tomorrow morning, probably on the grass in Centennial Park. I won't risk injury pounding the streets trying to keep up with the SWEAT crew, attempting to keep up even if they are taking it easy!

In other news, I had my final appointment with the respiratory guru on Tuesday who pronounced me fighting fit, albeit with reduced lung capacity due to the TB I contracted about 15 years ago. My lung capacity is at the bottom of the normal range at about 80% and although in normal life I wouldn't notice it when I push myself in a run it's possible that I would feel the affects, which is perhaps what happened the other day. At least it's not anything more serious or asthma and I have an excuse for being slow now!

posted by Lulu @ 11:58 AM 1 comments

Monday, August 08, 2005

A gentle 45

I decided to take an extra rest day yesterday as I was feeling a few twinges and very tired legs after last week's efforts, not to mention tapering for the C2S I suppose! My main worry being that my shins seem to be a bit tight and tender which is quite unusual for me so I'm not taking any chances. I drove the lulumobile down to Centennial Park so I didn't have to run on any concrete and did a loop of the outside; 45 mins 6.9km. One or two shin twinges on the way around but I stopped and stretched my calves and that seems to have improved things. I applied some ice when I got home and I'll do so again later. No running tomorrow and something gentle on Wednesday me thinks... Off to Pilates tomorrow.

posted by Lulu @ 6:12 PM 5 comments

Friday, August 05, 2005

On the up!

I had to do an extra post just to record the improvement I appear to have made in 2 weeks. When I did the first hill surging fartlek with Sean on the 22nd of July I did an average pace of 6.53/km. This week my average pace was 6.08/km, that's quite a big improvement in such a short time, is this really possible?

Have done the third Pilates class for the week and so can enjoy tomorrow's rest day - guilt free. I'm off to a hens party for lunch (probably a long lunch) so Sunday's run could be interesting!

posted by Lulu @ 4:35 PM 6 comments

Up and down the hills

The days are definitely getting longer again now, as it was quite light when I got up at 6am to head to the park for the SWEAT session. I did a quick warm up lap of the oval and then we headed off. Lots of the group are doing the Striders 10km race tomorrow and so they were taking it relatively easy. This at least meant that I ran with them at the beginning and actually managed to catch up with them on some of the flat and downhill sections. They soon left me behind on the hills however. The first hill was tough but I warmed up after that and managed to keep a relatively good pace (for Me!) on the hills. My legs turned to jelly on the last hill on the way back to the park and I fell behind the pack at that point. At least they were still in sight for most of the time.

Garth tells me we did 10.14km in 1hr 2mins with an average pace of 6.08/km which is pretty good for me considering how many hills we were doing. Quite pleased with that especially after doing quite a long run yesterday.

The weekly total is 46km at an average pace of 6.37/km. That has to be a record for me I think as even when I was training for the half marathon I don't think I would have done much over 35km as I was only doing 4 runs per week.

I'll do another Pilates class today. Tomorrow I will be having a well deserved rest!

posted by Lulu @ 9:20 AM 1 comments

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Off again!

It only seems a few hours since I was last out running and here I am hitting the road again. This morning was an easy run and I decided to head out to Centennial Park and do two loops of inside the running track. I took it out a bit fast and faded on the second loop and the hill back home, but felt OK again on the last 1km.

Garth tells me we did 11.17km in 1hr14mins with an average pace of 6.42/km I thought that I would have been a bit quicker than that, but I don't think Garth has started lying to me! One day I'll be a bit faster I hope. At least we burnt off 814 cals and I have managed to drop 1/2kg so far this week.

Off to Pilates later this afternoon and then I'll be back to SWEAT in the morning for that lovely hill surging circuit.

posted by Lulu @ 8:58 AM 3 comments

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Back to some hills

I got up this morning and was half dressed to go out for some hill reps when I remembered my runners were in the office. I've got two pairs but more importantly my orthotics were in the office and I don't want to risk injury at this stage so I went back to bed!

It was a mental battle to go out this afternoon to do the planned run which is why I usually go in the morning, otherwise it's too hard. However, the good side of the brain won out this afternoon and I set off to do a warm up around Clovelly and then to the Henry Lawson hill in the cemetery for some repeats. Now I have Garth I can measure the distance of the HL hill - it's only about 120m long. I did 10 reps of it, jogging back down in between. My pace was relatively consistent and around 46-48 secs with the last two being faster of 44 and 45 seconds. I suspect this hill is not really long enough and I can extend it as it keeps on going, but this is a manageable hill for me at this stage. What do you think fellow bloggers?

Feel good now and maybe this running during the day is not so bad after all!

posted by Lulu @ 5:54 PM 4 comments

Monday, August 01, 2005

Beach recovery

I was a bit late going out this morning so decided to stay away from the traffic and head towards the beach. I didn't want to go as far or do as many hills as there are in the 2 beaches so I just went down through the cemetary and then on down to Bronte beach. Up through the gully, walked the stairs section and then up Bronte hill to Lugar and home.

Legs are not sore today which is good and no real niggles apparent. Legs lacked any oomph on the hills so they're a bit fatigued so I took it fairly easy for most of the way. A cruisy 30 mins and 4.41km.

posted by Lulu @ 10:38 AM 2 comments