Lounging around the lake
I tackled an advanced Pilates class yesterday evening which wasn't as bad as I expected considering I haven't been for a week and followed that up with some stretching, so I felt ready for action this morning.
Today's session was fartlek around the lake, taking it relatively easy, as lots of the squad are running at the weekend.
I felt very slow and heavy on my warm up and the drills and my heart rate seemed to shoot up immediately. Once I got going on the lake laps though I started to feel better. I assumed my normal position at the back of the pack and headed off. Even our resident elder statesmen (73 years old) was in front of me for the first lap.
I didn't go out too hard in the first surge and so managed not to back off too much on the floats but there was still a noticeable change of pace. I overtook the elder statesman at the start of the second lap and picked up the pace a bit in the surges.
First lap was 8.14 and the second 8.16 so nice and evenly paced and I finished feeling quite strong. Last time I did 2 laps of the lake my time was 16.40 so I'm 10 secs faster in a month. Feel much better now I know that.
We had a guest visit from CR Sarge this morning and it turns out that he and Mr lulu did their training in the fire brigade together so they had a good chance to catch up after 20 years or more.
X country 400s
As we're banned from the oval again at the moment the track session was more of a cross country session as we ran around the outside of the oval and the grassy section next to it. You had to watch your footing on the rough ground occasionally. Fortunately I escaped unscathed!On the programme today was 6 x 400s. We went around the first one in 1.50 and I thought I'd gone out too hard but we had good recovery between reps today so I managed to do them pretty consistently at 1.51, 1.52, 1.49, 1.50 and 1.44. The garmin measured these all a bit short although Sean said he had measure it all with his wheel.I collected a bit of a twinge in the left calf on the jog back to the gates and the car but hopefully it won't develop into anything serious and ET can iron it out on Thursday.
A week to go
A few days to catch up on as I've had a busy weekend.
Friday was a 30 min easy run and for some reason after doing Wild Wally I decided to do some of the coast track. The hills were hard and my legs were feeling tired after WW so I was very glad it was only 30 mins, hardly easy.
Friday night was CR drinks and it was good to see everyone out and about and having fun. We made a strategic withdrawal at about 9.00 so I felt pretty good on Saturday morning.
An hour around the outside of the park on Saturday morning with a couple of fast kms in the middle to make it a tempo run. Quite humid and the hill home seemed hardwork after the fast kms!
I was glad Sunday was a nice easy hour around the park after a late night on Saturday night with a dinner party at chez lulu. That last glass of wine was probably a bad idea but so tempting when you don't have to drive anywhere. Running was delayed as Mr lulu and I tackled the bombsite which used to be the kitchen. Once order was restored it was back down to the park for a lap and a bit of the inside and then out the Clovelly Road gate and up the hill to home. By the time we went out it was pretty warm so good conditioning for warmer weather if it's warm next weekend.
So that's it for this week and now it's just a couple of SWEAT sessions, a massage on Thursday and an easy 30 mins on Friday before the race on Sunday.
Mini break
Back to SWEAT this morning after having 3 days rest... outrageous! It's not as bad as it sounds as I only missed one session as Monday and Weds are rest days anyway at the moment. I had a very early start on Tuesday and so had to try and do my track session on my own. I was up and out at 5.30 but after only about 300 metres I pulled the pin. My niggles were all complaining and I felt exhausted and with the CC half only 10 days away I reasoned that getting there uninjured was more important. Instead I did 4kms walking around the beaches which at least woke me up and helped get the legs moving.
Today it was back to hills with up to 7 reps of Wild Wally on the programme. Two achievements this morning; a WW PB of 3.37 on the first rep and I managed 6 rather than 5 reps. Yay me! I was still near the back of the pack and the rest of the reps were slower; 3.49, 3.50, 3.55 and then I sat out a rep to get some recovery. Final two reps were 3.50 and 3.51.
Felt good afterwards and feel the decision to have a few days rest has really paid off, my enery is improved and my legs felt really good this morning.
Coast to coast
It's been a busy few days and I've flown from one side of the country to the other as well! It still amazes me that you can fly for 4.5 hours and still be in the same country. It's a big old place this great Southern Land.
I arrived in Perth on Friday afternoon and after catching up with my client I finally went for a run at about 4. It was relatively warm and the streets were quite busy but I pottered down to the Swan river and back up to my hotel. It was a struggle to even do 5km and I was glad to see the hotel again. Possibly I was a bit dehydrated from the flight as I didn't drink much water in the afternoon.
Fortunately, on Saturday I woke up feeling a lot better and headed back down to the Swan River. I'd decided I wanted to do this run at roughly the pace I want to run the CC half at. My target to beat is 2hrs 14 mins which I ran at the SMH half last year so in order to run under that I need to run at about 6.10-15 pace or better.
Off I set down from Northbridge through the city and then along the river. Running along the river was a perfect place to practice as I imagine it's similar to the CC half course with a bike track, and nice and flat. My splits for the first 7 kms were 6.17, 5.44 (some downhill!), 5.59, 6.12, 6.10, 6.01, 6.15 and I felt pretty comfortable. I then hit the city again and the uphill back from the river. Crossing a few roads slowed me down so the next split was 6.27. I then decided to push the pace up for the last 1.5km back to the hotel and the last splits were 5.53 , 2.57 (540m @5.30). I was pleased with the last surge as it was slightly up hill and I still felt pretty comfortable. A great confidence booster and I really enjoyed it. I found it a bit hard to lock into the right pace but think I can probably do that pace for 21kms. We'll soon find out! In total, 9.5km @6.04 pace.
I arrived back in Sydney on Saturday night and Mr lulu and I headed out at about 7.45. I went down to the park and was running on my own this morning as the local girls were otherwise engaged. I decided to keep it simple and just did two outside loops of the park, passing the SWEAT squad a couple of times as they charged around the park.
My legs were a bit tired after yesterday but apart from the hills I didn't really notice it. I decided to push myself at km 17 and see how I felt and managed to run it in 6.05 and felt pretty strong. Total of 18.5km in 2hrs 2 mins at an average pace of 6.36 which is a little bit quicker than I've been doing my long runs.
So that's the last of the long runs done before the half and I'm pretty pleased with my progress in the last few months. Now I just have to stay un-injured for a couple of weeks. I should be OK as although I'm carrying a few niggles they're minor things that ET can fix. Fingers crossed!
Ducking the showers
Naughty lulu refused to get out of bed for SWEAT this morning having caught a glimpse of the weather. Mr lulu tried to persuade me out with phrases, such as ' you'll be alright once you're out in it' and the like, but we all know he lies about things like that ;)
So off he went, making me feel very guilty and so eventually I had to go out and do something. I decided to do something challenging at least so set off, in between showers, on the 2 beaches course. Pushed up all the hills and no wimping out on Bronte hill for me today even though my legs were tiring.
5kms in 32 mins. I'll have to do a slightly longer run tomorrow to make up a few extra kms I missed today and that will have to be an early one as I'm flying to Perth in the morning. Let's hope the weather is better over there.
On track
Donning my bright white new shoes I headed down to the park for the SWEAT session. A nice big crowd, including some of the girls who run at my pace so I had plenty of company this morning.
10 x300s on the programme and after the warm up and drills I started to feel quite good.
First lap was 1.28 and that's pretty much where they stayed except for the last one :)
1.28, 1.30, 1.29, 1.28, 1.27, 1.27, 1.30, 1.29, 1.28, 1.22
Very pleased with the pacing and felt good throughout and had enough left to go for the last one.. probably means I should have worked harder on the first few.
Went to see the super-pod yesterday to try and get to the bottom of the tib post niggle. My shoes are overcorrecting a tad on the left which is why new shoes were required. Same ones as they seem to be OK for the first 500kms. I tried running without the orthotics but I'm still not quite strong enough for that so I'll stick with what I've got. He feels that the tib post is doing a lot of work to stabilise which is why it's getting so tight so it's more strengthening exercises for me to see if I can resolve it. It's not serious just a minor niggle!
Run with the 'roos
Just back from a very pleasant weekend in Orange. We were staying about 10km out of town, up near a forest so naturally that's where we headed for Saturday's run.
I struggled with this one for the first 30 mins and it wasn't helped by there being a lot of hills which were long and steep and some walking was resorted to. Once we hit the dirt trail into the forest I felt a lot better and managed a final hill or two before turning around and doing a shorter downhill section back to the guest house.
On the way back out of the forest a mob of wallabies bounced across the road in front of me which quite made my day! I just wish I had that much bounce in my step today!
Saturday night we went out for dinner in the centre of Orange to an excellent restaurant called Lolli Redini; highly recommended by the Lulu household if you happen to be in Orange. We abandoned the Lulumobile in town and caught a cab home.
Our mission on Sunday was to retrieve the car as part of our long run so at 6.15 we headed off towards town. There were a couple of very nasty long hills to deal with near the start of the run and then it was undulating all the way into town. I was relieved to see the car but as we had only done an hour we stopped for a quick swig of water and then headed out of town again on the other side. After 90 mins we turned around and headed back to the car for the second time.
I felt a lot better than Saturday, even ran all the way up the nasty long hill (about 1.5km long) and felt strong all the way through. Just got a small niggle to deal with still in my tib post but a double whammy of seeing the super-pod and Easy Tiger tomorrow should sort that out.
Weekend total: 26km, noice!
Big Bertha won
Today was an encounter with Big Bertha and Beki chose this as her first SWEAT session! I woke up feeling very tired and lacking any energy and so even the warm up and drills seemed a major effort.
Mr lulu assured me that once I got going I'd feel better.. well he lied! Actually, I was focussing so much on just keeping going that I didn't actually think about feeling tired just that my legs and lungs were burning.
Once I got to 7 laps Mr lulu had finished so he started running the uphill sections with me and coaching me along. Being lucky last today, I had half the squad cheering me on up the last rep and I was relieved to finally finish in 28.08. This is 38 secs slower than the last time I did it but considering my lack of energy I'm just pleased to have forced myself to do all ten laps and it gives me a nice easy time to beat next time :)
Lovely one!
Felt tired when I woke up and so delayed going out so I could have a cup of tea and wake up a bit more. Once I got going though I felt great. This run seemed to go really quickly, the pace seemed very easy and relaxed and even the hill on the way home seemed easy today. What a great feeling.
I ran down to Centennial and did 2 laps of the inside track and then home. I like the inside track sometimes as I can just go onto cruise control and relax whereas the outside track is a bit rough in places and requires a bit more attention. A nice 11.6km in 1hr 16.
I'm hoping to speak to or see the super-pod as I'm having a few issues with my shoes. The newish Nikes are now giving me a blister and I feel as if they are over correcting and so I'm currently back in the trusty Loco's but I don't think they give enough support. I think I need something in between! Getting the shoes and orthotics combo right seems to be a fine art.
Melbourne cup track
I must be used to daylight saving now as I woke up before the alarm and was champing at the bit, ready for the SWEAT track session.
Today's programme was 4 x 800s for me and Mr lulu was doing 1200s. The oval is still not usable so we were running around the large grass area. I certainly didn't take off like a thoroughbred but didn't feel like a carthorse either.
Times were: 4.14; 4.14; 4.17; 4.10
I haven't done 800s for ages but these are quicker than when I last did them by 3 or 4 seconds and I haven't done 4 in a row before, plus I was able to run the last one harder so I'm pacing myself a bit better.
No niggles to worry about the and hamstring didn't complain at all this session.
New territory
I'd arranged to meet a posse of CR gals for our long run today so at 7 we picked up Beki, followed by our own ironwoman Ellie and drove to the Drummoyne rowers to meet up with Caro and the Owl. Duly assembled Mr lulu headed off to do a few laps of the bay and we all headed off across the iron cove bridge following Owl's instructions.
Down Victoria Rd, over Anzac Bridge ( a short stop to deal with my wardrobe malfunction, of the brassiere kind), around the fish markets (a bit on the nose!) and then into Glebe. At this point I completely lost all sense of where I was but was told later that we did the back streets of Glebe, a bit of Annandale, did a little detour to see the Owl's wetlands and then up a hill, down Lilyfield road and back to the bay where we ran back to the car.
We dropped off some of our party here and Caro and I continued with a extra 25 mins. We knew we didn't have time to make it around the bay so it was a quick out and back section before arriving back to the car. We were very pleased to see the last section and picked up the pace running a 6.15 last km. I think we were hungry at that point! Then a very pleasant brekkie at the new Cove cafe and home for a long hot bath.
According to Garth we covered 17.25 but Motion Based reckons 17.9 which is more accurate I think as I did have some drop outs and some of the 1km splits look too slow and I know we weren't running that slowly. Another long one in the bank.
A great way to start a sunday, with some good company, exploring some new areas and topping it off with a nice breakfast.
Wonderful Wagga Wagga,
.. so good they named it twice. Actually, I don't mind being in Wagga, it's got quite a nice feel about it and more importantly a nice track alonside the river to run along.
The alarm went off at 6 and I was tempted to turn over and sleep for another year but instead got up and made a cup of tea and pottered for a while before heading out.
I made my way down to the river via a slightly different route than normal and then headed off along the river bank. I decided to try and pick up the pace for most of the run and see what felt comfortable. I seem to be able to tune into 5.55 pace quite well and maintain it.
I reached the end of the normal track that i run on and carried on following a dirt road/path along the river. This is where I encountered a small group of youths walking along, who looked at me curiously but seemed harmless enough. Then I reached a section that was more bush like and it wasn't clear where the path went. Another group of yoofs who were lurking around here, waving and shouting and one even offered to run with me. Noice!
This group worried me a bit more particularly as I was now a little way out of town and there weren't may other people around so it was at this point that I decided turning around seemed like the sensible option.
Again I maintained the pace back until I reached 8km and then did a 1km or so to cool down and back to my hotel. I felt great after this run and it gave me a bit of a confidence boost that I am getting fitter. Overall 9.5km and average pace of 6.13/km.
Whilst I was dealing with the yoof of Wagga Mr lulu was dealing with the Striders Lane Cove course. He is definitely firmly on the comeback trail now running a course PB of 40.55. Last time he ran this course he did 42.41 and he doesn't consider himself racing fit as yet so there should be better to come over the next few months as long as he doesn't break anything.
Lake laps
I thought I'd have trouble getting up this morning but in fact I was awake before the alarm went off and ready for SWEAT. We ran in from the gates as part of our warm up and then it was the normal drills and strides before heading to the lake.
I had 1 x 2 laps and 1 x 1 lap on the programme. A lap of the lake is just under 1.5km. Sean told me to keep an eye on the hammie and not lengthen my stride too much.
Off we went; one of the other girls ran with me for a while before I left her behind. She is normally about the same pace as me and it was nice to have company for the first section. I felt pretty comfortable in the first lap but the rest of the squad soon disappeared. First lap was 8mins. Second lap and I was on my own and I was so focused on running that I went the wrong way and ended up doing a few extra twists and turns to get back on track. How can you get lost running around a lake I ask you.. Then it was onto the home straight; 2 laps 16.40. I definitely slowed a little in the last lap but tried to keep the leg speed going. I started to feel a bit nauseous but told myself that was good because it meant I was working hard and the feeling went away.
Because S and I were the last to finish, we only had 2 mins break whilst everyone else had 4-5 mins. So before I knew it we were off again. At least I didn't get lost this time as the rest of the squad were at least in view most of the time. One lap; 8 mins again so consistent. Mr lulu was there to cheer me on in the final straight.
So I'm back at the back of the squad again, albeit with one other person for company. Where have all the other slower runners gone?
Easy 10km
A bit of a late start, but headed down to do an outside loop of Centennial. Got a beep and a wave from SWEAT buddy Kerrie as she headed off to work.
As I 'm going to SWEAT tomorrow I thought I'd test out the hamstring by doing a quicker 1km in the middle of the run and that went well so hopefully I'll be able to do the tempo run around the lake tomorrow that is on the programme. Fingers and toes crossed.
The route I took was exactly 10km back to home and completed in 64mins with an average pace of 6.25 which felt pretty comfortable apart from running out of steam at about 7.5km. I think the half a banana I ate before I went out was used up! Managed to keep a reasonable pace up on the way home but was glad to see food and drink when I got home :)
