Sunday, March 29, 2009

A return to the wacky races

I think we can call it a successful week as I'm pretty sure I just ran a 4km PB. I can't remember what my 4km PB is but I'm sure it's a lot slower than 22.22 which is what I ran today at the Sri Chimnoy Centennial Park race. It was a bit chaotic as I think they had a lot more people turn up than they expected and so we didn't start until 30 mins after we were supposed. So much for the 1km warm up I did just before I thought we'd be starting!

We were the last group to get going and I got stuck in behind a group of girls running 4 abreast but once clear I was on my way. It's a bit rough in places the CP course but good fun. My 1km splits were: 5.48, 5.45,5.43, 5.06 (5.25 pace, as the Garmin measured the course a bit short). I'll call it a cross country PB anyway even if it is a little short. I started to feel sick in the last 500m so I must have been doing it right :)

Apart from that, this week has been extremely busy at work with some long days and a million meetings, plus Ellie and I did a speaking engagement which was extra work.

I managed a reasonable effort at training:
Mon - gym and cross training
Tues - Intervals 5 x400s in a mixture of times but they got faster at least! They seemed really hard this week and I think running in the dark on the oval makes me a bit slower as I got faster as it started to get light.
Weds - rest day
Thurs- another rest day as I had the talk in the morning and Italian classes in the evening
Fri - Will the trainer. I managed to dead lift 45 kgs which I'm quite proud of. I'll be picking up Mr lulu and throwing him around the house soon;)
Sat: 5km easy with a few hills along the coastal path. I haven't done the coast path for ages and I quite enjoyed it for a change- even the hills. Since I developed a bit of strength hills seem to be a bit easier and I can keep a nice bounce up the hills for a short time... then I walk the rest. I think I prefer that to slowing down to a plod so I can make it all the way. Eventually I assume I'll be able to bounce all the way!
Sun: about 6.5km in total including a warm and cool down.

It was certainly good to be out racing again and I look forward to another race in a few weeks. I'll tackle the 8km at the next one and see how I get on. The hammy is a bit irritated by today's race, but should recover in a day or so and a trip to the Tiger's den. I may have to consider a visit to the physio if it continues to flare up.

posted by Lulu @ 1:06 PM 5 comments

Sunday, March 22, 2009

More like it

This week has been a good week; good lulu is back in charge and has had the co-operation of the lulubody and so all my planned training sessions were completed... about time!

After Tuesday's interval sessions my hamstring was a bit tight again but nothing that Tiger couldn't fix; since then it has been behaving quite well.

Weds evening I did 40 mins cardio and a bit of strength at the gym and then it was up at 5am the next morning to do my tempo run before meeting Ellie for breakfast. 2km warm-up, 3.5 at 6.05 pace and then 1.5km cool down was on my programme. The first few kms were a bit quicker and the last 1.5 a bit slower but the average would have been about right. Nearly got knocked over by a pack of blokes running in the park, taking up the whole path in the dark and running in the opposite direction from me. I had to take evasive action and nearly fell over in the process.

Friday I met Will the trainer for an hour of torture which is definitely paying off as I feel like I'm getting a lot stronger but without building too much muscle bulk.

Saturday was an hour with the crazy ab lady followed by 50 mins cardio and some weights at the gym.

And today was 12 km run with the Owl. It's been far too long since we ran together and we had a great time chatting all the way for 6kms out along the Cook's river and then all the way back again. I haven't run further than 10km all year so was prepared to have to stop before the 12kms was up but managed to keep going and even felt I could have done more.. .must have been the fine company.

We topped off the morning by collecting Mr lulu and Ellie and heading down to Bronte Beach for a dip and breakfast.

It feels good to have done a solid week's training and to have some energy; let's hope it continues for the next few weeks.

posted by Lulu @ 12:26 PM 5 comments

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Encouraging signs

So, last week was worse than the week before in terms of energy levels and having the will to train. I managed two good runs; one interval session and my tempo run and managed 2 gym sessions but at the weekend I could hardly be bothered to get out of bed let alone exercise. A combination of a very big couple of weeks of work and some dodgy hormones!

Anyway, onwards and upwards! I still have a twinging hamstring which Easy Tiger is trying to get under control but it gets very tight after any speed work. I may have to have a week or two of easier stuff to see if that helps. I'll see what he says when I see him tomorrow.

Today though, I felt human for the first time in weeks and headed out to do my intervals. I had 2 x 1km with a 400 metre rest period. I jogged over to my lovely new training ground which is the cricket oval on Bondi Road. It's a perfect 1.5km warm up there and a nice smooth oval for training.

A few drills and strides and then the first 1km = 5.22 which felt relatively easy! I certainly didn't feel sick or anything :) A 400 metre walk/jog and the second km in 5.16. Now, that did hurt a bit but again wasn't too bad. A cruisy jog home for a total of 6km. Very nice work Ms Lulu!

So despite a couple of dodgy weeks I seem to be doing OK. I've got 16 weeks until the Gold Coast marathon weekend so I'm putting together a programme to get me a sub 60 min PB. If that doesn't come off then I have the Noosa 10km as a fall back a month later. We're going to have a week or so in Noosa then too which will be lovely. In the meantime I have a couple of shorter races to do as follows: Sri Chimnoy 4km in Centennial Park on 29th March, and an 8km on the 10th of May. There's another 8km at the Bay 2 weeks before Gold Coast so I'll see how I feel and I might do that one too, if it's not too close to GC and I'm not carrying any niggles. Fingers crossed that this hamstring settles down; it's been hanging around since the end of last year and comes and goes. Even having a rest didn't really fix it so I'm just going to see if step up some additional strength and stretching if I can settle it down.

posted by Lulu @ 11:45 AM 3 comments

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Better late than never

Thanks to the lovely Owl for the prod to update.. here I am a bit late and I'll have to update again in a few days.

Last week wasn't my finest training hour! I had a couple of days when I felt too tired to do anything and then I had a headache. I did manage one cross training session and 2 runs but that's not going to get me very fit!

The runs were good runs though with one interval session of 5 x400s on Tuesday - all around 2.05 pace and then I did 8 km at 6.10 pace down in Canberra on Sunday. We spent a lovely couple of hours drinking coffee and catching up with CJ, Ewen, Strewth and some other runners after Mr lulu's race which was great; it had been far too long since we'd seen the Canberra Crew!

We were down in Canberra so Mr lulu could do the Weston Creek Half which he did in fine style in 87 mins and 1 second. He does like to add on the odd second or 10 to his target time! On that basis and advice from Coach Sean he has decided not to do the Canberra Marathon but instead to do the Gold Coast as it gives him a few more weeks prep and he doesn't want a repeat of last year's 10 seconds over 3 hours.

So, that means that I'm now officially in training for the Gold Coast 10km which probably gives me something to really focus on and is a bit more motivating than the 5km I was planning to do at Canberra.

So that's last week; so far this week training has been good and I'll update that on Sunday!

posted by Lulu @ 9:32 PM 4 comments

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Pfffffffff

Yes, that's the sounds of me blowing the dust of the old blog! I'm not sure where the last 6 weeks have gone but I'm back now and my March resolution is to update once a week. That should be manageable!

The last few weeks I've started back on the FIRST programme of 3 runs and 2 cross training sessions. I'm doing a 5km programme at the moment with the intention of running the 5km at the Canberra marathon weekend.

Last weekend we went to Sean's training camp down near Sussex Inlet and I did one session each whilst Mr lulu ran most of the weekend it seemed!

I did a very pleasant tempo run on the beach on the Saturday with about 2.7 km at just on 6 min pace in the middle. On Sunday we did our long runs in the bush on a nice dirt track. I was at the back of the pack and the pack quickly disappeared as they were mainly Sean's elite squad with a few of the morning squad in the middle. The trail was slightly uphill all the way out and so made for a lovely return! 9km.

This week I have been a bit of a slacker though, with only a couple of gym sessions and one run of about 5km, until today. I met Tiger in the week to for an assessment of my running style and the feedback as good; looking a lot stronger and my glutes appear to be working.. at least all the strength stuff appears to be working!

Today I headed out for a 10km run around Centennial Park. A bit warm but pretty enjoyable; good music, nice paths and I felt pretty comfortable for most of it; av pace 6.23.

We'll be down in Canberra next weekend as Steve's doing the half marathon so I'll try and organise a coffee or something with the Canberrites!

posted by Lulu @ 10:01 AM 6 comments