Lulu Runs

Closed for renovations

2009-09-19T14:23:00.002+10:00

Just in case anyone is still out there... you may have guessed that I haven't done much for the last 4 or 5 months. I've been off the road for the last three and having recently tried a few short runs it appears that whatever ails my back is nowhere near fixed.

On a brighter note, the lovely Mr lulu successfully ran sub 3 hours at the Gold Coast: 2.59.42 or something like that! Very happy boy of course and his next race is going to be NYC marathon on the 1st November.

I'll be closing the blog for now. If and when I ever get back on the road I may start it up again.

Ciao!
Lulu

Creaking

2009-04-15T21:07:00.002+10:00

Since my last post my body has been creaking a bit; Easy Tiger is away and I always try and break myself when he's not there to fix it.

The week following the race I did hill sprints on the Tuesday and some fartlek on the Thurs. On the Thurs I had a bit of back and glute twinging but managed to keep on going for the rest of the week and did 13 km on Sunday at a good pace.

Then it was off to Brisbane for a few days and my run along the river there ended with a very sore glute. I took a few days off and then tried a short run on Saturday and it felt a bit better.

Since then I've been doing a lot of strength and stretching and did a Spin class tonight and actually feel a lot better so I'm going to try a short run in the morning. I've made an appt with Brad the physio on the Friday so hoping he will throw some light on it and keep me on the road. Tiger is back next week too so between them I'm sure they'll keep me going. I really don't want another phase of being off the road just when I feel like I'm making progress. Fingers crossed !

A return to the wacky races

2009-03-29T13:06:00.003+11:00

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.

More like it

2009-03-22T12:26:00.002+11:00

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.

Encouraging signs

2009-03-17T11:45:00.002+11:00

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.

Better late than never

2009-03-12T21:32:00.003+11:00

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!

Pfffffffff

2009-03-01T10:01:00.003+11:00

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!

Surfers and snow!

2009-01-06T03:41:00.001+11:00

An unusual combination of running along in zero degree temperatures and coming across a load of surfers enjoying the winter surf! I thought I was mad running along the beach path but after going 5km I came across the winter surfers.

I enjoyed a good 10km trot yesterday and had one of those lovely runs where I wanted to keep going for ever but in the end my hamstring decided 10kms was enough, especially as I just building back up again.

We're off to Barcelona tomorrow and I'm hoping it will be a little bit warmer... please!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-03T04:28:00.003+11:00

I can't quite believe another year has passed! I have been remiss in keeping up the blog and slightly remiss in not doing a lot of running since I last posted.

After doing the 16km race I developed a few niggles in various places mainly shins and hamstring and I cut back a bit on the running. I had a lovely few weeks where all the training was still in my legs and I managed to do a 10km training run in just under an hour quite comfortably which is amazing considering I've never managed that in a race!

I'm now fully recovered though and whilst freezing ourselves to death here in the UK we have been out for a number of runs. We arrived here on Boxing Day complete with a nasty cold. A few days later though I was feeling a lot better and we headed East from the house out along the beachfront.. very chilly but quite a nice 35 mins.

Yesterday I did a 40min run West from the house and around the local marsh with the birds and the wild ponies for company ( once Mr lulu headed off) I did a couple of fartlek sessions to test out that the hammy is fully recovered and it felt OK.

My only wish for 2009 is to have an injury free year. I think the 3 run, 2 cross training sessions was working well, except I may have ramped it up a bit quickly as I started to fall to pieces once I hit about 14km long runs so I'm going to carry on with the general principle but build up the long run a bit more slowly. I'm certainly running a bit quicker on my average runs and Mr lulu reports a big improvement in running form, thanks to all the strength stuff I've been doing.

Happy New year to everyone! Let's all stay fit and uninjured this year..

I can't think...

2008-11-16T12:59:00.002+11:00

of a title for this post, so that will have to do.

After my appearance at the Sri Chimnoy 2 weeks ago I've had to take a little break. I developed various aches and pains and so took a week off to let things settle down and just did some swimming and gym stuff. Then I did an interval session on Tues and really struggled and then my hamstring attachment was sore.. sometimes I do wonder why I subject myself to this torture !!

I then had a few days of travelling to Melbourne and Colac and felt so exhausted I couldn't be bothered to run, so this morning I headed out to do a longish run and see what was broken!!

Apparently nothing is too bad but I'm still getting a bit of pain in my knee area.. actually underneath my knee on the outside. I think it's a calf attachment but who knows. Anyway I managed 9km today and am quite happy with that. I'm hoping to get back to a bit more training this week as I'd like to do a 10km out at SMC at the end of December. I think a trip to the lovely Brad is required though to see he can get to the bottom of what's going on in the knees.

A bit of a whinging Pom post but it's the facts!! At least my swimming is improving. Even though I'm only going once or twice a week there is definite improvements and I'm thinking of going back to the swim squad at the gym in a couple of weeks. I just need a bit more swim fitness otherwise I'll die doing an hour's session!

Just finished reading Haruki Murakami's book 'what I talk about when I talk about running'; an interesting little book about how he has run 6 miles a day for the last 25 years and has done 30 odd marathons. Lots of things to relate to in terms of why he runs and how it helps him in his work as a novelist. Thanks to Ben for buying if for Steve's birthday.. I did let Steve read it first of course!

Back already

2008-11-02T15:04:00.002+11:00

After weeks of silence I'm back already with a quick race report from the Sri Chinmoy 16km at the Bay this morning.

A good fun hit-out and it was good to catch up with some old CRs and meet some new ones. I took it pretty easily at the start and was soon at the rear of the pack but that was fine as I was sticking to my designated pace. I settled into a good rhythm, tuned into the music on my ipod and felt pretty comfortable over the first 8 km.

I had a bit of flat spot between 10-12 km and my knee was niggling a bit but once I hit the last turn around I felt pretty good and made the run for home, overtaking a few people on the way back. Mr Lulu was waiting for me one km out, and he dragged me home with a last km at 5.55 pace so I must have had something left in the tank. According to Garth MkII we covered 16.2 kms in 1.40.15 at an average pace of 6.12/km. Very happy with that and I appear not to have broken anything although there are a few sore bits and pieces.

Mr lulu came 7th and took home a trophy.. show off!!

Crikey!

2008-11-01T16:37:00.002+11:00

I appear to have lost a month of my running life! I'm here now Ewen and I'll be brief!

So, the programme has been going pretty well and I've managed to fit in most of it despite work being quite demanding. I've had a few niggles but they have been managed and I'm feeling pretty good at the moment; so good I'm attempting the Sri Chimnoy 16kms at the Bay tomorrow. I did 15km a couple of weeks ago so I'm fairly confident all will be well.

I won't be racing it but it will give me some entertainment for the longest run I've done in about 2 years as my running buddy Ellie is limbering up for the NY marathon.

I feel quite a bit fitter than when I started the programme about 7 weeks ago and got confirmation of that this week when I did my interval training. At the start of the programme I did 6 400s with 400m rest and this week I did 10 reps with only 1.30mins rest and all slightly quicker than the specified pace (2.10); between 2.06 and 2.09 with a 2.07 last one. The last few were tough but I kept up the pace.

I've been doing quite a bit of swimming as cross training and even that has started to improve and I managed 1km this morning. So all in all a pretty good month of training.

I was intending to do the Sussan's women's classic in Melbourne at the beginning of December but work and life aren't co-operating so I'll probably end up doing a Smiffo SMC race in Nov or Dec instead to see what sort of 10km form I'm in and how the programme is working.

Another week done!

2008-09-27T15:31:00.002+10:00

The plan has been followed, roughly at least! I did a swim again on Monday morning at Revesby pool which has a great 50 m outdoor pool. It's so long since I did much swimming it's pretty apalling and I feel I'm half drowning most of the time.. oh well it will improve!

Tue was intervals and I was supposed to do 5 x 800m in 4.20 ish according to the programme. I stuffed this up as I did 1 Ok and then the second one way too fast and ended up not being able to do 5 but I did 3 and a half!

Off to Melbourne on Weds and I had a tempo run to do on Thursday so I headed out of the hotel around the famous Tan for a bit and then along the river and back. A total of 11kms with 2 x 3.2 kms at 6 min pace. Felt pretty good and enjoyed the lovely Melbourne spring morning.

I decided to do my long run this morning and so I was up at 5.30 and on the road by 6 to do 11kms around the streets of Revesby for 11kms at 6.18 pace. Then it was off to crazy abs lady for an hour of torture.

I'll go to the gym tomorrow to do some cross training as per the programme. I think this programme will suit me once my calves adjust to running everything faster. I have slightly sore tib posts again but think it's under control and at least I get to recover properly in between each run.

Efficiency

2008-09-21T17:20:00.002+10:00

She lives! I nearly broke the one month of no posting rule there! Since my run at Noosa I spent two weeks coughing and spluttering with the cold or flu bug that everyone seems to have had this winter. Fortunately, it didn't start until the day after Noosa :) But it did take 2 weeks to get over.

I then did a relatively easy week to try and ease back into training and had a couple of runs that were a real struggle. Last week I started a 12 week 10km training programme based on the Run Less Run Faster methodology. Phew, it's a tough programme but I'm hoping for good results on less training and less injuries.. The times prescribed are based on the Noosa 10km time and seem a bit tough at the moment, but I am just doing what I can to edge towards them.

This week looked like this:

Mon: 45 mins exercise bike
Tues: Rest day, and tortured by Tiger
Weds: 6 x400s in 2.10, which I managed to do with quite even pacing.
Thurs: 30 mins swimming
Fri: Tempo run - total of 8km with 4.8km at 6min pace (v. hard as it was in the evening and a bit warm, but I made it)
Sat: Gym workout
Sun: 10km at 6.20 pace (managed 6.23 pace)

I feel pretty good after the first week, although it was a bit tough this morning, but not as tough as it looked for some of the people at the back of the Sydney marathon pack. I had an efficient morning of running around Centennial Park and therefore being able to cheer at the same time, and watch the new Qantas SuperJet arrive in Sydney.. not a bad morning's work!

This week is a similar type of programme and I like the fact that I get to do some other forms of exercise as well as running.. a bit of variety.

Mon: Swim 30 mins
Tues: 5 x 800s
Weds: Rest day - off to Melbourne
Thurs: Tempo 2 x 3.2 at 6min pace with 1.6kms recovery
Fri: Rest day
Sat: 11kms
Sun: Bike and rowing plus gym

Hope the rest of you are going well. I still have limited internet access although I've now managed to get a 3G card from work but some sites, like bloglines are banned so a bit tricky to keep up with everyone! Only a few weeks before we are back in the Bronte Palace, which is beginning to look very smart.

Noosa bound and re-bound

2008-08-22T07:17:00.003+10:00

I started this post in the Qantas lounge on the way up to Brisvegas and am finishing it in the Virgin lounge on the way back again.

Last Sunday I had a great run with the girls, followed by brunch watching the women's marathon and cheering for Paula and Bonita... the benefits of dual citizenship. This was my last long run before the 10km at Noosa and I felt pretty good, apart from the last hill back to Ellie's house when my friend Zoe (she of a shiny C2S PB of 68min) flogged me up the hill!

Mr lulu took me out for crispy intervals on Tuesday morning. Living out in the south western suburbs is very chilly at this time of the year and the grass oval was covered in frost. We did 6 reps of 400ms with me sticking to a sensible time of 2.10ish for each rep with a minute recovery. Felt quite good and this pace allowed me to focus on form rather than all out effort with legs and arms everywhere, but was still challenging.

After that, work took over my life again and I managed to slip in one gym session, a walk/jog with the girls from work that have just started the couch to 5km and a short hit out around the streets of Noosa yesterday with Mr lulu.

Today's race went very well and I am pleased to report a 2 minute improvement from the GC 10km. Gun time of 60:44 and net time of 60:38. Considering my PB is 60 mins dead that is not bad considering the ups and downs of the last 18 months. Now if I can just stay uninjured... fingers crossed.

I felt really good throughout the race; probably the best 10km I've ever run and managed a negative split for the first time. I think having the heart rate monitor was a great help as I had a good idea of what my heart rate should be and so I paid attention to that rather than the pace. Consequently, I didn't let it get too high in the first half and so at the turnaround I was in pretty good shape and I tried to run each km slightly quicker in the second half. Splits were: 6.09,6.06,6.09, 6.08, 6.08, 6.06, 6.06, 6.05, 6.02, 5.42 Judging by the last km I could have pushed a bit harder a bit earlier. Having said that I felt like I maintained good form all around and even enjoyed myself for a change, rather than really having to battle out the second half. All in all I had a good time and learned quite a bit from the experience.

Mr lulu didn't have such a great time as his training has been interrupted by two colds and two twisted ankles and he did the half finishing in 86.35, which is not quick for him, but still had in 7th in his age group.

I'm off to Melbourne now so I'll have a day off tomorrow before having a bit of a recovery week and make some plans for the next race.

Nomads

2008-08-09T14:13:00.002+10:00

Since my last post the builders have moved into the Bronte palace and we have been evicted to allow them to take out one of the bathrooms, take down the ceilings and generally knock the place about! We are hoping that we won't be out for too long but it will probably be at least 2 months.

We have turned nomadic, living with Mr lulu's mother during the week and relying on the generosity of friends ( mainly Vurt and Ellie) to give us a bed at the weekends.

At least this means I have some new territory to explore when I'm out for my runs, although the SW suburbs are certainly a lot cooler than Bronte first thing in the morning.

Running wise I have been pretty consistent despite the chaotic lifestyle. Since the last post I have done the following runs:
30/7 - 6 km
1/8 - 6km
3/8 - 14km
6/8 - 5.5km with 4km at tempo
7/8 - 6km
9/8 - 12km
Last week's Sunday long run was done with Ellie and we went down to Tempe and ran along the Cook's River which is very nice flat bike path along the river, complete with the remains of a burnt out car at one point!

I did my long run this morning so that I had plenty of energy to cheer the C2S runners tomorrow. 12kms around Centennial Park. I felt pretty good today and interestingly my av heart rate was 161 at an av pace of 6.27 which compares with an av pace of 6.50 for the same heart rate a couple of weeks ago.

We'll be staying with some other friends in Vaucluse tonight, just a short walk from the course so we'll see you out there!

During the week I also read an interesting book ' Run less, Run faster' - sounds like a great idea! The programmes are based on research conducted at the Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training. The programme consists of 3 runs and 2 cross training sessions per week. The runs are very specific, with one interval session, one tempo run and one long run. The theory is that you do less running but the running you do is specific for running faster and the cross training gives you the cardio conditioning without putting the extra stress on body. This really appeals to me for two reasons: I always feel better when I am running at a tempo pace - it feels easier to hold my form and I feel more stable, and second, as I'm prone to injury this could be a way of doing my training without having to do lots of miles which will possibly lead to further breakages. It's worth a try anyway, so once I have done the Noosa 10km race in a couple of weeks I will follow the training for 12 weeks and see what happens. The programme requires you to run very specific pace for the tempo and long run and you calculate the pace based on a recent race, so the Noosa 10km will give me a good indication of what pace I should be training at.

Sunday Post

2008-07-27T12:41:00.002+10:00

I'll try and make Sunday a regular posting day as it's the day I'm likely to have the most time.

Since my last post I have managed to keep to my programme.

Tues: 5 km around the streets in the day
Weds: Spin class
Thurs: 4 km
Fri: Rest day
Sat: 40 mins + Crazy Abs Lady class
Sun: 12kms

Today's 12km was hard work, a long slow plod. I'm lacking in energy this week and it's been hard work to get going. Still it's done now :) I tried to keep my heart rate at a reasonable level which meant walking up some of the hills. Consequently, the average pace was pretty slow at 6.50/km and still my average heart rate was 161. It will be interesting to see how that changes over the nex few weeks as I get a bit fitter. I suspect it is a bit higher than it should be because I'm feeling a bit fatigued.

This week's programme is similar:
Mon: Gym with the Glute Torturer
Tues: Massage am and Spin pm
Weds: 40 mins
Thurs: 40 mins with 20 mins fartlek in the middle
Fri: Rest day
Sat: 40 mins + Crazy Abs Lady
Sun: 14kms- yikes!

Lost in space

2008-07-23T20:41:00.002+10:00

It appears that I have finally returned from the land of lost bloggers. It's a month since my last post and so I won't attempt to give an update of every run but here's the summary

I ran the Gold Coast 10km race - a cr*p time but considering the lack of consistent training I wasn't really surprised or worried. The first 5km were quite good but then I needed a short walk break before running the second half. It was great to be doing something again and to see all my CR friends.

Running a couple of days later, I felt that I was a runner again; a race completed and a few days later getting up in the cold dark winter Melbourne morning to run around the Tan. It felt good.. which means that the running madness may be returning.

In fact since then I have been a lot more committed to both my physio work and my training and I'm now back to 4 runs a week as well as a gym, pilates and Spin session. At this rate I'm in danger of getting fit again. The best news is that I think I'm finally really getting on top of the serious hip problems and the not so serious but annoying calf issues.

The other highlight of the last month was my birthday last weekend. I started the day with my traditional dip in the ocean with some equally mad friends, followed by a champagne breakfast.

We then headed up to the Central Coast for a long weekend and were joined with 6 friends and the mother in law. My gorgeous friends clubbed together and bought me a new Garmin 305 with a heart rate monitor - what great friends I have.

Of course I had to go out and play with that so I ran both Sat and Sun. I experimented in getting my heart rate to max and managed to get it up to 191 which is well over my theoretical max of 176, which is a relief as I'd be walking if I had to try and keep it at 70-80% of 176!

Since then I've done a gym session on Mon, a 35 min run on Tues and a Spin class this evening and I'm feeling good.

Next target race is the 10km at the Noosa Half marathon weekend on Aug 24th. Mr lulu will be going for another PB, and to get under 85 mins for the half and I'll be aiming to better my GC time. All I need now is for all my niggles to stay away and let me do some consistent training. I have a shiny new programme; designed by me with input from Easy Tiger. Once I've made it through this and the next 10km race then I'll start considering a return to the SWEAT squad. Fingers crossed!

Night and Day

2008-06-22T14:24:00.002+10:00

I have been visiting Centennial Park at all hours of the early morning (night) and not so early morning (day) for my last two runs.

As per the plan I met up with Ellie again on Friday morning in the cold and dark and we did a 10 min warm up and then 15 mins of fartlek with 30secs hardish and 1 min recovery. Nothing too serious but at least it got us moving and on the path to a return to some more serious speedwork. According to Garth the Garmin our speedy bits were at 5.12 pace but he did lose signal a few times so it may not be true. We then had to plod up to the Paddington Gates which was quite torturous after the fartlek.

Today, we actually got to run in daylight and it was a nice cool sunny morning too, with a big moon still hanging in the sky. An outside loop plus a loop of CP plus a loop of the Golf course was the plan. It's a long time since I've done that course; probably over a year. My intention was to do 10km just to check I could before I decide if I'm going to do the 10km at the Gold Coast.

All went very well up to about 7kms, when the lack of miles in my legs started to show. My legs just started feeling fatigued. I decided that instead of slowing down I'd actually speed up instead and that helped a bit as it feels like a more natural pace and so the last few kms were close to 6 min pace. I was very pleased when the 10km ticked over and I could stop. At least I know I can make the distance now and assuming I feel OK on the day I'll give it a go.

This week's plan is similar:
Mon: Glute Torturer
Tues: Easy Tiger and rest day
Weds: Run 45mins
Thurs: Spin class and gym
Fri: Run - 40 mins with some fartlek
Sat: Crazy Ab Lady
Sun: 70 mins

Less is more ??

2008-06-18T11:51:00.002+10:00

Hello there blogland. I'm back and hoping to keep being back. I have let work take over my life and it's going to stop here. If I was coaching myself I'd be giving myself a stern talking to about values, life balance etc...

Good thing that most of my friends are coaches so there's not much chance of being allowed to get away with it for too long...

Anyway, I'll put the last few weeks behind me and move on. Strangely though despite sporadic training, the runs I have done have been good ones and faster than I used to run. I'm assuming it's like being in a permanent taper; legs always fresh and lots of energy. I'm also lighter ( although not as light as I was at the end of last year) and I think some of the hormones are a bit more under control. We'll see what happens over the next few months.

So a few highlights: A run along the river at Perth; 4km at 5.55pace
A run around Centennial Park last weekend - 8km at 6.05 pace
Ellie and I starting our own training squad to ensure that I get my act together. All recovering Eastern Suburbs cripples welcome :) Our first squad run set off from Ellie's pad at 5.45 yesterday morning for a nice 6.5km around the park. We even made it all the way up the hill to Ellie's at the end. My quads were crying for mercy as they were trying to recover from being tortured by the glute torturer on Monday.

A consultation with Easy Tiger this morning and a plan was devised to build up slowly now that most of my niggles seem to be under control. I'm not even taping my calf anymore as they seem to be holding up. I have been relatively good at keeping up my strength and physio exercises, if not doing heaps of training.

Three runs this week: Tues, Fri and 10km Sun plus Glute Torturer, crazy ab lady and 1 or 2 max cross training. I'll probably do a Spin class and some weights tomorrow.
Same sort of thing for next week with an 11km run
Same the next with GC 10km race at the weekend
Easy week before adding in another run for 4 a week after that.

Sounds very sensible and if I get through that without any of the injuries re-appearing I will be a happy camper.

I'll dip into blog land later today and see how the rest of you are getting on.

Getting there!

2008-05-23T19:59:00.002+10:00

Hello fellow bloggers! I am still here and making some progress. Work has been totally mad; I'm still doing some work for some old clients as well as having a full time job which has become quite demanding. I'm enjoying it though.

So, last time I visited these pages I was planning on running with Ellie. This did in fact occur on the 4th of May. We had a very lovely 50 min run around Centennial for a total of about 7.7km.

Sadly, my hip/itb decided to object so I had to back off for a week whilst Brad the physio and Tiger worked their magic. I have managed some good runs since and have to just focus on doing some more glute work. The good news is that my calf is pretty much fixed and I think another week or so will see me not having to strap it all the time.

I've done two runs this week; 6kms around the streets on Tuesday and a trot around the Bay this evening. I've never actually run all the way around the Bay before and it was fun. I did wonder if I'd make it but felt pretty good most of the way except towards the end when my lack of fitness and the fact that it was dark and I wasn't sure of the surface slowed me down.

So, in summary I'm feeling pretty good; I have to watch the glute exercises/stretching but I'm getting there!

Hot and cold

2008-05-02T10:33:00.003+10:00

Hot in Hawaii: Cold in Canberra and now I've caught a cold!!

Hawaii was just what the doctor ordered with lots of lounging around on the beach, swimming in the lovely warm ocean, a bit of walking, some sight seeing and a couple of runs... not to mention the fab food and restaurants we discovered.

Back to reality this week and the good news it that the body seems to have decided that it's going to behave itself for a few weeks. The sore calves are nearly better, thanks to the Roman Gladiator-style tape gaitors, and some solid attention to calf strengthening.

Mr lulu and I did a couple of runs from Waikiki along the foreshore and past Diamond Head. On the first one I attempted to keep up with Mr lulu as he was just cruising. 3kms later I was a puffy sweaty mess, having run 3kms at uinder 6 min pace and he looked like he hadn't even started. That was the point I sent him on his way and ambled back to the hotel, having done just under 6kms; the furthest I'd done for ages.

Calfs were a bit sore afterwards as I didn't tape my legs so I iced and left it a couple of days before going out again. This time I kept Mr lulu in sight but went at my own pace; much more sensible. Same course, 6kms at 6.27 pace. Calf taped and no soreness... I also stepped up the calf strengthening after the first run as I'd been a bit slack on that.

Back to Sydney and having lost the whole of Sunday over the Pacific somewhere it was straight back to work on Monday; but first I had to try out the nice new running gear I bought in Hawaii. Great tops and leggings I found at lululemon athletica which is much cheaper in the US than here, but the gear is great. I like the name too ;)

So on Monday, I headed out for another 6km about the same pace and with no ill effects. I actually felt great at the end of the run for the first time in ages.

Weds it was off to chilly Canberra for a couple of days so my next run was down Northbourne Ave from Civic to Parliament House and back on Thurs; another 6kms at about 6.27 pace. A minor cold has settled in but nothing some cold and flu tablets couldn't sort out so I could go running.

So, fingers crossed that I have fixed the calves, my hormones/fatigue are in abeyance for a while and I can gradually build up some miles and reintroduce my fartlek and intervals.
Next run on Sunday with Ellie .. Yay!!

Oh so close!

2008-04-14T18:06:00.002+10:00

Here we are back from the Canberra marathon and Mr lulu came oh so close to his sub 3hr goal with a finish time of 3.00.12 on the clock. A 3 min pb, but where did those annoying few seconds come from.
It was great to see everyone in Canberra and there were some great runs from everyone, with the exception of me who didn't make it to the start line of the 5km.

I was feeling absolutely shattered on Saturday and although I could have dragged myself around I really couldn't be bothered. So I stood and cheered the 10km and made do with that.

I'm hoping a week in Hawaii which is coming up soon will perk me up and I'll be back some reasonable running.

I managed a nice 5km trot around Yarrawonga last week and will go for a run with Mr lulu in the morning. It will be the only time when I have any chance of keeping up with him for 3kms :) The benefit of not running much is that my niggles have recovered so let's hope that is the last of it as I really can't be doing with any more physio bills!

Thanks Mr 2P

2008-04-06T18:29:00.003+10:00

... for the prompt to update.. and for the compliment :)

I'm still here but have had a bit of a struggle in the last week or so. I tried out the Roman gaitor look and it seems to help take the pressure of the shin. I then promptly stopped running for a week as I felt really under the weather and struggled to make it into work, let alone contemplate running.

However, last Sunday we took the new, bigger and faster Lulumobile down the coast to test it's road handling and to have a run along Lady Carrington Drive. After a week of doing very little it was a struggle but I plodded on for 6kms with the odd walk break and one ankle twist..... more of that later.

Tuesday, I ventured out in the pitch black of 5.30 around the local streets. 3kms in, a strange sensation followed by a sharp pain the heel brought me to a standstill and a spot of swearing, a bit of walking, a bit of stretching and then decided I had to run home or be late for work. I was convinced I now had another injury to add to my woes and scuttled off to the podiatrist in a hurry.

His verdict was possibly a tear to the plantar due to twisting the ankle. He has also doctored my asic running shoes by cutting off the outside flange which he believes may be contributing to the tight tib posts... interesting theory and they do feel better.

A further trip to Brad the physio to be taught how to do the strapping and some soothing about the heel pain. He had a different theory which related to the ankle twist and the subtalar joint in the foot. After a bit of manipulation it all seems fine so that's one less thing to worry about.

Friday I failed to get out of bed to run and so had to go in the evening. My fitness has totally escaped me and 4kms was a real struggle where I had to stop several times with severe stitch. I had every intention of getting up and going this morning but I've a headache for most of the weekend and so failed again! I've spent the weekend at a positive psychology course and feel totally knackered despite the lovely company and the stimulating subject.

So, a new week and the prospect of the Canberra 5km on Saturday. I'm still intending to run, but it will be a matter of struggling round I fear, which is a bit of a disappointment considering a few weeks ago I was feeling as if my fitness was coming back. Instead, I'll just treat it as a bit of a training run and an opportunity to take part in something; it's a year since I did anything so it will be nice to do something.

The plan this week:
Monday: gym session with the glute torturer
Tues: 40 min run
Weds: Spin
Thurs: 40 min run
Fri: Gym/swim
Sat: 5km fun run
Sun: Cheersquad duties for the marathon

Mr Lulu is looking good, down to his racing weight and ready to rock and roll. He is so light now that I can pick him up, which he thinks is very amusing and he keeps asking me to do it. It's obviously all that strength stuff I've been doing ;)

A minor setback

2008-03-21T10:35:00.003+11:00

A trip to Brad the physio yesterday sees me now sporting a very attractive piece of strapping on my right shin, which is somewhat reminiscent of Roman gladiator gaitors. My poor old tibialis posteriors are doing far too much work and now unfortunately the sheath around the tib is a bit inflamed. The strapping is an experiment to see if it takes the load off the tib post.

As instructed I did a 5km run this morning to see how it felt. I think it helps as the leg doesn't feel too bad now whereas the left unstrapped one feels a bit tight. It appears that the long lay off means I lost the conditioning in my lower legs and now I have to go through the hassle of toughening them up again.

The treatment includes:

Only running 3 times a week and no back to back runs
Taking anti-inflammatories for 5 days
Strapping if it helps
Lots of calf stretches, but not off the step. Brad doesn't like that particular stretch as he says that hanging off the step makes the calf contract and then you're trying to stretch it so it doesn't really work, so it's leaning into the wall stretches only
3x15 eccentric calf exercises twice a day on both legs to strengthen the other muscles so the tib post doesn't have to do as much work. I feel like I have to condition my body one body part at a time at the moment.
Doing some water running/spin classes to maintain the limited fitness

So, a minor setback and I'm not really surprised as I do appear to be extremely prone to inflammation. Brad informs me that researchers have isolated a gene which predisposes people to tendinopathy and inflammation and he believes I probably have it. Not a big issue, except you have to manage things before they get out of hand and he suggested that just keeping running until your leg snaps is probably not the best way to go! I have to say I agree with him there and will obey orders! We'll have to see how it is in the next couple of weeks before I decide if the 5km at Canberra is feasible or advisable. Fingers crossed!

Three bits of good news though:

My hips and pelvis are looking great apparently - very symmetrical so I'm obviously doing all the right things there
I get to go water running with Ellie
Nothing else is hurting :)

Interesting intervals

2008-03-18T09:27:00.002+11:00

I thought today I would try and revive the interval training I had been doing before my feet started playing up. I ran up that same old hill to New South Head Rd again and into Christenson Park.

I started with a few drills and then decided to try and do 1 min intervals. However, after two I was already struggling so I downgraded to 30 sec with a minute's rest. It was still a stuggle today and one of my quads started to feel like it was strained so I pulled the pin after 5 and ran back home, for a total of about 5km. It was a struggle from the start today and yesterday I felt dreadful for most of the day, so I think I'm back in one of my fatigued states which I'm hoping won't last too long.

I'll have to review the intervals as it definitely seems to increase the risk of niggles, so perhaps it's safer to stick to fartlek and long runs for now.

Getting back into the groove

2008-03-16T12:34:00.002+11:00

Another pretty good week this week with four runs, one gym session, one Crazy Ab lady class and about 3 ab sessions on my own. The feet are feeling better and as long as I do my ab exercises the hip doesn't hurt.

Runs this week were:
Tues; 5km around Queen's Park
Fri: 5km in the dark around the streets
Sat: 4km fartlek around Centennial
Sun: 8.75 around the hills of Vaucluse and Watson's Bay.

I was accompanied on my run this morning by Running Angel, and Ellie walking Max, my friends' dog who Mr lulu and I are currently looking after. Poor Ellie was dragged around a bit by Max until she wore him out a bit! I was dragged around by Running Angel who definitely wore me out. We ran out of Vaucluse up the hill to New South Head Rd and to Christenson Park where we re-met Ellie and Max. Then it was off down the coast path to Watson's Bay. Lots of hills involved as we were going back and forth to tell Ellie where we were heading and this involved doing several hill repeats as we ran down and then ran back up again. From Watson's Bay we headed back towards the house, and as we still had 8 mins to go Running Angel said ' let's do another hill'. Personally, I think she's mad but nevertheless followed obediently back up the hill to New SH Rd and back again for a total of 60 mins, my longest run since about June last year. I felt pretty good most of the way considering I have done very few hills recently and I'm definitely beginning to feel that my fitness is gradually coming back. A pretty slow pace but at least I did the full hour and lots of hills.

If I can just get a good solid period of injury free running then I'll be happy!

We ended the morning's activities with a quick cooldown dip at Neilson's Park where we awaited Mr lulu after his last 3 hour run, and then brekkie at the kiosk. A very nice way to spend a Sunday.. those people who don't run don't know what they are missing out on :)

A little help from my friends!

2008-03-09T18:09:00.002+11:00

We arrived in Bathurst on Sat afternoon and enjoyed the hospitality of Mr lulu's sister and her husband, who stuffed us with wine and pasta ready for the morning.

We arrived in Orange in plenty of time, so I headed out for my run before the race started so I could do cheer squad duties. I did a lap of part of the course, which confused some of the volunteers who looked at me a bit strangely! It felt hard work but I managed to keep going for 52 mins, my longest run for months. I wasn't wearing Garth as he got left behind in Bathurst but I think it was about 8km and the only niggle was the foot.

I waited near the start for Mr lulu to appear, gave him a cheer and then headed back to the start area for a coffee and waited for him to return. A creditable 87.25 mins later he finished. This is not a half PB but more importantly is a 4 min improvement on his time last year, which bodes well for his Canberra attempt. Fingers crossed anyway.

The rest of the week has been a good week of training, (at last) and it's down to arranging to meet up with people at unearthly times of the morning to go training... and it works, because I am far too polite to let people down!

Gym on Monday with the trainer, a rest day on Tues and then a short run on Weds pm. I struggled as I hadn't eaten much during the day and only managed 3.5km and then had to lie down for 30 mins when I got home to recover!

Thurs it was up at the lovely hour of 5am to meet Jen and Ellie for a lap of the park. It was great to be running with the girls again, even though they did take great pleasure in dropping me on the last hill :) Next time, I won't wait for them at the bottom of it! Ellie's garmin had us at about 5.85km. No niggles :)

Friday I met up with Running Angel, (still happy with her 10km PB from Orange at the weekend), for a Spin class. Another good workout and we're going to make it a regular Friday event.

Yesterday I headed out for a quick trot on my old 2 beaches route, down to Clovelly and then up to Bronte and up through the gully. Last time I tried this route I had to walk up most of the hills, this time I only had one little walk on one of the long hills so I was pretty pleased. The average time was also good at 6.14 pace and 4km. It was then off to be tortured by the crazy ab lady and she really gave the old body a good work out. As usual, my hip felt perfect again afterwards so it's worth the pain!

I set out today with the intention of doing an hour, but my legs didn't obey orders and went out a bit faster than I intended and so I was quite glad when I bumped into Amanda and Fats showing off the brand new baby Beatrix, who is quite gorgeous! Amanda told me to get going again so I set off up the hill where I met up with Mr lulu who was struggling a bit with a sore quad so I advised him to head home where I would do my best to fix it if I ever made it back! The long hill up the side of the Cook Road took it's toll and there was a short burst of walking before heading down York Road and starting up the hill home. Here I came across Mr lulu walking home and as I was really starting to struggle and my form was going I stopped and walked home with him. A nice 8kms and 53.45 mins with an average pace of 6.35. Next week I'll have to contain myself on the early stages and see if I can make the hour.

Most importantly, the mechanics have done a good job on the lulu this week and not even my foot was playing up today.

Alcolhol Free March also commenced last Sunday; in fact I'm going to keep it up until after my little 5km trot on marathon weekend and Running Angel is keeping me company on my quest. I even managed to survive a two day offsite with all the sales managers without resorting to drink!

Deja Vu

2008-03-01T10:45:00.002+11:00

Well here we are at the start of another month and it's been the same old sorry state of affairs. Weight the same - check, inconsistent training - check, and work taking up far too much time - check!

Even my best efforts at applying coaching techniques failed to keep me on course on Feb. Without them I would have probably ended up an overweight, alcoholic, couch potato so let's look on the bright side. Monthly kms were even less than Jan, which is funny really!

So, what are we going to do about it... well what else can we do but keep on keeping on doing the best I can. I've been in my new job for 4 months now and things have been going really well and I've established some good relationships with the key people who can see where I can assist them. Of course that means that they are now asking me to help them which I try to do whilst doing my day job setting up the total sales effectiveness strategy and trying to implement it. Consequently, my days are getting longer and my opportunity for running is getting less. I'll try for acohol free March and I hope I won't be doing too much travelling this month so will be able to eat a little more healthily. I've also arranged to meet Ellie for a run on Thursday am so come rain or shine I shall have to go and meet her. I won't mind being in the park in the dark either with some company.

This week was a classic. The week started well and I was up nice and early on Tuesday to do a short interval session. I've lengthened my intervals up from 30 secs to a minute so that I'm not pushing quite as hard and so putting slightly less pressure on the temperamental foot and calf. A total of 4.5 kms and not a bad session.

Weds I had a massage and ET tortured the foot finally into submission I think. I intended to test it out on Weds evening, but after getting held up at work it was nearly 7pm by the time I made it to Centennial Park. Big black clouds hung overhead and I was just wondering if the predicted storm had arrived and whether I'd get struck by lightening or not, when I heard the crack of a lightening fork and a big clap of thunder overhead. Hmmm.. shall I carry on and run under the trees for safety or shall I go home and cook dinner. Cooking dinner won out.

Thursday I at least managed to get out of bed at 5.15 so I could go for a run before catching a plane to Brissie but my foot was a bit tender from ETs ministrations so I got back into bed again.

That brings us to Friday. A hard session at the gym with the Glute Torturer in the morning and I had every intention of going out for a run when I got home. After picking up some running shoes for Mr lulu, doing the shopping for dinner and handling a Queensland work crisis on the the way home, it was about 7.30pm before I could think about it and Mr lulu was looking expectantly at the dinner table.... there goes another one!

Finally, this morning the alarm went off at 6 and I dragged myself out of bed and down to the park. I felt tired and knew I wasn't firing on all cylinders, as any time I tried to do an faster surge there wasn't much difference in pace. In the end I stopped at 4kms and walked back home. Still at least it was 4kms at 6.15 pace. The foot and hip niggles are all a lot better though so that's a positive.

Then I headed off to the North Shore to see the Crazy Ab Lady for some more torture.

My theory about her exercises being the ones that really stop my hip/groin niggling has been proved correct and she confirmed that a lot of what we do does put the femur in the hip socket in the right place. This is really what it feels like to me and my groin pain goes away instantly, presumably because the femur is no longer jammed against the damaged cartiledge. At least I know what I need to keep doing.

We're off to Orange in an hour so that Mr lulu can run in the half marathon out there as part of his prep for Canberra marathon. The course looks a bit flatter, and it's forecast to be cool this year so we hope he'll do a good time. I was thinking about doing the 5km as I did last year but I don't need further confirmation of my lack of fitness so I'm going to just do a training run while he's out racing.

I'm alive!

2008-02-24T16:28:00.002+11:00

Well, after being re-inspired by Sean's running camp I was swallowed back into work and travelling and lost my way a little. Alcolhol free Feb was the first thing to go when the CR girls came over for dinner!

I've also been travelling a lot; since my last post I have been to Daylesford, Melbourne, Noosa, Central Coast and Adelaide, not bad for three weeks. Most of it has been work related but Noosa and the Central Coast were weekends away. In fact this weekend was the first weekend I've been at home since before Australia Day.

Running and exercising haven't been too bad when I have had enough energy. A trip to the thyroid Dr. shows my thyroid still not firing on all cylinders hence the fatigue and lack of weight loss. Very frustrating but there's not much else I can do apart from keep ticking along with the drugs and hoping it will sort itself out.

Having done lots of different runs I'll focus on a couple of highlights:

Adelaide: Monday morning out running along the beach at Glenelg, about 7kms and although it was already 27 deg at 6am, it was a very pleasant run.

Noosa: A couple of nice runs along the Noosa Half course. It would be nice to do that one day.

Centennial Park today: A nice 7km at 6.20/km pace. Quite pleased with that pace considering the relatively low amount of training.

I've had a few problems with my right calf and foot, which despite Easy Tiger's best efforts is still giving me grief so I haven't done much interval training lately. Hoping it will stand up to a sessiong this week. I'm also getting a few aches in my special place which is a sign of the hip problem flaring up. The only thing I've been a bit slack on is the Crazy Ab lady exercises so I'm going to re-focus on that this week and see if it settles down the hip. If not, I'll be back to Brad the physio; I'm due a check up anyway.

That's all for now and I really will try and be a better blogger!!

Kick Start

2008-02-03T18:16:00.000+11:00

Well, after posting last I have been all over the place. I did a nice fast run on last Saturday morning, the details of which I have forgotten, but I remember being pleased! (Edit: Now I've looked at my blog I see I have already told you all about that...my poor old memory is definitely going!) Then it was off to Mr lulu's Dad's place near Albury. I managed to do a couple of walks and some strength stuff but discovered I high had sore tib post muscles, which attach on the inside of the calf to the ankle. The left one was particulary bad so I decided to treat them nicely for a few days.

I fully intended to go running on Weds morning in Melbourne but those naughtly Melbourne boys took me out to dinner again and I slept really badly so it was a failure to launch on Weds. Easy Tiger tortured the calves on Thursday morning and they settled down quite well.

More excuses followed for the rest of the week until hitting one of Sean's running camps at Sussex Inlet on Friday night. I did think about hiding in my cabin all weekend to avoid Sean torturing me but it wasn't a very nice cabin!

Sat morning was a nasty sounding sandhills session so I decided my calves probably wouldn't enjoy that so I stayed in bed and then got up and fetched coffee and made breakfast for the athletes of the house ( who were Running Angel, Mr RA, BeckyO and of course Mr Lulu). I didn't feel too guilty when I saw that Easy Tiger didn't do the sandhills either.. .he informed me he was a runner not a camel :)

I couldn't escape the late morning session though. This was supposed to be a 2.5km jog down to the beach and then 4 or 8km along the beach and a 2.5 km run back. As this would be about my week's total in one run I was permitted to drive to the beach and then I just did one out and back loop which was about 2.7km, plus I did a little bit extra to make it 3km. I started out with RA and Becky, which was a mistake as they went out at a nice sub 6 min pace which had me wheezing away once we hit the end of the beach and so I had to slow down for the return leg. A very nice little hit out though.

The afternoon session was a strength workout on the beach. I did my own version as I am probably a bit overly cautious in doing anything new which might aggravate the dodgy hip. I also didn't want to get totally frazzled on the beach in the afternoon sun. I did a good pilates and some glute torturer exercises before organising afternoon. ( As you can tell, I was camp chef which seemed fair as I wasn't doing anywhere near as much as the athletes).

Saturday night it was down to the local RSL; not an experience I care to repeat, the food was truly terrible. Next camp, I'll cook dinner so I don't have to sample the delights of the local RSL! One of the other runners commented that we didn't really fit in as we were all too slim!

This morning it was the long run out in the National Park. Lovely trail to run on, and I started out with Becky and RA again and this time they slowed down so I could run with them until I turned around after 25 mins. I was finding it hard work and feeling very unfit until Becky O pointed out that we had been running on a gradual uphill for most of the way. I found out she was right when I turned around and flew back down, for a nice total of 50 mins at an average pace of 6.25. At 7.8km, my longest run for about 7 months!

After cooking breakfast for half the camp (word had spread of my camp chef status) it was a short rest, a trip to town to fetch the Sunday Telegraph so we could read the article about Becky O and her quest to raise money while doing the Marathon de Sable, and then off for one of Sean's delightful aqua workouts. Lots of drills, strides and other forms of torture down at the lake.

We're back home now and feeling quite tired but I have definitely been re-inspired to keep on plugging away and to try and be more consistent this month. Lots of nagging please people! I have had lots of patchy weeks in Jan. I've also decided to make Feb an alcohol free month to give the weight loss a bit of a boost, as I haven't made much progress this month. Let's see what I can do, despite doing a lot of travelling in the next few weeks.

Apologies to Ewen for scaring him with Aussie talk: I promise to keep control of my Australianess from now on :)

Time for a quick update

2008-01-26T09:51:00.000+11:00

I can't believe how time flies! It's been nearly two weeks since I posted. I had a bad week the week before last with only two runs and one gym workout as I felt so exhausted all the time.

This week has been a lot better and I've just come back from the park. I'm still working on the speed and it seems to be coming together but I don't have a lot of endurance at the moment. I'm thinking of adding in one Spin class or something similar a week so that I can do a longer aerobic session without adding too many miles.

Today I drove down to the park with the idea to see how long I could run at a reasonable pace before needing a walk break. The answer is I could manage 2.25km at 5.50/km pace before I stopped for a short walk. I then did another 1km at 5.54 pace and another 750m a bit slower for a total of 4km with a average pace of 6 min pace. Not too shabby considering! Now I just need to work on keeping it up for longer...

That's all for now, I'll try and catch up with everyone's blogs after the weekend, as we're off to visit Mr Lulu's Dad for the weekend. Happy running Australia Day all youse!

Back in the park

2008-01-13T10:31:00.000+11:00

I managed to sleep through my alarm on Friday morning and so I was running a bit short of time to get my run in and get to work, so it was another evening run. I drove down to the park and went to the lake where we train with SWEAT. A 10 minute warm up around the lake and then 8 x 30 second intervals with 1.30 jog/walk rest periods. Another 10 mins to cool down a bit and a total of about 4.5km.

This morning I headed out from home, down to the park and then around the inside. I should have left earlier as it was getting very hot by 8am. I did the first 3 kms of my run as 1 km warm-up then kms 2 and 3 fartlek, at just under 6 min pace average, and then it was run/walk for the next 3 km. Pretty pleased with that as I did 6km and an average of 6.38 including walk breaks. I then walked the 1.5km home as a cool down. Not that I was very cool by the time by the time I got home!

This week I'm off to sunny Brisvegas for a couple of days Mon/Tues so my next run will be around the streets of Brisbane.

This week's plan is as follows:
Mon: Glute Torturer @ gym
Tues: 40 mins easy run
Weds: 40 mins fartlek pm
Thurs: Gym
Fri: 10 x30 sec intervals
Sat: Gym
Sun: 60 mins run/walk.

Back again already!

2008-01-09T19:25:00.000+11:00

Blogging two days in a row.. .it's almost like the good old days. Thanks for the positive feedback on the new approach, that gives me further confidence to continue.

I had a massage early this morning so it was an evening run for me. I'm not a big fan of running in the evening as I'm usually tired and it's still quite hot so I didn't expect a stellar performance.

I started out well on my fartlek well doing 2 km without a walk break with km times of 6.13 and 5.56 which I was quite pleased with. Then I had a few walk breaks and it was all down hill from there. I pulled the pin at 4kms and 27 mins as I was really starting to flag and I know that's when I'm more likely to lose form. It was 4km at an average of 6.40 pace which isn't too bad considering the walk breaks in the fartlek! It will be good to see the average pace gradually come down as I get a bit fitter, faster and and take less walk breaks.

I'm not too worried as I'm back on a fairy strict diet at the moment and so am trying to balance the right intake to exercise ratio and I definitely ran out of energy this afternoon. However, it's probably more important to lose some more weight than worry too much about training volumes at this stage. Before I went to Europe in Sept I managed to get down to 64.5kg which was a big achievement for me. After Dad died I took up comfort eating and drinking and I'm currently 67kgs again. I'd like to lose another 5kgs so we'll see how we get on.

When I did the SMH half in 2005 I was 77kgs so I have made quite good progress, albeit over 2.5 years!! I'm still battling the under active thyroid issue; a trip to the Dr this week revealed that it's still not firing on all cylinders despite the medication, which explains the lack of energy and difficulty in losing weight. Anyway we plod on for now in the attempt to fly as SpeedyGeoff recommends!

Mr lulu is in very good form at the moment, for anyone who is interested in the other half! He is back in full training for the Canberra marathon and his crack at going sub 3hrs. Fingers crossed for an injury free 3 months for both of us. I'm not sure if I'll be doing the 10km at Canberra at this stage due to the new approach, so I might try the 5km instead. It will depend on how long it takes for me to get some fitness back.

A new year, a new approach

2008-01-08T18:12:00.000+11:00

Happy New Year to the blogging team. I collapsed in a heap when the Christmas holidays started but now I'm back at work I'm back into blogging. I did manage to keep up the training though, despite finding it very tough for a week or so.

Now, what's this new approach? Well, both Easy Tiger and the Glute Torturer have advised that before I start putting in too many kms, I need to learn to run a bit faster. I've always been a plodder and they both think that has been part of the problem in terms of injuries. Too long on the ground on each stride, time for the glutes to switch off and then problems occur.

So for the last few weeks I have been doing mainly shorter runs, either interval training or fartlek. It's an interesting experiment and is a bit counter intuitive because we associate speed work with injury but so far I have to say I feel really good. It's much easier to hold good form when I'm running a bit faster and I stop as soon as I get fatigued and don't think I can hold my form any more. My fartlek includes some walk breaks to regain my form.

I had an opportunity to try out whether this was actually getting me fitter as well when I went for a run with Ellie last week. Ellie had 40 mins on her programme so that's what we did and I was pleased to see that I managed the 40 mins non-stop quite comfortably and it's the longest run I've done for about 6 months. So I'll continue with the experiment for a while. Doing it the traditional lots of LSD approach first seems to result in injury so I have nothing to lose in trying something a bit different this time.

So, my week this week looks like this:
Mon: gym with the glute torturer
Tues: interval 10 min w/u, 6 x 30sec intervals with 1.30 recovery, 5 mins warm down
Weds: 40 mins fartlek
Thurs: Gym
Fri: As Tues but 8 intervals
Sat: Gym
Sun: 45 mins Fartlek

Almost a runner again

2007-12-16T14:30:00.000+11:00

I feel like I'm almost a runner again now as I've done my four runs again this week, plus been to CR drinks and helped out at the SMC race this morning.

Good lulu has been in charge again this week and the only session I missed was Tuesday pm intervals in the pool.

The visit to Brad was interesting. He hasn't watched me run for a few weeks so I was interested to see what happened when I hopped on the treadmill. Apart from huffing and puffing a couple of other interesting things were obvious. I'm still dropping my hip mid stride on both sides, so my glutes are not firing at the right time. They're nice and strong thanks to the glute torturer but need to work on timing. I concentrated on that Friday and today and think I'm getting there but need to see it on the video to know if what I think is working, actually is. I'm also not using my right hamstring much and so my kick up on the right is much lower than the left. I probably learned to run like that when I had problems with my hamstring last year. Something else to think about....who would have thought running could be so complicated!

I (wo-)manned a drink station out at SMC today and it was really great to catch up with everyone. Mr lulu did his first race since August and was tad slow at 40.25 but he will soon get his race fitness back. It was great to see Go Girl run her first 10km under 45 mins, Sara go close to a PB and Ellie return to racing.

I did my own little 5km run once I got home and it was hard work. It took me 33 mins to do 5km and I had a couple of walk breaks in the middle as I unintentionally started out a bit fast... turns out if you use your hamstrings and glutes you actually go faster!

Another busy week of travelling and Christmas events this week but I intend to keep up the good work.

So, the plan is:

Mon: Gym with the glute torturer
Tues: 30 min run and a massage
Weds: run (warm up, drills and some strides)
Thurs: Crazy ab lady homework (have to go to Brissie)
Fri: 30 min run and gym workout
Sat: Crazy ab lady
Sun: 35 min run, 25 min walk

Signs of progress

2007-12-09T10:58:00.000+11:00

The crazy abs lady definitely did something to me yesterday as my back and stomach muscles are feeling the effects this morning! A hour with the crazy abs lady is pilates on steroids.

I headed out in Alfie to the park this morning and did an inside loop and around the lake for another 30 mins, well 31 actually :) It felt a lot easier today and I wasn't constantly looking at my watch waiting for 30 mins to come, so there's some progress being made. It was nice to be back on home turf and back in the park. I'm also looking forward to Ms Ellie return to the Eastern suburbs next week, so I will even soon have a running buddy back. We just need Lorna back on her feet now, and to drag Jen away from her fiance and we can have a reunion run.

Looking at my little km chart on my blog it's really June since I did anything like a reasonable training load so it's really no wonder my fitness has gone out the back door. So, it's time to really focus and start building my base fitness again. The programme for this week is:

Mon: Gym am
Tues: 30 mins run am Hydro pool interval training pm
Weds: 30 mins run and a visit to Tiger
Thurs: Glute Torturer @ gym and a visit to Brad the physio
Fri: 30 mins run
Sat: Crazy abs lady
Sun: 30 mins run, 30 mins walk

The new Lulu is a good Lulu

2007-12-08T12:55:00.000+11:00

I may not have been blogging but I have been pretty much sticking to the plan. Whilst big Kev has been out signing Kyoto I've been undoing all his good work by traversing the country. Since I last visited I have been in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, staggering through the door at 11pm last night.

The only time naughty Lulu came out to play was in Melbourne when the naughty boys in our Melbourne office took me out drinking, or to be more precise we sat in the office drinking and I didn't make it out of bed to go running on the Friday. I made up for it in the evening though when I arrived in Adelaide, by going out for my 30 mins. My sense of direction let me down though and if it weren't for running into some orienteering types with maps I would still be wandering the park lands of Adelaide looking for my hotel.

A river theme ran through the rest of my runs which included a couple of runs along the Torrens in Adelaide and then along the Swan river in Perth, not to mention a couple of gym visits and this morning's visit to the crazy ab lady. This must all pay off eventually????

The best news is that I have now done about 6 or 7 30 mins runs, including a back to back effort on Thurs/Fri this week so I'm now up to 4 x 30 mins per week and nothing hurts, except the lungs although it's beginning to get a bit better. I'm amazed at how unfit I got on this lay off, mainly because of doing nothing much for a month in Europe. Anyway, it's all good and I'm looking forward to being told by the lovely Brad (physio) this week that I can start building up the mileage gradually. I'm aiming to be back for my traditional comeback 10km at Canberra in April. That seems very achievable at this stage and I'm hoping it's the last year that it's the 'comeback' race!

I have a plan ... for a new Lulu

2007-11-26T20:55:00.000+11:00

Hello there blogosphere... Lulu is back, inspired by the fresh new PM to restart the blogging, not to mention the running. Since I last visited I have been working, partying, sick, travelling and generally lazy on the exercise front. Last week we hit rock bottom with a bout of a nasty stomach bug and one trip to the gym was the sum total of my exercise, apart from some crazy ab lady exercises.

Back into action this week then I said this morning as I lay in bed.....and lay in bed until I decided to get up and go to work early so I could miss the traffic. I took my running gear with me, changed at work and stopped off at Centennial Park for an evening run for a change. Quite a good way to unwind after a day at the office.

The good news was that I managed 30 mins non-stop without breaking anything so I'm happy with that little return to the programme.

Now, I just need to keep up some momentum as I'm going on a trip around the country over the next week and a half with visits to Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth starting on Thursday.

So, I have a plan:
Monday: 30 mins run... done!
Tues: 30 mins cardio and weights at gym
Weds: Tiger's Den am - 30 mins run pm
Thurs: Rest day
Fri: Strength and 30 mins cardio at hotel gym
Sat: Adelaide 1 hour walk
Sun: 30 mins run

I'm still stuck on 3 runs this week but if it all holds together with 3x30 min runs, I will up it to 4 runs next week. I'm not extending the time at the moment and I'm just wearing a sports watch as I can't bear to see how slow I am! Right now I want you all to bother me if you don't hear from me again on Weds evening!

Is it over already?

2007-11-04T19:14:00.000+11:00

Weekend's seem to have got a lot shorter now I'm working full time again. It's been a fun week but I found day light saving hard and so I didn't do as much as I had hoped. Add to that some early morning meetings and a tad of laziness and all I managed was a couple of walk\runs, a session with the glute torturerand an hour with the crazy abs lady! An hour with the crazy abs lady is a tough hour but I've now got a good routine to do everyday to get those abs really firing.

Thursday morning I headed out for a run/walk around Queen's Park and ran for most of it, with just a short walk up the hill. Today I did my outside loop of Centennial Park which included a 10 min run 2 min walk and then a 20 min run; my longest so far. Everything felt good, and I'm encouraged that I'm not getting sore in the hip/groin so far. I have a trip to Brad the physio on Tuesday so we'll see what he says.

I'm back on the road this week and will be visiting sunny Brisvegas so perhaps I'll see one or two of you up there.

Plan for the week:
Mon: Strength
Tues: Run/walk 30 mins, physio
Weds: Spin
Thurs: Glute Torturer, up to Brisbane
Fri: Run/walk 30 mins
Sat: Walk/strength
Sun: Run/Walk, return to Sydney

I plan to do it all this week :)

Hello park!

2007-10-28T12:36:00.000+11:00

I pretty much stuck to the plan this week. I didn't make it to Spin on Wednesday as I couldn't get out of bed early enough, then I took my stuff to work with me but got stuck in traffic and then discovered I didn't have any shoes with me... It will take me a few weeks to get used to this commuting lark!

I did manage to do the most important bits of the week though and that was the three runs and my strength stuff so I'm beginning to feel like I am getting back on track.

Tuesday and Friday I pottered out for between 25 and 30 mins walk/run. Managed to do 25 mins on Friday with only 2.5 mins walking in the whole lot and nothing hurt! That's big progress to how I was a few months ago.

Today I headed down to see my old friend Centennial Park. I decided to do an outside loop of the park which is about 6.5kms. I didn't want to overdo things so I just stuck to running a max of 10 mins at a time before having a walk break. Took me about 55 mins to do the whole thing and about 25 mins of running, again with no pain. Things are looking up!

This week's plan as follows:

Mon: Glute Torturer
Tues: Walk/Run 30 mins
Weds: Swim and strength
Thurs: Spin
Fri: 30 mins walk run and strength
Sat: Spin and pilates
Sun: 60 mins walk/run

There will be a crazy abs lady session in there somewhere so this might change something. She managed to double book herself yesterday and so I missed out on my session. We're hoping to book something in for one evening this week. The crazy abs lady is not really crazy, just a bit eccentric. She does have some very interesting ideas about core stability, or core activation as she prefers to think of it. She was one of the orginial pilates instructors in Australia and used to do a lot of rehab work. She became a bit disatisfied with the results she was getting from Pilates and has now developed some of her own methods, which she calls Method One pilates. I must say after just 10 days of the exercises she has prescribed me I am beginning to feel more core stability so I'll stick with if for a few months. I've been doing pilates for years and I'm still getting injured and I'm still being told that I don't have enough core stability so I'm interested to see if she can get better results. Watch this space. More info on her website http://www.methodone.com.au

Back in the saddle

2007-10-22T20:39:00.000+10:00

Thanks for all the comments and thoughts everyone; much appreciated.

Last week I struggled with the jet lag which seemed to really hit me hard this time around. I did do a session with the glute torturer but that was about it until Sunday when I started to feel more human.

It was down to Queen's Park and back for my 30 mins walk/jog. Not sure quite how much walking I did but not very much. Mainly just up the big hill... my legs and lungs are quite happy on the flat but don't like hills much at the moment.

It was my first day at work today and I spent most of it in a training course so it's an easy start to the week. I even managed to leave at 4.50 and be in the gym by 5.30. Maybe this wage slave thing won't be too bad after all!

Once in the gym I donned my new iPod (acquired under the guidance of my nephew in England) and hit the elliptical machine for 25 mins and then did some strength work. All feels pretty good so I'm really keeping everything crossed that I can have a smooth return to running.

The plan for the week is as follows:

Monday: Gym (tick!)
Tuesday: Walk/run 30 mins
Wednesday: Spin and strength
Thursday: Glute torturer
Friday: Walk/run 30 mins
Saturday: Mr lulu's birthday! Gym and crazy abs lady (more about that in another post; it's an experiment!)
Sunday: Walk/run 30 mins

If I get through all of that without incident and breakages I'll feel like I'm making a bit of progress.

I'm baaack!

2007-10-16T17:19:00.000+10:00

Well, my lovely holiday didn't turn out quite as planned as my poor old Dad died suddenly three weeks ago. This meant curtailing our Italian holiday and hotfooting it back to England. I still can't quite believe it, and I don't think it has entirely sunk in as yet.

I arrived back in Sydney on Saturday night, feeling absolutely shattered, but am gradually getting my act together.
Running has taken a bit of a back seat over the last few weeks but I did manage one or two walk/runs. The rest has been very good for my hip though as it feels pretty good. I managed to get out of bed this morning and do a 30 min walk/run this morning with probably about 20 mins running; a big improvement on what I was doing before I went away, so that's encouraging.

I had a trip to see the lovely Brad this morning and he has instructed me to hit the strength programme hard this and next week, while doing some short walk/runs and then I can build up from there. So, I'm off to see the glute torturer tomorrow to get myself back on track and we'll go from there.

I'm starting my new job on Monday so will have to get into a whole new routine. I can't believe I'm giving up my life of self-employment but it was too good an opportunity to turn down. More about that next week when I have got my feet under the desk.

I've missed all my lovely blogging friends so I'm off now to catch up and see what you've all been doing!

Ciao Belli

2007-09-16T12:35:00.000+10:00

I'm off again. After a few days working in Perth, I'm now sitting in the Qantas club awaiting my flight from Perth to Hong Kong where I'll pick up a strange man called Mr lulu and then we're off to Roma, that's the Italian one rather than the one in Queensland I visited a few weeks ago. I think I know which one I prefer ;)

I have done no running in the last few weeks. My back is feeling a lot better and my hip hasn't niggled for days but to add virus to injury I picked up nasty cold. Not what you really want when you're about to embark on a long trip. I'm feeling a lot better today and hoping that my sinuses won't explode on any of the take-offs and landings I'll be doing in the next 36 hours.

We're only staying one night in Rome (sorry Black Knight, other wise we would have tried to catch up) before heading to Sardinia for 12 days. I'm then off to the UK for a couple of weeks to celebrate Dad's 80th. Hopefully I'll be back to running while I'm there. Brad wants me back to at least 30 mins by the time I get back in 4 weeks time. I'm optimistic and determined to use my holiday to get really strong if I can't get fit!

Life is going to take a bit of a change when I get back from holiday as I have rashly signed my life away and have accepted a full time job. I haven't actually worked full time for about 6 years so it's going to be a bit of a challenge but I couldn't resist the job when I saw it advertised in the SMH a few weeks ago. More about that when I get back, but if anyone works in North Ryde then I'll be in the neighbourhood.

Have fun y'all while I'm away and I'll try and drop in from time to time and post some pics and stuff.

So much for that...

2007-09-03T14:32:00.000+10:00

Thanks Scott for the reminder to get on with more regular posting. I do have a good excuse though, in fact several. 1) I have covered most of Australia since I last posted visiting Melbourne, Naracoorte SA, Roma and Brisbane and 2) I haven't done much to blog about.

In fact, I have suffered a minor set back; back being the operative word. After getting the sign off from Brad the physio to up my running I promptly did as I was told. 15 minutes on the treadie at the Hilton in Melbourne and things were feeling reasonable, 16 minutes and a few niggles started appearing down in the special place so I walked a bit and then started again. Managed a total of 20 mins.

Then on my next attempt at 20 mins I felt pretty good but noticed that my back was starting to niggle in the lower part. By the middle of last week when I attempted to run it started to hurt pretty much immediately and after a day on my feet my whole back was sore. This is how the whole injury saga started earlier this year so I decided a strategic withdrawal and visit to Brad was called for.

I spent 30 mins on the physio bench this morning while Brad sorted it out. He was his typical reassuringly calm and lovely self and told me not to panic, annoying but not serious was the verdict. It all stems from the same problem and the lack of stability in my hip region means that one of my discs at L5S1 has become a bit irritated. It's been pummelled and dry needled and is now strapped up to give it some stability while it settles. Three days on Vitamin V-oltaren should help with that. Hopefully, a short run will be OK in a day or two.

So that's the update. I was pretty slack while I was away and managed to acquire an extra kilo as well as a sore back so I'm dealing with that and trying to get back into some serious cross training. I'm beginning to realise how much I rely on being able to run to compensate for eating, and drinking!

So far I did a GRC Pilates class with Running Angel yesterday, an interval session on the bike and a strength session with the Glute Torturer today so I've got the week off to a good start.. now to keep it like that :)

Thirteen

2007-08-18T14:08:00.000+10:00

I thought I'd do an update as I have now managed to work my way up to 13 minutes running,double the last post! It was supposed to be 12.5 but I'm a rebel and 2kms was tantilisingly close so I ran until 2km was up.

Since my last blog I've done the 7.5, 10, 7.5 I was supposed to do and this week I did 10, 13, and I'll do 10 again tomorrow.

I've carried on seeing the glute torturer and he over tortured them last week and left me with a very sore right glute which required an hour of Easy Tiger's ministrations to fix. Feels pretty good today though. Need to be careful we don't over do the glute torturing it seems.

Looking forward to a bit of a run in Centennial tomorrow as I've missed the park. I'll walk down there and then do my 10 mins around the inside fence.

Apart from that, it's been a hectic old time and I've been a bit slack with exercise. I seemed to lose the will to do anything the last few weeks apart from my little runs, the odd pilates class and the weekly session with the Glute Torturer.

So, I was determined to do something about that today so it was an hour's mat Pilates class, my 13 min run and then another 20 mins on the elliptical. I think I'll go back to regular blogging too as it keeps me honest and you can all tell me off it there isn't much activity.

7.5

2007-08-08T13:25:00.000+10:00

7.5 minutes is what I was allowed to run today. Yes, I ran... luluruns is back!

It's going to be a long slow return to running but at least I'm back there putting one foot in front of the other... well not too far across and in front of the other.

I am supposed to do most of my running on the treadmill but today I decided I needed to see what it felt like to be running outside. I walked up the road to Queen's park and then did about 3 laps of the track they've drawn on the oval. Handy as I could make sure I didn't cross my feet across the line by running along one of the lane markings. Felt good, no pain. In fact, I haven't heard a peep out of the troublesome hip and knee for a whole week.

Brad the wonder physio has drawn up a running programme which for this week consists of 7.5 mins, 10 mins, 7.5 mins. I did ask him if that was all on one run, but he was not amused :) Better than nothing though and if I go back gradually perhaps there's less chance of a relapse or other injury.
The hip x-ray came back all clear with Brad declaring the hip joint perfect with great bone density. No way of telling without the MRI if there is a tear in the labrum, but hey we don't care if it don't hurt!

Now I just need by running buddy Ellie back on her feet.. heal up quickly you!

A dog's breakfast

2007-07-30T12:53:00.000+10:00

Just back from the physio, so time for a quick update. First, the good news! I ran for five minutes on the treadmill and it all felt fine. No knee pain and no hip pain. The bad news is after analysing my running style he told me I had one of the strangest little running quirks he'd ever seen... I'm certainly original!

Apparently, my foot placement is crossing over the mid line. So, basically I'm putting my foot down across my body, then in order to make room for my back leg to come through, I'm pushing my hip out and bowing my upper leg......this obviously puts quite a bit of strain on the hip. I'm amazed that with all the people who have watched me run over the last few years, that none of them has picked it up.

On my five minutes he made me focus on foot placement and it definitely stopped the hip movement so that's good. Hard to get it in the right place though and at first I went too far the other way and looked like a duck waddling!

The other thing that he picked up is that I am dropping my hip mid stride, not when the foot lands but as I bring the other leg through. Apparently, I was still doing this even with the correct foot placement. Still some work to do there.

I've also had an x-ray on my hip to see if I have any actual hip development issues that weren't picked up as a child; possible hip dysplasia. He wants to check that it is not the reason why I developed this strange running gait. He's pretty confident it's not as I could correct it by changing the foot placement, but better to be safe than sorry. More common in dogs I discovered on my internet research!

I'm hoping that it's not that, as it would mean I'd only ever be able to do limited running, or run the risk of developing early arthritis, hip replacements etc. I'll get the results later in the week. In the meantime, if I don't get any reaction to running for five minutes he wants me to do a short 5 min blast on the treadmill every day or so and practice the new foot placement.

I've got to say that 5 minutes on the treadie felt great, although I felt incredibly unfit! Fingers crossed for good news later in the week!

Five seconds of fame

2007-07-19T11:37:00.000+10:00

As I couldn't run on my birthday, I decided I needed some sort of jolt to celebrate my 43 years so we decided to go for a swim at Bronte pool. Sydney is currently enjoying it's coldest winter for years and so needless to say it was a tad on the chilly side.

Down at the pool we were accosted by an ABC journalist Phil, from Sydney 702s breakfast radio station. He was looking for a story on people who were swimming in the cold. I was with Mr lulu and another friend and fellow SWEATer Zoe. Zoe is a regular winter swimmer, perfect for Phil's ABC story, plus he had the added bonus of me doing it on my birthday. Consequently, we were broadcast live across Sydney talking about why we were there and then screaming as we entered the water!!

It seems we have started something as Phil has now been challenged by Richard Glover, the afternoon show host to a swim off in the morning. Proof of my swim can be found here. Pic on the right hand side of me, Phil and Zoe, taken by Mr lulu. Phil also shared a glass of champagne with us.

I'll have to go down tomorrow to cheer him on in his challenge against Richard Glover.

After that rather exciting start to the day I did a spot of birthday shopping, about 5 minutes work and then headed off to meet Owly and Don Juan for birthday chocolate, which went into birthday drinks and then Mr lulu whisked me off for birthday dinner with the Evil Twin Sister and Mr ETS, who shares my birthday.

As to exercise and an injury update- been spinning, swimming and pilatelating. Hip is feeling really good and the physio thinks another week or so will see a return to light running, if progress continues. The Glute Torturer now says my glutes are better than most people's and we will be actually doing some real training rather than rehab work from now on. No doubt that's going to hurt as well.

Mr lulu bought me some lovely silver jewellery for my birthday and I'll get a photo of that and the slightly smaller version of me up in the next few days. I'm stalled at 65.5 kgs at the moment, and so need to do something to beat the plateau. Probably the birthday celebrations haven't helped :)

Give me glutes!

2007-07-10T16:07:00.000+10:00

So, where are we up to. Last week was a bit of an up and down week. Early in the week I'd convinced myself I'd never walk without pain again, let alone run, without having surgery and read up on all the horror stories of hip arthroscopies on the internet... always a bad move!

But then I went for my first session with my new trainer who we shall call GT or the Glute Torturer. After a quick assessment of my current status he wrote in his book 'worst glutes I've ever seen' and set about fixing them up. I kid you not, an hour of personal training on the glutes... ouchie, ouchie. But, like a miracle cure I walked out of the gym without a twinge in my groin or knee or anywhere (well apart from the glutes!) And it pretty much stayed that way.

Friday, I had a follow up appointment at the physio who was pleased with the progress and is more confident that it can be fixed without resorting to surgery. He still believes that it's a tear in the labrum but that it may have been there for some time and could have caused some of my other issues. He now has me taping my knee which seems to help reduce pain and things are looking a bit brighter. I have a lot of work to do to get strong enough to run, but at least there is a plan.

I've had another session with the GT today and I can already see a big improvement in my glute strength, so hopefully we can move on to torturing some other muscle groups in due course!

In the meantime, I have been swimming, doing pilates and I tried out a Spin class on Sunday, which I think is going to be OK. If I can Spin then I can maintain some fitness at least. In the meantime, I'm enjoying lying in bed in the warm whilst Mr lulu gets up and ventures into the cold and wet!

And in exciting news from the bathroom scales I am now hovering around 65-65.5kgs and still going down. I've been working really hard on the diet and despite my drop in exercise, it's not been too hard so far. I suspect that as I get down towards my ideal weight that it will become harder. The next goal is 62 kgs and then I'll see how I feel/look at that stage.

Happy running everyone and savour every run; when you can't do it you really miss it... what I'd give for a runners high :)

Not a good start to the week

2007-07-02T10:44:00.000+10:00

I've just been to the physio as my leg issues haven't really improved that much. Thinking that it was going to be something relatively simple I was fairly optimistic. Well it's good to be optimistic, but then I was brought down to earth with a crash. He suspects a tear in the labra cartiledge around the hip joint. It's hard to diagnose but that's what we're treating at the moment and we'll see how it responds. Minimum of 6 weeks off running to allow it time to settle plus copious amounts of stretching and some more exercises to do. It's probably caused by my rather stiff hips and I have to do the exercises on both sides.

If it doesn't respond to treatment and I want to run then I will have to consider surgery to tidy it up! I've currently got my glute strapped which is a bit like having a non-surgical butt lift and is an interesting sensation!

I was impressed with the new physio who was a recommendation from Easy Tiger. He was very thorough and went looking for causes rather than just treating the symptoms. He feels that last year's knee injury was probably also caused by the same hip stiffness. Anyway, let's hope that he can get me back on the road without having to resort to surgery, which I would be very unlikely to have.

In the meantime, I'm allowed to swim as much as I like and that was what I as doing at the weekend, plus pilates and weights should be OK. I'm also allowed to try out the bike at the gym and see if that aggravates anything. So, off to the pool for this little duck!

A pain in the rectus

2007-06-25T17:12:00.000+10:00

hmm, possibly a dodgy title but we'll see what blog spam it generates :)

Not much to report from planet Lulu. I tried a run on Saturday and after 1.8km of fooling myself it was going to get better I turned around and walked home. Strangely, now the pain is above my knee and in the special place...

Taking my new Zen like approach to the whole running process, I merrily stayed in bed on Sunday :)

Back to Easy Tiger this morning for further investigations and his theory is that although we've fixed the psoas other hip flexors have now got their knickers in a twist and are muscling in on the act. The offender this time being the rectus femorus.

More rest for the lower body this week but some swimming with no legs and some upper body gym work should at least keep me sane.

At least the weight loss campaign is going along very nicely and I'm very happy with the progress so far. By the time I start running again I should actually be able to feel the difference of having a few less kilos on board.

Don't panic!

2007-06-19T11:17:00.000+10:00

That's what I've been telling myself since I developed a very sore groin or as my running buddy Ellie calls it 'my special place'.

Thoughts of giving up running altogether passed through my mind but I dismissed them at least until I'd been to see Easy Tiger for a consultation. The verdict is I've got a very tight Psoas muscle, which attaches in the groin area and is now a bit inflammed in the special place. Well, it was tight until ET got stuck into it... Unfortunately, he doesn't have a magic remedy for reducing the inflammation over night.

It feels much, much better today and I even ran down the road from the gym to test it out. Not too bad and at least I can walk without pain now. A few more days off running and some Vitamin V-oltarin, with luck and a following wind I'll be back on the road by the weekend.

After three days of doing nothing (which I have to say was very nice!) and a bit of prodding by Mr lulu, I managed to get out of bed and go to the gym this morning. A 45 minute GRC pilates class, followed by 30 mins on the bike with 20 mins on the 8/12 interval routine.

I've also started my diet again today with the intention of losing another 5 kilos. For the first time in years I've managed to get under 70kgs so my next target is getting under 65kgs. I think finally my thyroid meds and other hormones are under control and so I'm hoping that I can do this relatively quickly. At the very least it gives me something to focus on if I'm off the road for a short while. Keep everything crossed that I'm going to have a swift recovery and no reoccurences.

The Maquarie River run

2007-06-15T17:02:00.000+10:00

I've spent most of the week in Dubbo and so I had to re-acquaint myself with the available running routes of Dubbo. The main one I've found is a nice 5.5km loop which follows a track along the river, over a bridge, along the river on the other side, and then back over another bridge.

I arrived late on Tuesday night and my training course started early on Weds so my first chance for a run in the daylight was about 4pm on Weds. Cold and hard are the words to summarise that little adventure. I just never seemed to warm up and my legs didn't want to work. I was supposed to do at least 75 mins but it just wasn't happening for me and I ended up doing a few add on bits to the loop, and added a fast last km to make up for finishing at an hour.

Thursday was a long work day and so it wasn't until this morning that I could do anything further. One loop of the track and a little bit extra to make it 6kms. I warmed up to the first bridge and then did 3 quick kms to make up for missing SWEAT this week, and so I get home quicker. It was cold and damp, with a delightful freezing fog hanging over the river.. noice!
I felt a lot better than the Weds run and managed some nice kms at 5.48, 5.38 and 5.28.. you can tell I was dying to get back to the motel.

The bad news is I seem to have developed some kind of weird groin, back, glute issue which has been developing over the last couple of weeks. I thought we'd fixed it and I suspect it's all related, but I'm not sure what that will mean for the weekend's training. I'll see how it feels in the morning. I've managed to work out what to stretch to ease the groin issue so I'll work on that this evening and fingers crossed for a miraculous cure. I'm just getting back to a decent level of training so I do not want any more injuries... ARE YOU LISTENING, RUNNING GODS?

Mountains and Oranges

2007-06-11T18:28:00.000+10:00

Saturday, I braved the rather stromy Sydney weather to head out to the park for an inside loop. Fortunately, the wind had abated but it was still pouring with rain. I'd put on a rain jacket but ended up being too hot and just running in my singlet (and tights!).

Saturday afternoon, we headed up to the Evil Twin Sister's place in Mount Vic and a bit of a late night involving roast duck and more red wine than was wise.

Sunday, there was no mercy from mr lulu as I was dragged out into a cold, crisp mountain morning for our run. We ran down the Victoria Falls lookout road which is a nice undulating dirt track to a look out. Wrapped up in long sleeves and gloves the cold air didn't seem so bad, the hangover wasn't too bad either.. I only felt sick for the first 10 minutes and then I felt fine. I was glad I'd recently bought the slightly bigger water bottles for my fuel belt as I needed all the water I could get. What seemed like undulations turned into mountains on the way back up the track and I was glad to see Mount Vic again althoughI indulged in some walking on some of the bigger hills on the way back. Happy to have another 12km in the bank.

Off to Orange on Sunday evening and a lovely long lunch at one of our favourite wineries.. and too much red wine again. Good thing I didn't have to run this morning!

Meet Walter

2007-06-07T09:46:00.000+10:00

Off to a very dark and damp park this morning for my first encounter with Wild Walter. WW is a 400 metre circuit up and down a hill, with a short recovery in between: up to 10 reps.

Off we went, with the whippets flying up the hill and me tagging along for the ride! Being at the back of the pack meant I had a very short recovery, maybe 25 secs which included having to get back to the start; so really no recovery as I couldn't exactly cruise back to the line. Consequently, the second rep was a bit slower. Sean instructed me to jog out the next one and I was relieved as I could see me getting slower and slower and not having any break at all. In fact this did happen on rep 5 where I didn't quite make it back to the line and had to start and cut across. My legs didn't want to go up the hill at all this time. Good thing I could have another break and rejoin the group for the last one. Times were all over the place with the fastest being 2.07 and the slowest 2.38 with most being around 2.15- 2.20. More work to be done to improve my hill running, but at least I was out there giving it a go.

Sean had me down to do the X country on Saturday but has said that I might need a break this week as I've had a couple of quite hard weeks. I'll see how I and Mr lulu feel on the day. He's currently suffering a nasty head cold so probably won't be racing so we might just pass, and head up to the Blue Mountains a bit earlier than planned.

Inside outside

2007-06-06T15:16:00.000+10:00

I had an hour on the programme today but my legs were feeling decidedly blah this morning. Good think it's supposed to be a slow run because I couldn't have run fast if I wanted to.

I did an outside loop of the park but inside the fence rather than outside, which is what my normal route is. More grass involved and less traffic. I was a little late getting out this morning.

I had to have a short walk break at about 7km.. I was over it all. That seemed to do the trick as I felt better and even the big hill home was quite enjoyable. I must be mad:) All up about 9.5kms in just over the hour.

I had a laugh at Scott and Gnome's comments. I wasn't abusing her, actually trying to be encouraging as she's quite new to the squad. Obviously it didn't work...must work on encouraging comments!

Gimme five

2007-06-05T08:54:00.000+10:00

Off to SWEAT this morning and my legs feel great after my monday massage with ET. No ill effects from the 8km race or the higher intensity week last week.

Very dark and chilly down at the park and it was only just getting light when we started the drills. Then it was into the fartlek. I had five laps of the 1km loop, surging on the blue cones and floating on the yellow. There seemed to be a lot more blue than yellow I thought as I went around the first one. On the second lap I realised I'd missed one of the yellows on the first lap which accounted for why I seemed to be surging for a long time!

On the third lap I could see one of the other girls ahead who had gone out too hard and she was flagging a bit, so I set my sights on her. She tried to fight back on one of the surges but I picked up the pace enough to drop her off the back... nearly died myself in the process! Anyway she still hung on for another .5km before I could finally shake her off. I think it was when I started speaking to her that she lost heart and gave up... how cruel! Very good effort on her part and made me work for it.

Mr lulu came back to run the last 500m with me and that seemed to make it easier, although he wasn't letting me slack off on the floats.

Finished 5km in 29.03 with 1km splits of 5.45, 5.52, 5.34 (where I was racing the other girl), 5.50, 5.47. Actually really pleased with that I as didn't really drop off much over the 5km.

A warm-down lap with Zoe for a total of 8km and then home to warm up... it's a chilly 9 degrees here this morning. That's getting a bit chilly for us soft Sydneysiders.

More HHH

2007-06-03T15:24:00.000+10:00

I received a revised programme from Sean at the end of the week and he had put me down for the MS 8km fun run on Sunday. I decided it was about time I started doing what I was told now I am relatively niggle free so I called on my trusty buddy Running Angel to keep me company.

I did a short 28 mins (that's what the programme said) around Queen's Park and felt really tired and fatigued again. Fortunately, this morning I felt a bit more energetic.

I picked up RA and we parked the car in Mr lulu's car space in the city and then headed up to the bridge. On the way to the bridge we came across someone's wallet on the street so a quick debate on what to do with it and I ran back to the car and left it there for us to deal with later.

Up onto the bridge for our warm-up jog to the start. We did the registration, caught up with Belinda and Horrie and some other people we knew and did a bit more warming up. We even did the aerobics to keep warm!

Then we were herded to the start where unfortunately we ended up pretty near the back of the pack. Consequently, we were held up near the start with all the people and at about 3kms were held up at the stairs, coming to a standstill for a bit.

Once up those stairs we were able to run pretty freely and kept a good steady pace. The hills seemed pretty endless, every corner we went round there was another one.. but it was all good training I kept telling myself. I was plodding up the hills but trying to make up some time on the downhills.

After the turnaround there were more hills and on the last major one I confess I had to walk for a 100 metres or so.. I was over those hills :) After that it was mainly downhill with a few smaller hills and then back along the water front to the finish. At this point I was given a stern talking to by RA who insisted on the sprint finish which we just about managed, to cross the line in 51.12 by my watch. So not breaking any records today but I had a few goals for this race: to have a good solid hit-out, and to not put myself under pressure to run a certain time, and to not break anything. It looks like I achieved all three of those so I'm a pretty happy Lulu this afternoon.

Our cool down run was back over the bridge back to the car. Sean will be impressed, a warm up and a cool down, we're practically professionals these days:)

A quick debate on the wallet and we decided to go to Mosman and deliver it to the young man's house. A very nice house it was too, clearly the parent's house and we wondered if we might get a substantial reward. Actually all we got was the brother who looked unimpressed, called his brother an idiot, said thanks and shut the door in our faces. Mind you we weren't a particularly pretty sight by this stage!

A good solid week of training this week doing about 41 kms so I'm pretty happy with that. If I can keep up that and build it back up to 50kms then I might actually get somewhere.

I've put together my race/TT schedule for the next few months as follows:

9th June Sydney park X country 7.5km
30th June CR 5km challenge
7th July Striders 10km
28th July CR 5km challenge
12th August City to Surf 14km
25th August Sutherland 10km
30th Sept Cancer Research 10km at Hampton Court UK, OR
7th Oct Cancer Research 10km at Beaulieu (nr my parents house)

Let's just hope I can make it through that lot without breakages :)

HHH*

2007-05-31T10:33:00.000+10:00

Wednesday I headed out down to the park for an easy run. I was intending to do 50 mins but had trouble getting going. I passed a potential short cut and managed to talk myself out of taking it and continued around the inside of the park. I actually started to enjoy it after about 4kms and managed the intended 50 mins plus a bit extra to make it up to 8kms.

Today was a HHH* session. Due to the ranges of niggles I've had I have not been to any of the SWEAT hill sessions and didn't I know about it today. Wild Wally seems to have grown in length and increased in steepness since my last visit, which was probably last year sometime. I had no companions at the back of the pack today as all the girls in my group seem to have more sense than to inflict that on themselves. In the end I did 4 out of the potential 7 laps which was a bit pathetic really but at least it's a start. I did two at 3.59 and 4.21 and then sat one out. Then it was off again doing 3.53 and 4.19 this time. I obviously started to warm up to the hills a bit. I had some kind of mental breakdown (probably due to lack of oxygen) as I was thinking everyone had finished after I sat the next one out, only to be surprised to see people doing an extra one.. doh that would be the 7th and I should be doing it. As Horrie said, no need to be overdoing it on the first hill session back and I did have to run home afterwards which is about another 3.5kms.

I ran back to the car and changed from my old shoes into the new pair of Brooks Adrenalines I bought yesterday. I've been running in Nike structured Triax but the wonder pod wants me to try the Adrenalines. Felt pretty comfy but not as 'bouncy' as the Nike so will take a bit of getting used to.

Niggle status after hills: achilles good, right glute a little sore but should be OK.

*Horrid hard hills

TTT PB

2007-05-29T09:13:00.000+10:00

That's the monthly Tuesday Time Trial, our joyous morning of pain, doing 4 laps of the lake.

It was still pitch black driving to Centennial Park and I was hoping the gates would be open so I didn't have to run in to the oval, which they were. A quick 1.2 kms warm up and the usual drills/strides and then it was up to the lake for 4 laps ~ 5.8km.

It's two months since I did one of these, and May's training has been a bit disrupted, so I had no idea what to expect this morning. I started off with Running Angel and Zoe and I managed to hang on to RA for 1.5 laps before she started to pull away. I knew they were going too fast for me but I decided to stick with them for a while. Struggled with the third lap but managed to pick it back up for the 4th lap, although I was disappointed to be overtaken by a few of the other girls. Mr lulu came back for me for the last 800m or so and the final result was 33.13, a 22 second PB!

Splits were 5.35, 5.44, 5.51, 6.01, 5.47, and 4.13 (5.47 pace). Just need to work on not dropping off in the 3rd and 4th km which is the third lap. Pretty happy with that and no niggles appeared either thanks to my hour with ET yesterday. My glute is sore, but that's more from the massage and the glute workout I did yesterday morning than anything else.

I even managed to do a proper cool down this morning, doing an extra lap of the lake, so a total of 9.5km this morning.

The Bolt

2007-05-27T19:19:00.000+10:00

Today was the Randwick Botany Harriers cross country race, The Botany Bolt. I'd already decided not to run it, even though it's just 4km, as I know there's a very nasty hill in it. My achilles doesn't much care for big hills. However, Mr lulu and a number of people from the SWEAT squad were running so I wanted to watch.

I also needed to fit in my long run so I came up with a cunning plan. I'll run down to Mutch Park and meet Mr lulu there. All I needed was a running companion and so I recruited Ellie to the mission.

So I set off from our place, ran through Centennial to Ellie's and then we set off down to Mutch Park. I now know it's 3.86 km from our house to Ellie's and the last little section is all hills!

We set off down Cook Rd and then Anzac Pde. Not the most scenic of runs but nice and flat at least. Then it was off down a side road and a very narrow footpath to Mutch Park. Unfortunately, once we got there I'd still only done about 10.5km so we did a couple of loops of the park, including the nasty hill once. I was right not to do the race as one attempt at the steep hill irritated it a little, nothing a few stretches and calf raises won't fix though. It's a good lesson that it needs to be looked after.

Ellie was brave enough to tackle the Botany Bolt along with lots of girls from the squad and they made it all look quite easy. Mr lulu looked very strong and spent most of the race running with the speedy young girls from Sean's elite squad. He was rewarded by winning the over 40's medal and having Sean call him one of the senior stars. As Bernie said, I've got a trophy husband.

Saturday sleep in

2007-05-26T11:40:00.000+10:00

I had said I was going to do the CR 5km challenge this morning, but it wasn't to be. A nasty headache last night was gone by the morning, but I still felt tired so I decided an extra hour in bed and an easy run around the park was the go.

I'm glad I did as the first few kms were a real struggle. All came good after about 4km and I pottered around Centennial Park and then home for a total of 8kms. The pesky right glute is a bit sore now but it's not serious and shouldn't stop me doing my long run tomorrow. The good news is that nothing else hurts.... no achilles or left hip problems so all we need to do now is fix the right glute for good and I'll be set.

SWEAT slowly

2007-05-24T14:51:00.000+10:00

I am happy to report that Easy Tiger still holds the title of 'legend'. I headed off to SWEAT this morning a little anxious about whether my glute/hammy was going to hold up to a SWEAT session.

I did the warm up and the strides and gradually increased the pressure in the strides to see what happened. Nothing happened, not a twinge.. miracle really considering I could hardly run at all yesterday morning.

So off we went to tackle up to 8 x 400s. I didn't really push it today as I didn't want to undo any good work. Consequently, my times were 20-30 secs slower than I've done 400s in the past.

I took a break on rep 6 and then came back for 7 and 8. I had RA to keep me honest on rep 7 and so I pushed that one a bit more. I also caught sight of Mr lulu coming past me right near the line and so I tried to keep up.. foolish thought really but Sean said I could have taken him if I'd just dipped a bit more! Of course he'd been doing 600s rather than 400s but it was still fun. Thanks to that this was at least back to just over 2 mins rather than 2.10. Last one wasn't too bad either and I was getting a bit more confident that the legs were not going to break again so I was happy to push the last couple.

Good to be back at training and hopefully I'll soon re-gain a bit of speed over the next few weeks. I just need to remember what it's like to push myself, and that I won't explode if I do!

Back in action

2007-05-23T19:39:00.000+10:00

Ok, so it's been ages since I've blogged. I've been lacking energy and motivation since returning from Asia nearly a week ago. I have been doing some running though!

Hong Kong was a bit disappointing as it has changed so much since I was there 10 years ago and the air quality has deteriorated dramatically. I'll post some pics on the other blog I'm setting up shortly and you'll see what I mean. You can hardly see HK island from Kowloon these days and that has to be only about 1km.

Consequently, no running there but we did do another session in the gym as well as some swimming in the pool.

Once back in the land of Oz I was back on the road on Saturday and making up for missing a long run by doing 14kms. That was hard after a week of slacking off.

My legs were a bit stiff on Sunday but we were up bright and early to act as chauffeurs to Ms Ellie and Ms Running Angel as they were running in the SMH half.

Our chauffeur duties complete, we headed to the finish to enrol as volunteers. I was hoping for medalling duties but ended up with the delightful task of de-chipping. Many chipped finger nails and being dripped on by sweaty runners later and our work was done. Great to see Lucky Legs come over the line and I gave her a bit hug:) There were some interesting configurations on the lace tying/chip combo and I couldn't believe how many knots some people put in their laces.

Lots of great runs by many CRs and Ms Ellie and RA did us proud with their great efforts. Not long now ladies before the sub 2 hour goal is achieved.

Monday became another rest day but on Tuesday I woke up and actually felt I had some energy for the first time in weeks. Yippee I thought. I wasn't energetic enough to tackle Big Bertha though so I decided on my own little fartie session. I did my normal 40 mins loop through the park with 3km fartlek in the middle. Fartlek kms were 6.02, 5.43, and 6.07. Some of the fast bits had hills so I was quite pleased with that.

I might have been but my poor old hammie/glute wasn't and going out this morning to test it out wasn't good. 5kms I did, but I discovered running up hills with only one glute working is quite hard. Fortunately, Mr lulu had an appointment with the Tiger today so I stole it. I'd already had one session with him on Monday where he fixed my left hip. Today I had the joys of an hour focussed on one half of my butt. Feels magic now though so hopefully he's fixed it up and it will survive tomorrow's run. I'm going to go to SWEAT and do the warm up and if it survives that I'll do the rest of the session; 5 x400s tomorrow.

I'm even planning a bit of a race schedule for the next few months as I find it hard to stay motivated unless i'm aiming for something and the target for the next few months is to break that stoopid 60 mins 10km barrier. I'm sure I can do it!

I turning Chinese!

2007-05-15T11:21:00.001+10:00

I've just logged on to Blogger and everything is in Chinese characeters. Good thing I know my way around!!

Time is flying by and we've been in Shanghai for three days. The pollution here is truly terrible. For example, from my 20th floor hotel room I should have a good view across the city, particularly at night when all the buildings are lit up. Sadly, it's all a bit hazy and is particularly bad today.

So on the running front it's been the hotel gym or nothing and I have to confess, mainly nothing! I did manage 6kms on Sunday but since then it's been a hectic few days of shopping and sightseeing. At the moment I'm debating with myself for a swim or more shopping. Having just taken an order from Ellie for some pearls I think the shopping might just win the day... I can go running in Sydney anytime, but I'm only likely to see Shanghai once... sounds like a good justification to me!! Maybe I should change the name of my blog to Lulushops.

I'm going to set up another blog with all our travel stuff on it so I'll put that up in the next day or so.

Yesterday we went out of Shanghai for the day and visited the Venice of China a small water village called ZhouZuong. Very pretty and well worth the slightly hair raising journey with a local driver and a people mover!!

Back on home turf

2007-05-11T17:40:00.000+10:00

Back to Sydney this afternoon so once I'd got myself a bit organised I headed out to do a lap of the outside of Centennial in the afternoon sun. I felt a lot better than yesterday afternoon and quite enjoyed my plod around the park.

I made it back to the car and had 300 metres to go to get to 7kms so I continued up York Road until I made it. I still hate that hill but the only way to get better at running it is to run it I suppose!

I've actually managed to stay pretty much on track with exercise this week. I even managed to get up and do the Pilates DVD this morning before running my training. My diet has been all over the place though so I'll be glad to get back to cooking my own food once we get back from China. I'm sure my diet will be very interesting for the next week.

Off first thing tomorrow and the CR house-sitting service will be in action with one of my avian friends looking after the lulu household for us. Watch out for the party invite!

The delights of Dubbo

2007-05-11T07:00:00.000+10:00

I've managed two runs whilst I've been in Dubbo. Wednesday morning I dragged myself out of bed at 5.30 and headed out to explore the streets of Dubbo. I managed to find my way into the town centre and out the other side before turning around. I did notice a nice path along the river but wasn't game for that in the dark! Managed 8.5km in 55 mins

My training group wanted to start early in the morning so at 7am I was already in the training room yesterday so it was an afternoon run for me. My legs felt very heavy and I was feeling tired but a quick motivational chat with Mr lulu and I managed to go out. Not only that, but I managed to do a speed session on my own. 2 x1km and 1 x 500 metres. Not particularly fast and my lack of speed work since Canberra is showing up, but at least it was a start. The lolly pop man who happened to be outside my hotel pointed me in the direction of the river path and I headed along there until I found a big football ground. A quick stretch, my reps and then I continued along the river path back across a bridge and back to the hotel. All up 6.5km

The people of Dubbo are very polite to runners. If you're trying to cross the road they'll actually stop and let you go.. unheard of in Sydney.

I'm about to start training again this morning so I'll do a run when I get back to Sydney this afternoon.

Brief touch down

2007-05-07T19:01:00.000+10:00

Well, I survived 4 days in the bush with my lovely meaty men and they did behave themselves most of the time. I think we all learned quite a bit and I even managed to overcome my fear of heights and abseiled down a 60 metre cliff. Apart from that there was various team building challenges to be met and I'm pleased to say the meat men did me proud. Some of my training must be working !

No running took place but I think the bush walking and hill climbing was probably a good compensation and, as Ewen suggested, it gave my hammie time to sort itself out.

Sunday saw me head down to the Lady Carrington Drive with Mr lulu, Running Angel and Ellie for our long run. It was nice to catch up on some girl time after 4 days of blokey blokes. I was only doing 90 mins and somehow this became infectious as we all ended up stopping. A lovely picnic breakfast in the sun followed. Nice way to spend a Sunday.

I'm off again tomorrow and the next stop is Dubbo for the rest of the week, followed by Shanghai on Saturday. The challenge is going to be keeping up some form of training in the meantime.

Let's start with doing a bit of speed work on my own tomorrow as I won't have time to get to SWEAT. Should be interesting!

Weekend in the park

2007-04-29T12:41:00.000+10:00

As per the plan, I didn't do the CR challenge on Sat morning but headed off to do 50 mins around Centennial Park. I thought I'd made the wrong decision as I felt really strong and my hammie felt fine. It didn't last though as I lost my energy after 3 kms and the hammie felt a bit sore at the end. Managed to do about 7.5km.

Back to the park today and around the outside. I decided to run up York Road as we ran down it on Wednesday morning and it didn't seem as hard as usual. My legs did feel a bit fatigued after a pilates class I did yesterday evening but they warmed up as the run progressed. Once around the golf course and then back up Clovelly Road to home for a total of 13kms. The last 20 mins were hard and mainly uphill but it felt good when it stopped!

I've done about 38 km this week so the mileage is creeping up and apart from the hammie niggle my legs feel pretty good. Next week I'll be leaving on Tuesday morning for 3 nights camping in Kangaroo Valley. I'm taking the meaty men off for a leadership programme in the bush. Fortunately, I don't need to do much as someone else is facilitating but it sounds like they'll be keeping us busy with bushwalking, mountain biking and abseiling. Given I don't like heights much, that should be interesting!

Back with the girl pack

2007-04-27T16:25:00.000+10:00

I met up with the Owl and Ellie on Anzac day morning for a trot around the park. It was more of a canter as Ellie was showing her camp fitness and I was feeling a little under par so it felt a lot quicker than it was. It was a lovely run and chat though... can't beat it :) A nice 9.5km to add to the monthly total. I did get a few twinges in my right hammie, which gave me some grief last year so I'm currently nursing that back to health. Typical, just when my achilles feels like it has turned a corner another little niggle appears, but I don't think this one will take much to fix.

Mr lulu joined us for breakfast at Ellie's which included the long lost European toast mountain, which we did a pretty good job on.

I had a hard day's girly activities on Thursday, with one of my trusty girlfriends appearing to make over my wardrobe. There wasn't much left of my current clothing by the time she had finished but it was fun doing the shopping in the afternoon. Can't wait to see Mr lulu's face when the credit card bill appears :) Maybe I'll post a photo! It was a much needed re-vamp and I've been putting it off for years it seems, as some of my clothes migrated with me from England in the late 90s. I think shoulder pads are out now aren't they?

This morning I headed out to do a short run and test out my hammie so I could decide on doing the CR challenge or not. Not, seems to be the verdict. It didn't really give me any trouble but it feels stiff and a bit sore to prod, so I'll just keep the pace easy tomorrow. I'm not really training for anything major right now so it seems silly to risk an injury for a time trial I can do anytime.

Quickie in the rain

2007-04-24T12:01:00.000+10:00

I had to get the lulumobile to the garage for a recall issue by 8am this morning so that, and the unattractiveness of the weather, meant no SWEAT this morning. So depressing seeing all this lovely rain flowing into the ocean, not being recycled or captured in rainwater tanks and not falling anywhere near the damn dam!

Once I'd got back from the garage and stood looking at the rain for a while I decided that it wasn't going to get any better so I may as well go.

I only wanted to do a short one so I decided to make it a hilly one. Two beaches CB (Clovelly Bronte) was the chosen route and boy did I feel the hills this morning. I couldn't wait for 4kms to tick over so I could stop, about 3/4 of the way back up Bronte Rd. My legs are feeling the effects of my longer run on Sunday and ETs massage yesterday.

Still, it's another one in the bank:)

Old Bar

2007-04-22T16:53:00.000+10:00

Strange name for a town: Old Bar. It's on the North NSW Coast, near Taree. Mr lulu had some property to inspect in Taree and so I decided to go with him, and we booked into a B and B at Old Bar. It's not a gourmet town and the only place open for dinner was the local Italian. You know that when the restaurant sells itself on it's generous serving size that they probably don't have much else to offer! They certainly aren't lying about the serving sizes as our steaks were big enough for a family of four but I'm not sure anyone in the kitchen had been to Italy recently.

The B and B was good though and after an early night I was ready for my long run. Having no idea where to go a I followed a road along the beach which ran out after about 10 mins. I dropped my sports drink here so that I could get it later and carried on back up the way I came. Various twists and turns, a nice dirt road along and through a forest, and then down the main road back to town. I passed the guest house and if I hadn't have left my drink sitting in a tree outside somone's house I might have been tempted to stop at 70 mins. However, I carried on, retrieved my drink and ran back to the B and B for a total of 13.5km and 87 mins.

That's the longest I've done this year and I felt pretty good. My legs were tired at the end but I don't think I broke anything! The delicious breakfast served by the B and B was very welcome too!

Round we go again

2007-04-20T08:14:00.000+10:00

Round Centennial Park that is. My legs felt a bit tired after all those hills yesterday so I thought some relative flat would be good. I had a flat spot about 4km in but that soon passed and by the time I had made it back up Macpherson and home I decided to do an extra loop around Evans St to take it to 8km.

Achilles was a bit cross with me yesterday evening so I think I may have overdone the hills so I'm going to have to build them up a bit carefully. Feels better today and I'm due to email the achilles guru today for further instructions so we'll see what she says.

Testing some hills

2007-04-19T11:06:00.000+10:00

No SWEAT today for me as it was a hill session and I'm not supposed to do those but I am allowed to potter around some hills so that's what I decided to do today.

I headed off on a slightly different course which I'l have to call 3 beaches TBC (Tamarama, Bronte and Clovelly). It was a lovely morning for running along the coast path and if only there weren't so many hills it would even be quite pleasant!

Having said that I only really started to feel the hills after 4 kms and the Bronte cutting steps. Coming back up Clovelly road seemed harder than it should and don't even talk about Arden Street. I nearly made it all the way to the top and I'll have to make that my goal for the next few weeks. After walking to the top of Arden I ran a loop up our back lane and around to the front to make it a nice round 7kms. The hip and achilles only complained occasionally so I'll take that as confirmation that a little bit of hill running is acceptable.

Mission accomplished

2007-04-17T08:35:00.000+10:00

We drove down to Canberra on Saturday morning and arrived in time for me to get ready for the 10km race. We headed down to the start and found Jen and Go Girl and I headed off to do a lap around the school to warm up.

I lined up with Running Angel and Mouse and the gun went off. RA shot off like a startled rabbit while Mouse and I took a more conservative approach. It's a funny course with two short laps around the school and then 3 bigger laps. There is a small hill at the back of the school which you have the pleasure of running up 5 times. Mouse and I did the two laps around the school and then Mouse dropped off the pace a little and I was flying solo. The first two kms were around 5.40 pace which was quicker than I had intended but I didn't feel too bad. As it turns out Garth was measuring the course a bit long so I probably wasn't going too fast. I started to ignore his 1km reps and just go by the course markings. The first 5kms went by in 30 mins and 3o secs so I was behind the hour mark.

I tried picking up the pace for the second big lap and then I spotted Running Angel up ahead so I set myself the goal of halving the gap on this lap and catching her in the next. As it happens she started to walk and I caught and passed her half way though this lap. It will probably be the last time that happens as she'll soon be back to full fitness.

The last lap seemed a lot longer but I was still overtaking people, which was a good feeling. I crossed the line in 61.01 according to Garth so at least the 5km splits were even and I didn't slow too much in the second half. In fact, I felt pretty comfortable the whole way around. I was pretty happy with that considering I hadn't done that much training and it's the first 10km I've run for about 18 months and my PB is 60 mins. Even better, the niggle stayed pretty much away apart from a short burst of complaining from the achilles at about 9km.

The support out on the course was great with people cheering for me at various points. I looked forward to passing the finish area each time as I had first Clairie, then CJ, Strewth, Aki, and Ewen, and then Jen, GG and Mr lulu. I'm sure Tesso was in there somewhere as well. Nice to be the cheered rather than the cheerer for a change.

Back to our apartment for a shower and stretch and then a good dose of TV watching and I cooked Mr lulu his big pasta dinner. He was incredibly relaxed and had a good night's sleep whilst I was tossing and turning but trying not to disturb him.

Off to the start where I caught up with Jen and Go Girl again. Back to cheering duties today. Mr lulu went for a quick warm up and then lined up. We waved them off at the start and then haeded down to Cowbell Corner with a take-away coffee and muffin as sustenance and CR Mango for company.

Mr lulu went zooming past on his first pass (around 10km) in about 42 mins and I told him he was going too fast. I then spent the next hour or so driving Mango and Jen mad, saying "oooh I think he's gone out too fast" . Next time he came past was at the 26km point which was about 1.47, so he was still keeping up the faster pace.

After waiting for Go Girl and the rest of the CRs and Sean's squad to pass I decided it was time to head to the finish line. I'd just hung up from Easy Tiger, giving him an update and going "oooh I think he's gone out too fast" when a few minutes later Mr lulu appeared to turn into the finishing stretch. I couldn't quite believe my eyes. He gave us a cheery smile as he passed us and finished in 3.03.12. What a fantastic run and I was so proud of him. A 25 minute PB no less! So mission accomplished for Mr lulu, of course now he will have to run at least one more as the three hour mark is sooo close.

I went to give him his towel and drink and then went back to cheering the rest of our friends home. Go Girl came cruising by looking very comfortable in achieving her new PB too.

Once we'd seen most of the CRs home we headed back for a quick shower before having brunch with the gang and then heading back for a nana nap.

We had a lovely lunch with CJ and Strewth on Monday before driving back to Sydney in the afternoon.

I couldn't quite believe that Mr lulu got up and did a 20 min run on Monday and he is surprisingly unscathed. We went out again this morning and I still had to ask him to slow down so I could keep up! I was a bit stiff as well from the 10km but felt pretty good on my 40 mins this morning so it's back to training for me and a few weeks of taking it easy for Mr lulu whilst he consults Sean and works out what to do next.

LSD on LCD

2007-04-08T13:05:00.000+10:00

Saturday
A pilates mat class and a 30 min session on the bike at the gym. Pilates was hard as I've been missing a lot of classes recently but it certainly woke my abs up and made me determined to get back to 2-3 classes a week.

Sunday
I woke up and could hardly lift my upper body off the bed as my abs were sore, a good feeling if you're some kind of masochist :)

We decided to do our long run in the National Park again today and we drove through black clouds and heavy showers down to the weir at Audley. I felt tired but my legs seemed to know what they were doing and felt pretty strong, so off we went. Had a 'go coolrunner' shout, which I now know was from Moh. Nice to get the encouragement at that stage when I was feeling a bit blah about the whole running concept! The track was muddy but we didn't get any heavy showers while we were out.

I ran out for 40 mins and then turned around. I started to feel better and better as the run progressed and had to hold myself back from pushing too hard... very unusual feeling for me! Mr lulu had passed me on the way back and so he came back and ran the last 500 metres with me and I decided to put in a finishing push to the car. Felt good and could have kept going. All up about 12.5kms I think; Garth hit a few black spots so haven't got an accurate measure.

Wet Friday

2007-04-06T11:32:00.000+10:00

I call it a good Friday when I can lie in bed until 9.30 and then go for a run in the rain! I must admit notting getting out of bed at all did cross my mind but watching Mr lulu do pilates and then head out for a run was enough to guilt me into getting up.

I just wanted to do a nice easy 30 mins so I headed down to the park and back up Clovelly rd for just over 5kms of relatively easy running.

Niggle status is good considering I've done two SWEAT sessions this week, My achilles is slightly tight but I think that's because I've stepped up the eccentrics and am now doing them with 4kgs in a backpack. Nothing a bit of stretching and massage won't fix. The achilles guru gave me the sign off to start building my kms back up as long as I don't do anything stoopid and hill sessions are still out for a while... shame;)

more SWEATing

2007-04-05T09:02:00.000+10:00

After a long day yesterday driving down to Canberra, doing some coaching, having some meetings and then driving back again I could have done with a sleep in. No sleeping in allowed in the lulu household though, so it was off to the park for a SWEAT session.

I had 3 x 600 on the programme but Sean told me to do 5 as I wasn't doing any races this weekend. I protested but to no avail! Off we went and I sat behind my pack for the first two and they were both 3.01.

3rd rep I decided to push a bit harder and stuck with the group and then overtook them on the back straight. 2.49 Woohoo.. first time ever under 3 mins for 600. It hurt though and there was nearly a dry heave happening at the end of that one. Next one was 2.54 so still under 3 mins and the final one with Mr lulu trying to get me to breath more deeply... again... was 3.01. I've had enough of 3.01 so I'm determined never to run over 3 mins again!

Off to Pilates now to give my much neglected core a good work out.

Lake time trial #1

2007-04-03T12:39:00.000+10:00

Four laps of the lake as a time trial was on the programme today, about 5.7km. I haven't done one of these before and having discussed my plan with assistant coach Easy Tiger we agreed that I'd do it at just quicker than 10km pace, as a practice for Canberra.

After the warm up and drills we headed up to the lake and I lined up with Billy Idol and we headed off. I quickly dropped Billy and tried to settle into the right pace, but felt really sluggish and my legs didn't feel like working. After the first lap I started catching up with some of the other girls in my group who had gone out faster and I suddenly started feeling a lot better; amazing what some overtaking will do for you! On the third lap I caught and overtook a couple of other girls and then I was on my own. On the second half of the fourth and final lap I saw mr lulu jogging back to me, having finished his own TT. He kept me going on the final section, trying to get me to take deeper breaths as by now I was beginning to suffer a bit... and then it was over for a total time of 33.35. I was really pleased with how I ran the last 3.5kms as the pace was getting a bit quicker which is encouraging. 1km splits were 6.05, 6.18 (oops),6.03, 5.45, 5.35, 5.45(pace) and an average speed of 5.55 which was pretty much spot on for what I was attempting, although my pacing left a bit to be desired!

Even better is I have no niggles, not a thing for the first time in ages.. yippee! Now I just need to keep it like that. I'm off to see the achilles guru now and hopefully she'll give me the nod to start gradually increasing my kms... it will be very gradual.. so gradual my body won't even notice!

A day in the country

2007-04-01T16:05:00.000+10:00

Mr lulu and I decided a day out in the country would be nice today, so at 6.30 we headed down to the National Park for a run along Lady Carrington Drive. I haven't run along here before and it is just beautiful. A nice undulating trail with a fairly firm surface, surrounded by fantastic trees with masses of bird life. Mr lulu and I both spotted a lyre bird in the bush at one point. It's a wide track, which is useful as at points it was like Pitt St mall with large groups of runners passing by! So much for the solitude of the bush, but it kept things interesting as I was running on my own. Mr lulu quickly disappeared into the distance.

I wasn't sure how my legs would feel today after yesterday, but after the first km or so they warmed up and we were off. I ran for 6km and then turned around and ran back. There are lots of little ups and downs and I thought it would seem all up hill on the way out, and back, but I was pleasantly surprised to be running strongly on the way back and thought going back was a lot easier. I was still quite pleased to see the lulumobile parked at the end of the trail. I wandered back up the track a bit to see if I could see Mr lulu and he soon arrived. As a good support crewI offered him some refreshments before he disappeared again to finish his 2.5 hours. Meanwhile, I did some stretching and then relaxed in the car, reading the paper, until he finished.

We headed further down the coast to Austinmer for breakfast in a great cafe we know down there. It's a spectacular drive down the coast and along the new cliff way bridge. We were thinking about doing a swim but I had got a bit cold sitting in the car so it was straight on to breakfast, a short walk around the town and then back home. Time for a nana nap now methinks!

Mojo lost and found

2007-03-31T19:09:00.000+10:00

After such a good run on Sunday strangely I found it hard to get motivated this week. I managed a trip to the gym on Monday and then it was Thursday afternoon before I managed to get out for a run. I happened to be at a conference in Adelaide and so I snuck out before it had finished and headed down to the river for a short hit out. I didn't enjoy it, but it was another 5km in the bank.

This morning I had arranged to pick up Running Angel to head over to the bay for the CR 5km challenge. If I hadn't arranged that I think I would definitely have stayed in bed.

I did a short warm up and then headed off on 29 mins as I really didn't think I would be able to much better today. Once I got going though I felt OK and according to Garth my splits were 5.36, 5.43, 5.41, 5.41, 5.36 to finish in 28.36, which considering my frame of mind I was pretty pleased with. It's 14 seconds quicker than last month and now only 16 seconds off my PB so I'll definitely have to go for that next month. I was also pleased that my legs felt strong all the way and I didn't feel totally spent at the end so there was probably a few extra seconds to be had. The head wind in the last km didn't help though!

Had an easy run back for the first few kms and then picked up the pace in the last two to 10km race pace to see how it felt and it didn't feel too bad; in fact I think this is where my mojo returned to me. Even better was that there was no niggle at all from the hip and only a minor complaint from the achilles on the way back.

Now let's hope the mojo doesn't run off again this week. I'll be travelling down to Canberra again and it would be nice to have a whole week at home one day soon, as that would probably help. I don't seem to have any routine at the moment.

A big catch-up

2007-03-25T14:53:00.000+10:00

Thursday I had to get up at 5 to set off for Canberra, again! I had a two day workshop for one of my clients to attend and not much time for anything else, so I'm sorry to didn't see any of the Canberra CRs this time. I'll be back in two weeks though so I'll try and see you then!

After the workshop ended on the Thursday I decided to head out and do my run. It was still really hot but I intended to only do 5km or so... that was the intention. I headed up from the hotel towards Red Hill and found a very nice track which ran around the bottom so I followed that for a while. When I got to 2.5km I turned around. I then saw another track which appeared to follow the road back to my hotel and merrily headed along that, behind the houses. I got the sense that is was going away from the road so at the next available point I did a right hand turn and headed in the direction of the road. A few more twists and turns and I still didn't appear where I thought I should. By now I'd done well over 5km...hmmm. I had a pretty good idea of where I thought the hotel was, but not really how to get there. I was starting to feel a bit tired and thirsty by now so I asked a local Canberrite who was innocently putting his rubbish bin away where the hotel was. After a few directions I set off again and fortunately was soon back at the hotel. Now I remember why Mr lulu won't let me run on my own when we're in strange cities!! All up 7kms.

Another early start on Friday and then I drove back to Sydney in the mid afternoon. What I needed after 3.5 hours in the car was a bit of exercise so I headed down to Centennial Park for a lazy 5kms. My legs felt like lead and I felt really tired but I was glad I'd done it.

Lucky I'd arranged to meet Ellie this morning as the wind was howling around our place this morning and it looked very unattractive out there. Obviously there was no sympathy from Mr lulu who had three hours on his programme. I met Ellie at her pad and then we headed off down Oxford St, through the domain, around the Opera House, up Pitt and Hunter Sts and then back up Oxord and Moore Park road. There was then a bit of running up and down Ellie's street to do to take us to exactly 12 kms.

We saw Gronk doing his last long run before Canberra *waves* and shortly after this I tripped and twisted my ankle. Unfortunately, it had to be the ankle with the dodgy achilles which is now feeling a little bit upset with me. It had been feeling a lot better this week so I'm hoping it's a temporary glitch and with a bit of tlc will be OK.

Apart from that I felt really strong this morning and could have gone further but I'm still under instructions to limit my kms, and breakfast was calling. We picked up Running Angel and then headed to one of our fav cafes in Bondi to wait for Mr lulu and have a great brekkie.

Lake lapping

2007-03-20T13:38:00.000+11:00

The SWEAT session this morning was 2 laps of the lake with 4 mins recovery followed by one lap of the lake. Regular readers with good memories will know that a lap of the lake is about 1.45km.

I did my warm up with Deanne, who dragged me around the oval at a faster pace than I normally do my warm up and I thought the session had started already! Once I'd done the drills and strides I felt almost human.

Up to the lake, and we were off. I decided to run just under my 5km PB pace (5.40/km) and see how I went. The first km went quite smoothly in 5.41, a bit slower than intended.There were a few girls ahead so I decided to see if I could catch them and keep ahead, which I did. Consequently, the next km was quicker at 5.35 and the final 900m were at 5.36 pace which gave me a total for the 2 laps of 16.07. That's a massive 2 lap training PB for me. Previous 2 lap times were around 16.40.. yay for me! No dry retching this morning, but I did feel sick on the second lap :)

Sadly, the little leggies weren't so happy about doing another lap. I think someone had replaced them with lumps of lead in the recovery. I should probably try and keep jogging in the recovery as that seems to help, but today I had to walk and have a drink. I set off and the girls I had successfully passed in the 2 lapper easily beat me on the 1 lapper, which I did in 8.20, not such a good time.... but hey I finished in one piece with hardly a peep out of the hip and achilles...mainly due to Easy Tiger giving them a stern talking to, or maybe it was his new "scientologist" technique.

Canberra training camp

2007-03-19T17:28:00.000+11:00

Friday 16th
I've been neglecting my 8/12 interval training of late so I headed to the gym for a 30 min session on the bike, followed by 500m swimming and a steam.

Late afternoon we headed down to Canberra so Mr lulu could do his training on the marathon course this weekend. The traffic was shocking leaving Sydney and consequently we didn't arrive until 9pm.

Sat 17th
I headed out for about 40 mins around the lake. It was nice and cool in Canberra and I enjoyed the cooler temps after some of the hot and humid days we have had in Sydney. My legs felt decidedly leaden this morning so I took it very easy and did about 6km.

Then it was off to lunch with fellow bloggers CJ, Strewth and Ewen. Very nice pic on CJs blog. Great to see everyone, and needless to say there was lots of talk about running and Italy :) A very nice way to spend a long lunch!

Sun 18th
Whilst Mr lulu headed out to do a lap or so of the marathon course I headed back to Lake BG. I headed in the opposite direction to Sat and passed the Australian Museum, and then past Black Mountain peninsula before turning around and heading back. I felt much better today, the hip and achilles were relatively well behaved and I enjoyed the change of scene on a basically flat course with the odd speed bump to keep me interested. About 11.5km in 75mins.

All in all a very nice weekend which was topped off by a trip to a winery and lunch at the Lynwood cafe at Collector.

Another day, another physio

2007-03-15T09:01:00.000+11:00

As my achilles has been bothering me for a few weeks now and it's not getting any better, Easy Tiger sent me off to see the foot and ankle physio expert. The good news is I don't have to stop running, although she doesn't want me to increase my kms at the moment. I have a mild case of achilles tendonosis, and the cure is lots of eccentric calf exercises. So I'm now to be found standing at the bottom of our stairs, twice a day, doing my exercises like a good girl.

She's hopeful that in three weeks there will be a big improvement and by the end of her rehab programme it will be fixed... that's good news. Apparently, tendonosis is not an inflammatory condition but a degenerative one and so anti-inflams are no use. They are not quite sure what causes the pain but some ulta sounds show blood vessels in the tendon where they shouldn't be. The eccentric calf exercises apparently shut them down as well as strengthening that calf, which is a bit wasted. Fingers crossed it all goes according to plan.

So after a few days of rest, I headed off to SWEAT this morning for a 4km fartlek session. I felt a bit sluggish in the warm up but started off way to fast as usual once the session started and each lap was getting slower and slower. I pushed hard in the last surge to try and catch one of the other girls but she stayed ahead of me. When I stopped I was surprised by a dry heave.. first one ever, so I must have been working hard :) Ellie tells me Sean would be proud of me!

I've entered the Canberra 10km which should be interesting as I won't be able to do that much training in the meantime, but at least I know I can run 10km although it will be slow one I suspect.

A big weekend

2007-03-12T09:52:00.000+11:00

It's been another busy week, which included a quick trip to Perth and back. Perth was 42 degrees and I was glad to be in a hotel for most of the time I was there. I'd intended to run but the heat and the fact that I'd left my sports bra in Sydney seemed a good excuse to stay in bed!

Friday, I made up for it by doing an 8km run around Centennial. I felt really good and neither my hip or achilles complained.

After that it is was get ready, and head out to pick up Don Juan and then Jen, and head to the Blue Mountains.

We loaded all Jen's stuff in the car and pointed the Lulumobile towards Katoomba. First stop lunch, as none of us had eaten and it was now 3pm. Next stop, The Edge to pick up Jen and Go Girl's race packs. Jen started to look a bit edgy herself at this point, so after a bit of socialising it was back in the car and off to our house in Mount Victoria. It probably didn't help that I kept saying things like "She's going over the edge" in a movie trailer voice-over type of voice. Actually, I'm surprised she didn't push me over the edge at this point.

The Evil Twin Sister was kind enough to let us have her house in Mount Victoria for the weekend. She'd conveniently gone to Vietnam for work, so we had the place to ourselves. This was lucky as we ended up with 9 of us staying there on Friday night as well as 2P dropping in for a Friday night dinner at the pub. Let's just say it's a good thing it's a big house, although an extra bathroom would have been useful.

I distracted Jen for 10 mins by showing her how to make Tiramisu and then everyone else started arriving at the house. After dinner in the pub, we all bedded down for the night.

Saturday, we headed to the start. Jen and Go Girl were both very calm and relaxed. We waved GG off in Wave 2 and then Jen off in Wave 4. Good photos of this on Jen's blog.

A yummy breakfast at Blackheath, and then we headed for the finish. We dropped Don Juan off at the Caves Road crossing so he could cheer from there. The atmosphere at the finish line was fantastic. Sadly, we just missed Fats finishing but what a great run by him to win and set a course record. I can at least claim that I train in the same squad as him, albeit I'm at the back whilst he is at the front!

Then we settled in to wait for our three valiant crew members. We were beginning to worry about Go Girl when her expected finish time came and went. Then she appeared at the finish and we found out that her run had ended when she had fallen twice and done some damage to her ribs, which became to too painful to run with. Devastating after all that training, but in true GG style she said, 'well, I'll just do Canberra then'.

2P made a triumphant descent down the stairs but he was by no means unscathed, with a calf blowing up in the first 5km and then he fell and opened up some nice wounds on his hand.

As the 7 hour cut off got closer we started to get anxious for Jen, but then we heard that she was coming down the path. We gave her a huge cheer as she came down the steps and headed for the finish chute in a fabulous 6 hours and 50 mins. What an achievement with such an interrupted preparation. I don't think I would have had the guts to start, so she showed us all what can be achieved with the right attitude and by sticking to her plan, which she executed perfectly. I don't think I've ever been so relieved to see anyone :)

There were some other great performances, especially Kit turning in a fantastic 5.15 debut run and CJ 5.25 as well as Ewen's 6.30! It was great to see everyone at the finish.

Back to the house for recovery champagne (not for Jen though as Easy Tiger had sent her a text saying no alcohol, which she obeyed!). The rest of us enjoyed it for her though. Then once we'd got her clean we took her to the pub where she devoured a juicy recovery steak. She also enjoyed her celebratory Tiramisu.

Sunday morning, Ellie, the Owl, and I headed off for our own mountain run. We were accompanied for the first 15 mins by Don Juan who is on the comeback trail. I think this will be the only time that we'll be able to keep up with him! We headed down to the Victoria falls turnoff. Mr lulu said it was relatively flat but I really should know better than to believe him when he says that! There were a few ups and downs, and then one long down which I knew would be a long up on the way back. Ellie and I turned around after 35 mins but the Owl continued to the end of the track. I ended up walking up some of the long hill and my hip and achilles weren't too happy about the rough track and hills so I was glad when Garth said I'd done 10kms and I could stop.

A great weekend with some great company. Thanks to Cirque for coming down from Brisvegas to share the experience, and to Don Juan and the girls for making it a fun weekend. Looking forward to next year already!

Special guest appearance!

2007-03-06T08:51:00.000+11:00

Last night we celebrated Ellie's birthday at a very nice tapas bar. She even introduced us to some of her non-running friends which I thought was very brave!

Jen_runs needed a bed to sleep in so we kicked out the nephew from the spare room and installed Jen. This meant that this morning we could do our run together. Happy days :)

I feel pretty good after the weekend and a session with Easy Tiger yesterday but I didn't want to do anything too energetic, so we settled for a couple of laps of the inside of the park.

In the end we did 1 lap and then a loop around the road through the middle as neither of us felt very energetic and my hip was giving me a tiny bit of grief. I'll have to give it lots of attention in the next few days to make sure it settles down again. All up, depending on whose Garmin you believe we did 6.7 or 6.82 kms at about 6.30 pace. It was great to run with Jen again as it's been ages and I was very excited to be accompanying her on her last run before that race at the weekend ;)

Hot Orange

2007-03-05T09:11:00.000+11:00

Leaving Sydney at lunchtime on Friday Mr lulu, Running Angel and Mr RA headed off to Orange. We had an excellent dinner at Lolli Redini, which is one of the nicest restaurants in the town and then a relatively early night.

Saturday morning, Mr lulu and I went out for a short trot up the main street of Orange and back, about 4kms and 25 mins. I found it hard work and wondered why but then Mr lulu said that we were at about 900m above sea level and that could be making it seem harder than normal.

After brekkie we all drove around the half marathon course so Mr lulu and RA could see what they were in for. It didn't look too bad, although it was definitely undulating! It was incredibly hot by mid morning and we were questioning the wisdom of the organisers to start the race at 9am.

A spot of wine tasting and a nice lunch at La Colline winery was followed by a nana nap before a carbo loading pasta dinner for the HMers.

Sunday we headed out to the race start at about 8am so RA could register. Fortunately, the weather was overcast and relatively cool and it actually started raining at the start of the half so we hoped it wouldn't be too hot for them. Then it was my turn. I lined up with the 10km and 5km run/walkers and we were off. A nice downhill for the first km soon turned into lots of ups and downs. I couldn't get into much of a rhythm as it seemed as soon as I'd gone up and down one hill, there was the next one. I even had a walk break at the top of one hill. Once I'd turned around and was heading back up the road to the finish I managed to pick up the pace a bit and head for home. At least I managed to come in under 30 mins at 29.30, finishing 12th in the 5km and second woman. Clearly, not a very big field and it was the 5km walk I was running in! Mr RA also did the 5km and came second in 22.58; not bad for someone who has only run twice this year!

Then it was time to wait for the half marathoners to arrive. We saw Barry Keen win, and Andrew Knox came second. At that stage I thought it might be a tough out there as Knoxie finished in 71 mins when I think he was aiming for 68 mins. By now the rain had gone and it was blazing sunshine, and so very humid. I was very glad I hadn't attempted the 10km as I would definitely be walking by now!

Mr lulu came into view and he didn't look happy, finishing in 91.30 which is close to being his slowest ever half time. He said the hills were a lot worse than they looked in the car and that they, and the heat, just started sapping his energy after the turnaround.

We then waited for RA to appear. She had also found the hills and heat hard to deal with so didn't achieve her goal time, but she showed that she could tough it out in those conditions. Next time, you'll get your goal RA! We hung around for some of the prize giving before heading back to the motel, showering and heading back to Sydney via a quick lunch at the Bathhurst bakery.

A great weekend with great company, food and wine. We didn't break any PBs but at least we had fun! Overall the event was well organised but it definitely needs to be started at least an hour earlier if they don't want people keeling over with heat exhaustion. The ambos were called to cart one poor person off and I think they were lucky that there weren't more. By the time we left town the temperature was about 35 degrees.

Is it March already?

2007-03-01T10:37:00.000+11:00

Crikey, the year is really getting away from me as I can't believe it's March already. Hopefully, things will settle down to a normal pattern now that the family as returned to colder climes, and even the remaining nephew announced yesterday that he too is returning to England next week.

Mr lulu and I will have our spare room back, so book in now folks for any Sydney visits you're planning :) I'm looking forward to it just being the two of us again, and I know Mr lulu is looking forward to being centre of attention again ;)

Anyhoo, enough of the random dribblings and on to the running. An easy 6km around my 40 mins loop this morning. A bit steamy again but I felt pretty strong this morning. I even managed a decent pace up the hill on the way back from the park. My core strength seems to be really helping me on the hills. My hip and achilles are definitely improving..all good.

A slight change of plan for the Orange running festival. Mr lulu entered me for the 5km, and when my number arrived it said 5km walk... I'm quite happy with an easy saunter around the park but I'm sure it won't be the best thing for my running. I've emailed them and asked if I can run the 5km, can't see why not? Alternatively, I'll swap to the 10km and either do 5km hard and then jog back or go out at 10km race pace and see how long I last before the wheels fall off, or I could just do it easy. Decisions, decisions. Suggestions anyone, bearing in mind lack of long runs and the goal being not to break anything?

Return to the lake

2007-02-27T09:50:00.000+11:00

I like the SWEAT sessions we do around the lake. It's a good path and the scenery takes your mind off the pain!

I had 1 x1 lap and then 1 x 2 laps on my programme. Sean told us to go hard on the first rep as we'd have plenty of recovery. So off I went, and by half way I was already feeling it. Once I hit the home straight I managed to catch up with Becky O for the finishing push. Time: 7.45, which I think it probably a lake PB for me as I haven't been below 8 mins before.

A jog recovery for 6 mins and then we were off again. My legs were feeling the first effort and I was considerably slower on these laps and I was conscious that I had two laps rather than one. In the end I went through the first lap in 8.24, and finished in 16.45, only 5 secs slower than I was doing 2 laps before my injury, so I'm quite happy with that.

That's enough 'speedy' stuff for me for a few days, so I'll have a running rest day tomorrow, a slow run on Thursday and Saturday and then I'll be tackling another 5km race. This time we're off to Orange, where Mr lulu and Running Angel are doing the half. There's a 10km as well but for now I'm going to stick to the 5km and aim for the 10km at Canberra.

5km plus

2007-02-25T16:12:00.000+11:00

Saturday morning, I headed out to the bay for my first CR 5km challenge. I had no idea what I was going to be able to do, so I decided to head out on 30 mins and see what happened.

Luckily, I had the great company of Tiger Angel for the first half, before she pulled away, but at least she stayed in sight so I didn't miss the turn off for the canal last km.

We went out a little fast for me, going through the 1st km in just under 5.30 pace and the next few kms were all around 5.40 pace, so I ended up finishing in 28.50 which I was pretty pleased with considering the limited training I've done this year. That's only 30 seconds off my PB which is over a year old so I'm happy with that as a starting point for this year.

I struggled to hold it together in the last km which seemed to go on forever as we wound our way around the tennis courts. Rags caught me towards the end and checked to see if I was alright and if I wanted any help. Not much help he could give me unless he could give me a new pair of lungs!

Great to see so many people there especially the interstate gals Clairie and Tesso. I set off back to the start fairly quickly as I had to get home. Tiger Angel kept me company and we had a good old chin wag, but it still seemed a long way back.

Looking forward to next month already, when I can stay for the post run socilising!

Short and sweaty

2007-02-23T11:03:00.000+11:00

Just a short 25 mins around Queen's Park this morning. I'm feeling a bit flat and tired after quite a hectic week and so I'm taking it easy! My achilles is also playing up a bit this week despite the best efforts of Easy Tiger. I think a trip to the physio is probably in order as it's been on and off for ages.

I headed to the gym after my run and did a good pilates class and then sat in the steam room for 20 mins. I'm hoping it will help me run better in the sweaty weather!

Looking forward to my first CR 5km challenge in the morning. See some of you there!

SWEATing

2007-02-21T08:17:00.000+11:00

Back to SWEAT on Tuesday and another big turn out of runners which makes it fun. I had 3 x1km intervals on my programme this morning and despite Sean trying to persuade me to do 1.4km reps instead I stuck to the plan so I didn't stress anything too much.

As usual I started off too quickly but felt pretty comfortable, but the second and third reps were tough and I had to work hard to stick to a similar time. In the end I did 5.21, 5.22 and 5.24 so relatively consistent.

Good to be back and an hour of fun with Easy Tiger made sure I didn't suffer any ill effects from the return to SWEAT.

Today I'll do a gym and swim as well as taking my younger nephew snorkelling down at Clovelly.

Spectacular!

2007-02-19T13:12:00.000+11:00

I had a choice to make on Sunday morning as to whether I would head to Smithfield and run in the SMC 5km around the barren industrial landscape or, stay at home and do something a little more scenic and do a longer run.

In the end I did this, which as you can see was a little more scenic than Smithfield.

I started off on Hopetoun and ran up to Christensen Park and then along the cliff top path to The Gap. I found my way around the Navy base and down to Watson's Bay before setting off along the harbour and traced my way back to home.

It was pretty hilly but I felt a lot stronger than I did a few days ago and really felt my core strength helped me on some of the hills towards the end of the run when I was starting to tire. The good thing about the hills is that I got some fantastic views, first out along the coast and the cliffs and then on the harbour side out across the harbour and the city.

So, all in all, a good run. I ended up doing 10km which is the furthest I've been for a while and felt pretty good at the end of it, with very little grumbling from the hip which is good news.

I'll do the CR 5km challenge next weekend instead, which will be a good way to test out the fitness and hang out with some CRs at the same time.

South Head

2007-02-16T14:10:00.000+11:00

It's been very hectic the last few days and a couple of early morning work commitments and dog walking duties have meant I had two rest days. Luxury!

Today though I headed out at about 7 and followed the road down to Watson's Bay and then found the path way that does a loop around South Head. Fantastic views back across the harbour to the city which I stopped to appreciate before heading back home.

After 5.5km I was absolutely pooped. Fitness MIA! I started off feeling great but after some hills and stairs in the heat and humidity I started to feel really dehydrated. Hopefully that's the main reason! I'm planning on running the 5km at SMC on Sunday; it could be interesting if I'm finding 5.5km a battle at an easy pace. Just doing it to see where I'm up to and I could be in for a nasty shock.

The good news is that the hip is liking the shorter runs and more rest days and I didn't hear a peep out of it. The bad news is I'm losing fitness by the day.

Elementary, my dear Watson's (Bay)

2007-02-13T16:37:00.000+11:00

No SWEAT for me this morning as the logistics of getting to the park, getting me back to Vaucluse and Mr lulu to the City when we've only got one car was getting too much for my brain. Anyway it's good for the hips!

Instead, I headed off down Hopetoun Ave towards Watson's Bay. A lovely down hill run most of the way there. Once I made it to the Watson's Bay I climbed the stairs for a look down at the Gap and then started up a bush trail I didn't even know was there. I turned back after a few minutes though as I wasn't sure where I'd pop out and I was doing 30 mins only in full Captain Sensible mode.

Back to the water for a short run along the harbour and then the uphill back to the house. Felt pretty good, and the hip only complained marginally on a steep hill section... good excuse to walk I say!

Once I'd made it back I saddled up Max the dog and took him for a short walk. He's been on short walks only since we moved in, as he had stitches in his leg where he'd cut himself. I took him up to the vet this morning and they've been removed so we'll be able to see what sort of running companion he makes. Max is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever and is very cute and very easy to look after. I'm enjoying having a dog, even if it is only for a short time.

Mr lulu is still Top Dog though :)

All change

2007-02-12T09:45:00.000+11:00

It's been a hectic weekend in the Lulu household. My brother and his wife and the other nephew arrived on Sunday and we had also committed to house/dog/cat sitting for some friends in Vaucluse for a week. This is good actually as our two bed unit would struggle to contain all the family anyway. So Sat, we moved into Vaucluse and got used to the new pet routine.

Sunday I was up early, walked and fed the dog (more about him another day) and then I went to the airport and picked up the family. After settling them in I headed down to Centennial for my 'long'run, which really isn't that long at the moment.

It was already pretty warm and I set off to do some laps of the inside so I could stop at the car on the way around and have a drink if I needed to. After about 500m I realised I hadn't put any sun sreen on so it was back to the car for that. Off again and I managed two further laps of the inside before my hip made it plain that it had had enough. Still not 100% and I only managed 55mins and 8.5km. Still, it's 10 mins more than last week I suppose. I'll be taking it pretty easy again this week and probably won't make SWEAT this week. I think the hip needs a little more TLC before inflicting further speedwork on it.

Easy day.. really it is !

2007-02-09T09:27:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I was up and at the gym by 6 and doing a GRC pilates class. Then it was off to do my 8/12 session on the bike. I had the resistance on 6 this time and found it a hard session but it didn't leave me feeling trashed.

Then I headed for the steam room where I sat for about 20 mins before getting in a cold shower. It's supposed to be good for you isn't it? I'm not keen on the cold shower bit though.

After all that I headed off to work before meeting the CR gals for lunch at the Lindt cafe, with a special appearance from this fellow.
Back to the gym in the evening for my swim squad session. Lots of practice improving my arm work, pushing through to the end of the stroke, stretching out and pulling my arm through the water. Needless to say my shoulders and upper back are a tad sore this morning. At least it gives the legs a rest though:)

This morning I woke at 5.30 as usual and turned over and went back to sleep for an hour and still felt like I'd been run over by a bus. I staggered out the door and started to feel better after about 5 mins. In the end I took it very easy and did about 30 mins. That's it for the day apart form some glute exercises later on, oh and a CR dinner at a Japanese restaurant later.

Will I ever learn?

2007-02-07T09:06:00.000+11:00

Yesterday, as planned I went to SWEAT. It was really hard and I was really slow...anything else you want to know?

We had 2 x2 km reps and then 1 x1km. I was obviously overcome with excitement on the first one and took off like a startled rabbit, and keeping up with people who I clearly shouldn't have been near... only to be a flagging startled rabbit on the second km. The next rep I took a lot slower but it still hurt so I sped up again to get it over and done with :)

The 1km rep was just hard. A tough re-introduction to SWEAT sessions.

Times: 11.24, 11.46, and 5.46 v e r y s l o w.... Still it's start I suppose.

Today I thought I'd just back that up with a gentle 50 mins jog. It was really hard and I probably underestimated how much the SWEAT session took out of me yesterday. My legs weren't stiff but there just didn't seem to be any oomph. I ended up doing some walking breaks and then realising that I would be late leaving for the city so I had to run again. It turned into quite a stressful 55 mins!

As usual I've been trying to do too much too soon. I should have scheduled a day off running after SWEAT yesterday. The good news is the hip is feeling OK so hopefully no damage done. I was going to gym later but I'll be sensible and save that for tomorrow.

Ewen asked about the 8/12 and last week I had to give them a miss as I was travelling and there was no gym at the hotel. Back to that tomorrow though. I did ask Prof. Boutcher, who was online at the Daily Tele last week about how much benefit you'd get if you were already relatively fit and a runner. His answer was that if you weren't already doing sprint interval training then you would get some benefit. So I'm going to count my SWEAT sessions as one session and try and do two other 8/12s at the gym. Sounds like a plan!

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