Back to the Program

I won't be running tomorrow, which leaves me at 63km for September. Not bad considering I had a mini comback on the 11th and only ran for 2/3 of the month. Sensible stuff that!

I realised at the start of the week that it was now less than 10 weeks to the CC Half, so I figured it was time to get some proper training underway. I’m going to follow a similar program to the one I used for my previous half, except that it’s slightly more involved. The main difference is an additional Medium Long run per week, and the Speed and Tempo sessions are a little more demanding. It’s a 12 week program though, so I’m cutting in on week 3.


Wednesday: 7km with 5x200m Speed Intervals
The intervals didn’t feel particularly fast, but that’s not surprising on the back of a month off and a few weeks of plodding along. Gotta start somewhere!

Thursday: 1.2km Swim
A standard session of 800m freestyle and 400m breaststroke. Not feeling fast in the pool today, but I think that’s just my expectations increasing. I can tell that I’m far ahead of where I was a few weeks ago. I booked myself in for some stroke correction next Wednesday and I’m hoping for some improvements to come of it.

Friday: 9km with 6x4 minute Tempo Intervals
I weaved my way through the Waniora and Flynns Beach areas this morning. Again I didn’t feel particularly quick at the start, but towards the end I could feel the legs speeding up a little more. I feels good to have a plan to the training again rather than just kicking along. I can feel my motivation increasing as I look through the program and the upcoming sessions.

Friday Physio
I’ve been feeling a little tightness in the calf so I thought I’d get a professional to have a look at it. There was some scarring in a couple of places as a result of my recent injury. I was hooked up to a couple of crazy machines, given some massage therapy and received some homework to do before my visit next week.

Boo...Swim...Wedding...Driving

Oh well, a win for the Dragons was obviously a little too much to ask for…go the Swans! ;)

So I woke up Sunday morning and thought I’d drown my sorrows…at the pool. All up I did 800 metres freestyle, 600 metres breaststroke and 10-15 minutes of water running.

Shane recently asked if I thought that the swimming in public pools has contributed to any congestion/runny nose symptoms, which I don’t think has been the case for me so far. The pool at Port doesn't seem to be offensively chlorinated like some I've been in, and mostly when I go I've either had a lane to myself or shared with just a couple of others. I found a couple of times that if I am a little blocked beforehand that I’m all cleared up after the session. When I used to live in Sydney I always had sinus issues, but since moving to Port I don’t seem to have any troubles at all (including an absence of hayfever through the last couple of springs, which was always a nightmare in the past).
Shane and Dante made comments about technique which I was also talking about with Ellie, and I decided that I should get a swimming coach to look over my stroke to prevent too many bad habits becoming ingrained and hopefully lead to some improvements.

Anyway, the wedding was wonderful. We managed to avoid getting blown off the terrace at a restaurant high up over Cockle Bay. It was great to catch up with some of the family that I don’t get to see very often. I was in bed at midnight and up at 4.30am to drive back for a relatively normal day of work from home. It was awesome to see the girls and my little guy again…it’s amazing how much you notice babies develop even in just a week!

Centennial Park to Opera House

I met up with Blkbox and Gronk shortly after sunrise at Centennial Park this morning for a run. We headed around to the other side of the Park, down Oxford and Macquarie Streets to the Opera House for a Rocky moment and a short break. The return trip was along the foreshore to Woolloomooloo then cutting up through Darlinghurst and Moore Park for the remaining half lap of Centennial Park. All up it was around 1 hour 40 minutes, and perhaps 15-16km…TBC. The weather was just perfect and it certainly wasn’t cool this morning. A most enjoyable run, although I was feeling some fatigue for the final 20 minutes or so which is not surprising seeing as it’s been ages since I did anything over 10km. Thanks for the run guys. After farewelling Gronk we headed back to BB’s for a quick shower, met up with Beki and headed up the road for some much needed breakfast. Afterwards they were heading into the city for a late morning massage, so I dropped them at the station and went on a successful shopping mission. It was great to meet Beki for the first time (with her brand new haircut!) and thanks for the breakfast BB and B – hope the massages weren’t too painful :) I’m now going to have a short afternoon snooze to revitalise myself before heading in to the footy and hopefully will be cheering the Dragons to a spot in the Grand Final. Go you Dragons!! Edit: I think this a reasonably accurate plot of the run. So given it was about 16km, overall the pace was a touch over 6 minute k’s, but that included plenty of stops and pauses for traffic.

Hayfever under control

After an irritating couple of days my head is back to normal.

Thursday 1.6km Swim
Caught up with Ellie for some laps at Cook + Phillip Park. It was fun to swim with someone else, which helped the session go by in a flash. Ellie was talking about picking my brains for some swimming advice but it turned out that she’d been doing some reading on the subject and I got a heap of tips from her instead!! In fact I tried out one of the techniques she mentioned and it seemed to really help me glide through the water a lot smoother. Imagine how much faster I can go once I get a few tips off Miners as well!!

So I ended up with 1600 metres. The sequence was a bit mixed, but roughly 800m Freestyle, 500m Breaststroke and 300m Freestyle.


Friday 6km Easy Run
Backed up last night's swim with an easy run to start the day. All clear on the calf front.

Coming up
The plan for the weekend is to meet up with BlkBox and Gronk at Centennial Park tomorrow morning for a run, during which we’ll make plans for brekky with Beki before their massage later in the morning. Tomorrow night I’m heading in to see the Dragons play the Storm for a spot in the Grand Final. Sunday will most likely be some more laps at the local pool before heading into the City for a wedding in the afternoon. Somewhere in there I’ll have to do some shopping for Jodie’s birthday next week!!

Hi from Sydney

Monday

9km Run
A beautiful morning for a run, and it’s getting light outside nice and early now. I ran through the middle of the Lighthouse area along Bangalay Drive before heading over to Matthew Flinders Drive by the beach, across to the golf course and through Emerald Downs.

I comfortably made it through in five and a half minute pace. If anything I was a bit tentative and slowed up on some of the downhills as the calf felt a bit tender pounding down the steeper hills at speed. On the gentler downhills I just concentrated on smoothing out the footfalls to remove the main feeling of impact. It could have been my mind playing tricks on me, as it certainly wasn’t sore either during or after the run.


1.4km Swim
I’m feeling better with the swimming. For the first few hundred metres I feel like I’m cruising along (relatively) wonderfully…(relatively) efficient…(relatively) fast…(relatively) effortless! Then the fatigue creeps in, things get ugly and I start needing some longer breaks after each 100m.
I added an extra 100m to my initial freestyle block, bringing it to 500m, then 500m breaststroke non stop followed by a 400m block comprising 300m freestyle with 100m breaststroke in the middle which helps reduce my rest period after each lap. It’s still not pretty, but at least there’s progress!


Tuesday
I drove to Sydney on Tuesday morning. A highlight was the view as I passed an open field just outside of Moorland. The newly risen orange sun was hovering over a sea of fog that was punctuated with a few trees rising out of the mist. That would have been worth stopping for if I actually had my camera on me.

Not feeling the best so I’m tossing up whether to swim tonight. My head feels a bit scratchy, but it might just be a bit of hayfever.

Ah yes, that’s what running feels like…

…just like walking only faster…and harder.

There just doesn’t seem to be enough time to get everything done at the moment, so now it turns out to be two weeks since I last posted. A few days in Sydney will no doubt give me a chance to get a few things up to date, and Jodie should get some help around here while I’m away so hopefully it won’t be too stressful for her while I’m away.

I ended up waiting a few extra days than planned before going for a run, eventually getting out last Monday night. It was a see how it goes run, and it went good! I started off tentatively, and made it through just over 5km in just under half an hour. The only complaint was some abdominal discomfort due to dinner even though I gave it an hour and a half. I don’t think running at that late hour agreed with me, as I had a weird night’s sleep. The previous run longer than 1km was exactly one month earlier – no doubt the legs appreciated the break. I was expecting the first few runs to be tough, but was pleased to be getting along a bit quicker than anticipated.

I followed up on Wednesday and Friday mornings with easy 6km runs. Felt good to start a couple of days with early morning runs again.

Apart from that I managed three 1.2km swims and four rides of an hour each.

My swimming is coming along ok. I’m just happy to be able to do 100m without struggling for breath at the end, and on Friday I did the 400m breaststroke section of my swim without a break. It’s nice to be at a point where I can reliably count my laps and actually be aware of how poor my technique is!

The recent Thursday cycle was great. I headed out before sunrise, and the chill in the air brought a tear to the eye when the speed picked up on the downhills with just bike shorts and a t-shirt on. I saw the sun rise over Oxley and Town beaches - it was a great morning after all the recent wind and rain. I rode past Settlement City and through Clifton before heading back down Gordon St for the home stretch along the beaches.

This was the sequence since my last post. Hopefully I’ll keep my posts a bit more up to date from now.

Tuesday Swim
Thursday Cycle
Friday Swim
Saturday Cycle
Monday Run
Wednesday Run
Thursday Cycle
Friday Run and Swim
Saturday Cycle

Swim, swim, swim

I didn’t get out for a run over the last week, but still managed some alternative exercise.

I swam Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The last one was unplanned, but I took Isabel for her first swimming lesson on Saturday (which she absolutely loved) and took the opportunity for an easy 700 metres. Later I went for an hour long ride along the beaches. That’d almost be my first brick session if not for the 2 hours in between the swim and cycle. So that makes 4 swim sessions in a week…gotta do something while I’m not running!

My running break means I only reached 40km in August, which is my leanest month by far this year. Not surprising seeing as I’ve only run 1km since the 11th of the month.

I’m feeling good about the break, which would be 3 weeks on Thursday (4 weeks if I don’t count the 1km effort) , but it feels time to get out for a run. I’m thinking of easing into a run on Tuesday or Wednesday morning and see what happens.