What happened to December?

I had myself wrapped in cotton wool since my little ankle scare the day after the Half. Whilst there wasn’t any actual pain, it did swell up a bit so I gave it plenty of RICE all week (and beyond as a precaution). Later in the week I picked up a head cold, so that set me up for doing even less. I ended up doing no exercise at all for a week, and no doubt the enforced break did me some good. Since my return to running the ankle has been fine.

In the meantime I worked out what I was going to do for my Canberra Marathon campaign and sorted out an 18 week program, which was supposed to start on Monday the 11th, but actually kicked off on Wednesday instead due to the lingering cold. In the down time, with all the planning I became extremely keen to get back out for a run, but there wasn’t much I could do about it…I’d rather make sure the ankle and head were fixed properly rather than prolonging either issue.

Part of my plan is to include some sports massage in the program as a preventative measure, so I went for my first session on the 7th. I’ll probably limit my visits until a bit later in the program when the distances start to build up and I’m doing some of the longer runs.

December’s such a busy month. Lucky I do most of my training before the “normal day” begins or it wouldn’t get done at the moment. Hence I’m nearly 3 weeks behind in posting (and commenting – sorry) so here’s a quick rundown to get up to date.


6th Dec: 1km Swim


Week 1 of 18

Wed 13th 6km Easy Run
First run for a week and a half, so just nice and easy. The first run of the program and the first couple of weeks are just “build” weeks.

Fri 15th 8km Medium Aerobic Run
In Sydney this week, and tried a completely new route over to Connell’s Point.

Sun 17th 16km Long Aerobic Run
So I finished the first week with a run along the beaches and the river. Nothing too serious in the program yet. My long run pace at the moment seems to be sitting at about 5:30 to 5:40 per km.


Week 2 of 18

Tue 19th 5km Recovery Run
Around Bangalay Drive and up Shelly Beach Rd.

Wed 20th 11km Medium Aerobic Run
Down to Lighthouse Beach, through Emerald Downs and a few local streets.

Thu 21st 1.2km Swim
I went 100m beyond the point where I wanted to stop for the day – I need to get down to the pool on a more regular basis!

Fri 22nd 8km Aerobic Run (with some strides to finish off)
Bit of a loop down to Flynns Beach and around Waniora this morning. I can’t believe how loud the cicadas are at 5am – they all seem to congregate on one of our gum trees (which also has a Koala in residence at the moment).


I’m really pleased that I’ve lost a few kg over the last couple of months, so I’m not carrying too much excess weight for my training. With a 20km long run planned for Christmas Eve I’ll be happy to eat as much as I like on Christmas Day!

I just realised this is my 100th post, but I’ve written enough already! Lucky I caught this little milestone, because at the time I missed when I hit 1000km for the year (for the first time in my life) back in October.

Thanks to everyone for their support (that means you!) through comments and other means. Blogging and CR has been a great way for me to keep on track, and to regain the sense that training/exercise/being healthy is just a normal everyday part of life. I think that’s made a big difference for me, particularly on the many mornings when the easiest and most appealing option would be to turn the alarm off and go back to sleep. Even though I feel half dead when getting my gear on at 5am, I know that it was more than worth it when I’m walking back through the door afterwards and for the rest of the day.
I’ve met a lot of wonderful people in person as a result (and equally in an online sense as well), and I look forward to converting more from “online” to “in person” throughout 2007.

I’d like to wish everyone a wonderful, Merry Christmas, a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2007.

Central Coast Half Marathon

We arrived at the Central Coast on Saturday afternoon and met up with Jen, Ellie and Lorna at Memorial Park along with some of Jodie’s family to check out the festival for an hour or two. Tyler was enjoying all the attention from the girls whilst Isabel was running amok around the park and required some tag team chasing.

On Sunday I delayed arriving at the start due to the rain and cool wind first thing in the morning. The registration area was overflowing with Cool Runners (of whom there were far to many to remember and name), and the registration queue was long and wet as the rain fell down.

So many people showed up that they ran out of numbers, and the start was delayed by more than 20 minutes as everyone was processed. It was tough judging when they’d start would be so you could plan your warmup!

We started from under the bridge where everyone was sheltering and I was planning on running with nite_time_runner (NTR), Chunderbolt, and Becky O with a 1:50 time in mind. It was nice to run and chat with Becky and Benny for the first part of the race before they let NTR and myself go.

Neither of us had GPS or the like and only spotted a couple of distance markers so we didn’t have much idea of our pace, but on the way back we had an idea that we were closer to 1:45 pace. It was hard to get into a real rhythm for the first 2/3 of the race with all the puddle dodging (some looked fairly deep!) and runners coming the other way, although that was a boost in itself, with some good support along the way.

I carried a couple of gels, and had them at the 45 minute and 80 minute marks and had my fuel belt on with 2 x Gatorade and 2 x water which I refilled along the way from cups at the water stations.

It was great to run and chat with NTR for most of the race. We passed heaps of people on the way back and I don’t think we were passed at all after the turnaround. The time seemed to pass fairly quickly and we both seemed to be well on top of things as the words weren’t a struggle to get out. With about 4 or 5km to go the chat dropped off and we started to focus a bit more on running through the fatigue of the final few km. I found I was feeling good, and knowing the finish was close I got into a good rhythm and picked up the pace without going too far overboard (it was just a training run (race) after all). I was focussed on catching plu up ahead for at least a couple of km (which I was surprised at as he predicted a 2 hour run!) and was reeling him in slowly but surely. I passed him in the last km and felt I was running fairly strongly through to the finish in 1:45:17 by my watch.

That’s just 5 seconds slower than my Macleay River Half in June, which I’m very happy with given my recent injury, lack of preparation and 1:50 plan. Given how good I felt in the final few km, like at the Macleay River Half I think I could have pushed harder through the earlier stages of the race. I wish I had my splits now, as I’m sure the final few km would have been good, and must have made up for the early km that were closer to 5:20-5:30 minute kms (when we were Garmin assisted by Benny and Becky!). I’m happy that at the end I upped the intensity and was a bit more mentally focused for that last quarter. As I mentioned in my last post, the fastest time wasn’t my goal for this one – it was more for a little more race experience and to enjoy the run. So that was a success!

Nice to see that everyone else on the original 1:50 bus ended up with PB’s (along with so many others on the day)…well done :)

Because we started under the bridge the course was apparently a little bit short, but I figure that was offset by the disruption of queuing to cross one of the bridges near the start, some general congestion and all the puddle dodging!

By the time I got back for a shower, sat down for a moment then helped put the kids down for a sleep I was a bit late for the late CR breakfast. We didn’t end up getting home until 8.30 last night, and we all slept very well.

It’s now a day and a half later and I’m feeling good with nothing to complain about from the race at all. But that doesn’t mean I can’t complain about the swollen ankle I copped this morning after giving it a bit of a twist on a certain young lady’s toy this morning. At least it gives me a excuse to put my feet up for a couple of days (with an ice pack strapped on).

And here's the traditional post Half photo with Isabel...Tyler was in a nice warm place so he couldn't make it but sends his apologies. It's fitting that we're posing in front of a puddle!

Hello Summer

Wednesday Run 6km
Today was just an easy recovery run. I made my way to Flynns Beach via Pacific Drive then back via Kennedy Drive. Came upon Gwyneth from Peloton along the way who was out for a run so I had someone to chat to for a km or so before we took our different ways home.

There were an unusually high number of cyclists out this morning for some reason. Must be a Wednesday thing and I just haven’t been out much on a Wednesday morning lately!


Thursday Swim 1km
It had been nearly three weeks since my last swim so I wasn’t expecting much, which was a shame since the last swim I did was my longest yet and felt great. I just haven’t had a chance to get to the pool with the recent travelling and disarray around here since returning home, so it was back to square one.

So I just went for an easy half hour. Did 700m freestyle and 300m breaststroke with plenty of breaks.


Friday Run 6km
Today I did a typical taper session consisting of 2 x 5 min tempo efforts with a 5 minute jog recovery.
Tyler was fussing pretty much all night so I didn’t get more than an hour of straight sleep as I vividly recall seeing every hour appear on the clock throughout the night. He was still going at 5am so I figured I may as well head out. It was a nice sunrise too. The other pain from the night is in my neck…I must have worked myself into an odd position at some stage during my fitful sleep, as my neck and shoulder blades are quite sore, which inhibited my run and made it difficult to turn my head to check for traffic. In fact there’s generally very little vehicular traffic in the morning but I’m more concerned about cyclists sneaking up on me!


So I finished November with a total of 122km, which is a considerable increase on each of the last three months, but felt more like getting back to a standard level than an increase.

Last night I was reading the report I wrote on my last (first) Half, and was thinking about it today on the run. The main thing I wanted to focus on was my mental attitude to the race. I don’t want to fall too much into the “done all the hard work, now enjoy the day” frame of mind (even though I haven’t really done that much hard work this time!). Whilst I will enjoy it, I need to keep in mind that there will be times when I just need to put my head down and slog it out in the final third of the race at times when I might feel like easing off. Having said that, I think I’ll need to keep reminding myself that “it’s just a training run (race)”…” it’s just a training run (race)”…” it’s just a training run (race)”. I’ll really just be happy to hit 110 minutes at the Central Coast Half, ease up for a week or two and then set my gaze on the Canberra Marathon.