Extra Long Weekend

Week 7 of 18

Tuesday 8km Run - Intervals
Included 5 x 3 minute intervals with 1 minute jog recovery around a hilly part of the Connells Point area of Sydney.


Wednesday 12km Medium Aerobic Run
On this run I trotted over to Peakhurst through the industrial area and past the golf course. To start the sky was clear and colourful, but as I was reaching the farthest point from home I could see a single storm cell developing in front of my eyes. There was some thunder, lighting and the threat of rain. I was a bit concerned, but as I headed back the storm died out to just a grey sky and spread rain throughout the area. It’s been a long time since I ran in the rain, and it was very refreshing.
In the evening it was nice to catch up with some CRs over a lovely Indian dinner in at Darlinghurst. :)


Thursday 9km Hill Reps
This was supposed to be Friday’s run, but I doubted my enthusiasm for hill reps on the day after the Big Day Out so decided to run it early and sleep in on Friday!
Today was 5 x 90 second efforts. It’s actually tough to find a 90 second plus hill of suitable grade, and today’s hill was only about 60 seconds, so I just kept the intensity up after the hill flattened out. By the third climb I hit my initial 60 second point in 45 seconds, so it seems a couple of weeks of hill training is starting to pay off.
Thursday then turned into a combined running and “Cross Training” day (Big Day Out), but more on that soon!


Friday was a well deserved and thoroughly enjoyed sleep in, followed by a drive back to Port from Sydney. Traffic was bad getting out of Sydney, so it took an extra half hour of so on expected travel time. Was good to be sitting down the whole time though!


Saturday 28km Long Run
After getting ahead of schedule with the double up Thursday I’m keeping it that way for the moment. This was my longest run ever, although that will be further stretched a few times over the coming months.

I ran along the Oxley Highway to the donut, up the highway to Cassegrain Winery, then Fernbank Creek Road to Hastings River Drive, Gordon St, Lord St and Kennedy Drive to home.

The Oxley Highway doesn’t exactly provide great running conditions with narrow, uneven shoulders and plenty of bends, but the quiet country road back road from Cassegrain more than made up for it. I’d ridden Fernbank Creek Rd on the motorbike before but it was a particularly nice section to run, apart from the dog “guarding” one of the properties. There was thick fog out and back from the highway, which kept things cool for the first couple of hours.

Once back in town the fog broke, making conditions hot and humid, so the last 40 minutes or so was a tough effort, especially the climb up Lord and Kennedy. I had my head down on the hill climbs and was beyond the point of caring that I could barely see out of my sunnies with the sweat dripping on the inside of them… there was no dry patch of clothing to wipe them off with anyway!

Had a gel at 1:35 and 2:20…didn’t feel much from the first one, but the second one seemed to give me a lift to finish off the run. Carried a 600ml sports drink plus water in the fuel belt, which I refilled on the way back.
The 28km actually came up over a kilometre from home, so I’d walk for a couple of minutes, then break into an easy jog for half a minute. Partly it was to get back home quicker, and partly as an exercise in getting myself moving again when my legs were tired and didn’t want to keep going. Unusually my quads were a little sore after this run, but I believe that’s the result of nearly 12 hours on my feet on Thursday.


Sunday is just supposed to include an easy 20-30 minute walk to loosen up, and so it shall be.