Under Six Weeks to Six Foot

Seems I'm not even managing quarterly posting. I’ll summarise and try to keep it brief.

The last few months of 2007 were very busy. Jodie had exams and full time prac for uni, we were both doing additional night/weekend work, and any spare time was spent with the kids.

I had a month and a half break from any form of exercise that began when we were all struck down with the flu and was extended by general tiredness and being so busy.

I made a return to the road in time to get a couple of weeks lead up to the Summer Twilight Series run at Earlwood in December hosted by Silverfox, which was enjoyable. I found it quite difficult breaking back into the running routine again for the first week or two. I just felt sluggish and it was a real struggle getting out of bed.

I finished 2007 with a total of 1631km which is 400km up on last year. Most of it was in the first half of the year, with the second six months contributing just 440km. I guess the lack of any real goals after the Macleay River Half could have contributed to that, as well as just generally wanting to sort out the hamstring and calf issues that had been hassling me.

Skipping forward to the present and I’m now in Week 9 of 14 of my Six Foot training program. Definitely not at the level I’d like to be at this stage in terms of the number of sessions per week and length of the longer runs.

I’ve been on a few long trail runs around the Queens Lake / Jolly Nose area just out of Bonny Hills, which is south of Port that I’ve really enjoyed. I did 3 hours 20 minute trail run just over a week and a half ago, after a 3 hours 10 minutes road run the weekend before that.

The long weekend just passed included a couple of trail runs. The first was two and a half hours on Saturday, and was quite possibly the best run I’ve ever had. I circumnavigated Jolly Nose Hill, including a climb to the top. There was pouring rain, a steep climb and descent battling a raging torrent of water, not a car or other person to cross paths with, and on the flatter sections was running comfortably at a good pace. It just felt really enjoyable. The other run was on Monday in an adjoining section of state forest for an hour and a half before heading up to Telegraph Point for some water skiing to give the arms, shoulders and hamstrings something to think about.

I’ll be heading to the Blue Mountains this weekend for the Megalong Mega. I’m looking forward to having a look at the track. Should be interesting, and it may give me an idea of a rough time goal to aim for come March.