A lazy Sunday …

I enjoyed the Storm game last night, them winning with a last minute try and conversion helped of course. It was very much like I remember the NBL games I used to go to, with the announcer getting the crowds going, the team mascots, cheerleaders, half time competitions etc. Certainly lots to keep you interested. Seeing those guys in real life, you realise even more how tough they are, it really is bone-crunching.

I didn’t get up until about 10:30am this morning, enjoyed a sleep-in, haven’t had one for a while.

Haven’t done much else either, a bit of reading, watched a bit of the footy, futzed on the computer, and got out for a 28km ride on the bike.

In yesterdays post I mentioned I’d bought a book, I thought I’d just mention it because I think it looks really good and might interest some of the other runners out there. It is “Born to Run – The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen” by Christopher McDougall. The sell-quote on the back says “Quite simply the best book you’ll ever read about running … brilliant, and brilliantly life-affirming”. It is the story of the authors adventures with the Tarahumara Indians of North America, who for centuries have practised techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest. I checked out Amazon and of the 86 customer reviews, 77 are 5-star, so I’m hoping it will be a good read. When read, I’ll post a review, but I have a few other books queued up on the nightstand at the moment, so it might be a while.

A good start to the tour last night for the teams I’m following, with Astana starting strongly with four riders finishing in the top ten, and leading the team classification. Cadel is fifth, and Saxobank have the yellow jersey with a strong ride from Fabian Cancellara. Stuart O’Grady and the boys will now have to control the peleton if they want to keep him in yellow.

Grand Depart

Tonights the night! The start of the 2009 Tour de France, and what a great tour it looks like being. I think 2009 could be one of the most interesting races for a little while. Why am I looking forward to 2009?

• Firstly, Lance Armstrong is back! Can he win? It will be tough but Lance is not someone you can ever write off. He seems confident and appears to be in great shape, is in probably the strongest team and is the ultimate champion in my mind.
• Secondly, Cadel Evans says he is more ready, better trained and had a better lead up than the previous two years where he has placed second. Competition is tougher this year I think, but so is Cadel.
• Thirdly – the team time trial is back. Stage 4 on July 7th in Montpellier is a 39km team time trial. I’ve always loved these, especially when it was Lance and the US Postal/Discovery Channel doing so well. I’m not sure why they decided to leave them out recently, but I’m glad it is back.
• Fourthly, it is going to be anybody’s race right to the end. With the penultimate stage including a climb up to Mont Ventoux this tour will be interesting to the end.

There are two teams I’d love to see crash and burn – Cervelo and Quickstep. Cervelo and last years winner Carlos Sastre played weird (Spanish) mateship politics in leaving out Aussie rider Simon Gerrans from their squad, naming some clearly (IMHO) inferior riders in their team, including one who is 40 years old. Gerrans who won a stage in last years tour, and also a stage in the recent Tour of Italy is very unlucky to miss out. Quickstep have omitted Tour Down Under winner Alan Davis from their squad, after fighting through the courts to have their druggy sprinter Tom Boonen cleared to ride. So, here’s hoping Sastre, Boonen and their whole damned teams crash and burn.

The omission of these two Aussie stars, primarily due to favouritism based on nationality is surely a good reason to be pushing for an Aussie team!

So which teams and riders would I like to see do well,

• Astana, with Armstrong, Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, Chris Horner, Yaroslav Popvych and Andreas Kloden look really strong.
• Silence Lotto and Cadel Evans, of course
• Columbia Highroad with another big Aussie chance in Michael Rogers, and also big George Hincapie, another of my all time favourite riders.
• Saxobank with Stuart O’Grady and the Schleck’s.

The ideal finish for me – Lance, Cadel and Michael Rogers on the podium in Paris, with (sorry guys) Lance in yellow. An eighth win would just be awesome. That though is a bit “pie in the sky” – what is more likely, probably Contador, Schleck, Evans – but it is anybody’s race.

Lots of late nights to come!

At weigh-in this morning I was back down into the 73s again, at 73.8kg.

A trip to the market including buying a new trolley (the old one was shot), and another shopping trip to highpoint where I got another birthday present from my darling wife, which was a lovely framed picture of the Geelong 2007 Premiership team. I also spent some of my birthday money – on a book and some DVDs – more on that later.

Tonight I’m going to see Melbourne Storm with Chris. My first NRL game, looking forward to it!

Another nice 8km run starts a busy day

Another nice, early, but very cold, 8km run with Deb before work this morning. Slow (5:41 min/km), but I really felt it, I had to sit down for a few minutes before my shower, to gather my strength.

As I said in my post last night, my knee was sore last night, so I popped an anti-inflam with tea. It was pretty good this morning, so I decided to run, and popped another pill with breakfast. I hope I’m not becoming drug dependant!

A busy day at work. With my team already decimated this year (4 contractors and 6 voluntary separations gone), today I had 2 on annual leave, 1 on home leave to the USA, 2 on sick leave, 2 on RDOs and 1 who never works Fridays. Consequently those of us that were there were stretched to say the least.

Goals

Mizfits latest post reminds us that we are half way through the year, and this is a great time to revisit our goals and see how we’re going. I’ve found setting some goals for the year, and posting them on the blog, and tracking progress has really helped me stay on track. So, I’ve just updated my 2009 goals page, and am happy to say that I think I’m still on track for the year. There are a couple of goals I think I may not achieve, but that’s ok, as long as you don’t get hung up on it, and start being negative about things there’s no harm. Sometimes circumstances change, so postpone the goal until next year, modify it a bit, remove it and add a new one. Whatever works for you. For me, I prefer to keep unmet goals up there on the list – with an explanation as to why it wasn’t achieved.

I had an early physio appointment this morning, so I got up early and headed in for a swim. As I didn’t have to head back to work I had plenty of time so I swam a little longer than normal, managing 100 laps (2.5km) in just over an hour. As I was getting out of the pool my left calf started to cramp really badly, I sunk back into the pool and stretched it out, then massaged it for a little while. A lot more stretching and massage in the spa, sauna and steam room over the following half an hour or so too. Then a coffee and read the paper, and still plenty of time to head off to see Katrina.

Katrina (physio) is so lovely, and really seems to know what she’s doing. She has a way of explaining stuff to me (as in how to properly do the exercises) that no-one else I’ve ever dealt with has. I explained how I was a bit disappointed with both knees having been sore at various times since the last visit. She thought my ITB was still really tight, so she did some dry needling. It was the first time I’ve had the pleasure of this, and I have to say it wasn’t anywhere near as painful as I thought it would be (based on the comments of others). She has also given me a whole new set of exercises to do. The knee is sore again tonight, not sure what from?

Better work shoes?

A 6km run tonight in the cold and wind, at 5:19 min/km. Knee is a little sore again, probably as I stopped taking the anti-inflams after the race on Sunday.

My knee has been getting a bit sore during the day too, I’m beginning to wish I had some work shoes (black business type) that had the same support as my runners. I’m sure the complete lack of support in my work shoes isn’t helping. Does anyone know if you can get business shoes that have that sort of support?

Seeing Katrina (physio) again tomorrow. I think she’ll be disappointed, I don’t think I’m progressed any since I last saw her.

Fifth

I’d packed my gear to head in for a swim this morning, so set the alarm for 5am. I woke up prior to the alarm going off and heard the wind and rain and decided that an extra hour and a half in bed seemed like a better idea. What a wimp eh?

The full race results were posted on the web today for Sunday’s Run Melbourne. I was happy with my PB time, but even happier to see I’d come 123rd (out of 3,558) overall, and 5th (out of 105) in my age group. Even considering that lots of the entrants are slower walkers, finishing in the top 4 or 5% is better than I normally do.

A relaxing home workout tonight with lots of self massage using my new physio roller, stretching as well as some core exercises and upper body free weights. All this accompanied by The Angels Live turned up nice and loud.

Monthly Summary

Running: 72 kms at 5:31 min/km (YTD 344 kms at 5:41 min/km)
Cycling: 196 kms at 23.2 kms/hr (YTD 2130 kms at 25.0 kms/hr)
Other: 3 swims and 18 home workouts

The most home workouts in a month since my training journal began, so feeling happy about that as the strength training and stretching has always been a weakness for me. Definitely spurred on by my realisation that I have to do this stuff to remain injury free. Amazing how a longish term injury can make you finally realise what is important.

No time …

No time for a long post tonight. I started playing Scrabble on Facebook and 3 hours seems to have passed!

A 20km easy ride tonight before darkness stopped me.

Run Melbourne 5km

Today was the Run Melbourne 5km race that I’d originally planned to run with Chris, but due to his ankle injury, was now running with workmate Voj. It was a 10am start, so no need for a really early alarm which was appreciated. As usual I was pretty organised, up, showered, breakfasted and ready to go too early. My knees felt pretty good, and a liberal lathering of Extra Strength Deep Heat warmed them up nicely. I parked at the RACV Club and walked down to meet Voj in Fed Square. He was 20 minutes later than our agreed time, but we still got to the start area with plenty of time to spare.

Pretty soon we were away and the first 500m was just pretty much run with the crowd. I have to admit as I ran up the hill towards the end of the first kilometre I started to think that I was going to struggle, but at the 1km marker the watch showed 4:46, just over the pace I was aiming at. The hill just before the Anderson St descent tested me too, and the pace slowed, but the 2km marker showed that I’d picked up the pace by a whole 1 second.

Going down the Anderson St hill I lost Voj. I wasn’t sprinting down the hill as some were, because it kills my knees, so I wasn’t actually sure if I’d lost Voj behind or if he’d gone ahead (I found out later he stopped to tie a shoelace).

When the Garmin beeped for 3km, and I saw I’d run that kilometer in 4:30 I started to think that I was going okay. The undulations as we ran across the Rod Laver footbridge and the William Barak Bridge felt tough but I managed to sustain the pace pretty well, finishing the last two kilometres in 4:33 and 4:34 respectively.

So, splits of 4:46, 4:45. 4:30, 4:33 & 4:34, for an unofficial time of 23:17, an average pace of 4:38 min/km and a new 5km PB by approximately 50 seconds depending on the official time.

Even though this is probably still a bit of a soft 5km PB, given my recent preparation, and the fact that a few days ago I wasn’t sure if I’d make the run, it is a result I’m really pleased with.

Voj came in a few minutes behind me, we got through the very efficiently manned race goodies stations and headed up to The Transport for a pint!

Knees are feeling okay, I’m sitting here in my Skins watching Geelong vs Port Adelaide.

Edit: 25km “recovery ride” on the bike just finished.

Edit: Just got the SMS from Start To Finish, official time 23:15, PB by 48 seconds.

New kit

Victoria Market as normal to start the day off, then after lunch I went back into the city on my own to spend some birthday money. I managed to deplete my Rebel Sport gift cards to almost a zero balance with a new pair of Skins long tights and a new pair of Thorlo running socks. I tried on some 2XU compression tights, and deliberated for a while over them vs Skins, but in the end decided to stick to what I know seems to work for me and bought the Skins. So, it’ll be nice to have some new kit for tomorrows race, but pity Rebel Sport don’t sell new knees, because I think mine are going to make tomorrows 5km just a bit of a jaunt, rather than a PB assault, but I’ll see how they feel in the morning. I’m running it with Voj (workmate) who has stepped in for Chris whose ankle is still not recovered enough to run unfortunately.

An easy 18km on the bike this afternoon just to keep the legs moving. It seems to help my knees a bit, more so than sitting around anyway.

74.7kg this morning, so weight is pretty steady.

Good luck to everyone else running tomorrow, especially those running their first half marathon – the feeling as you cross that finish line will be wonderful – enjoy it!

RIP Farrah

I was sad to hear that Farrah Fawcett lost her battle with cancer overnight. As a teenager I was a huge fan of Charlie’s Angels and loved her as Jill Munroe. The picture above was originally published in Time magazine and is the biggest selling pin-up poster of all time.

Rest in peace, Farrah.

Today was my day-off and Adrienne and I went up to Bendigo to see the 2009 Archibald Prize finalists which were on display at the Bendigo Art Gallery. My favourite (by a long way) and also the People’s Choice winner was Vincent Fantauzzo’s portrait of Brandon Walters (the young aboriginal actor who played opposite Nicole Kidman in Australia). It was a stunning portrait over 2 metres wide, so life-like it almost seemed to speak to you. I’m not sure what the judges were thinking not giving it the 2009 Archibald Prize – it was clearly the best entry (IMHO).

We had a lovely lunch at the Bendigo Gallery cafe (I had a chicken, cashew, pumpkin and cherry tomato rissotto which was beautiful), then had a walk around the Bendigo city centre. On the way home we stopped at the Rebel sport and I got a foam roller (been looking locally all week, unsuccessfully), so I can start doing some of the massage exercises physio Katrina wants me to do. We stopped at Malmsbury for coffee and cake on the way home (Malmsbury is one of our favourite little spots – it seemed wrong to drive past!).

I decided that a gentle bike ride might be the best thing for the knees, and managed 25km in just under an hour before darkness set in. The knee is still sore, but improved over yesterday.