Sore knee again …

I don’t know what I’ve done, but I’ve got a bloody sore knee again. It must have been something at gym yesterday, because I haven’t run for a couple of days, and it was sore last night and today. I was going to go for a nice easy bike ride tonight, but when I got home revised that further to nothing. So, my only exercise was a walk to the freezer to get out the ice pack!

Only yesterday on Deege’s blog we were commenting about how things always seem to happen, or you get paranoid, just before a race, so I’d say this week might be an easy week getting it right again for the Great Train Race next Sunday.

Bugger!

Monthly Summary

This month has been a really light month running wise, but has my biggest month ever for cycling, and also I had the Boot Camp for the whole month. It is the second biggest month since I started my training journal in terms of hours spent exercising, and the biggest month ever in terms of calories burnt.

Running
116km for the month (611km YTD), 13 runs, average distance 8.9km, average pace 5:23min/km

Cycling
327km for the month (661km YTD), 15 rides, average distance 21.8km, average pace 24.8km/hr

Gym
10 sessions for the month, 9 of these were Boot Camp.

Swim
Only 2 sessions for the month, pool is closed for renovations.

Back down to one dog …

Started off the day with a gym session, followed by breakfast. At the gym did the warm-up and cool-down on the treadmill, used a few machines (lat pull-down, leg press, cable pull, chin-up) as well as lots of free weights (shoulder press, upright row, bicep curls, flys, chest press) and some swiss ball ab work, also a quick session on the rower, and of course finished off with some stretches.

Mum and dad came for lunch and picked up Daisy (their dog we’ve been looking after), I think Jackie is much happier now she is again the unchallenged master of her territory!

This afternoon we went over to the local shopping centre (Adrienne, Chris and I) and increased our ownership in the local JB Hifi. I bought a DVD of the 2005 Tour de France. I’ve just finished reading “Chasing Lance”, a book about it. The 2005 Tour was of course, Lance’s last and his 7th win. So, instead of going for a ride this afternoon, I got lazy and watched the DVD.  Those guys are amazing athletes.

For tea tonight we had some great chicken and corn soup Adrienne made, as well as some wonderful toasted pana de casa bread with feta cheese and grilled tomato. Yum.

A bike ride and a short run …

An interrupted nights sleep last night, as for the last few nights, due to dratted mosquitoes. Not sure why, but we seem to have them regularly in the house. There is nothing worse than being woken from a deep sleep by that horrible mossie noise in your ear. The bleary-eyed mossie patrol around the bedroom and adjoining rooms found two of the little buggers.

We’ve been looking after my mum and dads dog for the last few days, so maybe having two dogs there has been more going in and out of doors and that’s let them in, other than that maybe it’s just a seasonal thing. Anyone else had mossies too?

This morning we hit the Vic Market as normal, doing the normal route and picking up mostly the usual items. We are very predictable, always following the same route through the various parts, and largely frequenting the same stalls. One lovely little Asian girl at one of the stalls (the lolly shop), even knows what we want every week. This morning she said as we walked up, “Hello, muesli cookies, licorice blocks and 300g of frogs”. How sad is that to be that boring and predictable! Today we bought some beautiful Gippsland extra tasty cheese, and I had the best cheese and pickle sandwich for lunch (on beautiful Four Grain Rye bread).

After lunch we took both dogs for a walk. It is amazing the difference between the two. Jackie, our dog, has to be dragged around as she wants to stop and sniff everything in site. Daisy, my mum and dad’s dog, on the other hand pulls you around.

Went for a bike ride after that – 24.5km in just on an hour. Ride from Greenvale to Tullamarine, then back up that Shankland Valley Trail to Roxburgh Park and back home – the same trail I do on a Thursday night with Ian. After picking Kate up from work and having a cup of tea, I decided I wanted a run as well, so went for a 7.5km fairly quick (for me anyway) run in just over 35 minutes (4:44 pace). It felt good, although the quads felt a bit rubbery after the bike ride, but felt like a good workout the ride and run combined.

I was going to do some weights and stuff tonight too, but Cheryl (workmate and usual swim partner) and I have decided we are going to hit the gym tomorrow morning in place of the swim (pool is closed for renovations), so I’ll save the weights until tomorrow.

So, the rest of the night will be spent relaxing in front of the TV (hopefully awake), watching The Bill, Rockwiz and Parkinson (he has the guys from Little Britain on, and Elton John and Bernie Taupin, so it should be a good show).

Edit: I should add, as I’m doing this blogging tonight I’m listening to Deege’s live CD, and it is great to be listening something different, and Deege, a few tracks I really like from people I’ve never heard of – I guess that’s what it was all about – a great idea you had!

Boot Camp Day 12

Well, I survived Boot Camp as today was the last day. He did punish us again though, I thought we may have got off easy on the last day. We started off doing the three things we did at the start of day 1 (push-ups to exhaustion, sit-ups until exhaustion and our sprint lap of Flagstaff Gardens). I managed to do significantly better in the push-ups and sit-ups, and cut 12 seconds off the roughly 1km sprint so that wasn’t too bad. Afterwards we had a group breakfast which was nice too – healthy of course! I have sore stomach muscles tonight though (from the exercises, not the breakfast).

My main aim in doing the Boot Camp was to get back into the habit of morning exercise so I guess it remains to be seen if that has worked. Only the next few weeks will tell!

Thanks for the kind words from some of you on yesterdays post – I did mean what I said.

I finally got my hands on the May Runner’s World today, and am happy with the article and photo – it is rare for me to be happy with a photo of myself, but I don’t mind that one. The article is true to what I told Julia (not that I expected anything else).

Hobbles, I’m sorry if you were bumped for me – I don’t know why that would be the case – you’re much better looking than me – maybe it was because I gave the Ausrun forum a good mention?

Eat’Em – I decided that is far too late to start running hills now – I think I’d do more damage than good. So it is a soft PB setting run this year, then hill training to smash it next year.

No other exercise today other than Boot Camp.

One year today …

Today is my one year anniversary of joining the Ausrun forum. This last year has been one of the best I can remember, largely because of the enjoyment and satisfaction I have found in my running. You wonderful, generous people that make up the Ausrun  community have played a huge part in this.

Your advice, support, encouragement and friendship over the last year has meant an awful lot to me, more than you can realise, and has contributed a tremendous amount to my improvement over that time.

I am confident that if it was not for reading the race reports, and understanding from them the satisfaction you were all feeling from competing, that I would not have attempted my first fun run at R4K last year. Getting myself to that first race, and feeling the buzz (that you had all described) was all it took to get me hooked.

At subsequent races, meeting up with many of you pre-race and post-race has added to the enjoyment tremendously. It is amazing how you can be lonely amongst 1,000’s of people – having some friendly faces makes a world of difference.

You have helped with training advice from form and technique to plans and mental aspects. You have helped me with equipment advice from compression leggings and shoes to electronic gadgets.

I have taken a lot of inspiration from many of you, reading about the amazing efforts you all give, the startling results some of you have had and the wonderful strength of character many of you have shown when hit by disadvantages from bad luck to injury.

I have not come across a friendlier, more generous group of people than you guys, ever, you are all terrific.

You got me into this lark (blogging), which I love too.

Again, thank-you all, you are an inspirational group of people.

Todays exercise was a bike ride after work with Ian. From work (Tullamarine) up to Roxburgh Park, then back through Greenvale and Westmeadows – all up just over 28km in 1 hour 19 minutes.

And that dratted magazine is still not in the newsagents.

A lazy Anzac Day…

After not getting home until after 1am from work last night, I had a bit of a sleep in this morning, something I rarely do, but it was really nice to doze for a while (well until after 10am if we’re being honest) this morning.

After breakfast I mowed the lawns and tidied up the front garden a bit. Although the lawn has had almost no water for over a year now, it is amazing how little patches of it can still grow quite tall and look really untidy isn’t it.

What a glorious day it was today, absolutely stunning weather. After lunch Adrienne and I took Jackie for a walk around the Maribynong River, there were heaps of people out walking, running, riding bikes, roller blading – it was a lovely walk.

Before tea I went for my run, the start of which felt really ugly – for some reason I didn’t seem to be able to get my breathing right and really struggled. After the first couple of k’s though things improved a bit and it turned into a reasonable run – 12.5km at 5:03 pace.

OMG, I’ve just read the Ausrunner Sightings thread on Ausrun forum, and apparently I’m in the new issue of Runner’s World. Back in late January, Julia Thorn contacted me and said she was interviewing some runners whose first fun run was last years R4K.  I really didn’t think it would eventuate though – and now (because I don’t subscribe) – I’ll have to wait for a few days to see what sort of a dork I look like.

A late meeting …

Just a short post tonight, as I’m told the computer is wanted by others, so I’ll be catching up on everyone else’s Blogs tomorrow too.

Exercise today was just under 21km bike ride tonight in about 44 minutes, I really would have liked to have gone longer, but ran out of light again (bring back daylight savings) – but average speed wise it was one of the fastest rides I’ve done – averaging well over 28km/hour. Stupid woman driver turned left across in front of me tonight, some people really have no respect for other road users, especially cyclists. It does make you realise you are pretty vulnerable out cycling.

Unfortunately I have a late teleconference meeting tonight (11pm-1am), and have decided to go back into work for it. For shorter ones I often do it from home, but for long ones it is easier, and less disruptive to the rest of the family, to go back into work. Lots of my colleagues complain about American insensitivity to time zones, but in my opinion when you’re attending a meeting and there’s 20-25 Americans, and 1 or 2 from Europe & Asia Pacific, it doesn’t make any sense to get 20-25 people in America to work outside of hours to make it more convenient for 1 or 2.

Received my first Ausrun CD Exchange package today (from Deege) – exciting – haven’t had a chance to listen yet though.

Boot Camp Day 11

Another tough morning at Boot Camp, again at Flagstaff Gardens. After jogging up there, we had to do 50 squats, 20 push-ups, 20 sit-ups, then lunge-walk about 100 metres, then we had do a sprint lap of the gardens (1km). Upon return, we then repeated that, for a total of 5 times. Well, Simon and I did 5 times, the others did 4, that’s what you get for being a bit faster! To put it politely, I was stuffed.

Then when I went to get my gear out of the bag in the change room, I realised I hadn’t brought any clean jocks, singlet or socks! Duh! Fortunately I had my bathers and a spare pair of sports socks (not a good look though with your work pants). Anyway, Adrienne was kind enough to drop some in to work after she dropped Kate at school, so it wasn’t for too long.

A fairly ordinary, but not bad, day at work.

After work I went for a ride on the bike, did just over 25km in about 56 minutes. Tonight was a good example of Andrew’s Rule No 1 of cycling that I posted on Celestes blog the other day, it states;

No matter what direction the wind is blowing, or what direction you are cycling, you are always riding into the wind.

Well, at least that’s how it seems to me!

Anyway, today was another 1,000+ calorie day. Does that mean I can have some chocolate tonight? I just noticed there is some in the cupboard

I am doing my blogging now as I am going to make a concerted effort not to watch Big Brother this season. It will undoubtedly be on in this house, but I will be trying not to watch it.

Edit: Jaykay has some nice photos of yesterdays GTR training run on her blog.

Definitely not hill-ready !

I joined a few other Ausrunners and CoolRunners this morning at 8am at Belgrave for a “Great Train Race” training run, and as a result have decided I am definitely not hill-ready (that is, nowhere near enough hill running preparation). After reviewing my heart rate figures, I think my state of unreadiness is as much mental as it is physical. We began at Belgrave Fire Station, close to the actual race start, and as I understand it, except for avoiding the main road near the start (which is closed for the actual race), ran pretty much along the actual race course. The main group planned to run the actual course in both directions (there and back), approximately 26km, but when Courtly Love (Coolrunner) decided at the 7km mark that she was going to turn back, I decided to join her, so I had a 14km run through the hills, in about an hour and a half. With a few stops on the way out, and a few walk breaks included, the average pace was around the 7 minute/km mark, but I think most of the actual running was around the 6 minute/km mark or a bit over. In a nutshell, I found the hills very demanding, physically and mentally – some of them seemed to go on for ever (but in fact the longest one was only 2.2km). Physically, I found the downhills as demanding on my legs and especially my knees.

I’m really glad I went though because I will at least be a bit more prepared (mentally) on race day, knowing what to expect at least. I revised my expectations / goals somewhat too, I actually thought I had a chance of beating the second train, now I think I’ll just be happy to finish in one piece. I guess at least I can set a nice soft PB, incorporate some hill training into my plan, and smash it next year.

It was nice to meet a few more faces too. Participants were TigerBoy, Chilliman, Nimrod, Eat’em, Supersam, Duckgirl, Jaykay, Kai li, Courtly Love and one other Coolrunner whose name I’m afraid I didn’t catch (sorry).

Other than that a fairly quiet Sunday.

A lovely run in the rain …

Started off down the Victoria Market for our normal Saturday shopping and came home with all the usual treats. We ran into Adrienne’s oldest sister at the market, who we hadn’t seen for a while so that was an unexpected pleasure.

How nice to finally see some rain, let’s hope for lots more, and that the poor farmers actually get some too – they need it more than we do! I had planned a nice long bike ride today, but as it was raining changed the plan to a run. I think I’ve said before, I love running in the rain, and today was just right – nice steady rain, but not too cold, and not driving rain that can be a pain to run in. I wore my glasses on the run, and I think it is a real toss up between running with no glasses, and running with them on in the rain, as to which I can see better. I know some of you are just about to suggest contact lenses, but I can’t bear the thought of them so don’t bother. I even get the shivers seeing others take them in and out. Anyway, it was a beautiful 8km run at 5:44 pace.

After the run spent a couple of hours finishing burning the CDs for the Ausrun CD exchange, and writing some cover notes and labeling the CD mailers, so you other CD exchangers out there, mine should be in the mail early next week. I think you’ll hate all of them, but oh well, I guess that’s what this is all about hey, trying something different.

At todays weigh-in weight and body fat were almost the same as last week, well inside the goal limits.

Speaking of body fat, I read a thread on Ausrun today about bad food choices, and Em posted a chocolate chip pancake coated sausage on a stick. I saw the disgusting thing below in the Sun last week. I was going to post on Ausrun but am having trouble with my PhotoBucket account, so am going to do it here instead. This “food item”, and I use the term loosely, is available at some pub in Fitzroy, and is called the “Bogan Burger” – you’d have to be a bogan to buy it I think.

The burger is on big turkish bread and contains a steak, a chicken schnitzel, a potato cake, bacon, egg, cheese, onion, pineapple and beetroot. The burger comes with a mountain of fatty potato wedges. It is estimated to contain 7000 kilojoules and about 94g of fat. You might think no-one in their right mind would buy this, but apparently they are selling about 15 a day. Why, I ask myself, why would anyone do that to their insides ?