Week of 15/12 ; 3000m time trial

Monday: 10.12km easy ; 4:42 pace, HR 142 Ca 83. Nice easy run from Kings Park with Sangroper73 and Sas. Down Malcom St, along Mounts Bay Rd, and back up to the park. Warm (20°) and humid (90%), lovely conditions for an easy run. Legs felt great, wouldn't have thought I'd raced yesterday - probably a bad sign for the 3kTT at Perry Lakes tomorrow ;-)  As expected after washing, the HR belt really played up (HR is a guess) - that's why I never wash the thing. It was becoming a bit of a biohazard though.

Tuesday: 3000m in 9:58.4 ; HR 182 Ca 91. Perry Lakes Stadium. Very happy with the run. Conditions were warm and quite windy up the home straight. Speed graph looks a bit like a yo-yo! Ran most of the race in the 2nd lane outside Gina Grayson-Cassey with Tony Stahl sitting in the 'hole' behind us. Coach John Kappler was setting the pace in our little group until he pulled away with a couple to go. At this point Gina fell back a little and Tony pulled ahead - I tried to stay with him but the legs had been sucked dry by the wind. Must learn to draft! I looked at the clock coming round the last bend and it said 9:40, and I really had to dig to scrape under the 10 minute target. Winning time as ~9:40 with JK 10 seconds ahead of me & Tony about 5 ; Gina may have just made the sub-10, I'm not sure... Epi did very well (10:35)  as did training partner Sas who ran 11:15. My splits were 38, 77, 79, 80, 81, 84, 82, 77. Fantastic experience and keen to do some more track stuff!

Wednesday: 30km bike ride. No idea on the HR because it was all over the place. Eventful ride. First two adult black swans looked like they were trying to cross the freeway on-ramp under the Narrows - black birds crossing a major road in shadows ? Not a good idea. Herded them back up the path so they would use the underpass.... then just before the UWA boat shed on the Mounts Bay Rd bike path, some idiot on a bike coming towards me took a swing at me because I dared stray  5 cm over the centre line. It's a little narrow on the UWA-bound side, and quite wide on the other. I daresay a rebuke was probably in order, but I obviously ruined this guy's day, and he deemed it necessary to take stern action. Not sure how his day would have been improved if he'd connected....

Wednesday pm: Cycled (uneventfully) to the club (12.68km) in 24 minutes with a fresh SW wind at my back. Cycled back in 29 minutes with a fresh SW wind in my face. My hope that the wind would die down for the return was ill-founded.... tough ride.

Thursday am: 9.85km easy ; 4:29 pace, Ca85. Frantic morning so left HR belt at home. Legs felt a little heavy (esp. the quads) at the start due to the tough bike ride about 9 hours previous, and matters weren't helped byu the fresh easterly as we headed towards the Causeway. Loosened up as we got going, and felt a lot better coming back. Speed steadily increased as the circuit went on.Could almost call it a progression run - first 4k avg 4:35; last 5.8 km avg 4:25. May give the legs a rest this afternoon...

Thursday pm: 12.15km MP ; 4:15 pace HR 159 Ca 84. Couldn't resist taking the new Mizuno Wave Inspires out for a spin - and they felt pretty good. Hot (29°) and windy (SSW26/32), ran the usual course down to Attadale past the kite surfers and back. Actually felt better running into the wind, it got very hot when I turned around and lost the a/c. Last couple of k's the HR started to shoot up as it got a little tough. Skulled a litre of Gatorade with extra salt (mmmm...) when I got back. Think I may have got a little dehydrated...

Saturday: 25Km Long run ~1:56 ; 4:39 pace HR 145 Ca 82. Pretty warm and humid(16/91%) and had a short sharp shower - nice and sweaty by the end! Up to ZigZag carpark from Darlington via the creek crossing near the Lower Helena Dam (and return) (map). Cracking run. Sandgroper came out early and left some drinks at the turnaround - fantastic! Got to the turnaround in about an hour and came back in about 56 minutes. Great hills on this run in both directions, mostly the gradient is pretty kind. Had some green tea and a banana before the start, and a Powerade at the turnaround. Resisted the tempation to use a gel and felt pretty good considering. Pretty spent by the end though as Sandgroper pushed the pace and the HR hit the mid 170's on the climb back to Darlington.

Sunday: 30km bike ride, HR 100. Nice relaxing ride to see Kim et al. at the Masters' Xmas run. They'd just started when I got there, so cycled back to Atomic for a takeaway. After the festivities cycled back. Did some harder along with the cruising to get the HR up, esp with and into the wind on the way up/down the f/way.

In summary, 72km this week incl two races - ave pace 4:24 (dropped the stupid 'easy otherwise' from the title of this weeks saga). Next week will try to ease off - short tempo, no second run on Thursday. Will do the Parlouf on the 26th though.