King of the Mountain 16km ; 5th in 1:02:55

Really, really cold. The car said -2 degrees at Mundaring Weir. There was a bit of a breeze too to add some zing. Standing on the start in my Strands singlet waiting for the off I thought my nuts were going to fall off – I was starting to feel hungry as well – whoops! I also had a scratchy throat from being out the night before in a really load pub to celebrate a few folk’s recent races and a commencement of their time off. Didn’t really have an opportunity to do much of a warm-up, so a little after my Torq+Guarana Gel we were off.

Felt OK at first but soon the cold was starting to hurt my lungs – I was hoping it would pass and it did, but only after about 10k. Again I started to feel a bit stronger as it went on. A good turnout for the race ; Ingraham, Busi(!), Lee, Stockwell, Fuery etc.

The first creek was much lower than in previous years, so I only really got one foot wet ; the other a bit damp... was confused by the marshall direction here so lost about 10 seconds going the wrong way, so unfortunately lost touch with Liam. I'm easily confused when it's 2 degrees and I'm running hard.

I was overtaken by a couple of guys mid-way through, but I never let them get too far ahead ; It was weird, there was a string of 5 of us – the gaps lengthened down the hills, but compressed up the hills. About 5k from the finish I could tell that Stockwell and a couple of others were starting to struggle up the hills, and the line started to break up a bit.

I managed to pick off the first two to move into 6th,and then just before the big hill to the finish I overtook Stephen. I fully expected him and the stronger of the other two to flash past at any point. They never did ; the guy behind was struggling as much as I was and I managed to hold him off, and Stephen ended up being 15 seconds back.

Thrilled with the run in the end, I didn’t feel too flash but stuck it out and got a result. 11 minutes quicker than my effort in 2007 – admittedly that was 3 weeks after my first marathon.

Its a great event, with a good atmosphere and a nice breakfast supplied at the finish. It’s a tough run – the elevation profile doesn’t do it justice – its pretty bumpy with a lot of steep ups and downs. The Choo-Choo was ideal preparation though, I reckon it helped me outlast runners who would normally beat me.

Perth Relay Marathon - a win!

Fantastic run today. Felt really good right from the start. Simon Elliot gave our team a great lead-off, and Biscuitman backed up with an excellent second leg – I reckon he had the worst of the conditions. I was a 3:47 minutes adrift of first place and 7 seconds off second when I set off for my two legs - from Troy Park back to the finish, but figured all I could do was hit my pace, not burn out, and see what happened.see what happened.

Went into second place after about a k and just kept hitting my kms at a good pace - they didn't vary too much. Had a few problems getting past the 3:30 bus ; I had to wait behind runners for oncoming relay and marathoner, so the run was a little fartlekky for the first 8k or so until I got clear. Hit the changeover in 34 minutes (making the last leg ~32:45), and saw Jim Langford anxiously looking for his runner - the guy who *was* in second. At this point I was just over 2 minutes behind. Jim's guy was still 5 minutes away...

Just about had a heart attack when I saw the leading runner about 200m ahead with about 3.5 km to go. I could see that I was reeling him in quickly, so I relaxed, tried to go really really quietly and then went past him. I knew who it was and that all I had to do was maintain my 3:37’s and it was all over ; we won in the end by over a minute and a half.

Splits:
4:19(to 24k mark)/3:32/3:34/3:41/3:36/3:41/7:24(2k)/
3:38/3:35/3:39/3:40/3:37/3:37/3:35/3:35/0:41(195m)

18.6km in 1:06:45 (3:35 min/km)
9.4km Leg 3: 34:00 (3:37)
9.2km Leg 4: 32:45 (3:34)

Great team effort, and we ran the time I thought we would – 2:35:02. Didn’t beat the leading solo marathoner, but it was close. Roberto Busi had a great run and won it in 2:32. That’s next year’s target…..

Iron man

Just got the result from the blood test done Wednesday last week ; Ferritin up from 37μg/l to 101μg/l. I'll probably have another test in a few weeks to see how well I'm holding on to it, but that's the highest Fe level I've had since my 55μg/l from 3 years ago - I hadn't had it tested before that...

Choo Choo run

Fantastic day for it - thanks to Sandgroper for the organisation and the transport. This run is really tough but is definitely one you remember for a while ... Biscuitman covered it in some detail so I won't just repeat that. Suffice to say, this is a run where you park a car at North Dandelup train station, run 35km up the Darling scarp along some very technical and rolling trail and then down to Serpentine where you catch the Bunbury train from back to N Dandelup and the car.

 Credit has to go to both those guys who (on paper anyway) were underprepared for it in different ways, but both handled it  really well. SG has only one long run under his belt  for the last year, and Biscuitman has done no hill or trail running for a looong time. Both are obviously really fit and mentally tough though - you have to be to get through this run - and came through with flying colours. Biscuitman and I averaged around 4 min/k for the last 9k and SG was only just behind, and had enough to do a little extra at the finish! I could feel my quads disintegrating on the last downhill, but there was little I could do about it!

Biscuitman is looking really good for the GCM in three weeks, looking forward to seeing how he goes then, and, more importantly, in the Marathon Relay next Sunday ;-) Sandgroper has the Warsaw marathon in September and is already in great shape - he should have a cracker.

Quote of the day:

Sugar: "This is where we saw the carpet python last year, wasn't it?"
SG: "Yeah, this really is snake country. After you...."

Course map is here, and elevation profile on my Polar below. Close to 700m of climbing.

                      Distance         Duration        Pace              Speed
5 week avg.* 102.78 km    07:14:08      04:13 min/km   14.21 km/h
Last week        118.34 km    08:23:56      04:15 min/km   14.09 km/h
Change           +15.13%       +16.08%    -0.82%             -0.82%

Elleker HM : 2nd in 1:17:20

It's been a while. Most of my training's on Strands these days. A brief recap ; 6x1000m with 3 min jog recoveries on Tuesday after, then aother 12km tempo run on Thursday. That should have got my threshold running up to date ! A 26k long run in Denmark on road and trail @ 4:18 pace, a tough Mona session on the inlet trail on Tuesday arvo, a 12km easy run on Wednesday, the crappest recovery run ever on Thursday morning, followed by an 8km tempo run on Thursday on the inlet, and two much better recoveries friday and saturday before the race on Sunday. In retrospect, the thursday tempo was too long by a couple of ks, but the recovery in the morning was such a disaster, i needed a confidence boost. How fragile is the mind...

The weather Sunday was perfect. I was hoping to run 1:16:xx, but it didn't quite work out. Darren Jenkins took off at the start, too fast for me and he quickly established a 20m lead. He settled after that and a stuck to him, albeit about 10 seconds back, that's pretty much how it was the whole race. I found it hard to find my rythm early, but ground it out trying to hold my pace and concentrating on my 3-2 breathing so as not to go too hard. This is a nice course of two laps with gentle ups and downs with a short sharp hill about 6km into the lap. Course map here.

By half way I managed to find some rythm, but that was quickly blown by the water bottle retrieval at the drinks table. I left a special drink so i could take a gel, but had to pretty much stop at the table and go back around the water helpers to get back on the course. Struggled to get the gel and water in while retaining pace so lost a at leat 10-15 sec on this split. Soon found rythm again and started to feel stronger as the final lap progressed. I felt I was catching the leader, albeit slowly. Last 5k was tough, and the hill took a bit out of my legs, but out of Darren's too.Charged in, and ended up only 9 seconds adrift in 1:17:20.

Splits: 10.55/10.55 : 38:40 / 38:40
                         5k : 18:00 / 18:31 / 18:31 / 18:26 / 3:49 (1.1km)
                       10k : 36:31 / 36:57 / 3:49 (1.1km)