Week of 23/3 ; 4 weeks to go

Last big week before the taper. Getting there...

Monday: 14.65km Easy @4:35 HR 144 Ca87 15°C 87% NE7/11. Did the normal tempo route up and over Kings Park down to the end of the Law Walk and back to the Aberdare path but at an easy pace. Felt pretty easy going up the hills but started to get a little tired and sore after about 10k after the return up Forrest Drive - it came and went though and I guess had a lot to do with the fact that I only had green tea this morning and was staring to run out of fuel. I ran long because I want to keep the mileage up for this last week before hitting the taper. Feeling tired but happy....

Tuesday am: 9.59km Recovery @ 4:48 HR 138 Ca 87 14°C 94% NE10/15. Needed a nice gentle recovery run this morning, and once again took a couple of k's for the legs to get with the program. Felt Ok on this, but not quite as easy as it perhaps should have been. Hopefully (as in the past) this will get the blood going and into recovery mode. Stupidly I didn't put my skins on until mid-morning yesterday and I think I'm paying for it. Not looking forward to intervals, hopefully it won't be as bad as last week! On a plus, my leg is feeling a little better - a friend suggested that instead of the heel lift I wear two insoles in the right shoe. I had a theory that because my existing heel lift is a wedge the slightly downhill slope of the foot is extending the tibialis anterior and perhaps is being overloaded with the bigger mileage. I'll try this for a week and see what happens ; if I feel even the slightest tweak anywhere the old lift goes back though... but that's two runs and so far, so good.

Tuesday pm: WAMC Intervals ; (400;200JR;400;200JR;200)x4. Was a little nervous about this session because I found last week's so tough, but actually went a lot better than I expected. I felt like I was actually moving pretty well even though there was a bit of congestion and a lot of the session was in lanes 2 to 3, which explains the fairly average times.

78, 79, 39

79, 80, 38

77, 77, 37

79, 78, 37

All up 10.5km.

Wednesday: 12.02km Recovery @ 4:47 HR 137 Ca 87 16°C 97% SSE7/13. Ran the standard Maylands loop with Sas on a very nice morning. Felt fatigued but OK. Slow start but we ended up clipping along quite nicely for the last 8k. It really was lovely out there. Finished it off with a bit of a stretch and a four-shot macchiato.

Thursday am: 19.5km Easy @ 4:22 HR 149 Ca 87 18°C 63% E17/24. Ran with Sas from the Swan Bells to UWA up and around the Park then back to the bells. Nice morning, a little muggy at the start but it was nice in the park. Felt pretty good today after a few k's and was running pretty easy. HR a couple of beats higher than last week but it was also 7 degrees warmer. Leg was better, and I didn't feel it at all except for the start, and even then it wasn't so bad. I went back to the wedge heel lift because my left glutes were a bit antsy yesterday after a day at the office desk. Encouraging signs that with a bit of rest in the taper the leg will by 100% by race day.

Thursday pm: 10k @ 3:55 HR 166 Ca89 30°C 38% SW19/22. Went a lot better this week although the footpod said I was going slower than I was, so ended up again going a bit fast. I find this one hard to judge because of the residual fatigue from the morning. It was substantially hotter this week (felt the same really!) so I'm happy with the workout. It's a hilly course especially in the last 4k and I really feel hammered by the time I have a k to go, but then it's downhill/flat and I recovered pretty well. Ran a cooldn to the dog park where a sad farewell was bid to one of Zoe's best friends. All up 11.3km.

Friday: 7.92km Recovery @ 4:50 HR 134 Ca87 15°C 96% SE10/15. Dragged myself out the door on a lovely morning and soon started enjoying it. The Canning/Mt Henry river loop is finally open again.. its a good distance for recovery runs. Legs felt tired beforehand and definitely rejuvented by the effort.

Saturday am: 33.72km @ 4:43 HR 147 Ca 87 14°C 82% SW15/22. Ran the pipeline with Sas and Biscuitman without the fast finish this time. We were about a minute ahead of last time up to Mundaring, so got to Jacoby Park in 1:25 and then 31 minutes up the hill to Mundaring. I felt pretty good up to that point - only took a gel at Jacoby and had a green tea and an 'up and go' beforehand. Felt a little fatigued and sore (all over, so in a good way!) on the way down the hill at the end. We were a few minutes slower there - intentionally ; it was nice just to enjoy it. I also think we were all starting to feel the effects of a fairly gruelling program so we took it easy. It's good to have the last long run done - no more runs over 2 hours!

Saturday pm: 7.92km @ 4:34 HR 146 Ca 87 27°C 52% SSW41/50. Ran the river loop from home. Interesting run ; felt a bit fatigued at first and my leg was a bit sore which was surprising because I didn't feel it this morning (but maybe not surprising because of the history).  It was windy and quite hot so the first bit was tough,  but once I got to the Mt Henry bridge and had a bit of a tailwind and shade I felt great, so picked up the pace to almost MP by the time I was finished, even managing to  power into the wind a bit on the final k.

Sunday: 10.9km easy @ 4:43 HR140 19°C 58% ESE28/37. Ran a slightly different loop from East Perth to Maylands and back. Went really slow at first but again ended up going along quite nicely and had to reign myself in to preserve myself for the last nasty tempo tomorrow. It was warmer than I expected but I had a decent run.

Fairly massive week (138km) and the 7-day total peaked at 148km on Saturday - 30 day total is 558km. Feeling good but a little tired (!).

Week of 16/3 ; 5 weeks to go

This is the week of the Darlington Half which I feel is a key run for Boston because of the strong downhill finish. The program for this week is the same as usual only just a short run Saturday with the Half on Sunday except the HM being a tempo instead of the Monday effort.

Monday: 14.58km Tempo @ 3:58 HR 166 18°C 81%. Ran from Aberdare Rd on the western path of King's Park up past Stickybeaks, up Fraser, down Forrest, across Lovekin up the bike path to the Synergy Parkland and back for about 58 minutes of tough tempo running (map). Ran this one on green tea and ½ a choc UpandGo (mmm... doesn't taste too different from Mocha). Very happy with the way it went (no nausea - I think I'm past that too) and I definitely feel now that things have come good. It was warm and humid and I was sopping by the end but pretty happy - legs felt strong for most of it (and actually felt fantastic going up the steep bit of Forrest Dr!) but got a little fatigued on the way down in the final k - not terribly surprising though. All up 16.8km. Sports massage with KD at lunch time. Ouch.

Tuesday am: 9.59 recovery @ 4:48 HR 137 Ca 85 19°C 78% W 11/17. Ran with Sas on the standard Mends bridges loop on a slightly steamy morning. I have to say I'm looking forward to the cool mornings for the next few days. HR was good again - it's great to see it back in the 130's ; the effect has gone almost as instantly as it arrived ; four weeks is a long time in purgatory! The leg was good but then I'm taking two Voltaren Rapid 25's every morning - I try just to ice for the rest of the day. Not an ideal situation but it's working for now.

Tuesday pm: WAMC Intervals. This was a bit of a struggle - felt heavy legged and hard to move up a gear. The session was 5 800's with a 2 minute break, I took JK's advice not to kill myself and consequently ran a little easier.  2:52, 2:49, 2:50, 2:50 and 2:48. Not convinced I could have gone much faster... on the plus side, my new Mizuno Musha shoes arrived today ; very flash looking! Will try them on Thursday am and probably run the Darlington HM in them to see if I want to use them in the full marathon.

Wednesday: 12.15km Easy @4:31 HR 144 Ca 88 16°C 88% S19/24. Ran my standard 12k along the Applecross  riverfront. Didn't particularly decide on any pace and started out very easy but after a couple of k's I found myself clipping along around 4:25 pace. A good effort confirming the full recovery from the virus. 

Thursday am: 19.53km Easy @ 4:22 HR 147 Ca 88 11°C 91% SE13/19. Conditions were perfect as we set off at 6 this morning on the standard hilly MP run through the park. Felt a little tough getting going but that faded once we got over the Narrows and headed out along Mounts Bay Rd. We both decided to wear the racing shoes to test to see if they would be good for running the marathon. Sas in her orange Ronin 2's and me in my flourescent green Mushas. Verdict for Sas was 'yes', for me its a big 'maybe' depending on how my calf is feeling at the time. I definitely felt the impact going down the hills and think that may be hard to bear for a marathon. I'm going to try the Inspires on Sunday at Darlington because I feel that they have better cushioning and may be the right shoe (after much experimenting). The Elixir may not have enough cushioning - I'll have to try a few experiments. Enough of that, I felt pretty good today and had a decent HR - didn't feel like the run took much out of me at all. Saw Biscuitman out for an easy run just as we were finishing.

Thurday pm: 10k MP @4:08 HR 161 Ca88 23°C 48% SW26/35. Ran my 10k loop from home on another warm and windy afternoon. In contrast to the morning my legs felt a bit heavy so this run was a struggle. I also had some needling in the TA and TP late this morning - I didn't feel particularly sore before I went out, but the chickens came home to roost and bit me on this one. Not my finest hour but I guess its the first bad one I've had for a while. At least I finally got the MP right ! Rest day tomorrow I think - first non-running day for two weeks...

Friday: Half hour bike ride at the gym followed by some stretching. Leg doesn't feel too bad today and I haven't taken any anti-inflams.

Saturday: 35km @ 4:42 HR 145 Ca86 13°C 99% CALM. Ran a loop of King's Park before heading off to do a loop of Bold Park past Challenge and back to Zamia (map) with Sas on an absolutely glorious morning. Really enjoyed this run, the conditions were perfect. Took a while to get warmed up but I felt pretty good on this one - had green tea, and a small  banana beforehand and a single gel after an hour and a half. The HR started to creep up after a couple of hours but I still felt comfortable finishing down the hill at 4 minute pace. We only stopped once and were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves by the time we had finished because we both felt great (did I say that already?) - it was about a 2:45 hour run . Had a huge brekky at Zamia afterwards. Very happy, looking forward to an MP run at the Darlington half tomorrow.

Sunday: 21.0975km in 1:24:30 (4:00 pace) HR 168 Ca 90 11°C 76% S11/20. Darlington Half (map) - run in perfect conditions. Felt very comfortable going up the hill towards Mundaring, just got into a groove and kept at it. Hit the 10k at 40:40 and turnaround in 43:15 and came back down in 41:15. Ran with Epi for a while up the hill but he took off at about the 8k mark and finished strongly to post a big PB - fantastic!  Ran comfortably down the hill because the legs were feeling a little sore, and I have a history of doing stupid things, and I didn't want to add injuring myself at Darlington to the list. It was hard, as a I got taken by at least three people, and that never feels too good, even though I know I'm not racing. Turns out Biscuitman was right behind me at the finish - another huge PB, so there are a few people in good shape for their respective marathons in four weeks. Very happy with the run, a good tempo effort esp. considering the long one yesterday.

In summary, this has been a very good hard week with one crap run but pretty good for the rest.  132km all up and I'm feeling pretty good. One more big week to go and then it's taper time.

Week of 9/3 ; 6 weeks to go

Starting to feel a little weary but only another 3 hard weeks until we taper. Quality runs are still good, and am definitely feeling the need to sleep. Commiserations to Sandgroper who seemed to be travelling so well but has been struck down by a mystery virus which has crippled his training at this key time. Also to Clown who has a calf injury that won't heal enough to get the work done in time. 

Monday: 12.86km @ 4:03 pace HR 171 20°C 40% ENE11/17. Ran the same KP loop up the western path over the top at Fraser Ave to the end of the Law walk on Forrest Drive and back again (map). Because of the hard effort on Saturday ( a 52k weekend ) decided to take a bit off this run compared to last week and make it more of an MP effort. Had green tea and half a plain Gu (yuck! - tastes like concentrated condensed milk - too sweet even for Sugar ; I'll stick to Chocolate ) which Kim wanted me to try. There's just no easy way to do this run ..  felt OK for most of it, although the leg was bothering me a bit as I have been off the anti-inflams for a couple of days. It is improving though, but I'll go back on them again and try again next week. Hit a bit of a wall (underfed beforehand I think) once I got back to the top of the hill at Fraser Ave by the memorial and had to recover a bit down the hill, but got a second wind by Sticky Beaks and ran pretty strongly back down the hill. Beats/km were the same as last week so I have to be happy with that - all up 15.06km. I'm definitely glad to have 24 hours to the next run which is a short recovery before intervals on Tuesday evening.

Tuesday am: 9.59km recovery @ 4:55 HR 144 Ca 85 18°C 60% W2/4.  Ran the Perth Bridges with Sas - and saw Biscuitman out there. Fairly humid and deceptively warm - felt a little nauseous when I set off then felt OK fairly quickly. Calf was not perfect but OK. HR still too high, who knows why - the quality workouts seem to be OK, its the recoveries that I seem to struggle with - wierd. Lets see how I go at intervals this evening - its going to be warm....

Tuesday pm: WAMC Intervals ; 6x600 + JR + 2min SR 31°C 31% SW17/22. Fairly hot but not as windy as usual. Boy, this was a tough session, even though it was short with fairly lengthy breaks.  The legs felt pretty heavy and was hard getting them going. Fortunately there was a good group of rabbits around to chase, but I felt pretty stuffed by the end. Times were OK, but the leg did start to feel a bit tweaky at the finish. Splits were 119, 119, 120, 119, 119, 116. The good news is that these are not a lot different to my 600 splits when I didn't have a 123km 7-day total in the legs.  All up did 8k - its good to have this one in the bank.

Wednesday am: 12.02km easy @ 4:40 HR 146 Ca 87 14°C 76% ENE11/15. Ran the Maylands loop starting at 6:30 with Sas on a lovely morning. Neither of us felt like doing this (esp. with the missing wingman) but it got better. Turned out to be a reasonable HR for me and the somewhat painful leg eased during the run - interestingly, as this happened, the pace picked up but the HR may actually have dropped a little. Ran in the Wave Riders to see if a neutral shoe will help my condition - I'm a very mild pronator so it's not an issue in that regard. I feel like the Inspires are not the shoe for me - that may be because they were what I was wearing when this thing first reared it's head. Mid morning went for an hour ride on a gym bike at an HR average of 109.

Thursday am: 19.53km @ 4:21 HR 157 Ca 88 19°C 74%  SSE9/13. Ran from Mends St to UWA, up the western path of King's Park, up Fraser, down Forrest Dr, up Lovekin, down Malcolm and back to Mends st with Sas and Sandgroper (in his flash new Adizero racers). Slightly uncomfortable conditions this morning made this run a little tough ; I started out feeling really nauseous (Kim thinks it's the iron tabs I'm taking) and felt like I was going to lose my Sustagen and half banana in the first k - fortunately it passed. My legs felt mostly OK, I just need to get rid of the tendonitis which the regular icing and voltaren is helping with. My cadence seems a little high for this pace which is probably not helping the high HR, but I suspect this is due to the leg injury and will pass. Not that high cadence is a bad thing, esp. on hilly courses,  but I'd prefer the stride length didn't get too much shorter!

Thursday pm: 10k @ 3:58 HR 165 Ca 88 24°C 56% SSW24/32. Ran a hilly 10k loop from home on a warm and windy afternoon.Legs felt a bit heavy at first and it was a bit of a push into the sea breeze for the first 4k or so ; when I turned around at the leach highway I got into a good rhythm and felt pretty good in the tough conditions coming home. The footpod is clearly not calibrated (new shoes, wonky leg) because it undermeasured the whole loop by 700m! I kept thinking how tough it was managing 4:15 pace, when it seems I was doing 3:58. Pleasantly surprised by the HR. It was pretty humid and it seemed a bit warmer than 24°, esp. in the blazing sun - my clothes were sopping when I got back and according to the scale I lost 1.6 litres of fluid....

Friday: 7.62km @5:08 HR 139 Ca 85 15°C 72% SSE13/19. Ran a short recovery from home on a lovely morning. The leg pain is up and down - today it was down... ran out of time to take some anti-inflams before the run and after the heavy day yesterday it was pretty bad. Sort of got better towards the end, but I definitely didn't enjoy this one at all - it's a bugger because I kept feeling like I should have been ;-) At least I didn't feel tired - just sore. Went for an hour bike ride with S&E to KP at lunch time.

Saturday am: 34.62km @ 4:36 HR 147 Ca 8811°C 70% E28/46. Ran from Darlington up to Mt Helena, down to Brooking Rd, up Brooking Rd, rejoined heritage trail and down to Darlington (map) with Sas and Biscuitman. Had a good day today, very happy that the HR has mostly returned to normal. Ran on a cup of green tea and a slice of toast with honey (and 2 Voltaren Rapid 25's). Although the easterlies were pretty strong, we didn't really notice them except on a very few exposed parts of the trail. Felt pretty good for the whole run but started to feel a bit fatigued toward the end - a product of the hard week and the fact that I only had one Gel at Mt Helena. Biscuitman had a great run and was handling the hills with ease - looks like Boston is setting up well for him. 

Saturday pm: 7.9km recovery @ 4:42 HR 146 Ca 85 31°C 25% E17/28. Ran from home up the Esplanade along Canning river, and was surprised that the easterly was still blowing. Actually felt pretty good on this run (which was surprising because I felt pretty tired before setting out) and I feel like it's all dropping into place at last. HR was better than expected to which gave me a bit of a mental lift.

Sunday: 9.88km recovery @ 4:54 HR 136 Ca 85 25°C 30% ENE24/35. Ran from Zamia down Matilda Bay to the Nedlands Yachties and back. Fantastic - finally a recovery with the HR in the recovery zone! It's been a month but I finally feel like my HR is back to normal - it's a real relief ; although I'm feeling a little tired today - late night last night (for me) - I have been hugely buoyed by this run. Not going to count my chickens just yet but I feel things are on the up and up now...

In summary a big week (134k) and some good news on the HR front  - I feel like this thing is coming together. Another couple of big weeks until the taper when hopefully the tendonitis will settle in time for a god (whoops!) good run in Boston. I'm starting to get excited!

Week of 2/3 ; 7 weeks to go

I was reading an article on Boston from Running Times kindly provided by Biscuitman which suggests rollercoaster tempo's and lots of fast downhill training to avoid the 'gremlins with ice picks' attacking the quads on a course that 'chews people up'. So from this week on the flat tempos are out the door, any downhills will be attacked and the long runs we'll be fast-finishing downhill ;  starting with the pipeline.

Monday: 12.86km Tempo @3.53 HR178 Ca90 19°C 69% S41/52. In keeping with the intro Sas & I did our tempo this morning in King's Park from the Aberdare Path west of Zamia up the perimeter path past Saw to Fraser Ave, up and over and down Forrest Drive to the end of the Law walk and back again (map). A bit tougher than doing it on the flat but as a plus we weren't really affected by the wind too much. Had a few problems with breathing  on some of the climbs towards the end and my 'up and go' was starting to live up to it's word when I got to the top of the hill at the end of Forrest. It seems pretty good (repeating issues aside) but I have to find another flavour - the mocha doesn't taste like chocolate or coffee! I have to say I'd rate this run as a success - I felt pretty strong on the downhills even at the end and recovered quickly afterwards. The calf was a bit niggly at first but I soon forgot about it. Only when I had finished the tempo part and did the recovery jog back to the start to I get back to my familiar 'captain peg-leg' gait. All up 15.3km. Tomorrow I will probably skip intervals again and try to move my Wed appt. to Tuesday for a bit more needling.

Tuesday: 9.59km Recovery @ 4:47 HR 146 Ca85 8°C 92% ESE9/13. Sore leg this morning took away from what should have been a lovely jog around the bridges on another perfect day. These recovery runs used to be really fun, no-pressure efforts but have become a chore because of the leg pain. Felt a little bit of residual fatigue and soreness from yesterday's tough effort but that's good. The HR is still too high but it is coming down a bit and is in a way better zone. Had a good bout of needling this morning as well which should help. Going again Friday and Monday...

Wednesday: 12k @4:55 HR 142 Ca 85 14°C 57% E 20/28. Ran Maylands loop (map) with Sas & Sandgroper on a cool and slightly windy morning. Legs still sore but not too bad, but still kinda killing the fun at the  moment ; still I'm thinking a course of anti-inflams are needed.  I suspect I may be overloading other parts  with the changed gait so taking the pills might actually be better in the long run.  Went for an hour hard bike ride from home to King's Park, around the park and back home again, avg speed 30kph, HR126. It felt good to hammer myself a bit without any pain... a bit of work for the quads won't hurt either.

Thursday am: 18.3km @ 4:24 HR 152 Ca 86 16°C 60% ENE13/17. Ran with Sas on our midweek MP effort along Mounts Bay Rd to UWA a loop of the park and down Malcolm. Felt really crappy at the start, nauseous, heavy legs but I got into it after a few K as is always the way. I took a couple of Naproxen yesterday and will keep this up for today and give it a rest tomorrow as I have physio and am not running. No real leg pain today so I was back running as normal and felt pretty comfortable in the Park - we were behind pace when we got there but were way ahead by the time we were done. It's good that we are much better runners on hills than on the flat, it means we are training well for the target race. We also hammered it a bit more than usual down the hills (as it says in the Boston manual) and felt pretty good. Sas spotted Biscuitman just at the end, which was well done because we were running into the sun - that's probably why we missed each other a few weeks ago. Very happy overall - HR seems close to normal again. 

Thursday pm: 5k Time Trial in 17:55 (30° 27% SW20/26) at Coker Park with WA Masters. Very warm and dry evening, and I was aiming around 18 minutes, so pretty happy with the result. I felt like I was running pretty strongly with consistent pace for the whole thing and was able to knock 7 seconds off the final lap to finish under 18. Haven't done intervals for a couple of weeks so I felt I needed a bit of VO2 max work. Splits were:

39, 85, 86, 86, 86, 86, 86, 86, 88, 88, 88, 86, 79

About 8k all up. Horrendously sore throat afterwards, but that seems normal for track running !

Friday: Physio.

Saturday am: 33.72km @ 4:39 HR 156 Ca 87 14°C 77% E32/48. Ran the pipeline (map)with Sas and Biscuitman on a very nice morning for running, if a tad windy. At first leg felt a little sore but I got over that after a few k's but I did feel a trifle unwell from the Up and Go breakfast I had in the car on the way to Darlington. Felt a little sluggish for the first few k's, probably because the tib. ant. wasn't enjoying the downhill but got into it once we hit the pipeline. Felt pretty strong on the hills, quite a bit stronger than last time we did this run. Stopped at Fred Jacoby Park (17.55km) for a gel before heading up to Mundaring. Had another gel at Mundaring (24.1km) - I was debating having it because I wasn't feeling depleted at all, but forced it down anyway. I suppose I could have done it on the run down if needed... anyway, once we headed off the plan was to try to get down the hill (9.6k) in about 40 minutes to try and get some fast downhill pain into the quads in preparation for the big day. It's only really downhill from about 7k out but we still managed to go under the target by 10 seconds. Sas was running really strong and Biscuitman may have struggled a little at the end (probably more with the footing than anything else) but we are seasoned hands at hilly trail running and he has only done it twice - and handling it very well. The pipeline is a tough tough run, as anyone knows who has done it! Like I said to Biscuitman, "you haven't lived until you've run the pipeline...."

Saturday pm: 8.4km @ 4:55 HR 143 Ca 82 31°C 21% SSW24/26.  Felt a little fatigued and sluggish at first but got into it OK. It was very warm in the sun and I was definitely feeling the effects of the morning's effort. Felt pretty tired in the evening, which isn't really surprising.

Sunday: 10k @ 4:47 HR 149 Ca 87 17°C 56% E7/9. Ran Neil Hawkins (map) as a pacer for Trish - she ran very strongly ( esp. up the last hill) and finished with a good PB. Kim, got a big PB as well - not far to the sub-50 now... Didn't feel calf soreness at all and the last anti-inflam I took was last night - a good sign! Felt a bit leg tired when I woke up so wasn't surprised that the HR was high, although felt OK when I was running. Now I need to recover for tomorrow's tempo in King's Park. Sleep, sleep, sleep....

In summary a fairly good week at around 114k, started to feel like I was going better and that the leg was starting to come right. Felt a bit tired Saturday evening and Sunday morning but starting to perk up as I write this. Very happy with the Saturday morning effort, definitely a highlight in this program....

Week of 23/2 ; 8 Weeks to go

Given the last few experiences I have resolved not to do any more 'quality' running until the easy/recovery runs go back close to where they were. I don't want to dig myself deeper into whatever hole I'm in right now. I'll also use the opportunity to have some intense (for me) physio and massage to try and sort out the right lower leg. Loading up on Berocca and lactoferrin, as well as fruit and veggies to try and give my body what it needs to fix itself.

Monday: rest. Went to physio and had some intense needlework done on tibialis anterior. It's pretty much locked up - and this is causing the tendonitis and the peg-leg running style. Feel better in the knowledge that something can be done about this...

Tuesday: 9.6km easy 4:38 pace HR 158 Ca 85 20° 93% WSW11/15.  The good news is that the leg felt a little easier today. The bad news is that the HR is still bad. I felt almost 100% this morning before heading out - didn't feel too too bad and it never got like it was a real struggle, but at times getting oxygen was a little difficult - which is crazy because 10 days ago I was going 35 sec/km quicker for the same HR. After cooling down I have started to feel a little light headed and a bit spaced out.  There's definitely something in my system that's causing things to go a little haywire when the body is a bit stressed. Will go see a GP and order some blood tests just to be sure ... it's time for my bi-yearly anyway.

Tuesday pm: Blood drawn into massive syringe and placed in vials to go to lab. Intervals is more fun, but alas, not today.

Wednesday: Went for hour bike ride to KP and back ; average HR (94)  was good and felt OK going up Poole Ave where the HR peaked at 144 - usually in the high 130's so not too bad. Tyres were a bit flat ( metaphorically and physically ) which may also count for a bit extra. Maybe rode a fraction slower than in the past - Sas has a cold and was feeling a little under the weather too, and we were being cautious as it was raining.

Thursday: 18.3km @ 4:19 HR 161 10° 96% E4/9. Ran Mends St to UWA with a loop of the park, down Malcolm and back to Mends St. with Sas and E. Finally some good news ... the HR today was still high but I felt very comfortable for the whole run. Best I've felt for a couple of weeks. I never felt the effort was that great and was extremely conversational (annoyingly so, probably) the whole way. Breathing never got tough, I could feel the leg, but as a minor niggle, and I felt it was making a contribution rather than being a dead weight. I was loving being out on such a beautiful morning and we were really cracking along - conditions don't get much better than this! On another note, Sas pointed out that when overtrained the HR recovery graph on downhills etc. isn't as deep but the peaks are around the same as the normal state which results in elevated average HR. My graphs have been almost exactly parallel, only 20 beats higher which is further evidence for the virus theory. Today the average was only 10-12 higher than I would normally expect. Today I can be positive without it being a sham :-)

Friday: 12k @ 4:45 HR 148 Ca85 15° 75% ESE13/24. Ran the Maylands loop with Sandgroper ; lovely morning for it. Not a bad run, but not a great one either. Felt the Tib Ant more today than yesterday and felt a little depleted and heavy legged. God forbid it was the disgusting Mocha 'Up and go' that made me feel so good (yet a little nauseous) yesterday - I'll have to try again on Saturday's LR. HR was fine at first with an avg 140 for the first 4k but up to 150 for the second and 155 for the third with a slight increase in speed. Nutrition yesterday wasn't the best with a late high protein meal after Kim's 3k TT at Coker Park.  Massage later with KD. Below is a HR graph comparing with the same run on Feb 4. 

Update: got my test results back ; the iron markers (except transferrin) have dropped a bit since last April:

Serum Iron: 12 µmol/L (19)

Transferrin: 34 µmol/L (30)

Saturation:   18% (32%)

Ferritin: 44µg/L (53)

Maybe it's time to start taking a supplement...

Saturday: 30.45km @ 4:39 HR 154 Ca 86 20° 59% SE19/24. Ran from Zamia to City Beach via the Causeway and a loop in King's Park (map) with Sandgroper, Biscuitman, Sas (and E for the first 10). Felt pretty good on this one although it took a while to warm into it and get my leg to settle down. Felt a little nauseous for the first 10k or so but soon felt better. I felt I ran pretty strongly and definitely an improvement. The pace was pretty good and we kept it going well up some decent hills. HR was still high but I guess the good thing is that I felt stronger and didn't really fatigue even at the end. Not where I want to be just yet but better than a week ago! I'm confident of doing a decent tempo on  Monday - it'll be interesting to see how that turns out. Finished up with some refueling and a bit of a wade in the surf which was great for the legs, follwed by a good brekkie at the Mediterraneo cafe with the gang - Kim brought the Zoe the Bernese Mountain Dog along as well which was fun for all :-)

Gratuitous picture:

Sunday: 8.31km recovery @4:58 HR 148 Ca 84 24° 66% N9/19. Easy loop from E.Perth to Causeway including a loop of (the north side of) Heirisson Island. Warm and humid, had tendonitis pain for the whole thing which made a nice short loop seem to take forever. Funny thing, as I write this I can barely feel it at all. Nice coffee afterwards though made up for it. 

In summary, a fairly average 79km week but the Thursday and Saturday effort provided a bit of encouragement. Still having issues with the TA but it's up and down and apart from that the legs actually feel pretty good and my energy levels are pretty good. I think I tend to have worse runs HR-wise when the leg is painfull. Both Sas and Sandgroper are also going through their own trials which hopefully we can all bust out of next week.