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!