Sunday, August 23, 2009

Easy run, Long run and Tempo Race (Wally Cairns XC)

Friday did a nice recovery run with Sas, 9.3km @ 4:45, HR 135 642bpk. Ran the extended causeway loop from East Perth, along the Perth Marathon course to the Windan, then a loop of Heirisson Island and back to Royal St. Bit of a headwind (should have gone the other way!) on the Burswood side but no rain, and a lovely run.

Saturday, ran with Sas on the Garret Rd Maylands Ascot Loop with a bit extra thru E.Perth to make it 17.69km @ 4:44 pace (HR 140, 662bpk), the furthest she has run for 4 months. Seemed to pull up very well too so that's great news. We got a little wet and blown around for the first 5k or so but it was prety good conditions after that.

Sunday I did the WAMC Wally Cairns XC 10k (map), another foray out of my comfort zone. This is a challenging run on fairly soft sandy track with a fair bit of hill (~75m per lap) thrown in for good measure. My goal was to run fairly hard but leave something in the tank for next weekend, so a ran a hard first 5k (18:04 ) and eased up in the second lap (19:52). My quads were really burning by the time I got to the top of the hill the second lap, so I was happy to ease off a little, recover, and bomb down the trail again. The footing was much softer coming down the hill so I was glad the course was in the direction it was. Going up that way would have been murder. I found myself coming second by the time I got to the top of the hill on the first lap and never saw another soul after the guy just behind finished at the 5k. Just as well I was there, he was about to head off up Lovekin Dr instead of continuing on the trail! He took a few shortcuts on the bit around Zamia as well... The guy who won the 15k was miles ahead and I was a fair way ahead of the next runner. Finished in 37:57 (I think I was the first home in the 10k), so a good result.

3 comments:

Biscuitman said...

Excellent run. Sub 38 on the soft stuff is great going. Do you have a target time for Sunday?

DC64 said...

I'd love to go under 44... that's the target anyway, we'll see how the endurance is on the day! Yesterday will have helped.

Biscuitman said...

OK - I definitely have to make sure that I go out no faster than you.