Deepwater Point 15k

Interesting, it certainly was. A fairly warm morning, although the stiff wind kept things cool (21° 58% S24/32) - map. As I jogged down to the start with a noted heaviness in my legs, I was feeling as the morning was going to have a nice easy run in store. It was certainly hard work on the southbound side of the course pushing into the wind. At one point the wind was really pulling at my waterlogged singlet, so it wasn't insignificant. I have to say I felt very good for the first 9k or so but the big southward push on the second lap sucked a lot of strength from my legs. Not sure what my halfway split was, but I would have been second in the 7.5k. The second lap was certainly tough with the warming sun on the northbound side along the freeway and I felt that the guy behind me wasn't too far away. I just dug in and held on to a reasonable pace finishing 5th in 57:12 odd - averaging around 3:48 ... slower than last year but tougher conditions and a much tougher leadup. Another solid run and I'm pretty happy.

3k 11:22 (3:47)
4k 15:02 (3:41 )
5k 18:49 (3:46 ) (cumulative: 3:46) 5k split: 18:49
6k 22:38 ( 3:49 )
7k 26:28 ( 3:50 )
8k 30:12( 3:45 )
9k 34:03 ( 3:51 )
10k 37:58 (3:55 ) (cumulative: 3:48 ) 5k split: 19:09
12k 45:56 (3:59 )
14k 53:29 (3:48 )
15k 57:12 (3:43 ) (cumulative: 3:49 ) 5k split :19:15

*10k split is a guess, the marker was in the wrong spot ; it is clear that I was suffering in k's 9 thru 12! Somehow the overall splits didn't drop too much, rescued by some soul searching (and a good self-talking to ) in the last 3 km.

Now that's what I call a hill...

On Friday did a recovery 6km in preparation for a big weekend...

Saturday did the infamous Phil's Hill run (map) in Darlington with Sandgroper and Sas - about 22km @4:45 HR146 420m ascent,  692 bpk. This run is the classic pipeline then turning off the trail after about 12km and heading up a gravel 'road' -  Phil's hill - to the huggy trail just  west of Charles Rd. It's about 3km from bottom to top and it's got some fairly steep sections, with average footing (apparantly though it's better than it was due to recent grading). It's a real relief when you get to the top after about 16 minutes of quad killing climbing - about 220m straight up at an average grade of just over 7%. I have to say it was longer and steeper than I expected.

Tomorrow's 15k at Deepwater Point is going to be interesting....

Coker Park 5000m - Small PB

Thursday morning ran the standard Perth Bridges 9.59km @ 4:36 HR 142 Ca84 653 bpk. Nice morning for it being cool, sunny and relatively wind free.

The evening at Coker Park was cold and blustery (17° 40% SSW30/39), not ideal for running but I had a great time. I warmed up with a 5:20 1500m and a few more laps. My 'arch-nemesis' Micheal Mezzatesta was there and we had a good race ; I was in the lead for a couple of laps, then he took over and built a 20m lead or so but then dropped off a bit and I caught him at about the 3k mark (after drafting for a lap and a bit) and won by about 5 seconds. We seem pretty closely matched and it seems to bring out the best. A PB for Michael too I believe.

Lap splits: 38/81.5/78.9/80.2/80.4/80.5/80.7/81.7/79.2/80.7/80.3/81.1/76.3 = 16:39.5

Km splits: 3:18.4/3:20.8/3:22.6/3:20.0/3:17.5 = 16:39.5 (3k : 10:01.9)

Very happy bunny.....

Intervals

Nice and hot for intervals, although it felt cool in the westerly, I just overheated when I finished - I guess my radiator blew. Had a few 'tummy' issues today and felt quite nauseous on the last two reps so held back a little so as not to end up disgracing myself. Probably a good thing as I have the 5k at Coker Park on Thursday evening which I'd like to do well at. 5x800m tonight with 2:30 SR ; word was that the track was a little long ; some Garmin's reported 900m which I seriously doubt- more like 830m. Anyhow, the splits were nice and consistent : 2:40/2:37/2:37/2:37/2:38.

Nice recovery run with Sas on a cooler Wednesday morning, although the sun was quite warm. 6k @ 4:34 HR146 Ca83 668 bpk. Easy run, nice company, nice coffee. Life is good...

Looking forward to busting a nut on Thursday evening in the 5k at Coker Park. Its part of the MAWA patrons trophy so there'll be a few people there. Hopefully the wind will be less than it has been for the last few weeks. Haven't raced a 5k for a while, so it should be interesting ; 1500m for warmup.

Hills and Gallops

Friday did a nice 6k recovery @4:49 pace HR 136 ; I find these really work for me - not too long but long enough to get the blood through the legs.

Saturday again we were up the the hills ; found another victim to come with us up Darlington Rd, through the Park, up Oxley/Hedges Rd to Brooking road, up to the Shiraz tap and then hammer down the trail for a healthy 21.6km @4:30 pace, HR 149 670bpk - theres 362m ascent on this one with some biggish hills so IMHO a better run than all up and then all down like the heritage trail. Felt good on this one, and did some drills afterwards on  the oval, copping some strange looks from the cricketers...

Sunday I did the Masters 'Garvey Gallop' 10k run at tempo pace, 37:20, HR 171 Ca88 640bpk. Wasn't really able to get a decent warmup in due to timing, but went out easy and then cruised along. It started to warm up and the wind was more than a breeze, but I enjoyed this one. Mike Mezzatesta was racing this, and I let him go - he was flying though. I wasn't really tempted to race because of all the racing I've done recently, and just wanted the tempo effort. Not sure it was quite 10k either.

Monday did a nice little progression run in King's Park with Sas, 9.54km @ 4:27 HR 151, easy down the hill and pushed up the Law walk hills and then added a little extra. Felt fairly good on this one despite the rather odd  pools of hot air we were running through. KP is always a beautiful place to run though...

Monday-Thursday

Monday we did a slightly different run in King's Park - 9.28km @ 4:31 HR 149 673bpk. Tough run, not least because of the glute pounding from Vic not 12 hours previous. Things loosened up eventually and this ended up being quite pleasant, although I felt very fatigued - probably from the massage. Strange because I felt great after the race.

Tuesday was intervals with JK - 1600; 3min SR ; 1200 ; 2:30min SR ; 800 ; 2 min SR; 400m ; 1 min SR ; 200m.I had planned to take this session quite easy because of lingering tiredness, but ended up hitting these fairly hard. Once again I was the rabbit, after the lead runner for the first interval was just travelling too slowly. Increased the pace pretty well (1200 was probably a bit soft) and finished with a flourish.

1600: 5:33.6 = 3:29 min/km

1200: 4:06.0 = 3:25 min/km

800: 2:37.0 = 3:16 min/km

400: 1:10.3 = 2:56 min/km

200: 0:31.4 = 2:37 min/km

Wednesday, Sas & I met up with JK for a 30 min run and some secret coaching ; focusing (for now) mainly on drills and core work. Got an invitation to join him and his other charges on Thursday evenings at the new stadium for intervals. I'll probably end up doing that on alternate Thursdays - I'll have to fit in with what Kim needs to do.

Thursday morning did a blustery loop (not sure of the wind-speed ; the Melville Water met station has been o/s for a while now ; but it was windy enough for decent waves on the river, just short of white cap stuff) of the Perth bridges from Mends street finishing with a set of drills (the aim is to do these 3 times a week) and a social coffee afterwards ; 9.59km @4:44 pace HR142 672bpk. Pleasantly surprised to bump into Biscuitman out for a quick run. Great to see him, hopefully he can nail the scar tissue in the knee area and get back to some pain-free running soon.

Thursday evening I went to Coker Park for a 3000m and an 800m. The idea was to roll through the 3k at 3:20 pace and attack the 800m. The roll through wasn't as easy as it could have been, mainly because of the 35/50km/h SSW winds that were blowing - strong enough to make holding the line difficult coming around the bend into the home straight. I dropped off too much in the first k and was nearly 4 seconds behind, and then pretty much maintained the 80s laps with relative ease (I reckon I could have kept them going, which bodes well for next week's 5k) until the last where I had to put in a bit of effort to finish in 10:00 flat. Had a good race in the 800, sat behind a couple of faster guys for the first (68s) and tailed Campbell Till for 300m for the second and then kicked for home and edged him out in about 2:18. Not too bad for the conditions, and it was nice to have someone else do the work up front for a change ; and it was fun!. Happy with the night's work - nothing spectacular but a good hitout again.Kim ran well in the 3000 and the 800m as well.

Peninsula 10k

Pretty good conditions today, the sun was warm but the air was cool and there was a little wind just to keep things fresh.

I started out close to the front but fell behind the lead pack fairly quickly because the pace was a bit hot for me - Roberto Busi and Shane Scott were in the mix along with Ross Langford, David Lazarus and Craig Dufty who were doing the 5k (and finished 1/2/3) and Rachel West I think who won the 5k. The pace settled down though and I started reeling in some of the guys who'd gone off too fast including the guy who I did the same to at Rottnest and Sam May who was the last person I went past at about the 3k mark. From then it was a solo run with the 3rd placed Karel Burger a long way ahead and Sam dropping back. The only excitement was trying not to collide head-on with the 10k'ers crossing to the left side of the path to get water from the water station as I was heading back.

I pushed fairly hard but a decent finishing time was really the only incentive, and consequently I dropped the intensity a bit, not having the desire to bury myself in this one. There weren't any k markers out there so I had to trust my own feeling and it turned out OK ; the first 5k in 17:51, and the second in 18:17. I could be a little disappointed with the second split but I'm actually stoked because I felt pretty good afterwards and didn't really feel like I'd even raced. I really just wanted a good hitout today and to get another championship race in, so mission accomplished. I have been feeling a little fatigued of late so if i can put out a 36:08 without destroying myself I must be through that phase..... and it's a 10k road PB.

SG did the five, and had a good solid run ; Kim had a strong run and a few others I know ran well today...

Deep tissue massage from Vic in the afternoon ; very sore glutes and fairly tight left hamstrings but calves were very good. Ouch....

'Long' run in Darlington

Ran the huggy today with Sas up to the Great Eastern Highway and back, with a brief stop in Mundaring on the way down for a chat with the group that was going up. Big negative split on the run, not really surprising as the run is mostly uphill to the highway, and then mostly downhill on the way back. The run was 22.22km at 4:38, HR 146, Ca84, 676bpk - the first half was 4:51 pace, and second half was 7 minutes quicker at 4:24 pace, the HR for both was 146 - nice even effort! Nice conditions especially on the way up - 15°. It started getting a bit warm on the way down as the sun strted to get some punch and we had a nice headwind just to keep things interesting (but a bit cooler at least).

Looking forward to Peninsular 10k tomorrow, the word on the street is that Tina Major will be racing, it'll be good to see her up here in Perth - adding that sort of quality to the field should stir things up a bit.

Easy running/Hard running

Spent most of the week doing easy runs to recover from the weekend's exploits.

Monday 8.4km @4:37 HR 148 through King's Park. Tuesday am went a 25km recovery ride up to the WAMC and back, averaging 28km/h HR115. Tuesday evening did JK's intervals sessionon a cooler than expected evening. The session was 8x400 with a 200m float :

76/56/80/50/81/59/80/56/80/64/80/56/80/61/76/57/80

I did an extra 400m at the end, I guess it semed a good idea at the time. Tough session, felt a bit shagged by the end. I was the rabbit tonight, nobody quick turned up. I'm looking into getting some more specific guidance from JK as to getting my track times down as we move to phase 2 of the season (once I get the WAMC championship races out of the way - I at least want to be in the comp, so need to do a few more)

Wednesday did 9.5km easy to Pt. Majestic and back (4:42 HR 148) on a warm and steamy morning. Thursday did the Mends St Perth Bridges loop (9.59 @ 4:52 HR 142) on and even warmer and steamier morning, culminating in a social at Atomic with kim & the gang.

Coker Park was very warm 26° 56%RH and the wind was a little gusty (E26/39), so not really ideal conditions. Wasn't able to warm up properly because I was manning a stopwatch for the 100m heats - the 1500m race started at immediately after them at 6:22, and consequently my legs felt a little heavy,  and with the gusty conditions was only able to manage 4:39 - laps 55/74/76/74.

At 6:37, the gun went for the 600m  - i felt a bit better in this one and had a couple of rabbits to chase but still only ran 1:42 odd - 33/35/34.

At 6:47 we were off on the last event, the 5k. I was only planning to cruise this, but even 1:24's were hard tonight so i just eased back a bit and finished in 17:55 or so. Most of the other competitors pulled out at the 3k mark, I must admit I was tempted to do the same.

42/87/85/84/85/8586/86/86/87/87/88/85 = 17:55 (3:35/3:33/3:33/3:37/3:36)

Very happy with a good nights work - and pretty shagged by the end of it - the Peninsular 10k on Sunday isn't a key race but I'd like to at least beat last year's 36:33, so recovery tomorrow and 22km on Sat in the hills.

John Gilmour 10K / long run / cycle

Conditions were pretty good for the run, it started at 7:15pm, although the wind on the back straight was a little gusty at times. I ran pretty even splits, aiming for 84's to finish in 35 minutes. Emily Loughnan caught me after 5 laps or so and I overheard that they were shooting for 1:22 laps. I thought that was a bit hot for me but I'd try to stick with them for a while. It worked for a few laps, but I think she blew up after about 10 laps because we went 82, 83, 84, 85, 86.. it started to get too comfortable so I had to go, and ended up running the rest by myself - finishing just behind Ross Langford. I hit 6k exactly on target but by 8k I was 5 sec over - that 2k and the one after was real mental struggle. Managed to salvage 3 seconds or so in the last two ks (in the last lap, really) to finish in 35:02.

82.1/82.9/83.1/83.7/84.4 = 6:56.2
82.5/83.2/84.1/84.9/86.0 = 7:00.7 (13:56.9)
84.9/84.0/84.4/83.8/85.3 = 7:02.4 (20:59.3)
84.7/84.9/85.3/85.6/85.7 = 7:06.2 (28:05.5)
84.4/85.3/85.3/84.2/78.1 = 6:57.3 (35:02.8)

Jockster had a great night, pulling out a massive PB, and this less than 3 weeks after a 3hr Rottnest marathon- impressive and astonishing running.

Continued the tough weekend by doing a 22.4km (4:55min/km HR148 Ca84) run on the soft sands of the Munda Biddi trail in Pickering Brook with Sas on Saturday morning (map). Lovely run, lovely conditions, but coming back up the trail on good hills with pea-gravel lain on soft sand was very tough, my legs really died. When we got to the Carinyah campsite, I think both of us would have liked to stop and get out the picnic basket. Sadly, not having one, we had to content ourselves with a Choc Gu and some rainwater and then pressed on. I think I was depleted not only from the track run but the fact that I pretty much went without a meal the night before. Completely shot once we got back to the car ; I had three bananas and a litre of water and felt heaps better. Went for a coffee and brekky in Kalamunda and felt better still !

Took a day off running on Sunday and went down to Perry Lakes help out and to watch Kim run the short race at the Founders 10 miler ; it was fun catching up with a few people I haven't seen for a while. Also saw a bunch of people racing who had run the 10k on Friday night. Nuts....

In the afternoon I decided to test out the bike legs and went for a 47k excursion down to Anketell Rd and back on the freeway bike path. I was pleasantly surprised that I hadn't lost my bike legs even though I haven't been on the bike since July! Average speed was 30.4km/h although it was 28km/h heading south and 33km/h coming back. HR was 133bpm for both laps. I was very conscious of using my legs evenly - pulling and pushing rather than just using my quads as I am prone to doing. I found the numb-bum syndrome passed when I did that and it always makes cycling that much easier! Glutes where extremely fatigued when I finished - which was very pleasing!

'Cool' Night Classic

Cool night, my arse! 32° 15% SSE17/24 HR181 Ca90. Brutal conditions for racing, even the wind seemed against us for the first 3k or so. Went out relatively hard battling a severe case of dry-mouth for the first k and a half, and at 3.5km or so I realised I was in solid 5th, not that far from Stephen Stockwell, but too far to chase and way ahead of 6th so just took the foot off the pedal. I suspect that Stephen did the same, because I ended up only being about 10m behind, finishing in 17:30. Felt tired but not too bad at the end, so hopefully it won't affect me at the 10k track on Friday. Ordinarily I would have done light intervals on Tuesday and not much today, but I was entered for a team (before I realised the 10k track had moved from 30/10 to 6/11) so felt I had to give some effort. Sas gutsed through a tough run, finishing in 2nd, and Sandgroper was out there too with another strong performance. Not a night for PB's, a night for surviving. After we'd all recovered we jogged back to the car parked by the Narrows for a cooldown. It was a lot more pleasant going the other way!

Thursday early (5:45am) did a loop of the Perth Bridges in cooler but still pretty uncomfortable conditions. 9.59 @ 4:52 HR 140 682bpk. Legs felt OK, elevated HR due to the temp and some residual fatigue from last night no doubt.

Looking forward to Friday night. Here's hoping for a good one  ...

Easy runs

Saturday morning at 6am, I ran in a small group of 4 up to Mundaring and back, the same run as last week. Pace was a bit hotter, appx 45minutes up and 41 down to average 19.2km @ 4:28 HR154 200m ascent 688bpk. Felt pretty good on this ; cheated again and took a gel at halfway, mainly so that I could recover well - it's a tough week ahead and I don't want to start off on the wrong foot.

Sunday I ran the local river loop accompanied by Kim on the bike. Turned into a bit of a progression run, trying to run off all the sugary/fatty crap that I had at the Halloween party the night before ; also I felt pretty average at the start but loosened up nicely and felt good at the end. Temperature was better than last week, 24°C 18%RH, but it was windy (ESE35/44). Ended up being 8.5km @4:22 HR 150

Monday morning (cool 11°65%, E26/32) ran the King's Park loop with Sas - 8.5km @ 4:32 HR143 100m ascent 649bpk. Legs felt really stiff and unresponsive, but the HR was OK ; just a hangover from the weekend I guess. I'm glad I wasn't trying to do a tempo today - plowing up the Law Walk in to the easterly was a challenge.

Tuesday, another easy run around the Perth bridges ; 9.59km @ 4:42 HR142 667bpk ; a bit breezy this morning but a pleasant run nonetheless. Bumped into Biscuitman, still struggling a bit with the knee. Hang in there mate, it will improve in time, I know its extremely frustrating when one's body doesn't play along... I want to see you out there cracking big PBs too. I need someone to draft for a change...

Looking forward to the week ahead ; I'm only going to go 95% effort in the Coolnight Classic on Wednesday to save something for the track 10k on Friday night that I'm really looking forward to. A great opportunity to post a good time and race against some good runners.