Gallipoli Race 8k King's Park

I had a good run in this race. Thought I’d give the slower start a go to see how I felt - the course starts with a monster hill up the Synergy Parkland and left up Lovekin Dr before the turnaround at about 1.5k, then down Lovekin for a k and a bit then turn around again, back to the parkland and down the hill. Repeat.

I think I ended up with a slowish time, but definitely felt better and managed an even split over the two 4k loops - I didn't want to go lactic right from the start and succeeded in that. I just wasn’t invested in this race though, didn’t have the adrenaline on the start line and approached it really as a harder than tempo kind of hitout. Very pleased to reel Clemens Schmidt in up the hill on the second lap, I thought he was away from me - I felt really strong going up the hill a second time. I ended up 9th but very happy with how I felt today.

Great too to run in the Legacy colours with Biscuitman and a host of others – it’s a good fit for the ‘Lest we forget’ race as they are an organisation that looks after families of veterans killed in action or who died later in civilian life… it will have a big presence again next year I’m sure after the success of this one. Nice work E! I live in fear of the photos he took though - a couple at the finish then when I was walking off to get some recovery drink, he asked me to turn for another one. I thought he wanted to capture my good side, but no, he wanted the stream of dribble off my chin glinting in the sunlight. Nice.... I'll post a link to the gallery of (edited) photos from the race when I have them.

Monday morning 11km @4:25 pace HR 147from NextG along Mounts Bay then up the western side of the park back to Next G. For the first time in ages, there was a fairly stiff westerly, which wasn't much fun, but apart from that conditions were good, and I didn't feel yesterday's race in the legs at all.

Tuesday morning 6k @ 4:41 HR 137 recovery, wet cold and windy, not very pleasant. A bit too fast, I guess I wanted to get it done. A North easterly headwind on the way out which was fine, I like a tailwind on the way home .... funny old weather though, it feels like we went from summer to winter overnight.

Mona Fartlek and Phil's Hill

Thursday morning was stunning, we finished just as the sun poked its nose over the hills. No wind, the city really was a picture today reflected in the glassy Perth water. The route is slightly longer at the moment because of the Red Bull Air Race and construction works. I was a little concerned about how yesterdays flu shot and iron injection would affect me, but they didn’t in the end. I have felt a little odd since yesterday evening and slept poorly, but I felt fantastic this morning. Coffee at Atomic afterwards, yum. I’ve now had two runs this week where the economy has been around 635 beats per km, which is very low for me. Long may it continue!

Thursday evening did a Mona Fartlek session in fairly cool and windy conditions. I was just going to do it fairly easy, but ended up doing a decent effort. This could have had something to do with the fact that I did my warmup into the wind down to the Mt Henry Bridge and did the session up the freeway side with the wind at my back. Still, it was a good session and did a nice hard return home into the wind as I was feeling strong (and wanted to get home!) – ended up with a good 35 minutes of hard running. I stuffed up the Mona session on the watch which meant I had to do it manually, so ended up doing an extra minute in total, for about 5.55km. 637bpk.

Friday morning recovery run, the usual route. Very low HR. Legs felt better for doing it after a good workout yesterday. I did this mid-morning – it was still fairly cool with a stiff breeze on the way back. 622bpk!

Saturday morning, I did a nice easy run in the hills ; in cool conditions (13° at the start) ran the notorious Phil's Hill aka O’Connor Road. This is a tough old bastard of a hill – 3ks straight up a gravel trail. I felt good on the climb once I’d done the first steep bit which lasts 700m or so. Completed the climb in 16 minutes which sets a benchmark for next time. I held back a little knowing I’m doing the ANZAC race tomorrow. I felt good today, although I felt hungry for most of it – I didn’t stop at all which got me back to the bakery a bit quicker. Total ascent today about 420m. I must admit I don’t really like stopping on runs of this length - once an hour is my max, and even then for only a minute or two.

Favourite story of the week:

A Scottish animal rescue centre forced a dozen hedgehogs to go on a diet because they had grown too fat to roll into a ball to protect themselves.

a sign of the times......

Buns of Steel

Well, I finally had it done. After a few blood tests and a trial of taking iron tablets with these not making much of a difference (ferritin went up from 35 to 37), I have embarked on a 5 week course of iron injections into my posterior. I have really struggled with the heat this summer, and the theory is that low iron is why. As soon as the temperature drops my energy levels soar. With any luck improved iron levels will help my performance as well. I'm not really expecting it to, but it would be pretty cool if this happened!

Yesterday I did a couple of 6 km recovery runs, one in the morning and one in the evening, HR 137 and 132 respectively, the second run 2 sec/k faster. Felt fatigued but not too bad. This double recovery run worked well for me after the Mona weekend so I used it again.

This morning I ran from the house along the river to Rossmoyne and back, for 13.44km @4:27 pace, HR151. My breathing felt a little tight today and I had a bit of all-over fatigue but I wanted to run for about an hour because it’s a while since I’ve done that! I felt better as the run progressed – I came back about 2 minutes quicker than I went out. It was a nice cool morning for it, it’s a shame my weekend caught up with me on this one, but it was going to happen sooner or later !

In some good news, Team Strands consisting of Simons Ward and Elliot and myself, won the open team award for the 10km Bridges run with an aggregate time of 1:38:32 – which makes Simon Ward and myself back-to-back winners of this award. A tradition we should try to continue !

40 Miler - Mt Helena

I was torn between doing the cross country at the nationals and the 40 Miler relay on Monday ; Kim asked me to run the relay a while back, and I figured I wouldn't be in great shape to run an 8k cross country after the events of the day before, so I plumped for the relay. It was also a great opportunity to support some people who'd come out to support me at the nationals over the weekend.

I ran the last leg of relay (team 'It's a Farr-Cane long way') with Jo, Trish, Rod, Kim, Jodie, Richard and myself. I had a fantastic run - you know, the type that happens once every six months, where you just eat up the ground and it seems effortless - the weather was cool with a light headwind, enough for your a/c but not like the wall of pain from the track yesterday. I pulled back three teams who had had a significant headstart, and apparantly was breathing down the neck of second. I really felt like I was flying along the trail (is this the runner's high?) – it has a few significant rises, but you get the nice long downhills as well – 9.4km in just over 34 minutes @ 3:39 pace. The Elixirs were perfect for a trail race.

It was also wonderful to see all the solo 40 milers out there toughing it out - huge congrats to Claire, Kate, Jane etc. for finishing it for the first time, and Mona camper Rob for toughing it out. Unbridled joy, tears of emotion (even from some of the boys), finishing these things is such a major achievement!

I took some photos in between ferrying relay members to their various start points and back to base, so I missed a few people, but there are some nice ones in here.

2010 40 Miler Photos

A great day, everyone seemed to hit their goals - Mt Helena Tavern is not a bad place to finish a race either! Looking at the results from the cross country,  I reckon I could have quite comfortably challenged for silver in my age group, never mind, I think had much more fun up in the hills. And that's why we do this running thing - for fun.

AMA Nationals

I've had a great few days, and have thoroughly enjoyed  the experience ; the times weren't stellar, but the conditions were awful, esp. for the 5000m. Highlights were the tactical elements to the 1500m which I haven't had a lot of experience with but enjoyed immensley, and out-grinding Ray Boyd and Ross Henderson in the 5k. Admittedly Ray Boyd was only running on one leg and hasn't run for two and a half weeks, but he wasn't out for a jog. Ross was the other M40 age grouper to beat me handsomely in the City to Surf 12k and ran a healthy 16:48 to take 2nd in the Bridges 5km last week.

800m: Windy conditions (SW26/35), not ideal. Too much of a gap going into the back straight into the headwind after overtaking to move into 4th. Tactically didn't work out, this left me battling into the gusty wind just when I needed a bit more. Finished in 2:15:52 which is a PB, but I know I can crack 2:10, today wasn't the day. 63 seconds for 400m, real fadeout. Got a bronze medal for 3rd Australian, and a gold for being state M45 champion.

1500m: Windy again today (SW28/37), nobody went out fast. First 400 in 80sec, all bunched together. I was running easy for the first 2 and a bit, then some guy from NSW cut me off and shoved me back ; just afterwards the jump went with 600 to go and I was caught inside. I went around the offender by which time the 3 leaders had opened a 20m gap which I couldn't reel in, esp with the wind in the back straight.  Finished in 4:36 which means we really motored the last 600 in 1:36! My disappointement is that I read the break, I was just in the wrong position to respond. I have also realised I just don't have the guns that these guys do when it comes to a kick. If I want to be more competitive, I need to race more at the WAAS track Fridays to get used to tactics, and really work on the speed. Thursdays at Coker are really just training sessions, with no real tactics involved, because it's all just front running. Still, happy with 4th (and a results stuff-up saw me on the podium getting bronze despite my protests - sorted out later thankfully), and a gold for the state M45 title.

5000m: Appalling conditions winds up the back straight of 33kph gusting to 48km/h. Sat behind RossH for the first km and then took a turn at the front - I never saw him again. I was leading a pack with him, Ray Boyd and Brett Roach. Brett overtook with 5 laps to go and I didn't have it to stay with him. The others dropped back, so it was just me, the clock and the wind duking it out. Didn't drop off too much and was happy with 17:11 in the conditions. It felt good to be a real medal winner in a tough age group - and not too many times will I go head-to-head with Ray Boyd ( I know he was injured, great commitment to finish- hope the race didn't do too much damage)) and Ross Henderson and come out ahead... the day ended a lot better than it started when I realised I had left my racing shoes at home and had to run in a pair of training shoes  I retired about 6 months ago. I won't do that again!

Many thanks to Kim, Sas, Eldon & Charlotte, Jane, Kate, Biscuitman and family ( I could hear little Sammie's cheers thoughout!), and all the others for the support out there. I felt like I had my own private cheer squad.! I had a great time...

2010 Australian Masters Championships Preview

Event website  hosted by Masters Athletics WA.

Come on down to the WA Athletics Stadium at Challenge this weekend to see some of the best (older) runners in the country at the moment. It's going to be exciting - not as exciting as the Open Nationals on April 16-18 I grant you, but it will be exciting, and inspiring. Don't think people lose their competitiveness as they get older, quite the opposite!

For me I'm doing the 800m on Friday scheduled start 3:30 ; probably my weakest event, I just can't sustain the pace in the second lap, but hopefully I'll be able to extract a bit extra this time. Current PB a smidge over 2:16.

1500m on Saturday, scheduled start 12:10. I enjoy this one, current PB 4:30.4.

5000m on Sunday, scheduled start 10:20am. Good strong field including the Wombat ( blog here - hopefully he'll be running, an injury kept him out of Bridges) and Ross Henderson, 2nd place in Bridges 5k, Paul Mitchell, Brett Roach, Bruce Graham etc. There are a lot of guys in this that run around 16:40 (and a few that are a lot quicker), so hopefully we can get a group going and give 16:30 a scare.

Medals, I don't care, but I'd like to just run well and hopefully score a new PB or two ; if I can't get excited about this, there's something wrong! I've been feeling pretty good in the last two weeks and have recovered well from Bridges, so fingers crossed for some good weather and good racing. Good luck to everyone who's competing, I know TB is...


Today just did the 9.6km river loop @ 4:47 HR 136 - not bad considering the wind factor.