Tuesday, 26 February 2008

Woke up VERY heavy in the legs today. Not a good sign for training tonight, although I always seem to train pretty well day after a long run. Bizarre, I know

Am running late for the train as was on phone to life member talking about the Presentation Night. Have to sprint the three blocks to the station and just make it

Get to training and we are doing yucky timed intervals - the BANE of my existence. We did four mins, 2 mins slow jog, 3 mins (bit faster), 2 mins slow jog, then finish with 2 min solid. A long break between the two and repeat

For the first set, took the 4 min real easy as instructed but was still doing around 85's. The 3 min bit I defintiely feel the lift in pace and by the 2 min, I was really moving. Annoyingly still only covered about 600 metres, so at my 5 km pace

Enjoyed the break then straight back into it. Went a bit faster on the 4 min effort this time and covered almost 3 laps. May have been a tad fast. The 3 min effort wasn't too bad with 2.5 laps, and the 2 min bit I went about the same as the first set

Worked out later that the fastest I went was about my 3000 metre pace, so not good and maybe the body is feeling fatigued

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 6 kilometres including warm down

Monday, 25 February 2008

Long run home today and need to get home before Kylie goes off to yet another meeting

Left just after 5:00 pm and tried to get into an easy rhythm. Try to generate myself a little "zone". Got to Park Street in under 20 mins which is a little faster than usual but still felt good

Right across to St Georges Rd and I need to head south on the bike path back towards the city for 15 minutes as I thought I needed to add an extra half hour to my run. Was wondering how far it would take me and as I suspected it included the killer hill once you go under the Heidleberg Road bridge. There was a guy doing a hill session there and I yelled out "Respect, Brother" as I ran past. Not too many hills as tough as this one. Short but nasty steep

A little further on and I have to turn around to head back towards St Georges Rd. Asked the guy on my return leg how many he was doing and he said ten! yikes!! but evidently he had just finished because as I ran a little further on I could hear heavy footsteps behind me and it was this guy but about 100 metres behind. If I was really smart I woulda hung back and asked hi if he was a member of a club. Shouldn't ever pass up a recruitment opportunity

Back onto St Georges Road and its back onto the Merri Creek bike path for home. Saw Rita Pana on the way and stopped briefly to say g'day. Got to where I would normally turn off for home and as I suspected I have under-estimated the run once again. So had to run further to the swing bridge at the end of Harding Street then cut across home to Preston

Felt alright during most of that run and definteley the best I have felt in a long run for a while. Time was 89 minutes in the end

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 18 kilometres

Sunday, 24 February - Pro Meet

The family came to see me run today which was nice

Did a ten minute warm up then lined up for my race. Got a massive lift from my last start of 30 metres so was running of 190 metres and an outside chance of a place. Felt like I was running pretty smoothly, although there was a howling headwind in the "front straight". No idea of my placing until I heard the commentator say that I was moving through the field

With 200 to go I could see the frontmarkers were too far ahead but I put in a bit of a burst at the finish and managed to catch the 7th placed guy for me to fniish 6th. Felt alright afterwards and having since seen the result I know why. Was only running 4:43 equivalent 1500 pace so should have been several seconds quicker than that

Lined up for my second race off 150 metres. Such a bad mark for me in an Open event, which is why I decided to try cruise this one as best I could. Started off with the guy on the same mark as me and he was going a little too comfortably for me so passed him and tried to stay in touch with the backmarkers, who generally are much quicker runners

Tried to really push my pace through the last half and almost managed to pick up a couple of frontmarkers in the finish straight. Nevertheless I did finish second last. So when I saw my time I was pretty shocked to calculate it as an equivalent 4:42 time over 1500 metres - despite the fact that I ran 40 metres further than in my first race. Evidently, my body is attuned to running at one pace and I need to do something different in my training to get quicker

A twelve minute warm down afterwards and it was off home via Red Rooster as it was too late to cook dinner

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 7 kilometres

Saturday, 23 February 2008

Got up almost as Diane was at the door to pick us up to go to Princes Park. Quickly bundled the children into the car with some fruit and we were off. Got to Princes Park and I was the only bloke training amongst six girls

Brian looked after the children while we did our session. A tough one. If I had done it properly this is what it was supposed to be :

Set 1 of Slow 500, Steady 500, Steadier 500 with jog across from Cemetery Side to Start Side as recovery, then Set 2 of Medium 500, float 500, Medium 500 as above recovery, then next set was steady straight out 1500 at quicker pace than anything above

Well, the first set went okay but was hard work. Second second was tough, something like 85 seconds for was probably too fast. So when I came to the third set, I went through the first km in 3:10 pace, reached the 1 km marker in 3:18 and I ... stopped! The mind seemed to say that was enough and all of a sudden I was walking. How embarrassment. Walked for about 30 seconds then finshed off with whatever distance was left

In the back of my mind was that I had two 1500 metre races tomorrow at Pro's, so maybe I shouldn't be working so hard. And in the end, 3:18 is my 3000 metre pace so not sure I was going to get any real benefit out of finishing the set

Warm down jog with the girls and it was off home to do some housework

Running at Pro's tomorrow in Noble Park. Have actually goal umpired senior football at this ground so know a bit about it. For some idiotic reason they have the Novice Mile at 4:10, and the Open Mile at 4:35 so a 20 break after I finish the first one is not going to be much fun. I would hazard a guess to say I am the only person who entered themselves for both events. What the hey, this pro thing was only ever good training for AV anyways

TOTAL DISTANCE = about five kilometres including warm up and down

Friday, 22 February 2008

rest day today. either way it was going to be as was feeling very seedy after too much fun last night with the bottle. Astounded that after all that drinking (especially the beer), I actually lost some weight overnight

my favourite lunch of chicken schnitzel, cheese and coleslaw roll had me feeling a bit better

spent the last half hour at work getting stuff together for Little Aths and went there tonight after the kidlets were in bed. It pelted down with rain the whole time I was there but did manage to get some interest from one child's parents about the winter season, so that was a huge bonus

However with the run only got away half the flyers. Still - getting interest from parents in the Harriers made the visit worth it. Am going to have to try getting someone down there next weekend for their All Star Day. That's going to be a hassle

Training tomorrow at Princes Park and am taking the two older ones

Thursday, 21 February 2008

Much cooler conditions today, and yet the training group was half the size of Tuesday. How bizarre. Brian was attending the Grand Prix athletics meeting and left me in charge. Finally got the program off Brian as I was due to leave work for the track

After the usual warm up routine, the program had us do a 1200 with five minte rest, a 1000 with five minute rest, and then a 800

We had a young girl doing some timed 200's so I gave her my watch. For that reason I am not sure what I did the 1200 in. Did the 1000 in 3:02 and was pretty happy with that as I didn't feel like I was pushing quite that hard

The only problem with the session was that my 800 (2:26) was only barely the same pace as the 1000 metres and that is cause for concern! Would have hoped to have finished a bit stronger than that. Haven't been getting much sleep on account of putting together summer presentation night material. That, combined with yesterday's run, could have been a factor

Anyway, it didn't matter after the four beers I consumed at the club and the rest of the yummy red wine from Joey-Jojo that I scored last week. What a lass!

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 4 kilometres including warm up and down

Wednesday, 20 February 2008

Went out for slow run with Shane Jansen at lunchtime today. It was a little cool and raining the whole time we were out. Not real rain, just that slow annoying drizzle. Was drenched pretty ealry on. So from 30 degree temps yesterday to only high teen's today. Love Melbourne weather, but I wouldn't have it any other way

We went along St Kilda Road to the Tan and did a couple laps there. All up around 38 minutes. The pace started to get interesting about half way through and was what Briab might have called steady. Not quite the slow recovery run I was after but it still felt pretty good. Obviosuly last night's run in the heat wasn't that taxing on the body

Got back to work and pretty much took me a half hour to get through my small bowl of pasta. I was forcing myself to it eat and perhaps should have not done so given I already felt full

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 7 kilometres

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

There were heaps of people at training tonight despie the heat. And heaps more girls than guys there which is a good sign for the winter season (hopefully). I suspect our winter mens teams aren't going to be quite as stong this season and we may struggle to fill division 6, let alone division 7. i guess we wait and see

it was pretty hot in the sun so Brian had us do 300's, which I was a bit surprised about. However, he did say that after every second one we could grab a quick drink. Warren Burke - who seems to be back training with us once again - reckoned that would add an extra minute to the recoivery time and he was pretty much spot on

Was very happy with the 300's. The recovery was 100 walk recovery to the next one, then a grab drink recovery after each second one. I managed to do them at slightly quicker than 1500 pace - was doing 49's pretty much consistently so was happy with that. However at the end of the session I was still feeling pretty strong so maybe could have worked harder

Plan to meet Shane Jansen tomorrow for slow recovery run so that should be fun. When I got home tonight it was still 33 degrees and that was an hour after I finished training. Can't imagine how warm it was while we were out there

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 2.5 kilometres (not including walk recoveries)

Monday, 18 February 2008

Long run day today. Supposed to go for 80 minutes and try to get home before 6:45 pm so Kylie could get to yet another meeting. Left work in plenty of time for a change and styarted the long journey home. The weather was a carbon copy virtually of yesterday, so it was still 32 degrees when I left

Got to Park Street and had a quick squirt of some water from the drink fountain. Alll along the run I am wondering how to fit the extra 30 odd minutes into my run - the direct route to home is only 50 minutes. So when I got to St Georges Road from Park Street, I decided to head back towards the city on the bike path for ten minutes. Must have been a bit fatigued because as you can see I was a bit off on my calculations

The path was a little undulating and I was doing it tough in the heat. My heart rate was going crazy in some sections and in others it was just fine. I can only put this down to the heat

Got to the turnaround point and headed back for the long trip home. I get to where I would turn off for home and find to my dismay I still need to add an extra ten minutes into the run. So I kept going on the boke path over the swing bridge, past Harding Street and out past the market gardens

Time to head back and face the tortuous hill after the swing bridge that heads onto Gilbert Road. It was a tough as I expected and finally get home with 80 mins on the clock.

Played a little cricket in the back yeard with Hamish before slowly sipping an ice water. It truly was almost better than you know what. Just feeling that ice water flow through my system I think my body temperate went down a degree or two there and then. Bliss!

Temperatures are going to be much cooler after tomorrow and thank goodness for that. ONly have to get through tomorrow's session in the heat first

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 15 kilometres

Sunday, 17 February 2008

Was supposed togo for a long run today and go see Shane Jansen play cricket in Kew. None of these eventuated

Kylie had to go for a meeting in her role of President at Hamish's kindergarten and by the time she got back (3:30 pm) it was too late to go for a run - or see Shane play cricket, particularly as it was my turn to cook dinner

Also, at 4:00 pm it was still in excess of 30 degrees so in the end the decision was pretty easy. If I was a little less hungover this morning, I might have gone for a run then. Actually I don't really enjoy morning runs so maybe not. Anyways as you can see, I had a lot of excuses not to run

So I will go for a run tomorrow which will make training pretty tough on Tuesday. Not to worry.

Saturday, 16 February - AV Shield Final

Today was the day of the big AV Shield Final. We only had men's Division 4 in there for the guys, but more importantly we had Division 2 Women - who won the NW Region title

The only event I qualified in was the 400 metres. It was a pretty warm day and my warm up of ten minutes had me streaming with sweat. I had a friendly competition going with an older fellow from Richmond over would run the faster time. It was going to be tight as he was in really good 400 metre form and the previous week had broken 60 seconds, while I had not done that all season in my return from a knee injury

Waited nervously for my race in theblazing sun. The nerves intensified when I saw the flolow from Richmond had put in a blinder to run 58.5 and I was in trouble! Finally we were ready - heat 3 and I was in Lane 5. Went out pretty hard and from very early on I was in the lead. At the 200 metre mark I was still leading and comong round the bend I was straining to see the finish clock

I get towards the finish and I finally see the clock. Thought I had done enough and eased up a metre or two from the line, only for the clock to register 59.06. Doh! Still, I won my heat and that was pleasing. I would later find out that I finished ninth overall in Division 4

We went out for dinner afterwards at the Doncaster Hotel which was quite pleasant, especially with a couple of the guys from Athletics Essendon who joined us. After 9:00 pm the children were getting ratty so we shot through and went home. Long run tomorrow

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 2.5 kilometres

Friday, 15 February 2008

Rest day today ahead of Shield Final tomorrow

Finished work later than I expected on account of the two meetings I had to get to. Then when it came time to do the club stuff that I needed to do, I couldn't get out of work until nearly 6:00 pm

Almost home and Kylie rinngs me to tell me she is at Charlotte's, so I go over there and we have fish and chips for dinner. Very healthy before the big day tomorrow

Mind you, probably no more healthier than the four glasses of red wine. And I was supposed to have an alcohol free day today! What do they say about the best laid plans ...

And here it is 12:40 am and still doing my blog. Ah, not to worry - only the 400 metres tomorrow

Thursday, 14 February 2008

Training with Brian today at the Coburg track

I left work a tad earlier than usual and met up with the children at Child Care and scored a lift to training

As promised it was a light session - of sorts. There were two sets for the guys competing at the Shield Final and three sets for everyone else. A very strange session

First part of the session was five laps of steady on the bends, surge all or part of the straight. I started off what felt easy but got progressively harder as I ticked off the laps. The last lap was a killer. Should have put the watch on it and an idiot for not doing so

We had a pretty lengthy break to the next set. For AV Shield guys, it was simply a set of 5 x 150's, while the other guys had to do what looked like a couple of laps of jog straights, stride bends

So the five of us at training destined for the Shield Final did the 150's. I ended up doing all of them in around 20 - 21 seconds. Evidently this was pedestrian for Josh Persson who finished the last two much stronger than I

The other group ended up with the 5 x 150's while we did two laps cooldown

Dinner was three beers and some leftover risotto from the children's dinner

TOTAL DISTANCE = 3.5 kilometres inlcuding warm up and down

Wednesday, 13 February 2008

rest day today

might normally go for an easy forty minute run but with the Shield Final on Satuday I am taking things easy

plus Kylie had a long meeting at the Child Care Centre to go to tonight. She is the Secretary of the parent's committee that runs the Centre

children were all tuckered out from their day at kinder (Hamish) and child care (Amelia and Madeleine), so for a change they all went down to bed without a fight. Hamish was so tired from kinder, that he fell aslepp in the car at 6:00 pm and we put him to bed when we got home

That allowed some quality time with my favourite child Amelia and we had a bit of fun together before I put her to bed a bit later just before 8:00 pm

Training tomorrow at the track and I am told an easy session

Tuesday, 12 February 2008

Training at the Coburg track tonight with Brian. didn't feel too bad after the long run yesterday, but running to the station and the track from Batman the legs just didn't have any drive in them

Get to the track and theremust be about 30 people ready to go - most of them female! Things are looking up at the 'Burg. Was glad to see Glen Carroll there, who is one of our new athletes who is already showing a lot of promise

Did our usual limbering exercises session. Then into the main session

Tonight - it was 3 x 400's with 200 jog recovery, then a rest. Then it was 4 x 300's with 100 m walk recovery, then a rest. Then we had 4 x 200's with across infield (about 100 metres) walk recovery

Did each of the 400's in around 67 seconds. The first one was 67 and Glenn went with me through the first one. On reflection, a tad fast. The second 400 was I think 69. And the last one was 67 again. We had a pretty decent break, I would say about five minutes and we are lining up for the 300's

The second set - the 300's - were all in around 49 seconds. I was reasonably happy with that given that the instruction was to do them faster than the 400's and at 49 that works out to be 65 second 400's. so if not the same pace, a touch quicker

We line up for the 200's and do the first one in 31 seconds. I find that as we go though each of the 200's the other guys are getting a tad faster and I am remaining constant. I end up doing all four of the 200's in 30-31 seconds. Maybe this is why my 400's and 800's on race day aren't improving that much. Food for thought

Through the last two 200's I notice that first my left calf is cramping and on the last one both calves are cramping. I have not experienced this before while doing "sprint" work so will have to watch it

Scored two bottles of red wine after training from Jo F for my work in the summer season which was a lovely gesture. Thanks Joey! I am drinking one of them as I type this. Little does she know that I love the summer season and if i had the chance i would take six months off from work every year just to concentrate on it! i love the bravado, the competitive spirit, the friendships and the in your facew attitude of the summer season. you just don't get that during winter. there is so much going on at a summer meet and if you have a bad run in an 800, you can always redeem yourself in the 3 km, 5 km or whatever. Summer season rocks!

Anyhoo, good session tonight and it will see me in good stead for my 400 metres at the Shield Final on Saturday. Oh yeah, Our Division 4 men's team made it to the Shield Final against the top two teams from each region for Division 4 in the state. And all I qualfied for was the 400 metres. Might have snuck in for Long Jump if it was on the program

What's worse, I have to race against this 45 year old guy from Richmond who has run way faster than me this season. He runs at a different region, so on the track we have never raced against each other. If it was an 800 or above I would have him covered. But over the sprints ...

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 4 kilometes including warm down

Monday, 11 February 2008

As usual, after telling my partner I would be home by 6:30, i didn't end up gettng away from the office until 6:00 pm - with a 75 minute run ahead of me. My cause was not helped by uncovering a stupid error on a spreadsheet that mis-reported some data. So the extra half hour I was working instead of running went into making a start on fixing that up

Felt alright through the first part of the run, then started to feel like I was having to push rather than the relaxing run it was supposed to be. I got to park street with 20 minutes on the clock and was struggling

Got to the Merri Creek bike path and the sweat was pouring off of me, which usually doesn't happen on my long runs. I get to where i would normally turn off for home and I still have 25 minutes left to run

So I continued on for ten minutes to the track and was going to double back but decided to run up murray rd. still had to do some extra time so continued on to St Georges Road, ran down to bell street and back to home - so 74 minutes all up

Glad that I did the whole 74 minutes but gee it felt tough. I really don't enjoy long runs on my own

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 14 kilometres

Sunday, 10 February 2008

Rest day today, or at least an enforced day off as it was my middle child's second birthday party today and we had to get the house spick and span

People drifted in and I got the barbie fired up around 2:00 pm. Cooked some beautoful snags and made a nice change from my usual charcoal job. Even got some favourable comments

The last person left around 6:30 pm, which is early for our functions. So we were able to get the children into bed nice and early

Long slow distance run tomorrow after work

Saturday, 9 February - Vic Champs

Well, after getting home last night around 11:00 pm, once I had watched a little television and played around on the internet, it was like 1:00 am by the time I got to bed. So much for the early night ahead of today's 5,000 metres!

Woke up to a series of wake up calls from my darling partner and mother which pretty mucg forced me out of bed around 9:30 am. Had a bowl of cornflakes while I watched what was left of Star Trek Voyager. Good episdose. Then played on the computer until I realised with a start that it was midday and I hadn't had anything else to eat to keep me going through the rest of the day. So with three hours to race time, I had two pieces of peanut butter toast and some coffee. The latter of which was probably not the best thing to have

So I get to Olympic Park around 2:00 pm and I have to check in for my event by 2:10 pm. Except that I see Tim Erickson from my club about to start the 5,000 metre Walk. I had brought a digital camera so I could take some pictures of our banner (that I was about to hang up on the fenceline) so I decided to also take a heap of Tim in his event.

I put the banner up then jogged around to check in for my event. That left me half an hour to warm up and take pics before having to be in the Call Room for my event. Spent fifteen minutes taking pictures of Tim and our banner, and barely had enough time for ten minute warm up before I had to be in the Call Room

Once there I saw Tony Dell - Tiger Boy from Coolrunning and Ausrun running forums - and gasbagged to him for a while. In so doing, I didn't do my usual pre-race stretches and was still putting on race numbers when called up to head out to the track

Lined up on the start line and saw Marc Chew from the Harriers. Great to have some local support in the stands.

We start and straight away I am tucked behind Joji Mori from Richmond, who in pre-mjury form I would usually beat having raced against him before. He was on 16:40 pace and going very steadily. We went through the first km in 3:18. Still feeling surprisingly good as we go through the second km in 3:20 for 6:38 on the clock. Starting to feel the pinch but another steady kilometre of 3:20 for 9:58 and bang on track for 16:40

Starting to think that 16:40 is on the cards but start to hit the wall with these five laps to go. Not too sure what the clock read at the 4 km mark, but I do not that the last five laps felt really tough and in the end finished with 16:50

I didn't really have any expectations going into this race, especially after the disappointment of last night. Nevertheless am very pleased with this time, and the fact that I managed to stay steady and strong for the majority of the race. Perhaps I am a 3,000 metre runner at heart? So to have 16:50 off a PB of 16:35 I think I am pretty satisfied with given I am only about six weeks into full training after a two month layoff

After the race scored two free tickets to the Melbourne Grand Prix athletics meeting for having my banner up so the day got even better. And did my warm down with Marc Chew which was great to have some company - thanks Marc

Rest day tomorrow on account of the fact that Amelia has her birthday party for turning two and I can't get out for all the prep that needs doing

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 9 kilometres including warm up and down

Friday, 8 February - Vic Champs

Got to bed late again last night. Taking half day off from work today because I have the Vic Champs on tonight and won't be seeing my children until tomorrow

We dropped Hamish off for his first day of kindergarten and he wanted to mummy tostay with him. Only natural I guess. Amelia cracked it when we left. Perhaps she thought it was another child care place and she was supposed to stay

Had breakfast in Coburg then off home. Had to deal with a few club emails - more drama's with the Ground Management of the track - and that took up all the time I had left until I had to get ready for work

Left work around 6:00 pm and got to Olympic Park nice and early. Popped the mighty Coburg Harriers banner onto the fence on the eastern Grandstand. Read my paperwork again which said go to the call room 25 mins before my event. A nice ten minute warm up and I was in the call room 30 minutes to event time. There I got told I need to check in an hour beore my event and they weren't going to let me race.

While waiting for them to decide if they want to let me race, I re-read the paperwork and buried in a paragraph above the Check In times is a bit where it says I need to go to the TIC 60 minutes before event start. Oops! I have this strange feeling I might have done this last year too

Anyway, they must have looked at my best times for the year, decided yeah this chump is no elite athlete and it won't matter if he runs or not so they let me off and I was in. They call out the heats and I had a fair idea what some of the guys around me could run. So I was disappointed when they put me in a heat that didn't have any of the guys I thought I could go with. Not to worry, I am there to run a season best anyway

They call heat's 1 and 2 onto the track some 10 minutes after the event was supposed to start at 7:55 pm. they are walking to the start line when the heavens open up and we have very heavy rain for about fifteen minutes. It clears up and it looks like we are getting ready for a start around 8:30 pm. Then the heavens open up again and we get another sustained burst of heavy rain. I didn't bring my spikes as i don't like to wear them in middle distance events and I am hoping they let me race without them. Ordinarily they would, but with the wet weather they might be worried about athlete safety

In the end they called my heat out onto the track at 8:50 pm. The first heat goes off at 9:05 pm and pretty soon I am up. Luckily they don't check for spikes. Tacked onto the tail end of the field and we go through 300 in 49 seconds. Straight away I feel like I am really pushing but still feeling okay. there is water sploshing around everywhere and my undies are soaked in the first lap which made things pretty uncomfortable

The second lap I went through in 71 seconds with 2:00 on the clock. This is my fastest start for the year and things are looking promising ahead of the horror third lap that I generally throw in. At this point there is a group of three of us at the back and we are swapping positions through each lap. One of the guys was from St Kevins or Eureka and didn't recognise which club the other guys was from - maybe glenhuntly?

The third lap I was really beginning to hurt and looking forward to getting onto the last lap. The guy from St Kevinbs has gone past me on this lap and there is quite some distance between us and the next pack. Going through the bell, there is 3:14 on the clock (for a 74 second lap) and I was pretty happy with that. I remember thinking I am on for a season best here - perhaps 3:25 or 3:26

Perhaps I was thinking about that too much and not concentrating on pushing really hard for the last 400. I was out on my own at this point and coming round the bend I could see 4:14 on the clock. Really tried to push the last 100 but was gutted to see 4:28 or something as I neared the fnish and pulled to record 4:30.51. Shameful performance. I was wrecked afterwards and pretty depressed about it. Still am. That 300 on the last lap, well that was at about my 3000 metre pace, not mile pace, not what I should be serving up for a championship event. very slow ten minute warm down afterwards

Anways, I consoled myself with food on the way home. I thought about getting stuck in to a cheap and nasty red but thought I better be good to myself plus I want to get to bed early. So I had two potato cakes instead. And a sandwich. And a foccaccia roll. the scales tomorrow will be interesting

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 5 kilometres including warm up and down

Thursday, 7 February 2008

I have been a naughty boy of late and not getting to bed until the wee small hours. This morning I lazed in bed until after 8 am on my little girls birthday morning so missed her opening her presents from us

Decided to make it up to her by meeting Kylie when she picked them up from child care. I knew this was going to make me late for training, so I was only do a short session anyway. Sitting at work, I prevaricated over to catch the earlier train or the later train and opted for the later one

Everything was going according to plan until I got on the train which sat in the loop for ten minutes before getting to North Melbourne where we were told there was a problem with the overhead wires and had to get off. So had to ring Kylie and have her pick me up from North Melbourne. So after all that didn't get to training until 7:00 pm

Did the 3 x 500's that Brian prescribed and then overdosed on leftover spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. Not sure Brian would have been too happy that I did those 500's at quicker than my 1500 metre pace. Although pre-injury they would have been spot on my 1500 pace. The last 500 was 85 seconds. Not sure the first two

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 3 kilometres including warm up and down

Wednesday, 6 February 2008

Rest day today

Ordinarily I might run home or at lunch-time but i have got training tomorrow then running Friday and Saturday, so thought it would be better to have a rest day and remain fresh

Jo Delaney came over tonight to give Amelia (middle child) her birthday present. Amelia is two tomorrow. I had a quick bite of dinner while Kylie and Jo bathed the girls. After Jo shot through I bathed Hamish and we put the two children down to bed

Easy training session tomorrow at the track ahead of the 1500 metres at the Vic Champs on Friday night

Tuesday, 5 February 2008

Training today was interesting. Not really suited to 1500 metre running however, which is what i want to be focussing on ahead of the Vic Champs this weekend and Stawell

We did two sets. The first was 3 x 3 mins steady with 2 mins recovery between each. After a break, we had 2 x 2.5 mins with a 2 min break between them. Did this set really hard and the last minute or so was particularly tough! A good hard session and hopefully it will be good for at least the 5,000 metres on Saturday at the Champs

We had our winter season elections afterwards. Traditionally this has been done at the AGM but I thought that ridiculous given the AGM is generally one two weeks before the start of the winter season. So I pushed for it to take place in January and on a training night so more people could attend to vote. In the end, we had an excellent turn out

In a surprise Jackie Steel nominated and was voted in as Winter Vice-Captain. Philip VanDueren was re-elected unopposed as Captain. I decided to serve on the winter committee bacuase i like to have my finger in every pie, and because I do like to have my say on competition matters. Deb Canal and John Braszell were also elected as winter committee members

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 5 kilometres including warm up and down

Monday, 4 February 2008

Rest day today. Ordinarily I might run home from work or at lunchtime, but after long run yesterday, I don't want to put any further stress on my knee plus i do not want to be too tired in the body before the Vic Champs on Friday

Sunday, 3 February 2008

Didn't feel too bad today, especially after sleeping in

Watched a bit of television and looked after children while Kylie had two hour snooze on couch, then went and mowed the backyard jungle

Was 4:30 pm by the time I could get out for a run. Went for a comfortable 67 minutes out on the Merri Creek bike path south towards the city

Got back and had bath with children before cooking them fish fingers for dinner

Turns out Division Four men may have made the Shield Final and Division Two women won (as expected) and we now have teams promoted to division one of both AV winter and AV summer in the same year. How good is that!

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 13 kilometres

Saturday, 2 February - AV Shield North West Region Final

Didn't go to bed until late last night after Madeleine woke at 11:30 pm for a feed. Went to bed around 12:30 am but Kylie got home from her night out soon after and then I could sleep for nerves thinking about the Final

Finally drifted off and woke up at 7:30 am to give the children their breakfast. We had a children's birthday party to attend which by extrairdinary coincidence was down the road from the Aberfeldie track at the Maribyrnong River Boathouse

Arrived at the track to find that some our women's team were late in arriving. They eventually turned up and we were ready. Handed out everyone's program and settled back to see how the day progressed

First up, I had the Hammer Throw. I did a measly 12 metres and given that I probably wouldn't have done much better than that I opted out after that one throw

Next up the 800 metres. I was running this in Division Two. First lap went through in 64 and I thought I might be on track for a good time. Ended up fifth in 2:14, so disappointed with that time. The third 200 was the killer going through in 36 seconds or so before a 34 second last 200. Still, we were second, third and fifth there so a good grouping of points

A nice long break until my next run, or so I thought ...

Three of our sprinters all pulled out of the Relay after doing their 100 metre event, which meant that I had to run in the Division 4 relay team. I was just going to jog it, but when I saw Benny Tancredi coming though like a freight train to hand over to me, I figured that wasn't fair on him and I ran it reasonably hard. In the end, we came in second which was a great result

The 3000 metres was next and I was keen to tackle it like I had four days before, in that I was really going to try to push. The first kilometre was pretty quick in 3:15, which might explain the slower 3:20 second kilometre split. A finish with 3:14 was much better and I ended up with 3:49 and third place. Very pleased with that effort as it is the only one of my events that is getting closer to the pre-injury form. Interestingly, both my 1500 and 3000 are around 10 seconds off my full fitness form

Last event was the 400 metres, in which I was in Division Four. With three sub-60 guys from Essendon in front of me, I was only running for fourth place. I felt really cruisy through 300, before I heard a Brunswick guy come up on my inside. I really tried to put evertything into that last 100 metres but he got me on the line. I was pretty cranky with that, given that bloke was an absolute tosspot. The last laugh was mine however, as the team I was running in or that event ended up beating his into the Shield Final by just five points

Did two laps warm down before cracking open the beers then continuing the post race cheer with a few pints of Cascade Light at the Pascoe Vale Hotel. I was on the light beers as any heavy beer was going to get me very well smashed! I was feeling the two heavy cans at the track

Rest day tomorrow or hour run depending on how the knee is feeling

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 5.5 kilometres including warm up and down

Friday, 1 Febraury 2008

Rest day today

Got home to have dinner with children before Kylie headed out for drinks with friends

Madeleine (youngest) was really hard to settle to sleep but two older ones were asleep by 8:30 pm

Watched the 20/20 cricket. What an awesome games for the Aussies

Try to go to bed early before the Region Final tomorrow

Thursday, 31 January 2008

Knee still a bit sore today and training with Brian at the Coburg Harriers

With the Shield North West Region Final on, I was hoping for an easy night and Brian obliged.

Naturally me being what I am, I still worked pretty hard and probably didn't go at the "steady" pace that Briza wanted. Still, I was feeling reasonably fresh after yesterday's rest

The set was 8 x 150's with a 50 jog recovery. Then a decent break. Happy with the 400's at slightly quicker than 1500 metre pace

Then after the break we had 2 x 300's, 2 x 200's and 2 x 150's each with a walk recovery and a break between each set

A couple of beers afterwards while Philip, Jo and I worked out how to structure our teams for the Region Final. Didn't finish until 9:30 pm

Rest day tomorrow ahead of the Shield Final

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 4 kilometres not including walk recovery, but including warm down

Wednesday, 30 January 2008

Rest day today and nothing exciting to report

Was going to do a 40 minute run home but thought better of it. With the AV Shield North West Region Final on Saturday and my knee sorer than it has been since I got injured, I think I better ease off a bit

Training tomorrow with Brian and should be an easy night ahead of the Shield Final