Maaaaarvellous March.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Here we are then. The pointy end of the schedule. Today's scheduled long run - the penultimate one before race day - had to be a good 'un. No shirking, no ifs, no buts. Just toughen up and get the flock out there.

Yes, well. Hmm. Someone forgot to tell my body. 6 a.m. I reluctantly get out of bed to find my knee hurts, my quads ache, my stomach is queasy and my head full of ... snot.

So what do I do? I could in theory postpone the run 24 hours - I do have that leeway built into the spreadsheet, but it's not a great option... today is definitely the better day to run (logistically).

I give my body 15 minutes grace by cooking a slice of toast, giving it a thin smear of Vegemite and devouring it, meditatively. My body stiill whines and moans and carries on. Suddenly I get jack of it and throw on the running gear and head out the door anyway. I start the old Garmin and head up Werona Avenue. Amazingly, the knee stops hurting, the quads feel fine and the stomach is no longer queasy! The head though? Still snotty. There won't be any circular breathing on today's run.

I head along the roaring, smelly loathesome Lane Cove Road - it's called a road but really it's a 6 lane highway, usually full of trucks but at this hour full of trucks and a squillion weary, frustrated and often angry commuters. A vile place to run, but it leads to a small piece of heaven, so I persevere for the 4km it takes to get to my main destination, the Lane Cove National Park.

For once I'm doing as the books and the schedules say, and running this slowly - slower than race pace (or should I say intended race pace) at any rate and it feels ... good. Comfortable, anyhow.

Reaching the Park, I turn off the highway and immediately head downhill and away from the traffic, the roar of which very quickly disappears and is replaced by the soothing sound of the Park, which at this hour is birds, and birds alone. It's wonderful, and with the road along which I run closed to general traffic until 9 a.m., blissfully quiet, with only cyclists and the occasional runner or walker to break the peace. From one end of the park to the other is 4.5km, so 9km return, running alongside the Lane Cove River in an oasis of calm amidst an otherwise typical weekday big city commuter rush.

Although the outward leg is net downhill, I maintain my slow pace and am feeling great. When I reach the end and turn for the return leg however, something of a rush overtakes me and I speed up, floating along as easy as you please, even now that it's uphill. My pace alarms me somewhat, and I know I will pay for it later, but it's one of those rare treats; when the running is effortless yet quick, and I felt as if I could run like that all day. Of course I knew I couldn't, and wouldn't, but I still couldn't bring myself to force the pace down to something reasonable.

I returned to Lane Cove Road in good time, and the killer hill that brought me back to the noise and traffic was completed with relative ease. Now to return home along the chaos and stink of the now grid-locked highway. The run home however would only give me a total of 18km, so I had planned to run the other 14km on the treadmill. I figured 18km of hills was quite enough and some slow, even pace on a flat treadie a reasonable compromise.

One last killer hill climbed, I headed home, jumped on the treadmill and pressed "play" on the DVD I had ready to go. For inspiration I watched "Distance of Truth", the movie-length doco about Ferg Hawke and his running of the 135m/217km Badwater Ultramarathon through Death Valley. Inspiring, but scary stuff. I really do think I'll stick to marathon distance or less, thank you.

As I feared, the fast return leg through the National Park came at a price, and the 14km on the treadie was tough and slow, but it was done, and ultimately the whole 32km was done at a reasonable rate - it was never meant to be fast, but it was still at PB pace for the mara, although yes, yes I know the last 10km is the tough part. But hey, I'm pretty happy even so.

Just a few more 10km jogs now before the 36km last long run on Easter Saturday - not sure how I'm going to fit that in, but it has to be done, so it will be done.

No music today, but this appropriate track did spring to mind ... enjoy this musical comic duo from New Zealand!

Track du Jour: Business Time, Flight of the Conchords




32.11km, 3h43m

YTD: 406.9km


Lane Cove National Park