The Australian cricket team's fortunes continue to be inversely proportional to my running success. Another good run today and a crap loss for Oz to New Zealand. But never mind the cricket, it's my 8km plod today that's got me stoked. That gives me 37km for the week, which is ahead of where I wanted to be for week 1 of my triumphant return, so I'm very pleased.
I've found a couple of races along the way to aim for this year too, the first being an 11km fun run down here on May 20, which I think I'll enter (work permitting) as it's convenient and is I think the only foot race my father ever entered, even winning his age category (75-80 if memory serves...) There are others too, but I'll hold off before committing...
This is a great time of year for running down here. The river and harbour is full of activity and over the last couple of weeks I've seen everything and anything from dinghies to some of the largest ocean liners on the planet. Below, as a rough example, is a photo pretty much as seen from my treadmill, of the
QE II as she left Hobart yesterday evening. It certainly beats watching TV or those little numbers ticking slowly over...
It has been another stinking hot, humid day, and it was rather disturbing to see the city slowly engulfed in bushfire smoke as I sweated away this evening's 8km on the tready. There are now apparently 20 fires raging around the state, and visibility here in Hobart has reduced to about 1 kilometre. So a change in the weather would be a good thing. Please.
I'm doing a couple of things differently this year to ensure my fitness levels are sufficient to meet some running goals this time. I've now got my daily energy intake levels down to around 8,000 kJ (about 1900 calories), which is down about 30% on my "normal" diet. The rather splendid thing about this is that I actually have more energy now, because I'm eating at more appropriate times of the day, and skipping the empty carbs. Lots of low GI stuff in the morning and lunch, then pretty much just fruit and a protein drink in the evening. Not having a large evening meal has helped heaps. I've been doing this since the start of January and feeling fabulous. Cutting down on the beer has had something to do with it too, probably.
I've also been treating my muscles and joints to a fabbo linament - it's designed for horses
but is just alcohol, menthol and camphor, and works a treat. Quite a lot of runners here use it, or so it seems from the local running forums. I use it before and after a run and it's certainly helping.
OK, well it's rest day tomorrow, so I guess I'll, um, twiddle my thumbs or something
Actually, no I won't. Tomorrow I'll go on my quest for new shoes. My Adidas Supernovas are good bits of footwear (so they should be for the dosh I outlayed for them), but aren't quite right for me now that I'm using orthotics. Fortunately an elite Commonwealth Games athlete I bumped into at work gave me the good oil on who to see at which store, coz I'm a little bit tired of juvenile ignoramuses telling me all kinds of fibs in most of the running stores I've ever been too
I'll let you know how I get on.
New Thread, Fresh Start
