Kicked off the month with a short (4km) tempo session. The knees are really good at the moment, so this was a chance to push the speed boundaries and just begin to get the old joints used to the idea of a bit of rapidity. It's still a long way off race pace, but it's a start. And it felt good to get up a head of steam again.
I was helped along by some of Sweder's suggestions from the earlier Stranglers' repertoire. Much of their first album Rattus Norvegicus is great running material, and my track du jour was a bit of a toss up between the album's opening track Sometimes and the final track, which actually gets the award for today, Down In The Sewer. All great stuff.
Back to a more regular mid-week session tomorrow. Off now in search of alcoholic hydration remedies...
Back to the podiatrist today for new orthotics and advice, of which he had both. And being a fellow runner, his advice tends to be pragmatic and enthusiastic, rather than the customarily conservative pseudo-warnings you get from most medical practitioners.
He in particular urged me to get off the treadmill and back in the streets again, and so this evening I lobbed onto the local roads for 7km of concrete, bitumen and dog crap with three or so slightly testing hills thrown in for good measure.
Boy, was it great! Even better, I managed to maintain a sensible pace, and the time went sooo much faster than when on the treadmill. But, I certainly noticed the difference underfoot, so just one road session per week for the moment I think.
Track du jour today was a little different, as I was sans mp3-thingy, but in contemplating my return to the streets, I couldn't get Willie Nelson's On The Road Again out of my head, so it takes today's jackpotted super-mega-prize. Willie, you can collect your prize in person any workday during office hours.
So yeah, it was beaut being back on the roads again, but crikey, you see some strange things out there...
Despite the apparent ease of my road run two days ago, today my quads are so sore as to preclude any form of running at all. I can barely make it down the stairs! Obviously I'm not as "road ready" as I thought. I've also just completed 12 continuous and relatively arduous days of work and I'm buggered. So I'm having another day off.
But I only had one beer. Why am I feeling guilty? Would be a good night for a run too - storm warning current, and already branches are down and it's teeming with steeply-angled rain. Oh well, we shall see what tomorrow brings. :o
*DOMS, in case you don't know is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. I get this a lot - usually sets in two days after a tough run. Such as today.
andy Wrote:Are you still hoping to do the 11km race this month?
Oh I forgot to mention that I discussed this with my podiatrist. The organisers have changed the course this year to please the bleeding heart motorists who objected to the road closures this race normally causes, and so this year most of the race runs along a concrete bike path. Neither my podiatrist nor I thought this was a good idea.
So instead I've entered the Mother's Day Classic, an 8km bitumen and dirt-path fun run on May 13th.
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:*DOMS, in case you don't know is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. I get this a lot - usually sets in two days after a tough run. Such as today.
I missed your note and googled 'Doms'.
Bloody hell !
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
No, this is not a slanderous report about the shady zoological goings-on of our erstwhile Brighton-based colleague a.k.a. Seafront Plodder of Almeria video fame*.
In fact the seafront plodder in question is myself, as I took to the beaches for my long 'un this morning. The plan was a good one - up before dawn, a bowl of oatmeal and yoghurt plus a banana, a twenty minute drive to Seven Mile Beach and a cruisy 20+ kilometre deserted beach run as the sun came up. However, recent storms re-gathered overnight, and when my alarm went off at 0520, there was a significant drumming of rain on the roof and worse, wild winds threatening to lift said roof off from over my head. I stuck my head back under the covers and thought "maybe later".
The "maybe later" was in fact not too far off. Once the sun was up, the wind abated, the rain vanished and all looked good again. To my amazement, I rekindled my early run plan, and found myself on a still-deserted beach bang on 8 o'clock with a belly full of oatmeal and banana and a pint of isotonic stuff strapped about my waist. To be fair, the real reason I forced myself out of bed was to honour my mate Bill, who is running his first marathon tomorrow, a charity fund-raiser in Belfast. Best of luck, mate.
So in true poetic style I headed off into the rising sun, salt and sand stinging me awake, and within a few clicks was pretty much having a ball. I reached the turn-around point (10.25 km) in 63 minutes, a fair bit ahead of what I had planned, but then when I turned around I realised why. A stiffish tail wind had built up, which of course was now going to be a bugger of a headwind for the run back. Oh well, not a lot to be done about it except head down, arse up and get into it.
About 3 kms from the start point, the beach passes the local airport runway at right angles, which is great, as you get super-way-cool ultra-close broadside views of planes coming into land. Had you been seated in a right hand-side window seat of the 0930 Qantas flight landing in Hobart this morning, you would have been momentarily distracted from the nauseatingly tricky landing the pilot was attempting in what was a very nasty crosswind by the sight of moi grinning madly and waving at you like a loon. This is partly because I've flown into Hobart many times and know how close the people on the beach seem to be, but mainly because it was a neat distraction from the stinging headwind and tough going that this run had become by that stage.
But it got easier after that. More and more beach combers, walkers and nuisance dogs (two of which thought it would be fun to try and knock me over from behind) meant I wasn't far from the end. No negative splits today, but the return leg was done in a respectable 66 minutes, so all up 2h 9m for 20.5 kms, which I am very happy with. A few more of these and some speed work and a 2 hour half marathon looks a distinct possibility. Cool.
Also brilliant was being able to cool off in the surf for a bit - which is somewhat like having an agitated ice-bath at this time of year, but my legs are thanking me for it now. And the guilt-free chocolate protein drink afterwards tasted sensational. Mmm. (What? No beer?? Later, Hortense, later.)
Fans of Brooks shoes might be interested to read that I did this run in a new pair of Brooks Vapors. My podiatrist strongly recommended some semi-serious running shoes even for just knock-around everyday use, so I bought a pair of these yesterday, and couldn't resist trying them out on the beach. I'm quite impressed. Somewhat stiffer than the Asics Kayanos (and Asics generally I think), but a good ride. I like them. I think they'd make quite acceptable off-road shoes generally. I'll let you know.
Track du jour for this run was Small Faces' Lazy Sunday Afternoon - a nice boppy little number to bounce along to, and appropriately enabling me to envision the actual lazy Sunday afternoon indeed ahead of me.
So another week done. Despite missing one mid-week run, I managed 31 relatively tough kilometres for the week, so I'm quite happy. I have an 8km race next week, so my mid-week runs will be relatively sedate I think. Must start thinking about having a crack at a half marathon race as well. There's a few of interest on the calendar. We'll see what eventuates...
Oh, and as for the 12 Monkeys - well that probably belongs in the Culture thread, but while I'm at it here... this is of course the Terry Gilliam film to which I refer, and was a fortuitous purchase following my shoe shopping yesterday. I found it in the heavily discounted bin at a roadside DVD retailer, and grabbed it with not a little glee. I've always liked this movie, but having watched it again last night, am now madly in love with it (well, sort of). This is Gilliam's best movie IMHO, even better than the superb Brazil. Exceptional, and helped by unlikely stunning acting by Brad Pitt (I'd forgotten how good he is in this) as the crazed leader of the Army of the 12 Monkeys, and Bruce Willis, as the time-travelling convicted criminal. Also worth looking for Simon Jones (the original Dent Arthur Dent) in a minor role. A brilliant, quirky, crazy movie, quite unlike anything else. Five stars.
A good day. I'm happy.
* For slanderous reports about that Seafront Plodder, see my previous threads, or those of Sweder, or indeed just about any significantly active thread on RC.
Wow, how'd I miss this post?
Good work MLCMan, and very decent pace. Hey . . . another candidate for the Almería sub-2 bus?
With you on the Brookes lads, though I'm still on the Adrenalines; must look into these Vapour fellows. Hmm (rubs chin) . . . Vapours . . . Turning Japanese wasn't it? Good stuff.
12 Monkeys - Brazil . . . Brazil - 12 Monkeys . . .
not sure it's an 'either/ or' situation. I love Brazil but it's by far the 'easier' if the two films to enjoy. 12 Monkeys usually takes at least a second watch before all the pennies drop. That's not a criticism; I rather like movies that are full of ambiguity (as opposed to just downright confusing). Gilliam is terribly hit-n-miss; these two are certainly hits.
Like Andy, and in the spirit of another enjoyable yarn, Hi Fidelity, I occasionally draw up cinematic Top Tens. Brazil often gets in there, 12 Monkeys rarely if at all. Perhaps it's time to review that; Sweder Top Ten regular Blue Velvet may have to take some time out, especially as its marginally less disturbing Lynch-driven cousin Wild At Heart has a regular seat at the table.
One thing's for sure; Alien and The Hunger are nailed on Hall-Of-Famers
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
What a strange race this turned out to be. This was a fund-raiser for breast cancer research and I was told to expect a lot of "mum and dad" (ie not very serious) runners. However I couldn't help noticing at the start line that most of the 300 or so runners in the 8km event were wearing Hash House Harrier and local running club colours. Hmm.
I had warmed up properly for this start (for once) but was also determined to take it slow and steady. Something around 6min/km pace would be fine. This was definitely more of a training run for me and I was under orders to take it easy.
The course was two laps of a 4k circuit around the Queen's Domain, a hill and parkland reserve right beside the city of Hobart. The road basically followed the contour and so was largely level with the exception of one nasty hill which was also a loop - down and up.
So off we go, and I do the right thing and let the field ease past me until I'm somewhere near the back, with the older ladies (most of the field were women) and a couple of girls. Even so, I was a little alarmed to reach the first km marker in 5:28. I ease up a bit (or so I think) and feel pretty comfortable, but then the second kilometre takes only 5:19. Hmm again. I ease up more (or so I think) and the third kilometre swoops by in 5:07. Gosh, I think I must be under the influence of the runners around me - I think I'm going slow, but clearly I'm not. I throw out a metaphorical anchor and ease off the back of the group of ladies I've been running with. Now I'm largely running on my own and can better assess my pace, which finally feels much more like training pace.
But! Heck, the fourth kilometre takes 8:04! What?!? That can't be right, surely - I know I've slowed down, but not that much! The problem becomes clearer when the fifth kilometre takes just 3:49! Obviously the 4km marker was a couple of hundred metres further on that it should have been. Uh huh, so okay, a quick mental calculation and the pace feels better, closer to the 6 min I'm looking for.
The sixth kilometre takes 5:58 and now I know I'm travelling well and according to plan. But crikey, I'm a loooong way back in the field. So, feeling good and close to home I start to pick up the pace a bit. The seventh km takes 5:24, and includes the second uphill section which I enjoy powering up (hill training paid off here) and overtake a couple of people. This is the loop in the circuit and so I can see there are exactly 20 people behind me. Which means I'm way back in the last tenth (or less) of the field. Not what I had expected, but never mind.
The race began and ended at the local athletics stadium, and so finished with a lap of the track. This was the first time I've had a track finish in a race and I loved it. I had mentally rehearsed this many times on the treadmill, and it was great to power down that last lap and finish nice and strong in 44:47, admittedly way back in the field but I'm pretty pleased. There were a lot of serious runners here after all, most of them quite bit younger than myself (or at least I like to think so). Once I had sorted my pace out, I basically ran the race I wanted, so I was happy.
I collected my goody bag and then partook of the free sports massage on offer, thinking I didn't really need it (I felt pretty good really), but discovered that my lower calfs were very tightly knotted. They hurt like blazes when the masseur stuck red hot pokers in them. Must get them worked on properly soon - I have promised my physio I would but haven't yet done so.
It wasn't until I got home that I discovered that this was actually a PB for me! It was my 15th 8km run, but the first race over that distance, so I shouldn't really be surprised. Even so I am pleased given that I really only attempted to run this at training pace. It just shows however how difficult it is to run slowly in race conditions. And it's still a long way off my PB pace for 5k or even 10k. All in all, a good morning's race.
Sweder Wrote:Good on your lot for calling off the tour of Zimbabwe by the way. Just one more example of Aussie backbone our pack of jellyfish could learn from.
The only pity is that this was a government decision, rather than one made by the players or the controlling body (Cricket Australia). Whilst I agree with their decision, I don't think that any government should dictate terms, especially as it will be the players who suffer the inevitable ICC sanctions.
India apparently went ahead with their tour despite massive reservations by players and officials, purely because of the threat of "major" ICC sanctions if they refused. It will therefore be very interesting to see what the ICC does to Australia.
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:The only pity is that this was a government decision, rather than one made by the players or the controlling body (Cricket Australia).
I was aware this was a government decision - the jellyfish I refered to was the British government, not the players or cricket management. As I understand it so long as its a political decision taken by the government in the touring country there's no ICC sanction. The problem England had recently was the UK government refused to prohibit the tour whilst declaring it 'undesirable' - thus leaving the England team's backside in the wind.
Anyway, I didn't mean for this to detract from your fabulous race effort.
So once again, well done old boy!
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Well done, MLCM. It is wonderful to see how fit you are now. Congratulatins on that PB which will be the start of a lot of new ones to come.
It is great to finish in a track in a stadium but at Almería half marathon in 2005, I thought it was just half a lap but actually it was one lap and a half. Then it was a bit tough to do 400 unexpected metres but the feeling of finishing and meeting the other forumites at the finish line was wonderful.
Manly May
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Obviously I'm not as "road ready" as I thought. I've also just completed 12 continuous and relatively arduous days of work and I'm buggered. So I'm having another day off.
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