Nooooooooovember

[El Gordo]

Now I feel bad too.

Come 'ere....

[[[man_hug]]]

[glaconman]

Now I feel bad too.

Come 'ere....

[[[man_hug]]]

We're tight yo.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Looks like the band is back together. Where are my sunglasses?

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

After missing an early highway run the previous two days due to a return of the throat bug, I felt sufficiently revived today to hit the tready for a much needed long (2 hour) hill climb. Only a gentle one, but it was a great run at a controlled pace. It needed to be comfortable, being only 9 days to race day, but it was a good work out even so. I still had enough left in the tank to sprint the last half kilometre at better than five minute pace, so very happy with they way it went. Bodes well for race day, although of course the race itself will be much, much steeper.

Feeling good though.

Track du jour: I think this is the first time I've given a gong to Barry Ryan, but his big hit 'Eloise' has fantastic energy and is a great running track. Not so great is the official video clip, which is awful quality. This live version isn't so fantastic either, but is utterly hilarious ... just check out the hair, the fashion and the dancing ... God Almighty! What were they thinking?! And as for dear old Barry ... well clearly he'd rather be elsewhere. Watch at the end of the clip where he doesn't even bother to mime the right words. Very Iggy Pop ... but without the enthusiasm.



For crying out loud - that was 41 years ago! F-o-r-t-y---o-n-e years. So in 1971, that would have been like watching one of the big hits from 1930. I feel suddenly old.

18.0 km, 1:59:46 @ 2% incline.

YTD: 1,236.5km

[Bierzo Baggie]

Track du jour: I think this is the first time I've given a gong to Barry Ryan, but his big hit 'Eloise' has fantastic energy and is a great running track. Not so great is the official video clip, which is awful quality. This live version isn't so fantastic either, but is utterly hilarious ... just check out the hair, the fashion and the dancing ... God Almighty! What were they thinking?! And as for dear old Barry ... well clearly he'd rather be elsewhere. Watch at the end of the clip where he doesn't even bother to mime the right words. Very Iggy Pop ... but without the enthusiasm.

For crying out loud - that was 41 years ago! F-o-r-t-y---o-n-e years. So in 1971, that would have been like watching one of the big hits from 1930. I feel suddenly old.

18.0 km, 1:59:46 @ 2% incline.

YTD: 1,236.5km

Brilliant. This is one of my wife's favourites. Remember the Goth version? Was it by The Damned?

Anyway, one of the more bizarre musical moments of last Summer was watching a transvestite perform Elouise in Spanish, but a far more energetic version than Barry's (looked a bit like George Best, didn't he?) during the fiestas of Camponaraya. Several hundred pensioners watched on open mouthed as your man(?) pranced around the stage in thigh length boots and a throng. He really let rip with an amazing voice, a possee of 7-year olds (my daughter included) bopped away on the front row, the sound system shuddered and I pondered on the injustice of it all (he deserved a wider audience...). Galicia's certainly got talent.

Keep up the good work, not long now...

[marathondan]

Impressive, BB - definite bonus point for you on the music round.

[Sweder]

It brought the house down on the 2009 UK tour (supporting Motörhead). Got to number 3 in the UK charts in the mid eighties, their most successful single release.

[marathondan]

Also impressed Sweder that you know how to get an umlaut on your keyboard. But I suppose I should expect it.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

T minus 7 days...

With just one week to race day, this was my last chance for a tough session before having to reign it in for a mini-taper. Thus I took to the tready for a "mountain climb", a nasty, torturous 60 minute programmed workout that would be banned under any Human Rights Treaty if compulsory. But here I was undertaking this barbaric form of medieval torture quite willingly.

Well, I have to confess that the apres-run endorphin high was a belter, but parts of this workout (i.e. the 10% incline section) were desperately hard work. The run did at least roughly equate to the hour or so starting about the 11km point in the race, and I did surivive it and maintained my pace throughout, so this was actually a good, motivating run for me.

Just a couple more routine runs now through the week before the big day.

Am I looking forward to it? Actually, yes. But it's going to be hard. Anyway, I'm about as ready as I can be at this stage. Underdone on the hills, for certain, but I will get through it. Somehow.

13km (2km warm up, 9km mountain climb, 2km cool down); 90 minutes.

YTD: 1,249.5km

[glaconman]

Great news. Going into this kind of race with a reasonable amount of confidence is important I think.

[El Gordo]

Yeah, well done for not taking the approach that most of us prefer -- me anyway -- listing our excuses, and reasons why some approaching race will be a disaster and why our only reasonable target now is to make it to the finish line.

[marathondan]

A very sound last hurrah, excellent work.

[Sweder]

That sounds like the ideal forensic workout. Recreating that second half on the Road to Hell was a great idea, one of a rare few that would drag me willingly onto such a contraption. Enjoy that taper!

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

An angry run this morning. You know how it is: you're looking forward to your early run but you have a shitty night of little sleep. You get up too late, can't find anything, can't make anything work, then as you leave the house you have the crap scared out of you by a fruit bat that was hanging from your clothes line ... well OK, maybe you don't know what that last part is like, but perhaps you can imagine it. Nasty, brutish things that spread rabies and Hendra virus - you definitely don't want to get bitten by one.

Anyway. You get my drift. So I took out my frustrations on the footpath and bashed out a 53:56 10km highway run. Fast (for me), certainly. But angry runs are always ugly runs and my form was rubbish. Still, it did the job. I felt great afterward (albeit a little frantic as I was by then quite late for work) and gratifingly it was my third fastest time for the year on that course.

Despite my lateness I took time to wolf down a huge two-course breakfast of sausage and eggs followed by paw-paw, blueberries and vanilla bean yoghurt, and unsurprisingly felt absolutely tip-top. Maybe anger when channelled correctly isn't such a bad thing?

Five days now til race day, with just a lazy 5km on Thursday to round out my mini-taper.

Stupid bat.

10km 53:56

YTD: 1,259.5km

[Antonio247]

I'm not surprised you ran away fast after seeing such a bat.

Best of luck on Sunday, MLCMM and son!

[El Gordo]

An angry run this morning. You know how it is: you're looking forward to your early run but you have a shitty night of little sleep. You get up too late, can't find anything, can't make anything work, then as you leave the house you have the crap scared out of you by a fruit bat that was hanging from your clothes line ... well OK, maybe you don't know what that last part is like, but perhaps you can imagine it. Nasty, brutish things that spread rabies and Hendra virus - you definitely don't want to get bitten by one.

Don't worry -- you're not the only Australian who can't handle a bat very well.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Don't worry -- you're not the only Australian who can't handle a bat very well.

Hmm, let me see. Australia just declared at 5/565 against South Africa... hmm ... Hussey 100, Cowan 136 and Clarke 259 not out. Hmm... can't handle a bat, eh?

[Sweder]

I stayed up till 2am to watch the SA reply. Had Amla not lucked out off that no-ball I suspect Aussie might have snatched a most unlikely victory. Clarke looked imperious and made a selfless declaration in pursuit of wider glories. A good captain, in the form of his life. Was nailed on for his second triple hundred of the year, surpassing one Mr Alistair Cook with the highest ever score at the Gabba in the process.

England face something of an injury crisis out in India. Rumours abound of woes for Finn and Broad. If true I expect our boys to get in the end of some serious totals. The back-to-back Ashes are only a year away ...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Clarke looked imperious and made a selfless declaration in pursuit of wider glories. A good captain, in the form of his life. Was nailed on for his second triple hundred of the year, surpassing one Mr Alistair Cook with the highest ever score at the Gabba in the process.

He is in sensational form! The thing that impresses me most about his batting is that he looks as fresh and in touch approaching the triple ton as he does passing 50 or 100. Astonishing batting.

We (Oz) just need some equally imperious and consistent bowlers now and we'll be OK. We do have a stable full of good bowlers but we have no Warne or McGrath to whom you can throw the ball confident of some excellent bowling no matter what the conditions.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

T minus three days

A last, easy hit-out this morning before race day on Sunday. I must say I am feeling confident. I'm not sure why, because I certainly haven't done half the training I had hoped and planned to do. Even so, I'm feeling good and genuinely looking forward to the race.

Well to be honest, I am actually looking forward to the next race beyond P2P - most likely the Canberra marathon in April. There's no time left for any further P2P training; I have my race strategy worked out so there's little point thinking more about it other than to keep out of trouble, and so I'm already looking ahead to where I go next.

I say I have a race strategy, but it's going to depend to an extent on the weather conditions on race day. They are a bit iffy - the Mt. Wellington forecast for the next three days is:



...and of course temperature is just half the story. We'll just have to see if I'm unfortunate enough to encounter blizzard conditions three times in a row. Surely I can't be that unlucky?

We'll soon find out.

6.8km 43m20s

YTD: 1,266.3km