It's astonishing how your first-born's wedding can take over your whole life. Number one son Chris was married on March 31st, and seemed to consume most of the month. Apart from the wedding itself, we had to drive over 3,500 kilometres to get there and back across flood-ravaged parts of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. We also had family drama in the last few days with my sister-in-law unexpectedly ending up in hospital with a heart condition (she's the super-fit one of the family, so this was a shock to all) and thus unable to get to the wedding. Even more shocking, my 84 y.o. mother-in-law was involved in an horrendous car crash just three days before the wedding, which involved flipping the car (which then exploded) in front of oncoming traffic on one of Sydney's busiest motorways at peak hour. All I can say about that is that airbags are incredible. She was pulled from the wreckage with only (serious) bruising; discharged herself from hospital a few hours later and still made it to the wedding!
So, it has been a long, dramatic and at times traumatic month, but I am safely back home in Sydney now and looking forward to resuming my running routine. I did manage a few shorter runs in the previous three weeks or so, the most notable ones being a 6.5km beach run with Chris on the morning of his wedding which was very special, and an 8km dawn run along the banks of the Murray River at Echuca in Victoria on the return journey home.
So apologies for being so quiet - but I'm home again now and looking forward to getting back to some serious running.
(05-04-2012, 11:35 PM)Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote: Wow, where did those last three weeks go?!
It's astonishing how your first-born's wedding can take over your whole life. Number one son Chris was married on March 31st, and seemed to consume most of the month. Apart from the wedding itself, we had to drive over 3,500 kilometres to get there and back across flood-ravaged parts of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. We also had family drama in the last few days with my sister-in-law unexpectedly ending up in hospital with a heart condition (she's the super-fit one of the family, so this was a shock to all) and thus unable to get to the wedding. Even more shocking, my 84 y.o. mother-in-law was involved in an horrendous car crash just three days before the wedding, which involved flipping the car (which then exploded) in front of oncoming traffic on one of Sydney's busiest motorways at peak hour. All I can say about that is that airbags are incredible. She was pulled from the wreckage with only (serious) bruising; discharged herself from hospital a few hours later and still made it to the wedding!
So, it has been a long, dramatic and at times traumatic month, but I am safely back home in Sydney now and looking forward to resuming my running routine. I did manage a few shorter runs in the previous three weeks or so, the most notable ones being a 6.5km beach run with Chris on the morning of his wedding which was very special, and an 8km dawn run along the banks of the Murray River at Echuca in Victoria on the return journey home.
So apologies for being so quiet - but I'm home again now and looking forward to getting back to some serious running.
Just got to get through Easter first!
Hurrah! Welcome back. MLCM - and great pic. I spent all of last Saturday editing snaps taken at my nephew's wedding. (Remember the days when the happy couple's children used to arrive after the wedding...?
A run on wedding morning sounds like just the thing to calm nerves and create a bit of 'headspace', as old hippies like to say, in the mayhem. Hope sister-in-law and MIL are doing well. Was SIL's problem pre-existing or caused by the 'super fit' lifestyle? At the Reading Half Marathon last week, a runner died. As usual, it wasn't a tottering lard mountain like SP, but a fit and experienced runner with some sort of previously undiagnosed congenital condition.
Keep us updated.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Great pic of Junior & Tash. Please pass on my very warmest regards. I really enjoyed their company last year and look forward to catching up with them during my return visit at the end of next year.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Thanks for the best wishes everyone - duly passed on to son and daughter-in-law.
A good Easter Monday morning run today, getting back into the swing of things. Also a chance to test out my brand new Camelbak. I was getting sick of carrying a water bottle on these long runs, and my water belt was causing me grief in terms of nasty chafing, so a Camelbak it was. Initial impressions favourable. It was perhaps a little hard to get a good gulp of water as I found I needed to suck on the tube quite hard (which is difficult when knackered) but this just encouraged me to drink more often, which is probably a good thing.
But the beast itself is very comfortable and carries a surprising amount of extra outboard gear. In all, a great purchase.
So, 16 hilly kilometres covered today in good time. Without a doubt I've lost a good deal of form over the last three weeks, but I finished the run quite comfortably so all in all a great outing.
Urgh, a bad run today. This often happens for some reason - the day after I put an entry in for a race, I have a crap run. Actually I think this was just the culmination of a few massively insane weeks - bound to have copped a bad 'un after that lot.
Anyway, it was still a run of sorts. The hills were nightmares though, and I cut the outing about 6 km short of the intended, but given how I felt and the conditions (surprisingly warm out) I wasn't unhappy to have pushed on to get at least a few clicks in the bank. Very slow, but.
The race, by the way, is the Sydney Half Marathon on May 19. I ran this race last year and it was a pretty good one, and although infested with serious club runners, there are enough non-elite runners to ensure I shouldn't finish last.
My way of looking at these red-headed step-children runs is that's one out of the way. They pop up in every schedule and at the time you're left feeling deflated and not a little cheated. Yet they are anomolous, they come out of the blue and without an underlying reason (injury, illness) they leave without trace.
Throttle back, throw yourself an easy run or two to get back in the groove and you'll be right as rain.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
I've often said that the sweat of honest toil doesn't stink, but after three debauched days of too much booze, pizza and other assorted rich, fatty foods, no matter how honest my toil may have been, I still finished today's run reeking of the previous days toxic intakes.
Yes, today was a day of reckoning, marking - as it did - the day I got back into 50km training weeks and re-established my half-mara readiness. The idea was to wake at 7 and get into it. Plan B was to wake at 8 and really get into it. Plan C was to get up at 9 and think about it some. Plan C it was. A morning run was then out of the question as I had promised Mrs MLCM that I'd fix her very sick computer, a job I estimated would take the best part of the day, which is indeed what happened.
By 5 p.m. it was looking decidedly grey and miserable and with too much traffic on the streets to really contemplate hitting the tarmac, but I had to do something so I gritted my teeth and hopped on the treadmill for what I hoped would be a leisurely 16.
Well, as often happens with these late afternoon reluctant runs, once underway it all went rather well. And as I was contemplating how I was going to squeeze in 50km this week it dawned on me that my planning thus far was going to leave me well short. I have a 16km planned with son Chris on Wednesday, and the only other opportunity for a run is to squeeze in one of my early 10km highway runs before work on Friday. That's fine but would leave me well short of 50km for the week.
Nothing for it but to press on beyond 16km this evening, which is what I did. In the end I trotted out 24.5km - my longest run in nearly 7 weeks and fourth longest of the year. It was all done at a very modest pace but at least I know I can still run a half.
Only other run to report from recent days was a reasonable 10km four days back. From here on however, it's serious training until the half mara on May 19th. After that - well, we'll get to that later.
The plan? Er, the plan is... to, um ... er finish the race and collect my medal. Seriously, I have no real race goal. If I can finish inside 2 hours again that would be great, but honestly I'm not that fussed. I'll really mostly be using it to guage my readiness for the next race... whatever that might be. It's really just another training run, albeit with a medal at the end.
(24-04-2012, 07:27 AM)marathondan Wrote: No I meant a training plan - e.g. throwing in more speed. But it sounds like your plan is more of the same - which seems to be working excellently!
Ah yes. Well in fact I do want to throw in a bit more speed work - I'll add some Yasso 800s with a view to a marathon hopefully in either July or September. I figure these will be helpful without stressing the knees too much.
But for the half mara, no not really. I'll just keep the mileage up a bit and shuffle through it. Now that I've broken the 2 hours I have no great desire to improve on that especially. I'll be happy just to get the finisher's medal.
Took to the streets with Chris, MLCM Jr#1 yesterday morning for another of the local demanding 16km hilly circuits. It was a good run in slightly chilly conditions and I'm feeling confident about the half mara in three and a bit weeks time.
When I say "confident" I mean confident of running it comfortably, but will I go under two hours again? This 16km course was done at 6:15/km pace - way slower than I'll need for the race, but the local street circuit is very hilly. It was one of my faster runs on this course however, so form is OK.
Anyway, as I said before, I'm really not that fussed about my time in the half (OK I concede it would be nice to go under two hours agaon) - but it's really just another training run on the schedule for a full 42.2 later in the year.
Question is though: to do some proper speed training for the mara, I need to have a target time in mind.
Decisions, decisions!
16.34km 1:42:05
YTD: 570.5km
(I enjoyed this video - the best off-road shoes I ever had were a very cheap pair of Nikes, so this ad is OK by me.)
They say that your long training runs should be anything between 30 and 90 sec / mile slower than your target race pace. My marathon this year came in about a quarter of an hour faster than training pace, i.e. about half a minute per mile. I think Sweder's came in closer to a full minute per mile faster. I reckon you're in better shape than both of us! But of course you don't want to set a really aggressive target. But that's one way to come up with your target... take your training pace, pick a number, and subtract. I guess you have the added complication that a lot of your long runs are on the treadmill, which doesn't translate directly to road. Although maybe you can come up with a factor for converting between the two?
I like the ad - apart from the fact that they don't look like real runners; they're too attractive and their clothes are too stylish - we've had plenty of that weather in the south of England recently (it came in as soon as a drought warning was issued, naturally).
I still find it staggering that I'm able to fall out of bed at 3:45 a.m. to get a quick 10km run in before work. Even more staggering that this morning I fairly bolted out the door actually keen to get running. Plodding up the hill and across the railway bridge I surprised a ring-tail possum running along the parapet - for a moment I thought in its panic it was going to jump onto the tracks below, but fortunately it took a chance on my intent and ran passed me to safety.
This was my first early morning Pacific Highway out-and-back 10km run for several weeks, and I was hoping for a good time. I felt OK at first, but strangely lethargic once underway and the legs were like iron on the hills, so in fact the run seemed to me quite slow. I deliberately didn't look at my watch - I felt I would just let things be and would see what time I ran without forcing the issue.
Conditions were fairly ideal but I saw only one other runner, and my regular elderly Asian gentleman who I always see out walking between Gordon and Killara at about 4:30. He never misses, and as we exchanged greetings I half expected him to comment in a school-masterly way that he hadn't seen me lately, but he just shouted his cheery hello and waved, as he always does. A nice old chap.
Otherwise uneventful I was very pleased to return home in 56:31, my second fastest time for that course, and just inside 2 hours half-marathon pace. I know I can run a lot faster, so it still looks promising for a good time in the race three weeks hence.
That notched up 50km for the week, so I'm back on track and feeling good with it.
Stable April
![[Image: runmap.jpg]](http://www.sandarac.com.au/misc/runmap.jpg)
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A morning run was then out of the question as I had promised Mrs MLCM that I'd fix her very sick computer, a job I estimated would take the best part of the day, which is indeed what happened. 
![[Image: Ring2.jpg]](http://www.lamingtonnationalpark.net.au/images/fauna/Ring2.jpg)