Official Results - P2P

Two quick things for those interested. First, the official results are in for any interested in finding out more details! My bib number was 397.
Also, some people have told me that they've signed up to receive my blog via email and then responded by hitting 'reply' to the email. Please know that I am not receiving those emails! They are going somewhere into the depths of cyberspace. If you would like to add comments, you can do them in one of two ways:
1. Email me directly
2. Go to the blog site and click on 'comments' below the blog to leave a post (this will be read by all who go on the web page)
Hope this clears up any confusion! If I get any race photos I'll try to put them up.

10k race - Ipswich Park to Park

Climb every mountain! Conquer every hill! It certainly felt like we did THAT in the 10k race today. But, may I say.... aaaaaah! 10k! After two half marathon races in a row, a 10k felt so refreshing and short!
8am start, we did two 5k loops around some parks in Ipswich. Thank goodness I didn't do the half marathon, which was 4 loops. I think I'd lose count of how many laps I'd done. Honestly, it's easy to do when you're running as you're not focussed on the numbers.
Big question: how did I do? To give an idea, my personal best (pb) in a 10k remains with the first one I ran at Doomben in June, 2009 with a time of 54.18. With all the encouraging advice I heard before the race ("this is one of the hilliest races in Australia" and "you can't compare this race to a pb from other courses because it's way too tough.") I was hoping to finish at around 1hr20min.
Lap one: 29.30
Lap two: 1.01.05
Siiigh! Just missed that sub-one hour mark. But at the same time, wow! The most recent 10k I ran (last year, around September/October) I got 58min. And that course was FLAT.
Could it be that this slow runner is getting faster?
Makes me want to run a flat 10k to see if I can kill my current pb.

Farewell Brisbane!

Today was my last training run before I move rural for work. I'm still planning to train remotely, but we'll see how it goes!
I had terrible insomnia last night but still managed to pull together a decent training round. We had two loops of intervals to make one circuit. Loop 1: 300m rep/200m recovery twice. Loop 2: 800m rep/200m recovery once. My split times were as follows:
800m: 1) 4.08 2) 4.20 3) 4.15
300m: 1) 1.29, 1.29 2) 1.30, 1.31 3) 1.40, 1.36
I'm not too disappointed with the split times. It would have been nice to run my latter times slightly faster, but in general I pushed myself hard. It was another cold but beautiful day along the river. I always love seeing the rowers and cyclists out and about.

"12k" UQ loop

Today we ran as a group with Chris, our coach. The aim was to go 12k. We went across the bridge at UQ and looped to the other side. A hilly track and I struggled to keep up with the group - but I did! I couldn't belive when I looked at the time. 1.20.44. How could I have run 1.20.44 on a 12k and felt sooooo exhausted for the last couple of kms? We even had frequent rest stops to regroup and drink some water (I stopped the watch at these stops - the total run time was about 1h40). At the end, the truth came out. 12k? 12k my foot! We'd done 14k, thank you. Now I feel a lot better about feeling so exhausted, as we'd kept a pace of about 5.45min/km for the duration. To put it in perspective, 5.41min/km is on pace for a sub-2hr half. What else can I say to that? Wow, what a fantastic run!

Through the City

There's nothing quite like running through Queen Street Mall at 6am! Lots of random intervals today. After the warm-up we started with 5 sets of ~100m sprints. Then onto the intervals varying from 600m to 1k in length. I'm happy to say I was able to keep up with the group this week! Not quite back in my game but clearly the spinach (and other changes) have been working well with me. :)
On a sad note, I'm dropping the marathon training. Between moving to the country and starting a new job, October's marathon is not going to happen. But don't fear! I will still be training remotely for the half. My coach Chris has informed me that he knows of a running group where I'll be living. Population 7,000 and a running group! Who would have thought? Awesome!

Double hills - but little ones

Hill sprint circuits. They were not steep hills. The first was ~400m distance, the second ~300m. We broke up these loops with a walking recovery of ~100m. Miracle! I was soooo much better than last week. I managed to almost keep up with some of the others for the first 3 circuits. The last 2 circuits the gap widened a fair bit. Still, massive improvements from last week! It's either the spinach or the fact that I've had 3 days off. Hmmm. Hard to say. But I'm feeling well enough to do Thursday's killer session. If it's not raining.

Popeye the Sailor Man

Well, no "Popeye" moment. I ate tons of spinach this weekend, but didn't gain the strength of a weight-lifter or the speed of an Olympic marathoner. Siiigh. But it was "social run" day. The day I run with friends to...well, to run with friends. There's no goal time, speed, or distance. Someone wants to walk? Let's walk! I love that there's no pressure to be at your best. Good thing, as today, neither of us were feeling at our best! And tomorrow's another rest day. Ooooh yeah! :D

Mmh, Spinach

The "running" theory from my fellow runners is that maybe I'm low on iron. I can't think of any other reason for my lack of energy, so I'm loading up on spinach and such for the next couple of weeks to see what happens.
Friday - Interval runs. These intervals were short (less than 1k) followed by a 1-2min break. We did this on across an 8k loop. I was slower than slow and struggled to maintain any pace above the warm-up jog. It was not as cold as I had thought it would be, which was a pleasant surprise. I also continued with doing some yoga and weight exercises and helped a friend move - always good exercise, that.
Saturday - I skipped my run again. Awful of me, I know! I was getting bad twinges in my quads last night and decided to take another rest day from running. I'll still do yoga and a few weights but otherwise plan to have a slack day filled with spinach and other iron-rich foods. If I start turning green, you'll know why.

Slacking & stretching

You'd think I'd taken a month off running, not a week! I am soooo fatigued. I ran with a friend yesterday. It was slow and easy, broken up with walking. And that was all I could manage! I meant to go to training this morning for hills - the hardest session of the week. But considering how weak I've been feeling, I thought I would collapse just on the warm-up. I decided to hold off running this morning in favour of doing some yoga. I've been soooo stiff & tight these last few days. It's getting to the point of alarming (and painful) so I decided to try and stretch out my tight muscles rather than trying to haul my lethargic body up a hill. Back into it tomorrow.

Ice Blocks

Tuesday. We ran 1k intervals today, with 100m recovery. My legs felt like blocks of ice the entire time, it was so cold! It was that burning cold, like when you walk outside in the snow in barefeet. I started with an interval of 5.45min/km and gradually slowed (with each rep) to a 6.10min/km. Ugh. I should have worn pants today! Kept my jumper on the whole time. Not the best I've done, but it was hard to make my frozen muscles obey my command. And eesh, but I'm unfit!