The Dark Side

I had a small procrastination problem earlier this week so as such my blog is a bit behind. This will be a bit of a summary, then.

Tuesday: You win some, you lose some. After 3 weeks in a row of personal bests, I finally broke the record...just not in the way I would have liked! We did 1500m reps, 500m recovery. I started off well, and then faded quickly, as you can see by my reps:
Rep 1: 4.44 pace
Rep 2: 4.59 pace
Rep 3: 5.15 pace
Rep 4: 5.38 pace
That last rep really did me in. I felt shockingly week! Still, I had a big smile on my face. Who needs fast reps when I just ran a fast 10k race?
Total distance: 10.13k (hey! that's only slightly shorter than the race on Sunday!)
Total time: 1.01.05min
Average pace: 6.02min/km

Thursday: As spring has arrived, we are celebrating by hitting the trails once again. Hooray! I love trails. Even if it is much more of a challenge than the road. We did a nice little loop, starting at the top of the mountain. The thing with starting off downhill, you know you're going to finish uphill. Yikes! I always prefer starting on the uphill - then I can relax the rest of the run rather than mentally psyching myself to go up. And of course we ran part of the Kokoda track - the one I ran last Sunday in my trail running. Steep, steep, steep! I had to put my hands down more than once to get my balance on the loose gravel. But we all made it to the top by whatever means we could.
Total distance: 5.64km
Total time: 42.09min
Total elevation: 236m
Average pace: 7.28min/km

Saturday: The day I - quite literally! - joined the dark side. My first 32k run. Yikes! And just because I wasn't worried enough about today, our coach decided to make it interesting by having those of us running longer distances (e.g.: people as dumb as myself) start at 4.30am. Not that it was a personal vendetta against me, as there were many practical reasons for starting at 0430h. But it didn't make me feel any better about going into the run when you could almost say it was still Friday. It was dark, and I was grumpy. I've noticed a correlation between earlier start times and my level of grumpiness.
0600? Sleep in! I'm elated.
0530? I can handle it, let's go!
0500? Hmm...
0430? Better to not take anything I say seriously. No, really.
We meant to go out 5k and back 5k before 5.30am, but in a failed attempt at trying to meet up with the 5am start group, we did the same 5k out & back, twice. I was kind of over it the second time!
Today we took a different route than the past few weeks, running through my old stomping grounds at the University of Queensland and crossing the other side of the river to make a loop.
The tricky part to Saturday mornings for me is starting off with the main group at 5.30am. When I get back from a semi-fast 10k (or 5k), I'm ready for a break. But the gung-ho keeners just starting out for the morning are set to race off into the sunrise. (Okay, not so bad, but you get the picture: I'm tired, they're not. I want a break, they don't.)
At the 0.5k mark my hamstrings were still stiff & sore from hills on Thursday and I knew it would be a long morning.
At the 12k mark I could feel a blister coming on. And would you know it? Same place as all my previous blisters! Go figure.
At the 20k mark (10k mark for those who slept in) I was a bit over it and just wanted to finish. Wish I were only doing 24k today!
At the 22k mark or so we ran into people running a small local race. I saw a sign for half marathon and I was jealous. I have to do a half marathon and then another 11k on top of that. Ugh.
At the 26k mark I said goodbye to my friends, as running to the end with them would have put me at 34k instead of 32k - no thanks!
At the 29k mark I was living misery. My back hurt, my legs hurt and I just wanted it to stop. I think I may have started grunting at this stage. I started doing a countdown, chanting "3k left, 3k left, 3k left" in rhythm with my footfalls. I can't remember whether this was out loud or not. It's all a blur.
At the 30k mark I saw one of my team mates less than 400m in front of me. I mentally called out hello, but I don't think the thought processed enough to reach my lips as she never turned around. I  aslo started chanting "2k left, 2k left, 2k left" And then I promised myself "less than 15min, less than 15min, less than 15min" (yes, I really was going that slow). It's a good thing nobody was with me that time as I may have started either crying or cursing. Or maybe I would have been distracted from my pain and felt great. Who knows?
At the 32k mark I wanted to stop. Oh boy, did I want to stop...but the finish line was right there and I couldn't stop.
At the 32.2k mark I almost couldn't stop, as my legs weren't functioning as well as hoped and kept trying to run in the same pattern they had been for the past 3+ hours. I was like a runaway train hitting the brakes on a steep downwards drop. And then like a treadmill whose emergency button has been pulled, I staggered to a halt. Finished.
There was a small feeling of triumph, but that was mostly smothered by the pain. Oooh, not looking forward to tomorrow's run!

Total time: 3.31.17min
Total distance: 32.23min
Total elevation: 495m
Average pace: 6.26min/km

ps - no, I didn't cry on this run.