90 Minutes, again...

FRIDAY 4/8/06, 3PM, 17K, WEEK TO DATE 62.5K, 6 HOURS SLEEP, SHOES ASICS 1100

Not a great night's sleep.

After a morning of sleet I set out to repeat Wednesday's course to Echo Point, Golden Stairs and return. Some light rain, about 6 degrees. Wore longsleeve, beanie and gloves.

Felt reasonable despite yesterday's flogging and finished in 92 minutes, about 30 seconds quicker than Wednesday- 5.29min/km.

When I was on Narrowneck I looked west across the Kanimbla and Gangerang valleys towards the Oberon plateau and, in particular, the high points of Mt Bindo amd Mt Trickett (both over 1350m asl) which were socked in by cloud. Wondered if it was snowing out there.

12 x 400s.

THURSDAY 3/8/06, 4PM, 15.5K, WEEK TO DATE 45.5K, 7 HOURS SLEEP, SHOES ASICS 1100

12 400s, with 35 second recoveries. Sounds painfully familiar.

5K run to Pitt Park as warmup, cold evening, wore longsleeve with a thermal over it, then 5 x 100m strides. Some kids had soccer practice and were intruding into the inner lane of the track, so I killed time for a few minutes till they were done.

Reps went as follows...

90
91
90
90
90
90
90
90
91
92
95
95

Definitely went too quick for the first few and tried to hold it as things got uglier, but for the last couple I was completely shot and was running through mud, it seemed- on the last rep I tried to kick at 200m, and again at 100m to go, to try to stop things from blowing out too much. Had to lie down in the grass for a few minutes after that.

Very slow run home.

Good run I think, given the 60K ultra 5 days previous, overall a little quicker than the same session a few weeks ago.

Also, pleasingly, in the last week there haven't been any complaints from the achilles.

90 Minutes.

WEDNESDAY 2/8/06, 12PM, 17K, WEEK TO DATE 30K, 8 HOURS SLEEP, SHOES ASICS 1100

SW wanted me to do 90 minutes, so ran from home to Echo Point, then via Cliff Drive to Narrowneck, out along Narrowneck to Golden Stairs carpark and return, omitting Echo Point on the way back. A touch under 17K in 92 minutes, 5.31min/km. Felt reasonable for the first 8K or so, but the hills got to me after that and it became hard work.

Recovery.

SUNDAY 30/7/06, 8PM, 6K, WEEKLY TOTAL 87.5K, 7 HOURS SLEEP, SHOES ASICS 1100

After a long and pleasant drive through the Snowy on Sunday, this recovery run was through the streets of Goulburn. A bit stiff for the first 500m then was moving well. 30.41, 5.06min/km.

MONDAY 31/7/06, 3PM, 6.5K, 8 HOURS SLEEP, SHOES ASICS 1100

TUESDAY 1/8/06, 12PM, 6.5K, WEEK TO DATE 13K, 7 HOURS SLEEP, SHOES ASICS 1100

Recovery runs- run from home to Leura Oval, 9 laps of the grass, and home, in 32.25 and 32.04 respectively. Monday's run was hard work, quads and calves tight and it was fucking cold (windchill zero and falling- was snowing at Oberon), Tuesday's a bit better.

How I Ran 146K in 6 Hours... Or, the Bush Capital Bush Ultra.

Yes, the Garmin got somewhat confused on Saturday, or else I am in the sort of form that would smoke Kouros, Jurek, Kharitonov etc. Sigh.

SATURDAY 29/7/06, 8.30AM, 60K, WEEK TO DATE 81.5K, 7 HOURS SLEEP, SHOES ASICS 1100

Stayed in the Canberra YHA on Friday night and wandered down on Saturday morning to see Mr Every munching on breakfast, so we gave him a lift to the start, arriving about 8.10am.

Some consternation when I found out the drop bags had gone 20 minutes beforehand. Mel agreed to meet me with an Up and Go at Horsepark Drive on the way out and back, and hopefully this would be enough. Surprisingly warm day for a Canberra winter morning- wore tritop and shorts the whole way with no discomfort.

The course is more or less out and back. From Campbell High School the course follows 4WD tracks and bridle trails around the east side of Mt Ainslie, crosses the saddle between Mt Ainslie and Mt Majura and follows more bridle trail around the west side of Majura. Then under Northbourne Avenue and into Nature Reserves at the very northern tip of the ACT, then turn around at 33.5K and return, with a shortened leg back around Ainslie for 60K of steady undulations. A curious mix of pleasant horse trails and some pretty desolate running through dry grass paddocks.

The plan was to go out very easy and come home hard for a 5.45ish run on even splits, and I had that covered till about the 48K point, only 5 minutes behind Mr Every. There were two start times- 7.30 and 8.30- and I think only Mr Every, Mick Corlis and I took the 8.30 start, which meant that from the beginning I had marathoners, relay runners, 25K runners etc zipping past, which made pacing a bit tricky, especially as my Garmin was giving me bizarre readings and couldn't rely on it. After the first few Ks I made a point of walking a bit to bring the pace back under control and hoped I hadn't done too much damage.

With 12K to go lack of food and maybe those early Ks came back to bite me and I had to start walking a lot more, dropping from 5.45 pace to a very ugly 6.11 finish in those last 12Ks... 10th of 17 runners.

Mel and I drove to Tumbarumba that night.