Sunday 3 January 2016

Here's to the freakin weekend

Welcome to my 2nd blog post of 2016. No it wasn't a flash in the pan the other day. I'm back and the good news is, it won't be as long as my launch post.

So far I'm quite confident that besides my wife Greta, no one has read my blog BUT it is early days and after speaking to the experts this morning (self proclaimed that is - Timmy <please don't run quicker than 4:30's> Lindop and Michael 'Hoey' Ho) the jury is out on whether this will last. "Another copy cat" were the words from Hoey's mouth. The same one that's usually full of Inner West B& E roll.

"No no I'm not planning to copy. I train harder so no chance of that" was my quick reply.

But I am skipping a little. Saturday morning saw me venturing out to the Rhodes park run for the first time with Greta and Jaden in tow to try out this flat fast course I've heard so much about. It also appears to have the most achievable park run record going around the Inner Sydney Metro area - 15:52 by Strider Chris Harrington.



And after a week in Central Australia over Christmas, the red wine and red dirt proved to be a limiting factor in getting anywhere near this let alone my more realistic goal of 16:10-15. I lacked rhythm early on and it continued to take it's toll as I slowed to run a 16:20 which I am actually not overly disappointed with. Just thought I could pull off 10secs quicker that's all. You will see a trend arise through my posts - one that sees me thinking I still have a chance of running like I did 15years ago. My mind hasn't given up the fight just yet so that's a good thing.

Today (Sunday) saw a medium sized HuRTs and Rejoov Runners group tinker around the park for between 16-25km. I was up at 4:50am with my morning routine of coffee, head under a cold tap and TV to wake me up. 5:30am out the door to catch the sun rising over our local - Coogee Beach then onwards to Maroubra before looping back through Maroubra Junction, Kingsford and on into the park to join the group.

The pace was quite reasonable after Timmy sent out an email to the entire Eastern Suburbs running fraternity asking everyone to slow down so he and his mate Paul Birch had a chance to sober up from their Saturday night out at the local Erskinville Bridge club semi finals. No sign of Enda, Renaud, or Birchy for that matter. Word is he picked up the nice old lady who beat him in that same Semi.

I felt ok throughout - slight right ITB tightening - but managed 35km in 4:23 total average pace. Glad to have the likes of Jonno, Laura, Elle, Jeet, Tim, Kitchen Craig, Brucey Lambert, Greta and others to guide me around. Jacqueline Corky O'Connor even managed a guest cameo early on after another solid night in her local Saturday night.

Weekly mileage was only 105km consisting of:

Mon: Anzac Hill Alice Springs hill and stair repeats - 10km
Tue: 18km easy incl a jog/climb of Mt Gillham Alice Springs
Wed: 10km with a half arsed attempt at a half Monna fartlek
Thur: 12km at 4min kms
Fri: The Day After 8km
Sat: 12km with Park run
Sun: 35km (2:33hr)

Until next time - keep stretching yourself

CT




3 comments:

  1. I claim the record for the most comments on your blog.
    Your 16:20 parkrun result was remarkably similar to my 16:20 parkrun result (at Mt Barker, South Australia). I'm happy to report that mine was a course record!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ha nice one Tongey. Here's to finding more obscure races to conquer during '16

    ReplyDelete
  3. Is this blog finished before it even started?

    ReplyDelete