Go Hard

Finally I'm feeling closer to normal after the bout of gastro. That left me with three days of no training. Yesterday was an easy 30min just to ease back in, and make sure the guts behaved themselves. This morning I go in 45min on the treadmill at a proper pace and it even felt good. That is despite it being zero degrees this morning. So even in my own garage I was still running with full sleeves, beanie and gloves. Looks like winter might be extra cold this year. I'm still not too sure how I'll continue training over the next few weeks due to the lack of training over the last few days. It's not quite as simple as just jumping back in where I left off. Due to a few commitments I'm limited about when I can fit in the longer runs. Not to mention I'll be going in for dental surgery next week which includes a general anaesthetic. Obviously that's going to put another gap in this month's training plan. The next few days are pretty much set. Since I'll be...

Out in the cold morning, it took a little longer than I liked to warm up. Eventually I was into running at my anaerobic threshold. My legs felt a little stiff and required a bit more mental effort to keep them ticking over compared to last week. The good news was I running about 20sec/km faster than last week at the same heart rate. My guts were the only problem. Nothing major, just they felt a bit unsettled. This unsettling called for a pit-stop at the 30min mark out of 50min. I was able to continue the run, but I really fell off the pace. This seemed a bit strange, but nothing else showed up during the day. A normal day at work. Once home in the evening I just didn't feel right. It took until midnight to fully discover why. A nice bout of gastro. My body decided it had to do everything it could to eliminate whatever it was that was upsetting it. A few kilos lighter and completely drained, I'm not hitting the training track until I can replenish most of what has been expelled.

How did my first week back in training go? Nothing like finishing on a high. After a successful tilt at the Police Games and the Run For The Kids, I was happy to take some down time. Then I had a bit over a week of not training. That doesn't mean I didn't do any exercise, but for the most part I really didn't do anything. An added bonus was the time took in Easter. With the holiday we snuck away to Phillip Island for a bit of time on the beach. Way too many hot angry buns, an absolute excessive amount of chocolate all washed down with various types of alcohol left me feeling pretty content. Not to mention very full and heavy. It's interesting to note how in such a short space of time you can look in the mirror and see the change in conditioning. I can enjoy a few days of excess and eating rubbish, but there is no way I could live day in and day out like so many people do. Finally it was time to start. Unfortunately the cold I had been managing to keep at bay decided to ...

Better make that training plan make a little more sense. There is plenty of method to the madness. There are many different training theories out there. Some with plenty of weight behind them, some are just simply popular. Science on marathon training is a bit of mixed bag too, offering only snippets of good insight hidden in a sea of poorly designed or interpreted studies. For myself, I have put down a plan that I believe offers me the best chance of going under 3 hours given my current fitness and constraints imposed by the rest of my life. Life I am not a professional athlete. Some would say running is my hobby, but I do think it goes a bit beyond that. It is part of who I am. Therefore it takes up a lot of time in my world. Of course there are plenty of other things in my life, including family, friends, work and the miscellaneous that comes up. With rotating shift work, a 6 month old, and my wife now back at work, my training schedule has to fit around all of this. As a result I h...

Maybe not exactly global, or even domination, but my next goal is the marathon. It's pretty simple: Run sub 3:00:00 in the Melbourne Marathon 2009 This means I have until October to be able to run at the same pace as my last half marathon for twice the distance. Something I believe I am definitely capable of. It will require some really good training. My history in the marathon is a little mixed. Years ago (2000) when I first decided to really take up distance running I managed 3:20:11 in my first effort. Coming back in 2003 after really hammering triathlons I set my personal best by covering the 42.195km in 3:09:10. Otherwise I have a couple of efforts at around 3:18-19, and another couple of 3:30-3:35 which were run comfortably as training runs in the lead up to Ironman races. From my time performing as a lab rat, the countless physiology measurements suggest my best possible performance is heading towards the 2:45:xx mark. I take this with a bit of salt. In triathlons I consis...

Coming off the Police Games and with no real training in the last week, I was expecting anything. The plan was just to go out and have fun, enjoy running through some of Melbourne's landmarks which are usually inaccessible by foot. So no goal times and heart rate zones. Instead I just wanted to go hard and feel the whole run. Being a field of 30,000 across the two races distances meant the start was going to crowded. So I warmed up early and then managed to get a position reasonably close to the actual front. Once the gun had gone it took only 10 seconds to cross the official start line. As expected there were those people who knew they had no chance of keeping pace with the front runners, but insisted on starting there. Jogging at about 7-8min per kilometre in front people running at around 3:30-3:40/km in a big crowd is guaranteed to cause some collisions. Naturally it did. Personally I relaxed through the start and just moved through the crowd as the gaps opened up. Somehow tho...

A bike ride yesterday, a swim today. I now feel all stretched out and refreshed. It's good to take a step away from running too. The swim was all the more enjoyable when an old guy jumped in the lane next to me with his shoes on. After a sheepish look around, I think he picked up that a few people had seen him. He then completed a few laps with his shoes still on. I think he did that just to make out he had meant to keep them on. Very entertaining. I wonder if I'll feel a like a run before R4TK next Sunday. The ambos clean up in last Sunday's Victorian Police & Emergency Services Games.