Go Hard

After amusing myself by telling my wife I was going for a run Christmas morning just for a reaction. Really there was no way I was going to miss the kids opening presents. The day was a planned no-training day. One to forget about my own version of normality and drink and feast, and otherwise feel half lazy. For the most part it was a great day. A thunderstorm and hailstorm hit Melbourne with force in the evening. The weather beauro marked is as 'very dangerous'. It gave us a version of a white Christmas in the middle of summer. Our cars took some hail damage, and other than plenty of mess around the house we got away with just some clean up. Others nearby weren't so lucky as roofs and fences were destroyed and some flash flooding had cars behaving more like boats. The next day I was back to something more usual for me. Work and running. I was feeling a little bit heavier on that morning run before work. The rest of the week was to follow the progressive plan. The lon...

This week started with some gastro. That meant the first three day without training. With the days reduced to five and trying to be careful not to play catch up I looked to see how to key include my key runs. I settled on the following: Day 1: 80min endurance/aerobic conditioning run. This was my best feeling run in quite a while. Fresh legs obviously helped. Day 2: easy 60min was the intention, but became a day off. Combination of post gastro, resultant reduced sleep and night shift was too much. Day 3: Hills for 60min. Just over a series of moderate hills on rough ground keeping the ascents and the top bd of my endurance zone and the downhill dropping the HR into the base zone. It's a key session but not very hard at this stage. Day 4: easy 60min run. Later in the day I completed a strength session which gave me about 40min of work. Squats, presses, pull ups plus an assortment of core and remedial exercises. Day 5: Long run. Planned 2:15, cam back in 2:12. The majori...

Thinking I was back on track for some consistent was obviously a little misguided. This new training week hasn't seen any running yet. Day 1 I was meant be up very earlier to to get an extended run into work. However, I stuffed up setting my alarm. Luckily my wife woke in time to wake me so I could rush into the shower and take the car instead. No problem, I thought. I would just fit in a run in the evening. Well that didn't happen either. Instead the vomiting of the 1 year old from the previous night had moved onto the 3 year old. So as not to be left out I joined in on the fun. Something we ate or just a random bug I don't think I will know. Whatever, it is now two days without training as a result.

It's been about two months without a genuine long run. I did get in something a bit over two hours on the trails, but it was stupidly slow and involved more walking than I liked, so in my book it doesn't count. At the moment it looks like everything is back on track for some consistent training. The knee is good. Life is balanced. I have my systems going. The chance of another snake bite is very low. This training week, I've got in the key runs of aerobic conditioning and hills. There was only one day with no running as I skipped an easy run due to working an extra night shift. The runs were all as expected. Mentally I'm struggling with the slow speeds, but I'm sure if I speed up now then that will lead to some holes in my consistency. So mainly slow running is where I am. It's allowing me to back up each day. This week has given me 7 out of 8 days of running. The target for my long run was 2 hours with the majority in my endurance/aerobic conditioning r...

Last week had the original plan changed. It was a a full night of almost no sleep in hospital that wore me down. Recovery from the actual snake bite was straight forward and quick given that it appear no venom was released into me. Other than a small amount of pain in my leg around the bite on walking over the next, I just really needed to catch up on sleep. As a result I just skipped the next two days of training. This meant missing my long run. So still no long run since before my knee became a problem a few weeks ago. It would be stupid to try to play catch up on any missed training. Instead I need to stick with the basics. Probe I can actually handle the initial volume before adding. So getting into a new training week I have to tread a bit carefully. Keep the easy runs very easy. Keep technique on the moderate aerobic conditioning run and treat my long run as my first long in quite a while. So it will be capped back at 2 hours. It's been too long without some solid consi...

I've seen plenty of snakes over the years while running or just in the bush. I often take a compression bandage on some of my long runs if I'm some of the more isolated trails. This is the first time one has bitten me. Just out for a local evening run after the kids went to bed. Only about 20 minutes in, I was still running pretty slow. Coming off a little dirt track next to creek, where it is reasonable to assume snake would be I found one. Unfortunately I was less than two steps from the snake when I noticed it. I made a failed attempt to jump away to the side, but got to see it strike my leg. Since the plan had been an easy 60 minute run in my area, I wasn't carrying a phone or other gear. For a few seconds I tried the denial tactic, but realised that wasn't going to be helpful. As a better plan I tied my singlet around my leg. It wouldn't do much, but it might do something. Then I approached the house just across from me. The front door opened, and told th...

I've harped on a bit lately about reduced training, injury and rehab. Good or bad, my training has been what it has been. The result is I've had to take a better look at everything. No point going over every detail, and how to has changed from the goals and plans I set recently. The summary is I am pretty much back at square one again. As a result of choices and mistakes my base has been eroded. My basic endurance now pretty crappy. Second to that my faster running, both at around threshold and faster has suffered. All this combines to a reduced ability to handle a decent volume of hard training. Not to mention the risks associated with problems coming from injury. Where is square one? Well it's right at the start of base building. Given I am looking at racing some ultra marathons and having a crack at the marathon again, the most important overriding element is endurance and aerobic structure and function to support everything else. So that will be my focus. I ...