Go Hard

Clearly I had lost some interest in maintaining this blog of late. That may of changed. The new enthusiasm seems well correlated to how my running is going. For most of the year my running has been in more of the just exercising category. This predominantly has been because some complications from a hamstring problem had imposed a ceiling on what I can do. Recently that ceiling has been raised and I've entered the training zone . I like it here better. What's the difference? Beyond the obvious of some longer and harder sessions, there is also definite change in my mindset. When exercising I was just aiming to get some good runs in. It was more important that the run felt good rather than having any other definite goal. Now my runs have clear cut goals. It may be simply to enhance recovery between the harder runs, or it may be to run a certain distance. Now my runs have time goals attached to most of them. While exercising I just ran within my limits and to how I felt at ...

Now into proper training . Time to make it work and get past a lot of the problems that have imposed on my running over the last couple of years. I'm implementing a tactic taken from one of my favourite articles on training for ultramarathons, Train Like A Mother - The (so-called) Guide To Effective Training.  This tactic comes under the heading of Trick The Mind. It is as simple as altering the day I mark as the start of my training week. For me I have never followed the traditional seven day week. Fifteen years of rotating shift work has kept me out of sync with the majority. Usually my roster is an 8 day rotation and I have always thought that my week starts on my first shift of that 8 day cycle. My usual roster is 4 shifts of 10-14 hours followed by 4 days off, though that first day off isn't really one as I finish my night shift at 7am and need to sleep for the day. Looking back that creates mental difficulties in that each week of training starts when I have my biggest...

Back from holidays and the reality of winter was my welcome back. It took a few days to shake the jet lag, longer than I expected. I thought years of shift work would have allowed me to flick back into gear quickly. Turns out it's quite different. So back into training. After hardly any running over the last few weeks and the added stiffness that 15 hours on a plane brings I needed to make sure my body was going to cope. That calls for a short lead in before I hit a full week of training. This was a simple three days of training. An hour run each day, and some moderate strength training on the first two. Plus plenty of stretching. There were no pace goals on these runs. Instead they went like this:  1. Easy, just relax and enjoy.  2. Easy again, but mix in a few strides to kick in the nervous system. They felt very sluggish.  3. A solid effort over a variety of hills. The runs did what I hoped and had me feeling better each day and seemed to eliminate the stiffness. It se...

Continuing with the holiday we ended up in Las Vegas. What happened here could  make for an interesting post, but it happened in Vegas and you know the rule. However we did venture out the Grand Canyon and since this is in another state it can be mentioned. The Grand Canyon was definitely a highlight. We took in the Western Rim. To be cliché, words will never do it justice. There is a reason it is a Wonder of  the World. Made me wish I had the time join in on a run down below, but I'm not on that type of trip. With only having one day and the fact the temperature was sitting at 44 degrees Celcius we opted for some awesomeness. The combination of boat, canyon and helicopter delivered that and more. Final destination was San Francisco. Turns out we didn't appreciate how good this joint is and only booked a short stint here. I was keen to hit those steep streets. On my radar were the Filbert St Steps. Touted as a street that was too steep for a paved road in one section. So on th...

Onto the mainland of America and running just hasn't featured. I've discovered I'm almost impossible to understand over the phone in the USA if I talk normally. Face to face the Aussie accent seems to be a good source of friendly entertainment. I've refrained from talking about drop bears and seasonal work as a Koala Pusher. In LA I didn't run, basically because I didn't feel like it. It seemed more of a chore than enjoyment. Instead I battled Transformers, wondered just how much concrete is used here, got some local background on some protests and rode some bikes along the beach with the family. Over to Anaheim and well, it was all about Disneyland and that other park next door. This was definitely good preparation for the ultra distance events. No running because 10 hours a day through these parks covers the leg work. Thongs (flip-flops to others) work the calves after this sort of timeframe. The Health app on the iPhone told me that's over 12km worth of w...

I don't tend to post much about individual runs unless it's a race. Every now and then a run is just so awesome it's good to relive it. My Diamond Head run is one of those.  It may just be the fact I'm on an overseas holiday in Hawaii that I really enjoyed this run. There may also be a few other reasons. After a few recommendations to head east out of Waikiki and do the Diamond Head walk into the volcanic crater, I thought this could make a for good run. Scanning the travel forums showed up plenty of non-runners saying you shouldn't run it. Main reasons seems to be it is hot  and it is steep . Sounded like good reasons to run to me. Runners on the forums seemed to agree. Waking with the sun I wasn't having any trouble with the time zone changes. Probably an advantage of shift work. The ball of fire in the sky already had a bit of kick to it. I do love summer. Plenty of people were out nice and early. A change from the quiet streets at home in the morning. Having...

It's winter down here and the wet, wind and cold has become the norm. Of course there is no such thing as bad weather for running. It's more about what you wear. The beanies, gloves and extra layers has taken over from just a singlet and shorts. Even rocking a bit of old triathlon nostalgia (to my wife's horror). As perfect as the weather is down here, I think I'll go in search of more perfecter weather. Hawaii here I come. I'm chasing summer.