That's All Folks...

Race day is less than a week away, and I have been having scary issues with my blog in terms of spam.

So I am saying goodbye to this blog, it's been a great way for me to record my training, my thoughts and my experiences, the race is only a week away so time to relax, enjoy a taper and see what happens next weekend.

Over and out.....

Kevins Visit!

We had a top bushwalk

Nice views

Happy Days Take 2!!

Well ain't life grand.  All this running has meant the endorphins are kicking in good and proper and I am just one happy little vegemite....

But first....CONGRATULATIONS to my bike skool buddy Joh aka Whippet Gal who WON the womens bit of the Canberra Marathon at the weekend.  I say "womens bit" cos I am not quite sure of the correct terminology.  Well done dude.  

Anyway, with the official business out of the way, back to ME!!  (hehehehe don't you love blogging, so damned self centred?).

Ok I will admit it - that the "plan" for Saturday did not eventuate, I got carried away on Friday night (as I tend to do most Fridays) and forgot that anything over three glasses of wine = serious trouble on Saturday morning.  So I woke up with an ugly head in more ways than one - i.e. wine hangover.  Yuck.  Last thing I felt like doing was my 20km run.  But up I got and run I did.  Remember I was supposed to do two laps?  Well after one I was ready to lick the puddles on the pavement, I was really struggling.  So I gave up at one lap.  Not exactly the talk of committed athletes, hey?  Frankly, Saturday couldn't be over quickly enough.

Thinking back, this appears to be a theme on Fridays.  I get sooooo excited that Curtis is coming home and that it is the weekend and I get to go out and play and don't have to sit in an office, that I just forget myself, we always go out on Friday nights for dinner with Curt and his girlfriend and mostly other friends join us, and, well, I just forget because I am having a good time and before I know it I am a bit scuttered but having THE TIME OF MY LIFE.  Must address this over the next two weeks at least.  Cannot have TIME OF MY LIFE next Friday.  Nope.  Because I will be having the TIME OF MY LIFE on Saturday only a different sort of time of my life.  Kind of harder than sipping fizzy wine and feeling indestructible.  Sipping from a camelbak and feeling indestructible hopefully.

I got a nice PM from Brick asking how I was feeling and was I enjoying my taper.  I had just come in from a run and he got a very pumped response, LOVING IT, LOVING RUNNING, LOVING EVERYTHING.  Running must be a bit like speed or cocaine, not that I have tried either, but it does get my tongue flapping and my brain loving everyone and everything.  Scary that.

Tomorrow I am having the day off and we are going bushwalking at Wentworth Falls with my old boss from Ireland who I haven't seen for 20 years.  I am really looking forward to showing him the best the Blue Mountains has to offer, whilst getting some sneaky stair training in....

I am just loving life and everything at the moment.  I also have the fear of God in me about this race!!  So many emotions running around, I am just getting to the point I want it to happen so I can go out and give it a go and see what happens. 

I just re-read all this - what a load of old blether!  But I am leaving it because I know I will look back at this time in my life and laugh.  These are the good times. 

Happy Days

It's been a good week....in fact, it has been a great week!  The motivation returned, I'm running every day at least once, sometimes twice....and most of all - I AM LOVING IT!! 

Summary of the week so far:

Sunday:  27km Oaks to Nepean Lookout with a detour to view an oddly named rock. 
Monday:  5km of shite.  Blood sugar went bezerk, legs went shaky and my skin was clammy....at about the three km mark!!! 
Tuesday:  9.5km L-l-l-l-loving it again!!!
Wednesday:  10km STILL loving it!!
Thursday:  6.5km  bit hot, stinky and thirsty but felt awesome after a shower!
Friday:  9km - new shoes - felt about as bouncy as Tigger.
Tomorrow:  20km  I have a plan.  There is a 10km loop from my place, which I am going to do twice.  It has uphill, downhill, bush steps, a big climb, trail and road.  I've often said when pushed for time this would be a good little test, the temptation being after lap one to just call it a day.....

And that, my friends, will be 87km for the week, and will mean I deserve one or two wee glasses of red this weekend.....

Enter The Dragon - Exit Johnny Clarke

Well, the Caterpillar Invasion continues, however the lack of motivation for running in general from last week has gone, replaced by a renewed desire to get out on the road.  

Today (Tuesday) had that "First Day Back After A Long Weekend" feeling (because it was).  It's a bit like a hangover without the headache.   You get lulled into that extra day without responsibilities and it goes to your head.  Next you find yourself day dreaming about retirement.  Your eyes don't open properly and you feel like you are sleep deprived, even if you had a four hour nana nap the day before.  Well, that's how I felt....

Anyway, my office is always freezing and coupled with the fact that I had managed to get some Deep Heat in my eyes last night, I was feeling tired and grumpy and in need of several coffees to kick start anything - brain, manners, mouth.  I huddled over my fan heater and contemplated lots of things but achieved nothing. 

Feeling cold is never a great motivator to get out and run, but I have this theory that last weeks Achilles problems stemmed from two rest days.  So, no matter what, I will run every day.  On my "rest" days, I will only run a wee bit.  "A Wee Bit" is a very technical term for how much I feel like doing on any particular day.

So - shivering and not feeling into it, with "sort of sore" Achilles, new shoes to break in (another tale of woe) I set off.  By the time I got back to work, it was like I had taken some speed or mood enhancing chemical - seriously, what is it about a little jog that sparks up those endorphins and before you know it you are blethering on about god knows what?  In fact it was so good, and I had a spare hour this evening, I went out again tonight.  And I got my tax forecast to balance, and made a phone call I'd been putting off all of last week.  The amazing powers of running endorphins.

So, I now have two weeks before this race.  Last weeks running wasn't great, but it wasn't awful either.  The few runs I did were good ones.  Thursday I was feeling very angry and upset about something and so did laps of Allen Street, which is a rather large hill.  To me, it felt like I was going really fast up it.  I am sure I wasn't but a bit of fiery temper is a great thing for hills, I find.

Oh - and at the weekend I went to Enter The Dragon Massage Parlour again.  This time I loitered with intent until the Fat Sumo Man with the long hair was free.  I told him I wanted him to fix my ankles again like he did the last time.  You know how they give you a tissue with a hole in it, so that your makeup doesn't go all over their table, and you don't get other peoples face germs?  Well by the end of my "massage" (insert the word "torture" here and you wouldn't be far from the truth) this was in shreds.  I knew he was doing me good but he practically had to shove my head down the hole because it is very hard to grimace purposefully AND be massaged, because we all know that gritting your teeth and grimacing actually make it better, don't we?

I will admit to having a little sob or two, so ended up with streaks of mascara down my face and so I tried very hard not to make eye contact when I was paying him.  I don't think I am going to be able to go back there. 

However, Sunday morning we did a 27km run up the Oaks (imaginatively, cos, I never run anywhere else, and lets face it, it is the best trail around) and then off to the Nepean Lookout with a detour out and back to see the Pisgah Rock (or Pigsah Rock, not sure if it is pis or pig).  Wow!!!  This has been in my backyard all this time and I have never seen it.  Gorgeous scenery, the lookout looks down onto the Nepean River and if that sounds boring, you gotta get out there and see it.  Just devine.  But the really good news was that although I could "feel" the Achilles, it wasn't awful.  In fact, the most awful it got was when we stopped, because my bum and back felt unnaturally cold and wet, and it was when I discovered my skirt was halfway down my arse that I realised my new Whiz Bang pack, bought specially for the race was leaking somehow.  I knew I wasn't sweating THAT much.  So that and shoes are two things to "tweak" before race day.

My beloved Mizunos are dead.  They have been through the washing machine about fifty times.  All the tread is worn off them.  They are the most comfy shoes I ever had, and it took me six months of on again, off again wearing to break them in.  So here I am, two weeks before race day with the new Asics I ordered on line two weeks ago still stuck under a cloud of volcanic ash in the UK.  So I bought a pair of Adidas (which I took out of the box, left the box in the back of the car, and snuck into the house in my handbag - even I was ashamed of the number of shoes failures of late), which feel "ok" but I am worried about race day, my achilles, blisters and the pure stupidity of leaving it this late.  

However, there is no more stressing about this race.  What will be will be.

Hopefully it is going to be a fab day out in the bush with a really rewarding glass of red at the end.  Amen!  I booked accommodation today so it is really happening!!!

The pic below is at Nepean Lookout.  Or maybe Pisgah / Pigsah or whatever it is called.  But that river below is the Nepean and this photo does not do the view any justice.  It is GORGEOUS!