Caught out ...

While out for my run this morning I was thinking about how lucky I had been lately (still haven't got the family cold, didn't get wet running Wednesday, it bucketed down 5 minutes after I finished yesterday and although it was raining heavily during the night it wasn't raining when I headed out for my run this morning). Just as I got to the Narrows, the wind picked up and the rain started. That sort of rain that comes horizontally and stings your face when it hits it. It then proceeded to get heavier and although it only lasted 5-10 minutes I was pretty soaked. Serves me right for getting overconfident, the wind should have been a sign that things could change quickly.

In my earlier posts this week I neglected to congratulate Simon on his awesome run at the Gold Coast Half Marathon. 77 minutes - a new PB and on track for a great first marathon in Melbourne. I'm having trouble thinking that I could ever break 80 minutes for a half let alone run 77. Huge effort and a deserved reward for all the hard (intensive) training he has been doing. I think I will be lucky if I can keep him in sight at the Run For Gold 10km later this month.

I have finally added my Boston photos in a slide show in the sidebar. I just linked it to a folder containing all the running related photos from Boston. Rox thinks I need to cull it a bit as there are quite few similar ones. Plus she thinks I look the same in every photo "You look like a wax dummy that they have just moved around the course" - nice :-)

I don't know if I mentioned this article before (I think I mentioned it but didn't have a link to it), but wanted to highlight this great article from last month's Running Times. I'm not following all the advice here as I am pretty set on the structure of my training program but I have tweaked a couple of things and it is also nice to see some reinforcement/validation of some of the stuff I was already doing. Anyway, here's a link to the Marathon Jumpstart article: http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=16914&PageNum=1

Thursday - Felt ok when I woke up so decided to do the Tempo Interval workout as mentioned in my last post. The ladder was 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 minutes with 2 minutes jog recovery between so all up 40 minutes of quality. Unfortunately, my ipod died on me just before the last interval so I may have had a longer than 2 mins recovery but ran the last 12 minutes off of my watch. All up (including warmup and warm down) 18.2km in 1 hour 16 minutes. I was pretty happy with the tempo parts of the run although I may have eased off the intensity a little in the middle of the longer intervals. I think that was my problem on Sunday as well in that after 2km it was basically a time trial as I was running completely on my own. It seems that I am able to maintain intensity (at relatively the same perceived effort) if I have company/competition. This is something I am really going to have to work on as there is probably a good chance that I will be running on my own for at least part if not most of the Rottnest Marathon.

Friday - 8.4km recovery run - 47 minutes average HR 128. Nice and easy but had to run on the path more than I would normally due to flooding.

Tomorrow, will be the last of my 26.89km long runs as I will be getting out to at least 32km from next week (apart from recovery weeks when it will come back below 30kms). I am going to try to run my McMillan calculated long run pace for this one. Having run on Sunday instead of resting, this week I will have run 106km so although I feel like I should be getting my long run over 30km, I think it can wait until next week.

It will be a great night for watching sport on TV tonight. I'll be flicking between the Ashes, the Tour de France and the Western Bulldogs game. What a joke that Billy Doctrove is - he's as bad as that other incompetent who just retired Bucknor. Hilfenhaus had has had 2 lbws that were missing leg and off (ie hitting middle) and even though the Poms reckon Swann had Katich (Doctrove again), I don't think it was as plumb as the Hilfenhaus ones. Still think that England are the most likely team to win this test if it isn't a draw as it won't be easy batting last on that pitch despite how flat it looks at the moment.