"It's a treat being a runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do." - Allan Sillitoe


Thursday, October 15, 2009

Rehearsal run, trigger point massage and easy run - ready for Rottnest



Wednesday - 3 km warm up, 3km @ MP (12 mins) , 2km warm down.  Ran the 3km into the wind (and into the sun).  Missed the actual 2km and 3km markers so didn't get an exact time for the exact 3kms.  I was looking for them and knew pretty well where they should be, but they have faded a bit and running into the sun made them very hard to spot.  Felt like I was running well under my threshold at MP so I'm hopeful of maintaining that for a significant portion of the marathon if my knee holds up. Still no hills and I'm not going to risk any now - will give my knee the full last 3-4 days to recover with only easy running on the flat and rest.

I wore the clothes I will be racing in and my racing shoes.  I have contemplated doing this marathon in my 2130 training shoes for the extra cushioning and stability but think I will go with the Ohana Racers.  Although light, they are not a minimalist race shoe and still provide enough support I think.  Psychologically the lighter shoes also help, probably more than physically but every second counts.

Forecast for Rottnest is looking promising 16-20C with light winds in the morning. Now if only those hills would disappear too ...

Early afternoon, I got a massage from the masseur recommended by Sugar.  Glad I was face down for most of it as I didn't have to try to hide the tears in my eyes!!  Confirmed the ridging/fused muscle fibres in my right thigh - huge difference between my left and right.  Looks like I am going to need ongoing deep massage to break that down to prevent a recurrence of my knee problems.  Full hour of pretty painful massage but felt good for it.  Very much focused on trigger points - ouch!

Thursday - 6.2km easy to Mends Street and return.  Wore Skins as precaution after yesterday's massage session.  Met Kim and Sugar at Mends Street and had a chat for 5 or so minutes about Rottnest mostly.  Looks like they will both be running the 10km and are staying close to the start as well. 

I didn't wear my heart rate monitor for this but ran easily at what would have been a very conversational pace (if I had someone to talk to).  Felt like I was running a reasonable pace without any effort at all which was re-assuring.

Travel to Rottnest tomorrow and have decided to take a rest day.  I've run the past 8 days and although nothing was further than 8.4km, I had a rest 2 days before Boston and it seemed to work well.  I had a swim in Boston so as long as the water isn't too cold, I might even have one when we get to Rottnest. 

6 comments:

Epi said...

Great to hear things are on the improve, and a good way to go into Rotto without a lot of pressure on yourself.

All the best, hope you have a great run

Clown said...

Mate, all the best on Sunday and hope the legs are fine, sounds as though things are heading in the right direction.

Looking forward to seeing how you go.

Simon Elliott said...

Mate - I hope you fly on Sunday. Go hard and go often.

DC64 said...

Glad you enjoyed Keith! See you on the island ; we'll be cheering for you...

trailblazer777 said...

Sounds good! All the best at the Rats nest!

Biscuitman said...

Thanks for the support and encouragement - its very much appreciated!!