Long time - no blog

Despite my best intentions, I have not posted a blog update for a while. 

My blister problem is now well and truly behind me although I am now taking extra precautions by taping before speed workouts and long runs.  I don't get blisters everytime I don't tape so in some ways it is a bit of a waste but the prevention is far better than the problem/cure for those occasions when it does happen.

My last four weeks of training have been 100km; 102km; 107km and 89km.  I made a conscious effort to get my mileage up over 100km a week and have been running 7 days a week, up from 6 days.  I now run a very easy recovery run on Sunday and have moved my first speed workout of the week to Monday (from Tuesday).  I have been running some doubles on Tuesday and Friday when I am feeling the desire.

So I think I have built a good aerobic base having got the mileage up and done some good long runs.  I have also done a few good speed workouts building towards a couple last week when I tested my fitness based on some stuff I read in Brad Hudson's Run Faster book.

My key workout last week (Thursday) was  5x 1km with 60 sec recoveries.  This followed from a bit of a progression where over the past month or so I have done 5 x 1k with 2 min recoveries, 3 x 1600m with 2 min recoveries, 5 x 1km with 90 sec recoveries and now this workout.  All have been at around 5km race pace.  Unlike the previous week when for the last three recoveries when I walked for 30 secs and then jogged for 60 secs, for this workout I made myself jog for the full 60 secs – no walking.


I’m really happy with this session. Although the times were going in the wrong direction ie I was getting slower, it was only slight and this is the hardest interval session I have done. I managed to run at my goal 5km race pace which was the aim of the workout. although I was hanging on for the last minute or so of the last 2 reps – it was hard work!!

Reps were: 3.23; 3.26; 3.29; 3.33; 3.32.

This was backing up from an 8km tempo run on the Monday where I ran 29.48  which is 3.43/km pace and only 4 secs off my best for this run when I ran a much harder effort.

Other highlights of the last month have been a weekend we spent down at Albany where it was very relaxing, I got in some good running and Ben caught his first fish and the weekend just gone when Sammie got off of her trainer wheels on her bike and rode all the way back from Mends Street.

Last Friday morning I went to a fantastic breakfast function where Craig Mottram was the guest.  This sold out function was put on by The Running Centre. Craig Mottram was excellent, entertaining as well as passing on some real gems for training and racing.

Went to say goodbye at the end and had a bit of a one on one chat. He gave me a very meaningful analogy about training for racing. It’s like baking bread – you know what all the ingredients are, you put them together in the bowl and put them in the oven. But if you keep opening the oven to take a peak, the end result won’t be as good as it could have been. In other words, don’t keep testing your race fitness in workouts – it will detract from your race performance.  Craig said that he rarely goes over 80% effort in training which I found surprising. 

The other really useful thing I took away was that you should reconsider any workout that is going to impact on the next workout you are going to do.  I try to do this anyway but this was good positive reinforcement.

It was good catching up with heaps of other runners at the breakfast and meeting a few people as well.  I had a great chat with Raf's brother Ryan (You can check out his blog here http://beanbaugh.blogspot.com/), and hopefully I can keep in sight next time we race.

While I haven't had a chance to race recently, I have had a chance to watch lots of good racing.  The Commonwealth Games provided some great races, especially the 5000m, 10,000m and marathon but the best race over the last month was undoubtedly the Chicago Marathon.  If you know how it turned out then you don't need me to tell you but if you don't you should definitely watch the video below:


Track and Field Videos on Flotrack


Rottnest 5km is this weekend. Obviously I'm hoping to have a good one and run a PB but most importantly I want to race well. I'm definitely treating this as a race and not a time trial. At a minimum it would be nice to race better than I train which has been a bit of a problem for me recently.

Move Over Facebook: Why Runners Prefer Strands

I'm not on Facebook - never have been and am trying to avoid it for as long as possible.

This article on the Strands blog makes interesting reading.

http://blog.strands.com/2010/09/26/move-over-facebook-why-runners-prefer-strands/

I'll try to get an update up on this blog in the next day or so.  Blogging is a bit like running, the longer break you take, the harder it is to get started again.

First two races planned have fallen through for me - looks like Rottnest 5k will be my next one.

Ryan Hall in Philadelphia Half Marathon - live online Sunday evening Perth time

On Sunday evening September 19, tune into Competitor.com http://www.competitor.com/ at 7:55 Perth time to watch top American marathoner Ryan Hall as he defends his ING Rock ‘n’ Roll Philadelphia title against a strong international field, which includes the likes of Morocco’s Abderrahim Goumri, a 2:05:30 marathoner, and sub-27-minute 10K runner Gebre Gebremariam of Ethiopia, who has been tearing up the U.S. road racing scene this summer.

Australian Shawn Forrest, Shadrack Biwott of Kenya, Irish Olympian Alistair Cragg, Oregon Track Club teammates Simon Bairu and Tim Nelson, along with 2009 U.S. 20K champion Brett Gotcher, will make up the fastest men’s elite field ever assembled for this race.

(I will be out for dinner with Rox celebrating our wedding anniversary so I hope they replay the webcast later)

On your bike!

I am reduced to a week of cross training due to the effects of a nasty big blister on the inside ball my left foot.  It developed during my intervals last Thursday. It was basically a blister under a spot where there had already been one or two blisters and I ended up with a bit of a hole in my foot.

It was a good session not affected by the blister at the time - Session was a specific endurance test for 5km race pace.

I wanted to see where I was at in relation to goal 5km pace/specific endurance/fitness so took this test session from Brad Hudson’s “Run Faster”5 × 1km with 2 min jog recovery between.

Met up with Clown as usual on a Thursday although he was doing a temp run so we only ran together for a couple of kms before doing our own thing.

I ran my 1km reps between the old 20 and 21km markers for the perth half marathon. First, third and fifth reps were into a slight headwind.Went 3.24; 3.28; 3.29; 3.28; 3.29 for the five reps. Was pretty hard work though.

Not sure if it is supposed to be that hard if that is your intended 5k race pace but I have had a few hard/quicker runs over past 5 days so hopefully that contributes to the feeling that it would be very hard to maintain that for 5km without recovery.

Still pretty pleased with how it went and certainly felt like I worked hard.  Now that my soccer coaching commitments are over, I think I will re-jig my week slightly so that I do speedwork on Monday and Thursday rather than Tuesday and Thursday as I will do an easy run on Sunday morning after Saturday long run. I think the extra day between speed sessions should give some better quality on Thursday.


Blisters are just an occupational hazard and I usually heal up pretty quick (ie within 2 days) so I still did the 30k fast finish long run that Clown and I had planned for Saturday morning.  I think I subconsiously ran on the outside of my foot because it felt like there was some deep bruising afterwards (especially on Sunday morning).  The blister had got worse as well.

We headed out past Burswood up and around Ascot Park, over Garrett Road Bridge, back through Maylands and East Perth, over the Causeway to Coode Street, South Perth and then home.After a stop for a drink and a gel in Maylands, picked up the pace for a fast finish 12km.  Although we intended to run at 4.10/km pace, we settled in at a pace around pr just under 4min/km.  Clown is in great shape and he picked it up even more after 7km which was too quick for me and i dropped off the pace although I pushed on to Coode Street. This run really confirmed that Clown is in great shape for Melbourne in 4 weeks time.

I am keen to keep my long runs at least 2 hours even though I am running shorter stuff for the rest of the year as I am sure they are the key to improvement and strength for me.

I took Sunday and Monday off and it felt quite a bit better when I woke up this morning so I headed out ro a recovery run to give it a test.  Tolerable but the outside of my foot where I was feeling bruising did n't feel too good. I ran 8.6km and after about 5k, I started to feel a hot/burning/pulling on the underside of my foot. I have never had plantar fascitis and thought that was more in the arch but this did not feel good. Slowed right down and have now decided not to race Bibra Lake this weekend but instead have a week on the bike to let everything get back to normal.

Bit of a bummer because Bibra Lake was my only chance to race before Rottnest as we are going away for the weekend of the Fremantle Half.  I have been averaging 85km a week over the past 6 weeks with a couple of decent long runs over the past couple of weeks and felt like everything was heading in the right direction.  Only a minor setback though and I hope to maintain my fitness on the bike.  I'll try to get out on the Freeway bike path and do some 1 min on/1 min off intervals this week and a longer ride early on Sunday.

In good news, Ben's soccer team ended the season as league champions.  We won the last game of the season, whereas the top team somewhat suprisingly lost. Great reward for the boys who really have played well this season and a msssive improvement.  We only lost 3 games and none of them were by more than two goals and the most we conceded in any one game was 3.  It can be a little bit of a drag going to training after work midweek and being enthusiastic and keeping things fresh but when you see the results it makes it worthwhile.

I recently ordered some shoes which turned up yesterday.  I have put a photo below. Good to see that Saucony have toned down the colour of the Fastwitches. I am hoping/planning to transition into the Kinvaras as my general training shoe as I am really appreciating running lighter shoes recently and almost resent having to wear my heavier Asics 2150s and Brooks Adrenalines.