baby steps

I came to the conclusion today, while half way through a lap of Croydon Golf Course, that I was as unfit as I’ve been in the last 7 years. I have been swimming, but that’s really no good. With swimming, I can only really exercise for 30 or 40 minutes at the outside before I go completely spare and give up. Also, there’s been a fair bit of comfort eating during the dark, post-operation days. I’m probably 4kg over where I would be at peak fitness levels.

But at least, I thought to myself, I’m getting back into it. I am running, if you can call it that, and I can safely say a good level of fitness is ahead of me, not just in the past.

Today’s run was 14.25km, including a lap of the golf course, from my house to the mother-in-law’s place in Mooroolbark. It’s the kind of run that, six months ago, I would have done every day of the week, and faster. Today it was my “long run” and I was just happy to get there in one piece. I did get there, and even had a rush of blood with about a kilometre to go.

So, a few good things: a run over an hour, a couple of respectable hills and a good stride-out for a km or so towards the end.

AJH wrote about his goals recently (the memory of the original marathon has faded has it Andrew?). Six months ago, my medium-term goal would have been to run the 50km event at Maroondah Dam. That’s a bit unrealistic now, but the 30km may be possible.

pool rage

I’m almost at the stage of being able to call myself a real swimmer. Why do I say that? Because tonight I had my first episode of pool rage.

For one thing, I’d had a bad day at work. It was one of those days with meeting after meeting, always running late, getting back to my desk at lunch-time only to discover a blizzard of emails demanding attention.

Then at the pool, half the lanes were used for swimming lessons, and the other half were swamped by a flotilla of big beefy guys with dubious understanding of the words “slow” and “medium”.

I squeezed into one of the medium lanes and set about my usual slightly-slower-than-medium troll up and down.

The 3 big guys in my lane turned out to be extremely irritating. At first they were racing up and down at a million miles an hour, snapping at my heels and splashing me on the way past. I was just about to switch down to the slow lane, when they suddenly stopped, and stood around at the shallow end, chatting and looking cool.

This continued for the whole swim: super-fast sprint followed by 5 minutes of hanging out at the shallow end.

After the third instance of not being able to get within 5 metres of the end, I was about to crack it. I was about to say something along the lines of “hey, are you hear to swim or are you just going to pose?”. I say “about” because, when I took off the goggles, they turned out to be about 6 inches taller and 30kg heavier than me.

It turns out I wasn’t quite so full of pool rage after all. I had to content myself with an irritable sniff.

no melbourne marathon this year

Running a marathon is kind of like making a crockenbouche. (Before you say anything: I know it is NOTHING like it, but bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this.)

The first time you make a crockenbouche, it’s a bit daunting and all you’re really hoping for is to get the thing done and looking vaguely like it should. The second time around you do a better job, and by the fourth or fifth time you should have it down pat. Then you can start doing variations, or trying to beat your time or whatever.

The thing is, if all you ever do is make crockenbouches, one after the other, it’d quickly get to the point where it’s just about how fast you can make it, or how tall, or whether you can make it better than someone else. It becomes about ego, and after a while, you’d even lose your taste for custard, pastry and caramel.

I think that’s happened to me today, although it had been coming for a while. I was running along the Dandenong Creek Trail and it occurred to me: I don’t want to do the marathon in October.

I’ve done 2 marathons pretty much in a row and spent most of the last 10 months thinking about little else. It’s gotten to the point where I’m losing the enjoyment of running, and I really love running normally.

If I ran in Melbourne in a few months time, it’d be about redeeming myself for the Gold Coast marathon performance: about ego. I don’t think that’s a good enough reason.

Then there’s the toll on my body and my relationships, and the sheer time involved.

I will run another marathon or two, but not this year.

Instead I’ll just run 4 or 5 times a week, and try to fit in a couple of swims as well.

Running
15km on Friday and 20km today.

a swimming milestone

I reached something of a milestone with my swimming last night: the first km swum in a single session.

I’m not saying I swam it non-stop. God no. I did the first 150 metres without stopping, but then stopped at the end of each 50 metre lap. But compared with where I was a month ago, I’m a veritable superfish. My technique no doubt needs a lot of work still, but I manage to breathe, I get from one end to the other in reasonable time and I don’t max out my heart rate all the time.

My aim is to be able to swim a km pretty much non-stop. If I can do that, I’ll consider a triathlon.

I’m enjoying the swimming, just on the “change is as good as a holiday” principle. It’s nice to exercise different muscles, or the same ones in different ways. The only thing I would say is that it can be quite boring: up and back, up and back until you lose count. I imagine the ocean would be a bit different, but I’m not ready to hit the open water just yet.

Also, the communal change rooms aren’t much fun, especially when you go into the ladies by mistake.

Running
7km or thereabouts last night – getting to the pool and back. The running was basically a warm-up and cool-down for the swim. I’m at training today so I won’t have much chance to run at all.

long weekend

It’s been a pleasant, if cold, long weekend at the JH house. We haven’t done an awful lot, just relaxed.

Yesterday we even managed to palm off the kids on the grandparents and head into town. We saw the John Brack exhibition at Fed Square, then had a civilised lunch. No nuggets, no tantrums. It was very strange, but in a good way. It was almost like the last 4 years hadn’t happened. It did make us think: what did we do with all our spare time back when we were childless and fancy-free?

Anyway, there’s also been a fair bit of running, on my part. I had 11 fast km on Saturday, 13 steady km on Sunday and today I managed 35.5km. That makes close to 60km for the weekend. In the first 8 days of June I’ve run over 150km. That seems a lot.

Thankfully my legs are coping fine. There’s no feeling of heavy legs, my usual sign I’ve over-trained. All good.

Today’s long run was an important one. I realistically only have one more super long run left before tapering finished, so it was important to get value out of this one. It was a good run – paced fairly evenly. (Here it is on mapmyrun.com) It was about 20 seconds per km slower than goal marathon pace. I’m hoping a combination of rest, an improved hydration and fuel strategy, company and race excitement will get me across the line okay.

I was managing 4 minute kms quite comfortably on the flat bits, but the hills slowed me down, particularly in the last 20 minutes. I’m told that won’t be a problem at GC.

I’m a touch tired tonight, but it’s a well-earned fatigue. I think a day off running is called for tomorrow. I’ve earned it.

lay off Croydon

If you needed any convincing that Facebook is evil, then this should do it:

Croydon Facebook quiz sparks ire

Apparently, some wags on the site have set up a quiz with questions like
“what type of Croydon citizen are you?’’ with the results including junkie, teenage mother and pedophile.

Funny.

I have no problem with making fun of suburbs. The thing is – it’s just not even accurate. Croydon’s actually pretty nice place to be, if a little staid. It’s green and leafy, there are parks and things. The bits up in Croydon North are hilly with lots of nice views. I’m told nice people live there…..

Before you say anything, I have been known to make fun of the place myself on occasion, but that was back before I knew better. I still can’t really cope with the roundabout near Aldi, but I’ve come to terms with it.

Running
A long boring run last night. It was so boring I hurried through it, just to get it over and done with. I basically ran from my place in Ringwood East down Maroondah Highway to Middleborough road and back.

It was sooooo scenic. There was McDonalds, Bunnings, Harvey Norman AND JB Hifi. Sadly, all except Maccas were shut. Oh well.

21.4kms in about 90 minutes.

This lunchtime I did a lazy 13km in the city on my lunchbreak.

Training
Because last Sunday’s long run got delayed until Monday, this week is looking set to be some sort of record. If everything goes to plan I’ll run well over 130km this week. I’ve already done 94 since Monday.

Full on.

they’re only going to die anyway

What’s happened to our sense of humour? eh?

Last night, on the Chaser, they ran a sketch that included Chris Taylor saying about kids dying of cancer:

there was no point in making “extravagant” and “selfish” wishes come true as the children were “only going to die anyway”.

And now everyone and his dog is up in arms, calling for their heads on a platter. Geez, get a grip! If we can’t laugh at dying children, what can we laugh at?

But seriously, last night’s episode was pretty boring. The telling moment for me was the bit in London, when the policeman stared down the Chaser guy before saying “I hope you edit this together really well and get the laughs you’re trying for”.

Ouch.

If you want something really funny, have a look at this:

Jogger Hits Tree While Tweeting, Hurtles Toward Global Infamy

Yes – it’s what you think.

Running
15.4km yesterday lunch-time at a fair clip.

Marathon prep
Gold Coast Marathon is a month from tomorrow. That’s right, a month from tomorrow. Queue nerves and panicking. Arrrrrrggggghhh…

I realistically only have this week and the next at full strength training before tapering begins. I’m looking forward to tapering, which is a good sign. I take it to mean I’ve been working hard.

Marathon goal
Now I have to start thinking about a goal time. This is always stressful, as you wonder how well you’ve been training. Do I dare go too fast and risk hitting the wall? Do I start it conservatively and leave myself with time to make up in the second half?

This time it’s complicated slightly by the fact that if I want to get a PB, I’ll have to run at least 2 minutes under 3 hours. That means running ahead of the 3 hour pacing bus – in other words – that dark cold place beyond all pacing busses.

Here’s a question for you. If you wanted to run 2:55 would you start in front of the 3 hour bus and try to stay there, potentially on your own? Or would you run with the bus for the first, say, 30km then push on ahead to make up time towards the end?

Tricksy!

giving me the s***s

I suppose I had it coming… I spent much of last week making jokes about swine flu. Thankfully I didn’t get the pig flu itself – although that would have been something to tell the grandkids – but I did get a nasty dose of whatever my little baby girl has.

I awoke on Saturday feeling mighty queasy. MIGHTY queasy and uncomfortable downstairs. I thought it best to pull out of the Sandwon 10km and just do a little 8km run around the streets near my place.

Sunday was worse. I won’t describe in detail, as you might feel like eating at some point today. No running done at all yesterday, other than to the bathroom.

This was all very annoying, and not just for the obvious reasons. I was all set to record a record training month this month. I made it to 400km with the Saturday run, just short of my PB – 403km, and I was set for over 430km taking into account the long run on Sunday.

Sadly, I pulled up short.

Bugger.

I’ve quarantined myself from work today, as I don’t imagine anyone there would appreciate picking up my bug. Instead, I’m working from home.

I am feeling better than yesterday, so I’m considering doing a long run later this afternoon.