all acquaintaince

It’s almost the end of 2008 now, only 2 and a half hours to go, and that’s probably a good thing. The year hasn’t had much to say for it, what with economic madness, wars and famine and the threat to ban topless beaches.

Still, there is plenty to be thankful for. As I write, I’m pleasingly sweaty. Stop your naughty mind – there’s no funny business. It’s the honest sweat of the long distance runner. And that’s not a bad thing. While the rest of Melbourne is probably in the process of wiping itself out, I’m irritatingly, smugly superior.

So, running’s been okay, aside from a few really lean months mid-year when I was sick constantly. I made just under 3000km for the year, aided by a couple of 400km months recently.

More importantly, we have a new baby in the household. Everyone’s well, in general, and while we’re never going to be billionaires, we don’t lack for anything.

I’m not going to tell you my resolutions for 2009, but it’s safe to say they involve a fair bit of running.

Speaking of which:

Running
16 hot fast kilometres last Sunday at Venus Bay. Very enjoyable. 9km yesterday, and 9km just a minute ago.

A few weeks ago I was starting to feel tired after a few heavy months. I did a week of about 75% distance, than last week was 50% distance. This week has only been about 20km so far.

I’m feeling fit, rested, and ready to RRRRRUUUUNNNNN. Perhaps a big run this weekend?

phew, that’s over

Christmas, I mean. Now I need a holiday.

The whole thing went smoothly enough, although I still can’t figure out how I managed to go to 3 family dinners – one on the 23rd, one on Christmas Eve and one on the day itself.

Still, the kids had fun. Our baby, as expected, wasn’t really fussed by the whole thing, but our two year-old boy has fast discovered the joy of opening presents, not necessarily his own, getting full to the brim with sugar and running around in a circle for three quarters of an hour. He now owns about three times his own weight in Bob the Builder and Fireman Sam DVDs and a toy electric guitar that plays hot licks from what sounds like mid 80’s ZZ top non-stop. That one’s not getting old.

No, not at all. I must see if it has an off switch.

There were threats of two more barbecues yesterday, but I put my foot down. There’s only so much overcooked meat and forced conversations with acquaintances a man can take.

Instead I went to the local shopping centre (Eastland) to see the sales. Stupid statement coming up: there seemed to be a lot of people there. But really, there were A LOT OF PEOPLE. All of them seemed to be gorging themselves on cheap plasma screens and anything else not nailed down.

I resisted temptation, admirably, at least until I passed a shoe shop, at which point I surrendered to the siren song of a pair of Brooks Adrenalines at $60 off.

I’m only human.

Venus Bay
We’re all heading down to Venus Bay this morning for a week’s rest, relaxation and other things beginning with R. So, no blogging from me at least for a while.

Running
11km yesterday morning. A run due this weekend, and a couple of shorter things during the coming week. I might have a longer one next weekend.

christmas comes early

Well, it did for me. One branch of my hydra-headed family decided to steal a march on the rest of the world and have the big christmas lunch yesterday – on the 24th.

An odd decision, I thought, but, as ever, I wasn’t consulted.

Still, it was fun. The kids ran around like crazy. Lots of toys, lots of sugar but relatively few tantrums, even as the red cordial wore off.

I’m not drinking at the moment, so that was a bit of downer.

I must say, I’m dreading tonight and tomorrow. Too much food, too much bloating.

Running
I managed 11km last night. ‘Twas supposed to be easy, and it was. 11km in 48 minutes exactly.

oh s**t it’s christmas

Damn it. I just realised it’s Christmas in about a week from now. No: less! I suppose that means I have to buy heaps of presents.

Joy.

Bliss.

Not looking forward to that.

Running
26km in just under 2 hours today. It went fine; easy, steady pace and finished with plenty of energy.

I did have a bit of a nap in the early afternoon, but that was more due chasing a 2 year old around all morning.

rest

I’m starting to think I need a rest. Twice this week I’ve woken with really dead, heavy feeling legs and three of my runs have at least started out lethargically.

It’s not much of a surprise really. Over the last 2 months I’ve run something over 815kms, including quite a few weeks over 100km and at least one run over 38km. That could take it’s toll on anyone, even someone like me.

So, this week I’ll only look to run about 80km. Next week I might cut down to 50km. Then the following week I might run very little at all.

That’s a plan.

Running
12km yesterday including 4 4km “anaerobic threshold” runs. 11km today including 2 10 minute tempo runs.

conspiring against me

I truly don’t feel I’m destined to do much running this week. What with meetings at work, waking up with heavy, heavy, sore legs on Tuesday and a couple of ill-timed showers, it seemed running was being put off the agenda.

After last weekend’s little adventure, I’m not all that keen on experimenting with the treadmill again. I suppose it’d be okay if I kept it to an hour or so, but I’m not willing to risk it.

Last night, about 8, however a brief window of opportunity presented itself and I dived for it like a man on a walking tour plunging into a pub 2 minutes before closing time.

17.8km around the streets near me. It felt fairly good, and I finished with plenty of running. There’s a nasty little hill just near my place that usually causes heart-palpitations; last night I barely noticed it.

Gratifying.

making a dizzy fool of myself

If you’re fortunate enough to call Melbourne home, you’ll already know this, but this past weekend has been a touch wet. When I say “a touch wet” I mean like the ocean is a touch wet.

So, no running for me yesterday.

Today things looked a bit more promising, so I set out, full of buck and vim for a 30k long run, as scheduled.

Of course, I only made it about 300 metres out the door before it started doing the old Noah’s Ark routine, so I had to shelter under the eaves of Maroondah Hospital.

In the end I pushed on, but felt a bit nervous about 2 hours plus in the open air, so dropped into the gym at Croydon. This was my wife’s idea: why not run on the treadmill, it’ll be dry won’t it? Yes…..

I’ve never actually run on one (until today) so I couldn’t really say no.

I dropped into the gym, figured out how the treadmill worked – it had a TV too – and set off. An hour and 40 minutes later and I’d covered 22km and gotten a few funny looks from the other people. But I felt good, enjoyed watching semi-soft porn on Video Hits and got into the swing of things pretty well.

That is until I stepped off the thing. At that point, my legs stopped moving, but the world most definitely didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever been more dizzy in my life, not even the time aged 10 when I grandparents took me out for lunch and I ate 3 chocolate eclairs on Ackland street then went on the roller-coaster at Luna Park.

Thankfully, unlike the chocolate eclair episode, I didn’t vomit, but it was a close thing.

I had a very strange sensation of floating for the 5km it took to make it to the mother-in-law’s place in Mooroolbark.

I won’t be doing that again.

bloody alarm clock

What with work and various other things clogging up my day, I’ve had to do all my running this week at the ungodly hour of 5am.

I shouldn’t say “ungodly”. It’s actually quite pleasant at that time of day, and you get the smug feeling of being up and about and exercising while all the other Jo-blows are still slobbing about in bed.

But when the alarm went off this morning, I couldn’t see that. I confess I actually turned it off and went back to sleep.

I ended up sleeping in until 6, got dressed and fed quickly and then headed into town bearing a set of running clothes in my man-bag. When I got there I had another crisis of laziness. This one I resisted more effectively, and headed out for a 12km stroll.

I followed Em‘s marvelous example (as always) and had a bit of a pop at the Mona fartlek. I quite enjoyed it. For those of you who don’t know, it goes something like this:

2 by 90 seconds with equal floating recovery
4 by 60 seconds with equal floating recovery
4 by 30 seconds with equal floating recovery
4 by 15 seconds with equal floating recovery

These sorts of sessions are tough, but in some ways more enjoyable than a long run. At least you know it’s all going to be over in 20 minutes, and it goes pretty quickly. The long runs I’ve been doing lately, you run for an hour and still have another 90 minutes to go. Kinda depressing sometimes.

Anyway, I ended up getting carried away and before I knew it was all the way over in West Brunswick somewhere, and then had to slug it back into town via Flemington Road.

Fun.