more happy days

Some times I think this whole marathon training thing is more than slightly mad. My mood and entire world-view is completely at the mercy of my training schedule, injuries and the weather, but only in so far as it restricts my ability to run.

Surely, there must be more to life than this.

There might be, but life is as it is, and for the moment that means wholly under the thrall of the great god Marathon.

The great god M is a vengeful god, and capricious with it, but in those brief moments when you are in his favour, life can seem pretty good. And so it is now.

I’m well into the tapering period now, and it is good. I already feel lighter in the legs, and with some more spring in the step. What’s more, every time I go out for a run, the sun seems to be shining, but it’s still cool and fresh.

I meant to run an easy 10km this morning, as a recovery session from the weekend, but I ended up extending it to 14.3km, at an easy pace of 4.3 minutes/km. Not so easy really, but it felt good.

happy days

I had a horrid week at work last week. Busy, busy, busy, stressful and unrelenting. Happily, Friday was my last day in that job. I resigned. I guess that means I’m currently “between jobs”.

Sadly, I have a new job to go to, and it starts tomorrow. Well, I guess “sadly” isn’t quite the word, if you’re thinking about my bank balance, but it is quite sad for my state of mind. Oh well.

Friday was crap, tomorrow probably will be too, yesterday was literally football without end, but at least today was nice.

I had a sleep in (well, until 7am, which counts as a sleep-in to me), then I had a nice morale-boosting run. It was 26km done at a bit under marathon race pace (I think it worked out about 4 minutes 10 seconds/km). I’m not sure if that qualifiies as appropriate tapering-level running 2 weeks from a marathon, but I felt fine afterwards, and happily took part in the rest of the day’s festivities: mowing the lawn, walking the dog, chasing the kids plus a good dose of lazing around in the back yard taking in some sun.

Melbourne can be quite a pleasant place to be when it wants to be. Here’s hoping we get something similar in a fortnight.

fast but crap

The way I figure it, I must have pulled on my shoes and headed out for a run hundreds, no probably thousands of times over the years.

In all of that time, I’d say there are only about a dozen runs that remain in my memory, and of those only about half a dozen are memorable in good ways. Great runs are great not just because of the speed or the surroundings, it has something to do with technique and spirit and a certain fluency of movement. Try watching Mottram run a competitive 5km against the Africans, despite the speed and obvious effort, there’s a grace to the running, a sense that every movement is part of a harmonious whole. I very rarely come close to feeling like that, but when I do, that’s a great run for me.

About 6 months after I first started running, I headed out at dusk for a quick lap of Princes Park, decided to head into the city instead, then ended up in doing a glorious 25km non-stop running out of pure joy.

A year or 2 later, the best run ever was probably the 2007 Melbourne Marathon, at the end of a sustained 18 month period of good hard training. Everything went right, I had the fitness, the preparation, the event, the weather, the guts, everything. From the 15km mark to the finish in the MCG, I’ve never run better or been more satisfied.

Great runs are like hitting the sweet spot, everything seems to work better and faster.

This morning, however, was not at all great. It was what my distinguished blogging colleague would amusing call “sleeplek”. It was also more than usually sluggish, a grind, awkward and felt slow. From start to finish it was an unmitigated bore. The thing is, to my great surprise, it wasn’t at all slow. I ran my usual, challenging 12.5km course around the streets near my place. I did it in under 54 minutes, within a minute of my pb.

I have an ambition to run the course in 50 minutes flat one day. I think it’ll give me a heart attack, but it will be worth it. I think I’ll give it a shot after the marathon. Gotta put all this training to some use.

4 year-old logic

One of the best parts about having small children is watching them take in lots of information, digest it, and come up with their own ideas about life, the universe and everything.

Last night, my 4 year-old boy (a unique and deep thinker) told me, in a very solemn tone of voice:

Daddy, life doesn’t go like that:

(he draws a circle in the air with his index finger, clockwise)

No, it goes like this:

(he draws another circle in the air, this time anti-clockwise).

I have no idea what you say to something like that, other than I love him more than I thought it possible to love another person. Almost 24 hours later, I can speculate about where some of the thought came from, but I’m still not 100 percent sure what he meant.

Running
A day off yesterday and a fairly easy 13 point something ks this afternoon.

the long way to work

There are only 4 Sundays between now and the Melbourne Marathon so the time for hard training is rapidly drawing to close.

Accepted wisdom is that after this weekend, training should start to taper off, and by the first week in October, almost decline to nothing. I personally think a 3 week taper is probably taking things a bit too far, but I accept I’m not the world’s greatest expert on these things. Sure, right now my legs are very much aware they’re in the middle of a hard running period but, give them a few days off, and I reckon they’ll be raring to go.

Anyhow, I decided to do my long run this morning, rather than wait for the weekend. It’s always nice to finish the week and go home on a Friday night knowing you don’t absolutely have to run for hours and hours on the weekend. I could do that, but it would be purely out of choice. There are no horrid little guilt-men chasing me around with red-hot pokers and copies of a training plan.

So, a 5:30am start (I was up at 5) from my place was the go. I took the long way, intending to run along the Koornung trail, which would have made the run about 31km. However, it was still a bit too dark for comfort when I passed Mitcham Road (the K trail isn’t all that well lit) so I carried on as far as Elgar rd Box Hill before veering right and joining up with the trail, and the Eastern freeway. I always find the bit between Elgar road and Bulleen road dispiriting for some reason. Also, there’s a sign a few kms further on that says “Southbank 20km”, which scared the pants off me, until I figured out it was only 20km if you followed the river the whole way, which I had no intention of doing.

The run was okay, not super fast, but strong. I felt remarkably fresh and happy at about the 30km mark (somewhere in Clifton Hill) and was still feeling good when I was almost at work. So good, in fact, I decided to do an extra lap of Carlton Gardens, just to make sure I would pass 30km (I miscalculated somewhere along the line). It ended up being 35.8km in 2 hours 46. Here it is on mapmyrun.com.

That’s okay I suppose.

oh happy day

Only a slightly sarcastic post title today. While I continue in my futile attempts to squeeze 3 weeks’ worth of works into 3 days, the train system is still full of loonies and ticket inspectors who dress like them and my children insist they must watch a television show about “ninky-nonks”, something about today seems better than normal.

It’s probably the sunshine.

Getting out for a run at lunch-time in that sunshine probably doesn’t hurt either. A lovely 16km run in the sun and cool breeze taken at a nice comfortable pace (which turned out to be 4 minutes 10 seconds per km).

Even running into a slight headwind, in that bit on the north side of the Yarra in Burnley, in between the freeway, the train line and the power lines, life seemed okay with me.

It’s good to celebrate these little moments, especially when tomorrow will probably be back to doom, gloom and something else rhyming with oom (tomb?).

a third of a century

No, that’s not my age. That passed a while ago now. And no, it’s not how long it’s been since I had a beer (although it feels like it).

It’s actually the length of my long run today: 33.33km. See the evidence on mapmyrun.com.

I didn’t plan it that way. I just ran from my place, down to the Dandenong Creek Trail and along the trail as far as High Street Road. I knew that would make just over 15km, so by the time I got back it would make a decent length for a long run. But I thought I should tack a bit on at the end. So I ran for about 5 minutes into the dark unknown south of High Street Road (which turned out to be populated mainly by baseball players).

It was a decent run all round, considering I’d done a fairly hard 15km yesterday, and I had to run into a northerly head-wind on the way back. It worked out to be just over 4.5 minute ks.

Marathon
It’s a little under a month until the big race now. I kinda wish I could run the thing now, or at least after a week to taper. I’m feeling pretty fit, and pretty light. I think I’ve lost about 5kg in the last few months – I weighed 66kg after this morning’s run, about as light as I’ve been, the same weight I was when I set my PB in 2007.

My boss even told me I looked gaunt last week.

So, if it were possible, I’d jump in a time machine and fast forward through the next four weeks. I’m fine to miss the tapering, the pre-race jitters and freakouts. Just get me to the race.

Bring it on!

herding cats

I kinda like Julia Gillard. I have even, in weaker moments, considered her not completely unattractive (for a politician). I like that she lives in Altona, that she has red hair, that she can completely wind Tony Abbott around her little finger, that she’s an aethist.

All of which makes it hard to see her in the current situation. I don’t think it’s going too far to describe it as a “scrape”. She has managed to form a government, but it’s not a proper one: it’s a minority government. And, if you believe Andrew Bolt, minorities mean trouble with a capital T.

On the one hand, she has the Greens, who all look like Jarvis Cocker and believe a whole lot inconvenient (to Julia) stuff about climate change and gay rights and things. Then she also has Andrew Wilkie, an irritatingly sensible independent thinking type, who is unlikely to take orders. Then there’s Rob Oakeshott, who seems a complete giggling lightweight in love with the sound of his own voice, and who has way too much power. And Tony Windsor, a straight-talkin’ type who I believe was actually in Dad and Dave (I may be wrong).

In the middle of all of this is the Labour Party itself, and its legendary back-room boys, who are not averse to a bit of knife-in-the-back stuff the minute they start to worry about the latest Newspoll.

So, she has a fun few years ahead of her. Good luck to her.

Good luck to us, every one.

Running
20.1 comfortable kms this morning in beautiful conditions. Well, the route was pretty ordinary, but the weather was (as Richie Benaud might say) just a bit short of a good temperature.

Motivation
I’m feeling a bit lacking in motivation lately. I’ve been pretty focussed on marathon training all year, and now I’m only a few weeks away from the actual event, I’ve just lost it a bit. Getting sick, and having sore legs probably doesn’t help. It’ll pick up soon enough I’m sure. I’m expecting the pre-race nerves to kick in in the next fortnight or so.