1 adventure completed

For some reason, last night’s appeal for companions on my 27km run through Melbourne’s eastern suburbs didn’t get much of a result. Even a personal appeal to a fellow blogger received a polite “tempting but….” response.

I wasn’t discouraged, and pressed on alone like a good little soldier.

It’s quite light now at 5:30am, which makes the whole enterprise seem much more sane. I’ve also learned from previous experience that spending the whole 2 hours plus listening to commercial radio with their zany morning crews doesn’t actually improve my mood, so today I ran with some podcasts on the mp3 player instead – 1 from Radio National and 2 episodes of TOFOP (a podcast from Will Anderson and Charlie Clauscen).

The run itself was fairly enjoyable and not overly fast, at least until the last 20 minutes when I had an inexplicable burst of energy, upped the speed and extended the route for an extra couple of kms. Have a look at this map on mapmyrun.com to see the extra bits I tacked on in the city.

It was just over 29km in 2 hours 17 minutes.

So, as adventures go, it wasn’t much to write home about, but it’s done.

need an adventure

For some reason I neglected to mention I went to see Leonard Cohen last Saturday night. It was actually pretty newsworthy for me, as it involved my wife and I going out, at night, with no children for more than about an hour. Very rare. The concert was ace, as expected, although I found the merchandising a bit strange. They were selling coffee cups called “Cup of Mercy”. Now, if you’re enough of a Leonard Cohen geek to get that reference, you’ll probably know it’s quite offensive. (Book of Mercy is one of my favorite books, almost good enough to get me interested in spirituality).

On the way home we even had a bit of excitement. It was about 12:30, it was rainy and we were driving along a busy and slippery Hoddle Street. Without warning, the car in front of me slammed on the brakes and I had about 3 quarters of a second to get from 65km to a complete stop. It turned out some drunk (or something else) guy had stepped out into traffic and was dancing in the middle of the road.

Idiot.

The girl driving the car ahead of me was traumatised. She jumped out of the car and starting whacking the guy, who ran away to safety – on the other side of Hoddle Street.

Everyone was okay, at least physically, but it was a shock. I guess us suburban family-types should make sure we’re tucked up safe in bed by 9:30, as normal.

After then, this week has been a bit blah. Go to work, stay at work, go home, go to bed. The only excitement has been the microwave exploding, which isn’t really the excitement I’m hoping for.

So, seeing as there are no near-by mountains to climb, I’m planning on running to work tomorrow morning. It’s about 27km from my place in Ringwood East to the city, but I might even go a longer way. Nothing brightens up a long dull day at work like starting out completely exhausted.

Anyone in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne feel like joining me?

I also have another running adventure planned, although this won’t be for a little while. I plan on running the entire length of the Dandenong Creek Trail. I mapped it out once and I think it’s about 45km from Liverpool Road down to the bay (in Carrum?). It should be doable.

Anyone want to do that one too?

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.

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!

nasty stuff

Today, on the way into Eastland, with wife and kids in tow, I passed a young couple (late teens, at a guess) having a domestic. I’d guess the fight had been going for a while before we got there. There was shouting, screaming, at one point the girl slapped the guy pretty hard, then he grabbed her by the throat and held her against the wall. It was all really rough, really aggressive, out of control and totally out of order.

At that point, I had that classic dilemma: do I walk on by and assume someone else would help, or do I do something and risk getting my head beaten in. The guy was fairly big, had a crazy look in his eye and prison-style tatts on the back of his neck. Also, it’s never a good idea to interfere in a domestic.

In the end I had a bet each way, saying “hey mate, back off”, then pulling out my phone and telling him I was calling the police. He turned to me and said “it’s all-right, it’s my girlfriend”. (Really! That’s a verbatim quote).

At that point the security guards showed up and I shepherded the kids off somewhere else. Presumably everything calmed down.

A few hours later and I still feel quite angry about the whole thing. I can’t believe the guy thinks because she was “his girlfriend”, he’s within his rights physically intimidate her. It’s not right, not at all.

Still, this kind of thing is not uncommon, but I would assume it’s mostly behind closed doors, not out the front of Hoyts.

Running
Another long run down today. I ran 35.9km in 2 hours 44. It was a pretty easy run, despite the wind, the cold and a nasty dash of nipple chafing. It’s probably about as long as I’ll run in this marathon training, so that’s good.

Father’s day
When I got home, it was time to celebrate bunnings father’s day. I don’t really approve of hallmark holidays like this, especially when I have to make breakfast for everyone else. Surely it shouldn’t work like that?

It was decided we should go out for pancakes, so we trooped off to the Pancake Parlour. Who knew it still existed? The last time I went was about 1986. This morning, pancakes had seemed like a good idea, but when I actually looked at the menu (a3 size, laminated for easy wiping) I just couldn’t face the thought of heaps of the things plus ice cream and god-knows what else. My guts rebelled at the thought of all those calories. Probably witnessing the incident I described before didn’t help things.

rail trail tour

It’s been completely unplanned, believe me, but somehow I seem to have done a bit of a tour of Victoria’s rail trails in the last few months of running. A month or so ago I ran along the South Gippsland rail trail, last weekend was down at Bellarine, and today I ran on the old faithful – Lilydale-Warburton rail trail.

That wasn’t really the plan, but somehow my family arrangements meant I could be dropped at Mount Evelyn at 10am and picked up at Warburton at 12:30. Pretty good luck really, and the kind of luck you have to grab with both hands whenever it comes.

Still, it meant I had to be able to cover the distance (33km even) in 2 hours 30, including breaks and it also meant I would be without water, food and out of phone contact in case anything went wrong. Still, I was quietly confident.

The first 10km was gloriously downhill and comfortably cool, though noticeably devoid of runners. I guess it was too late in the morning for the hardcore. I had only previously been as far as Killara station, so it was all unknown after that. But I shouldn’t have worried. It was all gentle, beautiful and comfortable the whole way. I even managed to amuse some older ladies on bikes when I overtook them somewhere near Woori Yallock.

I made the distance in 2 hours 27, not the same pace as last week, but fast enough to give me time to buy a powerade before jumping in the car back to town.

Rail trails are really good for running. Long, without traffic, and any hills are of the long and gentle variety. Are there any more I should be aware of?

Movies
The lovely wife and I went to the movies on Friday night. Wow. I know, actual time out at night that didn’t involve entertainment designed for the under-fives. We saw Animal Kingdom at the Nova (very good, if you like grim, crime stuff, it’s a little like the first series of Underbelly without the uplifting family values). Unfortunately, my lovely w. decided she should remove her boots and make herself comfortable on the couch, which provoked an intense discussion about movie etiquette.

My point was that the cinema is not your living room, and that one should deport oneself in a manner befitting a public place. Her point was that I was a silly old fuddy-duddy and should just be quiet and watch the movie. An informal poll on facebook conducted in the last 24 hours would seem to support the shoe-less side of the argument, but I stand by my position.

it’s not a race – Bellarine Rail Trail run

As the organiser was keen to say this morning at the start of the Bellarine Rail Trail run: “It’s not a race”.

Yeah, I get that. A couple of hundred fit looking people in running gear, all trying to run 34km as fast as they can, but it’s not a race.

Anyway, to my way of thinking, it doesn’t matter one jot whether it’s a race or not. Either way, I’m not going to win, so why worry?

So, I don’t mind saying, I raced it. Not to win, mind you, just to see how much fitness I have in the old legs. And I was pretty happy. I did, truth be told, make a fairly elementary, rookie error, and ran the first 20km too fast, but it was pretty hard to judge, running into the wind, on some muddy tracks and slightly uphill most of the way.

I stick by my general policy of running low tech, gadget free as much as possible, but on days like today I could see the benefits of having some sort of tech on my side. All around me were people beeping and blurping, gazing intently at their wrists where (no-doubt) touch-screen displays informed them of their pace, distance covered, heart rate, progress of the election count, and god knows what else, while I was tooling along trying to figure out whether we’d past the 5km mark yet. When I got to the 20km mark I thought, “Now, how long have I been running?” thinking I could work out my average pace so far, only to realise I didn’t even look at my watch at the start.

So, running on feel it was.

At the turn around at the 17km mark, I managed to get myself lost, having turned left instead of going straight ahead, and lost valuable seconds/had a break, depending how you look at it. If the first half had been a bit of hard work, and it had, the second half was a breeze. Downwind, lots of gentle downward slopes and plenty of slower runners to overtake.

In the end, I finished a bit tired, but still going strong. I held off PJ to finish in 2:23.

A good confidence boost for the big one in October. If my maths are any good, I might be able to give the marathon PB a bit of a shake. (It’s 2:58).

fresh air

After Wednesday night’s trip to the gym, I’ve been back to running in the outdoors again. This is as it should be.

I mean, sure the sight of me in my shorts sweating and puffing away is not to everyone’s taste, but that doesn’t mean I should be shut away in a room. Runners deserve to be free, damnit.

That being said, mid-way through yesterday’s long run, I began to long for a closed in, airless, warm room to run in. I was heading up hill, into the wind, feeling tired and with a good 12km to go, most of that at least partially into the wind.

The things we do to ourselves.

Anyway, it turned out to be fractionally less than 33km in 2 hours 30, exactly. That’s okay.

I’m starting to think about goal times for the race in October. As always, I’m vacillating between a comfortable pace and going for a PB.

An update: Hell on earth
I’ve think I’ve found a new contender for “least pleasant place to be on earth”. It is: the queue for MacDonalds at the local shopping centre food court, with two kids under the age of 5, both of whom are feral from being stuck inside on a rainy day, one of whom knows she wants “chippies” but can’t decide if she wants to go to Red Rooster instead, and the other one is still complaining because he wants “white” juice, which turns out, after 5 minutes fierce argument, to be chocolate milk in a white packet. I should add, both kids were running free, there were dodgy guys standing about in the queue and disapproving “proper”-looking mothers walking past with well behaved kids in prams.

Not good.