shocking long run

What I’m about to say may shock you: wet, cold Sunday nights are not the best time to do your weekly long run.

No, it’s true. There’s something about the darkness, the dankness, the general air of fatigue and bloated self-satisfaction that does nothing for long distance running. Sunday nights are good for sitting around on the couch under a doona, watching stupid TV (as if there were any other kind of TV.)

A second shocking revelation: Whitehorse road, Nunawading, is not the best place in the world to do your long run. Fantastic furniture ain’t the most cheerful place at the best of times; at 8pm on a Sunday night, abandoned, it seems to bring home all the sadness in the world.

Ah well.

Third shocking revelation (this is more than a revelation, it should be a commandment): it’s never a good idea to decide to extend your long run while running downhill. This hold true especially when the downhill slope is one of those almost imperceptible ones, like between Springvale and Blackburn roads.

You know how it is, you’re motoring along and everything feels fine and you think to yourself “Why not keep going to Box Hill?”. “No,” you answer, “why not Balwyn?”. “Righty-ho, Balwyn it is”.

A particularly dangerous conversation.

What it doesn’t take into account – and this is critical – is that that little slope that’s “almost imperceptible” on the way down becomes something akin to Mount Everest when you’re 20-odd kms into a run that was only supposed to go for 18.

Ah well, we live and learn.

last hard workout

Yesterday was the last opportunity for anything resembling a long run before the big one (Sun 27th). I was torn, as usual, between wanting something testing and not wanting to injure myself.

The compromise was a 27k-er done at a reasonably easy pace, but including a couple of nasty-ish hills. Also, it was done in the relative heat of late morning/early afternoon, rather than my usual crack-of-dawn routine.

As an aside, I’m starting to develop a healthy distaste for Montrose. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all very touristy and tree-ed but, unless you’re coming from Mount Dandenong itself, there’s no way of getting there without bloody great hills.

The section of Cantebury Road coming into Montrose is particularly annoying.

Music
More songs for the “last 10k of a marathon, aural adrenaline shot” file:

These are out:

Emiliana Torrini – all her stuff is too chilled out
Jex Saarelhart – London blues – fabulous song, but uses a mind-bending time signature that doesn’t lend itself to running
The Cure – Disintegration – even the “up” songs on this record make me feel like taking a couple of valium and lying down for the rest of the week.

These are in:

The Beatles – Tommorrow never knows
Fiona Apple – Fast as you can
Jose Gonzalez – Heartbeats – a very low key song, but very insistent beat
The Hives – Hate to say I told you so
Fishbone – Properties of Propaganda. Great bassline, but stupid lyrics, especially the way they try to make this rhyme:

It’s the properties of propaganda
when your feet don’t move but you don’t know where you standa

That always makes me laugh.

long run lapper

I read recently there are something like 70 million blogs in the world. That’s one of those numbers that makes you feel very small, like looking up at the stars or standing next to Kim Beasley.

I also read that only about 30-40% of those blogs are actually regularly updated. With that in mind it’s good to welcome back to the fold Clarkey, of Ausrun and Clarkey’s chronicles fame. That particular blog seemed to disappear from the face of the earth for a while, but he’s back writing regularly now.

Anyway, I’ve mentioned him today because yesterday he accused me of being a “long run lapper”, not without a hint of exhasperation in his blogging voice.

Fair call, Clarkey. You got me.

I do tend to prefer doing laps on my long run. I don’t go as far as doing dozens of laps of an athletics track, but once I’ve mapped out and measured a route, I’m pretty happy to do it again and again. If I get bored, I’ll just do it backwards.

To someone who likes a bit of scenery to look at, I dare say it’s a bit boring, but that’s missing the point. The whole idea is to get to some zen level of boredom and thereby to attain enlightenment and/or unconsciousness. Ask anyone who likes test cricket: it’s strangely compelling.

Running
A 12k (lap) run this morning, including a whole series of fartlek things over “rolling hills”. About two thirds of the way through I remember saying to myself (not out loud, I haven’t gotten to that point yet) “Why am I doing this?”

The answer came back straight away “Self-hatred. You desire to punish yourself for some sin in a previous life.”

Righty-oh then.

baby, I’m on fire

Excuse me while I go a bit MacEnroe for a minute. You must be kidding.

I just typed out at least 600 words of the purest gold, the best prose you have ever read and bloody Blogger packs up on me. Now it refuses to accept it ever existed, the bastard.

Anyway – I can’t be bothered typing it out again, so you’ll just get the quick and nasty version:

Running
Long run promised, v. long run delivered. It turned out to be 40.17k in right on 3 hours. Quite happy, though tired. Thought I saw Tiger Boy but didn’t. Did see PJ and said hello. Lots of amusing stuff about Gmap pedometer packing up and refusing to go on.

Trust me, it was amusing. I really excelled myself.

Fire
We had a fire at our house. No-one hurt. Not too much damage. Just a fright, lots of stress, 2 amused fire engines and lots of firies swaggering about impressing the girls and umpteen conversations with loverly people at the insurance company.

That bit wasn’t so amusing, not so much to work with really.

Easter
I wrote a great long diatribe accusing the Herald Sun of being held captive by the religious right (Brian Patterson), which may have been the reason for blogger’s impromptu extreme editing display. Censorship, whooooooo……..

Probably not appropriate, at least today. Go do a google search for Richard Dawkins, and you’ll see the sort of stuff I was on about.

Long run

A fairly eventful few days since I last posted, but sadly I ain’t telling you nothing, no sir. Nope.

“How’s that” you say. “Isn’t blogging meant for uncritical spewing forth of every little detail about people’s boring little life?”

Well, yes, on the whole. But there are somethings too boring for public consumption even on this forum. Also, some of the news concerns things for which I would be hung, drawn and quartered if I so much as hinted about. Incidentally, what exactly does “drawn” mean in that context? If you’ve already been hung, does it really matter if someone draws a picture of your limp corpse? And “quartered”, what’s that about?

Moving smoothly along, I did do some running, and that I can tell you about.

Actually, in the last 48 hours I’ve done a lot of running, somewhere over 46ks actually. A brief run in the rain on Saturday afternoon. At the moment, running in the rain is quite the luxury. Ask me again in about 4 months and I may not be so sanguine.

Yesterday I went out for my long run, and ended up doing around 29k. It was a challenging (for me) course that took me from Ringwood to Lilydale on the Maroondah Highway, then down to Montrose and back to Ringwood on Mt Dandenong Road. There are a couple of interesting hills along the way, chiefly the one that climbs out of Chirnside Park. CP has never been my favourite place, apologies to any CPers out there. Yesterday, I was pretty glad to see the back of the place.

The one thing you can say for Chirnside, is that people don’t try to run you over. Some guy in Mt Dandonong road Croydon did just that, leaving me practically sprawled over the bonnet of his car. Actually, it wasn’t that dramatic. Also, I suppose it’s better to be on the bonnet than under it.

The whole thing took 2hrs 15, meaning I was theoretically on course for a 3hr 16 marathon. I’d be pretty happy with that time, although part of me thinks I can go faster over a flat course. Perhaps I can go as fast as this guy? Or perhaps not.

This morning I carted my running gear into work and did a rough 10k loop starting and finishing at my office and taking in Southbank, Docklands, and the north side of the city. Not bad at all really. The legs weren’t feeling too bad after the weekend’s exertions.

The training program has me doing an easy week now. I mean really easy. Ridiculously so. Kind of annoying really.