I see a scary pattern forming.

Have a look at the monthly kilometres table to the right. See a pattern? I don't know how to avoid this horrible cycle of two months solid training then one month dominated by two-three weeks of illness. I've been very careful this year not to increase training too quickly and to have rest weeks following big events. My nutrition has been good and I've been working on my sleep patterns. Stress levels have been high though due to PhD and land division issues, but there isn't much I can do about those things. The pattern is starting to look very strong. Just to back it up further, I was sick in December and September last year too and had pretty good running through October and November. Anyone got any ideas (besides not running)?

PS. Yay, 50 posts.

Still sick, still busy

When will this cough end? Everyday the cough seems to be a little bit better, but not quite enough to be able to get back on the track. I've been very busy too, which probably doesn't help. Trailblazer team arrangements are still looking dicey. We did have a good fundraising event for the AFL grand final though. Gotta go.

Coffee addicts, read on.

I was reading CJ's blog earlier and the picture on it reminded me of this picture. It also prompted me to write a blog about one of my other great loves: coffee.

I love coffee. I drink truckloads of it. I have a loyalty card for every coffee franchise in existence. I only drink "good" coffee. We have a percolator in our office at uni with all the supplies we need to keep us caffeinated for at least a week. I won't drink 'Bland 43' or 'Intestinal Roast' or any other forms of 'instant death' unless I get really desperate and I'm a long way from a source of good coffee. My regular morning coffee is from Bravo Expresso underneath David Jones in Adelaide. Earlier this year I stupidly tried to reduce the amount of coffee I drink. This resulted in headaches and a severe sense of longing for my good friend coffee. I think I lasted two weeks. Enough ranting about coffee, back to work.

PS. Still sick, but I'm recovering now thanks to a day off work and a trip to the doctor for some antibiotics.

PPS. Sorry about the rude language.

Mmmm, beans...

Lurgy

I've had a cough for the last five days. After my long run last week I felt great. On Monday I still felt great then on Tuesday I started to feel like something was coming on. Since then I've had an awful chestcold with a nasty cough. It has loosened up a bit today and I feel like I'm on the mend. The upshot of this is that I will have to miss at least another few days of training.

In better news, we may have found a replacement member for the Power of Four, although she still needs to go for a run with Phil to see if she is compatible with our team. Assuming Andy's knee gets better, we should be on our way to running in the trailblazer event.

Amber's Gully to Bridgewater

Ran the trailblazer course from Amber's Gully to Bridgewater Yesterday (about 40km, maybe 1-2 km more) . It took a while, but we got there in the end. I felt really good, so at about 28km, I ran ahead to get a coffee and muffin at Mt Lofty Summit. There was a bit of rain and the track was a little bit muddy, but I really hope we have similar conditions for the run. The temperature was ideal for running unlike two weeks ago. At the end of the run my Polar showed that I had burned 5024 Calories over the whole run. I can't eat that much food in a day let alone in 5 hours!

We still haven't found a replacement runner, but we are following up some options.

This week: 2-3 runs during the week totalling 30-40km then a long run on Sunday of about 40-45km. I won't be running in the city to bay because I have to look after the kids while RunCarly runs in it. I had considered running in it with the kids in a pram, but I think the cost outweighs the benefit and it also would interfere with me doing my long run.

Busy Week/ Trailblazer help

This week has been very busy, so I'll be brief.

Ran into uni 10km on Wednesday. Legs still felt a bit heavy so I took it easy.

Ran home 10km on Thursday night. This was the first time my legs felt good since the marathon. No soreness, no fatigue and no sore foot.

Ran into uni this morning then ran over to do two laps of the uni loop, so a total of 15 km. Everything felt good again so I guess I must have recovered from the marathon. Good thing too, because we are doing a 40km training run for trailblazer on Sunday morning.

Some news about the trailblazer. We officially now only have three team members and we need four. If anyone from Adelaide (or elsewhere) knows someone who would like to run in this 100km event, send me an email.

SARRC "Time Trial"

Ran in the SARRC 10km Time Trial yesterday. Legs were still sore, but this wasn't going to affect my performance in this event. The aim of this time trial was not to run as fast as you can, but to judge your pace accurately. The clock was set at 730am with two hours counting down. You start the run at the time that you think it will take you to run 10km and try to get to the finish right on 0:00, and you're not allowed to take a watch or "any other time keeping device" (whatever that could be?). Given the sorry state of my legs, I thought I'd take 50mins, although when the time came, I needed to go to the toilet so I ended up starting at 48 minutes instead. I found it pretty hard going most of the way - I must have really wiped out my legs last weekend. Ended up coming in with 17 seconds to spare. The winner came in 7 seconds under. Almost everyone came in under time they estimated and most finished around 2 minutes either side of 0:00. Free breakfast afterwards went down well. This was a fun event and quite useful to get the soreness out of the legs with no pressure to run fast.

Foot is still a bit sore. I've narrowed it down to a muscle on the outer side of the foot below the ankle bone. If anyone has any idea what this muscle is called or has had a similar injury, your comments would be appreciated.

Amazing recovery?

Went for a 5km run on the treadmill this morning. I took it fairly easy, taking 25min to finish. At the start my legs felt great. I thought "Wow, I've recovered really well, what was I thinking earlier in the week". Then the legs started to get sorer and sorer. After 4km, they didn't get any worse. The foot didn't feel bad at all, but it was a little sore after the run. Seems OK now. I guess the recovery isn't as amazing as I thought, although I can't believe I could barely walk on Monday. The cold is hanging around too.