Annual Review/Leigh Creek

I've had a very busy last week or two so I haven't posted much. I had my annual review last week and I have to say that it went pretty well, but I think that over the coming 6-12 months I won't be able to post as often while I finish my PhD.

Anyway, I went up to Leigh Creek on the weekend for a mate's son's christening. Saw a lot of this...

Went for a run on Saturday morning out to the Aroona dam (Leigh Creek's reservoir) about 11 km out of town.

Saw lots of spectacular views like this...

and this...

And got back in time to miss a thunderstorm and torrential downpour. Had a good time despite the long drive up and back. Discovered a great little cafe/bakery at Copley, 5 km out of Leigh Creek. Got in a good long run as I mentioned before. And finally, I became a Godparent for the first time.

I'm it!

It seems that I've been tagged.
The rules are:

1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or the closest one to it)
4. Post the text of your sentence in your blog along with these rules.
5. Tag five other people.

Here's my post from 01/07/2005.

"Hopefully my fitness will pick up quickly as I get back into things."

Speaking about recovering from illness as usual.

I've decided to be a bit of a spoil-sport and not tag anyone. I just can't seem to find anyone who hasn't been tagged yet. I'm not sure if this is good blog etiquette or not, so let me know if I have made a huge web faux pas.

Good recovery

Ran home last night. Legs felt pretty good. I took it fairly easy, but there was very little soreness and they didn't even feel too heavy. I plan to do shorter runs for the next couple of weeks. Maybe a longer run next weekend when I'm in Leigh Creek for my mate's son's baptism. Hopefully I'll be able to afford to go in the Blackhill Challenge (a 12 km hill run on the 6th of November) since I had a good result there last year.
I haven't tagged anyone yet because I can't find anyone who hasn't been tagged before. Does it die with me or do I start retagging people?
Finally, I must add that this is the first blog entry that I have emailed from my phone, so sorry for the typos and disjointed sentences.

We did it!

After having to run in the 50km event in the 2004 trailblazer challenge, I set my sights on the 100km event for 2005. When Phil Laing asked if I'd like to join the Power of Four team for this year's event, I knew I'd be in with a chance of meeting my three goals for the event: finishing the 100km as a complete team, winning the event, and finishing the event in a good time. Well the event is over and we have fulfilled at least two of the goals.

Despite a couple of the guys having some GI problems in the middle to second half of the course, we finished the event as a complete team. Those digestive problems cleared up eventually and we finished strongly.

Not sure about the other team's results yet, but we were the first team in ahead of an incomplete team about 30-40 minutes after us.

We finished in 16h 14min. This time was a couple of hours slower than our goal of 14 hours, but the GI problems put paid to that. It is also about 35 minutes slower than last year's Power of four time. I think it was a pretty good time given the problems we had on the day, plus the fact that we hadn't run together as a team before the event. It's also not too bad for my first 100km event. I felt like I could have gone quite a bit faster on the day and could have run a lot more of the course instead of walking, which is a good sign for future events.

Overall, I'm very happy with the result, and I had a great time over the whole day. I didn't have any 'moments' out there which is largely due to the efforts of the support team for continually shovelling food and drink into me - thankyou Murray, Darryl and Tim (and Dad for picking us up in the morning).

After the event, RunCarly picked me up and we went home. Thankfully we had the kids staying with grandparents. In the morning we went and picked them up and I went for a swim at Aldinga Beach which did wonders for the aching legs. Today the legs feel tired and heavy but not too sore. I still have a bit of a sore throat and sniffly nose (made worse by the bad hayfever conditions in Adelaide today), but I should make a full recovery by the weekend.

So there are my thoughts about the event. Now I must get back to work.

But before that, here is a photo of the team before the race. L to R back: Me, Tim (support), Murray (support), Steve, Erik. Front: Phil, Darryl (support).
And me before the race.

Addi

For everyone who asked, here is a photo of our dog Addi

We're in the 100... Touch wood

Damn, just lost a post that I'd nearly fisnished writing. Here we go again.

Went for a 50km run on the first (and hardest) half of the trailblazer course yesterday with Phil. Legs and fitness felt good, so I feel confident that I'll be able to complete the 100km on Saturday. All I need to do now is stay well and recover from this weekend's run.

RunCarly and I bought new 3 phones on Saturday so now we can call each other cheaply, take photos/videos, send emails and a plethora of other things. I took a photo and video clip of the top falls at Waterfall Gully during the run yesterday.


Edit Tuesday: How stupid am I? Must have been a bit delirious when I committed the moment to memory. These are the third falls in Morialta. We didn't even run through Waterfall Gully! Thanks for the pickup Phil.

Ouch!

Made my comeback yesterday with a 36-ish km run from Morialta to Mt Lofty and back via Waterfall Gully. I have lost a lot of from over the last three weeks and the last 10km were a real struggle. The team structure for the trailblazer still isn't finalized, but it looks like the most likely outcome is that Phil and I do the 50km event together. This might be good given that I struggled to run 36km!

I'll take it easy for the next couple of days then do a couple of shorter runs and then another similar length run next weekend. The good news is that I don't feel like the illness has come back after the run, so I think I may have beat it.

I got a virus on my home PC on Sunday and spent a lot of Sunday night and half of Monday afternoon getting rid of it.