Red shoe alert

Maybe these are my dream shoes. Red racing flats from Mizuno. 220 grams! It must be love.

Bling but no PB

There's good news and bad news.

First the bad news - I didn't get a PB - actually I ran about 15 seconds slower (36:56) than last year's event (36:41). The course was new but was also potentially faster, although there was a reasonable headwind for 3 km in the second half of the race. The temperature was warmish but not so hot as to significantly affect performance.

So to the good news. I came third, no girls beat me Tesso, and I felt like I had a pretty good run. The field wasn't as strong as last year but I'll take the result anyway. I got a medal for my efforts and as soon as we have some money (this may be a while), I'll be keeping my wife to her word and getting some racing flats. In case you hadn't heard, she said that if I get a top three place in an official race, I can get a pair of racing flats.

I'm pretty happy with the results, but obviously I'll need to work a bit more on my speed to be able to get up there in the results again and to get some PBs. This week I'm going to have a bit of recovery, then back into things next week building up to the next major events, a 10km run in April and a couple of half marathons in May.

Speedwork/Revovery/Pert

Had a light speedwork session yesterday to get the legs turning over quickly. Did a couple of km warmup, then 5x400 reps at 1:21 to 1:25 pace with 200m slow recovery between reps then a short break and then 5 more of the same. Finished with a couple more km warmdown and run over to the cafe where we have breakfast.

This morning I ran into SARDI 6km as a recovery run from yesterday. I'll have 48 hours to recover for the 10km race on Sunday morning.

Sunday after the race I will be going to work at SARDI for the open day. If anyone in Adelaide is interested, here are the details.

Next word: Pert. Not the brand of shampoo, although I have used it in the past (before long hair). It's one of those words that just snaps cleanly off the tongue. It gives a feeling of no-nonsense boldness and fun.

pert ( P ) (pûrt)adj. pert·er, pert·est
Trim and stylish in appearance; jaunty: a pert hat.
High-spirited; vivacious.
Impudently bold; saucy.

Feeling good/Stochastic

Legs are still feeling sore, but I've been getting some good solid runs in, and once they warm up, they feel really good. I'll have a light speed session tomorrow then take it easy until Sunday's race.

Another favourite word today: stochastic. It's a word often used by scientists to explain variability in results or observations when there is no other credible explanation. Ie "I've no idea why the growth rates are different in the two locations. It must be due to stochastic effects". Once again, I'm not entirely sure why I like it, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that you can still sound like you know what is going on even though you don't.


sto·chas·tic ( P ) adj.

Of, relating to, or characterized by conjecture; conjectural.

Statistics.

1. Involving or containing a random variable or variables: stochastic calculus.
2. Involving chance or probability: a stochastic simulation.
   

My Favourite Words

I've decided to start a list of my favourite words. Why? Because I like some words more than others and I love etymology.

My absolute favourite word for the last couple of years: heterodoxy. I'm not exactly sure why I love this word so much, but I feel like it describes my personality a bit. I like the sound of it. I think that perhaps it is self-fulfilling, in that the conventional or common word to use would be unorthodox. Hence I prefer to use the unorthodox word for unorthodox. Get it? Plus, I have rather heterodox beliefs regarding spirituality.

het·er·o·dox·y ( P ) n. pl. het·er·o·dox·ies
The condition or quality of being heterodox.
A heterodox opinion or doctrine.

het·er·o·dox ( P ) adj.
Not in agreement with accepted beliefs, especially in church doctrine or dogma.
Holding unorthodox opinions.

Long run Saturday/ Sarah's

Slept in this morning because the kids stayed at my parents last night. Didn't end up getting out for the long run until after 10am. Ran up to the top of the Waite institute then continued up along some steep trails into the bush. Ran around the hill and back down into housing and generally got lost and backtracked for about 10min. Eventually made my way out into suburbia at the top of Cross Roads, then ran through back streets into uni. Going on time (1:46) and stuffing around factors, I'd say I did about 22km, which is less than I'd wanted, but probably enough for now. Felt pretty good the whole way and picked up the pace a bit in the last couple of km.

The reason the kids were at my parents place is because we went out to dinner with Carly's parents to Sarah's Sisters Restaurant in Semaphore (formerly Sarah's Cafe in Pt Adelaide). This is without doubt the best vegetarian restaurant in Adelaide, and probably one of the better restaurants full-stop. Without going into too much detail about the food, the format of the meals is a 5-6 course degustation, starting with soup, moving through 3-4 different courses and finishing with desert. All the dishes were very nice, although not for those on a strict weight-loss diet. It probably wasn't the best thing for the night before a long run, but I didn't seem to have any trouble today. If you live in Adelaide, or are visiting sometime, I very highly recommend this restaurant.

OK, at the request of Tesso, here is what we ate. I bear no responsibility for keyboards damaged by drool. And apologies about the vague description of most of the dishes, I can't remember what most of them were called. First up was a spicy lentil and vegetable soup. This was quite sweet and I think it may have had roast capsicum and fennel in it. Next was spinach and ricotta Gnocchi. These were Golf ball sized balls of goodness covered in a light tomato sauce. Next was a mushroom and zucchini casserole. This was the highlight of the meal for me. It was a beautiful blend of spices and the mushrooms were tender and juicy. This was followed by a refreshing Waldorf salad, the smell of which was so good, it was almost too good to eat. I can't remember if this next dish was before or after the salad, but it was a warm thai noodle salad with lots of Coriander, mild chilli and satay sauce. Finally, the desert was Tiramisu and chocolate mousse cake and we all had coffees (double shot capuccino for me as usual). I just had the Tiramisu, but you could have both if you wanted. I thought the Tiramisu was OK but it was a bit rich for me. For drinks I started with a Little Creatures Pale Ale (Mmmmmm floral hoppy nose) and we shared a bottle of BYO d'Arenberg cab sauv/merlot/petit verdot/cab franc over dinner which was also excellent.

Slow recovery

Well, after the solid race on Tuesday night I was very tired and sore on Wednesday, so I took the day off running. I missed speedwork on Thursday morning because Carly wanted to do a walk before I ran into work. I did a slow recovery run into uni which loosened the legs up a bit, but I was sore all day. This morning I found that I could run in a lot faster, but the legs do still feel a bit tired and slight soreness. Lower back is a little bit niggly too, but I think it just needs some stretching.

I'll be doing my long run tomorrow morning instead of Sunday this week, because it is our son's second birthday party on Sunday. Looking to do about 25 km this week, dropping back from the last couple of weeks to work on a mini-taper before the 10km next weekend.

Twilight race - 2nd!

On a spur of the moment decision, I went in the SARRC twilight race 3 last night. It was two 4.5km laps of the Torrens lake. I thought it might be good to try and run at the pace that I want to do for the 10km race on the 26th, which would be about 32:15 for the 9 km. I went out hard as usual, got dropped early by the guy who won and dropped the guy who came third on a small hill on the way down to the weir. First lap was 16:29 (Ave HR 171), and although I tried to keep the pace up, the second lap was 17:15 (Ave HR 179). Final official time of 33:45, between the winner in 32:08 and third place 34:05. The pace was a bit less than what I wanted, but I couldn't have gone much faster and I'm pleased with the result which is the highest place I've ever got in any individual race. Hopefully the conditions will be more suited to a good time at Glenelg. My legs - in particular my calves - felt quite tight and heavy, so hopefully with a bit of a mini-taper next week, I'll be nice and fresh for the race.

Long run, sore body

This will be a quick entry today, I have heaps of work to do. Sorry if I've missed replying to any comments.

Went for a good 31km long run this morning (2:27). Much faster than the long run last weekend (4:45s vs 5:15s). Body is very sore now. This is partly due to the hard pace of the run and partly due to shifting a couple of tonnes of fill by wheelbarrow yesterday at the building site. Rest tomorrow and hopefully the body will be a bit fresher by Tuesday. I really need a massage!

Yesterday's speed session, today's tempo run.

Ran the 9 km into the city for the speed session yesterday. Let's call it a very long warmup. I thought my legs would still be sore from the weekend, but the long warmup loosened them up to the point where I had to stop mayself going too hard before the speed session. We did fast laps of a 400m track in decreasing then increasing sets with about 2 min rest between each set - ie 4 laps, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2. My times went 5:48(1:27/lap), 4:18(1:26/lap), 2:43(1:21.5/lap), 1:17, 1:14, 2:51(1:25.5/lap). So I kept it fairly consistent speedwise, except for the single lap set, which were a bit easier to go faster. HR was up around 176 for most of these efforts. Warmed down and then ran over to uni. Legs were very tired by the end of all this.

This morning I ran into uni. I thought I'd take it easy the whole way to let the legs recover. By about 4km into the run I felt that the legs had loosened up a lot, so at the halfway mark I picked up the pace quite a bit and ran hard all the way into uni. First half 25:35 AveHR 141, MaxHR 154. Second half 21:16 AveHR 155, MaxHR 164.

Rest day tomorrow, then 30ish km Sunday.

My legs are toast

After the 36km on Sunday, I took Monday off and then Tuesday as well because (a), I ran out of time and (b), because my legs were still pretty sore and tired. Ran into Uni today and the legs were still pretty stiff, but they loosened up as I went along. Hopefully they will be recovered enough for the speedwork tomorrow morning. That's all I have now, might add some more later.

Big week

Stepped up the km this week to 77, partly due to my long run being 36km instead of 30. Long run started at Normanville and went out to Ingalalla Falls (pictured) and came back via Ridge road and then Yankalilla. I love running in this area, especially because of the baked goods you can have afterwards at from the Yankalilla bakery.
Earlier in the week I did a Mona fartlek with the thursday morning speedwork group which was fun. I'd never done the mona fartlek before and very little of any fartlek for that matter. It was also good to have someone leading the session - it makes it a lot easier to concentrate on running rather than the time.
Other than those 2 sessions, I did several other 6-11km runs. Legs are pretty sore today - probably not as sore as Tesso and Tankgirl - so I'll have the day off.
RunDave out.

PS. I've lost a couple of kilos over the last two weeks, which is OK, but now I need to make sure I don't lose too much weight.

January Mileage

JAN: 237

A strong start to the year for me. Lost 4 days to a headcold, but got over it quickly by heeding my body's warning and taking the days off. Will build on this in the coming month and try to get some more speedwork in for the 10km race later in the month.

Also, ran in this morning 11km feeling very strong after having sore legs yesterday during two shorter 6km runs. Will try to get to the 6am speed session with the Track Timers tomorrow morning.