I've been tagged

I've been tagged by Tesso and Beki, so I guess I should pull my finger out and contribute.

I will preface this quiz with the statement that I am injured at the moment, so these answers are what I usually do and not what I'm doing at the moment. Also, the answers may be tinged with a hint of frustration at not being able to participate in many of the answers given below.

1. What time of day do you run?

Anytime. I usually run to or from work and rarely both. Sometimes I get up early and take the dog for a run, and lately I have been running with the Track Timers on Thursday mornings. I usually do my long run on Sunday morning.

2. What are your favourite runs?

My favorite run is anywhere around the towns of Yankalilla and Normanville about 1 hour south of Adelaide. I just head out and run anywhere through the rolling hills or along the beach. It is beautiful countryside, with little traffic on the dirt roads and clean fresh air.

3. What is your favorite song to run to?

Well I don't run with an MP3 player, so I don't listen to music while I run, but I do get songs stuck in my head that I sing to myself (singing aloud may incite incidents of road rage).

Anything from The Magnetic Fields' album 69 Love Songs, H&C Holy Grail, Cold Chisel Khe Sanh (lately for some unknown reason), Many others that I can't think of right now. Often I'll get a snippet or loop of a song stuck in my head and repeat it over the whole run, eg 'Isaac or Fuzz' by MGF.

4. What book are you reading at the moment?

The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien. I've read this a couple of times before and I've read TLOTR twice too. I lost my copy of The Hobbit a few years ago, so when I saw an old (1973) copy sitting in a second-hand book stall at Myponga markets on Saturday, I couldn't resist and snapped it up for $2. I've started reading it aloud to our 4 year old daughter. Hope she doesn't get too scared by Goblins, Gollum or Mirkwood!

Oh yeah, and The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

5. When did you start running?

I started running seriously in February 2004. Before this I had done a bit of running mainly as training for my hockey career. Before the age of 17, I had always relied on the minimum training and games to keep me fit. After I finished year twelve, I was overweight, slow and unfit. My state sports institute coach took me aside and basically told me that, and if I didn't do something about it I would lose my institute place. He gave me a program of running exercises involving sprint work, resistance training and longer distance sessions as well as some advice on healthy eating. Over that summer I lost about 13kg and reinvented myself as a hockey player. Since then I have always seen fitness as a high priority whether it be for hockey or just for running.

6. What's your post-race/post-run ritual?

Drink, warm down, stretch, eat, collect awards (just kidding), shower then home or home then shower. Sometimes we'll go out for lunch or coffee after a race.

7. What do you eat before you run?

Jam on toast and juice. Sometimes an espresso. Sometimes Sustagen. I can eat most light meals before running, but not milk.

8. What's your favorite running accessory?

Coolrunning hat followed closely by my polar heart rate monitor.

9. What's your motivation for running?

I've written at length about why I race here. So I would have to say that my motivation for running in the first place is so that I can race and hence so that I can test my ability.

10. What are your running shoes?

Rotating three pairs of Mizuno Wave Mustangs.

11. What is your next running goal?

My next running goal is to run sub 3 hours in the Adelaide Marathon. It is a fair way off, but I think I will need all that time to rebuild my strength from my present injury. Along the way I wouldn't mind getting under 36min for 10km. I might also have a crack at the top 50 in the Adelaide City to Bay.

I tag all the people from the Track Timers blog. I'd like to hear more about your running life guys,