Cheers :-)

I have appreciated all the nice comments over the past week concerning my work mate. Today the service went well and was conducted in good spirit. I also had the honour of being involved with the service, being the insignia bearer. This involves slow marching behind the coffin while it is transported to the hearse, displaying his awards and medals for all to see. This also involves a military band and escort party which accounts for over 30 personnel dressed in our ceremonial attire. After the ceremony our workshop enjoyed the afternoon with a few drinks at the local RSL.

Change of topic now, as would be expected my work has been quite busy so the opportunity let alone the desire to do any training has been minimal. I will be as keen as mustard to get out there tomorrow and go for a jaunt around the area, and in fact I may even go to the interval session that Phil runs at the track. In any case I will be strapping the shoes on and turning the legs over after work.

I have included a pic also. I find this quite hilarious, it was a Xmas present from my MIL It is an animated print of me, that was created from a photo of my scone. The body is not a true representation of my chassis but some would argue that it is pretty close. The number on the singlet is my placing in last years City to Surf. I just thought I would share this with you, I think it is a very creative and cool idea for a gift.

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Work sucks!

I just received a phone call saying that I am needed to attend a briefing tomorrow morning. Currently I am still on holidays and tomorrow is my last day before officially heading back on Wednesday.

Before I even go there I know it will be a pointless conference and that it will only stuff people around all day. Gee I'm angry and already negative about work this year, I need a career change.

It also means that I will not be able to make the TT tomorrow :-(

The Army, the edge. It certainly pushes you over it more often than not!

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So after my big tanty about work yesterday I arrived there this morning to find out that the family of my work mate who died have requested our unit to conduct a funeral cermony/service. This will be held at the chapel on base before the family head off for a private service.

Therefore the day wasn't a stuff around, with most of it rehearsing for tomorrow. It should be as nice as a funeral can be I suppose and will give those who served with him during the last 20 years a chance to pay their last respects.

Mini Speed Session

Week - 2k
Month - 50k
YTD - 50k


I did say I was having a rest day today however my legs felt so damn good I thought I might as well take advantage of it.

I headed down to the local grass track for a plan that included 1 x 800, 3 x 400m, 3 x 200m and 2 x 100m reps around 5pm. The weather was still a little warm with a stiff westerly breeze meaning that the back straight would be rather hard.

I hopped off the push bike bike and began my warm up, only to find that the legs that felt great all day walking around felt absolutely disguisting when I attempted to jog. I persisted for sometime with the jogging and stretching which helped a bit, well good enough to begin the session.

My aim was to run quite solid and considering I have a 3k TT coming up I decided on a pace about a minute quicker than my PB. This calculated out to be 9.30 pace (1.16 per 400m).

I had also decided for the recoveries that I would double the time it had taken me to run the previous rep before tackling the next which seemed to work well.

I did cut the session short however as I was getting a bit tight in the calves especially after yesterdays run so I dropped 1 x 400 and cut out the 100m reps entirely.

Overall I felt pretty good, it wasn't an overly difficult session due to the longer recovery times but it did achieved what I wanted.

The rep times were;
800m - 2.29
400m - 1.11
400m - 1.14
200m - 32 secs
200m - 32 secs
200m - 30 secs

As you can see I do need to work on pacing, however for the 200m reps I decided on running them at a quicker pace just to get a little more from the session.

Running Buddies 24k loop

Week - 48k
Month - 48k
YTD - 48k

Arrived at the Ship Inn about 5.15 am this morning for the Saturday run with the Running Buddies. The weather was clear, a perfect day for a run.

Cass and Sam ventured down aswell and went for a walk out over the Goodwill bridge into the gardens for about an hour or so. What I failed to mention was that I would probably be double that time this morning.

I haven't ran from the Ship Inn before on a Saturday and have not really done many runs at all around the city area. In saying that I have no idea where we went or what suburbs we passed through. You will probably have to read Clairies or Tesso's blog for the details.

Anyway there were two groups that both started together but went seperate ways at around the 6k mark. One group doing the 18k loop going over the new Green bridge?? well I think that is what it is called and the other group heading out a bit further doing a 24k loop.

I went along for the longer trip with 6 others. It was a good run although I was feeling it a bit towards the end. I also felt a little sick in the stomach, I think the gels do that to me I need to practice eating them more often in training. I still feel a little sick now and was the reason I didn't have any of the tasty looking food at the cafe after the run.

It was a good morning and I got to meet some new faces, chat to some others that I haven't seen for a while aswell as seeing the regulars which is always a pleasure. I am certainly becoming used to running this distance and hope that if I can make this a regular thing then maybe I will see some improvement in the latter stages of my races. Overall a total distance of 23.7k in just over 2 hrs including some rest breaks that I forgot to stop the Garmin.

After the run everyone got changed and headed over to poppy's for a coffee and breakfast, by this stage Sam was racked out and I think Cass was a little angry with me, so we stayed for a drink and headed off not long after.

I will have the day off tomorrow and go for a slow short run on Monday before heading to Pats for the 3k TT Tuesday morning.

Until next time :-)

A time for reflection!

I received some tragic news today, one of the fellows that I work with with died yesterday morning. Very shocking and of course very unexpected. I Don't know the cause of death as yet but he woke up at midnight feeling ill and was pronounced dead at 2 am. I feel for his family and can't imagine what they must be going through. He was only in in early 40's.

Times like this certainly give you a reality check, it makes you realise how precious and how unpredictable our existance really is. For many of us choices are made without thinking too much about the repercussuions they will have especially relating to lifestyle.

There are not many aspects to our lives that we have control over but lifestyle is one part we do have some say. It has a major influence over the direction our lives lead and yet many of us, myself included take it for granted.

I am talking primarily about diet and exercise, although there are many other factors I believe that these are the easiest but most abused lifestyle choices, well in our household anyway.

Although I not big on New Years resolutions, I guess this could be classified as such. It has been in the back of my mind since I received the news and feel that Cass and myself need take some action. We lead a generally healthy lifestyle, but we both make bad decisions on a regular basis. Mine is usually diet related whereas Cass is more so exercise.

As of 7 mths ago we now not only have ourselves to consider but little Sam aswell. Not only will it affect our lives in years to come but it will hopefully educate Sam to make better choices in the future aswell.

It is just a shame that something tragic needs to happen before you really sit down and think about it.