Easy does it!

Week - 5.5k
Month 92.5k
YTD - 92.5k



A hectic week so far at work has caused my return to training to be very slow going indeed. I have just felt like crap the last few days after getting home from work and have not felt like doing anything that involves raising my heartrate beyond the level that keeps me concious.


The two small sessions that I have completed have felt pretty good. No signs of the calf issue however I haven't really gave it a chance to complain.


On Monday I headed out for my first jaunt in almost two weeks. The day was hot and humid. I ended up running for 3k at 5min/k pace. As a precautionary tatic I iced the problem area which seem to pull up well the next day.


Today at work I headed out for a small jog around the 2.4k fitness test course. Primarily to show the new blokes at work the course that they will be tested on come this Friday. The pace was easy going at around 4.40 pace.


I haven't got any training planned for the remainder of this week and will just take it as it comes. I have to work this Saturday so the group run from South Bank is not a possibility :-( I will however be running this Sunday at West End, for the Brisbane Road Runners fortnightly race.


I am not entirely sure what race I will do but I am leaning towards just the 5k run and maybe a slow 2-3k cool down. This will probably be the smartest option considering the amount of running I have done.


***For the Family***

Here are a couple of Pics of Sam, one showing off his new fangs the other looking as though he has been up to something. Just in case you are all wondering about the marks on his body, no we don't bash him ;-) he gets rather energetic once in water and likes throwing himself around.

Oz Day 07

It has been a fairly casual Australia Day, I did plan to go and watch the Beer Mile but an after lunch nana nap turned into a solid 2 hour kip, so that plan was washed out.

*Rewind*

This morning I woke up fairly early and thought it would be a good idea to annoy the neighbours and mow the lawns before it heated up. The nights here have been horrible averging around 23-24 degrees, very humid and still, so sleeping has been very restless.

After spending about an hour doing the husbandly duties I hopped on the bike trainer for a 30 minute session. I positioned the bike close to the ceiling fan however after about 5 minutes I realised that I was not getting much breeze. I didn't want to stop and move again so I battled on and completed the session. By the end I looked as though I had just come from the pool, however I felt good for doing it.

Later on in the afternoon after the kip Cass, Sam and I went for a walk around the 'hood'. It was still humid and I feel sorry for the little fella, we try and go when it is cooler for him but you cant do much about it at the moment. He doesn't seem to mind but when we get him out he is damp from sweat. Overall we done about 4k in around 40 odd minutes.

Probably much of the same for tomorrow.

Before I retire for the night, Tesso asked 'do I have a goal time' for the Warwick Pentath run ( 5 races over 2 days totalling 42.2km) I have thought about it a little but haven't set them in concrete. The major challenge in this race is to be able to recover quickly for the next race. I guess with a good solid training regime it is possible to break 3 hrs however at this stage I will have to say sub 3.10 which is certainly a more than realistic goal.

To achieve this I will have to do something like
Day 1 Race 1 21.1km - 94 minutes
Day 1 Race 2 4.6km Cross country - 19 minutes
Day 1 Race 3 5km road - 20 minutes

Day 2 Race 1 10km hill run - 49 minutes
Day 2 Race 2 1500m road run - 5 minutes

This will give me a 3 minute buffer in any of the races, more than likely the hill run is where I will need it the most.

Not bad for someone who has only thought about it a little ;-)

Don't tell anyone........

but I am actually enjoying having some time off running.

My entire body feel heaps better, so I am hoping that after this rest period I will be free from any niggles. It will be nice to be able to concentrate 100% on probably my only goal that I have made this year, which is Warwick in May.

I had another physio appointment today and she was happy with the calf issue. It is still tender when poked but again a vast improve from Sunday. She wants me to have until Monday off before I begin again. I was thinking about starting on the weekend but will take the advice and be a good boy.

I will keep up on the walking in which I have done a few 30 - 40 mins sessions aswell as the cycling. I have the bike permanently set up on the fluid trainer in front of the TV and generally ride for around an hour whilst watching the tennis.

I plan to head to the pool again, which will be a welcome relief from the tropical weather we are experiencing at the moment. I have tomorrow off so I am really looking forward to chilling out for a nice 4 day long weekend.

Might even throw a couple of bevvies down range and really get into the Australia Day celebrations :-)

Watch out Hackett!

After my last post I had a few queries/questions so I will answer these first.

Ewen suggested that 'I should have kept going for the beep test' that I did the other day.

Unfortunately this wasn't even an option, the person running the cct stopped the CD as soon as level 7.5 was reached.

Scott asked "Where exactly is that tender spot on your calf?"

The pic below shows the muscles of the leg, the spot that is casuing me some issues is the upper region of the soleus muscle and medial Gastrocnemius. I can say that even after a few days rest it has improved 70% at least and I can push in and massage this area without it hurting too much. So certainly good signs.

Three days now into my rest week and things are going very well. My leg feels great and I can really notice the difference even when I walk. I have been going for a couple of walks with Cass around the bike path that surounds our neighbourhood which is good. I am enjoying having a few days off with little impact and feel that if I concentrate on activities like swimming and cycling I don't think that my fitness will suffer that much at all.

Yesterday I went to the pool, I was expecting it to be croweded considering that it was a warm day. When I arrived however I was suprised to see the car park half full. The lap pool was dead and I had a choice of what ever lane I wanted. Very nice!

The plan was to swim 1500m, considering I haven't been swimming for about 3 months I wasn't sure how I would break the session down. I decided after a 100m warm up and some stretching that I would attempt to swim 1k before resting.

Apart from having some issues with my goggles filling with water and the sun burning my retinas out every time I took a breath I completed the 40 laps (25m pool) without a break. I by no means broke any speed records and wasted plenty of time turning around at each end but I got there in a time of 22.34 secs.

I had about 5 minutes rest before heading off again for the final 500m, at the 200m mark I stopped and adjusted my goggles for the 100th time and then continued on for the remainder. The last 200m was a struggle and my "technique" felt pretty ordinary. I finished in 11.07 which gives the time of 33.41 for 1500m not inc the 5 minute rest.

Last night my Lats and other back muscles felt half the size of what they should. I was damn tight and wasn't looking forward to waking up today. Thank god it wasn't too bad, I am a little sore and my shoulder is a little strained but apart from that I feel good.

I headed out to the Brisbane Road Runners second race of the year today, not to run but I was rostered on for marshalling. It would have been a warm morning for the runners and I was thankful for my position on the course, very shady. Not a huge turnout but some quality runners there including the return of Tesso which was nice to see. After packing up the stores I was glad to get home it is an early morning for those on duty, however like Tesso said I am lucky that I have only got the 14k event, there is a 35k event coming up in which she has been a marshall for. Yuck!

Tonight I might dust off the wind trainer and cycle for a bit while watching Federer kick arse.

So that's the plan Stan!

Week - 7k
Month - 87k
YTD - 87k

My decision to have a relatively easy week have been reinforced and made a bit more rigid in regards to what I am allowed to do by my physio. After my issue last year with my shins I am required to go and have a check up with the physio every few weeks.

Today was such a day.

I explained I am having a slight problem with a spot on my calf. It is quite tender and it doesn't seem to loosen up no matter how much I massage it. After she examined it and inflicted a massive amount of pain she said that I should have a week off to see if it becomes less tender.

So that's the plan, a little unfortunate although I have no planned races, which is always a bonus I guess. I am allowed to walk so I will be annoying Cass more than ever to come for a walk with me, she will love it I can see it now ;-)

Anyway, so how did the beep test go? I hear everyone ask.

For those who don't know the beep test, it is a test run betweem two sets of markers 20m apart. You must make the markers at the other end before the next beep sounds. The test begins very easy and after a set number of intervals at one level it speeds up. Generally it is around a minute per level, therefore the higher the level the more reps of the 20m course you run.

Yesterdays session was an easy session, it seemed to fit in well with my easy week and looking back on it Im glad that the session had restrictions placed on it considering my leg at the moment. The person running it told us if everyone made it to level 7.5 then we would only do it once. This level is the standard required to get into the Army, so you would think that everyone would be able to achieve this. Wrong!

I saw one person drop out at around level 3 which is not even 500m of running, with plenty of others dropping out after that. About half the group made it to 7.5 (1120m), we had about 5 minutes rest and went again aiming for the same level. This time only about 1/4 of us made it which is pretty dismal to say the least.

Now with the no running I am going to try and get motivated and hit the pool at work, hopefully this will slow the rate of my already disappearing cardiovascular fitness ;-)

For those running at West End on Sunday I will see you there, I am rostered for marshalling duties.

Happy training everyone :-)