Wednesday MLR

Massage with the Tiger this morning then straight into the usual Wednesday 19km with MC, Todd, Mr Ace, Mark M and Shane. Very easy pace today which suited me as I was tired from yesterday and ruffled up from the massage. 1:26:26. Warm again. Stopped at many a bubbler in the second half.

We saw Lara T (the nemesis) running just in front of us in Centennial. Remarked that she could have been going to London this year with a bit of concentration on the Marathon - particularly when you consider that Jessica Trengrove has just provisionally qualified with a 2:31.

HuRTS 45mins tempo

Still feeling a bit weary so didn't want to push the pace early on today. Especially so given it was 27C. A resurgent Tucks, J-Fen, Bartles and Fats went straight to the front at a pace I wasn't keen on sticking to, so I ran with Andy for the first 3km. He then slowed a bit so I pushed on by myself.

Ran past Fats who looked as though he was dry hurling opposite the STC before reaching the first speed bump along Hickson Road at the turn on 22.5mins (6.2km - averaging 3:37's). Bartles and Tucks were some way in the distance with J-Fen a bit behind them. Started to feel pretty good on the way back and when I passed Fats again he started to run with me which kept the pace honest. Got into a good rythmn here and hit a couple of kms at 3:26 pace. Pushed my way back up the hills to finish in 44:34 (3:33 pace for the return). Nice session. I'm trying to do these Tuesday's without leaving myself absolutely rooted at the end. I'll push the VO2 sessions on Thursdays.

Tucks and J-Fen cut short with Bartles finishing the whole thing strongly in 45:06. Timmy and Kanser will be pleased to hear that MC looked rooted on what is his new favourite session - may have gone out a bit too quick in the heat. Another huge crowd but far fewer finished than started.

Couple of kms warmdown with J-Fen for 15km all up.

Downloaded a new app for the iPad - Skitch (it's free). Just what I've been looking for - dead easy functionality for drawing and writing on Maps and pictures...

Homeward Bound

Very easy run home. Couldn't even be arsed to push the hills. Legs weary from weekend. 57:29 after 30:07 at T Garage.

Not the Six Foot Track

So it was cancelled. Wasn't hugely disappointed, still had a weekend away and it'll probably mean I'll be able to run better in the State 10km on the track at the end of the month.

Tucked into a few beers on Friday night with Timmy, Kanser, Tucks and families and then we headed out at 7.30am on Saturday morning to run from Megalong Road to Caves Road. Dave decided to pack provisions for a 4 day hike into his backpack so he had about 12kg on his back. We reached the first stream after about 250m and all took our shoes and socks off to tip toe across - taking about 10 minutes to do so. Later on, we'd realise how pointless this was. Very gentle and enjoyable run down to Cox's where we saw the strength of the river and realised it was a fair call to cancel the race. At this point, Dave hands me the backpack with rocks in and tells me it's my turn to carry it - just before the hills start. Also caught up with Jonathan W here.

I struggled up to Mini-Mini about 10m behind Kanser, Tucks, Jonathan W and a resurgent Timmy who was powering ahead. I was struggling with the weight of the backpack and was sweating loads, worried about how I was going to fare later on. Those sharp hills are definitely the toughest, particularly towards the top after you cross the open field. Then we head down to Alum Creek, cross rivers bigger than Cox's normally is, help a young bloke stuck in his Landcruiser and head up to Pluvi. I felt better here having drunk most of the water in the backpack and ran/walked these hills behind Kanser with Timmy and Jonathan taking it more slowly further back. Meanwhile, Tucks was just taking photos.

Black Range went on forever as usual (and is much hillier than I remembered) but the temps were cool up here and we were trotting along pretty well, at least until we hit a soft mud patch the size of a football pitch. Finally we were at Deviation and keenly waited for our lift home. 3 hours later and after about another 10km of walking, we got it. Timmy had lost it. Dave was swearing. I was going doolally. Tucks just took more photos. Here are some...

Timmy on Black Range - check out the sky:



Timmy, Tom and Dave, top of Pluvi:



Tom and Timmy on top of the World:



Tucks and Timmy having a "Richie High" moment:

Manly steady

12.2km around Manly in about 51mins. Beautiful day for a change. Bumped into Macca and ran the final 2km with him. Heading up to Blue Mountains now.

89km for week.

HuRTS Hickson Road Reps

It started to become clear towards lunchtime that Colin was going to cancel Six Foot, so I chanced it and decided on doing the Hickson Rd reps hard, knowing I'll need some speedwork before State 10km later this month. Almost missed the start after being cut off by a huge flood at the bottom of the steps linking George St and Hickson Rd, but arrived just in time to hand Amjam the coveted HuRTS Six Foot singlet for Fats.

A bit windy on the odd numbered reps, I struggled to hold on to Bartles on the first. Always struggle with the pace on the first rep at Hickson Rd and today was no exception. They got easier after that, although the 4th was almost a disaster when my watch strap suddenly broke sending my Garmin 610 flying across the road. Happy enough in the end running them all holding on to Bartles other than the 2nd which he did in super quick time. I ran:

3:38
3:34
3:37
3:39 (watch breakage costing me about 5 secs)
3:38

Interesting to see Ray putting in some effort today. I emailed him after Tuesday talking about the original Hickson Rd session and pointed out the times we did. After running a 3:50 first rep, he obviously wanted to prove that age hadn't wearied him so ran the rest all 3:45 or quicker. MC also had a good session running them in 3:48's. Kanser and Timmy beware.

Great to see Benny picked for the Olympics. He has started blogging.

Wednesday MLR

Usual run with MC, Mr Ace, Jonathan W, King James, the Kilted Scot and a couple of others but just MC, Jonathan and I doing the whole thing. Ran in the new trail shoes and they hurt my feet a bit and made my calves stiff - I think mainly due to the very stiff sole. Very good over little rocks though. I'm in two minds as to whether to wear them on Sat.

Jonathan W was talking a good game. It's a head to head on Sat with the loser to buy beers. Fats has been prevaricating on the 15min headstart so I'll go with JW having the pleasure of buying my beers in Caves House.

HuRTS 14 x 3mins

Massive crowd today, but marked by the rare attendance of each of the 4 original HuRT Squad members - Ray, Chris G, Tim C and myself. All doing Six Foot on Saturday morning other than Ray. Chris is injured, Tim ran 50km+ on Sunday morning so we'll see how we all fare.

I just planned to cruise the sessions today without hurting myself. I was running mid-pack with MC and Nick Marval but still found myself running 3:25's for all the reps, with a couple at 3:28 and a couple at 3:20. Weather was a lot cooler which I'm guessing speeded everyone up. No wonder we all run quicker over 10km in June - September. Most of the guys running Six Foot were taking it easy, running only a few intervals or just resting. Tucks doesn't look good for Saturday - gets his blood test results this arvo so good luck mate. Worst comes to worst he'll be able to make sure the beer is on ice and get some practice on the green baize before pairing with Timmy to take on Kanser and myself.

Got all the gear now for Saturday morning. First up is a pair of trail shoes I've bought - partly off Fats' recommendation and partly because they're Mizuno's which I love:



Even more exciting is the official HuRT Squad singlet for this year's race. They didn't change the lettering as requested but still looks good:

Fitting it in

Meeting at lunch today and client entertainment this evening so only managed to fit in an easy 7km late afternoon. Still weary.

Easy with the kids

Just an easy 12km late afternoon with Bec, Billy and Charlie on their bikes. Maggie was in tears when I said she couldn't come because she wasn't fast enough. I'm fuelling the passion for exercise beautifully.

Untimed but legs were still very weary after yesterday's race.

North Head 10km - 33:41

It's fair to say I was pretty psyched up for this race. Jogged down to Manly Wharf and met up with Macca and Big Sam and by the time we reached North Head we'd picked up Bartles and MC too. Did a bit of a warm up, plenty of chat on the start line with almost all the HuRT Squad in attendance (even a sick Kanser and a broken Timmy wearing strange socks) and we were off on the new course for the fastest first 200m known to man. Bartles went off with the leaders and I settled into a group with Scotty, JB (where did his sudden form come from?) and Bleasel. We then all worked together to pick up Bartles running with the Horne and from then our group of 6 ran together - just what I was hoping for. JB looked really strong - gapping us around 4km but running by himself I thought it was a brave move.

At the turn at 5km we were all back together (Macca too was just with us, running a stormer). Had a quick look behind to see J-Fen about 20m behind. I was starting to really struggle here but knew that I would and knew that the longer I could stick with the group - perhaps holding out until the loop at North Head - the better I'd go. If I was spat out, J-Fen and Macca would pick me up in no time. So I dug in, really hurting, with JB, the Horne and Scotty pushing the pace. They gapped us a bit so I just hung on to Bartles, Bleasel and another chap who'd fallen back from the front runners. Bartles would push ahead on the flats and I'd catch back up on the hills. Then at 8km JB suddenly looked as though he was blowing hard with Scotty and the Horne pushing on. Bartles and I went past him just before 9km and I started to feel OK heading back down to the Stone Arch. Turned that with Bartles on my heels and tried to push the slight rise over the final 500m, but he was still there. The Highnam cheer squad (kids, Kirst, Alec, Gill, nephew, niece and Dad) were screaming at me so it was down to the final 75m steep uphill. Bloody hell, what a finish. Glutes were screaming, cut Bartles off, stuck my arm out and managed to cross the line just in front of him. It wasn't pretty, it was probably illegal, but what the hell. That's racing.

It was a good race and we ran a good second half - getting closer to both Criniti and CT after the second lap but they'd obviously put in a very quick first 5km. MC had a good race to take out Timmy and get within 10s of Big Sam. Plainly the tempo sessions are paying off. Macca showed how to put it on the line in a race by finishing just behind J-Fen in the low 34's. Scotty showed that he's a class act by finishing just in front of the Horne. If that guy did some long runs he'd be very dangerous. Good to see Richie P, Eoin, Ray, Christian, Todd, Laura (3rd female) and Pete W. As I said, the HuRT Squad were out in force.

Now a game of Golf this arvo with Alec and Dad on his 70th and a taper for Six Foot. Happy days.

Post script:

Holy cow. Hadn't considered the possibility of Six Foot being cancelled until I saw this...

Scary freakin river

Easy stuff

Set off by myself for a very easy 10km in the pouring rain. Bumped into Marty and ran with him for a bit chatting about Six Foot, then bumped into Andy, Clyde, Louis and Mr Ace and ran with them for a bit. All up about 11km in 49mins. Nervous about tomorrow.

Managed to catch Gregson on Bigpond TV winning the 1500m in the Aussie champs in a tactically astute race. He's got class, always turns it on for the big occasion.

102km for the week.

Rushcutters Sprints

Had a client lunch on today so Tucks and I headed down to Rushcutters the long way to run some 200m sprints. Originally planned to do 10 of them around the oval - i.e. sprinting half then going straight into a jog for half. We marked out what we thought was half way but turned out to be longer so they were about 250m sprints followed by 200m jogs. After 4 of them I was starting to struggle so we (well, I) decided only to do 8.

Tucks timed them as follows:

41, 42, 41, 41, 40, 40, 39, 39.

He was dipping his toe in the water after recent struggles following the virus so ran the inside line, but by reps 7 and 8 I was struggling to stay with him on the outside line.

Much harder than I was expecting. It's not easy running fast. I would have struggled to run any more at that pace. Even though we were just slow jogging the 200m before starting the next rep we were still averaging 3:45 per/km all up. Feel fine now though.

Plenty of chat about Six Foot. Tucks reckons Fats will smash me by well over 20mins and that I'm being way too generous offering only 15mins.

10km all up.

Mr Average

Just a run home this evening. 56:32. Pissing with rain but I seemed to have a tailwind the whole way which made it pretty enjoyable. Decided not to attack the hills as the Tiger told me I had a fat ass during massage this afternoon. We finally agreed on a bet with me offering him $50 if he could get under 2 mins for 800m on Saturday.

Been getting a bit worried about Six Foot, particularly how tired I always feel along Black Range. Every time I've done it I'm always expecting a load of people to overtake me on that section, wondering how anyone could be running slower than I am. So checked some stats from last year which made for interesting reading (to me at least). I was:

1. 10th to Cox's;
2. 9th fastest in KOM;
3. 9th fastest from Pluvi to the end; and
4. 9th overall.

That all sounds like it makes perfect sense, but there's a lot of variation in how people run Six Foot. For example, last year's winner Andrew Lee was:

1. 1st to Cox's;
2. 2nd fastest in KOM;
3. 7th fastest from Pluvi to the end; and
4. 1st overall.

And Tucks was:

1. 12th to Cox's;
2. 4th fastest in KOM;
3. 2nd fastest from Pluvi to the end; and
4. 5th overall.

Which leads me to conclude that I'm Mr Average.

HuRTS 4 x 10mins

Today was brutal.

Hottest day of the summer (33C but we had no shade) and one of the toughest sessions we do. The usual front group of Bartles, J-Fen, Scotty, Tucks and Fats with Fast Charlie also around. Went through the first km in 3:17 and I was pretty much red-lining. Finished at the gates in exactly 10:00. On the second rep Scotty, J-Fen and Bartles pushed a bit harder to finish a few seconds in front while I ran 9:49, with me trying to save something for the third. However, I grabbed some water, jogged back for the start of the third rep and seriously contemplated uppnig stumps there and then. Decided to run it easy, then saw that everyone else was doing the same and somehow drifted to the front. I then felt pretty good on the hills but the pace was slower and we ended the 10mins at the lamppost before the Robbie Burns statue, this time just with Bartles, J-Fen and Scotty. Not sure what happened to Fats, but Fast Charlie stopped after 2 reps and Tucks did the same, remarking that he couldn't even summon the energy to run back to the office.

Not sure what happened to me after that, but I certainly couldn't summon the energy to run with the front 3 back on the final rep so just ran through it at 4:00 pace in 11:07. But even that was a struggle. I was wandering all over the place after I finished but was lucky enough to jump into the harbour with the rest of the squad to get the core temperature down. Feel like crap now, nauseous and light-headed.

Run home

Bloody tired due to lack of sleep over the past few days. Was pretty useless at work today. Had a lunch on so ran home which I prefer to do on Mondays in any case. Pushed the hills holding the core, wouldn't say I attacked them. Got the heart pumping though and otherwise felt pretty comfortable. It's great to be running pain free with no injury niggles at all at the moment.

29:25 at Toyota Garage and 55:35 all up.

Looking forward to Saturday's race on the new course. I reckon it's slightly slower due to the longer drag turning at the Stone Arch - done 3 times now. It'll be a tough finish coming up there in the final 500m. Big bro Alec and his family are coming for the weekend (it's Dad's 70th) and I'm trying persuade my sister-in-law to race. She's pretty handy and it'll be good to see two Highnams in the results.

Sunday trails

Timmy rocked up at 6:10am and we were off at 6:30am picking up Dicky Green and Justin before meeting the Hamburglar, Jonathan W, Jamie, Paul, John Bowe and Jonathan's mate at Manly Dam. Very easy pace throughout. Felt fine on all the trails but poor Young Timmy is an urban dweller and started to feel it at 15km. We were originally talking about handicap times for Six Foot bets and Timmy was umming and ahhing over 10mins, but by 20km I'd already offered him 20mins based on his form on the hills. Could be a deliberate ruse mind. Maybe he's sharking me. If so, he put in a performance Streep would be proud of as at 23km I was forced to run straight home as fast as I could to pick up the car and come back to pick the poor fella up.

Strange old run. Plenty of trails around Red Hill, going all the way down to Narrabeen Lagoon, doing a 100m sprint on the synthetic track (Hamburglar's got some serious speed) before heading up the hills again to the highest point on the Northern Beaches. Felt comfortable today which was encouraging, albeit was panting a bit at the end due to a quick final 8km. Just short of 30km all up.

Kirst home tonight. Yippeeeeeeeeee!

Old Manly route

Out last night until 2am drinking JJ's finest red wine to see him off to the UK. Managed my first win at poker and came home with $450. So I woke up today feeling very average. Dad then gave me a timeslot of 2pm to do my run - in the heat of the day. I'd planned on the 7.5km route fast but with a throbbing head and red wine legs I stood outside in the heat wondering what the hell I was doing. Plodded through a 2km warm up then just went for it telling myself it was character building stuff.

First kms in 3:28 and 3:23 then started to struggle on the hills and through the crowds. Picked it up again near Queenscliff to finish in 26:53 (3:36's). Pleased to get under 27 in the circumstances but it's 90s down on my PB from post C2S last year. Followed it with a 2km warmdown

Haven't felt my achilles at all in the past 3 weeks so I ran without my heel raises. Feels so much better doing so. I'll gradually introduce this during shorter runs from now.

Easy Friday

Just John Bowe and Russell today. Headed over to Cremorne in the beautiful weather for an easy 13km. Forgot my watch again, don't know what's going on with my brain. Doesn't bode well for poker night tonight.

Feeling better every day. Could be on for a bit of a jump forward soon - just two more weeks...

59kms for week.

HuRTS 8 x 800m

Rocked up at the Art Gallery just past 12.25pm to find Mikey had marched the troops off already. I've been a bit busy at work and feeling a bit doozy, plus I didn't have my watch on, so wondered for most of the jog down to Rushcutters whether I had the right session or not, feeling a bit depressed about the prospect of doing a speed session solo. So I did cartwheels when I saw the crowd assembled on the perfect Rushcutters surface. Big discussion on what constituted 800m and we were off, on a rolling cycle of 4 minutes.

The usual crowd upfront of Bartles, Scotty, Tucks and J-Fen. I felt great on the first 4 reps and then things generally went downhill. Hopefully just residual effects of the bug. Tucks seemed to have the same problem, sitting out a couple of reps. All done around 2:24-2:26 pace but who knows whether it's 800m or 750m. Bloody annoying not be able to run barefoot, at times I felt like I was running in a pair of high heels.

Absolutely rooted running home, even had to walk up the stairs. It was hot out there today and my singlet was drenched.