Wave Sayonara

Can't find any Elixir 7's in my size online anymore so went with Northside Runners' recommendation of the new Wave Sayonara. Spent 15.25km umming and ahhing. I think they're OK. Much lighter and look good, but hyper sensitive about my achilles with any new shoe. 4:32's.

107km for week.

Thursday starting to double

AM: 6 and a bit junk kms. 29:58 (4:46's).

PM: Talk at lunch so had to do the speed session solo. But these will be the sessions I remember in September. Or so I told myself. 10x400m off a rolling 2mins. Usual loop of Rushcutters but ending at the floodlight.

70, 71, 71, 69, 69, 69, 69, 69, 69, 66

Had the usual morbid thoughts during 2nd and 3rd reps but felt OK once I got into a rhythm.

3km warm up and down for 10km all up.

Mr and Mrs Highnam line up for the big dance:

Busy Wed

Training with Carl in the morning with some butt clenching work on my hammies.

Easy 20km at lunch in 1:30:11 (4:30's) with Jeet, J-Fen (he was late, we didn't wait), JW, Anton and senior UBS dude.

HuRTS 13 x 3 mins

Yep, you read it right. 13, not 14. That's because I arrived 1 minute late to find a bemused Paul Hannell and half a dozen others standing around wondering where everyone was. Well, it turns out they were half way around Farm Cove on their first rep with J-Fen having set everyone off early in order to get back for a chest, back and sack wax at 2pm.

Was pretty sensitive on the first few reps with the legs still feeling yesterday's session. Felt better as the reps went on feeling pretty good averaging 3:10's for the final 4.

Good to see Young Timmy looking upbeat again. Big Sam is on the mend. Anyone heard from Kanser or Macca?

Long Monday

Cheered up today so squeezed in 30km at lunch in 2:09 (4:18's). 13km solo then the rest with the squad - with Barts, Andy C and Slapstick for the second half.

Felt great today. Been inspired by Seb Coe's autobiography.

Short Sunday

Felt rough Saturday so rested. Saw the Lions play the Tahs Saturday night and celebrated a bit after so was feeling little better Sunday. Managed an easy 10km in the late afternoon separately bumping into Charlie D and Sam (both running) and felt good.

Good game of soccer with the kids in the arvo. Team Highnam managed to overcome Team Agnew/Dalziell with some quality moves.

City Mile Dash

5th in 4:42.

Pretty disappointed with the run. Lots of twists and turns and I struggled to regain the pace after each one. Finished without feeling i'd given 100%. I thought I'd hit a bit of form before this so was disappointed to be 7s behind Barts.

101km for week.

Easy Thursday

Had a lunch on today and in any case its the Dreamer Mile tomorrow so just an easy run home after work. Ran past this bloke doing hill repeats on Parriwi Road (hardcore). He caught me up running back down so had a brief chat. Had an Irish accent and, of course, he was a triathlete. Why do all Irishmen insist on doing triathlons? When they can't swim? Said he was training for Busso. Seems a long way out to start training hard for that.

Joana took a good photo of Charlie and Claudia today:

Easier Wednesday

Very easy shuffle to work this morning untimed. Lovely when I ran in, but Looks like I managed to get out during the best part of the day.

HuRTS Progressive Tempo

Back to this old session, dropping the pace by 10s per km every ten minutes. No Barts today so ran upfront with Fats, Roxy and Kevin(?) - with Vlad running with us until the turn.

MC had a go afterwards saying no-one paces this session properly but he can have little complaint with mine - km splits as follows:

3:50, 3:52, 3:52, 3:40, 3:39, 3:34, 3:33, 3:27, 3:21, 3:17, 3:20, 3:28 (up the hills), 1:35 (486m).

All up 12.5km in 44:35 (3:34's). Final gate to gate in 10:00. Felt strong when speeding up today. Very inconsistent at the moment. No idea how I'm going to feel from day to day.

Shuffle

10km shuffle around Manly. Almost pulled the plug after 1km, so sore was I. Beautiful morning and pleased to have struggled on, bumping into Justin and Ben on the way.

Charlie's becoming obsessed with dominoes

Tired Sunday

Mates 40th last night so struggled to get out of bed at 5:45am this morning. Had forgotten how much hills take out of you too. Was tired, sore, stiff and grumpy. Met up with Barts, Banksy and Justin for the usual 33km route, albeit run as a shuffle. Barts had done a tough hill session yesterday too so was feeling very similar to me. Banksy and Justin pushed on after 20km while we kept the same pace. All up 33km in 2:28 (4:28 pace).

Knackered for rest of day. Have to go out in Manly tonight too to check out a band at The Boatshed. Never been less keen to visit my favourite late night haunt.

Margaret St hills

Ran out of time today so squeezed in 10 x Margaret St hills. It's a 610m loop - about 410m uphill and 200m down. Just ran the 10 loops as hard as I could. 24:59 all up (4:06's).

Don't think I injured myself which is always my main concern doing hills. 10km all up.

Easy Friday

Easy 14km around the wharves with MC, J-Fen, Johnbo, Ray and Vlad.

All quiet on the western front from Young Timmy. Despite desperate pleas from Big Sam to deny the birth rumours, he's gone AWOL. Although there was a sighting in Centennial Park this morning:

120km this week.

HuRTS 3 x 2km

MC back and on a new regime with an exercise physiologist. Timmy out sooking with his achilles. Crowds galore. Time for the new 3 x 2km - reduced number in order to keep the pace quicker. I'd had some emails from Robdog last week telling me I needed to do fewer reps and run them faster so this was the intention today - to make myself lactic.

First rep I run with Barts and Vlad and this random chap who looks so easy it's a joke. Barts turns to me and Vlad half way through the rep with a look on his face saying; "who the f**k is this kid?!". I'm giving it everything with Robdog's words in my head and we finish the 2km in 6:15. 2 mins rest then same again - kid still with us. I take some time at the front when I feel the pace easing a bit. End in 6:13. Struggling now. The boys started 5 yards in front on the final rep and I never caught them, finishing 5s adrift of Vlad and Barts (the kid finally blew half way through) in 6:21. Rooted, but this is exactly the session I've been missing. Blowing hard over a sustained effort and desperately holding on. Hurts like hell but felt great after.

Had a chat with the kid and turns out he works at NAB in the financial institutions group (good client of mine). He's called Jason Roxburgh and has form - a 31:30 10km PB and 69min half. Barts is already counting down his days as HuRTS #1.

Well, that was the session. Then on the extended warmdown the bombshell was dropped. Take a look at Timmy's blog today. More Aussie bashing. Well, news has filtered through that our John Bull, Anglo-loving, Churchill admiring man from the Black Country turns out to be an Aussie. Not only does he have an Aussie passport (which, in fairness, most of us have adopted for expediency sake), but HE WAS BORN IN MELBOURNE!!! Yes, you read that correctly. Young Timmy is more Aussie than Richie Palmer.

Thank God he's no longer fast enough to make the English team. Big Sam will be weeping by now.

Timmy, yesterday:

New Wednesday

Test drove the new Worswick inspired Wednesday route today and it was a roaring success. Biggest Wednesday crew I've seen in months including MrAce, JW, Aidan, Peter W, Philip Dove (!), KiltedScot and Andy C. 20km all up around the wharves of Hickson Road and Pyrmont, averaging 4:27's. Took a tumble but luckily hurt nothing but my pride. Chatting all the way, no more so than when the subject of Game of Thrones came up.

HuRTS 2 x 20mins

Tired and sore beforehand so planned to take it easy. That said, I couldn't have gone any faster. In fact, I tried to catch J-Fen on the first rep but couldn't (ran with Muz). Bit better on the way back finishing in 20:05. Averaged 3:35's I guess.

Fats was way in front of us. Barts and CT were even more way in front of him. Less said about this session the better.

Constantly hungry at the moment but also losing weight - took a notch in on my belt today. Got to be careful not to get injured or sick.

Monday aches and pains

Big crowd on Mondays. Made me realise I haven't been out with the crew on a Monday for a while. Chatted with Barts, JW, Clyde, Chris Graham and Charlie among others. Steady pace the whole way with Barts and I did 3 sets of strides at the end. Right knee a bit sore from Saturday night when I twisted it badly. Also generally tired from the weekend's efforts.

Thought for the day: Mary Cain, talented girl - but nutjob.

Fast finish Sunday

Just Barts and me this morning heading out in the dark and pouring rain. To compound my problems, my nips started to hurt about 4km in and, sure enough, they were bleeding so I was running shirtless from 10km onwards. Nice.

Time passed quickly chatting about anything and everything (well, anything and everything related to running) before taking a gel at 20km and picking the pace up from 21km onwards. Barts had eaten white beans the night before which wasn't agreeing with him so I was leading most of the way. We did most of these kms in 3:46 to 3:50 ending the 33km in 2:19:46 (4:14 pace).

NSW Cross Country Relays

Massive day. Started early heading up to North Head for the Striders 10km to marshal with the kids and watch Kirst run her first 10km. She did fantastically, running with the 50min pacer until the final turn before pulling ahead to finish in 49:38.

Then on to Charlie's soccer for a 3-2 victory (although he was pretty knackered) before wandering over to watch Billy's game which ended 2:2 with Billy scoring both.

Then down to Miranda. Usual mad scramble entering teams (I should really sort this out earlier online) and with a slight shortage of numbers it worked out as Andy, Fats, Ray and me in the Over 35's (our best chance of success) but with Ray and me doubling up in the Over 45's and Open teams respectively. It's an incredible event really - just small scale relays around some hilly and boggy school playing fields but the cream of Australian distance running talent was out in force - Benny St, Liam Adams, Jeff Hunt, Ben Moreau, Nipper, etc.

My plan was to go out as hard as possible and hang on. I did the former but not the latter. Went through lap 1 in 6:01 then proceeded to die on my arse. First 4 blokes went past (including Kevin Robertson) then Richie Roberts came past at about 2.5km (and proceeded to put 18s on me in the final 1500m) then Chamkaur came past at 3.5km. Ended up with 12:26.

Some interesting times out there. Fats had a great run ending up with the same time (but the first leg, being a race, always produces faster times). Richie Roberts ran really well with 12:08, but Geoff Arnold (12:37), Robdog (12:43) and Peter Costello (12:30) were comparatively slow compared to what they've done in recent races. Great to take out the Over 35 team Gold in a very close finish over Sutherland - Nick Bennett got within 7s of Ray on the final leg. Massive thanks to Andy for making the effort to come along despite achilles issues. The win was all the more satisfying with Andy C in the Sutho team!

Ran the 4th leg for the Open team as they were a man short. Rob Lansdown (coming back from injury), Kenny (running a great 13:01) and EJ ran first so I had about 30mins rest. Couldn't contemplate doing it for the first 5mins after the first leg, but then did a jog and felt ok. Started much more sensibly and actually really enjoyed the second run, feeling stronger on the hills and aided by overtaking people the whole way. Ended up with 12:59.

Great day. Shame about everyone scoffing the scones after LJ's mum had gone to so much trouble. I'm trying to get over it.

Awards photo. Strangely, Andy H decided to put some tights on. Even more strangely, Andy C decided to copy him but with 3/4 length versions.

107 km last week.