Belated blog, my bad

Hi all, stressful times makes for lack in blogging, sorry! We have had big news this week, we sold our house and still hoping we made the right decision! Anyway, y’all come here to read about training so here’s the week that was.
Tuesday afternoon run was a mission in the end. Despite wearing my new skirt, i was really stuffed from the morning’s 70km ride. However Kimmy was there to egg me on, so we did it. After a 3.5km warm up, we hit the track and knocked out 3 x 1km (4.23, 4.28, 4.25) and 2 x 400m (1.39 and 1.33 – the last one nearly made me spew ouch) before a lap cooldown and home.
Wed morning I kind of stayed in bed. It hadn’t felt at all like a rest week so far with long rides and hard intervals, and i’d had enough! I wanted a sleep in and Sean agreed it was a good idea which was a relief. So off he went while i had a blissful day off. That night i met up with my girlfriends Bel, Bok, Vive and Fi for dinner at Jimmys. Happy times.
Thurs morning rode the first third of Narrows and had Bulldog and Paul along for guest appearances. They pulled off early so Kim told me we should go too, so i did thinking they would do a different loop but in fact the slackers were off for coffee! Not happy, it was hard going getting out of bed this morning and i didn’t want to waste it with a 25km ride and an early morning latte. So i carried on from their coffee spot into Subi for an extra loop and said hi to Sean at Brew Ha and managed to just clock 40km. Sean said it was ok, it was rest week but i get the guilts when i don’t achieve what i set out to.
Thursday arvo I had an easy 8km run with special friends, Red Fox and Red Panda (aka Clare and Emma!).

We had a very fun, chatty run along the coast to Trigg Island Cafe. I loved it!
Friday morning swim set was a goodie! The “minute man” was the name of the main set, and a great creation from Peter. We did two lots of 24 x 50 which start off on easy peasy 59 secs and you knock off a second each 50 to end up swimming your last one on 36. We got to draft in this session so it was good fun and I just hung on to the spa bath on Chris’s feet! Got out after 3.5km for brekky at Deli Chi Chi. Sean and I have stopped loving the muffins so much, so i made us a whole wheat wrap with raw almond butter and honey for the journey there and we just had coffee. Here’s Kimmy and I re-energising!

I hope to eventually take a good picture of myself on this blog. But y’all got to see what it’s like to be training hard and having minimal time to do hair, make up and generally stuff that makes you feel pretty!

Saturday morning I carried on my week of fun (rest week!) and did the Narrows ride again, but pulled off with Jodie, Mike and Sue at Canning Bridge so we could do more important things, drink tea and coffee. After dinner at Ria in Leederville last night (amazing, go there if you haven’t already but make sure you book!) I was still full so had a peppermint tea and a big laugh with the girls and Mike. Gross story – i got snotted on today. A fleck of someone else’s disgusting goober hit my glasses and i very nearly yakked on the road. Seriously, if you are bushman blower and reading this – do everyone a favour and go to the BACK of the group to get rid of your snot. My weak stomach cannot handle it.
Sunday morning was City to Surf and I was up for the 12km which meant not having to get up til 7am wooo!! We stayed at my Mum and stepdad’s house and it was lovely having my mum wake me up and ask if i wanted anything first time… ahh the good ole days! Love my mum. So Kimmy met me there and Mum dropped us as close as she could, which was about 2km from the start – perfect for a warm up jog! After a ridiculous amount of time queuing for the loo, we missed the start by a couple of minutes and had to contend with many, many people. Boo! Still, C2S is amazing, the atmosphere is so electric, even though i was dodging walkers and leaping over prams, it was exciting. Kim chose the marathon lane at the last min so i lost her after only 500m as the crowd swallowed me and she bounded up the hill with a clear path. I was all alone! Nevermind, plod plod I went and once i got some clear space i felt pretty good. Totally disappointed about the lack of kilometre signage, that really helped last year ticking off the kms as you went by. Anyway, found a few people i wanted to beat (total randoms, one guy coz he had long hair which streamed freely down his back and a girl who was making it look too easy, bounding away) and stuck to a pretty good pace. Thought i was running better, but perhaps the slow start effected me and I ended up only just ticking under the hour with 59.46. Last year with Sue was 58.18 so i was a bit disappointed but onwards and upwards! Will get in a good training week this week and see what happens at the Freo Half Marathon in 3 weeks. Well done to Red Panda who completed her 2nd half marathon with a 2-minute PB! And my friend Ceinwen did her first marathon and still looked hot when we saw her finish. Wow!

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Product review- Lululemon

Despite looking hot, the new lululemon bits i have aquired are actually super comfortable. I tested the running skirt twice and have found it uber-comfy with the little shorts keeping me decent and the skirt giving plenty of leg range. I also like that it makes me look like a tennis player and makes me feel closer to my long lost twin Anna Kournikova (we share the exact same birthday, i wonder why our mum couldn’t keep us both).
The pink top with silverescent fibres is also really comfy and to test out those “anti-stink” fibres I went sans deodorant on Sunday morning. Ok, it was an accident, we stayed at Mum’s the night before and i forgot deo but thank god for the anti-stink singlet. I think i managed to finish unscathed from death by BO, whether i am just a delicate flower or the lululemon singlet saved me, I’ll let you decide. But it was light and airy, the seams didn’t chafe and I want to wear the singlet all the time. Get yours at www.lululemon.com or go and visit them at the new enex100 store.

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Race Report – City to Surf 1/2 Marathon

I woke up this morning feeling fantastic and ready to race hard after taking the past 3 days very easy and doing nothing yesterday. In fact, it was exactly how a taper should be and i will be replicating that very closely leading in to the Worlds in a couple of months. Lisa and i stayed the night at Linda & Pauls house in Subiaco so we had easy access to the race in the morning and i was up at 5:30am while Lisa got to sleep for another 2hrs. I jogged the 4kms to the start and used it as my warm up which worked out perfect and before i knew it i was on the start line with the other 2,000 people doing the half marathon. It was fantastic to see such a huge field across all the events today and the organisers have done an amazing job turning this event into such a spectacle.

I was lucky to get a clean start as there didn’t seem to be the usual suspects who sprint the first 500m for the camera’s then disappear out the back just as fast. We hit Malcolm St and a group of 3 lead runners quickly formed with a motorbike and camera man in hot pursuit. I was left in no-mans land sitting in 4th place but happy to set my own pace through the hills of Kings Park. I knew however that Steven Stingemore was not far behind and has a very strong finish so i continued to push fairly hard. Sure enough, at the 12km mark Steve caught me and i hung on till the bottom of Hay st in Subiaco. At this point Steve was starting to apply the pressure and i backed off wanting to save myself for the final 3kms going up Oceanic Dve. I was still feeling pretty good at this point and had a quick look at the Garmin at the 15km mark to see it read 50:32. I did a few quick calculations and realised i was definately on track to go under 1:12 which was the target for the day. 

Not long after this my body decided to call it a day as my left quad started to cramp closely followed by my right. At first i thought i could push through it and it would go away but as i started to descend it became worse. I kept telling myself to toughen up and a cramp is not a good enough excuse to slow down or pull out. So i tried to stetch it out and couldn’t even pull my foot up past 90 degrees to do a quad stretch. I tried again to run but the muscle felt like it was about to tear if i kept pushing it so i walked the next 500m before getting up to a slow jog. The next 5 or so kilometres were the most frustrating as the rest of my body was feeling great and wanting to run but my quads didn’t. It felt like half the field went past me before the finish but it was good to see the likes of Glenn and John finish strongly as i limped down Oceanic Dve.

I’m still at odds as to what caused the cramps as it certainly wasn’t fatigue. My training runs have been up to 30kms lately and i was nice and rested before the race. It may have been due to the large amount of downhill running during the race but again we have done a lot of hill work in training and that doesn’t usually phase me. I bumped in to Tim Marr after the race who mentioned it may have had something to do with a lack of electrolytes before the race. This is quite a plausible diagnosis as i only drank water the day before and absolutely no electrolytes. I am a bit concerned that this problem could hit me again in future races so i will be doing everything over the next few days to try and find the root cause.

Hopefully it was just an electrolyte issue as that is easy to resolve and i will have one more chance to test the body in race conditions over at Anaconda Gold Coast to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Congratulations to everyone who competed today, i hope you were all happy with your results.

Seano

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8 Weeks to Go

First of all i must apologise to all the avid readers out there (ok, i know there are at least 2 – Lisa and Mum) for the lack of blogging over the past week or so. Yes Andy, Lisa has been out-blogging me on my own website but if she wasn’t writing stuff i wouldn’t get any visitors. Last week was a fairly quite week as i couldn’t do much training on the dodgy calf and the weather was miserable. My calf did start to feel better at swimming on Friday so i woke up intending to ride on Saturday morning with a small group up Marmion Ave. I left home but within 2 mins i was drenched and after waiting in the cold for 10mins for the group to arrive i figured they wouldn’t show so i turned around and went back to bed. I was wrong and the group consisting of Mick Priest, Glenn Martinnovich, Jasmin Dillon, Nathan Jessup and Kelly Jessup arrived just after i headed home and still went out in the vile weather. Next time i won’t be so soft.

I ended up doing 2 very long hours of indoor spin classes with Bulldog (you can always count on Bulldog being indoors if there is even a hint of moisture) before heading to the pool later in the afternoon for a stadium swim session. With Lisa off at Anita’s hens night on Saturday night i caught up with what seemed to be the whole tri club for dinner in Northbridge. You couldn’t half tell we were triathletes as our watches turned 9pm we all started yawning and the group disappeared off to bed.

Sunday morning was a long run with all the usual suspects down at Cottesloe. We shortened the loop this week to 60mins in preparation for city to surf and being my first run back after the calf injury it handled it very well. So i think i am fully healed and back on track. Much to Lisa’s disgust, i aranged to go mountain biking with Karl on Sunday afternoon while she was at lunch with Racheal. It was my first mountain bike ride for about 6 months and i figured i needed to refresh my skills in preparation for the up and coming Gold Coast Anaconda. I was feeling really good on the bike and my fitness was helping me through some of the tougher sections until i came across a really technical downhill. I tried jumping a large tree root but didn’t see the rock on the other side and went staright over the handlebars. I ended up with a few scrapes and bruises and my confidence shattered but nothing serious. I sometimes forget how good it is to be out in the bush riding so i will have to try and schedule that in more often.

Monday 24/08

I can’t believe that by the end of this week we will only have 8 weeks left till Worlds, the time seems to be flying by at the moment. Both Lisa and i managed to get up for swimming this morning and i was surprised to hear we had a relatively easy session with a series of 50m. I actually hate the shorter sessions as you still end up swimming the same distance but are forced to swim at a much faster speed. I prefer sets of 200m or more where you can get in a rythm and hold a steady tempo pace even if it means less rest. Anyway, i took the opportunity to sit in for a change and let the sprinters lead the lane but i was still buggered by the end. Monday night was a hard time trial effort on the bike for 60mins before lisa phoned telling me i had to get home as she spotted a spider in the house. Still visibly shaken when i arrived, i found the spider and moved it outside so Lisa could get to sleep that night.

Tuesday 25/08

With this week being an easy running week i took the opportunity to get a few extra kms on the bike and was intending to do the extended Shelley loop with this mornings ride. Even after engulfing one of Lisa’s home made energy cookies i still died halfway through this mornings ride and couldn’t finish off the Shelley loop. I think last night’s time trial effort took it out of me so i turned at Mt Henry Bridge and headed straight into work early with 60kms under the belt.

Tuesday night was an interval run set and with the easy week our usual group joined JK’s normal session at Alderbury Reserve for a series of 300’s and 400’s. It was alot shorter than usual and Mike took the opportunity to absolutely belt himself and the rest of us. I tried to join him on one of the 400’s but after my watch read 1:01 i decided one was enough and i settled back into my usual pace. Fianlly i finished a Tuesday night session and could still walk OK so the easy week is definately working.

Wednesday 26/08

Sue met at our place this morning at 5:10am for a lift to swimming but even that couldn’t get Lisa out of bed. She is on easy week this week too and has still been going pretty hard so she took the opportunity to sleep in and have a proper rest day. Despite Peter gearing up for the marathon this weekend he still dished up a killer session today with a main set consisting of 9x(50m/100m/150m) all on a 1:30/100m cycle. The times weren’t so hard to hold but the pace was still quite high and everyone seemed to be shattered by the end. To finish us off we were given 4×200m with the first 50m of each one being butterfly. I managed 2 then called it quits before heading in to work.

Lisa was heading out for dinner tonight with some friends and work seems to be really busy this week so i took the opportunity to stay late and get a few extra hours in at work. 

Thursday 27/08

I joined the SRG group this morning with the intention to sit in and do as little work as possible. For some reason i never learn as there is no possible way this ride can be taken easy. I did manage to stay off the front for the entire ride while Maddog and mountain bike John took it in turns to destroy everyone’s legs. I was happy just to make it to the coffee shop still in touch with the group and Lisa made a suprise visit before we both headed off to work.

That is definately going to be my last hard session this week as i really start to taper off for the half marathon this weekend. Without having run the course i’m not sure what sort of time to predict but i’m hoping to go somewhere around the 1hr 12min mark as a guess. Good luck to everyone who is taking part on Sunday and i’m sure i will see most of you in amongst the 40,000 people or so that will be there.

Seano

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Stop press

Before I get into the past few days of training I had to share!!! Exciting times, Canadian fitness clothing line Lululemon has opened its first proper store at the new enex100 building in the city. I went in today for a media launch at Kit and found them. Have been given a new singlet and running skirt to test and provide feedback. Well for starters, they do look hot (yay! Important) but will test them at running tonight and see whether the “silverescent  yarns” in the singlet do their thang (apparently their “anti-stink”  fibres). Will see if Sean is willing to do a sniff test haha. Look out for a product review in the next couple of days! If anyone else wants fabulous products tested, Sean and I are always willing guinea pigs!

Ok back to business! Saturday morning was supposed to be a long ride but as y’all know, the weather was not kind to cyclists. Even Sue said she wasn’t going (ultimate training beast, she’ll go in any weather), although once i was back snuggled up in bed, she texted me saying Loz was already on her way and she got the guilts so she was going too. Night night.

Sean headed off to meet the guys for a ride up to Yanchep but after about 20 minutes of me spreading out in bed, he was back claiming the guys weren’t there and pushing me back to my side with soggy feet n hands. We went to a hardcore spin class instead and I did 1hour 10mins before calling it quits and heading to Delish for brekky while Sean and Bulldog carried on for the second session.

Saturday night was Anita’s hen’s night which included lots of laughs, embarrassing games and pole dancing… here is a pic from the night, but don’t think anyone will ever see the pics of us pole dancing! Even Sean’s eyes will be shielded from that nastiness! Good luck at the wedding Neats!

Sunday morning Sean met his group of mates at Beaches and I organised Emma to meet me there for our long run. It was tough going, running into a ridiculous head wind and it rained on us a few times, but we conquered our 80-minute run and posted 13.6km at 5.48 pace. Not as speedy as I wanted (goal was 15km at 5.30 pace) but in those conditions we were happy. Plus, a lot of good yapping was done which was good fun! Breakfast at Beaches was good with the girls from last night meeting us plus my friend Dinah!

Taper week

Monday morning I nearly cried with happiness and was literally jumping for joy when Peter finally gave us an easy session (well, easy compared to usual) as he has the marathon this weekend. Good luck Peter!! Make sure y’all cheer our legendary swim leader on if you seem him out there. We did a 50s set and ended up with 4.2km and a big smile on my face!

Monday night off and I got stuck into the kitchen and made Sean and I cashew patties for dinner with salad and they were pretty delicious if i do say so myself! I also whipped up a batch of raw almond butter which I could have wept again, it was that amazing. Healthy eating is a priority for the Prawn and I this week as we (especially me, as y’all know Sean is ripped!) need to drop a couple of winter warmer kilos.

Tuesday morning was a long group ride to make up for no long ride on the weekend. The biggest mention of this morning’s ride would have to be about my special friend Sue. She is so generous-hearted, she gave me her water bottle as I had forgotten mine as I rushed to get to training, as she had electrolyte as well and donated her water. She is always doing nice things for other people and i am very blessed to have her as a friend. Thanks Suzy! So back to the ride, Kim and I did the Shelley loop after the group headed back to Atomic and got in 70km all up. The good weather brought out the masses, we literally tripled in size which was a little frustrating as I was stuck at the back for a long time. I rolled through some really good turns and bridged some gaps this morning and generally felt strong, so cycling feels as though it’s on track (despite spinning over long road ride!)

Interval training tonight (shortened version for taper week) and i have both Kim and Emma coming woohoo!

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No flies on us

Sad times Wed night when I developed an eye-crossing, brain-straining headache that prevented me from catching up with the wonderful friends i mentioned on the last post. Apparently Sean covered well for me, telling a few embarrassing stories about himself which is usually part of my story repertoire. Although, he still needs some work on soaking up everyone’s news! All I got was “Tom’s put on 30kg, Richard and Peta are having another baby (which i already knew!) and Steve and Sue are training for a marathon”. Who needs details?!

Thursday morning Sean needed my car to get to the physio and despite the best intentions to windtrain in the loungeroom, i stayed in bed til the last minute before doing a pilates dvd while Sean was at the physio. Andrea Lori inspired me and virtually promised I’d have abs to die for if i did pilates!

Tonight I had 3 repeats of Ewen Street on the program and Emma was joining me yay!! The weather was miserable, it hadn’t stopped raining for about 10 hours and running was not hugely appealing but there was no way i wasn’t doing it. Especially as Emma was coming and Sean had promised to cook dinner while i was gone! Woowee! So out the two soldiers trudged, into the elements. Surprisingly, i felt fantastic and really light-footed heading up the hills, hurrah! Completed the first two in 8 minutes which is spot on 5min/km pace on a pretty steep incline. Started getting stomach cramps and debated throwing in the towel but Em and I decided to finish the set off, so I took it more conservatively and posted 8.20. 11km run all up which is great and I got chats on the downhill sections with my wonderful friend. Somehow we actually had fun even though we were running in the dark, the rain and climbing mountains! I was joyous by the end, thrilled at completing a good session, spending some fun time with Em and to top it all off, Sean cooked a deeelicious dinner (he even made my fave sweet potato chips over his fave mashed potato as a side, ultimate sacrifice).

Picture time!!

Who these sexy people be?!! My swimming buddies, obvi the hubby, my cutest friend Anna and my lane buddy Chris. Friday morning is so worth getting up for as we do coffee and muffins at Deli Chi CHi in Mt Claremont and have a fun goss session. Such a fab start to the day!

This morning’s session was good, finally two good swim sessions within the same week – wow! 4km under the belt with 5 x 500 the main set broken into 200 @ 1km pace, 10 secs rest then 100m at 400m pace then 200 easy on 8 minutes. I was holding between 2.36 and 2.39 (the first one 2.42 boo) and then 1.16-1.18 for the 100s. Great stuff, felt a bit tired but tried hard and was motivated by some solid times. Very pleased to be swimming sub 1.20 pace which is the ultimate goal for worlds and I want to swim a PB for 1km at training too and go sub 13.20.

Off to dinner with the hub, Mum and Grandma tonight at Kailis for some beautiful fishy! Can’t wait. Plan for the weekend is long ride Sat, long run Sun. Praying for no rain tomorrow morning. Happy weekend y’all!

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Down But Not Out

The high of Sunday’s 10km run was short lived as i have developed a medial calf strain to my right calf. While i am normally very fortunate when it comes to injuries there was no avoiding this one and it was bound to happen at some point. Looking at the positives, it is not a serious tear which would result in no training for 4-6 weeks and the timing isn’t so bad as i should be fully recovered for the City to Surf in less than 2 weeks.

I finished Sundays run and the first thing i could feel was a tightness in my calves, this is not unusual as i usually pull up a bit tight after a hard race. I did a bit of active recovery in the afternoon then rode into work very easily on Monday. That night i went along to the Stadium swim session and surprised myself with how well i was swimming, holding 1:15/100m pace for most of the main set. Feeling so good i made it a long session and had almost completed 5kms when i pushed off the wall and my calf cramped very seriously. The entire calf felt like a rock and would not release for nearly 2mins. People watching probably thought i was some sort of dying fish as i struggled to keep my head above water.

I don’t normally cramp so i didn’t think much of it at first until i woke up on Tuesday morning and could barely walk. The entire calf was sore to touch but i found cycling relatively pain free and managed a shortened river ride with the Narrows group. I nursed it all day at work and arrived at interval running very tender. I decided that a track session was out of the question so i joined in with JK’s regular Tuesday night group and did a whistle session on the grass track. I backed off a bit and ran at 3:30/km as i couldn’t manage anything faster and thought i would probably do more damage than good. I made sure i stretched well after the session and applied ice for about 30mins but Wednesday morning it was worse.

Again i tried to push through and do a swim session but after 2kms with a pull-bouy i couldn’t stand the pain and had to jump out early. Obviously last nights run wasn’t a smart idea and it was worse than i originally thought. It felt strange having Wednesday night off training but it was great getting to catch-up with the Great Southern crew for dinner and hear about all the interesting things everyone has been up to. I don’t think you will find a more interesting bunch of people and there always seems to be something happening. Big Tom is gearing up for a solo expedition of 800kms to the North Pole and has to put on an extra 30kgs of body fat to cope with the cold and lack of food along the way. Based on his efforts at dinner last night he still has a long way to go as Richard ate him under the table. Sally and John are busy travelling the globe after just returning from Europe they are now off to Bali for the weekend. Steve and Sue have been running like crazy in preparation for next weeks marathon while Richard and Peta are preparing for their second baby just 12 months after their first.

Thankfully i managed to squeeze in to see Sean Sargeant at Floreat Physio this morning and he quickly dispelled my fears of a torn calf.  He did confirm that it was a major calf strain that would require 3-4 days rest with no running. Sean did a mixture of massage, ultrasound and dry needle therapy which has already made a big differnce so i hope by early next week i am back on track. Thankfully i can still swim and cycle so all is not lost and the rest has come at a good time with such horrible weather. I actually cooked dinner for Lisa tonight while she went out running in the rain with Emma. It took them about 30mins to get out the door but i had to laugh as i enjoyed the warmth of being indoors while they ran hill repeats in the pouring rain.

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Back in the ring

So Monday wasn’t great. We slept in and I don’t even know why but I think it had more to do with Sean needing a rest than me needing one! With the knowledge we could swim with our tri club, Stadium in the evening, Sean hit the snooze button. For some reason, I find it really hard to fire up at 7pm for training! But we got there and some old pals were waiting for us!

It was the kind of set I usually dig, but unfortunately tonight I just mentally couldn’t do it. Physically I was ho hum, holding 1.25s for the set of 200, 2×100, 6×50 which were all on a 1.30 per 100m cycle (3min 200, 45 sec 50s) but it was hurting and I was wondering what happened on Home and Away. Haha not really, but I was missing my evening couch session fo sho. Got out after 3km which is the shortest session in a while! I was really bummed after the session because I was holding such lame times, 1.25 is really not good enough for where I want to be right now. I was also hoping to keep up with the fast boys which I know I can, but didn’t have it in my tonight which was disappointing. Poor Sean had to put up with a right mope tonight as I sulked that I wasn’t improving and there was something wrong with me. Lucky there was some fight left in the dog and I fired up Tuesday – phew!
So Tuesday I was up early for a long warm up and a Narrows group ride. I was in for a good surprise this morning! Jodie’s back, yay!!! So I had Katherine, Jodes, Loz and Nards join me and the gang this morning (Delia, Mike and Eddie are my other fave regulars! We have a big group it’s hard to name all the lovely people but I love a chat with these guys and have known them for years now training together).
I found it actually quite sedentary this morning although enjoyed pushing really hard in the roll throughs. Jodes was a bit stuffed by the end after her big European holiday but hung on gallantly, but Katherine tells me at swimming Wed morning that most of the girls got dropped and it was a tough session and I did well. Hurrah! 53km this morning.
Tuesday arvo had the potential to be a doozy. The weather was absolutely miserable, Kimmy was in Bali, Emma went to Bikram and Mark was MIA. I nearly got Mike Lori and Joe Kierath to come with me to the track but for some reason they like to train with fast people, rather than the funnest, nicest people. No problemo. So I warmed up for 1 minute with the fast boys before I waved sheepishly goodbye to Sean as they ran off into the sunset. 3km warm up done and I just wanted to do my session as planned, same as last week, to see if I was any faster. 5 x 1km with 200m float between at the big, glamorous new track. I love the new track and feel like an Olympian running around it with the bright lights and big stands!!!
So I did the first one on 4.22 and actually clapped when I saw my time I was so happy with myself. The rain was actually lovely at this point, very light and gentle. The second 1km I hit 4.23 which was good but I must have faded in the last bit as I should have gone faster based on what I went through 400m in (1.41 as opposed to 1.42 in the first). The third 1km I was starting to hurt a bit but a good kind of pain and then the heavens opened! It literally p*ssed down but I wanted to make it a good one as it looked like it would be my last and posted a 4.25. Good finish before I sprinted under cover. Bummer I didn’t finish the set, but was thrilled with some good, solid times and just under 7kms. Bring on next week!
Wednesday morning we weren’t missing swimming for the world as we have dinner with Sean’s Great Southern team tonight who are some of the most fantastic people we know. Sally and her fiancé John, Stevo and Sue, Richard and Peta are all fab and we always have a good laugh when we catch up with them. Stevo has a special place in my heart as he was there the first weekend Sean and I got together, and we all had the best weekend ever together! Tequila, music festivals, beach time, wineries, chocolate factory… too fun.
Anyhoo, back to business – swimming this morning I felt tired in the warm up and was frightened by the sight of main set – 30 x 100. It was broken into six sets of 5 x 100 (1 on 1.20, 1 on 1.25, 1 on 1.30, 1 on 1.35 and 1 on 1.40) straight through with an extra minute rest after 3 sets. Sean led off our lane, followed by Chris, me then Katherine. Unfortunately Sean has really hurt his calf after it cramped up Monday night swim session and he ended up pulling out after the first 100. Poor Prawn, mend quickly!
So Chris killed himself trying to make up the time to catch up to the front people in other lanes and I did the same, although I was a bit luckier having his feet to swim on. The second set Chris popped a heart muscle and pulled out after the second 100 and I had to take the lead. I managed to catch up to the leaders on the easing cycle and felt strong. I managed to lead two more sets and even pulled away from Bruce and Peter in the 5th set which felt awesome, although I nearly spewed afterwards. Kudos to me. After the doozy Monday night, it was so good for the soul to have a good swim session and motivation to keep going. 4.6km conquered.
Happy humpday y’all!!!

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the rain washed away my mojo

So I had a great day Saturday, but firing myself up for the hills ride Sunday morning was a chore. It was raining and I reeeeeally wanted to be a lady and watch Sean run while sipping a latte, giggling with a gal pal (hello Kimmy) and taking happy snaps. My wish was granted as I prayed to the rain god “rain now and I’ll know it’s a sign” as I wheeled my bike out of the shed, fully clad in lycra. I must have been a really good person last week, coz like clockwork a heavenly spray of H2O fell down on our house. Kimmy was pretty disappointed as she’d stayed the night so we could ride in together and she is way more hardcore than me. However, when it started raining and I got really happy, she couldn’t resist but come be my gal pal at the running race.

So happy as larry we went off to cheer Sean and Glenny on to running glory. When I got there, I was THRILLED to see my wonderful friend Katrina and equally lovely Sandy were there to race too. Kat is a straight up triathlon star, nearly shining as brightly as Sean, and ran a 37 low a couple of weeks ago, which smashed her PB. I couldn’t wait to see her in action and cheer her on. Sandy was the one with a big goal this morning; to get under 40 minutes for the first time (yup, these girls are smokin’ FAST!!). Another reason for me to get the vocal chords warmed up! I was very excited at this point, with other people’s goals buzzing in my brain.JK was also there to support the guys he coaches, so I was really in for a fun morning. JK is one of the funniest people I know, he makes me laugh a lot. I like.

So we were official photographers, and I believe Jonny has a lot better pics than me as I was snapping with a phone and Jonny had a camera out bigger than his torso. Check out the race start-

Here’s Sean sticking on up-and-comer Ryan Bailie before slightly dropping off his pace.

Here’s Kat who was in the top ten coming through after first lap, just ahead of Brad Hoskings (who’s had the flu lately – Brad, look after yourself, I’m watching you!!).

Here’s Glenny ripping up the course before a sprint finish. I said to JK, “he didn’t go hard enough, check out that sprint finish”. JK responded with “That’s it, I’m going to smash him at training this week, the soft b&stard but I’ll tell him ‘well done champ’ when he comes over;”. Hahaha- good luck Glenny!

Results- Sean was amazing and came in with 32.20, Glenny PBd too sub 35, Kat was incredible PBing yet again with 36.50 or close (OMG!) and while I didn’t get a pic of Sandy (only because I was cheering so much!) she was awesome too and killed the 40 min mark with a 39 low. Wow!!!

So that’s my race report. Afterwards, we were treated to breakfast at the Lori household who cooked up an incredible Canadian feast. Thanks so much Roberta, Andrea, Erica and Tom – you really did spoil everyone.

Last hard week coming up before rest week… so happy about this!!

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Race Report – State 10km Road Champs

I decided to do the Joondalup state 10km road champs this year as i haven’t run a 10km race in over 2 years and i really wanted to gauge where my running was at at the moment. My P.B. over the distance is 33:20 so my initial goal was to better that time. I carried out a regular training week up until Thursday then decided to start taking it easy from Friday onwards with a complete rest day on the Saturday before the race. This proved to be the best thing as the legs were very tired mid week and come Sunday i was feeling fresh and ready to go.

It was a big field that assembled in nearly perfect conditions and a good quality field at that. There were 2 Kenyans who are here for the City to Surf marathon in a few weeks and local running favourite Courtney Carter along with the likes of Ryan Bailie and Mike Lori (fellow triathletes). The gun went and the initial pace felt quite conservative but it always does in a race as the adrenalin kicks in. We went through the first km in 3:06 and the second km in 6:10 and suddenly i realised it wasn’t so conservative after all.

At this point there were still 10 or so people in the lead group but i knew the pace couldn’t stay this high for too long. The Kenyans took a quick look at each other and decided their Sunday morning stroll was over and it was time to click it into 2nd gear. They took off into the distance and Courtney Carter was the only runner able to respond. The rest of us settled in to a tempo pace and i tried desperately to hang on to Ryan Bailie.

The 5km mark came through quickly and i took a look at the watch to see it read 15:42 which is a P.B. time by 17sec for me over 5kms. My bet with Lisa for the $500 was looking good and all i had to do was run 16:17 for the second 5kms in order to break 32mins. Lisa and i have a long standing bet that if i ever break 32mins for 10kms she will pay me $500 which i can use for travel to interstate races or anything else i wish. At the 6km mark things started to hurt and i finally lost touch with Ryan. Another runner, Stephen Stingemore came past and again i couldn’t respond and i was just hoping that i could hold it together till the finish. The final 4kms felt like torture and i was counting down the km markers watching my speed drop.  

I made one last attempt to bridge the gap back to Ryan Bailie but just couldn’t quite get there and he slowly pulled away to finish strongly in a time of 32:05. I ended up crossing the line in 7th position with a time of 32:20 beating my previous P.B. by 60sec. Although i didn’t win the bet with Lisa i am extremely happy with the result and my progress over the last 10 weeks. JK’s coaching is really paying off and i’m looking forward to further improvements over the coming months leading into the World Champs.

My next race will be the 1/2 marathon at the City to Surf in 2 weeks time and i hope to report back on another positive result. Until then, happy training and i hope to see most of you out on the training track.

Filed under: Sean's Diary | 2 Comments »

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