Putting on my game face.

3 Days to go!

Are you ready?

Well, are you??????

Experience has taught me 2 things:

1. Ignore the onset of flu and aches in joints in the last week before a marathon.

2. I can't run it in my mind beforehand. Stick with the race plan and strategy that I confirmed by the results in training.

This week I have had a sharp pain in my hip area such that I have been limping. For 3 days my neck and upper back has been too sore to turn my head. Everyone I know has a cold. We have had the coldest wettest days in history. I know there's something in the air. How can you do this to me right now?

Finally, on Wednesday the rain stopped and I ventured out for a 10K. 4K at pace and no pains that I couldn't run through. There's always some pain, like my ankle in the first few K's, but is goes away. No signs of sickness. I know I know I know what is inside. I'm ready to go. Running conditions are perfect with a forecast for fine dry running conditions.

I have questioned the decision to pace this one many times,but will only truly know if it was the right decision, over 3 hours and 15 minutes on Sunday. I have been lifted by a few contacts from friends keen to catch up on the day. As well as some that I run with have endorsed my ability to do this ...... "Having run in training and in races with iliketoast I know that he will do a great job of getting an even pace going early and keeping it up."

Greetings from Iceland

Brrrrrrrrrrr

I thought it best I reclaim my blog, after the hijacking of the last post.

So I'm down in Melbourne and about to do an easy 16K or 10 miler with one week left before the Gold Coast Marathon. It's a bad habit to try and run a race before it starts, but sonething I do in my mind. It's a bit like The Cornball Runner, except for me it has me pacing my group next week. I have mental image of geese in formation, heading along the migration path, with runners instead of birds of course. I wonder if the leader of formation feels the pressure of leading the group? I do hope I don't make a goose of myself. Running along, during training, yelling encouragement to imaginary runners is probaly not a good start in that regard. Something to think about when sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky ...

Goose Out!

I've left Katy for a few days

I couldn't handle her beauty. Her grace and poise. Her greatyness.

I hope she'll be able to entertain herself while I'm away. What could she possibly do? She couldn't be wearing any undies, because I packed them all for my 3:15 Gold Coast Marathon Pacers Wearing Girly Pants Anonymous meeting.

Oh, my poor sweet baboo.

I don't deserve her. Note to self: bring Katy lots of Koko Black chocolate and a few vouchers for day spas.

What will she do all by herself, the poor thing.

Post Something!

Sometimes .... I am just being and you know what I'm thinking ....... Is there nothing I can say? Nothing I can do?



.... yep nothing!

More than run

You see!

I do MORE than run!

I put this pot hanger, which we found at a garage sale about 2 years ago, up this week. Well, it was last weekend that I put it up, but hey, close enough.

Tues 10k, Wed 16k slog in rain, Thurs 10K, Sat 25k ... all slow. Then Saturday night went to running camp. When I woke up yeah, I knew I was gonna be the man who wakes up ready to run shoulder to shoulder with the boss on Sunday morning 23K. A bit quicker than I should have (mostly 4:30 min/k), but hey, how often do we get to stride out with a legend? Finally Monday Race the Rattler 18.75K plus a little extra to bring up 20K, again around 4:40's with lots of hills .... That's a first for me, 3 x 20+K runs in a row.

Let's add it up .... 104K (60+ miles) ... time to start dropping the mileage ... just to be the man who ran a 1000 miles to ...... do the Gold Coast Marathon which is less than 3 weeks to go.

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Queensland Half Marathon

When you dress like this you don't need to introduce yourself.

I was pleased to meet so many of my friends out there and really appreciated the chance to talk to the likes of Robert Song and Speedy Geoff. These guys are always able to help me understand more about running. Do you know what was puzzling me?. Well .... what I learnt today was, that I am supposed to do longer slower runs in training. Thanks for the tip guys and good luck with your aspirations in the coming year.

The graph tells the story today, too fast at the start, strong finish coming home with a PB of 1:30:58.



Just after 5K I really felt the faster start and had to work on settling down and stop slowing up so badly. What I concentrated on was relaxing and remaining loose above the waist. This soon had me running more comfortably and by 9K was able to stretch out and push the pace along. I looked at my watch on 18K and realised that I was 13 minutes off a 1:31 finish (previous best was 1:32:56). Picking up speed was not as hard as it has been for me in the past ..... actually in the past I would be just hanging on for the end.

P.S. Thanks to 21stCenturyMom for watching me, hoping someone else might guess my game ....