18 February - A Quick Week
Well this week was a bit of a shock to the system - I was in charge of the fast groups at the training runs!
Now luckily they were only 5km each, but Monday was about 32 degrees and it was very tough. Wednesday I was rostered on for the slow group so that was some relief. It was back to the fast group again on the Saturday, however it had cooled a fair bit and was a bit easier.
It showed me that I still have some work to do to get my pace back from about 12 months ago, however I did manage to keep at just under 5min km's.
The training groups have been really enjoyable, I take a lot of pleasure from helping people reach their running goals. Even just being able to offer some advice and encouragement is great. I've met some great people and had some fantastic discussions through the runs.
I haven't had any other runs over the week - a buck's day/night on Saturday and stinking hot weather put paid to any runs on the Sunday. I'm hoping to lift the runs to 4 per week very shortly.
11 February 2008 - Yay For Nike! (..am I a sellout?)
Well this past week has seen the commencemnet of the Nike - Run For The Kids training runs.
In a nutshell these are group training runs from Fed Square of 5, 10 or 10+km's, as training for the race in late March. I lead one of these groups each Monday and Saturday, and the occasional Wednesday.
Monday was the first session and I was looking after the 10km slower group. I had a fantastic group, who really soldiered on in the hot and humid conditions. The banana muffin afterward was well earnt, and a mighty fine muffin to boot.
Wednesday I didn't run, but called in to Fed Square to pick up my gear to wear as a run leader. I made out like a bandit! I got all this great Nike gear and a new pair of runners, which I am stoked about. All of it is Nike+ as well so it will suit very nicely. I ended up going to the Australia v Qatar game as I wasn't working and that was great fun. I'm looking forward to the rest of these qualification games.
Saturday morning saw me assisting with the 10km+ slower group, and this run stretched out to 13km! The group did really well to stick together, and I had a fantastic co-run leader in Cristina. It was a great morning for a run, although the post work drinks on Friday night made for a difficult first few k's.
Overall it was a reasonable week of 23km's, but hopefully I'll get back to four runs in the week pretty quickly.
It was great to catch up with Beki, albeit briefly, as she got in her Tan run on Saturday morning! Melbourne's loss is definitely Sydney's gain there.
FEBRUARY 5 2008 - ANOTHER START!
Well I'm not going to get any blogging completed if I keep procrastinating about filling in the 12 months of missed time on here, so in a brief nutshell:
- Changed jobs
- Got married
They were both much more important to me than that, however this is neither the time or the place to get into these events.
Anyhow, onto my running......
Over the past 12 months, since the cursed hamstring injury, I have really kept on with the running (....with the slight exception of the 5-6 week Christmas period).
Highlights over this time were:
- Became a run leader for Start to Finish/Nike
- Ran as a pacer for the Melbourne Half Marathon
- Was running close to 50km per week
- My wife completed her first ever half marathon
So that just about brings you up to Feb '08. I am slowly building the miles back into my legs, up and around 25-30km per wek at the moment. I won't progress too slowly though as I'm coming from a reasonably solid base. Hopefully will have that around 40-50km per week by early March.
I'm a run leader for the Run For The Kids training runs, which entails leading a group 2-3 times a week over 5 or 10km. It's really good fun, and I love watching others really gain something from their efforts. Plus I get some really cool Nike gear for free!
Goals for this year:
- At least one half marathon I run for me.
- Enter more 'unique' fun runs.
- Lift my long runs into the 30km ball park.
I'm hoping to update this blog on a weekly basis from here, so if you stumbled across this please check back and pass on any comments!
