6 weeks to go....

My 5 year old was an absolute champion in the Variety WA Santa Fun Run. He ran fantastically and only went up on my shoulders twice (for about 100m) and ran/walked the entire thing – 4kms in about 27mins!! Very proud dad. Little cheat even sprinted over the line to beat me – much to the cheers of the crowd! Awesome!!

6 weeks until Hobart and the start of the 2013 Challenge (or “early mid-life crisis” as my darling wife calls it…)

Running continues in earnest. Since the November 18^th (the last time this slacker posted on the blog) I clocked up 40.3kms to close out November (a couple of 10k runs and a number of shorter ones). All have been ok – nothing too spectacular but necessary kms none the less.

Then on Sunday (December 2^nd) I clocked up my longest training run for a while  – 17km. Unfortunately my sister, whom I usually use to help clam my pace in the longer runs, messaged me at 5am telling me she was unwell and wasn’t going to come along. After the internal debate whether I should go back to bed or not [I had the previous evening flown back from another trip to Darwin so was pretty shattered] I decided that I was committed to the run so went ahead with it anyway. Before I head out for these longer runs or even the ones that I think are going to be fairly intense I try to have a bowl of oats at least 30mins before training. Whether this really helps or not I have no idea but I personally think that I need to have “something” in the tank for these longer/intense sessions and about the only thing I can stomach at 6am is a bowl of oats. Only drawback is the microwave “beep” in a silent house is amplified 10billion%...J

I do enjoy the early morning runs. The few people that are also out walking or running all have that knowing look in their eye (like I hope I do) that we know we are getting the true beauty of the day that so many others miss out on.

So off I trotted trying to “be slow”, in effect to pace myself and start out moderately and speed up gradually…ha…not a chance – I did go out thinking I was slower but was still clocking 5:05/km pace for the first 5 kms (even up the hills). I did start to slow with fatigue a little and hovered around an average pace of 5:15/km for a long time that gradually slowed to a 5:25/km pace which is the average time I managed for the run. It was a nice run – lots of personal time and internal dialogue that went on during the run – even a couple of times where I didn’t hear a song as I was away daydreaming about something or other…I was in a bit of a trance at one point and I felt something brush against my leg and boy did I leap into the air and rather embarrassed to say it was just a piece of paper being blown along…Overall I was really pleased with the run – 17km in 1:32 and one short walk at 15.5km mark (more psychological than anything else).

That run now brings up at least one run per month for the whole year…cool hey. I have been running in more earnest since May. Average from May to date is about 8.7km per run, Jan – Apr was 5.1km per month. BUT still a run at least in every month of the year! Woo hoo…

So my training schedule has me out for a run on Christmas day, a 10k, so about an hour. I am sure that I could be up, out and back before the rest of the house is moving however, my dearest has emphatically told me No! I need to work my negotiating skills on her as I really do want to run on Christmas Day – I think it would be comical to go out and get a run in before the day begins. Watch this space ;)

A fair amount of travel coming up over the next couple of weeks as we have stock counts at work and I need to attend a few of them. At least I should get a few more air miles for the 2013 Challenge.