Am I ready?

I guess you don't ever know if you're ready to do your first marathon until you've done it, however I thought I would make a note of my preparation over the last few months for future marathons (thats assuming I survive this one of course!)


Average Week (from March)
Monday - rest
Tuesday - Pats session
Wednesday - mid-week puppy run
Thursday - Pats session
Friday - rest
Saturday - long run
or
Saturday - shorter run +
Sunday - race

Average Km's per week;
Feb - 15
March - 28
April - 46
May - 56
June - 46

'Little Helpers'
- Daily iron tablet
- Vitamin C (more routinely than the previous 'when i remember to (and then take 4 to make up for forgetting all week)')
- Post run sports drink
- massage x 3
- physio; every week pre-March
- stretching sessions
- ipod and garmin, because I couldnt do those solo longruns without them :)


I was feeling really good up until Monday, then it dawned me there was less than a week to go and consequently I have been suffering from the known running disease 'taperious hypochrondriacous' this week. My knee has genuinely been giving me some trouble, I think it is muscle sore rather than anything else, the first few reps were sore this morning but then I seemed to be okay. I have booked in for a massage, I wanted to get it on Wednesday or Thursday, perhaps everyone else had the same idea because she was booked out all week and I'm going Friday now instead, will be better than not going at all.

I-pod is fully loaded, garmin is on its charging dock, my biggest decision at the moment is whether to wear my new PCRG cap or the cool running one, and then how to simultaneously pack for my Cairns conference that I am flying directly to on Monday morning :)

So, am I ready to run a marathon.. I don't know, but I sure as hell am ready to give it my best shot!!

Tagged

Thanks Ally :)

Tagged
4 jobs I have had:-
- bakery person
- market analyst
- business bank manager
- finance person (current)

4 movies I could watch over and over:-
- Dirty Dancing
- How to lose a guy in 10 days
- Grease
- Finding Nemo

4 places I have lived:-
- Surrey (UK)
- Cheshire (UK)
- North Yorkshire (UK)
- Brissie

4 TV shows I love to watch:-
- House
- Desparate Housewives
- SATC
- ER

4 places I have been on vacation:-
- Singapore
- America
- Thailand
- Kuala Lumpar

4 websites I visit each day:-
- St George
- Blogs
- CBA
- hotmail

4 favorite foods:-
- Monster Munch (pommie chips)
- curry
- crispy duck pancakes
- mcvities biscuits

4 places I would rather be right now:-
- out on our boat
- on the couch with my puppy (not that hes allowed on the couch of course)
- on holiday, anywhere!
- at the start line of the GCM - I hate this waiting!

4 favorite bands/singers:-
- The Killers
- The Black Eyed Peas
- Gorillaz
- U2

4 Bloggers I am tagging:
I'm not, this one is just for Clairie

Last long run

This morning was my last long run, well for a week anyway. I'm sure the days are meant to be getting longer now, but when my alarm went off at 6am it was still pretty dark outside. I didnt end up leaving home until almost 7am in the end, it was still pretty dark then too!

The plan today was for a 90min run. I thought it would be good to test myself a little bit, try and keep the pace around 5.10's and look out for any niggles that might be lurking. I felt great this morning, I guess thats what an easier week of runnin does for you. For my first 5km the garmin was reading just under or right on 5min/k. It started to rain a bit as I begun to head along Shorncliffe, there were still a surprising amount of runners out though, I bet a few of them will be down there next weekend too.

As I was almost at the end of the walkway I spotted an Asics van, I thought that was a little strange for sleeply shorncliffe, then I realised it was actually the Run Inn as this morning was their monthly 5km TT. Hannah, Sam, Robbie & Schultzy were still there chatting and so I stopped for 5 mins to catch up with them (and rather ignorantly actually forgot to ask about the TT - sorry guys!). Schultzy is wanting to do a sub 4 at the GCM also and is talking about running a 5.30 pace, just 10secs quicker than the 4hour group... tempting, I will be keeping my eyes open for him come Sunday.

Got home just as the rain really started to come down hard, less than the desired 90mins, but only 10mins less so I think I'll let myself off the hook. Averaged 5.05's for the run, the knee niggle is still lurking but only down I've stopped...

3K Time Trial

Hee hee, what a fun morning, there were drums, cameras, lights and definitely lots of action!

I would have loved a pb this morning, but who wouldnt. I thought better of putting that pressure on myself, although secretly I was aiming for 12.40, I knew on this occassion I actually would be okay about not reaching it for a multitude of reasons. I havent had time to look at my splits yet, it was pretty dark out there this morning, I couldnt see my watch to well while running so I'm really not sure. I know I started out too fast though, then slowed until the turnaround and then just headed for home best I could. I came in at 12.49, joint 2nd best time, so can't be too unhappy with that.

Lots of big PB's out there today though, so good to see, especially when its the fasties, like Tara and Clairie who are still managing to get out there and do so well. I had to nip off quickly for a 7.30am meeting, would have loved to have hung around for longer though, such a great atmosphere.

Tomorrow morning I am not running, I am still setting the alarm for 4.30am though and instead of pounding the pavement will watch England play footy, I mean soccer :) Will try and do a gentle run on Wednesday night instead.

Niggly Knee

The knee is a bit sore again, I feel it could just be me looking out for things to go wrong before GC, still, I will be doing some real stretching sessions between now and then, and after TT tomorrow I plan on being as nice to myself as I can be. On Saturday I went out and did 19km in 1.40, it was meant to be a 2hour run, but after three false starts because my dog has worked out how to jump the fence I was a bit short of time before I needed to be somewhere else.
Averaged 5.16's I think and felt pretty good the whole run. Knee was only sore after I stopped running, which is pretty much the go with that particular niggle.

Quick catch up

After Saturdays very long and slightly painful long run, I actually recovered pretty quickly. My legs were tired on the Saturday night, so I took the real runners recovery option on when Matty & I went the Lions game and wore my skins under my jeans.. helped keep me warm too! Come Sunday I was perfectly fine again.

I have found my legs and generally me feeling really tired this week. Pats session on Tuesday was fairly intense, then on Wednesday morning I did my usual loop and my per/k was slower than my long run on Saturday.. hmmmmm. Wednesday night I went to State of Origin (yaaay!) so gave myself slightly longer in bed Thursday morning and opted to do Pats session on Friday instead. Fridays session was 2 x 5mins and then who-knows how many hill reps in the gardens, before finishing it off with a run to the Vulture St lamppost. I only worked at about 80% on the hills, as the last couple of hills I have done ended up with an inability to walk properly and a trip to the physio.
I had a quick chat to Pat on my warm down run and hes confident the next two weeks taper will sort out the tired feeling. I'm pretty sure it will do too, as I've just a short 2 hour (since when did 2 hours become a short run!) run tomorrow and then 90minutes the week after.. then a slightly larger one, but I forget exactly what thats called :)

The good, the bad and the very ugly

The plan of attack for this morning was 3hour cruisey run from home heading out towards Redcliffe and then just seeing what happened with regards to precise route.

Mr Chelle is in Melbourne and kindly sent me a 'good night luv I'm pissed' text at 4.50am, I was just dozing off again at 5.30 when my alarm went. I didnt realise it was so dark still at 6am, which my original planned leave time, as I was a girl running solo and the first couple of K's are very dark I waited another 20mins before heading off out in the dawn light.

I headed up towards the Hornibrook bridge, I thought I would do thirty mins out towards Redcliffe and then turnaround and do my usual route via Shorncliffe home which would make about 3 hours. I got a bit carried away though and my 30minutes was up well before I noticed so I figured I would just keep running and turnaround after 1.5hours for home.
It was a bit humid this morning, the roads looked like it had been raining all night so I finished most of the water I was carrying quite quickly... although a lot of parks around, there didnt seem to be too many drinking taps, I made a note to fill up on the next one I saw. It was such a nice run and pretty soon I was at Woody Point where the Jetty 2 Jetty run starts. Thought it would be kinda fun to do my own J2J, so following the coast I went through Margate and entered Redcliffe. I was feeling great and having a ball averaging about 5.30/km, quicker than my usual long run, but I'd just had three days off running so put it down to the mini-taper and kept going. I went past the Redcliffe SLSC and lagoon and ended up at the Jetty in 1hour 32mins, perfect. I took my one and only gel, refilled one of my waters, stretched for two mins and turnaround. That was the good part.

About 20mins in to my return journey I got slow legs, the ones that dont normally matter if you are with someone as they pull you through the struggle, after a few minutes I was good again.. then it hit again. I drunk some water, flicked through my i-pod to a really good tune and got going. I was okay for about another 20mins. By this time I was looking for more water, I was soooooo thirsty but couldnt find a tap anywhere. Still, it was cooler now, I was only about 10km from home and I was pretty sure there would be at least one tap between now and home..... couldnt find it mind. This was the bad.

I got back on to the pedestrian Hornibrook Bridge, there was a guy about 40meters ahead of me, he must have been hot as he had his shirt tucked in shorts and looked to be in pretty good form running in the same direction as me. The bridge, while only 2mins by car is actually almost 2km long, I decided to use him to keep me honest and wasnt going to let the gap between us widen... I checked Ms Garmin at one point and she was sub 5mins... eased up a bit but was still at 5.15's, feeling tired but okay. Then the heavens opened, took about 30seconds to become completely drenched, what I did learn from this experience is the shorts I often wear rub when its wet and my feet get blisters! When I got to the end of the bridge the topless man headed in the opposite direction to where I was going to go, this suited me fine and I took shelter under a small bridge while trying to work out why my ipod wasnt making any sound. Ipod fixed I started to head towards home, just 5km to go. F^(!*@, I went from hero to zero in 10seconds flat, worst 5km of my life, ever. I couldnt move, I ran for 1km and stopped, I just wanted to curl up on the side of the road in a ball and rock until Mr Chelle came and took me home, unfortunately he doesnt get back until next Friday and I am meant to be collecting him from the airport, so this wasnt really a choice. I was sooooooooo thirsty. Only 4km to go though now, it was the longest 4km, I could barely move at times, my head was willing my legs just werent. I half ran, half jogged when I could move and walked in between, Ms Garmin said I spent 17mins walking and 3hours 8mins running, so almost 3.5hours out there. Now that, was definitely the ugly part.

When I got home I grabbed my protein drink from the fridge, a lot of water and sat in a warm shower for a while... not too long though as today was shopping trip number one for a dress and I somehow managed to scrape myself off the floor to go and do that. Legs hurt a bit now though, but no injury pain. I dont know what went wrong today versus all other longruns, maybe I set off to fast, maybe I was dehydrated, maybe, maybe, maybe. What I do know though is I am no longer talking about times for the GC, I will run it and just see what happens :)


Details:
3hours 8mins
32km

Jinxed

I wonder if its too late to delete yesterdays blog, I must have jinxed myself afterall.

Got home last night at about 8pm and was feeling slightly sore, I put it down to a good session in the morning on top of the Doomben run on Sunday and set my alarm for my Wednesday morning puppy run.

Legs were a bit tight when I got out of bed, gave them an easy stretch and started a slow run down the street to get them warmed up. The run went well, in fact I was feeling quite good, it was the stopping that hurt something chronic. I spent a long time stretching afterwards but certain muscles are tender to even the slightest touch, as if there is a very large knot there (?) and this was not a pleasant exercise. I managed to get in to my car and drove away to work, stepping out of the car was agony and I probably looked like someone with two false legs, half dragging them across the car park to get in to the lift. By the time I'd managed to get my coffee and get to my desk my mind was made up, first thing I did when I logged on was find the phone number for the sports massage I go to and I am booked in for this afternoon.... Its going to hurt, but if it prevents an injury or unnecessary time away from training then I'm quite happy with that.

So, sounds like a negative post, but actually I'm quite happy. Plan B for tomorrow morning is to not go to Pats and rest but then go on Friday instead. If Friday falls through there is still the longrun on Saturday to be taken gently. I'm not planning further than that, for all I know the massage will do the trick anyway :)

Post massge update:
At least I know its not all in my head now, the massage lady (funny how you can like someone who inflicts so much pain on you) said she hadnt come across trigger points as bad as mine in a long time. Not really sure what the medical definition of a trigger point is, I just know it hurts... a lot. I could actually feel her getting stuck on/in the muscle as she was trying to loosen them up. Nice.
She said I was fine to run tomorrow if I felt up to it, but to do some gentle stretching tonight. I will see how I feel before I go to bed and decide then, thinking though that a day off wont hurt and I will do the session on Friday instead.

I Google'd Trigger Point: A "trigger point" (TP), which is often caused by the muscle being overloaded, is a thick knot in a muscle which is palpable and tender (even painful to the touch) ..... Many runners are misdiagnosed with other problems when trigger points are actually the culprit. Trigger points are very adept at developing secondary to other problems like muscle strains, sacroiliac problems, and sometimes just as a result of a hard workout or race - So I'm glad I went off to the massage lady sooner rather than later, dont feel such a sook now :)

T-minus 7 speed sessions

Yikes, 7 more speed sessions until the big day. Yikes again. I'm excited though, its so nice to be able to run without needing to take an anti-inflam with my post run sports drink.... I should really be quiet in case I jinx myself :)

This mornings session went quite well. A fairly swift warm-up run with Tara and Tess and then lots of talk about the Doomben 10,000, it must be the event with the most PCRG PB's so far, everyone did so well.
The session this morning was 1min x 8 with anywhere between a 20 & 45sec SR. Then of course there was Gold Coast hill to finish, which I did twice for the first time. A nice speedy warm down run to the Ship Inn.

Last really long run this weekend, then time to think seriously about a race pace plan. The idea was to finish, thats still the plan, its whether I go with the 4 hour pacer or maybe do my own 3.50ish type thing I'm unsure about.... answers on a postcard please!

2 runs in 2 days = 1 PB!

I suppose I should cover Saturday off first, my new friend tells me it went like this;
72mins
13.14km
Avg: 5.29/km



I ran from home at about 7.30am, out to where Little Ms was playing netball. Mr Chelle was there with puppy and after netball practise I got a lift home. A conservative run just to get some K's done due to Doomben tomorrow.


Sunday, 4th June - Doomben 10,000



I was very keen to get a new pb this morning. My current one was set on this course 12months ago and stood at 47.30. 47mins was the target, I was working on 4.40's to get there. Something went wrong... I went a bit faster than the plan :)

The race started quite swiftly, a bit too swiftly for Tara who sped past me at 500meters and I later found out had still been stuffing her bag away from the start line when the gun went off! I was thoroughly enjoying myself, I felt controlled and running as fast as I could to be sustainable over 10km. My first couple of K's came up at 4.27 & 4.31, I figured by half way I would be dropping down to 4.40's and maybe slower so I was happy with my 47mins target.

A veteran (well I've done it once before) of this course now, I knew not to be deceived by the double-up of markers due to a slightly longer loop for the 1/2 Marathon. At about 5km I felt like I was slowing, by 6km I knew I was, at 7km I was thinking 'its just s 3k TT, go for it!'. I picked up person after person at about 8km (saw Hannah on her way to cracking sub-2, as well as a very strong looking Tess, plus heaps of PCRGers). At 9km I was wanting to get to the end, as I ran in to the stadium Langy was on his way out and told me to sprint.. so I did. Gun time (also watch time, not sure why I started it then) was 46.32, almost a whole minute off my pb. Will have to wait and see if they issue a chip time or not, I was quite near the front though and I doubt it will have too much impact.

Anyway, since I know them, splits were;
4.27
4.31
4.34
4.34
4.42
4.43
4.41
4.31
4.42
4.36

Ave: 4.36
New PB: 46.32 - TBC
Blog: changed to pink in honour of new 'go faster' pink shoes ;-)

PPS: - I lost my tables when I changed template... can someone help me with the code to put them in again purrrlease!?

Go go garmin girl!

Well, personally I blame Tess. She was nice enough to lend me her garmin, got me hooked and so then I had to go out and buy my own too. Should probably put in a mention for Mr Chelle also, who was full of encouragement at me spending my money (on something he could use) and with a love of anything slightly techie almost ripped my credit card off me when I said I'd found a good deal for one online.

So, me and Ms Garmin 305 (and puppy) went for a small test run on Wednesday morning, which I should also add I feel was the coldest morning to date so far. I was really hoping to get in more than 60mins this morning, but after spending so long putting on my winter woollies by the time I hit the pavements it was already 5.05am. 55 minutes later, or so Ms Garmin tells me we arrived back home... a little map appeared on the screen as if to prove to me that I had just in fact run a whole loop of the suburb!

Ended all up with 226Km for May, feeling quite happy about that. I guess June will be smaller with a taper, but hopefully those K's will keep me going when the infamous 35km wall hits!


Thursday 1st June.
Pats session was a 50minute run followed by a no watch 1km. Tara, Tess, Mark and I ran down to New Farm. Tara and I stopped just before the 27minute turnaround and stretched a little before heading back. My new friend told me we were running at 4.55/k on the way back, legs felt a bit sore and I wondered how I ever manage to go faster. As if to make it all okay I did 4.29 on my 1 km no watch, 11 seconds off what I'd written down.