Glasshouse Mountains trail run

I am no longer 'without trail run', this morning with the encouragement of Tess and Lizzle I completed my first one at the Glasshouse Mountains. What a great day and great location for it too.
I arrived a bit early, there was some confusion between the website start time of 7.30am and the mailed instructions of 8am, better safe than sorry I left the house at 6.30am and was up there by 7am, the joys of no traffic! Pretty soon the usual suspects began turning up and I was feeling like it was just going to be any other race, that was until the race director mentioned something about 'a lot of mud' and 'what to do if you go off a trail'...

It was a funny start, Clairie, Lizzle, Tesso and I thought we'd sprint for the first 100meters, then all but Claire thought better of it and pretty soon we'd lost Clairie and it was just us three. I was a bit worried I was going to hold Tess and Liz up but they seemed fairly happy running around 5.20's and just taking in the scenery.

We got to the first checkpoint at about 6km, the guys mentioned something about going straight for one km and then turning left 'la la la' I wasnt really listening, just taking it all in. If I had, well if any of us had been listening closer it would have probably prevented the detour we took (just visible on the map), luckily for us the following group called us back. There were a few tales of people who detoured for a kilometre or more though!

A couple of large rolling hills and we were at checkpoint 2 getting our photos taken, the hills really started to kick in at that point with the elevation rising to over 150meters, and the speed dropping off just as quickly. At one point Tess was leading and running up a steep hill and Liz and I were just walking behind her, they really were too steep to run and in places pretty wet, muddy and slippery too.



Around about 14km I was starting to tire and was probably running 20-30meters behind Liz and Tess and only catching up on the downhills. I kept telling myself that it didnt matter if I went slow, this was my first run over 12km since GC and it was only meant to be a training run, still that didnt really stop me from wanting to keep up. At checkpoint three we got our water filled up, it looked like we were about to climb the steepest hill yet, but when you got half way up it levelled off and we took a path away from the massive climb ahead.

For most of the second half it was just the three of us, with Tess and Liz making it look easy and me wishing I could go quicker! It was a great run though, so beautiful, we even stopped to get our picture taken with Mt Tibrogargan behind us.

2.12 of running time, although it seemed much quicker than that, the K's just flew by, even when I was getting really tired. I think this is definitely one for the calendar, though the other two musketeers made it the most fun, even waiting for me to catch up so we could all cross the line together :)

4 x Eeeek!

Pats session this morning was the dreaded 'session before the TT'. We were meant to be going down to Westend but visability was so poor that Pat decided it was safer for us (and everyone coming the opposite direction) to head down to New Farm again.

The usual run-throughs and then in to the big stuff. 4 x 1km efforts, or 4 x 1km + 2 x 500meters for the "Glamour Boys" (Pats words)... luckily I am not a boy so I did feel at all guilty about taking option A :)

The group was fairly quiet, even for a Thursday with most notable absentees being Tess, Clairie, Tara, Ally-Lou and Ciaran. The lack of numbers meant the field spread out quite quickly. I was running in a small group of Sarah, Steve FS and 'new guy'. My splits were as follows;

4.20
4.23
4.27
4.26

Fairly happy with that, I dont think a pb is on the cards on Tuesday, especially if I am to do the 24km GH on Saturday but hoping for an honest effort all the same.

I have been quite "nice" to myself this week, on Tuesday night I left my phone in the car so had no alarm to set for a wednesday morning run. Mr Chelle who does not appreciate being woken up at 4.30am three morning on a row would only set his alarm for 6am, I'm sure the extra time in bed did me no harm though.

So, J2J is done. GH as a training run this weekend, then Bridge2Brisbane next week.. I need a goal for September I think, will have to see what is around.

at the races again

The 21st Jetty 2 Jetty this morning, though only my second time at the event, it would be what I term as my 'home race' seeing as its the closest one to my house I run in... A call the previous night from a nervous friend of Mr Chelles meant I left a little earlier than planned, she was running her second ever 10km and didnt want to turn up by herself. No problem, she picked me up at 7.15am and we were there 10minutes later. Numbers were collected, I wished her good luck and she went off to warm-up for the 10km. I was just doing the 5km so made my way to the start to see everyone off. There were a few familiar faces in the crowd, Langy, Karen and Sara were there supporting also.

My goal for the 5km was sub 23 and 22.30 would have been the ideal. I saw Matty just before the start. I am always winding him up about putting me in RFYL, he told me I would need a sub 22.30 to stand a chance of being in the top 10, so there was some pressure/encouragement to get cracking.

It was a small crowd, probably about 250 at the start, I quite enjoy these smaller races over the shorter distances. Everything started smoothl, including trusty ipod and garmin, Opppss, I'd remembered about the hill coming home but had somehow magically made the one right at the start disappear from memory. Soon got over that and before I knew it was at the 1.5km marker for the schools 3km run, then it was the 2.5km marker and we were heading for home. Nice little motivator running past all the 10kers, who rightly enough were starting to tire at this point. I had three girls in my sights who I knew were in the 5km race. I saw the hill ahead and knew this would be a good time to do some catching up, sure enough two of them slowed dramatically and started to come towards me, I dug deep and got over the hill. Two down, one to go. With every up hill, there is an equal and opposite down hill - yipppeee for the downhill, I used it to my full advantage, even clocking up my faster point of the race with the garmin measuring sub 4min/k at one point. I caught the third and final girl of the three with 500meters to go. Finished in 22.40, a new PB.


Looking at the results I think I will have placed outside the top 10, so still a bit to do before I make published glory, but maybe next time :)

running for breakfast

On Saturday morning myself and the puppy headed down to Shorncliffe to meet up with the injured MJ. The plan was for me to get there 30mins early and do a reasonable 30mins and then meet up with MJ for a slightly slower 30mins before having breakfast at Sonomas. After the previous couple of months the 7km that we did in about 40mins (oppss) seemed minscule, almost just an excuse to eat pancakes have a good chat really, not that I suppose you ever need an excuse for that!

It was good to catch up though and keep MJ up to date on the new people who have joined Pats this week. Its funny, one of them ran with me as the 2hour pacer for the Brissie Half a couple of months back, thats the second person in 3 weeks I've run in to who has known me from former Pacer fame :)

Sunday morning is Jetty 2 Jetty. My goal time for 5km is 22.30, however I am happy for sub 23min (last year was 23.27) as my legs are still not feeling 100% and my knee is going to need some serious stretching before any running is done at all!

and so it begins again...

First day back at speed work today after the GCM, 8*60sec efforts. My legs felt a bit heavy but generally I was okay, hopefully in another week I'll be getting closer to normal and maybe even a bit quicker ;-)

The day after the marathon I flew to Cairns for a conference, it was pretty full-on, one of those 'breakfast at 7am, seminars 8am-5pm, pre-dinner drinks 6.30pm... not really much time to fit in a run or two and so I used it as a very good excuse to rest up completely. I surprised myself though, I wasnt really too sore, a bit achey for a couple of days and my knee really played up until about Wednesday but rest and stretching appear to have won that battle again :)

Last week I did two very very easy runs and left it at that. I never lost motivation to run but I was definitely enjoying the lack of 4.30am starts so I signed up for J2J 5km and B2B 12km. Unfortunately, well not really as I'm going skiing, but I dont arrive back into Brisbane until the day before Noosa so I have opted not to do that this year.

Anyway, I must now annouce that after running the marathon, the formal dinner and the proud owner of "runners black toe" I am now ready to start training for something new... the question is what?!

Gold Coast Marathon

Well there it is, Marathon number one done and dusted, it was only a week ago and already seems a life time ago, I guess that is a good sign that recovery didnt take too long!


On the Friday before the run Mr Chelle & I went to watch Superman (not good) in Gold Class (good) although I must admit I spent a lot of the time staring at the screen trying to work out how to get out of running on Sunday, scared and a few other choice words were expressed quite often during the night and over the course of the drive down the next day.

Mr Chelle was playing footy and as it happened it was against Surfers Paradise at their home game. I went along to be cheer squad for the first half before heading 5 minutes down the road to check-in and look around the expo. I caught up with MJ & Matt and then heaps of other CR's and PCRGers when the motivational talk started... I was almost motivated at this point, only half serious about working out how to get out of the run now :)

On Saturday night Mr Chelle was tired from his game and I wanted a quiet night anyway, so we walked up to the pizza place on the corner and came back to the unit where I cooked some pasta to accompany my pizza. I wouldnt have been at all surprised if QLD was on Level 4 water restrictions on the following Monday, I was drinking the H20 like it was going out of fashion. Anyway, I fell asleep while watching the Lions game and only woke up to put myself to bed at about 10pm. I slept like a baby and was wide awake before my 5am alarm. I got ready in a matter of minutes (think I surprised Mr Chelle as he is usually waiting for me!) forced down an english muffin and a handful of jelly beans and went out the front to meet MJ.

Mr Chelle & MJ had their bikes with them and we headed straight for Pats tent. There was a great buzz in the air and it was good to be able to catch up with Go Girl, also doing a debut before the start. Before we knew it the half had started and I was bouncing around making one last trip to the toilet before heading to the start.

And we're off....... everyone was laughing and chatting at the start, catching up with old friends and meeting new ones, this would have carried on until about 15km, then it got a bit quiet and even lonely at times! At around 6km I decided I needed to get ahead of the 4hour group or I may as well just run with them, I gained quite a lot of ground fairly quickly but then lost it when I decided there was no way I could run another 3.5hours without a quick toilet stop! I almost sprinted by marathon standards to rejoin the 4 hour group, Mr Chelle who was biking ahead a bit and then waiting for me and then biking with me for a bit and then ahead again and so on, even missed me when I came back past as he was sure I should have been behind the 4 hour group still!

At 15km Mr Chelle was riding with me and joked about going off to Maccas for some hash browns.. ha ha.. not very funny, although he was quickly let off when he handed me some jelly beans!

Half way! Yippeee and in good time too, all I would have to do was sustain the pace and I would be on for my 4 hour goal. The sun was starting to burn by the time we crossed over the bridge again, it was incredible to think that Lee Troop had already finished his 'sprint'. There was so much support coming over the bridge, I lost Mr Chelle in the throngs of people. Saw Donna and Tesso, MJ, Karisma and ever fabulous CR squad. Mr Chelle said I had my "grumpy face" on from about 33km, but actually it was between 28-30km that I was really hurting and arguing with myself. I walked through a water stop at about 35km, decided not to do that again, much to much pain on the legs! It was great to see some many people heading for home as I was going to the turnaround. Lizzle looking strong, heaps of PCRG guys as well, fantastic!

At the turnaround I felt a bit lighter, like I knew I could make it now. Hi-fives to Elaine, Dan, Liz and Hannah on the way back. I spotted Nicole who'd been looking amazingly strong when I saw her shortly before, I tried to encourage her to come with me but it wasnt to be. It was probably just as well too as I was on my last legs and they were becoming increasingly tired too!

As I came over the last bridge about 4km from the finish, Mr Chelle was on the end of it, he'd put out a fuel belt bottle and some gels on the bridge so I could grab whatever I liked as I passed... he told me afterwards he had to fight a couple of guys off them too! I was purely focused on the finish at this point, I felt a bit guilty as I later found out Mr Chelle had got a whole apartment block to yell out to me, I turned my i-pod up though to get me to the end and wasn't listening out for anything.

Go CR cheer squad, between trying to catch Schultzy (which I did) and you guys on that corner I knew I was going to get the sub 4 hours.

Go PCRG'ers all lined up on the fence on the home straight and Pat for calling me in as I crossed the line. Then Sue for keeping me steady when I thought my legs were going to give way from beneath me. Scotty, Andy and others had all just finished and were still taking off their chips when I arrived.

Mr Chelle was at the exit when I got there. I always thought I would burst in to tears when I finished but I didnt, I couldn't speak and I could barely move. I sat on the edge of the pavement for 5 minutes and waited for some strength to come back so I could go and see who had done what back at the tent.

Everyone there did so well, and I need to thank everyone for all the cheers and encouragement received. Mostly though I need to thank Mr Chelle for riding the whole course with me, for being my pack-horse so I didnt have to leave drinks on the tables and for not being offended when at about 34km I told him I couldnt talk anymore... I couldnt have done it without you.