resting

Not much writing of much late, because there has been no running of late. I've wanted to rest my achilles as much as possible, just keep off it, with a hope that a couple of weeks rest (and perhaps a trip to the doctor) will start to see it right, rather than trying to run through it.

Here's hoping.

Nothing much else to report at this stage unfortunately.

the proverbial broken record

Let's get one, fairly simple thing straight before we go any further with this running blog thing.

I'm dumb.

I'm not unintelligent, at least I don't think I am. But as a runner, as someone who should know better and chooses not to - I'm a bonafide, grade A moron.

I know I have sore achilles, and I know this because my tag cloud to the right has the word 'achilles' in a font size three times bigger than any other. I also know it because my calves are quite sore two days after a long run, and because when I tried to do a speed session this morning, I struggled and had to cut it short early. I know because every running stride on my right hand side causes me to realise that my achilles is pulling a little.

At least I cut my run this morning short and didn't run through the pain. Well, I mean, I did run through the pain for 1km, but at least I stopped after that. Well, I mean, I ran a little on the way home, but that's not really running now, is it?

There is something strange about the human condition that allows/encourages us to ignore things that we know are simply bad for us. Like eating a cheeseburger. I run, even when I know I shouldn't - I just do it anyway. And what's possibly worse is that i know its bad for me. And yet, persistence is a virtue apparently. Part of it is not allowing weakness to creep in. You know the voice. "If you don't run today, all of your work from before will be undone" - if you can imagine the voice in a cheesy 50's sitcom ghost voice, all the better for you.

I will go and see a sports doctor. I will at least try to convince myself that running 11km on Wednesday if I am not 100% is a bad idea.

Then again, I'll probably just run anyway.

technical difficulties

Today was one of those days that I planned to go one way, and ended up going another. Not that uncommon I suppose, but when you are planning to go for a jog, you don't really expect it to deviate *too* far from plan. Right?


The run itself was not too bad, not great, but fairly average. Truth is, I can't really say whether it was a good run or not, owing to issues that I had with my iPhone app - RunKeeper. I think that I ran around the 20km mark, though I'll never really know for sure I suppose. And it doesn't really matter either.


My first issue came when E called from New York to tell me that she had landed (this wasn't an issue mind, I just want to make that clear). I now know that if your phone rings while you are running, the application suspends its GPS and ceases timing. I had managed to run about 1km in the time that I was speaking to E, so that was a fair chunk missing right there.


When I re-started the activity on the application, it then decided not to play music for me any more, and my headphones simultaneously conked out, so I could barely hear the application prompting me for distances and paces. Which meant that I was basically running with my phone for no reason at this stage.


Periodically I would take the phone from my arm to check distances in order to ensure that I ran around the 21.1km that I had intended to run, and that worked to a degree. At around the 17km mark however (a time at which I was tracking ahead of schedule to run a PB for the Half Marathon distance), I must have stopped the application, because it ceased timing again. 


So I don't have an accurate timing or distance measure for this morning, which made me kind of cranky; but it was user error I suppose. My achilles are feeling a bit sore now that I've had the chance to have a bath, stretch and Dencorub up a bit. My hips were quite sore as I was running, which is just another thing to keep an eye on. 


Strength session tomorrow, but beers in the meantime at the folks place.






Extra note: If to prove my point; I have a somewhat sore throat from screaming at my computer, owing to the difficulty in posting the map above. Technology hates me today. I'm not going anywhere near the washing machine. Sounds like a good excuse to me.

the bus that couldn't slow down

Great run this morning; feeling fantastic, and for the first time in a long while for this blog, I don't have to tag the word 'achilles', because it didn't cause any problems at all during the run today. (or do i have to tag it now that i have mentioned it?)


Today was the fastest run I have done since I began training, which I think reflects the faster pace I have been running recently. I jumped in the car and headed down to 'The Tan', a running track encircling the Botanic Gardens here in Melbourne. It is the place to go if you are a runner in Melbourne - the track record has been held by some amazing runners, including my two running heros, Steve Monaghetti and Craig Mottram. 


It was great if no other reason than to run with others surrounding me. I was able to focus on a couple of runners ahead and pace based on them, catching some and losing others. It was great just to be in a group running without the relative pain.


And today was just a medium paced 6km to set me up for tomorrow's 20km long run. I would usually use that as an opportunity to run down to Mrs S's parents place (also known as E's parents place), but since E is jet setting her way to New York as I write, I haven't yet worked out where I am going to head tomorrow.

country town running

So, the problem with running in a country town is that, well, there's not much of it. I ran up and down the main strip of a town in New South Wales called Cooma this morning, and still had a few kilometres to make up, so I had to zig and zag through side streets in order to make up the distance. It was tricky, I gotta say.

Not a bad run, my achilles is still a bit sore, but not really too bad. I've reached a stage where I think I'll have to go and see a sports physio or something. 10km this morning though, and I really wanted to run it slow in order to preserve my energy for my first back-to-back 6km/20km coming up this weekend. I had also read on Cool Runnings, a spectacular Australian running messageboard about the benefits of running below goal pace. So I ran it at about 1:00/km slower than my goal pace, which felt comfortable pretty much all of the way, except when I encountered a few hills that made life a bit tricky.

All in all, a pretty comfortable run, though I really need to get this achilles sorted, because I am starting to sound like a broken record.