City to Casino

Enjoyable weekend in Hobart last week.

Finished 6th in the Opens Mens 7km event, and 7th overall. Donna MacFarlane made an appearance and finished in 4th spot.

Happy with my run. Very strong last 2km where I made up a heap of ground on Patty Smith whom I train with in Launceston. Patty, who is only 17, had about 150m on me with just over 2km to go and only beat my by a couple of seconds in the end. Another 500m or so and I had him.

Given that my training is mainly strength based, the race showed that it is all working pretty well. Throw in some speed work later on and look out.

Poor old Patty learnt a valuable lesson on the way to Hobart last Saturday. Never fall asleep in the car when I am driving. The little bloke got the shock of his life when in the middle of his slumber I jumped on the brakes and screamed NOOOOOOOOOO at the top of my lungs waking him up. Poor guy thought we were about to get acquainted with a truck or something. I nearly had to pull over I was laughing so hard. Needless to say that was the last he slept in the car!!!

I think Pat set a new World Record for number of SMS sent during our trip. On the 2 hour drive home on Sunday he sent 62 of them. Thats one every 2 minutes. Add to that the replies he got and its one every 60sec. The young lady he was chatting to must be OK. Ahhhhhh young love.

Back into training again for a while now. No races planned until the Launceston 10 in July. I may run the odd club race but it will only be as a training effort.

Cheers

Meeting the man!!

Last Friday I finally met the man who spent my teenage years plastered all over my bedroom wall.


Steve Moneghetti was in Launceston for the launch of this years Launceston 10 Race on July 20. He was joined by Lee Troop and Kerryn Mc Cann. Check out www.launcestonten.com.au

Not only did I meet him, but I also trained with him. We started at Kim Gillards place and headed up thru Trevallyn State Forest. Incidently, Kim is married to Kerryns sister Jenny. The last km or so of our run was up a nice steep hill and watching Mona and Troopy run away from us up this hill was awesome. Scary part was that I doubt they were even trying.

Afterwards we all had our photo taken with Mona and the obligatory autographs. Mona sign my copy of his book and wrote "enjoy the Marathon read". I didnt have the heart to tell him I already had..... about 4 times!!!!

Troopy signed a pair of his custom made Racing Flats that will be given to some lucky Junior runner as an "Encouragement Award". See Pic.

Clocked 110kms last week. This was helped by the fact that I ran 70 minutes on Friday instead of the normal 40. I wasnt about to say to Mona and Troopy, "sorry guys I have to stop now" was I????

Heading to Hobart this weekend for the City to Casino. Have decided to run the 7km event as opposed to the 11km as I feel that I would be more aggressive over the shorter distance. Im not too confident in attacking an 11km race from the gun just yet.

A solid week.

The week thus far:

Mon: 70 minutes
Tues: 10 x 1min w/ 1min float (Covered 5.8km in the 20 minutes)
Wed: 60 minutes
Thurs: 10 x 1min w/ 60s rec (walk/jog)
Fri: 45 minutes
Sat: 5km Race (80 minutes total for the day)
Sun: 90 minutes

Happy with the week. Felt strong during yesterdays race but lacking speed in the legs. That will come. Missed my target time by 8 seconds so my expectations were pretty close. It was tough in the middle stages trying to run solo but I guess thats whats happens in handicap races, its not until the end that you start to pass people and if you're lucky, get a second wind.

My time showed that I am in pretty good shape. Of course there is still a heap of work to do but its on track.

My 90 minute Sunday runs are a bit of a struggle. 6 - 8 weeks ago I was running 2 hours and doing relatively easy. Now its a battle to get out for 90. Go figure!

Next weeks Launceston Athletic Club event is over 12km which I will use as a tempo run. The course is known as the "Gutbuster". Why am I not looking forward to this one???? Target time 45 minutes with a HR of around 165 - 170. See how we go.