December 2006 Archives

I've wondered a few times over the past year if I should buy an Ipod to keep me groovin' during my training. Always, I decided that I wanted to concentrate on improving my posture, monitoring my cadence, and checking my form, and as such didn't want any unnecessary distractions.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend, Talicca, who happens to have a very close relationship with her Ipod, and she convinced me to go away and re-think things. I mean, really, if I can't listen to some music and do my running focuses at the same time, I probably shouldn't be trusted to do either.

I've decided, belatedly, to start writing a training review on a semi-regular basis to hold myself a little more accountable to the month's successes and failures.

While these may not happen every month, they should be regular enough to be useful to me in helping to attain new goals. Failures and the lessons learned, problem areas that need work, general attitude - and most importantly, successes - whatever stands out for the month will find itself in one of these review posts. In theory, that should motivate me to work harder toward more positive aspects to report.

So, here we are, at the end of December.

(Mac users, PLEASE let me know whether or not you can see the above graph)

I'm not a fan of Telstra. I've had too many problems with them in the past. However, for some reason that I can't put my finger on, this advertising campaign cracks me up.*

I thought about waiting until January 1 to post this, but figured with all of the merriment of the seasonal festivities I would forget the link by then.

On that note : Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all have a fantastic time over the coming week or so.

* crack up : something amusing.
to crack someone up : make a person laugh.

A few days ago I mentioned resting up and recovering from the flight home, but it turns out that I'm fighting off more than just the jet lag.

I guess the change in climate has something to do with it. Anyway, I'm sick. I've been fighting it since I got back, and right now I'm going back to bed rather than preparing for work.

There were a few college kids coughing and looking unwell on the plane the other day. Hopefully I didn't catch what they had, because they didn't seem at all well.

Once in a while as a runner you'll have a new "first", or breakthrough. These are nice, and help to keep you moving forward. On a rare occasion you have a few in the same week. This doesn't happen often, so when it does we should milk it for all the self-encouragement we can.

I had a few breakthroughs this past week on the road.

• I ran my first half-marathon
• ... which also happened to be my first run over 12km, ever (and, incidentally, that first 12km felt really easy)
• I ran my first 5-minute km that felt like a somewhat sustainable pace
• the Parrot Predictor gave me my first prediction.

I'm back in Australia, and still trying to recover from an awful flight. Either we had a rookie pilot who took us the back way over some dirt roads, or the air currents were awful. Another first : I spent most of the flight bouncing in four directions at once. Maybe they should come up with a 4-wheel drive mode for aircraft.

Despite feeling desperately in need of more sleep this weekend, I've been out on a couple of runs. It's funny how much you can forget about the Brisbane summer after spending a few days exercising in freezing weather. Take yesterday for example: I should have been able to predict the afternoon thunderstorm just by the face-melting heat and humidity in the shade at 7:00 in the morning.

It's going to take a few more days to acclimatise, but once I'm settled in I'll be hard at work for the next couple of months focusing on speed training. This afternoon, though, I'll just be resting up, and thinking about the additional gains I can soon add to those listed above.

I ran the Las Vegas Strip Yesterday, and have the T-shirt and medal to prove it.

I should point out now, that despite a few negative moments mentioned below, I'm quite happy with how the day turned out. I thought them worth mentioning, but hope they don't make it seem like I was disappointed with how things went. I ran nearly twice as far as I had ever previously run before, so I knew it wasn't going to be easy!

I was in doubt for this race over the past four months. Ongoing illness and injuries (some chronic ongoing, and others self-inflicted, not sport related, and categorised under the heading of "stupidity"), saw my training over the last few months come to a near stand-still. What six months ago had been a goal to break the two hour mark in my first half marathon, became a "just finish it" as the event drew near and the injuries and setbacks kept coming.

In the past couple of weeks I was able to train a little more. Still not back into my full training schedule, I was able to put in some training runs and cycling, and decided that I should be able to run the 21km (13.1 miles) in around two and a half hours. This would be perfect, as our BTT friend Dawnie was also running it, and looking at a similar time. We could spur eachother on.

Jeff and I drove out from Orange county on Friday night to stay at his sister's house in Las Vegas. The trip took somewhere between four and a half to five hours, and we arrived around 12:30, more than ready for sleep.

After a little sleep-in on Saturday, Jeff and I headed out to Red Rock Canyon, where Jeff put in a gruelling 14 mile trail run, and I got some light exercise biking around and doing some light running drills before taking in some sights around the canyon. From there, we headed back to shower and clean up before dashing off to the running expo to collect my race kit and check out the merchandise. We had plans for dinner that night with Ali, Dawnie, and Jess, so we didn't have a lot of time to dally. Jess was also at the expo and had arranged to meet us there.

Signage was non-existent out on the streets, and some parking areas and access points were blocked off around the convention center, so we were delayed in trying to find a place to park and get inside. Jeff and I split while he searched for a park, and I searched for the expo. Once inside, it was a case of following the trail of people with expo bags, as there were very few signs inside indicating where to go. Still, I found my way, collected my kit barely fifteen minutes before closing, and discovered that most of the official Las Vegas marathon merchandise had already sold. I found Jeff and Jess, made a couple of purchases, and we raced off to pick up Dawnie and Ali from their hotel.

I had been just as excited about meeting my fellow BTTers as I was about my first half marathon - even moreso - so I had really been looking forward to dinner that night. I think we all were. The Shrimp Diavolo was great (or was it Shrimp Diablo?), but it was the company and the buzz of meeting people we had only previously known online that made the night.

I didn't get any photos, but Jess has already posted a couple, and Jeff took a few also which I'm sure he'll have up soon.

I was going to write up a long entry about my five days on the road with Jeff, but he has saved me most of the effort by posting his own report and a photo slideshow.

I noticed that Jeff didn't mention our room with a king for two travelling queens... or was it a room with two queens, fit for a king? It was all so confusing, I can't quite seem to get it right. The concierge at the Best Western in Bishop on Friday night did try to take a modern approach in offering us choices for our bedding, but we were quick to assure him that we DEFINATELY wanted separate beds. No offense, Jeff ol' buddy, but I'll do without the king sized bed when travelling with you. :-)

I should also point out, for those who have heard the stories and are wondering, that we did NOT slow down or hesitate when passing the Cottontail Ranch (whose services are more "adult" than raising cattle for slaughter), and that the brothel we stopped to look into was delapidated and had in fact been empty for around 100 years or more.

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

The Scenario: A locked vehicle. A running engine. A half full (or half empty?) fuel tank.

The Challenge: Race your opponent for 13.5 miles through barren, freezing hills to the nearest hint of civilisation. Return with a means to unlock the vehicle before the fuel runs out.

The course: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=574533

The rules: No food, no water, no money, and no identification. One challenger must cycle, and only cycle, to the nearest town. Following the same route, the other opponent must walk to the same destination. The walker is able to hail a passing motor vehicle for a ride, and should attempt to at any opportunity.

The prize: Winner gets to drive the abandoned vehicle to town in search of his opponent, assuming vehicle still contains enough fuel.

This, my friends, is what The Amazing Hip and I started the day off with bright and early on Monday morning.

I, on the bike, won the prize, and even remembered to drive on the right-hand side of the road.