Sunday, December 4, 2011

Fun run :o)

Today was the inaugural Bungendore Fun Run. A low key event put on in the hope of creating an annual event from 2012. There were 40-50 runners in total, a good turn out with very little publicity. The course was a nice little scenic loop taking in some of the Bungendore township along with a small off road section. There were a couple of small hills that succeeded in slowing me down.  There was a good showing of ACTVAC members including Bruce Graham, Jeff Grey, Katie Forestier, Heidi Johnston, Roger Pilkington, Ken White, Jim White, myself and Carol Masters. The course was estimated to be 6K, however, all of us wearing GPS decided it was around 5.5K. We could all claim good 6K times ;o). Most of the ACTVAC gang used the run as a training session. I thought it might be nice to aim for 4:30min/K pace, but the hills put an end to that. I ended up averaging 4:47min/K pace, but with a rather low average HR (~153 bpm), that peaked around 166 bpm right at the finish. I didn't change training this week, so I really couldn't expect a fast time (26:21 for 5.5K).

The Bungendore Fun Run Course 2011
Bruce captured a bit of video at the end. Note the particularly speedy finish by Jim White!
http://sb4ktp.blogspot.com/2011/12/bungendore-fun-run.html

Track on Thursday didn't go quite as planned. We had our Work Branch Xmas lunch and I ate some heavy food that just didn't want to move on by 6pm. In the 3000m I tried to run at 4:10min/K pace and was doing this until about 3 laps to go. With 2 laps to go, that food was rather troubling and I pulled out of the race. Fortunately, things were feeling better by the time we did the 7 lap spiral. I was able to run strongly, finishing first amongst those that qualify (2nd behind a new starter), my time was 12:41. My GPS claims it was 2970m, I suspect it was being 'kind'. Still, I was happy with the run even though I have now been penalised to start back another 3 groups. Who knows, that might still be good as I continue to recover from this iron deficiency anaemia and respond to training.

Latest training:
Wednesday - 7K easy
Thursday - Track 2270m in 9:29; 7 lap spiral (2970m?) in 12:41.
Friday - 'long run' 9.8K that included the Little Black Mountain Loop (apparently I just missed out on an encounter with a large brown snake!)
Saturday - hill reps 10 x 100m with jog recoveries (total ~5.5K with warm up and cool down)
Sunday - Bungendore Fun Run (5.5K) with a cool down to Heidi's house and back (3Kish??), followed by brekkie and coffee at the Woodworks cafe :o).

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4 comments:

  1. Jim's moving faster than Usain Bolt! I'm calling ASADA.

    Both your races on Thursday were good (even though you had to stop in the 3k). The 7-lap spiral is 2,957.2 metres.

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  2. Thanks Ewen. Yes, Jim was moving faster than Usain! The aborted 3000m sure didn't feel like a good race! I certainly don't have much in the way of endurance at present based on my effort in the fun run. I guess it will take a little while to make up for those lost 18 months or so of base! It's weird to be complaining about 'distance' at present, which I was doing during the cool down after the fun run! What happened to your 3000m on Thurs? I didn't see you in the results.

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  3. Yes, it takes different amounts of time for different people (to regain a 'base'). What might be helpful would be longer warm-ups/downs for sessions/races to build up the weekly ks a bit. Even slow jogging counts.

    I was feeling incredibly tired after 2 laps so stopped at 3 (rather than drag myself to the finish in a slow time). I very rarely DNF.

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  4. Thanks Ewen. I've been conservative with the mileage as it was a big trigger of fatigue before I began treatment with iron. I'll build up weekly distance slowly. I'm nearly at 50K/week at present. Being able to do longer and longer 'long' runs will be nice.

    It's a bugger that your work makes you so tired. Excessive tiredness prevents the body from recovering and it becomes a vicious cycle. I've had episodes of bad insomnia and that really wrecks my running! I hope you can get a better balance at work, soon!!

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