Progress, Injury and a DNS waiting to be...

Let's recap the last line of my previous post...

And most of all - fingers crossed i can remain injury free.

...when will i ever learn!!!

Those who follow my Facebook page... gratuitous click here for link to my Facebook page ;) ... will be well aware that recent weeks have been injury riddled... Nothing serious, just recurring injuries that i can't seem to shake.

Apart from my dodgy knee (which i'm hoping tomorrow's physio visit will fix) things have been progressing well.

I've been spending a bit of time in the pool and my swim is feeling better than i can remember.

I haven't been spending long hours on the bike, opting at this stage to work on some short sharp high intensity trainer sessions. The few times i have been on the TT bike, it's felt good - love the Trinity, it feels so fast and smooth. I'm looking forward to getting some long rides happening pretty soon.

And the run...well apart from the injury...i'm really pleased.  I'm starting to get some nice distance without pulling up too sore.  20k runs through the trails and hills are becoming the norm, and the progress toward the Melbourne Marathon is on track... 

I really believe the splitting my running between the Vibrams and the pseudo-minimal Brooks is paying dividends.  I'm comfortably running 8-10k in the Vibrams and really notice the change in style to a more natural fore to mid-foot strike.

Unfortunately, due to the knee injury i'm not confident that i'll be racing at Hazelwood this weekend.

Fingers crossed i'm running at full tilt again soon and can continue to build toward the Melbourne Marathon and Noosa.  I might even try to convince a few other people who are competing at Noosa to do a practice Olympic distance race in late September / early October... It's not that cold in bay, surely i'm not the only crazy one ;)

Until next time, happy training!!

Starting to tick the running boxes...

After the last nine days, i'm finally starting to feel like my run is getting under control, and feeling almost natural...

To summarise, last weekend was made up of 19.2 km around the hilly trails at Lysterfield, followed by 3 km off the bike on Sunday.

And this week, i managed 59.5 km, comprising:

• Monday - 6.2 km off the bike (in the Vibrams);
• Tuesday - 15.1 km (low/endurance HR)
• Thursday - 8 km (just got out and ran in the storms)
• Saturday - 3km with Jamesy at Kid's Run Melbourne (did the run ahead, take photo, repeat thing - which is getting harder now that he's running 5:05 min/km) followed by 22.2 km around the local, soft, flooded, local trails in the pouring rain... (low/endurance HR)
• Today (Sunday) - 5km Run Melbourne with Claire (easy run in Vibrams)

 The long slow runs are feeling good. Although i was pretty much shot after 22 km, i was feeling like that with a bit more time and a few more km's under my belt i could have kept on going for another hour or two - which is kind of lucky considering what i've got planned.

As i sit here and type this, my legs are feeling a little tired and sore - but nothing a day's rest and a few sessions with the foam roller won't fix!

Also, since i finished reading Christopher McDougall's Born To Run, i've wanted to find out all i could about barefoot / natural running.  I found, and have recently started reading Danny Abshire's Natural Running: The Simple Path to Stronger, Healthier Running and have also got Scott Douglas' The Runner's World Complete Guide to Minimalism and Barefoot Running: How to Make the Healthy Transition to Lightweight Shoes and Injury-Free Running...

No doubt, i'll talk about these two books once i've finished reading them!

It was great to do the Run Melbourne 5 km with Claire. She put in a hard fought run and ended up beating her goal time - i'm so proud of the effort she put in! And to finish off here's a Selfie of Claire and me after Run Melbourne...

Christopher McDougall: Are we Born to Run??

I've been preaching a bit lately about the book Born to Run, barefoot running, and the Tarahumara.  For those who don't read, here's a 15 minute talk by Christopher McDougall, the broken down, injured runner, who set out to track them down and find their secret to distance running... 

Running...Back On Track...

Just a little note to say...woo hoo...my running appears to be back on track.

Last Saturday I decided it was time to hit Lysterfield lake Park again, last time we went there it was absolutely pissing down with rain, this time we were greeted with this...

So off we set. Last time i ran a single loop, this time we were planning to add a little loop to the bigger loop.  The run felt really good, and i even managed to run up the hill that got the better of me last time... (Linky to Strava data).  When i got home i checked my data, and just as i thought - this run was:

• my longest (time) 1hr 45min;
• my furthest (distance) 19.2km; and
• my hilliest (gain) 361m , 

since i injured myself during Two Bays Trail Run, back in January!!

But what was the most pleasing aspect, was my fitness.

While my legs struggled a bit (ok, i'm still sore a few days later), i didn't find myself lacking the fitness to keep on going.  It's a shame that i forgot to charge my Garmin and had to track my run using strava (HRM-less), because it would have been interesting to see what my HR was doing. I know that i some of the rises i was pushing it up, but i was pretty happy with the overall exertion level.

And Yes, i was that annoying person on the trails who appeared to be way too happy; smiling and saying hello to everybody else out there :)