The last week of January

.
Well, I'm pretty happy with January's effort. My first month of proper training for the Comrades. My target was to end up with 271km under my belt. Thankfully I completed 281km and feeling very good about it, all fairly long slow distance type of running.

There's plenty of room for improvement, like fewer unscheduled days off and more strict diet control but as Clint said in dirty harry "man's got to know his limitations". And my limitation is the ability to make more than one major change to my life at a time. So I'll make diet control a focus for February.

The new Comrades training schedule is out for February. Looks like I need to find a full marathon to run in the third week, ugh!

Sunday 30th January - Long Run 32km
Last night I entertained the idea of going to Mansfield and running the "Mansfield to Buller Ultra" After seeing the course elevation profile I decided that I need a lot more preparation before taking on a hill like that. Not to mention losing 200kg.

Why is it so much harder running by yourself? Last week's run with the Sydney Striders was a harder course but it seemed to slip by. Today I went out along the foreshore on Port Philip Bay and ran from St Kilda down past Brighton, Sandringham, Black Rock and turned at Beaumauris.

Plenty of trailwalker people training this morning in formation fours with heavy backpacks on.

My HR Average for the first Half was 137 and my HR average for the return trip was 157. In terms of speed the split was even. But the extra effort to stay on the same pace on the way back really seemed to take it out of me. Left knee injury ached the whole way but didn't get worse which is good. All in All a great day out, albeit harder than last Sunday. Next week I'll run with Schepisi's group out at Ivanhoe for 28km Along the Yarra River.

Saturday 29th January - 10km Easy
Went out from Elwood along the bay towards Port Melbourne in the rain. That's twice in 6 days I've been absolutely drenched. Ran into a mate half way and yakked on for 8 mins. Felt full of beans and was ready to go much faster but held back for the long run tomorrow.

Friday 28th January - 0km No Run
An unscheduled day off. Slack! Lacking motivation used the old lame excuse of being too busy at work to worm out of my run. Was only supposed to do an easy run of 6km.

Thursday 27 January - 10km Easy but felt hard
Ran from home to work with a 10kg back pack full of laptops, clothes, RM Williams boots etc... Maybe this is the reason it was so hard???

Wednesday 26 January - 9km Easy
Went out with my mate and had a good yak fest. Down past the Spirit of Tasmania and along the bay.

Tuesday 25 January - 9km (7.74km Time Trial)
Embarasingly my weekly 8km timetrial is only 7.74km. I noticed that the go the tan event being held around Melbourne's botanical gardens this weekend is only 3.87km for one lap. So my 8km timetrial has been roughly 250m shorter. My time this week was 40min 50sec which was slower than the last time I did it two weeks ago, hopefully I have not peaked yet. Wouldn't that be tragic?