Wins and Losses
During the first six months of this year I have had some wins, but also some losses. Here are the highlights and lowlights:
Win: I arrived in Falls Creek in better shape than I thought and completed some great sessions. I was only there for 10 days (rather than the 20+ days of many of the other elite guys), which meant I could hammer it a bit more in the sessions.
Loss: On 7 January my back became sore. I struggled through two easy runs, but then had to stop as the pain was too great. A week later I was diagnosed with a sacral stress reaction – my first ever stress fracture at age 32. I had already not run for a week and didn’t run at all for the next five weeks. I did a little bit of bike riding commuting to work, but mostly just took the opportunity to take it easy.
Win: My first run back was on 20 February: 4km in 20min around a local grass oval. I had no back pain at all, but I felt very flat after such a long time without doing any running.
Loss: I watched the Lake Biwa Marathon on the internet – I was supposed to be there racing. The conditions were good and it would have been my first crack at the Olympic qualifying time.
Win: On 3 April I finished a six week gradual return to training without any problems. I had built up from 60min of running in the first week to 3.5 hours in week six. It was now time to start getting fit again.
Win: On 7 May I trained well enough (7.1km on a bike path in 21:02) to prompt me to decide to run the SMH Half Marathon. Firstly, I had to apologise to my training partners who I had been telling for the past few weeks that I wasn’t racing.
Win: I was back to racing and had a win in the SMH Half Marathon. My training partner, Anthony Haber, put plenty of pressure on in the first 10km of the race (splitting just over 30min), but I managed to make a break shortly after and held on for a win in 65:00. It wasn’t my fastest half marathon in Sydney, but definitely the shortest training build up.
Loss : I pulled up pretty sore from the race – not surprising really.
Win: On 4 June I scored a win at the Sydney:10, in a race record of 29:31. I probably went out a little hard and wasn’t as strong as I usually feel in the last 3km.
Loss: Had I run 2 seconds faster I would have received a $500 bonus for sub 29:30!
Loss: On 19 June Liam Adams and Lee Troop broke me at the Launceston Ten. Troopy piled on the pressure from 3km into the race and I cracked at 8km – that is usually my strategy! Great runs by both the boys (Liam taking the win), but I am disappointed that I wasn’t at least able to hang on until the kick at the end. I was not as fit as I thought I was.
Win: The loss motivated me to get back to a full training load – I had been a bit slack with getting in some of my second runs each week.
Win: On 26 June I finished my first 100 mile week for the year. After 11 runs for the week my body was still holding together fine.
Win: On 4 July I got through my first 30km Sunday run. I am pretty much back to a full training load and am now ready to start specific marathon training.
Now the plan is to get into competitive shape for the City2Surf. In the lead up I will probably race the Sutherland to Surf. Six days after the City2Surf the National Cross Country Championships are being held in Canberra. As the race is just down the road, I will compete in it and hopefully contribute to our ACT team winning the title. Following this I expect to be racing in a marathon later this year, to chase the Olympic qualifying time. Hopefully the skeleton will cooperate and remain in one piece!
