I had a blood test on 9 November — one of the comments at the
bottom was 'mild anaemia' (concerning from a performance standpoint for a
competitive runner). Haemoglobin was 133 g/L with the normal range
being 135 to 180. This was down from 138 in February of 2016.
Haematocrit was 0.42, with the normal range being 0.40 to 0.54. I'm
having further checks to find out the cause. I'll let you know what's up
when the results are available. It may be nothing more than dietary
— not getting enough iron via my vegetarian diet.
My training and racing since the last blog post hasn't changed much
— around 80 kilometres per week of running, with regular
races, moderate length 'long' runs and Verheul intervals. I've had a
couple of enjoyable 5k races although they haven't been spectacularly
fast. I ran 23:43 in the Boathouse 5k on 31 October, having a good race
with Gabe for the second half on a pretty quick course. Last Sunday
there was the Fisher's Ghost 5k, a day trip to the beautiful campus of
Western Sydney University. Jim did the driving, leaving his place at
4:30 AM! Needless to say, I was well awake by the start time of 8:00 AM
after hearing all of Jim's best jokes and running anecdotes during the
drive.
I started fairly fast, passing Jimmy in the first straight. He's been
dealing with a sciatica injury, sometimes racing well and other times
barely being able to walk! I ran up the first hill okay (there are four
hills on the 5k course) and can recall having some good battles with
young and old runners for the rest of the race. Finishing time was
24:18, 5 seconds faster than last year. Happy it wasn't slower! I placed
2nd in the fairly broad age-group of 60-69 with Jim placing a happy
3rd. Norma outshone us both by taking out the 70+ female category as an
85-89 runner in the spectacular time of 38:53!
Speedygeese long run at Mount Painter
