My knee's not hurting!

I was down at Calwell again this afternoon to run on the grass track. I always go there with the intention of doing something 'good'. For about a month this has been difficult because I've had a strange knee injury. I could run at a steady pace such as 5 minutes per kilometre or slower with no problems. As soon as I tried running 'fast' the back of my left knee started 'grabbing' and hurting.

Why should I worry about such a minor niggling injury? Just go and run steady kilometres. There are plenty of runners with much more serious injuries such as Louise, Miners and Geoff. I guess right now I'm not happy to just run slow. I want to race 3000 and 5000 metres on the track this Summer and to do that I need to practice running fast.

This afternoon I ran our normal 2.5km warm-up with no problems. Mike suggested that Karen try some 500 metre repeats. We ran a few 'strides' on the straight track and my knee seemed okay. The Frees were feeling good. Karen took the lead for the first 500 metre run and I followed. 2:05 and I wasn't thinking about my knee, just that this speed wasn't easy. Then followed runs of 2:01, 1:58, 1:57 and 1:54. My knee wasn't hurting!

I usually run six 500 metre repeats but stopped at five as I didn't want to push my luck. I was so happy my knee wasn't hurting. After Kathy finished her amazingly long and fast session she joined us for the 2.5k warm-down. It was a warm, breezy evening and we were all feeling happily tired and satisfied after another successful session on the lush grass at Calwell.

School's out for summer

I didn't run today. I worked for 10 hours and by the time I arrived home I just felt too knackered to run. Now, if I'd been still experimenting with 'running to school' I wouldn't have missed my run!

Back in July I wrote about Eliud Kipchoge and how, as a child, he ran 5 kilometres to and from school, usually 4 times a day. I took inspiration from Eliud and started running to and from work. I kept this going for six weeks but with quite a few missed days along the way. I wanted to see what would happen. Would I benefit from the increased volume of running - 80 to 100 kilometres a week compared to my usual 60 to 70?

This is what I learned from my brief experiment:
1) I am not a morning person. Well, I knew that already. I've always run in the afternoon. Strangely, I did have some quite good and enjoyable morning runs. The first kilometre or so was always a creaky shuffle but there were many times where, in the second half of the run, I'd be running along smoothly at a good pace of 4:45/km or thereabouts.
2) Running home is not easy. After working for 8, 9 or more hours my energy levels were not great. My run home from work was never as good as my run to work. This made me think that maybe I'm not an afternoon person! Perhaps I should be running at lunchtime? Unfortunately that won't happen as my lunch 'hour' is only 30 minutes.
3) I wasn't getting enough sleep. To keep this routine going I'd need 9 or more hours sleep a night. This wasn't happening. I couldn't get to sleep early enough.
4) It was fun. There was a unique satisfaction using running to get somewhere rather than using it to 'train'.
5) Running twice a day could make you fit. Well, it didn't make me fit. My City to Surf time was 3 minutes slower than last year. The main problem for me was that I wasn't absorbing the running. I wasn't getting enough recovery in the form of sleep. I couldn't do a good 'hard session' in the afternoon because I was too tired.

So, for me, running to school is out for summer - and probably forever! I'm back to running in the afternoons. I can plan to run a good track session at Calwell or an evening track race with the ACT Vets. I realise now that the goals I stated at the top of my other blog were too ambitious. For this coming track season I now have two main goals... to run 3000 metres in 11:33 and 5000 metres in 20:50. This would be an improvement on what I ran in 2004 and a step towards perhaps running faster in 2006!

The 2005 Canberra Times 10k Fun Run

Canberra's extended winter abated today leaving 4,000 runners and walkers with almost perfect conditions to attempt a PB or just enjoy the beautiful day and company of others.

At the beginning of the year I had a goal of running 39:58 for 10k. This would have been the day to do it. Well, I missed by a kilometre! 44:03 when I passed under the clock a few strides behind Katie as she left me floundering with her finishing sprint. So, I guess I'm in 44-minute shape for 10k, well behind my rival Jim White (42:10) and Geoff who ran a very speedy 40:41.

After finishing I collected one of the Canberra Times 'fat bags' (I knew they contained a water bottle) and chatted to Garry, Jillian, Peter and Greg in the chute. Then I collected my clothing and started walking back down the course a bit to watch out for Luckylegs. On the way I bumped into my cousin Don who had run with a couple of mates in 48 minutes.

I walked down that nasty speed-bump 100m before the finish, across the bridge and waited near Blundells' Cottage. In no time at all Luckylegs arrived, running very fast. How could this be? I thought she'd run about 70 minutes. I quickly yelled out "Go Norma!" She disappeared up the hill towards the finishing chute. I ran around to greet her and found her with Flashduck and Strewth. "Wow, what time did you run?" "65:46 and I had a fantastic time!" "Good stuff" I said. I was very happy that she'd had a good run.

The winners of the run were a surprised Anthony Haber who ran a brilliant 29:41 and Jackie Fairweather with 33:37. Anthony has only been running for 5 years and is coached by Hugh Ford. Jackie has been running for slightly longer - she said 20 years when she collected her trophy! After the presentations Katie organised a few CoolRunners for a group photo. You can see Griffin, Luckylegs, Speedygeoff, Aki, CJ, Flashduck, Strewth and Wombatface looking happy in yellow and blue with various coloured shoes.

Forerunner Man forgot to stop after the finish and did 12 kilometres. His 10k time was 43:42 so, I guess he thought the course was 10.1k. My real watch splits were 4:20 at 1k (felt very easy), 13:11 at 3k and 22:22 at 5k. My last 5k was 21:41. It's rare that I manage a negative split on this course so I'm thinking the 5k sign may not have been in exactly the right spot.

The Blackmores Sydney Half Marathon

What can I say? In short, it was a brilliant weekend!

I had entered early for the half marathon as Karen from Calwell encouraged me to try it. I thought it would be a fun event to do - running across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, through the city on parts of the famous Olympic Marathon 'blue line' course and finishing at the Opera House!

Karen ended up being a non-starter as work commitments resulted in a lack of training. I knew Luckylegs was running so I made arrangements to share a room at 'The Vibe' which was about 200 metres from the start line. On Saturday morning I drove through light rain to Mittagong. Chickybabe was standing on the steps waving blue and yellow streamers, saying later she'd done this to a couple of other white cars that drove past before me!

After meeting the family (and Jim) we enjoyed a cuppa and two slices of that delicious running shoe birthday cake! Then, it was off to Sydney via an Oxford Street traffic jam and the Harbour Bridge to book into our digs at Milsons Point. We went for a walk down to the harbour foreshore where a wedding was in progress. It was a lovely warm afternoon.

Back at the hotel we arranged to meet Carolyne and Bob for a meal that evening. Unfortunately, at the allotted time, Carolyne wasn't feeling the best so we left her to sleep and wandered up to an Italian place in North Sydney with Bob who told some fascinating stories about his travels by bicycle through North Vietnam.

The wake-up call did the trick at 5am and we were soon breakfasting on muffins, jam and coffee. From the hotel window I could see runners walking down the hill to race headquarters. I was unusually nervous about this race. Not for myself, but for Chickybabe who was hoping to run 'not so slow'. We found the tent which was handing out the 'free early-bird' race singlets and met a few CoolRunners including Eagle, Benny and Tesso.

There was a queue for the baggage trucks and more at the porta-loos. Our line was painfully slow so Chickybabe gave it a miss. I was sitting down when the gun went off! Luckily the porta-loos were close to the start and I began my journey just 55 seconds later.

Around the corner and up onto the bridge I was looking out for CoolRunning shirts and hats. I spotted The Owl and Omni running easily together but they didn't know where Luckylegs was. I finally caught her a couple of minutes later - she was looking good and running strongly! As for myself, I was feeling a bit wonky and lop-sided. On the downhill of the bridge into the city I started to feel a bit smoother.

It was crowded! A bit like a mini City to Surf start. I had to weave a bit trying to find some space to run. At one point I followed 'stroller man' through the throng. I caught and moved ahead of 'black balloon man', who I guessed was the 2 hour pacer. Forerunner Man was not too far short at the 3k mark but soon after he yelled out 'Weak GPS'. As we crossed the Pyrmont Bridge light rain started. I spotted 'red balloon man' (the 1:50 pacer) way in the distance and set about trying to gradually catch him.

The leaders were coming back from the turn and I was quite surprised to see Vince Craig from Canberra in about 7th place. Not far from the turn there was a yell from the sidelines "hey, wombat!". It was Plu, standing there clicking away with his digital camera just as a tropical downpour commenced. What dedication!

I felt pretty good after the turn and finally caught the red balloon group which included Kevin Tiller. Then, coming the other way was a very good looking group - Luckylegs, Omni and The Owl! "Go Chickybabe!" The rest of my race involved trying to get a bit of a gap on 'red balloon man' before the 'killer' Observatory Hill at the 19k mark. Running up this hill I could hear his voice getting ominously louder as he encouraged runners to "work your arms" and "this is the last hill". It was like the grim reapers at the six foot track all over again!

I crested the hill and ran down the corkscrew and onto the Cahill Expressway trying to keep pace with 'red balloon man'. Lulu was cheering madly at all the CoolRunners! I would try and stay with RB man! Just before the 20k sign he accelerated and left me floundering. I had to run the last 1.1k in 3:34 to break 1:50 which was impossible... however, the 20k sign was in the wrong spot and I ended up running a net 1:50:01 and an official 'loo-included' time of 1:50:56.

After finishing, 'de-chipping', collecting my medal and taking a couple of drinks, I walked back up the Cahill Expressway to see how Chickybabe was going. I waited at the corkscrew and it wasn't long before they arrived. Only The Owl and CB - no Omni whose knees had called it quits. I tried to run with them but Chickybabe sprinted down that hill. I had to put in a major effort to catch up and thought to myself "I'm not enjoying this!". I gave up in Macquarie Street and let Owly and CB sprint down that last hill to the finish. They made it in about 2:32 which I thought was excellent on such a hilly course. I was very proud of Chickybabe - her running was out of sight.

In the recovery area we caught up with a number of CoolRunners including TA, The Gnome, Sparkie and the poetic Go Girl. Then, the long walk back over the bridge. We bumped into Bob who had already showered at the hotel after running 1:31 in the half and was on his way back to meet Carolyne who was running the marathon. We all had a late lunch at a cafe in Kirribilli. Carolyne had run an excellent 3:48 in the marathon. Then, it was the long drive home to Canberra via Mittagong and one last piece of moreish birthday cake!

The green, green grass of Calwell

Some of my most memorable training runs were with Jim Tucker on the 400 metre grass track at Calwell. Like many grass tracks Calwell has a hill. From the finish line you run gently up to the summit of the hill at the 200m mark then gently back down to the finish. When I trained with Jim, we liked running 300 metre repeats, thus avoiding 100m of uphill.

Now, back in those days, which was not that long ago when I think about it, maybe the mid-1990s, Jim was a seriously quick runner. He regularly ran sub-60 seconds for his 400m races which was a time I could only dream about. Using my endurance I was able to beat Jim in 1500m races, but in an 800 he'd be running sub-2:20 leaving me 3 or 4 seconds behind. I think our ideal race would have been a 1000 metres.

In our 300 metre repeats at Calwell, Jim would leave me struggling in the first 3 or 4 such was his natural speed. It was frustrating but fun training. I'd be killing myself trying to keep up and he'd casually look over wondering what my problem was. My problem was that I was just plain slow! There's a runner in Geoff's group who also has plenty of natural speed. Jim is usually a good judge and he's predicted Katie will run 2:35 for 800m, 5:30 for 1500m and 12:00 for 3000m this coming track season.

This afternoon I was back on the green, green grass of Calwell. I ran my first serious track session for a number of months. For quite a while I've had this niggling hamstring soreness which has hampered my feeble efforts to run fast. I can handle long slow runs but anything quick and my hammy starts saying "don't do this". Today I said to myself "stuff it, I'm going to try something faster".

I decided to run some barefoot 400s starting at the summit of the track. My recovery was 1min 30secs of walking. The 400s were 97.7, 97.6, 93.8, 92.6 and 90.9. These times aren't all that quick, it's equivalent to a pace of just under 4 minutes per kilometre. The thing is I didn't feel too bad and my leg didn't say "stop, or else". Afterwards I ran a comfortable 2.5k warm-down with Kathy and Marlene. I thought to myself, if I can keep up this training my running might go somewhere.

This weekend it's going to Sydney! The Blackmores Half Marathon is on Sunday. I'm really looking forward to running across the Coathanger with thousands of others and cheering on Luckylegs to the finish at the Sydney Opera House.

A good student

About eight years ago my athletics club was looking for more coaches. They offered to pay the course fee which was about $100. I said to myself "why not, I might learn something" and after two weekends of lectures and practical demonstrations at the AIS track I became a Level 1 coach in the very general field of 'endurance and walks'.

Prior to this I had been training with Mike Sainsbury's Calwell group for a couple of years. This was (and still is) a group of mainly teenage middle distance and cross country runners with the odd adult like Marlene, Codger and now Karen and Kathy. I've been down at Calwell almost every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon ever since. I know every pothole, blade of grass and crooked line-marking on that 400m track.

In my early days at Calwell I was keen to find some of my old running form after being side-tracked for a while by triathlons. It's not easy to enjoy triathlons when you swim like a brick. My running form returned and at the end of 1997 I ran 4:58 for 1500m and 10:53 for 3000m. I know these are pedestrian times but at my best I could only run just under 10 minutes for 3000m.

After 1997 I became less interested in my own running. It was more exciting to watch the kids training and see how they improved over the months and years. Often they would start as awkward looking beginners who couldn't run out of sight on a dark night and progress to winning medals at state and national championships. This was exciting!

These days I'm still down at Calwell on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Usually I chat to Mike about the kids' training and might have a run with Karen (if it's not raining in Curtin - she has an aversion to running in the rain). I'm too slow to keep up with even the youngest runner on the track. I think Mike puts up with me as 'assistant coach' as I'm the only one who laughs at his eccentric jokes and brilliant puns. The kids just roll their eyes, turn around and walk away. We have an on-going joke about who was the last person to mow and rake the track and did they use a push-mower or nail scissors which the kids don't think is even slightly funny. I also know off-by-heart every inspirational speech Mike has ever made to the kids. If one's called for I'll say "how about trying number 47".

Over the years you see many runners come and go. There have been the sublimely physically talented runners who, sadly, haven't got it 'in the head'. There have been the beautifully smooth naturals who retire at 18 to take on an apprenticeship. There have been the moderately quick runners who win national medals through simple hard work and determination - the good students. It's exciting to see kids learn how to run and improve to the point where they can compete well at state or national level. Although it's sad to see some of them stop for whatever reason, you hope they've learned a love of running that might see them return to it later in life.

I've recently written a training plan for Luckylegs. She would like to improve her speed at distances up to the half marathon. Writing this plan hasn't been an easy thing to do. How do runners who are somewhat older than fifty respond to different methods of training? I don't know (but, through feedback, I'm learning). From personal experience I know that older runners don't recover from training sessions as fast as younger runners. I also know that 'speed' needs to be practised or the body forgets how to run fast.

For Luckylegs I've started with a fairly conservative program. There are two hard sessions per week. One is a time trial over 2km or 3km. I've decided to use this as an introduction to speedwork as it's less likely to cause injuries than interval training. The other hard session is either a long run or a medium long run which includes a faster paced section (around half marathon pace or a bit slower). We'll see how it all works in two week's time!

My 22nd Sydney City to Surf

Sunday August 14 was a typically spectacular day for the 35th running of the City to Surf. This was my 22nd, although not in a row. In 1981 I had a knee injury, in 1982 I was 'out on the highway', in 1993 my foot was badly bruised after hitting a kangaroo on my motorcycle and in 1998 I was visiting Oregon with Gordon and Maggie.

This year Gordon offered me a lift to Sydney as he had to collect some plans and discs at Girraween and also wanted to give the mother-in-law's car a run. We stayed with Bruce in Artarmon and went for a walk down to the park on Friday afternoon. Late on Saturday afternoon we caught up with Andrew Shaw in at The Rocks. Andrew is a very talented runner who was recently training in Cairns with triathlete Simon Thompson. Unfortunately a calf injury meant that Andrew would miss the City to Surf.

On Sunday morning we found a parking spot near the Domain. I introduced Gordon to 'The Legend'. Keith was in high spirits and we chatted about races, training, the form of 'Fast Kath' who was doing the Sydney Marathon and some battles with Geoff Moore in recent Canberra Times Fun Runs.

Just after 9am I jogged with Gordon over to the start and left him in the 'A2' group while I joined the 'A1' group. This is the first time since 1994 (when I ran with Dad) that I didn't try and get close to the front. I talked to Rae Palmer and a girl from South Africa who was doing her first City to Surf.

Liz Ellis fired the gun at 9.30 and we were off! I started my watch at the gun and Forerunner Man when I got to the starting line which only took 25 seconds. The new grouping system worked amazingly well. I stayed over near the right hand gutter and had a reasonably clear run although we all came to a brief stop at the far side of the Kings Cross Tunnel where three lanes had been reduced to two. My first 1.2k to the far side of the tunnel was at 5:02/km pace which wasn't too bad.

Forerunner Man said the blue line to Bondi was 14.1km

The 5km mark at O'Sullivan Road came up in 24:10, just over 2 minutes slower than last year when I ran with Tanja and started with Jim White near the front row. I caught my cousin Don at the start of Heartbreak Hill. The kilometre to the top took 5:49. The Nike Frees were feeling really good and I reached the 7k clock in 35:14. My left hammy had been feeling bothersome but now I was confident of finishing so I stretched out a bit along the top.

Finally, down that beautiful hill with the sparkling Pacific Ocean in the distance. Along Campbell Parade, around the corner and a bit of a 'sprint' to the timing clocks. 66:35 was a bit ordinary as I'd been hoping to run 62 minutes but how could I feel disappointed on such a corker of a day? After the finish I had a brief chat to Aki (74:40) and Tesso (63:30). Then I bumped into cousin Don (70:22) and eventually found Gordon (64:21).

We walked up to the buses and arrived back at the Domain with the parking meter expired by 35 minutes but no ticket! Must have been our lucky day. It sure was. It was one of those days you felt privileged to be a runner and sharing the experience with 50,000 others. What made it even more special after I arrived home was a lovely email from Luckylegs who'd had the "very best time (of my life, not of the clock!) of any of my 17 C2S!!"

See you all again in 2006!

The Legend's contagious enthusiasm

I first met Keith Mayhew when I joined the Pennant Hills group for a light run a week before the 1997 City to Surf. He was excited! He chatted away continuously about the upcoming race [he would run 53:34], rivals he was aiming to beat and the old days. For Keith, the 'old days' happened a long time ago. He ran in the first ever City to Surf and is one of a handful of people who have completed every run.

Keith is a very accomplished distance runner with a City to Surf PB under 44 minutes for the 14 kilometre run. This year I ran with Keith and the Pennant Hills group before the Gold Coast Half Marathon. He was his same enthusiastic self, full of beans and excited about his goal of the 'Big Triple' in 2005. The 'Big Triple' is a sub-90 half marathon, a sub-40 10k and a sub-60 City to Surf. These are very respectable times, especially for a bloke who is 64 years old.

He didn't make the sub-90 at the Gold Coast but he's in great form and a sub-60 on Sunday looks very likely. When we were running through the bush at Pennant Hills I asked him once again about the 'old days'. He told me many stories. Like how John Andrews, on a training run, blew everyone away up the last big hill at Pennant Hills. The time when he ran an 'A-grade' 3000m at Bruce Stadium with Andrew Lloyd and Rob de Castella in the field and battled with a Canberra runner for second last place in 8:57.

I asked Keith how he trained back in the old days. Did he run twice a day? "I tried that but it was too much time away from home. I usually ran 20 kilometres through the bush every morning before work. On Saturday there'd be a cross country or track race. On Sunday it would be a 20 miler with another 10k in the afternoon." Along with his very impressive City to Surf results Keith was also an excellent track runner with PBs of 8:28 for 3000 metres and 30:19 for 10,000 metres.

All the best on Sunday Keith! Your enthusiasm is contagious and your lifetime of running and racing is a great inspiration.

Running to school - first report card

I've been trying to emulate Eliud for 5 weeks now so I thought I'd 'act the teacher' and write up a report card. Here it is:

Attendance - 7/10 [planned to run to and from 'school' 4 days out of 5 but didn't quite make it]
Creativity - 9/10 [found a number of different courses ranging from 6.7 to 10.3 kilometres and varying from 20 to 100% bitumen]
Neatness - 6/10 [my running form varied from a creaky, tired shuffle to a half decent impersonation of a runner]
Attentiveness - 5/10 [found out you can run with one eye shut but that is not the best way to catch up on missed sleep]
Efficiency - 8/10 [early days but I think my race at Goorooyarroo indicated a positive effect on my fitness]
Enjoyment - 7/10 [there is a unique satisfaction to be had from running to get somewhere rather than just running to 'train', although some of my runs home were very ugly shuffles counting down the minutes to when I could collapse on the couch]

Overall - 70%.
This week I'll make some changes. The runs 'home from school' have been quite tough because they happen after running 7 or 8 kilometres in the morning followed by reasonably physical work for 8 to 9 hours. Here is my plan for this week... Monday, bike to school, Action bus home, run at Parliament House. Tuesday, run to school, run home if I feel okay or else Action bus. Wednesday, run to school, run home. Thursday, run to school, run home if I feel okay or else Action bus. Friday, run at Lane Cove in the afternoon. Saturday, not much. Sunday, City to Surf!

Emma Murray: Fastest Enigma in the South

I was listening to ABC 666 radio last Monday morning. Tim Gavel was chatting about the weekend's sport. I was hoping for something memorable like 'Queanbeyan's Mark Webber has won the German Grand Prix' or 'Grant Hackett has broken Ian Thorpe's 800 metre world record'.

What Tim said made me stop work and listen: "... and in France, Canberra's Emma Murray has won the World Long Distance Mountain Running Championships". Wow! How brilliant is that! "By 18 minutes from Austria's Marion Kapuscinski". Eighteen minutes. It's the Six Foot Track all over again, but this is the World Championship!

I found out later in the day that Emma had defeated some very well credentialed athletes. Such as Isabelle Guillot who has been World Mountain Running Champion on four occasions and Chantal Dallenbach, the French marathon record holder with 2:28:27 in 2002. That same year Dallenbach also ran 32:51 for 10km and 71:33 for the half marathon.

Emma is the definitive 'unknown runner' who has stunned the world's best mountain runners on one of the toughest courses in the French Pyrenees. The Marathon du Vignemale climbed 2000 metres over the first 21 kilometres. For those who have run the Six Foot Track that's over twice the climb from the Cox's River to the Pluviometer but on a very rocky track rather than a smooth dirt road.

Emma has no traditional running background such as cross country runs, track races or fun runs. She was a bush walker who developed into an orienteer and 6/12/24 hour rogainer. She only joined an athletics club this year. The first 'traditional' race I remember her doing was the 2004 Brindabella Classic which she won easily at an average pace of 5 minutes per kilometre. After that performance I predicted Emma would win the 2005 Six Foot Track 45km Marathon with 'daylight' coming second. This happened.

I was thinking about Emma's amazing performance again on Saturday when I was running up the only significant hill on the Bush Capital 16km bush run. This hill climbed a meagre 152 metres over 3 kilometres. I even walked a couple of times on the steep rocky parts. If this hill had climbed to twice that height it would have been the same grade as on the Marathon du Vignemale. Then you would have to keep on going for another 18 kilometres! It makes me tired just thinking about it.