Monday, February 21, 2005

Risking a Landslide

On Saturday I had a feeling of trepidation on waking as I wanted to run for four hours. This would by two thirds of the time I’d need to complete the 6 foot track run.

The first 4.8 kilometres took the group to where the walking track comes up from the War Memorial. Some decided to do a shorter run while Steve, Mark, Chris, Carol Baird and I headed off up the zigzag track to the summit of Mount Ainslie.

Then it was down the steep rocky track to the power lines where we chatted to Carol Harding who was walking (recovering from a nasty knee infection). Steve then took us over every possible hill for the rest of the run. Including the rocky Trent’s grave hill, the Mountain Champs monster where you risked causing a landslide if you disturbed the wrong rock, down the zigzag, up to the saddle then the undulating track high above Campbell Park.

We had covered 22 kilometres when we arrived back at Molonglo. The others decided to start their picnic as they were running Mount Tennant the next day. I had a major mental struggle deciding to continue with my planned run around the east and central basins of the lake.

After a few minutes shuffling I was OK and for this flat section ran about six minute per km pace until 30 kilometres ticked over on the Forerunner. It was now quite warm, probably 26 degrees and despite having drunk 3 water-bottles I wasn’t feeling that great. When we’d started at 7am it was 17 degrees and overcast. I decided to ‘race-walk’ the last 5km back to the car. This worked well although the pace per kilometre was only about 8:40. The average pace per kilometre was 6:46 for the 35.2 kilometres.

I was very happy to arrive back at the car feeling tired but otherwise OK. Took off the shoes and treated the legs to about 10 minutes of cool lake water. Beautiful!

I was a little confused by this training run. The 6 foot track is 45 kilometres with not so many uphills in the first 15k but a monster long hill in the middle. I felt like I could have walked another 10k over rough ground in 2 hours which would be 45k in less than 6 hours. I shouldn’t think about it too much! We’ll see on the day.

2 comments:

Clairie said...

Wow some big weeks recently. I wish you all the best for the big run this week. Hope your consistent training brings you the results you are chasing.

PS. I have a Suzuki GSX750F. Great bike!

Unknown said...

Sometimes you mention locations that bring back childhood memories: Mount Ainslie, we used live near there & we 3 kids used climb to the top & pick mushrooms on the way!!

You had a very good run, m'thinks & glad not to be the only one having major mental struggles yesterday...but "don't think about it too much"!

Guess what I saw parked outside the supermarket today?...........
.... a 1400!!! Very tempted to hop on, but a bit too sore to straddle it! In fact, the only position I'm comfortable in is lying down & even then I resemble a 'wanton Chickybabe' awaiting her next customer!!

PS: On 6ft day, look up for a second & you'll see Chickybabe flying over, willing you on!