Is anybody out there? The title for this blog post comes from the coaching philosophy of Tom 'Tinman' Schwartz. Tom tells a story about building a snowman as a boy and rolling a ball of snow for the base of the snowman. His mum calls him in for lunch; he returns and is disappointed that his ball won't budge from the frozen ground. The first 'rule' of good distance running training is to 'keep the ball rolling' — avoid superman workouts that might leave you too sore to complete the following day's training. Build day upon day, week upon week, year upon year and your running will improve. Interruptions from injury and illness will be minimized.
My ball of snow has been carefully rolling since the hamstring injury which followed the City to Surf last August. Weekly distance has been hovering between 50 and 60 kilometres. Races have been few and far between with large fun runs cancelled although there are plenty of local events (limited to 100 starters at the moment). No parkrun 5k runs which is a bit sad.
The racing goal this year is to run as much under 25 minutes for 5k as I can. The one 5k I've raced was the YCRC Runners Shop 5k (road) on 18 July, finishing 50th in 25:38. The field was composed of mainly fast juniors (the winning times were 14:52 and 18:32). I was running alone very early on, with Speedygeoff disappearing in the distance to run a good 24:12 at the age of 72. It looks like parkruns won't start up again until next year so my 5k races will be on the track from October or on the road at the weekly 5k Customs Joggers run. I hope you are all well — I'll catch up on blog reading over the coming weeks.
Geoff with some of the lunchtime Speedygeese runners
