Little things

I took a gentle spin through the city this evening to get the lead out of my legs. Then I went fishing, to get the lead out of my head.

I've been thinking today about little things. Little things that made my day.

Like the owner of the local cafe loading me up with Christmas cakes and goodies as thanks for being a good customer (Thanks Matt - Sherbet is the best!).
Like having a sparkly clean kitchen to start the new week (It's been steadily downhill till a burst of domestic energy struck this afternoon).
Like getting a kiss from the kid last weekend (an out-of-the-blue thanks-for-being-my-dad little kiss that has stuck with me all week).
Like having a runner call out "five fingers!" on the road (positive contact on the road makes one feel a little better about the ridiculous running style dictated by aforementioned Fingers).
Like being tapped on the finger by a little pendant hanging from my handlebars during a ride as a reminder of special people (a keepsake from IW).

Like a sunset like this.

IW is running a half marathon today in Borrego Springs, California. I stole these two pictures from the race website - it's a small town on the edge of the desert. You can see what gets me going about these places - the lumps! Real mountains! Proper size!

I'm not sure that it gets cold enough in Borrego Springs to snow, but a little further south in Santa Fe, New Mexico, my old friend Frank posted a photo of what I'm hoping is his backyard.

Photo stolen from Frank's album - wow!

All this looking at lumps and cold stuff is new and exciting, but it's a sideline - IW is running the half Mary! Better still, she's cranking out a century (100 mile = 160km) ride tomorrow! Sheesh.
In the spirit of shared experiences. I decided to scrape though the half distance this evening too, though I doubt it felt as pleasant as it will for IW, nor do I reckon I would have any chance of pulling off a century tomorrow.
Coincidentally, another old friend from Brisbane, Conrad, who now resides in Mandurah, is calling for a visitor, so what better way to get the century in with a pleasant food stop at half way!

Tonight's run was my longest since Berlin, and the first long stretch in the Fingens, too. My feet are a bit slapped about now, but nothing that won't be gone by morning. It eels good to be out on the road, and tonight, unlike last night, did  feel like a bit of a release. Long runs seem to fortify the ego sufficiently to step up to the world again and have another crack.

A bridge too far.

Running is meant to be about a momentary escape, a bit of therapy time where the physical demand can block out other stuff. Right?

Not Today.

I ran tired, hungry and angry, and each of these sensations were acutely enhanced as a result of the time on the road. The tired part will be rectified shortly after this blog entry. The hungry part has been fixed, courtesy of a huge bowl of pasta and veges. The angry part has dulled a little with time, exhaustion and  a recognition that I need to set a new goal.

So I did:  The LA Marathon, March 18th. One part of me is screaming at me for how far away that is, and the other is suddenly uneasy about how close. Again, it's a big vacation event, so time is not of the essence (though 3:00 to 3:15 will be a nice incremental step down from Berlin) - it's about spending time with IW, seeing a new city and enjoying it.

Tonight's run was the 13km Causeway loop. I ran in shoes, since the old Fingens have produced a huge blister between my left pinky toe and the next little one. I once again struggle with the barefoot / shoe dilemma for the marathon distance. After Berlin, I decided I would go for it and focus on barefoot, but tonight I reach the same point as in September, where shoes are simply faster and more comfortable for the long haul. In the next week I'll revise a training plan for the 11 or 12 weeks till then.
Tonight was meant to be 22km, but the Hungry part took care of that as I neared the Causeway Bridges. Now to take care of the Tired part..........

Freeways

Sunday arrived armed with a load of pent-up mental energy, and not enough physical activity in the week to blunt it.
I took the silver surfer (my single-speed messenger bike) out on to the path alongside the Kwinana freeway - running from Perth city south to Mandurah - full length about 90km.
Being adjacent to the freeway means the path is wide, flat, smooth, straight and generally completely uninteresting  apart from the lack of civilisation - perfect for a therapy session.

Getting on and sitting on a cadence for hours is somehow satisfying, but ultimately a bit painful. Rather than pulling off to Rockinhgam on the beach, I stayed on course and simply turned around at 60km (told you it was dull!). Happily, the constant headwind became my saviour to blow me home in 5:15 for the 120km.

The last 15km brought me undone, as first my right, then, a few minutes later, the left hamstring cramped severely. After a short roll in the undergrowth and whimpery / sweary noises, I was able to keep going, strangely feeling a whole lot better (like you do right after a good puke - remember?)

The timing of the cramps tells me two things - I outrode my fitness level, and my nutrition was poor. A banana, 2 espresso gels, a few shot blocks, 6 oreos and a carton of vanilla "up&go", plus 3 litres of water, didn't have what those muscles needed. Something to work on.

Oreos on the move.

Being so non-technical, the path offers a unique opportunity to spend considerable time updating facebook stati, sending messages and calling ones' mother. All rather amusing and, I'm sure, provided a truly thrilling kilometer-by-kilometer commentary of a spectacular sporting event for those on the receiving end.

Getting home and acquanting myself with the coolness of my floor gave me a whole new appreciation of how far 1200km is. The little bites remain satisfying...

OK. Gotta get back to it.

The time in Berlin with IW was fabulous - great rare time together in her natural habitat. Experiencing the Marathon was a hoot. 3:33 was no feat of speed, but it passed without discomfort and signalled a return to the distance. Man, it was amazing.

Too much has gone on since to catch up on in one post - no doubt the various twists and turns will become apparent as I meander on from here. IW has now returned to the US to get back to work, and my life has taken a distinct turn to look forward to joining her as the business, work and life falls into place. Berlin feels like years ago.

Wow.

I've become pretty lazy with so much going on (and I let myself get caught up in IW's off-season!), but I have an uncomplicated period of work ahead - ie just knuckling down - in which I can rebuild my barefoot feet and return to the process of running for fun.
Most recent running has been in shoes and Fingens - I haven't gotten out barefoot much since before the marathon, and I have regressed rapidly to soft, wussy little feet.

Out of the blue.

 Perth is now serving up loads of this - huge blue skies with a truly searing sun. Running during the day is pretty much out of the question now, if only for the sunburn, so early morning habits will have to kick in with the kid in tow.

More to come. This is just waking up.

DNF

Avid readers may note very little recent change in the dailymile totals. Apart from an inability to dislodge my lung from behind my tonsils, where it has been gurgling away for the last fortnight, I have aggravated my anterior compartment.
No, not the front of my house, my ankle. The anterior compartment  (of the ankle / knee / eye / at the front of any structure) is just a fancy name for the sheath that holds the tendons running up the front of the ankle onto and around the shin, controlling the upward flex of the foot and toes. When these tendons are sliding in a sheath made of sandpaper, it stings mightily.
I believe the cause was, innocently enough, a new pair of socks with a wide and rather tight band at the top, which I thought would feel nice and snug. These socks were thick, and I was also experimenting with my original Kinvaras (half a size too big) by pulling the laces real nice and tight. The combined result was a constant pressure on the top of my foot and tendon bundle quite above anything they usually experience. Magnify that pressure over 14,000 flexes during a jaunt around town, and whammo! agony.

this is what it feels like - thanks Photosynth!

The run where I did the damage was uneventful until the niggle started to become real pain. About this time, I stopped at an intersection. By the time the cars had passed and I stepped off, my ankle and shin was on fire. 6km home thereafter was not entirely pleasant.
I rested a couple of days, then tried again over 5km. The rest days made me feel like superman and I really booked it, but the pain kicked in again pretty quick.
Last weekend was the Perth Half Marathon (and WA champs). I warmed up from East Perth to Burswood and the ankle twinged, but the race-day adrenaline, I think, masked it sufficiently or me to think "Nah, I'm good".
I started mid-pack (850), which was a little too far back, but I slotted into 4 minute k's and nibbled my way forward. I could feel the ankle, but stretching my stride out and trying to maximise mobility seemed to ease discomfort (though a totally dumb thing to do, considering the injury - d'uh!). At about 10km, though, it just spasmed, and I jogged slowly back to the start/finish at about 14km. Depressingly, all the runners I had comfortably meandered by in the first 10k were now streaming by - no doubt chuckling at the skinny freak who started way too fast and burned up.
I don't remember a DNF in he past. maybe blocked them out, maybe never happened before.

Now, three days later, I can feel a tightness when I pull my toes up, but I'm ready to try a little run - probably a little barefooter, in order to eliminate landing slap and get the softest action possible. If the pain under my toes reappears, I'll be really, really pissed.

In the midst of this, I've been frantically busy trying to scrape together work to pay for the time I take off in Berlin. The extent to which running has been instantly forgotten in the face of late nights in the office and long days in the welding booth is more than a little disconcerting.

some of the stuff I help build - a series of maths puzzles tables at Scitech

Frankly, I'm falling apart. The joy of a tickly cough that disallows sleep for several nights in a row (even the neighbours were impressed with my clockwork regularity) is truly something to behold - and not, evidently, something to continue using power tools during (note new welding holes in work shirts and multiple bashed / stabbed fingers.)

Interestingly, this whole episode of experimenting with speed and shoes and discovering injuries (though not related to the shoes), has again made me question why I started (and started enjoying) barefooting - not only would it eliminate this issue of  gear-related variation, but it was adventurous and just a little bit dangerous. I have, back in shoes, become immediately obsessed with speed and race performance again. Not necessarily a bad thing, but worth taking a moment to consider what's important. I won't make a judgement - not now anyway - I love both sensations, and I've made a deal with myself to find speed, so, on we go........

multicolored mayhem.

This last fortnight has been characterised by mucus, in many delightful shades.

I simply haven't been able to shake this cold, as it has travelled through my nose, head and lingered in my chest. I've gotten through the hard runs, though many of the recoveries have fallen off., thanks not only to the cold, but to a dramatic inability to get a good night's sleep and the need to get paid work in any form. In short, it's been a pretty hectic and messy time.

The runs that have gone through have, however, been good ones. Here's hoping that these big runs in the bush are making me strong - maybe it's working, because a normal 20km run now disappears without much notice. Speedwork is now pretty routine and the fast sessions are being absorbed without pain or soreness.
Excellent.

There's been two solid speedwork sessions since my last post - 8x1500m and 8x800m, both on the Burswood mile loop. These are now becoming entirely bearable sessions with a sound technique holding throughout all reps, at 5:40 and 2:40 respectively. Interestingly, these sessions, including the long warm up and return out to Burswood, become 23km and 17km in total. Running a 1:35 half-marathon as part of a speed session is quite pleasing.


The big Bibbulmun run for the week was 38km - this takes me beyond the Mundaring Wier, out to a nice little camping spot complete with parrots and the smell of BBQ sausages (extremely dangerous at the 20km mark!). This was in fact a great run, showing a whole new series of faces of the track, due to controlled burns and a period of rain.

Large areas of the start of the track have been burned.

The rain and storms have felled many big trees across the track.

Unfortunately for the Bibbulmun, the hardest section is the very first (and hence the very last) 5km of very rough, hilly country. At the end of a long run, this is really, really tough.
Learning from past mistakes , I took plenty of food and settled into a routine that seems to suit my stomach - water + whole food block (this lot were honey and nut) + clif shot block every 5km. At the 20km mark and 30km mark, I sucked down an espresso gel - I dearly love these little critters, but I suspect each time they give me a bit of a crampy tum for a period afterward - perhaps a bit too strong.
I have a batch of peanut butter, nuts and maple syrup run balls in the fridge now, so I'll see which ones fare best in the next few weeks of long runs.

To help with the food when I'm not wearing my trail vest (this one, from Nathan, which I love!),

I just jumped online and bought a SPIbelt (I was going to make my own in the office, but since I seem to have insufficient time to feed myself, I figure buying one was a smarter option.) This should carry a marathon's worth of food and taxi fare home from the 30km mark.

All this long stuff is giving me plenty of time to think about form and, dare I say it, shoes. I ran the track in my old Nikes, being broad, stable and well-loved. I've been wearing the Kinvaras for all the other stuff, and they are great, though I've been struggling for a few weeks with a "slappy" left foot - I can hear that my landings are uneven, and I get some shin soreness in my left leg, indicating that I am heelstriking excessively and slapping my toes down.
I began to suspect that the Kinvaras are half a size too big, letting me flop about too much, so I tried them with two pairs of thin socks - better! The lovely IW was good enough to rustle up another pair of Kinvaras for me, this time half a size down. I blooded these only today, and they are fitting the bill immediately as the "racing" shoe, needing only a very thin sock. I will get myself down to a running store (rather than the supermarket this time) and get myself a pair of proper cushiony socks to keep the older pair at peak comfort for all the ploddy stuff.

Racers.

6 weeks now till Berlin and 8 weeks till race day. Time with IW in her city will be a fabulous change of scenery, with plenty of rides and runs in the lead-up weeks. Can't wait.

9 weeks

This week marks 9 weeks till race day. All is going well thus far, with speed sessions becoming more routine and the focus now turning to major mileage. Each fortnight now sees the total increase by 4km, peaking at 48km in about a month.
Prior to this is the WA half marathon championships - should be a fun (and fast) day out.

Last night took me out for a cruisy city loop - I had to keep easing back, as the simple act of leaning forward starting bring up a smooth, hard pace which would've been a blast, but not productive at this time. Today was track day - quite a hot day, as opposed to wearing three shirts and a warm hat last night!
10 x 400m reps disappeared mercifully quickly, though they probably weren't all that fast.

A very interesting blog post popped up on runblogger today, examining criteria for successful transition to barefoot / minimal running. This made for entertaiing reading, as I fail one of the three and I'm a bit wobbly on one other. Maybe this reverse transition I seem to be enjoying right now is based on some dodgy genes...

The time investment in this training load is taking some toll at present on work, though not directly - rather due to my habit of sitting up late and not sleeping terribly well. sigh....
To remind me, here's a pic of my office, taken at the height of mess. This uses the iphone panorama app called photosynth, but I must say the results aren't as fancy as the old samsung.

The Orifice.

The hard way home

Today was long run day, so I mapped out a straight out-and-back course through the city and out the other side through Claremont. Easy.
It started pretty cruisy, helped by a modest tailwind breeze which quickly developed into a brisk wind and then a charming antarctic gale. This led to a 12km mental battle - I was running away from home, with a massive tailwind, with plenty of options to turn off and seek protection. Neglecting good sense, at 17km from home, I turned and shazam - there it was - freezing!

Thursday's half marathon time trial was hard, but nothing like today's grind. Tonight I am feeling rather damaged.
The total was 36km in 2:48, which (since the pace was steady) would give a 3:15 marathon. Doing the real deal at the pace of Thursday suddenly seems a very long way off indeed.

$1.20 per kilometer

Today IW is riding from Berlin to Leipzig - a friendly jaunt of 170km. Not wanting to be left out, I finished work assembling a table full of eyeballs (yes I do) and packed the bike with a plan to crack my virginal imperial century.

Not to repeat the mistakes of the past, I took extra everything - battery, food, water, reflective gear, warm clothes - and set off, falling into a very comfortable rhythm as the sun went down. I decided to take the flat, smooth (and dull by daylight) freeway bike path to Rockingham then Mandurah, if all was going well. Though I didn't sleep well last night, I was feeling remarkably fresh, and figured on 6 hours for the full trip. The wind had died away by the time I left, so 28-30km/hr was achievable.

Until 38km.

Not just a puncture - a slash. My rear tyre was cut up the sidewall to almost the midline of the tread. This tyre was relatively new, and couldn't see anything sharp on the path in the twilight. So I had the option of MacGyver or a phone call - I took MacGyver and fashioned a patch out of a piece of soft bark and a folded over ziplock bag (the little zippy bits were nice and strong across the cut), put just enough air in to keep my rim off the road, and nursed it home.

While it was disappointing to only make 75km out of the century (hence the $1.20 - it was a $100 tyre - just let me be dramatic, OK?)), it was getting bitterly cold. Next time, maybe next week, I'll put on one more shirt and carry a spare tyre.
Being out in the dark, seemingly very very alone, was actually quite pleasant. Very quiet and serene, ticking over the rhythm. As Phil Liggett would say "tapping out the pace".

This sees the end of a pretty successful week. Tuesday's speedwork was a good one and Thursday saw a half-marathon time trial exactly on prediction (1:25). Things are going well, with recovery and absorption of these workouts perfect.

The sharp-eyed will notice that I removed "I plan to run the marathon barefoot" from the blog header. I did this for two reasons: I seem to run much much faster in shoes (Kinvaras) and I have been battling with an odd pain behind the toes on my left foot anytime I run in Fingens or bare, but not in shoes. Thus, if it's faster and painless, there's not much of a choice.


Todays ride was made possible by most of IW's cold weather riding clothes (yep - they mostly fit). Heading out in Perth winter is proving to be quite an adventure for a sub-tropical lad, and not all bad.

An expensive day out, but a good day nonetheless - and I still got to have my espresso gel - worth getting cold for.

Escape to the bush

Today I needed to go bush - the Bibbulmun beckoned, since it hurt me so bad last time. What a difference water makes...

It's been a solid couple of weeks with good hills and excellent recoveries. The Garmin graph from the hills last week was a cracker - I needed a "big" hill, so, naturally I chose the Kalamunda Killer. This gave 50m climb over each 500m interval, so it hurt like hell.

So things are going well.
Today's run showed me the different faces of the Bibbulmun - nice to look a round more this time rather than be terrified of losing the trail and wondering if I would die of dehydration.

Downhills are Uphills on the way back...

Unusual open section of the track

Mostly this - gravel trails

A 2km smooth section - great for both down and uphill.

Reward - the Mundairing Wier

The temperature drops with the sun

The only problem today was the temperature. The day started quite warm - the first without constant rain for 10 days. Running was warm, even hot, but when the sun disappeared , the temperature plummeted and my hands immediately started to freeze. When the sun finally dropped behind the hills, it got really chilly.
The Garmin let me down agan today, with the battery dying before I even got started - really wanted to see the elevation and heartrate graphs for the whole track.

Nutrition for this run was 3 x clif shot bloks, 1 x pineapple GU and one of my favourite espresso hammer - yummo!

I know I'm near the ends of the track when people appear on the track - Danish walkers in huge boots, two hats and ski poles or families with babies in backpacks. Another surprise was this apparition, about 6km from the finish - these guys looked like the best way home.

The Lanterne Rouge

I am discovering that the Kinvaras are a little too big - I'll get half a size down if I get more, since I have a bit too much lateral movement causing some rubbing under the big toe.

Hallucinating - looking down to see a runner!

The only downside of the day was a fall over an invisible log with only 500m to go - somehow I magically landed on nothing more than my right shoulder - a bit of mud and no pain!

All up - 32km (thereabouts) in 3:10, with plenty left. A grand day out.

getting serious

Forgive me blogspot, for I have sinned. It is 3 weeks since my last ramblings.....

So, some stuff has happened - most notably, IW came back for another visit, and that meant enormous amounts of running, food and sleep have been passing through the system. Amazing how having another "athlete" (parenthesis used against myself, mind) in the house focuses all the mundane activities on getting training, recovery and the mundane stuff done!  It also helps if the interloper is inordinately well-organised.

Speedwork has re-started after just under 9 years' absence. Ouch. I have also made the startling discovery of how bloody far a mile is. A kilometer is manageable. A mile is just too darn far. Every other week has mile intervals in the program and they really, really hurt. They're not meant to, but they do.

Lots.

And the "getting serious" part? Berlin. Marathon. September 25th. It's scenic, it's flat and it's fast. I have a place to stay with IW (not far from the start / finish), I have travel insurance in case I can't walk onto the airplane to get home, and I have speedwork, bulk miles and 12 weeks to get me there.

Thus, riding has dropped away in favor of a good program with weekly speed, hills and an increasingly long run. The long runs peak at 48km, which will satisfy the "double step up" philosophy. Already I am feeling the legspeed benefits of the intervals and hills, so Berlin should be a bunch of fun. I don't want to put an expectation on the race - there's too many people and too much to see to be focused on performance. This one is an opportunity to really get fired up for some smaller events with space to line up on the front row......

The return to intervals is giving me a shocking reality-check of pacing. I recall being young and bulletproof and peeling off 3:20min/km's in halfs still with a hint of a smile. Just getting there for one interval now is truly terrifying.
I am now faced with a new quandary - my little toe, in particular, gets bashed up wearing the Fingens at speed, and the increased mileage is leaving my bare feet feeling generally thumped. I'm now the proud owner of a pair of Saucony Kinvara2's - a shoe that is clearly faster than me, and while they do trick me back into old habits on my heels when I get tired, I get through with no surface damage. Clearly, I'm not ready for a barefoot mary, but I wonder if I can make it minimal? I need to make a firm decision soon, so I can stick to the program and not flip-flop with technique as I seem to do. A couple of weeks to decide...

The other learning experience will be related to nutrition - this will take up a lot of blog space in the coming weeks, no doubt.

Today's run was a new route, following an old railway reserve out of Perth up toward the hills. Being a railway, the trail is wide, open, smooth and almost imperceptibly but inexorably uphill all the way out of town. It's only a couple of percent grade, so gentle that it's really not a problem until the return leg. I discovered today that 15km steadily downhill becomes first fast, then really really hard, mostly on the lower back. Happily, midfoot technique stuck the whole way, so there was little impact and no sore quads, but the position of my water vest and the core-clenching made the last few km's pretty tough. 31km in about 2:20. (About, because the bloody Garmin battery crapped out partway and I really wanted to see the return leg speed!).

There's tunnels at Swanview, which'll be fun!

And this was at the start! Note stolen IM hat - what a tosser!

Travelling this week back to my hometown of Brisbane - a few gentle runs will be a lot of fun back in the old haunts, in amongst a mountain of work.

confined space

This picture summarises the condition of my brain right now...
The excuse of "being busy" doesn't really cut it for my blogging gap - I've had the time, I just haven't had enough mental energy to type a reasonable sentence.

In an effort to earn sufficient money to feed The Kid, I've taken on a bunch more work - a couple of new clients and two days a week in a workshop in the city. This is bringing in some much-needed top-up funding, but is stretching me way thin - almost transparent, in fact.

In a workshop with proper-sized machines!

You may also notice a change to the blog header - given the mess since my achilles were playing up at the start of the year and the topsy-turvy last month or so, I've admitted to myself  I'm not likely to be ready for a marathon in Perth in August, so I've re-evaluated and re-set the program. There's 20 weeks in the program, and I was looking for a suitable race. With IW in Berlin (and the Berlin marathon sold out almost immediately), I have an added incentive to make some bucks and have a go at the Cologne Marathon and get a little European holiday at the same time.

The Perth events will still get a look in for at least the half-marathons, and maybe the full if I am surviving the program that far along. I suspect it'll take me two or three marathons to find the speed I want. It'd be a hoot to run in Europe.

A bit of extra motivation has come recently from a new toy, and the return of speedwork to the program. The new toy is a Garmin 305 (borrowed from IW), which provides a good view of just how runs are going - it is great to re-educate my head and legs to recognise real race paces. An amazing little gadget - fiddling with the output graphs is good fun.

intervals graphing - pace and heartrate outputs (I chose one that looked fast!)

IW is racing IronMan Texas as I write this - live updates are streaming through and they've just come out of the water. Immediately after the race, IW jumps on a plane and drops by for recovery in Perth. Thank God she's small - post-ironman origami in an airplane seat would be agony. Can't wait to have a training partner again!

Some interesting advances with the barefooting, too. I've figured out how to make it fast, but not yet fast enough. As a get close to 4min/k's, I start to get ragged and rough up hotspots on my feet quite quickly - twisting and toeing-off on takeoff. Consequently, IW is kindly bringing me a pair of saucony Kinvaras (see runblogger's review here) - these are a minimal rop racing shoe, which should get me over that mental block of going hell for leather over any surface. The Barefoot forums continue to support the direction that I'll get as fast as I like if I persist, but I need to go a bunch faster yet (I want to get down to consistent 3:20min/km!). To do this, I can keep the midfoot float that I've grown to love, but with the great stretch that legs like mine allow.
Let the experiment continue....

time off

This week was time for a holiday - me and the Kid in Albany (emu Beach) with friends. Plenty of time for long runs on the beach, following the paths through the national parks......

Then the fishing got in the way. So I didn't run at all, except after a football or chasing the kids. A wonderful time was had by all, with plenty of adventure (starting immediately with a non-waterproof tent), some great fish, beautiful and powerful beaches and landscapes and a great time relaxing in the campsite.

Natural Bridge - Fools included

Salmon Holes - the image doesn't do justice to the color of the water...

Flounder - my first for the trip.

In my preferred habitat

Is the Kayak still there?

The gap panorama

flat century

What better to do on a holiday Monday than to spin down the freeway. The plan was to make it all the way down to Mandurah, following the Kwinana freeway, but I left too late, so had to settle with Rockingham.
The path along the freeway is truly glorious - dead flat, super smooth, quiet (only passed a half-dozen other people in 3 hours) and, if there's no wind (like today) Fast!.
All the way to the Rockingham beach strip is about 112km, with the full run to Mandurah more like 170km.

The singlespeed sits very comfortably at 29km/h at a cadence I can keep up happily, so it was a great run. The only downside of this ride is that there is no climbing, so no descents = no rest. I got just under 4 hours of fairly intense spinning.

Meandering through the Kwinana Industrial area on the way out led me to this sight: I waited for some time for it to move like the giant robot in "The Incredibles", but no such luck.

Stolen from The Incredibles

Quick, call Frozone!

Though a ride like this could be seen as fairly dull, the monotony of the cadence and terrain gave me a good opportunity to fine-tune my gear - a few millimeters adjustment on my cleats relieved the pins and needles I've been troubled by in my feet, and incremental adjustment of my saddle is helping the sore spot I build up on my backside (seems my pelvis might be placed not-quite-straight). At the end, there's always a reward at the end :

City from Mt Henry Bridge - 20km to go.

I took this photo as I put on my jacket - the temperature plunged to a blistering 19 degrees C! - and the guys just below me on the sand pulled in a brace of very nice looking Bream as I paused.

Rides like this require a certain luxury of lifestyle that allow blocks of time to be devoted to "going for a ride". I compounded this luxury today by paddling on the Canning River with Chris. Right in the middle of the city, this is an amazingly quiet and beautiful piece of the world. Again, dolphins were splashing about as we went past - surely this is a healthy system!

Chris on the Canning River

Noticed I'm still in love with the panorama feature on the phone?

running with dolphins

A cool rainy afternoon made for perfect conditions for a long slow run.
I set out barefoot, but when a sudden downpour hit just as I reached the city, the slipperiness on the path made my feet extremely tender - on with the Fingens. Seems from this point, the tenderness didn't dissipate much and my form deteriorated with distance. Again the 10-15km limit on the VFF's seemed to kick in and the homeward journey from UWA was distinctly tedious. Total 27km - no time (but sloooow).

Happily, I had a friend - a dolphin moved along the river wall alongside for some time. Now this can't be something that happens everyday!

the borg and the burned toastie...

There hasn't been a great deal of running in this here running blog in recent times - the fear and loathing inspired by Sunday's run must be lingering.
A little barefooter (4km) with the Kid yesterday morning (I wasn't about to let her watch cartoons after she woke me up early!) helped get the legs back in running gear, but my feet were surprisingly tender, making a short run a somewhat painful affair. No rubbing, just tenderness, so not a result of poor form.

Motivation for running drops off when work picks up, then other bad habits creep in - this week, the salami sandwich at Milkd was The Borg (explanation here if you don't get the reference) - there was no way round it. Note the sneaky way the coffee always seems to accompany this fine specimen...

While getting comfortable spending money I don't have on food I can make at home (see below for clarification), I also ordered Barefoot Ken Bob's new book from Amazon "Barefoot Running Step by Step" - the forums are awash with praise and questions, so I had to see what the fuss is about. Most likely he says "just get out and have a go" - it's a cheap book, so maybe.......

This weekend is Easter, so there's a family picnic in place. As per (new) tradition, I dobbed myself in for a jelly - here is this occasion's offering - banana layers in mango jelly. If I can keep the Kid's fingers out of it till the picnic, it might be another success.

Oh, and the home made salami sandwich?  I burnt it.

And no, I'm not a Trekker.
Or a Trekkie.

back on the bike

The soreness from Sunday has started to abate, and my pee has returned from the color of weak coffee to normal. Neighbour wanted to ride, so off we went.
The first minute is always a chore, but then the early starts are just great. Instead of the long haul back from Freo, we decided to take a shorter, flat ride into the city, to UWA, out through Dalkeith until we got bored / tired. In the end, 15km came up right at the top of a hill in Dalketh, ad I don't think either of us were all that interested in climbing.

The roll home got me a bit excited, so I bumped up the cadence on the singlespeed to spin at 32km/hr (42/17 ratio) - this got a nice bit of burn happening, which eased all the lead out of Sunday's legs very nicely.

Concerned? Me? no.....

The Japanese furniture shop on Whatley Ave has just opened their cafe, so the seal was broken on their coffee - very nice (though no mugs!).

All is well, back to normal. Hopefully Dailymile will have some interesting challenges coming up in may for a big running month......