Next Ultramarathon

After a brief two week hiatus from running I have managed to log two triple figure training weeks in the build-up to my next Ultra.

I have entered the Great Barrier Reef Ultra which is a 74km trail run from Cairns to Port Douglas on the 12th November. This will be my 5th Ultra this year and although it is shorter than my last race, it will present me with the new challenge of running in the tropical far north of Queensland where I will have to battle high temperatures and high humidity, as if running 74km was not enough.

My first week back was a bit of a shock to start. As soon as I started my first run on the Monday, I was limping and had pains in my upper legs and groin. I wondered if I should stop in case I injured myself. I decided to carry on and limped on for a few hundred metres until I started to loosen up and could run freely. I guess it was my body's way of saying, that will teach you to rest!! I took this week pretty easy with nothing too strenuous or long to ease my way back into full training.

Weekly totals:

Mon - 10.10km - 51mins 17secs - flat to undulating
Tue - 18.25km - 1hr 30mins - mainly flat
Wed - 10.10km - 50mins 13secs - flat to undulating
Thu - 19.10km - 1hr 52mins 20secs - run up Turkey trail with Sean + road
Fri - Rest day
Sat - 35.10km - 3hrs 06mins 52secs - long run with group + extra
Sun - 10.10km - 52mins 50secs - run with friends dog, flat to undulating

Totals - 102.70km - 9hrs 03mins 33secs

I am very happy with logging over 100km for my first week back and it shows that I have not lost too much endurance. I feel that I did lose some conditioning but not enough to worry about and every run I felt stronger.

I have been busy with work recently and have been putting quite a bit of time into my assignments. In order to get a promotion at work I am required to do quite a bit of study and submit some essays. I should have done these last year and have missed out on many supervisor opportunities and more pay simply because I couldn't find the time. So after Glasshouse I decided to make time. It means that I have more commitments and need to juggle my time around but it will be worth it in the end.

My children Holly and Ethan have decided that they want to do some running as well. At 10 and 5 years old respectively, I have let them come to this decision on their own. I don't want to be one of those parents who continually push their children so they can live out their own dreams through the achievements of their children. After a couple of weeks of asking to go for a run I took them down to the uni grass running track. We did some 100m run, 100m walk intervals as an introduction. They loved it. We ended up running for about 2km all up plus walking. We now run loops around the block from home which is about 1.13km. I keep a little log of their runs so they can be like dad. So far they run a full lap without walking then I take Holly on a lap by herself and then take Ethan out for another 750m or so. I bought them some proper Asics running shoes as their school ones were a bit heavy. It is early days at the moment but I look forward to the day where the three of us can go out on a decent training run together.

Last week I increased my mileage a little bit more and aimed to bring back my hill runs on Tuesday and my 45km long runs on Saturday. I ran with a mates dog on Monday but rolled my left ankle as I tried to avoid being tripped up. The dog is quite a large German Sheppard and nearly succeeded in his quest to knock me over a couple of times. I didn't want to exhaust the dog too much so dropped him off at home after 6km or so and added some extra distance. My left ankle was a little sore but did not swell up too much and I could still run on it.

On Tuesday I headed out to hit my usual Mt Archer hill session. Sean and Jason (HRE directors) had gone out earlier that morning and set the times to beat. I ran an undulating 5km before passing the stone sign that marks the beginning of the 5km climb up the road to the summit. I had last run this course a couple of weeks before Glasshouse in a personal best time and I was interested in how I would go. It was getting quite hot by the time I started climbing and couldn't walk even if I wanted to (Sean and Jason didn't). I managed to keep all my kilometre splits below 7 minutes and got to the top lookout (where the antenna's are) in 32mins 51secs, just 3 seconds outside my PB.

During my run on Wednesday I noticed that I was feeling some DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) in my quads from the downhill the day before. I ran to and from the group run on Thursday and had Friday off to help with recovery. On Saturday I had to get up at 4:45am to start work. It was my 4th early start in a row and my 6th of 7 shifts in a row last week. That meant that I started my long run at 3pm feeling very tired with the mercury reading 33.8 degrees. Thankfully the humidity was relatively low (22% or so) as I strode off to begin my 45km. I probably ran too quickly to start with as the high temperature and high winds meant that I was using more energy to cool my body and propel myself forward than usual at the same pace. I kept to my tried and tested fuelling schedule but by the time I got to about 25km my legs and body were very tired and I needed to stop to stretch out and rest my legs for a bit. I was feeling very sore in the legs and feet in particular and it reminded me of how I felt in the later part of the Glasshouse 100. I had a little debate with myself again, ala Glasshouse, about whether I was doing too much too early and if I should head home instead. I thought about my DNF and decided that this would be a true test of my mental strength, to keep going when all I wanted to do was stop. I kept on running but had to make a few more stops to ease my sore legs and feet. I managed to knock out the 45km but it was a difficult challenge and one which I thought I would not face again until the upcoming 74km race. I recovered quite well and strangely enough ran really strong and fast with the group on Sunday knocking out 12km at an average pace of 4:52min/km.

Weekly totals

Mon - 12.63km - 1hr 02mins 31secs - flattish run
Tue - 25.25km - 2hrs 10mins 07secs - hills with Mt Archer
Wed - 12.55km - 1hr 02mins 56secs - flat to undulating run
Thu - 25.55km - 2hrs 09mins 32secs - run with RRR group + to & from
Fri - Rest day
Sat - 45.10km - 3hrs 55mins 26secs - long run, mainly flat with undulations
Sun - 12.05km - 58mins 34secs - flat group run

Totals - 133.14km - 11hrs 19mins 09secs

The next couple of weeks will be about building up my strength by doing more hill work throughout the week and adding in extra distance to each run. I'm not sure if should run on Friday or have a rest day so I will play it by ear and see how I feel. I am also trying to run during the hotter times of the day to try and get used to running in the heat and humidity in preparation for the Port Douglas race. At this stage I plan on taking the train up to Cairns as it is over 1000km away and I can at least sleep and walk around on the train.

I would also like to say a huge congratulations to my friends that raced over the weekend in various races. Marty had an outstanding race at the Golden Hills trail marathon in San Francisco taking 2nd place overall and winning his age-group. Marty, you are in awesome form and I know you will do very well at The North Face 100 next May. At the Hawaiian Ironman, Deano knocked out an impressive 9:45 and Margo easily went under 12 hours for her first outing in Kona, well done on your awesome performances (looking at the coverage and hearing the stories bring back strong memories for me of the 2000 Hawaiian Ironman, which still rates as one of my greatest accomplishments). Graeme (Crowie), Leigh, David and Melissa all went down to Melbourne and ran in the full and half marathons in what was not the easiest of days by all accounts, well done to you all and I hope you are proud of another great achievement and enjoyed yourselves in the process.

I will try and be a bit more regular with my posts and put one up each week but with one more assignment to go I won't be promising anything. I have put up a few posts prior to this one, with links to the Garmin Connect pages for my long run on Saturday and the file for my run at the Glasshouse 100, enjoy.

Keep running.

P.S. Go the All Blacks!!