Oops

This week has been a bit of a mixed bag really. I made a miscalculation with my training and ended up with 83km in the first four days of this week. This normally is not much of an issue as I quite often hit 90km by the end of a Thursday. I had also planned to run 10km on Friday and another 45km this Saturday with a projected weekly total around 150km, again volume that I can ordinarily cope with. The problem is that Saturday would mark the two weeks to go milestone, a time when I should be tapering off the training and trying to freshen up for the race. I knew the dates and thought that I had planned correctly but heading out to meet my friend Sean on Thursday, I realised my error as I ran on tired legs at 4:30am.

To ensure that I wouldn't be standing on the start line feeling over-cooked I did the sensible thing and took Friday and Saturday off as rest days. Work has been very busy recently and the break from training helped me to overcome the general tiredness I was feeling.

I had good solid runs this week continuing on with some undulations and my final stretch up Mt Archer. I was not as fast as last week but still a solid effort. I will now reduce the volume even further and take extra rest days in the next two weeks to help with recovery.

I was originally going to travel to Cairns via train but after multiple warnings from lots of people I booked flights instead. The prospect of a 20 hour approx train trip each way was not too appealing I must admit. I'm really looking forward to the race and catching up with friends in the Far North that I have not seen for almost two years. I also learned that Mike Le Roux has entered the race which is awesome. Mike won the Glasshouse 100 mile trail run in September, he is a phenomenal athlete and is aiming to compete in the Badwater Ultramarathon next year. Mike finished the Glasshouse 100 in a course record 15hrs 38mins (161.7km) where I took 17hrs 36mins to complete 127.5km, so it will be great to have someone of his calibre in the race (he is a local too), not that I will see much of him!!

I ordered my second pair of Hoka One One shoes this week as I have logged quite a few kilometres in my current pair of Bondi B's. Hopefully they will arrive this week so that I can break them in for the race. I believe I was the first person in Rocky to wear these 'different' looking shoes but I love them and I know Jason is now hooked on them as well. Who knows, by the time TNF100 comes around next May there might be a few more converts in Rockhampton.

Weekly totals:

Mon - 15.10km - 1hr 18mins 22secs - undulating run
- 2.05km - 14mins 43secs - run with Holly & Ethan
Tue - 28.50km - 2hrs 31mins 08secs - hill run up Mt Archer
Wed - 15.10km - 1hr 18mins 27secs - undulating run in heat
Thu - 23.14km - 2hrs 22mins 22secs - trail run with Sean in am
Fri - Rest day
Sat - Rest day
Sun - 16.80km - 1hr 26mins 04secs - mainly flat group run

Totals - 100.68km - 9hrs 11mins 09secs

Once I hand in my next law assignment I hope to put a bit more work into my next project, a guide that I am putting together to help my friends (and anyone else that is interested) in preparing for The North Face 100 next year. I have got the outline and most of the content sorted out and will start to put my ideas into written form shortly. If all goes well I hope to have it finished in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned and......

Keep running.