Socceroo fever and a progressive run

Wow, what a blast that was getting up at 4:00 to watch the Socceroos this morning! What an emotional rollercoaster.

And thank goodness for our new building having NHK's free-to-air satellite service, BS. We've lived here six months and I only just realized we have an antenna connection to a BS satellite dish on the roof! This was great news after I discovered that BS would be the only broadcaster of the Australia-Croatia game. Now, just having the connection isn't enough; you still need a decoder in your TV or VCR. Slight panic, then, phew! Our TV has one. So it did require some sweating and grunting to move the TV and VCR and swap the antenna cable, but me and the three boys were ever so glad we did. C'mon Guus, take us all the way! (And we had to watch it without waking the dear old mum. We cheered--just a little bit--when Australia scored its second goal, and she reckons at that moment she dreamed she was being attacked by a pack of wild monkeys! Work that one out!)

At half time I changed into my running gear and, completely energized, got out the door as soon as the game was over. I ran three by 3.3 km loops in 16:04, 14:57, 14:13. That's a per km pace of 4:52, 4:32, and 4:18 with average heart rate of 141, 151, 158 (76%, 81%, 85% of HRmax). Total time of 45:14 for the 9.9 km. That's quite a nice little run.

I also ran 14 km total on Wednesdy night, with 6 km of intervals. Our leader Bob had set a new workout of 2000m, 1000m, 2000m, 1000m with the 2000s run at less than flat out , then a short break and the 1000s run flat out. The times for each rep were: 7:41, 3:32, 7:38, and 3:39. That was also a nice little session. Cleaned a few cobwebs out. Back at the sento I was surprised to discover that my weight had risen 2 kg since last week ... did it take that long for all the Australian food (lemon meringue pie and custard tarts) to take hold?

Answers to a couple of questions in comments

Have you done any ultras before? (Tesso): No. But it is the next logical step in my progression as a runner, I believe. It is a question of finding the right one. I want to dabble more in off-road stuff to take a look inside myself and find whether that is something I want to be involved with ... or whether I am just a dandy-boy road runner. I know that I have gone pretty much to the limit of my development in most regular road race distances, so I have to find new challenges to hold my interest.

Is there a link to the [71-km] race (Clairie): Here we go. It is in Japanese, but you can see the course profile (200 m up to 1500 m) and some pictures. I think it starts at 13:00  and extends into the night. Looks daunting.