Sunday, January 14, 2007

One down, two to go

I asked for three good weeks and the running fairy says she granted them to me. She has been good to her word for the first one. After the 16km on Friday I had a nice 12-k run yesterday morning at mainly steady pace, but I also wended my way to my favourite 350-m hill and did six repeats. Instead of running up really hard and jogging slowly back down, I ran up at about tempo pace and then turned and ran back down fast and recovered at the bottom. Tokyo has 5 km of downhill at the start, you see, so I figure that some fast downhill running in the legs won't go astray.

Today I went to Yoyogi Park and ran 36 km in 3:03:15. There were some slow stretches in there disguising the substantial portion late in the run at under 4:40/km pace, and even a good bit at sub 4:30/km pace. Of course this is all pretty pedestrian compared to what some people do on their days off.

Still, that gave me 108 km for the week. Nothing to complain about for a broken down old man who only has one leg.

After the run we had a very enjoyable (read boozy) lunch at La Verdy in Shinjuku to celebrate the 53rd birthdays of my two goodest friends, Colin and Gareth. Happy birthday fellas!

4 comments:

Clairie said...

That is a decent week of training Stephen. Can't wait to see the next two weeks. Watch that downhill running doesn't aggravate those legs.

In regards to Carole, I would say any suburb that is within 15km from the CBD is a good one. There are running clubs that meet in the suburbs as well as the ones that meet in the morning.
Our public transport system is not that great so getting a bus to training in the early hours is unlikey to happen. I would recommend getting a place that suited her work and lifestyle and then we can tell her what running groups are in that location.

Even working close to city it can make a big difference if you work at Milton (or the fringes of the CBD) and yet live south - it means bumper traffic at peak hours.

If she loves swimming and gym also and wants to be near those type of facilities....ah it is endless.

I know that CR Puntermatt (Matt Phillips) has Japanese boarders at his house. I don't know how many or if he has vacancies but perhaps that is another starting point.
Feel free to drop me an email Carol to ask any questions:

queenslanders@bigpond.com.au

Anonymous said...

Steve, I'd be interested in that 350m hill of yours. Whereabout is that? And well done on the 36k - not sure though where you get the motivation from to do this in Yoyogi koen... that must be something like 20 laps! Ingo

2P said...

Nice race specific training Steve - just over a month to go ;-)

Ewen said...

If you had a couple of days off like that you could hit 108k in 3 days! Although I'm not sure the 40min/km hill would do much for your race pace.

Glad it's hanging together Steve.