Bloggus variegatus

TELL 10 km 2010

2010-05-01T16:52:00.004+09:00

Despite saying and feeling with some conviction that I was not going to run hard today, in the end I did run pretty hard. Took off and was just going comfortably along and found the 2nd km was around 4:00 pace. That ended up being the fastest I would run, and most of the race I was going at about my former marathon race pace. It was hard. It was my present 10k race pace. And I ended up with a 42:32. This would be pretty close to a PW for the distance for me. Some guy had been sitting on my tail up the hill and coming towards the finish, and with about 100 m to go he passed me. I kicked down and was about to try and sprint to the line, and it hurt, and I only lasted a few strides and then just said "Ah, fuck off, have it mate!" It wasn't worth it. Nothing to gain, nothing to prove.

But on the up side, my legs felt fine. Arnaud in his comment to my earlier post is right; I have needed the time off to let my body recover. Ewen is right too. I am stuck in quicksand and need to really give myself a shake if I am going to get out of it. Not running used to be unbearable, but of late it has become not just bearable but easy. Too easy. Danger, danger, Will Robinson.

I must go for a run tomorrow.

The Running Doldrums

2010-05-01T07:53:00.004+09:00

I have a very serious case of the yips. The doldrums. Not running much and feeling less and less inclined to. A vague sense of, well, I should get back into it is all I can seem to muster.

Today I am off to run TELL, a 10-k charity race around the Imperial Palace. My sole motivation is that it will get me out of the house and into my running shoes. My third run in about 4 weeks. I don't know where it goes from here.

Tokyo Marathon 2010 - Photomagraphs

2010-03-09T23:01:00.002+09:00

Here's some bloody photos of me bloody mara-bloody-thon.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Don't trust your Garmin around tall buildings!

2010-03-02T22:19:00.004+09:00

This picture shows the first couple of km of what my Garmin captured in the Tokyo Marathon versus the actual course. The original explorable map can be viewed here on my RunningAHEAD log. Zooming to the start and turning on the satellite view will soon show just how many tall buildings there are around here-- it is Nishi-Shinjuku after all. From past experience running through this area I knew the GPS data would be dodgy. For that and other reasons I took all my laps manually. This was a good move as the splits were all over-estimated and the total distance something like 43.5 km. I manually adjusted the distances after uploading to my log. Just look at that shocker of a trace...it did get much better from about 4 km, but other bad spots can be seen on the map. Just thought that might interest some of the Garmin users out there.

Note: we are proud owners of a brand spanking new iMac. This screen grab was obtained and edited with Skitch, uploaded to the Skitch host and then dropped here. All very quick and painless. This was my test post.

Tokyo Marathon 2010

2010-03-01T10:37:00.003+09:00

Tokyo marathon really seems to be jinxed as far as the weather is concerned. Out of the four times it has been held, only one, in 2008, was run under good conditions. The first year, 2007, it was wet and cold, and last year was very windy with some rain thrown in for good measure. This year we were all watching the weather forecasts from a week out, and it looked promising as rain was forecast for Saturday but largely clearing by Sunday. As the day drew closer and the forecasts more reliable, the prospect of rain gradually increased. As this link shows, the period between 6 am and noon was in fact the coldest and wettest of the 24-hour period, and the temperature fell from 4.5 °C at the 9:10 am start to 3.1 °C at 11 am. That would explain the big plops of wet, slushy snow that started falling between 25 and 30 km.

So, it was a fun old day of being soaking wet and cold to the core for everybody. I'm sure that contributed to it being my personal worst result (for official races) of 3:13:16, but there were other factors too. My legs did not feel good right from the earliest stages. I probably started too fast for my fitness, being just off 3-hour pace. I knew it was risky, but I wanted to give myself a chance. There are two ways you can miss your target in a marathon: one is to go out too fast and fall into a heap, the other is to go too slow and never be able to make up the lost time. Running at between 4:20 and 4:15/km, I felt, was a reasonable compromise even though I wasn't as confident of my fitness as Ewen was. But by 10 km I knew it wasn't going to happen as feelings of fatigue started creeping through my legs despite sitting on a not-overly-aggressive 4:21/km pace (4:15/km is needed for a 3-hr marathon).

My pace had fallen to 4:31/km by halfway, by which time I knew it was going to be a game of survival. The rain wouldn't stop, I really felt cold and tiring, yet not from a lack of fuel. Ultimately, though, I think the main reason was a lack of fitness due to the inadequate training in February. The wet and cold played a role, but I just wasn't in shape to run that fast. Simple as that.

The crowds were great through the middle of the race from Nihonbashi to Asakusa and back. Saw lots of Nambanners through here and got plenty of "Ganbatte Namban" from strangers reading my singlet. (I was wearing a singlet over a T-shirt). The crowds were understandably much quieter than other years. They too were suffering in the conditions, and I wondered sometimes whether it was worse for them or us.

I had to have a plop-stop at about 33 km and lost about a minute with that. But then I was moving along pretty well. I sped up for a while but then had to settle for a strongish 4:45/km. I was still passing plenty of runners even at that pace and was going along painfully but happily at 38 km, thinking that all I had to do was hold pace to break 3:10. That would have been satisfying, all things considered. Then, right at about 39.8 km, a sharp pain shot through my left hamstring. It was the injury I'd been nursing since the start of February. It had been there in the background through the whole race, but never threatening to worsen or seriously affect my pace. But this brought me to a sudden, limping hobble. I stopped for a little to stretch and try to get it feeling better, and then took off again. I could run, but it seriously shortened my stride and had me just limping along. I had not long before passed and once and for all shaken off a runner from our club who I'd been "dueling" with for a while. But he soon came on by and that was the last I saw of him. Good luck to him. Soon after that I saw Bob cheering at the side of the road. I think he was telling me to hurry up. I yelled back, "MY LEG'S F#%&ED!" Anyway, I was resigned to my fate and realised that as long as I could run, I should do so and finish. I was still moving at an acceptable pace of 5:15 or 5:20/km, or something like that, but 3:10 was definitely shot. The final finishing straight to the goal took longer than any other marathon I've ever run. Jeez, just get here will you. And then, finally, it was over. 3:13:16.

As if to mock us, the weather came out bright and sunny in the afternoon. Still cold, though.

One good decision I'd made before the race was to turn off the auto-lap feature of my Garmin. I took splits manually whenever I noted a km marker. They were consistently long, and the overall length of the race was recorded as over 43 km. Naturally that also meant any pace readings were also over-estimated. People, don't rely on your Garmins too heavily!

Well, this post is quite long enough. I have no idea what I will be doing next, but the first priority is get my leg healthy again, so hard training certainly won't be featuring on this blog again any time soon.

Yeay, my banner is back!

2010-02-24T00:15:00.003+09:00

Thanks Hannah. Glad I didn't nag you ;-)

Well, Tokyo Marathon is coming up this Sunday Feb 28th. I won't have a very good one despite having a fantastic month of running in January. The problem was I overdid it a bit and ended up with some inflammation type pain in my left hamstring and knee area. It has settled down somewhat with several weeks of reduced mileage, but my fitness has slipped and the leg problem is still hanging around somewhat. I had been on track to go close to a 3-hr race, but now it is impossible to say. I may still pull out a 3:05, or it might go pear-shaped. Only time will tell. But Tokyo is a fantastic event to be a part of, so even if I end up limping the second half, wild horses won't stop me lining up on Sunday. Yippee kai oh kai yay!!

Ho Ho Ho ...

2009-12-30T00:17:00.002+09:00

Well, someone certainly got a great Christmas present. Congratulations Scott!

As for me, it is just steady as she goes. Battling the ravages of time, trying to shake off niggles, which I am beginning to think at my age are a permanent companion to be tolerated, not an unwelcome guest who is at least eventually going to leave.

Been getting in a few nice runs lately and today did 17.5 km in 1h 21min at a heart rate of 142 average, which is not too bad, really. Especially as I pulled up feeling reasonably fresh and without any major new injury.

Another big bit of news is that I got a Garmin 405cx. Nice bit of kit! I love the ANT+ auto upload and being freed from having to take splits and worry about measuring the length of the course I run. Having a reliable heart rate monitor again is nice. It is helping with my motivation, which is definitely a Good Thing.

Ohtawara Result: 3:06:58

2009-11-24T16:47:00.004+09:00

Full splits at my log.

My first marathon was 3:06:06, on this course, so that is one of the benchmarks I would very much like to have beaten. But I didn't. The very most I dared hope for was sub-3:05, but I didn't really think it was achievable, and it turned out I was certainly right about that. The disappointment--satisfaction mark was 3:10, and I was comfortably under that. No PW this time. So I am happy.

I ran pretty strong right throughout and only had a 1-minute fade in the second half. Finished with legs screaming and breathing through the roof, so I cannot say I left anything out on the course. I suppose the best way to sum it up was as a no-fuss, business-like performance.

And now I just discovered that I made it into the Tokyo Marathon on the second draw of the lottery. I am chuffed about that because, to be honest, I really couldn't see myself training on without something like that to aim for.

Cheers for the good wishes!

Re: Ohtawara

2009-11-20T23:47:00.001+09:00

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 10:05 PM, Joachim Dirks <xxx@xxx> wrote:

> Hi Steve,
> wish I could join you this weekend in Ohtawara.
> Your Mileage over the last weeks is impressing.
> What are you up to...? sub-3 is in reach?
>
> Wish you all the best for a great run!
> Have fun and please keep me posted!
>
> cheers
> Joachim and Christiane
>Hi Joachim,

Thank you so much for that email. I have been wanting to write to you
all this week just to let you know my situation, but have been
constantly pressed for time. So, yes, I am in OK shape. Definitely not
sub-3 this time. I know it. I had a fairly good October, but really
the mileage was what I needed in September, and October should have
had another 100 or 200 km, but too many setbacks with injury and a
heavy cold that hung around for weeks and weeks, just when I was ready
to ramp up the mileage. Still, I have trained as much as I could
without killing myself.

On 1 November I ran Phil's half marathon at Arakawa and 4:15 pace was
a bit too stiff for me. I faded each 5 km from 10 km to the end,
finishing at about 4:30 pace yet working hard. So even though I did
take tired legs into that run, still, it would be impossible to hold
4:15 through to 42. Just impossible. Then last Sunday I ran 22 km at
marathon pace of about 4:25/km, to simulate how I would feel at half
way. The answer is, well, not so great. I wasn't fading badly or in
pain, but it was not easy either. So if I go out at that pace on
Monday, it is going to be real hard work for the second half, but
there is a chance I can hold on and bring it home for a sub 3:10.
That's my aim anyway, and if I can by some miracle get under 3:05 I
would consider it a great run. Definitely I hope to run in such a way
as to give myself a chance at a negative split. If I achieve that, I
will be happy.

Thanks again for your email. I will miss not having you or Paddy in
the race with me. Instead I must target to beat Terry Minegishi :-).
Hope you're running well!

Cheers

Steve

Quick update

2009-09-24T18:52:00.003+09:00

I have to apologize to Scott in particular for not updating sooner re intentions for Ohtawara. Well, I have entered, and my full intention is to run it, though I will be threatening for a PW I think. It has been a very up and down preparation. The best way to catch up is by browsing my RunningAhead Log, but in a nutshell, after finally getting some consistency together after coming out of the period of work helldom, and starting to inch my long runs up towards 30 km, and starting to get some relief from the summer heat and humidity, what should happen but I get a leg injury. The old biceps femoris again. First it was just a niggle, but then I tripped and tore it. That was about three weeks ago. I had five days off, then tentatively started coming back. After a week of that I brewed beer and got a really crook back from carrying heavy pots of water and wort, and that caused other problems when I tried to run through it. I battled on and now things have come back to an even keel and I am trying to get consistent again. I actually ran 33 km last Sunday at reasonable pace, so I'm feeling a bit more confident about the marathon again, provided I can have a good October, with 4 or 5 good long runs and a few race pace runs, and hill workouts. I aim to do at least one and maybe two hill workouts a week.

So that's it. Scott, have you entered and are you interested in Ohtawara? Sorry if I've given you a bum steer by being quiet for so long. It has just been so hard to know which way things were headed.

Crappity crap crap

2009-07-04T22:58:00.003+09:00

Well, the first half of June was going along pretty well. I was keeping the steady mileage going and had a couple of longer, faster runs. Ripped out a few very strong aerobic runs of under 4:20 pace. And then, WHAM!! I got hit by the work-goes-ballistic bus. My job is working on proposals for engineering consulting projects, and every now and then it just goes mad. And it has, and I had a whole string of days where I was working from 9 to 10:30 or 11, and by the time you get to bed after that, it makes waking up at 5:30 for a run an impossibility. So the past two weeks have been about 30 km each. I have to admit that a couple of weekend hangovers made the situation even worse. And the arrival of the steamy rainy season has taken some of the pleasure out of running. So that is where we are at. I am hoping to try and get back on track from Monday, but have 2 days in Singapore for work coming up this week, so that probably won't help...I'll report back in a couple of weeks. I should also mention that lthough work has been manic, it has also been satisfying and rewarding in its own way, so that is a bit of a paradox.

SPEED!!

2009-06-05T16:02:00.004+09:00

In this steady spring (merging into summer) build-up I have been meaning to keep a little bit of speedwork in the mix. I didn't do a very good of that in May. The closest I got was a fartlek consisting of a couple of 1.6 km intervals in 6:00 min on the 2nd, the 3-km time trial on the 6th, and the 3-km time trial on the 28th (see last post). Most of my runs were "lower aerobic" with a couple of "upper aerobics", an "easy" or two and one or two barely qualifying as longs. I suppose that is why the improvement in my 3-km time trials was not especially dramatic.

So to try to redress this lack of speed-work, on Wednesday night, two days ago now, I attended the club's 6 x 1000 m interval workout. Oh, the first one felt horrible! I'm glad Joachim was there to drag me around. Somehow I ran faster than 3:50, but I wasn't sure how. Then, miraculously the second one was a totally different kettle of flathead. I went off feeling fast and the breathing much easier. 3:37! That took a bit out of me, but basically I think the cobwebs were blown away and I then ran 3:39, 3:41, and 3:40 before calling it a day (yes, that's only five for those who were counting). But I did run from work to the track and then home from the track for a 15-km day. Almost Hosakesque. But crikey! Nothing like this man, who seems to be training the house down!

2009-05-30T23:06:00.003+09:00

Results of the latest (2nd) 3 km time trial are in. times are the 1-km splits for those that need the decipherin'. I think they know who they are.

May 6: 3:52, 3:52, 3:54
May 28: 3:48, 3:52, 3:52

Actually, I thought it had been a month since I did the first one. A bit silly. I better wait a full month now until the next one.

Anyway, not much progress to be seen. The weeks since then (including the May 6 week) have been 69, 46, 91, 85 (if I do the expected 25 tomorrow). That awful 46 km week happened because I had a weekend that was beset by work and weather and brewing that conspired to stop me running on either the Saturday or Sunday. A very rare event. That resulted in me going into the next week rather fresh and racking up the 90 km. I can't really expect much progress on the back of those numbers, but the regular aerobic runs of 15 km have had a bit of quality about them and are setting me up to handle increased frequency and distance (like he 17.8 km at 4:27/km I did today). After that the results should start to come through.

My Beer!!

2009-05-13T16:18:00.004+09:00

I think I mentioned last July that I got a best of show in a home brewing competition. The main prize was that the organizers brew a commercial batch of the recipe, the Yokozuna beer, at a micro brewery in Chiba (Loco Beer). I helped out on the brew day in late December.

Now, five months later, lookie, lookie, that there beer is now on sale over the Interwebs. It isn't cheap, but if you are in Japan, go at it and try some of the best beer ever made in the 5000 plus years of the history of brewing. Oh!! You think that's a bold claim do you? Well, it is a bold claim. And there is only one way you will find out if it is true ;-)

There is a page with an English explanation here.

Where I is at

2009-05-06T22:01:00.004+09:00

Running. I've been running. I took a full six days off after the 30k trail race, but then came out and ran pretty easy the next week, reaching a tad over 70 km. I certainly wasn't fully recovered the first few runs, but by last weekend, after two weeks of recovery, felt pretty good and ended up on Sunday running around the trails of Kamakura with Satohi before a BBQ at friends'. I really enjoyed the Kamakura hills because there was not so much walking. Not like the western Tokyo trails, where the hills are up, up, up, and down, down, down. But when the hills are relatively short and technical (read complicated by roots, rocks and erosion), such as at Kamakura, you can attack and use momentum to pick out interesting ways of navigating the terrain. I like that.

This week is Golden Week--three consecutive national holidays from Mon-Wed--and with added rest I've felt my speed coming back naturally, and steady aerobic runs are dipping down under 4:30/km. In fact yesterday I spent 4 km of a 13 km run at below 4:20/km and averaged 4:28/km...not bad.

I'm also throwing in a little bit of speed work here and there. Last Saturday I did two 1.6 km intervals midway through a 14-km run. The first was right on 6:00 min, but it felt forced and labored. The second I tried relaxing into it and ended up running a couple of seconds slower, but it felt more like the right pace.

Today I was going to run in the park in the afternoon with Colin, but the rain set in for several hours, and Colin couldn't make it anyway. I was very frustrated as I really wanted to run, but just couldn't bring myself to head out into what was pretty heavy rain. I waited and waited and was about to give up and pour a beer around 5:45 when I noticed the rain had eased right off. So I made sure dinner was under control and squared things up with the good woman before heading out. I ran up to Oda field (5.5 km) at 4:45/km. There I decided to do the first of what will be a series of monthly 3-km time trials. Did that at a pretty hard effort with rather pedestrian (but not surprising) splits of 3:52, 3:52, and 3:54 ... I was pushing that last km too, so the loss of 2 s really shows I was near the limit. Good. This will stand as a good benchmark of where I am at here at the beginning of May.

Plate Chiller

2009-05-04T09:51:00.003+09:00

I recently acquired a plate chiller for my home brewery. Here it is in action.
Edit: For those not sure what is going on here (Bob), beer production involves boiling up malt and hops. At the end of the boil, you want to chill the wort (what it's called before it's fermented) to a suitable temperature for pitching yeast. That's what this device is for. It could also be called a heat exchanger. Hot wort and cold water go in through separate flow paths, make contact along the surfaces of 30 brazed plates, and cold wort and hot water come out. Now I can pitch the yeast and get fermentation underway. I could just let it cool down naturally, but it will take a day or two to reach pitching temperature and increases the risk of a wild yeast or bacteria infection. Happy?

On Trail Races

2009-04-23T09:36:00.003+09:00

A few interesting, "I don't get trail races" comments on my last post.

Well, that being only my second trail race, I can't pretend to be some kind of transcended being who has found enlightenment and will now deign to preach the good gospel of The Trail to you poor philistines still wandering in the dark.

No. I am probably closer to that infant state of consciousness of Scott and Jon. And even Bob, who at least admits to enjoying a non-event trail run. But I guess I have some insights and I can feel strange stirrings within.

All I can do is try to offer a couple of thoughts that have occurred to me in the past couple of days. The thing that distinguishes a "race" from a casual training run is that it is an event. On top of that, it is physically very, very demanding, and therefore not likely to be something you will attempt without the surrounding hoop-la of the event. So the sense of accomplishment that comes from completing something very, very demanding, and in often beautiful surroundings, is really unlikely without the event to push/pull you through it.

Like parenthood, these things are also something that you will never, ever be truly able to explain to anybody. You can only understand it by participating. Even to fellow runners who only ever do hard-top races. So there is a real sense of camaraderie and shared experience with your fellow trail hounds (I don't really call myself that, by the way). And this is why events like Six Foot Track and Hasetsune 72 km (this was the first time the 30 km version was has been run) take on such legendary status among those who keep coming back to take on the challenge they offer. I mean look at the profile of Six Foot:

That's pretty awesome. Yet, to me, after running this considerably shorter Hasetsune, I look at that profile and think, Ha! look at those long easy sections: the bottom of Nellies Glen to Cox's River is all clear running, then from the top of Pluviometer it all looks eminently runnable, though the descent to Cave's House would be truly agonizing, as many a race report attests. In Hasetsune you were always either really going up, or really going down. I think in general that the grades were probably steeper than what they would be at Six Foot, yet it is really impossible to compare. Those elevation gains and falls at Six Foot are undeniably big: 250 m at Cox's to 1200 m at caves Road ... this is alluring. Why wouldn't you want to take something like that on? And why would you take it on without the pull of the event?

Hasetsune 72 km literally scares me. And maybe that reason alone is enough to give it a try.

So those are me thoughts on this matter.

Hasetsune 30k

2009-04-21T00:54:00.006+09:00

Crikey, that was hard!

30 km in 4:38 ... that's hours and minutes. Just go back and refresh your memory with that nasty little course profile.

The 4:38 is gross time. There was a 1 km traffic jam from the registration area to the start line and we lost 7 minutes for that. Then 13 minutes into the race we came to a dead stop for another traffic jam, which turned out to be because of a tight scramble around a few rocks in a creek bed. That held us up for an incredible 20 minutes or so. Something for the organizers to think about for next year.

Once we got away from the traffic jam, we were moving pretty freely. But before long, any kind of forward motion was acceptable as we scaled that bloody mountain side in the profile. Talk about steep. And narrow. Just one foot after the other, single file, no great hurry, and eventually it was over. The first 5 km took 1 whole hour!

The next stage though was almost 5 km of fairly steep descent on a narrow asphalt road. We could go fast, but it was hard on the quads. From this point on right until the end of the race we were constantly passing people with only the very occasional pair of guys (it was always two for some reason!) passing us.

We were turned off the asphalt at abut the 12.5 km mark and it was then trail all the way to the end of the race. The climb was tough to about 19 km, with some real nasty little uphill stretches of long steep fire trail, but soon enough the trend turned towards lots of smaller ups and downs, and we could push on a bit and past more people. But always going up, or down.

The final 3 km involved some very steep down hill sections that were pure agony. The cramp bears were nipping at the calves before finally changing strategy and getting me fair smack in the right hamstring less than 500 m from the finish line. I had to stop and a few people went past before I shook the bastards off and got going again to finish.

Had a nice wash-up in the river after the race and enjoyed some beers and a nice big plate of soba afterwards in downtown Musashi-itsukaichi :-) then snored my head off on the train on the way back to Shinjuku. Tired but happy as they say.

The photo shows my main sustenance for the race. A tube of condensed milk: 337 kcal from 65 g carbohydrate, 8 g protein and 8 g of fat. And absolutely delicious. Much better than a gel I reckon, which only offers about 180 kcal and no fat or protein. I highly recommend this to anybody engaging in endurance events. You know, like people who might be about to run 112km.

Tuesday night as I finally post this, and my quads are still killing me. Ewen's prediction of 3 days before I'll be able to run is starting to look a bit optimistic.

ハセツネ30K Course Profile

2009-04-14T16:15:00.003+09:00

I can see by the rush of responses to my last post that I have really grabbed your imaginations with this trail race. That's good. Let me feed the fury. Here is the course profile. OMG, just look at that sucker! I hate climbing steps...why oh why am I doing this???

Trepidation

2009-04-13T07:49:00.004+09:00

A few months ago I somehow managed to let Satohi talk me into entering a trail race, The 1st Hasegawa Tsuneo 30 km. (Photos here from the traditional 72 km version). It seemed far enough away not to have to think about it too much. But all the weekends lying between the time of that fateful decision and the race have now passed. The Final Countdown to next Sunday, April 19. I wasn't all that concerned about it until I got the race literature in the mail last week. The course profile looks something like a dragon's back. I know it is not as long as SFT, but I am not a trail specialist like some. I think I'll be taking it pretty easy. Within the first 4.5 km there is a section that rises over 500 m within about 1.5 km of horizontal distance. Oh man, what have I got myself in for?

To quickly answer a couple of questions in comments:

(1) Hi Tesso, yeah, I recovered pretty quickly from Tokyo, but I have been so busy with work and stuff that it was easy to have a slow come back. In the three weeks since I've logged 28 km, 51 km, and 63 km ... how's that for a reverse taper? I started doing some hills in anticipation of the upcoming trail race, but the only thing I've done is give myself a sore left knee ;-(

(2) Scott, I reckon that marathon will probably be Ohtawara (see my entries for November 23 from ever since I started this blog). It's a great little road trip. Flat, cool, course. Usually beset by fine weather. The worst conditions we ever got was strong winds in 2007. Great venue for the race. We spend the night after the race at a ryokan in the mountains near Nikko -- party and rotanburo. Anyway, give it some thought, we'd love to host you up here for the day you set your lifetime PB.

There's no snow around anymore ... spring has sprung with a vengeance and even the cherry blossoms are all gone ... but on my run yesterday I borrowed the kid's Cowon MP3 player, and at one point I was listening to Snow by RHCP, well cranked up, and, crikey, it stopped me in my tracks. I just had to stop and listen to it before I could keep running. I thought music was supposed to help you run, not make you stop. Pop on the headphones and have a listen.

Tokyo Marathon 2009

2009-03-24T09:32:00.004+09:00

I ran Tokyo Marathon on Sunday 22nd March as a pacer/supporter for Satohi (in front of me in the photo). Her previous PB was 3:19:54 and we felt she was in significantly better shape than that effort. She had been training well and finding 4:30/km pace fairly easy in training. We did a 25 km pace-run three weeks ago at a target of 4:30/km, but many splits were in the 4:20s and she felt capable of carrying on. So we had every reason to be optimistic and set a strategy of starting a little conservatively, around 4:40/km, gradually increasing to 4:35/km, then if everything was going well, moving up to 4:30/km from around 20k.

The day dawned cool but with a blustery wind. This wasn't too much of a factor until the turn from Ginza (around 34 km) out towards the finish at Odaiba, after which we were often running into a strong head wind and also having to contend with the several nasty little rises at flyovers.

The first half went perfectly to plan and we hit the half only a few seconds outside the target. The planned inrease in pace just didn't feel like the right thing to do. More patience was necessary I believed, knowing that even if we kept 4:35 to the end it would still be a strong result for her. The 10k from half to 31k was also fine, but fatigue was obviously setting in and suddently I felt she was struggling to hold pace. Sure enough, the 31-32 split was 4:42, followed by 4:44, 4:52, and 4:54. The next 6 km were very tough going as she had hit the wall and was struggling with the wind, the rain that had started to fall, and those dreaded flyovers. But the supporters were really vocal through this desolute section and she dug deep and did not give in to grind out a new PB of exactly 1 minute, only one of a very small handful to be had by our group under these tough conditions.

The splits:
5km 0:23:49
10km 0:22:57
15km 0:22:51
20km 0:22:46
(Half - 1:37:29 vs target 1:37:17)
25km 0:22:55
30km 0:22:57 (2:18:15 vs target: 2:17:20)
35km 0:23:40
40km 0:25:57
Finish 0:11:02 (3:18:54)

For me personally, I could have kept going at the target pace, at least for some period longer. And once Satohi conked I was always having to contain my pace, which was a new and slightly strange experience. I was hurting of course, but could have run faster and had to resist the temptation to put in as hard as I could to take the pain to another level over those last few km -- you know, the way the end of a marathon is supposed to feel. As a result it was a relatively relaxed marathon for me and actually I really got to enjoy the atmosphere and crowd like never before. Running over the final 5 km brought back vivid memories of last year when I was hurting but maintaining a good pace over this section, racing the clock to sneak in under 3 hours.

Going into the run I was not sure how I was going to handle the distance given I hadn't done any runs over 25 km until February 8. I was even a bit worried that if Satohi went really well that she would have to leave me behind in the final 10 km. But I handled it well and I think if anything it has re-kindled my desire to keep up the training and build strength and endurance through he summer for maybe another crack at sub-three in November.

Six-week update

2009-03-02T14:57:00.004+09:00

I really have to re-organize my life so that I can find time to post updates more frequently.

Well, the main points are that I never did run Ome, but I will be running Tokyo Marathon on March 22.

Ome had to go by the wayside because of a clash with a beer festival at which a beer made commercially to my recipe was served. I was able to attend as a brewer rather than one of the great unwashed. This is the second time I have had that honor and it was not quite as exciting second time around, but fun and rewarding nonetheless.

Tokyo M is on the cards courtesy of a friend whose banking job has gone ballistic with the global financial meltdown; he just couldn't face the added stress of the training and his heart was not in running the marathon, so he offered me his place. I really didn't have the mileage base to take on a proper marathon attempt, but I will run it for the experience and to try to help out with pacing for Satohi, whose training program I have written for this marathon. She is targeting a time within the vicinity of 3:15, which, with my minimal training base, I am going to find a tough pace to hold all the way.

I've ramped up the mileage over the past few weeks. The Achilles has been great. It got a bit sore on some long runs, but recovered within a day or two and is generally being very cooperative. Prior to taking this on I was going along really comfortably, just running when as far as I felt like it and my body was feeling great. The first couple of weeks of ramping up the mileage also went OK, but the past 10 days or so have been tougher, especially with some lower back and abdominal issues. Well, that is to be expected with such a sudden increase, but I have now got four runs of 30+ km under the belt and should be able to be of some use and yet finish the race without it being a near-death experience.

Apart from that, life has just been really, really, really busy. I do some freelance scientific editing work on top of my day job, plus with running and brewing activities...and trying to put in some time with the family...keeps me pretty much with no time to read or write blogs. Hence the scarceness of posts and commenting from me. But I am alive and reasonably well. So salutations one and all, I'll try not to leave it so long until the next post.

Beer Mile -- Mixed Success

2009-01-11T21:33:00.005+09:00

Yesterday Gareth and Joachim staged the second beer mile in Japan. The last one was nearly 3 years ago on an evening with five competitors (I didn't run that time due to a bout of back spasms, a fate which, fate would have it, Gareth suffered this time). Yesterday there were some 14 competitors and we ran it in two shifts. I was in the second shift. In the photo below you can see me throwing down my can and setting off on the run after being the first to finish my beer. But the guy inverting his beer on his head, Chad, was obviously right behind me, and thus the stage for a hard-fought race was set.

I think I led Chad into the second beer station, but he got away first this time. We had a great battle through the race and were always within a few seconds of each other, though he pulled away from me a bit on the last leg as I struggled a little more with my last beer, and then had to slow my running pace a bit to stop my tummy from ejecting ballast. Chaddo finished in a superb 7:42 and I came in with a respectable 8:06. I was really hoping to break 8:00. At least my race didn't end in ignomony, and in fact 8:06 is good enough for 55th in the world in my age group...for now. A mark to be improved at the next installment I hope, though top ranking in the world in my age group would require some extremely fast drinking and my flat-out running pace! not very likely, yet I am sure I have some improvement in me. Ganbarimasu!

All results are here. Satohi was astounding with her sub 9:00 performance. Third fastest overall
and 35th fastest woman in the whole wide world! Yeeayy! Champions everywhere!

Big ups to Gareth, Joachim and Christiane for superb organizing!!

So long 2008, Hello 2009!

2009-01-01T13:08:00.004+09:00

As Ewen says, I was an absent blogger in 2008. There are many and varied reasons for this. To sum it up, it was a year of change for me that made it more difficult to blog, both practically and motivationally (is that a word?). I changed jobs in January, entering duty the day after returning from a 3-week visit back to Australia with the family. We celebrated my parents' 60th wedding anniversary on Jan 10, then poignantly said goodbye with a feeling of foreboding about my dad's health. Within a few days of arriving back in Japan it was confirmed that he had cancer of the liver; he had refused chemotherapy. He passed away aged 86 on the 3rd of March and I was suddenly back in Australia for a brief visit under the worst possible circumstances. Of course I wrote about this at length on this blog at the time, so there is not much point going into details other than to say that this event has been a shadow for me over the entire year of 2008.

My running, which is ostensibly the reason for this blog, experienced highs and lows. I managed to run a sub 3-hour at Tokyo marathon in February despite suffering constant pain from a chronic Achilles injury. Following Tokyo I resolved to do whatever was required to get the Achilles right, even if it meant giving up running forever. It was mentally so hard to cut back from the level of fitness I had to adopt the almost sedentary lifestyle required to get the Achilles right. I went to the gym, I swam, and eventually I did very little before taking up walking a few mornings a week. Soon the walks turned into walk-jogs, as the Achilles allowed, and by late August it seemed the Achilles was improving under this regime of light bipedal exercise. So from there I have ever so gradually increased the workload, always conscious of not over-stressing the Achilles. The Achilles was soon behaving itself nicely and I got back to fairly regular aerobic training runs in September and built into October, eventually running a hard 40:00 10k at Ohtawara in November. Since then I have built the mileage a little more and just kept at it as the Achilles continues to remain pain free, even though I still feel a slight nodule in the middle of it. The next race is Ome 30 k on February 15. Maybe that will be my next post :)

Work was interesting. The new job was shaky until our company, which was mostly domestic, miraculously absorbed Japan's largest international engineering consulting firm. This propelled me from a position of floundering for a role to suddenly having more things to do than I could handle. I honestly can't imagine how the year would have turned out if this merger hadn't taken place. It is almost as though it was destined to be. Still, economic times have been tough and we face challenges into the new year, so don't expect the blogging to start back too frequently.

I was fortunate to have been able to help guide the launch of a new web site for my running club. Later in the year we launched a forum and that has also gone well, though I'd like to see our 100+ members make more use of it.

It was also a good year in brewing for me. I used to keep my equipment at a friend's place and brew with him, but for one reason and another we abandoned that arrangement and I brought my pots and pans back home early in 2008. I have progressively added a lot of new equipment through the year and have been brewing more and more regularly and enjoying communing with a bunch of like-minded gaijin and Japanese home brewers in the Tokyo area. I was fortunate to win the best-of-show prize at the main (only?) home brewing comp in Japan with a Belgian Tripel (similar to this beer) and that led to commercial-sized brewing of the recipe on December 23rd. The beer is still fermenting as I write this post. It will be released to the Tokyo beer-consuming public in a couple of months.

Of course 2008 brought other events of note for me and my family, but I think that sums up the main things.

I will close by saying a happy new year to one and all who happen to stumble upon and read this post to this point. If you actually do, for some perverse reason, happen to have an interest in the doings of my life, I am sorry for the infrequency of posts of late. I will try to be a little more consistent in 2009, though no promises!!

Take care all!

Steve

A race!!

2008-11-27T07:11:00.001+09:00

My comeback from Achilles injury continued with my first race since March (or was it April?). It was the 10 km event at Ohtawara, where I have run the full marathon the previous five years in a row. When I applied for this race, the Achilles still wasn't great and I thought I might just be jogging around. However in the past two or three weeks it has been giving no trouble at all and I'd been doing 10 to 12 km runs at a steady pace fairly regularly. The Wednesday before the race (which was on Sunday 23rd), I joined our club's track workout and managed some respectable times over 1600 m to 400 m, so I resolved to give it my best in the race. It was a beautiful day in Ohtawara. Fine, no wind, about 12 to 14 degrees. I ran with a heart rate monitor and decided to go out at 160 and bring it home over the last few km at 170 and see what kind of time that gave me. This turned out to be pretty much the right strategy except that I actually did 165 on the way out and was at 174 over the closing stages. So it wasn't a jog in the park! I didn't see any km markers until 8 km whereupon I discovered I needed to make up 5 seconds if I was to beat 40 minutes. I was already going very hard, so this was quite a throwing down of the gauntlet by the running gods. So I really gritted my teeth and pushed into the light headwind. At the 1 km to go marker I had made up only 1 second. Uggghh ... really had to dig in. The race finished with the last 200 m on a running track ... I went in the gate needing to run the last 200 m in 40 seconds ... oh dear! Well, I gave it what for, and as I was sprinting down the last straight like Usain Bolt (or so I imagined) I could see the clock closing in on 40 minutes ... 39:55, 56, uggh, 57 ahhh, 58, 59, eeeeghhh, and I crossed the line. I wasn't sure if I had registered a 39:59 or 40:00, but later when I checked the official results it was 40:00! Although three minutes slower than my PB, I was actually extremely pleased with that as I thought that a time around 42:00 would have been more than acceptable at this stage of the come back.

It's Time

2008-10-11T21:11:00.003+09:00

Time for a new post that is.

Well, things have kind of come along OK since that last post way back in July. Life has had its ups and downs. The kind of things like the shifting sands of work and family and friendships that don't stand up to the cold hard scrutiny of blog readers.

But the Achilles!! The Achilles, yes, that's what I know you all tune in to read about. Well, it has improved a lot. So much so that I have progressed from walking for 5 km to walking with occasional jogging periods, to walking some jogging some, to walking a bit and jogging for most of 5 km, and finally (well, not finally, but where I am now) to easy running for 7 km or so. One Sunday a couple of weeks ago I got caught up in the excitement of Joachim's 50 km training run for the 100 km race that he ran TODAY in an unbelievable time. The man is a legend.

But I digress. Yes, so I ran 14 km, and you know, it was hard. By 12, 13 km I could not keep up with Joachim (and others) who was chugging along at 5:00/km at about the 40 km mark of his run. So I have been concentrating on trying to get more consistent at more modest distances of 7 km or so. Really I am not training. Just keeping the weight stable. Actually my Polar watch is stuffed and I am running sans time piece and I am logging approximate times. Still, the weather is very pleasant now and I think I am running comfortably between 5:00 and 5:20/km type pace, and I am enjoying it. This week I have run most days, twice on Wednesday and am up to 45 km which has felt easy yet is the longest I've done in ages.

But the other thing that I ams sure will fascinate you all is that I have been putting some time and effort and more than a little money into outfitting my brewery. I bought a refractometer and new dial thermometer and weldless kettle fittings and have equipped the mash tun and hot water tank with thermometers and the boil kettle with a weldless ball valve. Also stocked up on malt and hops and yeast. Brewed a hoppy IPA two weeks ago and will do an even hoppier American red ale tomorrow. Yum. There are still a few mods to the brew pots needed, but I am getting close to what I want. Here are some fascinating photos. Catch you around.

Something to cheer about

2008-07-22T22:18:00.004+09:00

Alright, so I was a bit negative in that last post. Sorry. I'm OK, really.

And in fact I have some happy news to share. I won the best of show at the annual Japan home brewing competition, the Wan Cup 2, for my Belgian style beer called "Nenmatsu Tripel" (nenmatsu means "year end", which is when I brewed it; tripel is style of Belgian beer).

This is the second time in three years for me to take out the top prize (Yokozuna) and while I am chuffed of course, I am also a little bit embarrassed about it for the following reasons.
1) I didn't really set out to brew a "champion" beer. I just brewed it to style and simply didn't make any mistakes. It is a pretty easy style driven by yeast character. The yeast was the winner, really. I didn't even have a competition in mind when I brewed it. I only entered it in the comp because it was on hand.
2) I made the same kind of beer a couple of years ago and didn't enter it in any competitions. Frankly, it was considerably better than this one (for subtle reasons that don't bear going into here).
3) I was a bit lucky. My other two beers entered didn't even get places.
4) Some of my brew buddies are demonstrably stronger brewers than me. They brew more often and consistently turn out better beers than mine. Sorry John (runner up) and Chris (probably the best brewer of all of us).
5) My main motivation for entering competitions is simply to promote the home brewing hobby. Competitions give people some motivation and bring a bit of attention for the hobby (we had 40+ people at the award ceremony for just 24 entrants, a number of whom couldn't be there). I support the organizers as much as possible and help with judging. My reward is a successful comp. It was totally out of the blue and embarrassing for my beer to pick up best of show. But there it is. I'm not giving it back :-D

Captions
The smile of a Yokozuna (Grand Champion in sumo)

Me getting a splash of Stone Double Arrogant Bastard Ale (that magnum is worth almost US$100 -- all place getters got a snifter of the stuff)

A toast to the brewing gods

Move along folks, nothing to see here

2008-07-15T21:41:00.003+09:00

Yeah, quite literally I'm afraid. Unless you like looking at expanding waistlines.

The Achilles still fails to become pain free. Yet, I think it has improved. I mean, I am hardly aware of it through the day, walking around, going hard up stairs, little run for the bus, and so on. But if I squeeze the little bastard it still hurts and it still has a lump in it. I think the lump has shrunk a bit. Not much, but a bit.

It is summer here now. That means our local outdoor 50 m swimming pool is open for a whole, wait for it, TWO MONTHS!! Yeeeaahhhyy! (feel the sarcasm) Two whole bloody months, and the rest of the time it sits idle. And the greatest crime of all is that it opens each day not at 5 am, not at 6 am, not at 7 am, oh no, not even at 8 am, nor 9 ... but at 10, yes, T-E-N AY EM! So unless I start work at lunch time that does not create a situation very conducive to getting in a couple of km before starting my duties of blinking at a screen for hours on end.

The gym got a second hand spinning bike type thing with a programmable function for setting resistance and time in multiple brackets. I had some fun on that for a while but haven't been back for a couple of weeks. Just too hot and I've tried to swim instead, 2 km at a time.

None of this is any fucking substitute for running.

Something truly great is coming...

2008-06-27T21:51:00.003+09:00

Start preparing now...

Found my Achilles heel

2008-06-14T20:21:00.003+09:00

Well, I knew it was there all along actually. But yes, my Achilles heel is my Achilles heel. It has brought me down. Undone. A non-runner am I.

There have been further minuscule signs of improvement in it over the past couple of weeks; I even ran a few km on the treadmill a few nights ago (somewhat painfully).

But today I finally got around to going to see the highly recommended orthopedic surgeon in Hatsudai (thanks to Numasawa-san for giving up her yoga to come and help interpret for me). The doctor did a lot of head shaking and saying, "You really should have come in when it was first sore. It is too late to do anything now. Even top runners stop running when they get Achilles soreness...yadda yadda yadda." But he was also very understanding and sympathetic. He basically said if I get it better to come back and tell him how I did it because he doesn't really know what to recommend except complete rest ... no elliptical, no bike ... swimming and weight training, sure, but nothing that puts the Achilles through repetitive stresses. I respect him for what he said. It wasn't borne out of ignorance because he said cortisone, bah, you don't want that because it will weaken your tendon and it will snap. Operation, well, it might work and it might not and you can't run for six months after it. He himself had an Achilles operation and it didn't work, so he was not falling over himself to recommend it. He basically said you just have to suck it and take the time off. As long as it takes. Which was OK because it just reaffirmed what I had already set my mind to do. But his stridency about the complete rest was going a step further than I had been able to bring myself to do. I am going to keep up the heel drop (eccentric contraction) calf strengthening though. I asked whether anti-inflammatory creams would be worth trying and he said yes and prescribed one.

He took an x-ray too, by the way, and it clearly showed the thickened lumpy bit in the tendon, not that I needed an x-ray to know it was there. But something new it showed was that right behind the tendon in line with the thickening there was a bit of bone protruding off my heel bone. He thinks that is probably contributing to the pain, so that is a bit of a worry as it is not going to just dissolve.

So, that's it folks. No Ohtawara this year. No Tokyo Marathon next year. No trail running on sweltering summer days followed by swims in the river at Musashi-itsukaichi. In short, a bit of a bummer.

The great challenge is now to see if I can keep up the motivation to exercise at the gym and whatnot, because just a couple of evenings of that really bites into work/family time so much more than when I was getting up at 5:30 three or four mornings a week and logging
100 km a week of running -- so much of my workout time was done while the family slept.

Anyway, that's where I am at. Updates will follow as and when I can.

Bumpety bump, bump, bump

2008-06-01T19:20:00.004+09:00

That's me at the moment. Bumping along in the current of life. I'm enjoying certain aspects of being able to put some focus on things other than running--family, brewing, lazy afternoons--but it is certainly different not having that driving pull of the next run hanging over the head. No sooner one hard session under the belt than looking to the next one by avoiding late nights, sleeping in, over-indulgence, and overtime. None of that any more.

Last Sunday night I "celebrated" my first entire week with no run in, well, I don't know how long. It would have to be measured in years rather than months. A far cry from last September when I ran every day in the month.

I nearly made it a second consecutive week, but late this afternoon, with a sense of some improvement in the Achilles (and a DVD that needed returning--I am Legend--don't bother if you haven't see it), I headed out for a "jog". Yes, it really was a jog. About 5:30/km pace most of the time...at least the times when I wasn't standing at lights or handing in the DVD or, and this shows how slow I was going, being stopped by a funny little old lady who insisted on giving me two nodoame (throat lollies) because she likes to, "minna ni shitsetsu shimasu" (be kind to everybody--she was a cracker, in every sense of the word).

I clocked exactly 6 km (according to the footpod) in 34:13...average pace 5:42/km. See? It was a slow jog. There was even a couple of minutes when I was tearing along at 5:00/km, so I guess the "5:30/km most of the time" that I mentioned above was a bit optimistic.

Anyway, no point dwelling on the stats. There is no joy to be had there. The point of the run was just to see how my Achilles is going. And the goodish news is that it was not as sore as it was two and a half weeks ago when I last ran. On a pain scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is no pain (and the target I am aiming at) and 10 is sharp, shooting agony, I guess I moved from 6 to 5. Waaay hooo! Such progress!

But really, I am encouraged. Encouraged enough to know that very little to zero running is the right course. And to keep up with the tedious heel drop exercises.

Apart from this, I have been along to the gym sort of semi-regularly (twice a week if I'm lucky). Managing about 30 minutes on an elliptical trainer-like thing (actually called "Arc Trainer": picture; discussion) and 20 minutes on a bike followed by an upper body strength workout from "Run Strong" (edited by Kevin Beck). The main point of all the weights is to get a body like Harvey Keitel in "The Piano", you know, a few muscles to go with the gut ;-)

Gym sessions are best endured by borrowing Mr 15-year-old's MP3 player and listening to his collection of Offspring, RHCP, Nirvana, Sum41, etc. and, his latest, Hadouken!

以上です。

God Bless Teenage Sons

2008-05-07T22:01:00.001+09:00

For they find things like this on You Tube...

Stayin' alive

2008-05-06T08:06:00.004+09:00

I have received a few very much appreciated off-line queries as to my well-being. I'm sorry it has been so long between posts, but with no training to write about, it is hard to find the motivation to write anything at all.

I guess April hasn't been a good month because not only have I maintained very low running frequency and mileage, I haven't made it to the gym much either. I had a mini-resurgence mid month and ran around 15 km one Sunday, but the Achilles was really no better so there was still no chance of a return to more regular running. Then last week I went for an hour run with Gareth & Colin on the Tuesday public holiday, then another easy hour+ the next night. I was subsequently stiff and sore and completely not in the mood for running for the next three days. That's kind of knocked my motivation even further and I'm getting into that well, I just couldn't be bothered state.

The Achilles itself at times feels marginally less painful, but it is still quite sore and still has a pronounced lump in the middle. UK-based Nambanner Alberto reported a satisfying sub-3 hr run in the London Marathon last month and mentioned this was after an Achilles operation in January last year and a long and frustrating rehabilitation. So I wrote to him for advice about the Achilles (and congratulate him for his great race of course). He put me on to this web page about Achilles tendinosis. I am doing the heel drop exercises. Three sets of 15 reps of two different exercises twice a day. As I said, I think there has been some slight improvement, but the physical condition of the Achilles remains the same. I have decided though that I am going to give these exercises a chance to work before going to a doctor. So ask me again in 22 weeks.

I'm starting to feel some expansion of the girth, facilitated by a bit of renewed activity in the beer and brewing scene (an IPA is conditioning and an extra special bitter in the primary fermenter). Apart from interesting developments with our home brewing group, including a couple of kick-ass parties, I co-organized a seminar by Chris White, the president of White Labs liquid yeast company, here for the Japan Craft Beer Festival. If you have consumed any craft beer in the USA, Australia or Japan (amongst others), the chances are pretty high that you have drunk beer with yeast produced by his company. I was also lucky enough to spend a couple of sessions with Chris and his marketing manager, JoAnne, over the last couple of days. It has definitely helped deepen my knowledge of brewing yeast, which is a topic close to everybody's heart, I am sure.

My job is going alright, but despite their being numerous little things I could say, to be honest I think it is just too boring a topic to write about. One day I might be able to give a brief, not too coma-inducing overview. One thing is that, unlike my previous situation, I definitely can't blog on the job, which also partly accounts for the drop off in blog posts. It is a four-day weekend here this weekend, and that has afforded me the time to write this.

So that's about it. The different kind of reality continues. Maybe I will get back to some serious running again one day, but it doesn't look like it will be any time soon. In the meantime I have to try to find the time and motivation stem my outward expansion.

A different kind of reality...

2008-03-29T10:05:00.003+09:00

Thanks to a prompt from Ewen I guess it is high time I popped up an update on what is going on with me at the moment.

Well, in a nutshell, life is different.

The change of jobs in January did not bring many dramatic changes at first as my boss was overseas for almost the entire first month, so I was twiddling my thumbs a bit. But once he got back I discovered what an earnest and intense and, er, moody, person he is, so work life has been a bit interesting since. More pressure, more stress. The job itself isn't especially taxing except that I am forced to try and perform it in Japanese, business meetings and the like, which was not something I represented myself at the interviews as being capable of doing-- in fact I was careful to explain my Japanese level fairly accurately. Daily conversation fine, but native Japanese technical and business discussions are beyond my comprehension, so I have a long, hard challenge ahead.

I have not been running much because I have decided to try to get my nasty left Achilles better. It is slowly, slowly improving, but the change is barely perceptible really. It doesn't hurt much in daily life, except sometimes in the mornings for a little while. It has a kind of hard swelling in the middle of the tendon, which is tender when gently squeezed, so I really think I am in for a long haul getting it to come good. My concern then has been how to keep my weight down. I've been going to the gym sometimes for weights and bike or X-trainer, but can only do that in the evenings and can therefore only fit that in once or twice on week nights and maybe once on the weekend. I ran a long-committed-to 6-km ekiden leg on March 20th that showed up my dwindling fitness (and made the Achilles hurt like buggery). I did a short (6k) easy run last Sunday and another last Wednesday night ... partly social, partly just to burn a few calories and partly to see how the Achilles felt. I haven't even logged them yet. In both cases the pain in my Achilles was much as it has been all along -- not enough to force me to stop, but enough to make running unenjoyable. So I continue to abstain and hope that the damn thing starts healing soon, but I am prepared to give it as long as it takes.

The other thing, of course, has been Dad, Mick, passing away. He has been on my mind, if not constantly, then at least very very often. We shared our birthdays, you know, and he was always such an enormous part of my life, my consciousness, even my identity. I am not exactly sad and mournful, because he had a good and long life and his death went about as well as death can go. We all had enough forewarning, got to say our goodbyes, and he himself was absolutely ready to go and kept his dignity through to the end, passing peacefully at home with a pain-managed terminal-stage cancer of the liver. So, his death itself is easy enough to accept and deal with. At the funeral we were able to celebrate his life while shedding some tears for the loss of this remarkable person from our lives. So I am not sad, and yet, I just miss him so much and somehow feel different with him being gone...I can't really put it any other way.

I suppose, in summary, I am currently dealing with three losses: the loss of my previously comfortable (though tending towards boring) work life; the loss of Mick; and the loss of running...at least for the foreseeable future. Considering this situation I think I am bearing up reasonably well (at least I still have beer and brewing and my family!) and am aware that it is just one of those flat periods that life throws up and it is up to me to deal with the issues involved with each loss. Work I am accepting as an interesting and exciting challenge, the pain of Mick's loss I know will fade with time, and running, well, that's the hard one. But I'm determined to get this Achilles right so that I can make and reach some new goals in the future, like running Six Foot Track!

I am also improving on my didgeridoo, so be warned, I might put up a little video one day!!

Mick 10.2.1922 - 3.3.2008

2008-03-05T17:47:00.007+09:00

James Thomas Lacey it says on the birth certificate, but we called him Mick. We called him Mick because Mick is what he was called. And though fathers are normally called "Dad", our dad, our Mick, somehow transcended the role of father. "Dad" was too plain an epithet for someone so unique.

He was our supporter, our rock, our mate. He loved quietly, with restraint, and without flamboyance. He never embarrassed you with showy displays of affection. But it was love that was no less fierce and no less felt. In fact it was intensified by its restraint. To feel his love and contemplate his mortality was something I could, from an early age, find crushing. So I have been preparing for this moment for a long time. He was mischievous, enjoyed a laugh, a yarn, a tease that bordered on torment. But it was the most gentle and affectionate torment you could ask for, and instead of being injured by his velvet barbs, you felt the more loved. Didn't you?

He never took life, or himself, too seriously, and was quick to make a rude face at anything or anyone that smacked of pomposity, self-importance, or self-promotion: politicians of all types and across the generations, the Royals, bureaucrats, Rex Mossop and Tony Greig were all objects of his scorn. Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety Bird and Precious Pup were more his style. He even spent years using the same snicker as Precious Pup.

He loved the Australian bush. Not the obsessive and studied love of an amateur naturalist, but a sheer uncomplicated love of the simple and sensuous pleasure that the bush offered. As a younger chap living at Five Day Creek, he would roam bare-footed up and down the creek fishing for perch, affectionately accused by the locals of being half-native, though that is not the word they used. Later, on return camping visits to the Macleay, the fishing was just an excuse to be out there surrounded by the water, the gum trees, the gnarley hills, the cicadas, the birdlife, the dry summer heat, a bloody good campfire, and his mates...some of whom may not have even been family. When in this element, Mick was truly at his happiest.

Unlike most blokes of his generation, he cooked: meat and three veg, stews, steak & kidney, curried this or that, pea and ham soup, damper, Mickles Pickles. His flagship was definitely Mickles Pickles. But no baking as far as I can recall. No, he left the Anzacs to Nancy. But his nightly cooking, his support of Mum, was one thing that stood as testament to the rock and pillar of the family that he was. There are many things he may not have been, but he was there if you needed him. Always.

He had his faults too. He was a hopeless handy man and I don't think I ever saw him do more to a motor car than put in petrol or fill an over-heated radiator. Changing a tyre was possibly achievable, but a challenge. Maybe he changed a spark plug in the mower once. He had a weakness for pulpy Westerns and could snooze away the afternoon at the drop of a hat. Until his final years he loved a drink with friends -- the mainstay being beer, but port or muscat with soda made a refreshing change…and in later years an occasional snort of Butterscotch Schnappes (or was it snatch? He was never quite sure.) For 50 odd years he smoked. Rollies, never tailor-mades. Log Cabin or Havelock, thanks. He also had a weakness for black jelly beans and crystallized ginger, but these are hardly faults are they? They were just some of his guilty, or maybe not so guilty, pleasures. Along with mangos, fresh prawns, oysters, mud crab, and Crème de Menthe and ice cream. He was an epicure before his time, was Mick.

There is more, so much more that could be said, that will be said, about his life. What he did and what he achieved. His teaching, his golfing, his marriage, his friendships. But not now. Not here. In these few words, I just wanted to try to capture a little of what he was. At least to my eyes. The essence of my Mick. My dad. And to put down this memory, the one that I shall carry of him forever.

TM 08, Post-race Analysis

2008-03-04T22:20:00.000+09:00

I've had the following half-written post sitting in my drafts folder for the past couple of weeks. I was probably going to write some more, but it is gone now. I will just pop this up as is in case it is of interest to someone and for my own future reference.

Training
This chart shows a week by week summary of my training between Ohtawara marathon on November 23 and Tokyo (Feb 17). Things went pretty well up until the 23rd of December, just recovering and slowly building back up, but then the travel to Australia upset the usual routine, and although I managed to keep up reasonable mileage, I wasn't able to churn out the 110+ km weeks with 35+ km long runs that I felt were needed to go up another level in fitness. The inability to crank up both mileage and intensity was determined more by niggles than any other factor. I definitely had the motivation and opportunity to train more, but was constantly having to take a more conservative line just to keep my poor old old chassis on the road. The main injuries were the chronic problem in my left Achilles and then some recurrences of minor strains to the biceps femoris (one of the hamstring muscles) in both legs as well as a few other less serious niggles that just added up to make running a lot less enjoyable than it should have been.

Tapering
Because of the niggles I had no particular problem doing a proper taper. I was reasonably keen to do another long run two weeks out, but knew it was too close to risk it. So after that it was a model taper except that there were not as many speed workouts as I would have liked, again, a decision taken to try to keep the injuries at bay.

Final Preparation
Nutrition from Thursday to Saturday was key. I think the advice Joachim gave me about maltodextrin loading prior to Ohtawara has proven invaluable. Not that I am convinced that malto has any magical properties of itself, but it really does make sure that you take in plenty of carbs without stressing the digestive system. I couldn't get malto powder this time, but stocked up on some cheap energy gels and took one on Thursday and two each on Friday and Saturday, plus I bought a whey-protein drink and some amino acid supplements because I have come to believe that this important, but can't really explain why.

Tokyo Marathon 2008 Race Report

2008-02-18T12:52:00.003+09:00

To cut to the the purely statistical description of my race click here.

Qualitatively, what can I say? It was simply the most satisfying race I've run. Or at least very close to it. Not because it was the best result, but because I think I ran the best that I possibly could for my fitness level. In particular, I am quite sure that being just that little bit more conservative in the first half was instrumental to not suffering a nasty fade. Though maybe there were other factors. The only blemish was the pee stop at 12 k. I tried to run through it, I tried to ignore it, I tried to pee into a used sports drink cup while running along (take it from me, it doesn't work!), I thought seriously about just letting go on the run ...I actually did that in the rain of last year's race, but just couldn't manage to do it here in the dry ... in the end I decided that the improved comfort would be of more overall benefit to my race than the short stoppage. As it was, 53 seconds was quite a lot longer than I expected it to take.

After the pee break it was really just a story of controlled running. I had one of those wrist bands with required split times for a three-hour goal (freebie from Nike at the marathon expo). I was about 50 seconds behind the required target at 15k and could have probably been forgiven for just giving up on the sub three then and there...I mean who apart from elite runners and people who start very conservatively picks up 50 seconds in the last stages of a marathon? But I knew that this deficit wouldn't be quite so bad on net time, so a really good run might still jag me a net sub-three. So I didn't give up.

At the halfway point I'd shaved some time off the deficit, but was still 30 seconds or so slower than 90 minutes. I felt that a 30+ second negative split was highly unlikely, time to the start line and pee break notwithstanding, but the fact I'd reduced the deficit slightly gave me some cause to stay positive. From there I kept telling myself over and over, just hold it together until 28k (from the Shinagawa turnaround at 15k to the Asakusa turnaround at 28 k was into a light headwind -- here's a map of the course). Fortunately the section of the course from around 20 km to 33 km, roughly from Hibiya through Ginza and up to Asakusa and back again, was just the most fantastic part of the course for crowd support. Huge crowds of flag-waving, cheering people lined the road on both sides (we ran up one side and back the other). Many strangers reading our shirts and cheering "Namban Rengo, fight!", "Namban Rengo, ganbare!". I even heard one little kid go, "Ganbare gaijin-san!" There were also taiko drummers, dancers, bands. It was jsut fantastic. So even though there was this light head wind, the crowd and my motivation just kept me moving along through this section at or about goal pace.

After the 28 k turnaround I gradually found that the readout from my footpod was showing some very fast paces. I knew I was now running downwind, but was worried that it was too early to be making any kind of major move, that it may come back to bite hard. So I attempted to curtail the worst excesses whilst still allowing the faster pace to occur naturally. By this time my legs were starting to ache all over, and the front ball of my right foot was quite sore, yet they were still doing the job. So I just kept plowing along. As the pain levels rose I tried to channel as many positive thoughts and images as I could. I tried to keep a good running posture. I thought about good runners, I thought about motivating factors like the people who sponsored me for the Tyler Foundation, my dad, who is not well, my family and friends, the lovely people who read this blog...any reason I could think of to just keep it going.

As things progressed after 32 km, the watch was starting to give some really freakish readouts, like 3:50/km, 3:48/km, 3:40/km. I knew I was moving well, possibly faster than I had been all race, but didn't think that it was quite that good. So I stopped worrying about it and just concentrated on doing the best I could. Soon there was only 7 km to go, then 5 km, then 4...there are a few nasty little rises for bridges and expressway ramps after 35 km, two of them after 40 km! Somehow my momentum and hunger to get there, knowing I was now ahead of the target time, allowed me to take these at a good pace and I was passing people constantly. Even nearly ran right up the arse of one guy who had come to a stop. Good to know the old footy side-step was there when I needed it!

The last few km passed really quickly. There were much better crowds than last year, but by this time I was just totally zoned out and was only just barely aware of them let alone able to respond. I knew I had to concentrate on holding pace, yet I was able to relax because I thought I had a reasonable buffer. And so it proved, though it was a bit nervy making the final turn to the finish line with 2:59:00 on the clock, but the line appearing some way down the road....how long will it take to get there? Just keep going, keep going hard. It took 36 seconds is how long it took. And then I was there. Finished. Did it, sub three. Just fantastic!

To see me finish, follow this link. Then type 10512 into the search line and click "Search". When the little "Play" signs drop down, click on the one on the right.

Checking my data in the watch later, I discovered the reason for the fast pace readouts. For some reason the pod suddenly started measuring long. Early in the race it had been great, measuring splits to within 1-2% of actual, but it got put out...not sure what would cause that, but it was pretty amazing thinking I was running around sub 4:00/km late in the race, when in fact I was probably going more like 4:10 to 4:15 /km .. still not to be sneezed at, I might add.

Well, I think I will end this tome here. Thanks for all the the wonderful congrats and comments on yesterday's brief post. And without going into details, yes, I did do some damage to quite a few beers through the course of the evening. And Ewen, yes, what you wrote in Japanese makes sense, especially if you intended to say "My, what a handsome beard you have!" ;-)

Got there...,just!

2008-02-17T16:37:00.001+09:00

Another sub-three by the skin of my teeth. 2:59:35 gun time, maybe 30 sec better on chip time (yes, I was up pretty close to the front). Strategic mistake was to start needing a pee. By 15k there was no choice but to stop. That was 50 sec. Went through half in 90 min 30 sec. So for the first time I had to negative split and somehow pulled it off. It was amazing. There was a grey haired old man sitting on my shoulder urging me on. More later. Off to celebrate now!!

Fragments of a Racing Mind

2008-02-15T12:17:00.004+09:00

So much to say ... so many thoughts buzzing through my head ... so little time to do them justice ...

My blogging regularity has been awful for various reasons. Sharing one computer at home among five of us (there is another machine, but it is painfully slow to use and in a cold, cold room), a less amenable environment at work. The same factors have screwed up my blog reading and commenting, so sorry folks. I will return when the weather warms up a bit.

Tokyo marathon looms. I am ready, yet not ready. Sounds familiar, huh? I am 100% certain that I have not logged the distances I need to be in PB shape, and probably not even sub 3-hr shape. But I am not beating myself up. I did the best I could given setbacks with niggling injuries, the change in work circumstances, and so on. I feel like I have slipped in fitness in the past three weeks of reduced mileage even though my legs have undergone a lot of recovery. Maybe the day of Chiba Marine was the day I should have run a marathon!

I'll be fast enough to feel comfortable at sub 3-hr pace for a while, but I think with the inadequate long-run base of the last two months it is a question of when, not if, the legs will give out and I then have to hang on for grim death to grind out whatever semi-respectable time I can salvage. That is my prediction, but I will not change my strategy and will go out to give myself a chance of a sub three, taking care not to start too fast, and hoping that the old body holds up to the demands of the pace.

I still have that damned sore left Achilles. Post Tokyo I resolve to stop running and get treatment. I have said this before, right? Well, I mean it. I am trying to think of how to keep somewhat in shape during the convalescence, but at the same time I hear the sirens. The beer sirens. They are calling to me from the rocks, "Steeeve, make more beeer!" Will my running obsession be dashed to a thousand pieces on the jagged edges of my brewing addiction? Time will tell.

I mentioned my old body. Well it is officially one year older than last time I posted. I turned 45 last Sunday and attended a real ale festival in the afternoon. Nice way to celebrate!

I am absloutley gobsmacked and overwhelmed and humbled and all of those things about the response to the Tyler Foundation sponsorship. I sent out one mass email to selected friends and business acquaintences from my contacts book, plus the post here and a post on another networking site I belong to, and bugger me if I haven't raised over 100,000 yen (>AUD1000)!! that is really just an awesome result and really, words can't express how grateful I am to everybody who kicked in. Thank you!! The whole campaign has raised over six million yen (>AUD60,000), which is a pretty bloody good effort. Last Sunday we (the sponsored runners) got to go for a jog with Mara Yamauchi (winner of Osaka women's Marathon a few weeks ago).

So, I think that's going to be it from me now until after the race. I will try to get back on with a report just as soon as I can. Until then it will be much eating and drinking and resting followed by much running followed by much eating, drinking and making merry!

Ciao, and thanks to all of you who read and comment on this blog. It is a really, really important source of motivation!! I love yas all,

Steve

Shine on Tyler

2008-02-05T13:07:00.000+09:00

Tyler Ferris was born to Mark Ferris and Kim Forsythe, long-term ex-pat residents of Japan. Less than a month into life, Tyler was diagnosed with cancer (acute lymphoblastic leukaemia to be precise). After a valiant 22-month struggle, he died in June 2005. Tyler spent many, many months of his short life in hospital. He was by all accounts an incredibly cheerful and happy toddler with a joy for life and a knockout smile.

Having experienced the stresses and strains of Tyler’s illness and extended periods of hospitalization, and ultimately the grief of his death, Mark and Kim decided to ensure that Tyler’s battle would not have been lost in vain. They set up the Tyler Foundation to support children with cancer and their families in Japan.

The Tyler Foundation has many goals and activities to ease the suffering of childhood cancer patients and their families. Foremost among them is to create Shine On House, "a support centre accommodating local Japanese and expatriate families with pediatric patients afflicted with cancer. Shine On House will aim to provide short and long term (1-2 years) accommodation, counseling space, daily and weekend care; and activities for siblings of patients."

Tyler’s mother, Kim, said, “Tyler spent more than his fair share of time in the ICU during his two years of treatment…and my husband and I spent too many nights sleeping in hospital waiting rooms wishing something like the Shine On House was available as an alternative. Other families of children with cancer, doctors, and adult cancer survivors echo again and again how this type of facility is desperately needed in Japan.”

On the 17th February, 2008 I will be running the Tokyo Marathon in support of the Tyler Foundation and, specifically, it's Shine on House project. If you would like to sponsor me with a small donation to this tremendous cause, I and the Tyler Foundation would greatly appreciate your sacrifice. It really does not need to be much because as the Australian singer/songwriter Paul Kelly once said, “From little things, big things grow.” My pledge page is here.

With sincere thanks,

Steve

Half on a treadmill

2008-02-03T20:17:00.000+09:00

Well, the schedule for today was a half marathon at about marathon pace. So that is what I did. It had to be on a treadmill at a gym in Yotsuya to which I still have a few tickets, a gift from my former employer.

I did 2k warm up, then got into the half marathon at 4:05/km pace with the slope at 0.5%. At 8 km I had to stop for a number two, then with 13.1 km left I broke it into two lots of 6.5k + 6.6k with a drink break in between. The temperature in the gym was probably 24 degrees and there is a pool in the building that seems to increase the humidity. So I sweated like crazy at that effort and had to reduce the pace a few times as the run progressed. I found the last 3 km really, really hard, both physically and mentally. It was definitely difficult to suppress the urge to stop early, and each 0.1 km seemed to take forever.

I took the complete 5 minutes cool down cycle of the treadmill and really needed it. One tough little run, but certainly better than being turned into a snowman outdoors.

Good day for polar bears

2008-02-03T10:24:00.000+09:00

This is the scene I woke to out our kitchen window this morning. After chatting with some of the gang yesterday we had decided if it were raining (as vaguely forecast) we would not run at Kanagawa. Not because we are afraid of running in rain, but there is simply no shelter at the race precinct for before/after the race and the grass/earthen assembly area turns into a quagmire. It is cold. It would have been miserable. So when I woke to see a thick blanket of snow and the storm still sending it down, I said right, that's that then and went back to bed.

As the morning unfolded, it turned out there has been even more snow at Kanagawa and the race was in fact cancelled. Good thing I did not stoically head out there to do my pace run. Poor Owain ... I also heard that Ome, the 30 km race he came all the way from Korea to run, has also been cancelled :-(

The snow is still coming down at 10:30, so I think I will be heading out soon to track down a treadmill. This might my longest ever run on a tready.

The nays have it

2008-02-01T23:40:00.000+09:00

Well, after due consideration I have to accept the voices of reason that I would be better off just running marathon pace on Sunday. Pete's analysis was early and has stood up to the test of seeing how it goes. Joachim also echoes Pete's thoughts and another experienced runner said the same thing tonight. So even though I probably could go out and give it a nudge on Sunday, I have to just accept that it would not be the right thing to do for the sake of a good result at Tokyo. So I will aim for 4:10/km to 4:05/km and see how it goes. If my marathon pace is going to be anything close to this then I should be able to pull up feeling relatively fresh, then a week of shorter faster runs next week and recovery and carbo loading into the final week.

I have had a bit of trouble with the right hamstring, which flared up on the Wednesday after Chiba. It is settling back down again now though. I managed a nice solid 37 km last Sunday at a fairly sedate pace though I was able to pick it up over the last 6 km. But I got the distance under my belt and, more importantly I hope, some adaptation into my legs.

My Achilles continue to yap away and cause almost continual discomfort. I have resolved to take time off after Tokyo to try to get them, especially the chronic left one, fixed up. It is getting so as it is just not fun any more.

I met up with Owain Lewes tonight, a Welsh/Australian who I first met through Australian Cool Running. He lives in Korea and is here to run the Ome 30 km road race on Sunday. I entered for him and had to give him his registration card. We had a pleasant 10 km run of two laps around the Imperial Palace and dinner in a (predictably) Italian restaurant afterwards.

A near PB at Chiba Marine Half Marathon

2008-01-21T21:38:00.000+09:00

So anyway, as I was saying, after returning to Japan the first two days of training involved a short, slow and fairly painful run on Tuesday (later in the day after we arrived home) followed by an easy 18 km on Wednesday evening catching up with my mate Colin. These must have been a good couple of recovery runs because on the Thursday night I headed out with no particular plans but ended up warming into a fairly solid 16 km, a large proportion of which was at sub 4:10 and for a while verging on 4:00 flat pace. I then took Friday off and, with Chiba Marine half Marathon scheduled for Sunday, just had two very easy 4-km runs on Saturday to and from my brewing partner's place to bottle a tripel we had brewed before my trip.

So Chiba Marine. It is a mostly flat, mostly straight course and the conditions were ideal: cool and calm. But after a period of not particularly encouraging training, I had just about given up on my goal of snagging a PB in this race and was preparing to relax a bit and just run it as a solid workout for Tokyo. But with a couple of easy days before the race and lacing up the flats, I went out at a good pace and realized after a few km that if I wanted to suffer a bit later in the race that a PB might be on. I decided to hold what I was doing (about 3:55 to 4:00 per km) until 16 km and then see how hard I could race the last 5 km. A really good last 5km would give me a PB. While I worked very hard over the last 1 or 2 km, I did not pick up much more pace -- the climb up and over bridge between 18 and 19 km did not help my cause, but I suppose you pick up on the down what you lose on the up.

My gun time of 1:23:16 was only ten seconds slower than my Kanagawa PB gun time from two years ago. Close, but no banana. But when I looked at my splits last night, I discovered that it took me 41 seconds to get from the 21 km mark to the finish timing mat, a pace of 6:50 min/km, yet I was just about sprinting. Huh? A time of 20 seconds, 3:25/km, would have been more likely. If the course really was long by 100 m, I was denied a gun time PB. Bugger! Still, I am extremely happy to have run so evenly at that pace and been strong enough to finish hard. The fact I wasn't faster from 15 to 20 km, despite pushing hard, suggests I got the pacing about right and did not go too slow in the early part of the race. Splits were:
0-5k 0:19:37 0:03:55
5-10k 0:19:50 0:03:58
10-15k 0:19:42 0:03:56
15-20k 0:19:46 0:03:57
20-21k 0:03:40 0:03:40
last 100 m 0:00:41 0:06:50 ????

Hmmm...creates a bit of a dilemma for how to approach Kanagawa Half in two weeks. A marathon-pace supported training run or an aggressive tilt at a new PB?

Dusting off the cobwebs

2008-01-20T21:48:00.000+09:00

Well, it has been a while between entries hasn't it. Once we left Sydney it was a bit difficult to find enough time to write blog posts even though I did have access to a computer. Anyway, last time I checked in I mentioned the run with Ewen. He subsequently documented his thoughts on it here, with pretty pictures and all. I think that the commenter called I Hate Toast made the most profound comment. The only thing is I think I am a bit uneasy about the sections of Sydney in which such a calendar might be a hit.

We spent a few more days in Sydney and I had some runs down to Lane Cove National Park from Chatswood and basically enjoyed the hills and birdlife. After Sydney we spent a night on the Central Coast at Macmasters Beach and I had a nice run that was about 3 km on road, 2 km on nice even fire trail, then down to a beach and back up the coast via a very rugged little trail. For a total of 11 or 12 km in an hour 15, it was a truly tough little run.

Then it was a night in Newcastle and a day off running before moving on to Coffs Harbour for 9 nights with my brother and parents all leading into the parents' 60th wedding anniversary on the 10th and party on the 12th. All five of my siblings were able to come together and many of my parents' grandchildren as well. So it was very special occasion and an emotional farewell.

I didn't really enjoy the running in Coffs so much, though I got a fair bit done. It was very steamy and at times warm. Running courses were not particularly obvious, though there was one section of bicycle path for 6 km from Coffs to Sawtell. The most enjoyable run I had was one morning when I drove to the boat harbour, ran to Sawtell (Toormina actually) and back and then had a dip in the Harbour before driving home again.

My eldest son, Tatsuya, who is now back with us, is nagging me to give him a massage for his sore legs from soccer yesterday. Grrr...it is impossible to find enough time to blog properly, so that will have to do for now.

A meeting of blog minds

2007-12-31T07:43:00.001+09:00

One of the great meetings of blogging minds occurred over this past weekend. Ewen came up from Canberra to stay with a friend, Bruce, not so very far from where I am staying. On the Saturday afernoon Bruce took us for a run around the Harbour foreshore from Little Sirrius Cove around Bradleys Head and back to where we started. A nice easy 6 km with some special views over the harbour, including the site of where one of the Japanese mini-submarines was caught during WW2. After the run we went for a swim in a harbourside pool (MacCallum Pool) at Cremorne (where I had dumped off a carload of kids prior to our run; everybody happy).

Yesterday morning I set off from Chatswood at 6:50 for a 7:30 appointment with Ewen at the steps onto the Harbour Bridge at Milsons Point. I made a wrong turn and had to stop to take a load off my mind and was therefore running (literally) a bit late). Some 4:15/k mileage down the hill from Crows Nest to Milsons Point made up time and I was only 5 min late.

We ran across the bridge on what was an absolutely perfect Sydney morning. Deep blue skies, barely a cloud to be seen. A warmish 23 to 25 degrees, but lowish humidity. Extremely comfortable as far as I was concerned. The Harbour was a deep dark blue and sparkling in all its glory, the Opera House sails gleaming bright and the colours of everything blaring loud in the lurid sun. Tokyo's charms are subtle and lie beyond its drab physical appearance. Sydney hits you between the eyes like a sledgehammer with her gaudy glamour, "Here I am baby, look at me!"

Ewen took me for a tour of various sections of the noted Sydney race courses such as the Sydney Marathon and Half as well as the Blackmore's Half and the start of the City to Surf. We ran around the Rocks, around the Opera House, around the Botanic Gardens and Mrs macquaries Chair, past the Art Gallery and through Hyde park before making our way back to the Bridge and Milsons Point. Back at Milsons Point Ewen called Plu (his blog URL not at hand) and we had a chat for 5 minutes or so, which was great.

I then ran back up the hill to Chatswood to finish with 32 fantastic kilometers in 2 hours 52 minutes. Just the run to get the long runs happening again and a priceless experience to boot. I think Ewen will be posting photos at his place in due course.

It's Australia, mate!

2007-12-28T11:25:00.000+09:00

After some anxious moments, with both my wife and middle son coming down with bugs 24 hours before we left, and after a 24 hour journey via Bangkok and Singapore, we finally arrived in Sydney at lunch time Thursday. It is now lunch time Friday and I have already managed to fit in two runs and a visit to the Australian Hotel in the Rocks to try a couple of craft beers.

The first run, yesterday afternoon, was just a 10 km jaunt from central Chatswood, where we are staying, through Artarmon to Flat Rock Reserve and back. After tyhat I went out to the pub and had many little Australia versus Japan experiences, like the absolutely useless level of organization surrounding the construction at Chatswood Station (but good , then getting change of a couple of dollars and feeling like a ton of metal, and having to ask for a glass when purchasing a bottled beer...

The second run was this morning to Lane Cover national Park. Running past Blue Gum Creek and Turrumbra reserve, there was no doubt what country I was in. I mucked up the roads a bit an ended up on a bush track for about 3 km. Slow bush bashing kind of stuff, but also really beautiful through that classic Sydney sandstone bushland. At times you could think you were hundreds of miles from the city, not a few kilometers. After I broke through to clear ground I crossed the bridge on Lane Cove Road and then ran back to the Park entrance via the proper road at a decent clip. Very steep hills back up to Chatswood. All up 16 km in 1:30, slower than normal due to the bush bashing and hills. But a nice run.

End of year greetings!

2007-12-25T20:31:00.000+09:00

The last week or two have been very hectic, not to say chaotic. The disruption of routine is a bitch to running schedules; throw in foul weather, seasonal lurgies, preparation for overseas trips (learning how to make a photo tribute for my parents 60th anniversary in iMovie), keeping up a commitment to brew once before I leave...it all adds up to one hell of an awful past week of running, with a couple of days before any light at the end of the tunnel (we leave on a marathon flight very early tomorrow morning). The two lovely runs last week were followed by several days of almost nothing. Sunday rolled around and I was desperate to run prior to brewing, but it dawned bitterly cold, windy and wet, and I was still heavy with a head cold. Needless to say I stayed indoors and grabbed more sleep. Yesterday (Monday) dawned much better and I managed 31 km at an average of 4:57 with a slightly faster finish. Then last night until midnight I was working to finish off the iMovie project, and today (December 25th) was flat strap preparing to leave for Australia, not a tremendously smooth process with my wife and one son down with various lurgies and desperately hoping to improve enough to fly. It will probably be Friday before I can run again, Thursday perhaps if I am a bastard to all around me and just go. I really hope it picks up after we get to Australia.

So, all I can do is conclude by saying that my stated objective of a sub three marathon at Tokyo is looking rather shaky. To those who thought I might be shooting for a big sub three (yes you, Tesso and Robert Song), I can understand your thoughts, and I will confess to mine having strayed into exactly the same place, but I knew that life and thus training was going to be disrupted like this. The head cold and a few other curve balls have made it even worse than I imagined. I hate December. If I really get in some quality training in Australia, maybe things could turn around, but it is very difficult to see it happening.

I'll try to keep you posted.

Au revoir for now...

End of an era

2007-12-21T15:59:00.000+09:00

I am in the last few hours in my present job. In fact, as soon as I pack up some books and clean off my computer, I am out of here.

Last week at our end of year party, which doubled as a farewell, I was given a tiny little package of crepe paper wrapped up with a ribbon. When I opened it I was just knocked, over, flabbergasted and reduced to a near blubbering mess. It was a little booklet done up in Photoshop by the lovely Kaori from one of our sister companies, B&C. It chronicled the six years I have been in the company, mostly with photos from our annual company ekiden, but also two trips we went on and various shots around the office, not to mention Kaorin's artwork. It was pretty hard to compose myself to make any kind of speech, tired and emotional as I already was, but I think I managed to blurt out a few rounds of "honto ni arigato gozaimashita!"

Here is a quick sample of what it contained:

If anybody in Japan is in the market for a tribute type booklet, portfolio, or any type of package like this, get in touch with B&C. They are great!

Two nice runs

2007-12-20T16:36:00.000+09:00

My last two runs were very nice. Last night was 6 km of warm up in Yoyogi Park with assorted Namban friends, after which we moved to the track for the weekly Namban interval workout. The schedule called for a ladder workout of 800, 1200, 1600, 1200, 800, 400 metres. I felt really smooth, relaxed and kind of fast. I suppose the cool but still 8 degrees Celsius and the funky just purchased AdiZero CS 3 WD shoes (6,990 yen from B&D Pro Sports Authority in Yoyogi) may have had something to do with it. My times (in pace) for those reps were: 3:30, 3:31, 3:34, 3:35, 3:22, 3:03. I felt fairly comfortable throughout and simply enjoyed this workout.

Due to the gym being closed and other commitments I had to either rest today or run before work. Getting to bed at 12 midnight was not a good portent for an early start, but I set the watch for 6:00 am anyway with the thought of doing an easy 10 km. Somehow I woke up fairly easily, got the shiny, happy shoes on and clicked the watch at 6:12. Surprisingly, my legs felt very little fatigue from the intervals and I simply rolled through the run, starting out at around 5:00/k for the first few km, gradually easing up to 4:30/k and staying around that level until I touched down at home with 12 km in my dilly bag for the log book. It was also a startlingly beautiful morning to be out and about.

I'm now starting to wonder what kind of shock to the system it will be to suddenly have to run in Australian summer conditions next week. Just looking at the weather forecasts, though, it seems quite mild with daily ranges of 21 to 26 or so. Sounds pretty nice actually.

Wobbly but steadying

2007-12-18T17:38:00.000+09:00

My self-assessment dropped a point to 6/10 after last weekend because I missed a day of training on Saturday due to a particularly heavy bonenkai/farewell party on the Friday night (and until 4:30 Saturday morning...I hate Roppongi!). The hangover developed into a cold and sore throat on Saturday night. Sunday morning the throat was not good and the head still doughy, so I rested more, downed vitamin C, and resigned myself to a crap week of not nearly enough running. It was a colder than normal day as well, which did not help any incentive I might have to get out the door.

After lunch that nagging voice got louder and louder and finally at 2:30 I got dressed and headed out the door with the intention of running at least 10k, just to salvage some pride. As I got moving I realized I wasn't feeling too bad after all and ended up running 20.5 km at 4:44/km average (and pretty evenly...no slow start, hard finish). One thing that run did was take me over 4000 km for the year. Not a bad achievement I suppose, but still pretty modest by some people's standards.

This is my last week in my current job, so even though I am scrambling to get things finished, it feels a bit like a holiday. I called into the gym yesterday morning and did 10 km on the treadmill, 5k fairly easy and 5k on a moderate sort of hill program. Last night the boss took me out for a goodbye drink. Several flasks of good sake (cold of course) and lots of fish! Then today I ran three laps (5k/lap) of the Palace at lunch time. The first was north of 5:00/km pace as I ran with Ms Uchida from my company, then the next two were at a bit slower than 4:20/km. So like the title says, steadying. I just have to follow through for the rest of the week. I think all the partying is over for now...at least I hope so.

Here is something to show you what 16/17 year-old boys get up to for kicks (pun intended) these days. To make it easier, Tatsuya is in the darker colored shoes. His mate is the better trickster, but Tats is proud of his free kicks:

Going for goal Part II

2007-12-13T18:41:00.000+09:00

I left an important part out of that last post. I mentioned how I am travelling with the training. And generally I give myself 7/10. The lost marks are due to the effects of not being quite as successful on the socializing front. It is end-of-year party season here in Japan. Last Saturday we had our running club end-of year bash (bonenkai), which was a self-catered pizza, salad, sushi, snacks, and copious amounts of booze affair. I organized a partner race (run to an allotted pace for 6 km with no watch) in the afternoon, and when announcing the winners at the party startled everybody by stripping down to my Namban vest and shorts...hee hee. It was a wonderful, happy and ever so slightly boozy party. I got home well after midnight and was not terribly fit the the next day. Late morning I ventured out to run to Renald's place (photo credit and fellow who hosted the party) to see if I could help clean up. But it was all done and I just had to keep on running. I covered about 16 km at a very slow, gingerly pace. Every minute of that run felt like 5. I was also so knackered on Monday that I just didn't even try to run. Score one for the parties.

Then on Tuesday night I had a farewell party with my two English conversation classes. I will not be able to continue the classes when I start my new job. So we went to a craft beer bar, and well, I had a few craft beers and a jolly good time. Actually, the next morning I wasn't too bad. I couldn't get up and run at 5:30, but I ate into work time and did that tempo run in the gym that I mentioned in the last post. So not too bad really.

Tomorrow I have my main company bonenkai, which will also have an element of farewell party for me. The evil co-workers will be hoping to see me written off. We will be going to a restaurant in Roppongi, which is a place I prefer to stay well clear of. Anyway, I will just have to be strong and limit myself to a few glasses of better quality sake.

My boss also wants to take me out next Monday night for a farewell drink. They like to mark occasions over a drink.

So, the season is presenting plenty of shoals upon which my training is frequently threatening to be dashed. But so far I have escaped with only minor damage to the hull. Sta tuned for the next exciting installment.

Going for goal

2007-12-13T16:46:00.000+09:00

I want to make it clear that I have a very firm goal of going sub three hours at Tokyo Marathon on February 18. Last year's weather and my performance, which were not necessarily intrinsically linked, were a bit of a disappointment and I want redemption. I wish to go into this race determined and motivated, and I need that to be reflected in my approach to training and socialising (the second of these being the most difficult).

The first part of the training plan required a conservative, restful recovery from Ohtawara. That was achieved quite nicely and now I've entered the second phase, which means getting back up to modestly high mileage while putting a certain degree of emphasis on speed work. For the next couple of weeks I want to run 80 to 90 km a week comprised of a couple of 14-16 km lower aerobic efforts, a not-so-long-not-so-slow (say 25km) long run, and two speed-oriented sessions (perhaps two items per week off a four-item menu of 1 k to 1600 m intervals, 6 to 10k tempo run, short hard intervals, hill repeats). Then any additional mileage would be just easy pace.

So how am I traveling? Last Wednesday I did a 6 x 1k interval workout with the club. Saturday I ran a short hard interval session of 10 x 30 s hard followed by 60 s easy. I also did a few plyometrics...just jumping from a static start up onto a 25-30 cm high block. Yesterday morning I did 11 km on a treadmill with 6 km at tempo pace of 3:52 to 3:55. I had the incline set at 1.5% at first, but after a while was going too lactic so backed the speed a tad and the incline back to 1%. I enjoyed this workout, especially since I'd had to squeeze it in to a tight day. Going pretty hard makes a treadmill more bearable.

This morning was scheduled as a 16km steady (lower aerobic) run. I awoke at 5:20 am fairly bright-eyed and ready to roll and was a bit shocked to see the steadily falling rain outside. Still, it didn't deter me and I got the run in without too much trouble, but I was a cold little boy at the end of it (it was 8 deg C). I am finding that a pace of 4:20 to 4:17/km is a nice comfortable aerobic run these days. I remember a time when I thought that 4:30/km was far too hard to be doing aerobic training! It eventually left me feeling a little fatigued this morning and perhaps I should have been a few seconds slower or should have shaved a couple of km off the distance. Finding that precise workload that pushes you to adaptation but from which you can recover for tomorrow is a fine line.

Anyway, the most interesting part of the training will begin on December 26 when we leave for Australia. The sudden switch to heat will be interesting. I'll have a few days based in Chatswood (Lane Cove Nat Park?), then maybe somewhere overnight on the way to Coffs Harbour, then almost ten days in Coffs with hills, heat, and humidity. I think this phase of the training will be a switch back to distance and endurance. I have a feeling that this period in Australia, timed as it is, will either make or break the ambitions for a good Tokyo. A few days after we get back to Tokyo I'll be running a hard half marathon, so that will be a good test of the efficacy of the speed and heat training.

Bits and bobs

2007-12-07T23:47:00.000+09:00

I've been so busy since the marathon that I hardly have time to scratch myself let alone write blog posts. I'm changing jobs at the end of the year and have been preparing information for the new company and involved in trying to recruit my replacement at the present company; I have been trying to create a DVD movie thing from photos to commemorate my Ma & Da's upcoming 60th wedding anniversary; I have been organising the race to precede our club bonenkai (year-end party) on Saturday the 8th; I have been trying to be a bit supportive around the house (and failing); I have been trying to get the running kicked off again...

The week after the marathon (which was on Fri 23rd Nov) I only ran on Wed 28th, 7k, and felt great at first but some calf weariness by the end. Then I ran the same run on the Saturday and got through it fine. Then 15k quite slowly last Sunday and then this week 10k, 12k, 15 k (with 6 x 100 intervals at 3:45 to 3:32/km--weary after that), rest, and then 12k this morning. The aim has been recovery and settling back easily into it. Next week I will try to notch up the work load, but I have several year-end parties coming up and feel a bit run down from lack of sleep. Why am I writing this instead of going to bed?

Marathon Nutrition
Clairie wanted to know about what I ate before the marathon (I think that was the question). Well, Joachim got us a fix of maltodextrin from his secret source in East Germany, so a few of us were having 1g/kg of bodywweight per day of that for the four days before the marathon to supplement regular carb loading. I also made an additional effort to try to keep up protein intake; wherever possible I was trying to generally observe the 3-4g carb to 1g protein thing. I was taking protein in the form of soy milk, yogurt, eggs, that kind of thing. During the race I didn't have anything much until about half way, then had a gel. At 30k I had a special drink which contained sports drink and some gel with a protein component. I don't think the protein counted for much at that stage. Then I had another gel at 35k. Bloody wind was the limiting factor though at that point. I don't think the attention to protein ended up contributing so much to my performance because my calves were still holding me back. Maybe if I had the right shoes the calves would have been better and I'd have had a stronger second half...but I really felt mostly free of pain very quickly after this one and I think that may have had something to do with the extra protein.

Other stuff
It is now a bit cold and dark in the mornings and I am finding it interesting to try to get up at 5:30 after going to be at 11:00 to 11:30. I have no running tights at present and need a new heart rate chest strap to replace the one I lost. But I simply can't afford these investments at present, so I am running with icy knees and no metering other than time and, on the rare occasions the footpod decides to work, pace. At least I have gloves thanks to Jim.

So that's where I'm at. I think that will do for now.

Ohtawara 2007

2007-11-25T00:12:00.001+09:00

My preparations for this race were, I think, pretty difficult to fault.

I trained well, cross-trained and strengthened, managed niggles and blisters, gave up grog and cut way back on coffee and junk foods for the final month, generally ate healthily and took some vitamin supplements etc to keep colds at bay, freshened up my legs, carbo loaded well, borrowed a replacement heart rate belt, made sure my shoes and gear were good ... in short, everything I could control, I did.

The one thing I couldn't control was the weather, and while it was fine, the wind decided to blow and the temperature was probably the coolest we've had at around 6 degrees--the surrounding mountains were shrouded in snow. The race is two loops of a roughly rectangular course. We were lucky in one sense that for most of the course we were at worst just buffeted from the side and were not significantly affected. However from 15 to 21 km and 35 to 41.5 km we had to cope with the double whammy of a slight uphill combined with a strong, blustery headwind.

I'd decided that the right pace for me to go out at was about 4:05 to 4:07. If the fade was minimal and left me feeling strong near the end, it would get me very close to a PB. Right or wrong, I really did not believe a faster pace would be sustainable, so the best I was going to get would be a slight PB.

Joachim and I ran together from the start until just after the half way point, at which point he put the accelerator down. My calves were telling me that it would be suicide to try and stay with him. It is difficult to express my appreciation for his calming presence during that first half. We rolled through the first 15 km right on pace, mainly going off my heart rate and our combined pace judgment as he was having some troubles with his Garmin. An example of the kind of reassuring presence he provided was when I was having trouble with my race number. Two pins had ripped through the paper and I mentioned it to him. He said, "Ah, don't worry, it's not mission critical." Ha ha .. exactly. I really didn't worry about it after that. As we came to inclines or into the wind, it was "Don't push too hard, don't try to fight it, conserve energy." Calming, reassuring. We got through these sections on the first lap without incurring too much time or bodily damage. The second time around the fight would be a bit more serious.

We went through the half in 1:27:23, perhaps 50 seconds slow. Not too bad, but we'd lost more time on the windy, uphill section than I could really afford. And while I generally felt OK, leg fatigue was certainly starting and my calves in particular had been feeling tight since about 15k (the Tarthers were probably a bit too light). I knew at that point that the PB was going to be hard to achieve, but we were back to the non wind-penalized section of the course and I thought that a strong sub three was there for the taking. The PB was still not beyond reach, but there was zero room left for fade.

While Joachim pulled ahead I settled into fight on my own. I was happy that nothing really changed and I had decent splits to 25 and then again to 30 km. Then 30 to 35 was still respectable and I was moving well, sometimes really getting a move on with some wind assistance. But then came the 35 km mark, which signified the start of 7 km of slight continual uphill, strong headwind, and serious cold. I made sure I got my last gel into me and really knuckled down to the fight. Unfortunately it was impossible to avoid a significant slow down through this section. The wind was stronger than on the first loop and the leg fatigue, quite obviously, was much worse. Still, I did my very best and got as much pace out of my legs as I could muster and never felt like I was shot. All I wanted was a break from the wind and I thought I could have continued extracting my target pace, or perhaps better, out of my legs.

But after the struggle, by 40 km I knew the goal was simply to get under three hours. Even though I had a little bit of buffer, I knew I had to run at well under sub 5:00/km pace, so it was still no gimme.

The Namban cheer squad was spread out along the main road over the final kilometer to the stadium. They were a great boost and I felt that I was really pushing as hard as I could. "C'mon Steve! You're sub three!!" As I turned the final corner to run the last 150 to 200 m to the finish line, my watch ticked over to 2:59...bloody hell, cutting it a bit fine here, I managed to get a final spurt out of the legs and crossed, relieved, in 2:59:40. My third sub three-hour marathon in the bag! All of them on this course!

How do I feel? It's hard to say. Not rapturous, but satisfied. I had felt there was a very real chance of slipping under the PB. I did the best I could under the conditions and recorded a solid time when it would have been easy to give up and just coast in to a 3:02 or 3:03 or something. Beating three hours was always my B goal, and I achieved it, even if by a narrow margin. So yep, on balance, happy.

Enough for now. Here are the splits. I'll be putting the data onto my log tomorrow and might make a couple of follow-up posts on some other facets of interest, like my heart rate data, and maybe some piccies.

section time (pace/km)
0-5 21:05 (4:13)
5-10 20:00 (4:00)
10-15 20:34 (4:06)
15-20 21:21 (4:16)
20-25 20:27 (4:05)
25-30 20:44 (4:08)
30-35 21:47 (4:21)
35-40 23:26 (4:41)
40-42.2 10:16 (4:40)

Oh yeah, Joachim went on to run about a 1-minute negative split for a 2:53:xx!! Fantastic race for him. He'll be putting up his version of events on his blog.

And one more thing ... A huge congratulations to young Christian, the boyishly handsome young chap I met on the start line of the Shinjuku City half marathon at the start of this year. On that occasion he stuck behind me until about 14 or 15 km before fading to finish a couple of minutes behind me. He subsequently linked up with us at Namban and has trained the house down by following an on-line coaching system from Switzerland (his home country). Yesterday he ran a 2:50:xx! He could have easily gone sub 2:48:48 if it were not for the wind. Fantastic. Hard to say how much better he will get, but 2:40 and beyond is distinctly possible (not that I want to put any pressure on him :-)

Thanks one and all for the support and kind wishes. It has been hugely motivating.

20 seconds to spare

2007-11-24T09:22:00.001+09:00

2:59:40

Final countdown

2007-11-19T10:56:00.000+09:00

If this were a normal marathon week, i.e. with the marathon on Sunday, then today would be Wednesday. But Ohtawara is always on the national holiday of the 23rd of November, no matter the day of the week, so this year it is Friday, making for a nice long weekend.

The last week of training, if you can call the late stage of the taper "training", went fairly well. If I did anything wrong it was probably to run just a little too much. But if this is the case, I don't think it was by a big amount, and the rest of this week will be very quiet. Maybe just a light run tomorrow with a few stretches at race pace.

Last week was as follows:
Mon: rest (was suffering from blisters as you may recall)
Tue: 12k easy at 4:45/km
Wed: 8.5 km of easy jogging and 5 km of 1k repeats at target race pace on the track with Joachim, Paddy & Adam. We tried to run the pace by feel and were a bit slow at first (4:12, 4:20, then a bit fast, 4:01, 3:57, 3:57)
Thur: 7.5 km on treadmill with 6k at about 4:00/km. 750 m swim
Fri: Nothing
Sat: 3.3 km easy followed by 10 km at race pace. Again, went out too fast. Three x 3.3 km loops at 3:59, 4:03, 4:08
Sun: 14 km running easy by feel. Felt fairly easy, but was in the low 4:20s for much of the run. I probably ran 4 or 5 km too long for this run, but bugger it, I also run because I enjoy it, and this was a nice morning for a run.

Week total: 60 km

What I've found over the past week is that 4:20/km feels like an easy pace and is one I am sure would have me still feeling pretty strong at 30 km. If I wanted to run the marathon as "train-through" race with only the thought of posting a solid but not best possible time, then 4:20 would be a good target pace. At the other end of the spectrum, I can feel aerobically fairly comfortable at 4:00/km, but it is clear that this would trash my legs and energy system by 20 to 25km and who knows how ugly it could get over the final 15 km.

My conclusion then is that 4:05 (2:52:18 marathon) is the fastest pace I could attempt to run, but I am pretty confident it would still result in a nasty fade that could see me struggling to squeak in under the 3 hour mark. I think that 4:10/km (2:55:49 marathon) should see me to 30k, after which it is hard to say what would happen. A faster finish from 30k is very unlikely, so targeting 4:10 pace would probably leave me with almost no chance cracking the 2:54:47 PB, but a reasonable chance of staying under 3 hours.

So that's my analysis and feelings; I'll leave it up to yourselves to conclude what I should do. I will reflect on this over the next few days and make my own decision. I'll probably decide on the day, most likely right about the time it is too late to undo the damage of yet another too-fast start! My honest feelings, though, are that a PB is a less than 50/50 chance.

On the body front: all the training-induced leg niggles have cleared up. My lower back and hips are as good as can be expected, the blisters and infected toe have all healed. The only real niggle is the long-standing Achilles. No doubt it will nag away until after 10k when it is warmed up. Later in the race other pains will overwhelm it anyway.

So that's it, nothing left to do except rest and carbo load. Thanks for the support and interest. I'll let you know how it goes. I can tell, you, I'll be looking forward to my first beer in a month at around 2:00 on Friday!!

An appeal to Queenslanders

2007-11-15T11:09:00.000+09:00

As you know I very occasionally depart from the usual patter about distances, pace, and what bit hurts most at the moment to have a little rant about politics.

This time, political though the message is, it is a very simple one targeted purely at my handful of Queensland readers. Anyone else who reads on is just being a stickybeak, but don't let that stop you...well, no, if you know a Queenslander and think you can influence their vote on November 24th, then you might want to read on...

From the last year or so of following his blog, I have formed the opinion that there is but one truly "good guy" in Australian politics. I am sure there are others, but this one, through his blog, lets you see what he thinks, what he believes in, and what he does about it in his day to day political life. Thus you can actually know he is genuine and a person rather than just another drone following the party line. And generally speaking, what distinguishes him most is his compassion and concern for people, especially the oppressed and disadvantaged. He is Queensland Democrat Andrew Bartlett.

And the problem is, Andrew's prospects for being returned at the upcoming election are looking a little shaky.

While I am nominally a pretty much welded-on Labor voter, the thought of Andrew losing his seat in the senate fills me with dread. I also think that the current parliamentary makeup is evidence that we really shouldn't let either of the major parties have full control of both houses. The best way to achieve this is to have a reasonable size block of sensible, intelligent, free-thinking Senators holding the balance of power. Generally speaking, the Democrats are perfect for this role. They are not spoilers and will allow the government to govern, but will treat any proposed new laws on their merits and subject them to thorough and thoughtful analysis.

Anyway, what I am asking of all Queensland readers, if you haven't yet thought about your vote in the Senate, is to please have a look at Andrew's blog, and if you find that you have sympathy with his ideals and objectives, make sure you not only vote for him, but try to suggest the value of voting for him to as many of your Queensland friends as you can. Andrew deserves to be re-elected. Australia needs better checks and balances in the Upper House than we currently have. Please tell your friends and ask them to tell their friends.

Vote 1 Democrats in the Senate

Thanks for your time.

'sokay

2007-11-13T11:35:00.000+09:00

I bought some mega-bandaid type thing on Sunday afternoon. It has a sheet of soft stuff you cut out to shape to form a pad and sheets of band aid type stuff to cut out and go over the pad.

The blister settled down a lot yesterday. All the water seemed to get reabsorbed back into my body or something and it was not hurting to walk around.

I thought it was worth a try with the paddy bandaid thing this morning and sure enough, got through 11.5 km at an easy 4:45 type of pace this morning. Not even a flicker of pain and the pad was barely noticeable. So the dramatics of the last post were probably not justified. I appreciate the concern though. One day I might even work out what "rest your dogs" means. Would they be huskies, these dogs? Pete is from Maine, so I guess that kind of expression might creep into the lexicon around those parts.

The unbearable rightness of resting

2007-11-11T20:06:00.000+09:00

Sorry, I have had that title in my head for a few days and just had to use it. I took yesterday off because it rained all day and my left foot was not good. Not good at all. I am having a hell of a time with skin problems on it. It all started two weeks ago with an ingrown toenail. I get these from time to time but they usually clear up quickly under a regime of hot water soaks and Savlon for a couple of days. But this one has really been persistent. It is finally starting to clear now, but there have been a few hurty runs. The real problem is that the bandaid for the ingrown toenail led to a blister under the 2nd toe. Then during last Wednesday's 4.4 km intervals a big blister started between the ball and arch of the same foot ... not sure why. During Friday's run the blister under the 2nd toe rubbed raw. That's why it was not difficult to convince myself to take yesterday off.

So with yesterday being a big fat zero, I was all set today for an important last, hard long run. I taped the blister under the 2nd toe and it was fine. But the tape caused a blister on the adjacent side of my big toe! And the blister under my foot flared up and was hurting with every footfall -- I was just hoping it hadn't burst (luckily it held up). But the run was going well, so I was loathe to pull out.

So blister pains aside, I ended up running 28 km and think it was a successful run. Mostly around 4:22 pace. But also finished pretty strong with a couple of faster last km and a feeling of there being plenty left in the tank when I finished. I had hardly any water and no calories since dinner the night before. (It was only 14 degrees, so the water was not an issue.) Heart rate barely crept over 150 just at the end when I was pushing it a little. It was just like a regular weekday lower aerobic run only...longer.

OK, so it was slower than race pace, but not that much slower. Fifteen to twenty seconds per km for the most. It was hard enough to give me a little stimulus in 12 days time, yet not so hard or long that it will set me back much. Some easy runs tomorrow and Tuesday. Some race pace intervals on Wednesday ... and we'll see how we go from there.

I see that Clairie has returned from maternity leave just in time to take up her duties filling me full of pre-race nerves! Thanks Clairie. It wouldn't have been the same without you!

And my new training partner Joachim has started a blog. Pop over and say hi!

A tough one

2007-11-08T15:31:00.000+09:00

Had a pretty tough workout last night. I was proposing another tempo run, this time 12 km, and was going to write an email to Joachim to invite him to join me. Before I could, he wrote to me and announced he was doing 3 x 4.4 km "intervals" at 3:47/km with a mile recovery between each. My first reaction was to gulp. My second was to think that, well, that structure would be similar to a good tempo run. Tempo intervals I think they call it. Having not done any intervals quite as long as that (I think the most I've done is 2 km), I decided what the heck, but I told him that my target pace would be more likely to be 3:50.

And 3:50 is what we set out to do. I developed a sore left fetlock (soleus) during the first interval, but decided to press on. Despite a bit of concern about more severe damage, I went on to complete the workout, though it did suppress my pace a bit on the third rep as you can see from the data:

Time Pace HRav
16:43 3:48 155
16:41 3:48 156
16:56 3:51 154

Again noteworthy is how stable and low my heart rate stayed for this pace. At any other time in my running history, 3:50/k pace would have seen me getting over 160, if not in the first or second km, at least by 3 and 4. But not at the moment.

Before anybody gets too excited about what this means, I can assure you that it does not mean I can run a 4:00/km marathon. It just means that lactate threshold is not the limiting factor. There is no doubt in my mind that my legs would give way at around 25 km if I went out at that pace. In fact they might give way at 4:10/km. So balancing the theoretical potential against the biomechanical realities is what makes the selection of a target pace really interesting for this marathon. In some ways it comes down to a simple question: how bad do ya want it? How much pain are you willing to withstand? I suppose a lot depends on how the rest of the taper goes. But it is indeed getting interesting, even for me.

I need another month

2007-11-04T22:17:00.000+09:00

Well, I had a pretty good run today to finish the week. An easy 11 km with company at well north of 5:20/km. Then switched to race shoes (the deadly Tarthers) and a singlet for a race pace half marathon. It was a brisk 15 degrees when we first started, but quickly warmed to a balmy 17, so the singlet was a good choice for my solo race pace run.

I went off at a strong pace and got into a rhythm that I thought was about right. The first 2km was 4:12/km, not 4:00/km. And it felt hard enough on the legs so I saw no reason to change it. The pace did pick up over the next 7 km, but only to about 4:08/k, then slipped back to 4:12/km. Heart rate was mid 140s and stayed there pretty much through 17 to 18 km after until I picked the pace up again to 4:05/km and 4:03/km for the last couple of laps (a shade under 2k per lap). Then it got up to 151.

So I did the whole thing at an average of 4:10/km. I wasn't sorry to stop, but I certainly could have kept running a while longer at that pace. The left Achilles was a bit sorer than normal, probably because of some short, sharp hill repeats I did yesterday.

The title of the post reflects the fact that I think with three or four more weeks of this kind of sharpening week, I probably could have a stab at the 4:00/km marathon. I would want a few more longish weeks but with plenty of higher intensity, like the 1600 or 2000 m repeats, a longer tempo run, and a faster long run. Hell, I will do that again this week anyway, though with an eye on tapering as regards total mileage.

Well, gotta cut it short and get some sleep. Week in summary: 107 km, including a tempo run, a 4 x 2000 m repeats, and half marathon at race pace.

Colouring by numbers

2007-11-02T10:12:00.000+09:00

I have been trying to spare you all the monotony of detailed daily posts and sticking mostly to weekly updates. But it is hard to resist as the marathon approaches and my body begins to cooperate ... and when I have a run like this morning's.

I happily took a big fat zero yesterday (yaaay .... rounds of applause), though did have a steady 30 min swim and a short sauna (booos....jeeers).

But generally all felt pretty well and I finally felt confident that I could get up early and launch into a 1600 m interval session. I nearly blew it by staying up a bit later than I should have and was in a deep slumber when the alarm went off at 5:10.

Took an easy warmup to Komazawa Park and to the "Start" line. Had a 5 min break, went to the loo, washed my face, had a drink of water, picked my ear wax and ate it ... (Australian political reference!)

Part way into the first 1600 I thought, why 1600? We are trying to build lactic tolerance here, why not push on to 2000? Well, let's see how the heart rate goes and legs are feeling ... so I went through 1600 in 6 min flat and kept running up the damn hill (it is a fairly gentle hill, but it is still a hill) to reach the 2k mark at 7:28 (3:44/k). Heart rate averaged 150 and topped out at 160. But I was breathing pretty hard. I'd have thought I'd see a higher peak heart rate over that distance at that speed and up the hill, even if it was morning.

Took a 3:45 break by which time HR was down to 80.

Next rep (I was pretty much committed to 2k reps now) I went through 1600 in 5:57 and the 2k in 7:25 (3:43/k). HR averaged 151 and hit 161.

Reduced the break to 3:00 with final HR = 83

By 400 into the next rep the legs were feeling heavy and I thought that I was rolling along more slowly, certainly not forcing it like I was in the first rep. However I went through 1600 in 5:54 and the 2k came up in 7:23 (3:42/k). That one felt hard towards the end but still my heart rate was at a silly 151/163 (at least the max was slowly climbing).

I considered calling it at that point, but opted instead to take a 4:00 break, at the end of which HR = 100

The last rep certainly was definitely hard work, and when I went through 1600 in 5:59 I knew that I was well and truly done. Still, despite pushing really hard over the last couple of hundred meters (uphill), my HR still only maxed out at 163 - rep time = 7:27 (3:44/k).

I felt like I was doing it all hard enough, including breathing, to be up near HR max, at least around 170. If I hadn't had a monitor on it would have just felt like any normal interval workout. I suppose the morning start has something to do with it, but actually the HR numbers were not that different to my 1600s at the Palace last week. I hope it's not, and don't think it is, over-training fatigue. I guess I just have to get used to the idea that, as Pete said in his comment to my last post, I am pretty fit at the moment. But robert song, 2:48? Come on, that is just fantasy land. But I have to say I'll be disappointed if I can't break 3 hours this time around, and I accept that all the signs point to a sub 2:55 if the planets come into alignment...still, that is getting ahead of ourselves. Next up, some distance at around race pace on Sunday. Easy day tomorrow.

And the winner is ...

2007-10-31T23:30:00.001+09:00

I think (B) was probably the closest, but I wouldn't say that "much of it was at 10 race pace".

I was a bit sneaky though, you see. I got out for a shade under seven easy kilometers in the morning. Then I did an easy 6 km warm up tonight. Then a 10 km tempo run on the track (and we were just about there weren't we?) and then another couple of easy kilometers to cool down, just to make sure. So a lot of it was really at easy pace, and I think that was my crowning glory of common sense. And it was all directed around making sure I could do justice to the schedule 10 km tempo run. But end result, ta daaaa .. 503.0 ... 100 meters less than last month! Shit, what's the time? Where are my shoes?

And boy, wasn't that tempo run a weird thing. From my HRmax, I judge my lactic threshold to be up around heart rate 160 to 165. And based on current fitness and recent heart rates etc, I figured I could target 3:55/km to 4:00/km as being about right to get me to that heart rate after a few kilometers; It wasn't. I had Joachim for company (him fresh off a 78 minute half last weekend!) and we really got into a good rhythm. As good as you can on a track as crowded as Oda Field on a Wednesday night. By 5k we had averaged 3:58/k and my average heart rate had only got up to 153. Then we turned the screw to low 3:50s and my heart rate was up to 156/157. The last two km were a 3:50 and a 3:43 to come in at 38:59 (rounding errors in the log splits made it 39:01 ... phooey). It was only in the 9th km that I really felt my breathing go up that extra notch. So it seems I probably need to be under 3:55, close to 3:50, to really reach into my lactic threshold. That's a really good thing. Now if only my legs and back and everything else would just cooperate!!

Oh, and the Tarthers were beautiful! I think they'll be OK in the marathon despite how light they are.

Decisions decisions

2007-10-30T22:20:00.001+09:00

Oh dear. One day to go. Don't go chasing numbers, I said to someone the other day. The log is on 478 km. Tomorrow is the last day of October. I feel pretty good. Recovered even. Tomorrow is Wednesday. Just 22 km. What will I do? Ewen will shoot me. Or maybe just laugh at me. Oh dear...

Last Week in Review

2007-10-29T12:34:00.000+09:00

I should have written this up last night. I am already 10 km into this week.

So, it was a strange old week of mixed fortunes, some of which I mentioned in the last post. But leading with the positives:

The two niggle/injuries in my right leg have cleared right up
Despite a cold, the funeral, and a typhoon on Friday/Saturday, I managed to log 118 km
I had one very good quality speed workout, and another OK one (on a treadmill)
Logged a reasonable long run yesterday
In a pique of optimism yesterday afternoon bought some racing shoes (Tarther Duel LT)
Having cut out grog, coffee (mostly) and sweets and chips (mostly), my weight has dipped below 70 kg, actually it was 68 yesterday after the long run and 69 this morning before brekkie.
I somehow feel I am on the verge of peaking and being in pretty good shape for a good marathon. If only all the news was good.

The one bad thing is that I have this on-going pain in my lower right back and lower abdomen just above the pubis. It comes and goes and usually doesn't present much of a problem to my running, but both bugged me a fair bit yesterday during the long run and are still twinging away today. If they would only go away and let me put in a few more decent tempo and long interval workouts, then a restful taper, I would have cause to feel optimistic that I will be strong and ready and rearing to go on race day. But if they don't clear...God only knows how ugly it might get out there.

Mon: 8 km easy
Tue: 16 km lower aerobic @ 4:40/km
Wed: 17 km easy + 4 x 1600 m (6:06, 6:07, 5:54, 6:04) with 400 m recovery
Thur: 12 km following hill program on treadmill. Bloody tough! HRav=146!
Fri: 15 km three laps of the palace: easy, easy/lower, lower/upper
Sat: 12 km on treadmill (typhoon day), attempted tempo run, but treadmill max pace 16 km/h (3:45 min/km) did not get my heart rate up to threshold values. Highest it got was low 150s...puh!
Sun: 37 km seven laps of the Palace + 2km easy jog before and after. First four laps easy, around 5:00/km or a bit slower, then three at increased pace, around 4:40. These hurt a bit.
Week: 118 km
MTD: 453 km
(now 463 ... can he make 500 for October?)

Mid-week report: the good and the bad

2007-10-26T13:11:00.001+09:00

The good is that things are going much better this week despite the fact I caught a cold on Monday. It slowed me down a little and threw the schedule around because while I planned to wake up and train every morning, it was impossible to face getting up at 5:15 for an interval session with the dullness that comes with a cold. But it is clearing now on the back of mega-doses of vitamin C. I managed a good set of mile repeats on Wednesday night and a hard hour on a treadmill (hill program at a fairly high setting) last night.

The bad was that a work colleague who joined my team at our company's ekiden in May this year, and who I would occasionally have contact with through my job, died during a trail running race, the 71 km Hasegawa Cup in far western Tokyo. That's him at far right in the photo of our ekiden team. The race goes through some pretty rugged terrain and there are a few places where if you fall off the trail you are a goner. Sadly he was the only person in the 15 years of the race to fall off one of those sections. It was terrible. Only 40 years old and as nice a guy as you'd want to meet. We were not really more than acquaintances, but it still hit pretty hard when attending his otsuya (like a wake the day before the funeral) especially the way it happened. Rest in peace Kazuhiro Tanaka. I hope I can finish the race for you next year.

On a slightly happier note, "my" beer is being consumed in the more discerning bars of Tokyo.

Another training week gets smacked down

2007-10-21T17:01:00.001+09:00

Wish it really were that much of a testosterone-fueled triumph. But truth be told I limped and struggled my way through yet another week of niggle-restrained running. There were a couple of sessions that I felt glad to get under the belt, but by and large I felt like I wasn't doing anything more than barely maintaining the same fitness level. I want to be keeping up the miles while doing at least a couple of speed/stamina sessions. I did attempt a couple of faster stints, the best of which was some intervals on Friday evening. But always the right calf felt knotty and sore, threatening to split in half if I ran too hard for too long. On top of that I have kind of tenderness in the groin/pubis that comes and goes, and then, since yesterday, a sharp little shooting pain on the top of my right foot, though it has not troubled me during running, only when walking around the house. I know, I know, don't walk around the house.

Mon PM: 1.5 km swim (recovering from the race pace run on Sunday)
Tue AM: 12 km easy @ 4:52 HR 131 (definitely not yet recovered)
Wed AM: 12 km easy @ 4:42 HR129 (felt more recovered)
Wed PM: 13 km at a mix of paces including one sub 4:00 burst of about 1200 m
Thur PM: 10 km on treadmill, 5:00/km with 4% gradient ... HRav 143, so pretty good aerobic w/out
Fri AM: 11 km easy 5:17/km, HR122
Fri PM: 7 km easy and 6 km of 5 x 800 m intervals @3:40-50/k
Sat noon: 13 km @ 5:07 (no HR data)
Sun AM: 31 km @ progressive pace from 5:10/k, finishing 4:40/k. Average HR 127, pace 5:03/k
Week: 116 km
Month to date: 335 km

Aerobically I know I am pretty fit at the moment and could probably go out and run close to a PB at any short distance. The problem is my legs and whether I have the kind of endurance I need to keep up the speed over the last 15 km of a marathon. I can't really think of much in the way of strategies for getting over this except to keep up the load, but switching over to a "easy days easier, harder days harder" regime for the next two to three weeks, with gradual mileage taper, then a pretty hard taper over the last one week and five days. A few stamina (threshold) runs are going to be very important as is getting recovery happening in my legs, whilst not letting the aerobic base slip. Quite a juggling act.

News items

2007-10-14T22:37:00.000+09:00

A few things I have been meaning to mention:

Got news last week that I got selected in the lottery for the Tokyo Marathon in February. Guess I'll have to run the bastard now.
The family & I will be in Australia, mainly Sydney, Newcastle and Coffs Harbour from Dec 28 to Jan 13.
If I haven't already mentioned it, Tatsuya has decided he'll come back to live in Japan next year. He's had his ups and downs, but basically decided that he'll be more comfortable living with his own family and completing school in the Japanese system. He has got a lot out of his time there and definitely picked up some Aussie ways, like the impulsive crew cut at the brandishing of a set of clippers when on holidays at the rellies.

Another week down...

2007-10-14T21:50:00.001+09:00

Another up and down week over (only six more of them to go!). Frustrations not being able to quite crank out the mileage or some of the more intense sessions that I would like, but despite the niggles and the nags, I am still in the game.

Mon 8th: Public holiday. Easy 10 km at 5:20/km
Tue AM: 16k @ 4:40 HRav 136 ... not feeling fully recovered from Sunday
Wed PM: 20k with a whole mix of paces. Some slowish warm up, some lower aerobic, and three mile cruise intervals at about 3:50/km (aggravated hamstring & Achilles a bit)
Thur PM: Work sprung a drinking party on me, so I snuck out to the gym at 5:30 and did 30 min "hills" on the elliptical and 5k on the treadmill with progressive pace: 4:40 for 1k, 4:17 for 2k and 4:00 for 2k.
Fri PM: 16 km around the Imperial Palace. First and third laps at around 4:40/km. Second lap was a fartlek of a 400 m, a 600m, a 700 m and another 400 m which was an aborted 1000 m because the right hamstrings started squawking. Would have done a fair bit more of this if the legs were more sound. Really ended up with quite a few sore bits after this one.
Sat AM: Recovery. 13 k @ 5:20/km, average HR of 122! Also took some Ibuprofens at lunch and dinner to help the legs settle for Sunday's pace run.
Sun AM: Set up and joined the marathon girls on a race pace run at the Palace. Legs feeling as good as could be expected. We did a lap (5k) to warm up, then five laps at our planned race paces (or thereabouts). Basically I was able to do all mine at between 4:15/km and 4:18/km and my heart rate never got into uncomfortable territory (details here). I was definitely starting to go off the boil by the fifth lap though and developed a new sore spot, in my right calf (sigh!). It was quite a good workout, but once again after I attempt a run with a bit of intensity and quality, I find myself asking at what cost? I recovered pretty well in the afternoon, but have little sore spots in various places in my legs. I think I'll just try and swim tomorrow.

Weekly mileage: 110 km

Limping along

2007-10-07T21:17:00.000+09:00

I had a couple of good runs amongst a week in which my main goals were 1) to not lose fitness while 2) try to nurse the right hamstring back to a healthy state.

I rested Monday, did two sessions on an elliptical trainer, one Wed morning followed by an easy/steady paced Wednesday night run of 18 km with marathon babes, Mary & Satohi.
The other elliptical was on Thursday night (with the only running that day being 3 km on the treadmill waiting for an elliptical to become available).
Backed up Friday morning for a run that was to really just be lower aerobic, but became upper aerobic. I think all the muscle fatigue is gone and all fibers are firing again. A couple of laps were comfortably down under 4:10/km, but then some heart rate drift crept in and the pace had to shift down a bit. It was still a satisfying run to come through with the injury feeling not too bad.
Saturday I clocked up an easy 14.
Then today, we did a bit of a funky trip from Yoyogi Park, our regular haunt, down to the Imperial Palace (6 km). I ended up running five laps (4.95 km each) of the Palace and back to Yoyogi a different way (7 km) for a total of a shade under 38 km in 3:10:56. I had no idea of the pace early on, but I have just checked my log and realized that it was low 5:00/km. From around 20 km (lap 3) I picked up the pace to 4:40/min for two laps, but by the end of the second I was a cooked goose. I still had to run back to Yoyogi Park by myself, having lost Gareth and Colin earlier to common sense. Then, mercifully, a few km from the end I bumped into the marathon babes. They were finishing off their 30 km run and were also heading to the Park. They were a real godsend as I was ready to just lie down and die. Seriously. But they hitched me up to their little red caboose and dragged me back to the park.
Total for the week: 108 km. Not to bad. But I till feel a bit like I am slowly falling apart.

Psst, they're onto us...

2007-10-02T12:08:00.000+09:00

As I sit here nursing my still tender (in fact, 16 km of newly tenderized) biceps femoris, it was not very comforting to discover in today's SMH that there are certain eggheads who think it is unhealthy to exercise for more than six hours a week! Say what?! That's just ridiculous. Haven't they heard that too much running is never enough?

Still, I know can always go and read that old post of Jay's and make everything all better.

Ahh...

Funny way to treat an injury...

2007-10-01T13:17:00.000+09:00

As some of the more observant of you are already aware, I made it to the end of September with a run every day. It never started out as an aim, but just became something I thought would be cool to have in the log once I realized it was possible.

After aggravating the injury last Wednesday it certainly took a measured approach for a few days to get there. The gentle late night run on Thursday, then a not so bad 7 km on a treadmill on Friday morning with the hill setting turned up to 6%. On Saturday I arranged to meet Satohi (who I am coaching for Tokyo Women's International Marathon) in Sendagaya to support her with a pre-speedwork run (i.e., she had to speed up to 5k pace for a couple of minutes with a good rest between efforts). I woke up at 9:00, precisely the time we had arranged to meet. Oops. Some quick calling and apologizing allowed me to get there only 35 minutes late. The run went quite well. The sore bit kept reminding me of its existence, but wasn't too bad. But we clocked up 12.5 km, which was certainly better than I expected.

So that just left one day, Sunday, to get the milestone. I had to leave the house at 10:00 to get to a craft beer festival by 11:00 (I was volunteer working there). That left not a lot of time for the run. The day dawned cool and wet, as in raining steadily. Without time for a proper long run, and with a slight head-fog created by a couple of drinks celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary on Sat night, it would have been easy to just can the run, hang out with the family for a bit, and head to the beer event. But there was just one run left to rack up the full calendar month of running! And it would be ages before the boys would wake up...they are teenagers after all...so there was not much choice was there.

I got out the door and decided to keep it simple by heading off on my normal weekday course, up to Komazawa Park, a few laps and home. I thought that if the leg held up I would try to keep the pace up around lower aerobic level and try to make 20 km -- six laps. So I wasn't going to push anything much and was looking to settle at a pace of about 4:40/km. However I was doing that within a km or two of starting and things were feeling good. I started running laps of the park and was surprised that despite being under a heart rate of 140 I was running at around 4:20/km and feeling quite comfortable. The leg was even feeling alright.

As the laps started accumulating my heart rate rose only very slightly into the low 140s, climbing to high 140s only late in the uphill section. It was just a great feeling rolling along at this pace in the rain, knowing somehow that things were gunna be alright. The contrast to those fatigue- and angst-filled struggles of a week or two back was stark. I soon realized that I was running at about or not far off 90-minute half marathon pace and started to think that it would be good to measure the half-M point, though not do anything different to what I was doing. So I ran a seventh lap to reach 19 km and then worked out where the exact point would be on the way back home for the half, which ended up being 92 minutes. Not exactly sub 90, but not bad for a long-run substitute! I had another 2 km to get back home and just kept on with the same pace.

I was thinking about how far I could have kept running at this pace. While it is always hard to be sure, I was certainly starting to feel a fair build up of fatigue in the legs, despite still being able to turn them over at the required speed. I think I could have kept it up until 30 km without too much drama, but we would have been getting into leg-thrashing mode, and I certainly didn't want that ;-) (nor did I have the time).

So that completed almost 23 km for the day (at 4:24/km), 85 for the week, and 503 for the month. Not so bad. Not so bad.

While the sore bit has not healed completely, and I am still going to have to be a bit careful with it, I am feeling much more upbeat than I was a few days ago. I think I can carry on running some easy/steady training runs this week mixed in with some sessions in the pool and or elliptical trainer. Then we shall see what we shall see.

And today is definitely going to be a rest day (the beer event took its toll, you see).

It's a sickness

2007-09-27T23:44:00.001+09:00

Wow, thanks so much for all the comments of sympathy and encouragement. That's a good way of finding out the lurkers, just post that you have an injury, ha ha! I'm afraid what I have to tell you is going to wear thin your patience and forbearance.

Moving around this evening from work to Shibuya and up Dogenzaka to attend a kind of interview, involving a fair bit of walking, it struck me that there was not much pain or even discomfort coming from the sore bit. My mind got to working. Every day in September. Every day in September. Maybe you can still do it? I trotted a little bit in my work clothes. Hmm...doesn't hurt. No, don't be foolish! I tried to shove such thoughts to the back of my mind. So on the way back from the interview I popped into Tokyu Department Store 8th floor above Shibuya Station. There is an Osaka goods promotion (until Oct 2), and prominent among the stands was one from a craft brewery, Minoh Brewing. Their double IPA (9% ABV) was extremely tasty (both glasses), as was their real ale style stout. I got home at 9:30 and only Kohta was home and he was engrossed in his Play Station (Final Fantasy XII for those who are interested in such things).

"Hi Kohta!" I said. "Gomen ne, demo chotto atama ni byouki desukara, kore kara chotto hashitte dekakimasu." (sorry mate, I'm, a little bit sick in the head, so now I am going to go out for a little run." -- apologies to those who speak proper Japanese)

I thought that my 3.3 km loop would be enough to satisfy the "run day" requirement. But I moved well, the evening was extremely pleasant, I had a nice little buzz on from the Minoh beer, the leg wasn't too uncomfortable as long as I kept to an easy pace, so I added on a lap of Rinshi no Mori (forest park) to come up with 5.3 km at 5:18/km, HRavg 125.

It was definitely as much as I could hope for, especially considering I had tried so hard to reconcile myself to taking a day off, and I would like to think it did not set back the sore bit too much. At times I also had the thought that, well, you know, this is what I enjoy, this is what I get off on. Just the sheer pleasure of moving along, breathing easy, feeling alive. Kind of like 2P's happy place. So what if I endanger my marathon? Just as Naoko Takahashi said that running is about more than the Olympics, so too can I say that running is about more than a sub 2:55 Ohtwara. So I just enjoyed the run, sore leg be buggered.

Well, I know I am a SFI, but I promise that I am going to keep things very easy and next week really concentrate on cross training, just as some of you suggested in the comments, e.g., Toshihiko Seko. Sure I can get away with these little gentle runs, but if I am going to get to the start line in better shape, I have to give the leg a real chance to of coming good so I can fit in a couple more quality weeks down the line a bit.

Thank you for understanding this poor, sick, addicted runaholic.

Slipping onto the wrong side of the knife-edge

2007-09-27T10:28:00.000+09:00

I have to acknowledge that I am now officially in injury management mode. I think I have a relatively serious problem, strain or inflammation, in the long head of the biceps femoris, hereafter referred to as the sore bit.

The sore bit was feeling good yesterday and otherwise my legs felt recovered. But as I got into my warm up last night I could feel some creaks and groans from the sore bit. This SHOULD have been enough to tell me to abandon my plans for running the monthly 5-k time trial as a tempo run (heart rate capped at 165). But I had done it for the past three months and was getting hooked on seeing the trend in the numbers. It was hurting a bit doing the T/T, but not really getting worse or hampering me. The numbers were coming out OK (1:29 to 1:33 per lap; not really any different to last month) and I was feeling quite comfortable at that heart rate. Then in lap 11 the pain went up a notch and was causing me to alter my stride, so I finished the lap and stopped. Today it is sore. There goes my hope of running every day in September. Only four days to go too...

I am kicking myself for not changing plans and just having an easy run in the park, that should have been a no-brainer. And I can trace the injury back to a couple of other strategic mistakes as well. Chasing Hadd's final time & intensity program before I had actually worked up to the weekly mileage involved at easier pace. Not responding more quickly to the realization that HR150+ was just too hard on my legs in the early morning (hence a couple of forced-pace runs when I must have laid the precursor damage to the injury). Of course it is easy to be wise after the fact, but in reaching for the highest fruit on the tree, it is pretty obvious you are eventually going to fall off the ladder. I should have been more cautious. Shoulda known better...

Well, day one of the recovery starts today. Complete rest. Tomorrow morning I will head into a gym and see if I can do some cross training, like on one of those dang cross-country skiing type machines, maybe some pool walking or swimming. Tomorrow might even be too soon for that. But whatever the case, I have to force myself to let this thing recover...and need to downgrade my marathon goals.

Damn.

Age shall not weary them ...

2007-09-25T09:33:00.000+09:00

...but running 120+ km weeks certainly seems to do a pretty good job of it.

With the leg tiredness & threatening thigh injury I was talking about last week utmost in my mind, I backed off the intensity on the Friday and Saturday runs. I went into Sunday's long run with a little trepidation about the hot spot in my leg, but otherwise being slightly fresher than the previous two weeks. I also had a piece of toast & golden syrup before starting and a bottle of Pocari Sweat (sports drink) at 25 k. As a result I ended up finishing much stronger and was able to extend the run to three hours, 34.7 km. That brought up 125 km for the week.

I went to an extremely enjoyable BBQ party on Sunday evening, at which I somehow assumed grill duties and spent most of the time tending to briquettes, grilling chicken, lamb chops, blackened fish, lamb fillets and vegetables. And drinking some nice craft beers. In other words, I had a ball! Got to watch some of the Australia vs Fiji WC rugby on Dominic's high-definition telly before leaving too. The clarity of the picture was just unbelievable.

So with a touch of a hangover yesterday and another public holiday on the agenda I refrained from a run in the morning. By 4 pm though I was about to climb the walls, so I talked my two sons into accompanying me on their bicycles and we went for a nice slow and easy recovery run of about 9.5 km in 55 minutes, exploring the roads over to Musashi-koyama, Osaki, and back via Gotanda along the Meguro River (drain).

My run this morning again felt like the limiting factor was leg fatigue. I could still some tenderness in the quads from Sunday and other little yips and yaps, especially in the hamstring region of both legs. So again I didn't try to force the pace and just let it unfold at what felt a firm but manageable pace. Again, this meant that while the pace was quite satisfactory at 4:35/km average for the run, the heart rate was very low at 134 for the run and 148 max (hill-related and very little time was spent above 140-142). So, all this by way of prelude brings me to another extremely timely "ask Mystery Coach" post concerning the Lydiard 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 running efforts. The take-away message from this for me, and what I had been more-or-less gravitating to anyway, was that I do not need to push the pace and chase the 150-155HR. Certainly not on these morning runs when my body just seems to be operating at a lower HR. I also think that I'll make a more concerted effort to back off the distance this week, maybe bite the bullet and take a rest day...maybe...then come back for a couple more seeks of harder conditioning before starting the sharpening phase. I really need to sit down and plan it out.

Third Hadd Test

2007-09-21T22:55:00.000+09:00

Finally managed to get the data all entered tonight. And the result is...GOOD! Yes, I have become faster at doing the Hadd test.

Hadd Test: Average pace of last two laps
HR	20-Jun	8-Aug	19-Sep
135	na	0:05:15	0:04:53
145	0:04:50	0:04:37	0:04:30
155	0:04:17	0:04:13	0:04:00
165	0:03:54	0:03:54	0:03:43
175	0:03:44	0:03:43	0:03:38

Total running time for each test was: 43:20, 43:00, and 41: 06.

While the changes between 20 Jun and 8 Aug were pretty subtle, they were much more obvious this time round. The improvements at HR145 and HR155 are certainly very encouraging and match what I have been noticing in training at around these heart rates.

I have made some good progress, but still tend to think I might be a little soft in endurance at the critical 145 to 155 range of heart rates. I do need to keep working at running at these heart rates for a longer time, especially over these critical next few weeks when the temperatures start dropping.

Frankly I just don't accept that I can train myself to run a marathon at 165. Maybe it is physically possible, but 165 still feels like 5k/tempo pace...the kind of thing I could keep up for 5 to 10k, 20k maybe, but not the greater part of a marathon. Perhaps eventually, with continued persistent and methodical Hadd training, but it would take another three months at least and freedom from injury, which is the killer when trying to run longer distances at these kind of paces.

This time around the best I am can do is aim at getting myself prepared to spend a lot of time at HR155 and the kind of pace that will deliver. Based on the current status, that would deliver a very nice marathon time, but I repeat, I think I need a lot more endurance at that HR to come anywhere near a low 4:00/km marathon.

Addicted

2007-09-21T10:12:00.001+09:00

I don't know whether I am addicted to running or addicted to writing entries in my run diary, but when I got home from yesterday's meeting earlier than expected, and nobody due in the house for an hour and a half, it wasn't difficult to decide how to kill some time. But I did make sure that it was an easy run. Enough to stop me taking a blank on the log and not so much or hard as to feel guilty about it when I know I need some recovery time (11k in 57 min, HRav 129).

Similarly, this morning I decided not to go chasing the upper aerobic heart rate of the Hadd schedule. My whole framework for the run was to just let it unfold and see what happens. As it was, nothing very startling. Slow at first, gradually came up to about 4:15 to 4:20/km pace. Heart rate was only gradually inching upwards and I wasn't going to force it. I got up into the top end of the lower aerobic zone and only just touched on the lower end of upper aerobic a couple of times. So bagged 16.5 km in 1 hr 15 min (4:33/km) HRav 135). I again didn't feel like I was bursting out of my skin to keep running, yet wasn't all that shagged by the run, either. So I suppose that is still consistent with dragging some fatigue around.

On a not very bright note, I've developed a little pain in my right lower hamstring, just above the rear right side of my knee. It reminds me of a very similar pain I had on the left side I little while ago. Iced it and put some magic cream on. I guess I will not be planning anything overly ambitious for tomorrow.

Thanks!!

2007-09-19T23:10:00.000+09:00

Wow! Fantasmagorically helpful comments from all concerned on that last post. I think you all made some great points. I had seen Mystery Coach's post about low heart rates and it was on my mind, for sure, but I needed to read it properly to recall the stuff about the different fibers, so thanks for the link. I think we are generally all in agreement that I have tuckered out my poor little muskel fibers. Tonight I did the Hadd heart rate test. I haven't even looked at the data, but I am pretty sure it is going to show some significant increases in pace for some of the heart rates. Most interesting was that at the last set, trying to run at 175...fergeddaboudit! Seriously, I was all but up on my toes sprinting, but the highest I could get the damn heart rate up to was about 173. If I'd gone into an all out sprint for 200m, maybe I could have briefly lifted up to near 180, but it sure was sticky around the low 170s. breathing like a steam train and really trying hard I was too. I am sure it will be a faster pace than the last test, but what it all really means...

Anyway, out of the office all day tomorrow so it will be Friday at the earliest before I can post the results. And I am 95% sure that tomorrow will be a work-enforced rest day.

Listen to your body

2007-09-18T12:37:00.000+09:00

Lydiard underpinned all his training advice with "listen to your body". Similarly, Mike's Mystery Coach says, "don't be a slave to a heart rate monitor. Use it as a guide to see how you respond to different workouts."

Well, these words are ringing in my ears at the moment as I try to figure out what is going on with my body and how to adjust my training. The simplest analysis and solution is that I think that I might be accumulating fatigue and in need of some freshening up. Which is probably no great surprise after the last post.

This morning's upper aerobic run was a bit of a disaster. Just as in recent upper aerobic runs, I had to work really hard to get my heart rate up, and this morning I was even breathing hard. It felt like a tempo run. Then, once I did manage to get up over 147, I started feeling heavy and the pace slipped and heart rate quickly followed it down. It was just physically too hard to run at the pace required to achieve a heart rate over 147. I don't quite get it because the idea is that when you are stressed you have an elevated heart rate, and as you fatigue your heart rate stays high...in fact you have to slow to keep the heart rate at the same level. Well, I didn't have to force myself to slow, I couldn't really help it, but not with heart rate racing away either. When I slowed, through sheer inability to keep the legs moving at pace, my heart rate also fell. It was just as though my system was saying "No! we are not going to run at that pace, fella!"

Resting heart rate this morning was 41. It has varied between 39 and 43 over the past couple of weeks since I started tracking it, so there is nothing there to suggest serious over-training or anaemia or anything. Maybe it is just tired legs.

Mystery Coach talks about the need for balanced training, typified by this statement on Mike's blog today: "It is better in the conditioning phase to see 1.25 hours and 45 minutes the next day than 1.5 hours and the next day off."

Maybe I have reached a bit too far trying to hit those numbers from the Hadd document. Maybe I am just going that bit too far or bit too hard to allow enough recovery. Maybe I am just being too much of a slave to the heart rate monitor (and Hadd) and I should put it aside for a few days and just run to how I feel. If I had tried to run to a target pace today, I probably would have found it tougher than expected, perhaps slower than target. I'd put it down to some residual fatigue and have a couple of easy days before making another attempt at that pace.

So, I think that's all I can do here too. I will take tomorrow morning off and do the Hadd heart rate test and some easy distance tomorrow night. I might be forced to take Thursday off completely because of an all-day meeting in Tsukuba, and then I'll perhaps have an easy run Friday morning and then another crack at an upper aerobic run on Friday evening (to see what difference morning vs evening makes). Seems about the best way forward. Listen to your body. Is it saying have a step-back week? Probably.

But right now, Hadd's theoretical HRmarathon (160ish) versus my envisaged marathon pace (4:15/km which I am hitting at HR147 but not maintaining) just doesn't make sense at all.

A solid week

2007-09-16T21:11:00.000+09:00

133.5 km...

I think that was my longest ever week. Two years ago during my buildup I think the highest I got to was about 125 km. And this didn't really seem all that hard, in the sense that I felt like I was recovering from each run by the next day. Sort of. However I again struggled in the last 10 km of the 30 km long run today and feel a bit embarrassed about the slowness of the pace...I need to get faster as soon as the temperatures come down. It was warm today, but I'm also sure the legs were pretty full even before the start.

So in some ways I cruised, but I think all in all it has been a tough week and definitely a step up. So the most ambitious goal I could have for this next week is to consolidate. Do much the same and hope to find the hardest runs of the week, like Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday, feeling just that bit easier.

Following closely the same plan as I posted last week, and getting much closer to it than last week, here are the stats:

Mon: easy 12 km in an hour (forgot heart rate monitor)
Tue: UA 18.5 km, 1 hr 22 min, HRav 143, 4:28/km
Wed am: LA 14 km, 1 hr 06 min, HRav 131, 4:40/km
Wed pm: 2.5 km easy, 5.2 km on track alternating 200 m at 5k pace, 200 m easy, total time 22:49, 4:24/km, average HRav 141
Thur: LA 16.5 km, 1 hr 13 min, HRav 137, 4:28/km
Fri: UA 19.5 km, 1 hr 25 min, HRav 141, 4:23/km
Sat: fartlek, 14 km, 1hr 03 min, HRav 142, 4:29/km (included about 6x500 m at 5k pace)
Sun: long, 31 km, 2 hr 47 min, HRav 133, 5:27/km
(N.B: The Blogger compose window needs a table function)

Definitely needed a nap this afternoon and my feet are feeling a bit weary tonight. I think I might be in need of new shoes. I'm also nursing blisters on a couple of the calloused parts of my toes, one of which is infected and rather hurty. I'm glad tomorrow is a holiday here. I'll do my recovery run in the morning and join a dinky little ekiden in the afternoon that consists of 1-km/leg.

Note to Robert Song: the runs on Tues and Fri are "hard" in the sense that it is really hard to get he body up to working at that level so early in the morning. I run what feels fast, but am still at HR137 or so, targeting 148-153. I hit the park I do laps at and have to really work it up an uphill section to get the heart rate up to 147 or so (by about the third lap) and then I can hold it there, but I admit, I do feel like I've worked darn hard by the end of the run. I know I could keep going, for sure, but not necessarily all over again at that pace. But I am not exactly running on fresh legs either and it is not race conditions...hmmm...anyway, we'll see how it feels in a few more weeks.

Almost a Week of Pure Hadd

2007-09-10T14:40:00.000+09:00

In the Hadd document there are some time-based (rather than distance-based) schedules that Hadd used for Joe to progress from 50 to 80 miles per week. I found my training was starting to approach the third of these tables, and without a clear plan for my continued progression, I decided it would be a good thing to aim at. It goes like this (with adaptation to remove the references to Joe-specific heart rates):

Mon	60 min easy	easy side of lower aerobic
Tue	90 min	incl. 70 @ upper aerobic HR
Wed	75 mins easy	lower aerobic
Thu	75 mins easy	between lower & upper aerobic
Fri	90 min	incl. 70 @ upper aerobic HR
Sat	75 mins easy	lower aerobic
Sun	3 hrs easy	lower (w/60 min @ upper aerobic)
Approx 80+mpw

All those "easy" descriptors are a bit misleading f you ask me. That schedule is by no means a stroll in the park. I actually got off to a bad start with only 5k easy on Monday morning. Then Tuesday I approximated the Hadd run, but only got to about 75 minutes (17.5 km) before knowing I'd had(d) enough. On Wednesday (15.75 km) and Thursday (16.4 km) I met the Hadd prescriptions pretty much spot on.

I was hoping to do all the runs before work, but a passing typhoon ruled out running on Friday morning. I got out in the evening for three laps of the Palace and again fell a bit short on the time (18.2 km in 1:20, with a couple of slow km at the start and finish). With that run still fresh in my legs, I went out for what should have been an easier run on Saturday morning, except for the little matter of six reps of my 700-m hill circuit. It was a warm, humid morning, and I was a totally different (as in wasted) runner leaving the hill circuit to the one I was when I approached it. So that was 13 km in 65 minutes, some of it tough, compared to the 75 min "easy".

During yesterday's long run I felt OK to start with and moved at decent but not fast pace. But my legs were definitely full from a fairly hard week, particularly the previous two runs. By 15 km I was feeling fatigued, and by 25 km I was almost ready to quit. I battled on to 29 km, at which point I decided enough was enough, and I resisted the lure of doing another 1 km for the sake of round numbers. So 29 km in 2:32 it was. Total for the week, 115 km. My longest week since October last year.

Overall I fell a little short of the time-based Hadd prescriptions. This is good because it says the schedule is achievable, but still gives me something I have to reach for. The Hadd workouts are also far from easy. The Tuesday and Friday with 70 minutes at upper aerobic are hard runs! And Sunday's three hours with 60 min at upper aerobic...what!? That seems almost insane, at least under current weather conditions. Insane, but not out of reach with sensible building. So as long as I take a couple of weeks to work up to completing this weekly schedule, I think it will be a really good basis for continued progression of the base-building phase.

I've managed to back up from yesterday's long run with a steady 12 km in one hour this morning, so this week is off to the right start. I have a sense of dread about tomorrow though!

Parse the ansar

2007-09-08T22:28:00.001+09:00

As Scott said, it is a matter of realizing that the various words have different meanings. There is an entry with the answer to the buffalo one on Wikipedia. Basically it goes something like this:

buffalo=the animal aka bison
Buffalo=the town in upstate New York
buffalo= a verb meaning to bully
So..
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo (that other) Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
It is easier if you substitute alternative words:
Buffalo bisons bully bisons (that other) Buffalo bisons bully.

For the had one, it becomes a bit more contrived. Let's use the seven-had version. In this case I imagine one "had" could be one person's name, another can be another person, and another one can be a type of food. So let's imagine that the person is actually called Malcolm, another is called Billy and the food is called pizza.

Had Malcolm had pizza Billy had had? (..hmm, not sure... it seems wrong without a "the" in front of "pizza")

For the longer version I was thinking of something more like a short conversation...

A: Had Malcolm had pizza?
B: Malcolm had had pizza, had Malcolm.
A: Had Malcolm?
B: Malcolm had! (I said!)

Which with the originals subbed back in would of course look like this:

A: Had Had had had?
B: Had had had had, had Had.
A: Had Had?
B: Had had!

Aren't you all glad I shared this with you? And if you see any flaws in the above, and if you are still awake, shout it out. There is probably a better answer to the seven-had version, but I am too sleepy to think about it any more.

Parse the sentence, please

2007-09-06T14:46:00.000+09:00

The frequent references to Hadd keep reminding me of this sentence parsing problem that my Year 12 (or was it 11?) English teacher gave us all those years ago. You have to punctuate the following to form a semantically correct sentence (or sentences):

had had had had had had had had had had had had

I couldn't get it at the time and I'm not even sure if he ever gave us the answer. And...I think the original might have only involved seven "hads". But I can now think of an answer that works for all those hads, and I think that it is likely there is more than one answer.

I never really understood the concept, to be honest. But a couple of us came across one recently that, now I understand it, allowed me to nut out the had one. The recent one is:

buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo

Let me know if you can do either of them. Answers in a day or two.

Hadd training is not all easy!

2007-09-04T20:34:00.000+09:00

The weather has cooled a bit and I have gained a lot of adaptation for running at heart rates in the low 140s. My pace at this HR, at least while fresh, is actually very healthy at around 4:30/km. When the weather is mild I also seem to have pretty good endurance at that HR. So I think its time to start in with some more serious upper aerobic runs (HR147-153 or 79% to 83% of HRmax). From now on I will do them on Tuesday and Friday morning, aiming for about 90 minutes total run (just like Joe!).

So this morning I cranked out this. Reaching for the upper aerobic heart rate brought the speed up to a point that after completing 17 km, including some slower warm-up and cool-down distance, I was still 14 minutes shy of 90 minutes. I wasn't prepared to up the distance any more though as it was already 3 km more than recent Tuesday runs. But to get to 90 minutes means this run is going to have to be about 20 km. Should be interesting. Two things I got out of this run: 1) pace at this heart rate is very respectable, better than three-hour marathon pace (before fatigue sets in anyway). 2) the endurance needs a lot of work as evidenced by the slower fourth lap. I guess the temperature was still a little warm, but I think that after four to six weeks of these runs I should be just about cranking out 20 km at 4:05 to 4:00/km without getting over a HR of 153 or 154. Will be interesting to see if that comes to pass...

The Last Week of August, 2007

2007-09-03T12:22:00.000+09:00

Not a bad week of 112 km. Nice and consistent with a decent run of some sort every day.

Mon: 10 km easy
Tue: 14 km lower aerobic
Wed: 17 km with 6 km easy, 5 km evaluation, and 6 km upper aerobic
Thur: 11.5 km easy (PM run home)
Fri: 16.5 km upper aerobic (AM before work) in 1:14
Sat: 13.3 km including 5 loops of a 700-m hill circuit
Sun: 30 km in 2:38

The cooler weather last week, especially Thursday to Saturday, meant that I had to (or could) run significantly faster for given heart rates. I enjoyed running around the hill circuit on Saturday and the cumulative effect of this run and Friday's quicker longish run made the legs feel heavy for yesterday's long run. I ran the whole thing in Yoyogi Park, which created its own , mainly mental, challenges (12 laps). However I persevered and got there in the end and was able to finish the last 10 km fairly strongly.

August ended on Friday leaving me with just over 400 km for the month. And today marks 12 weeks to Ohtawara Marathon. I think I've done a pretty fair job of laying a solid base on which to start adding some harder mid week aerobic runs. I don't really think I need to worry too much about specific speed sessions yet, but I might start adding little bits here and there to start getting the legs ready for some speedwork sessions towards the end of this month.

On my other blog I posted some pictures of the brew day on the 25th. My reference to it last week had some people thinking I was talking about homebrewing. It was a recipe I had first brewed at home, but this was most definitely not a home brew.

Metrics schmetrics

2007-08-30T16:47:00.001+09:00

Last night I joined the Namban Rengo monthly 5 km time trial to conduct, for the third month in a row, a tempo-pace evaluation run. I start out at roughly about 5k race pace, maybe a tiny bit slower, but when my heart rate hits 165, as it inevitably will at this pace, I hold it there rather than allow it to continue creeping up as it would if I was actually racing.

The good news is that I did much better than last month; the bad news is I did about the same as I did in June.

June: 19:18
July: 20:06
August: 19:20

The weather was not a factor. In fact all three tests have fortuitously been run at 24 or 25 degrees. We can probably dismiss the July result because I really wasn't feeling great that night and this was, I think, a precursor to the minor health problems I subsequently had.

At first it looks like I am in the same place now as I was two months ago. So let's look in more detail at the June and August data.

I ran faster at the start in June and slower at the finish, 1:28 for the first lap, 1:37 for the last, and took only four laps to hit HR165 average for the lap. I was also having difficulty keeping my heart rate down to 165 in the last full lap.

Last night it was 1:31 for the first lap and 1:34 for the last. I took six laps to hit HR165, and every lap from six to "13" was bang on 165 average HR except the eighth, which was 164.

I do think that I finished feeling more comfortable last night and in fact just clicked my watch at 5 km and kept running, albeit slower, to add another 5 km at upper aerobic heart rate to complete the night's work (I had done an easy 6 km before the time trial).

So, while the data are not totally convincing, and maybe I need a more taxing kind of evaluation run to bear out the improvements in stamina more clearly, I do think that there are signs of improvement. Phew, otherwise I might have started to lose motivation like my old mate Ingo.

Weekly washup

2007-08-27T12:25:00.000+09:00

Mon: 7.8 km easy (4:54/km; HRav=71% of HRmax)
Tue: 14.25 km lower aerobic (4:40/km; 74%)
Wed: 7.8 km warm up/cool down
Wed: 9.7 km upper aerobic (4:40/km; 78%)
(c.f. Tue. This was a hot evening, Tue was a 3-deg cooler morning)
Thur: 10.7 km lower aerobic (4:28/km; 73%) (treadmill)
Fri: 16.4 km upper aerobic (4:30/km; 76%)
Sat: Zero (but 11 hours standing around in a brewery)
Sun: 29.4 km long (5:20/km; 70%)
Total: 94 km

I was pretty happy with this as a comeback after last week's set back. The Thur/Fri combo was a bit tough with Thur being in the evening after work and Fri being up at 5:20 am or so. I think I might have over-reached a little on Friday, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to run on Saturday unless I got up at 5:00 or so (I had to head out at 7:00 to go and join in a brew day of my prize-winning home brew recipe at a brewery out in Chiba).

Several runs, Wednesday night and Sunday in particular, were hot and tough. There is such a big difference between 27 degrees and 30 degrees.

Swoon...

2007-08-24T14:26:00.000+09:00

Apparently Paul Keating gave a speech at Sydney University last night. Edited version here.

Australia's vital interests are in East Asia. They are not in North America or Southern Africa or Europe. They are here, where we live, in the fastest-growing part of the world. It is in this region that Australia's destiny lies; it is only in this region that our security can be found and that will only happen when our foreign policies and our economic and trade policies are in appropriate and sensible alignment.

Ahh...ten years. Ten wasted years.

I hope Captain Kevin point oh seven has the wherewithal to turn the good ship SS Australia back onto the right course.

Salvaging something from the week

2007-08-19T21:55:00.000+09:00

Mon - 2 km (had to pull up short due to a macerated gut)
Tue - enforced rest
Wed- enforced rest
Thur- 5.6 km easy to lower aerobic on treadmill (feeling delicate and tentative)
Fri: 7.7 km easy in local park (condition still a bit delicate)
Sat: 12.1 km lower aerobic to Komazawa park, 2 laps & home
Sun 22 km trail run with a dip in the river after. Body fine.
Total: 49.7 km

Wow, you'd think I could have found another 300 m somewhere!!

The good news is that I seem to be pretty much back to normal, though I still need to be a bit careful. I guess I will be reverse tapering and will not be chasing a 100+ km week this week...I'll settle for 98 ;-)

Darn Achilles is still yapping.

KER-SplaTT!

2007-08-17T16:28:00.000+09:00

That is the sound of egg hitting face.

I cringe when I read my last post.

This week, rather than continuing to "cruise" and churn out the miles, I have been meekly nursing a delicate part of my male anatomy...and running...well, not very much at all. In some ways that is fortunate as we are having a heat wave this week which has seen the mercury in the mid 30s all week...it even topped 40 in a few places yesterday.

If you don't want a more detailed explanation of my medical situation. Then please close the tab now. But for those with a stronger constitution, feel free to read on.

Originally a couple of weeks ago, I had soreness and a lump in my epididymis. It seemed to settle down pretty quickly but I was put on antibiotics just to be sure. It is a reasonably common thing to happen to the man bits.

Then I had the good running week last week, albeit that some of the runs were in quiet warm conditions and much sweat was produced. During the trail run on Saturday I felt a strong discomfort like I needed to take a pee, only a bit painful as well, and it came back quickly after taking one. It was just like a bladder infection (cystitis), but it settled down when I stopped running.

Then during my running on Sunday the sensation returned, and when I did take a pee, blood came out!! Hell!! I was a bit shocked by that. Things cleared up later in the day after I had a rest. The strange thing was, as I did mention in that last post, apart from that, I felt so good during the run.

I went to the doctor again on Monday and he thought it was probably being caused by stones in my ureters. He got me to have an x-ray, but it didn't confirm anything. So he just said to keep taking the antibiotics and drink lots of fluid (and don't run for a few days). I felt quite doughy on Monday and Tuesday and the epididymis thing seemed to flare up again. I then started improving on Wednesday and Thursday (last night). Thursday I ventured for a short run on the treadmill and this morning (Fri) a slow 7 km around the neighborhood.

So, what was that I was saying about a knife-edge?

Unfortunately the doc also made me keep taking antibiotics and to stay off alcohol. I am almost a teetotaller!

The question that is burning in my mind is whether the attack had anything to do with the running I'd been doing the week before, or simply came on and obviously was exacerbated by the running. Either way, I do need to tread carefully for a while.

110 km & cruising (kind of)

2007-08-12T21:56:00.000+09:00

Mon: 7 km easy
Tue: 14 km lower aerobic
Wed: 10 km (Hadd Test) + 7 km easy
Thur: 12.7 km lower aerobic (evening)
Fri: (morning): 6 km easy//9 km upper aerobic
Sat: 18 km trail run in about 2 hours (uphill out, downhill return)
Sun: 26 km @ 5:19/km average

Looking over that list, it would be tempting to say that it must have involved a lot of slow running. But the thing is, that lower aerobic heart rate isn't that slow these days, as demonstrated by the Hadd test on Wednesday night. Each run designated "lower aerobic" was about 4:40 to 4:50/km average. The second half of the run on Friday morning was mostly at sub 4:30/km. And the Hadd test itself involved three rather fast 2-km reps.

A friend talked me into a trail run on Saturday morning. It was pretty steep terrain and the day was promising to be a scorcher, but once we got a couple of hundred meters up, the terrain leveled out and the air became noticeably cooler. Just nice easy running. I surged up some of the hills, but also walked a lot. Afterwards we cooled off in the river and ate watermelon (and drank about a gallon of assorted soft drinks).

Surprisingly, this morning my legs felt absolutely no ill effects from the trail run whatsoever. And then the run just peeled off at a steady pace. I felt comfortable rolling along in the low 5:00/km despite the 29 degrees temperature. But running with others for a while I slowed considerably below that. Then off again. I was waiting for the old familiar hip flexor fatigue to hit, but it never really came. I finished feeling only pleasantly fatigued and could have easily continued except...I seem to have picked up an infection in the downstairs waterworks area. It was quite uncomfortable during much of the run, so I was happy to finish when I did. I am scheduled to see a urologist tomorrow as a follow-up to what I can only think was a related problem from the week before. But that problem aside, with the passive help of Mike's Mystery Coach and Hadd (via Ewen), I seem to have stumbled on a really nicely balanced mix of frequency x intensity that is making me stronger without wearing me out. It is a precarious balance though, and another week of walking on a knife edge starts tomorrow.

Hadd Heart Rate Test No 2

2007-08-10T09:34:00.000+09:00

My blogging mate and aerobic heart rate training devotee Ewen recently ran a Hadd heart rate evaluation and posted about it here. This was enough to make me get off my butt and do my second test, the first having been on June 20th. There were about five of us did the first test, but this time everyone else seems to be away or sick or having their nails done...getting the bumper bar re-chromed...anyway, I had to face it on my own.

Rather than the full 2,400 m, I run five laps, or 2,000 m per rep (five laps of a 400 m track). This makes each rep last about the same time as Hadd's runner, "Joe". The conditions can play an important role. During the first test it was 24 degrees and humid. On Wednesday it was 28 degrees and not so humid. All in all, I don't think the difference in temperature had too great an influence. So, the idea of the test, if you didn't read Ewen's post, is to run a series of consecutively higher heart rates, starting around 70 to 75% of maximum and then 10 beats higher each time with the last one being around 90% of max. In so doing, you should be able to identify your lactic accumulation threshold, where your muscles tip over from being able to clear lactic acid as fast as it forms to a state of net lactic acid accumulation, in other words, unsustainable.

Here are my results given as average pace (minutes per km) for the entire 2000 m:

Date	135 (73%)	145 (78%)	154 (83%)	165 (89%)	175 (94%)
20 Jun	5:08	4:50	4:13	3:52	3:40
8 Aug	5:09	4:41	4:10	3:51	3:40

*Percentages are percent of maximum heart rate.

It is easy to run a little erratically in the first couple of laps as you bring heart rate up to target, so I thought it would also be helpful to look only at the average pace of the last two laps. If there is more fade in one test than another, the data of the last two laps should highlight that.

Results as average pace (minutes per km) for just the last 800 m

Date	135	145	154	165	175
20 Jun	na	4:50	4:17	3:54	3:44
8 Aug	5:15	4:37	4:13	3:54	3:43

There are two main points to take out of these numbers:

1) I have shown a fairly dramatic improvement at the 145 (178% HRmax) level. This is logical because it is where I have been spending a lot of my time in training AND, I think I tended to neglect it in the past, running either harder or easier than the low 140s.
2) There has been no noticeable improvement at the 165 and 175 levels. I attribute this to a combination of a few things. i. It was warmer on Wednesday, so maybe I was starting to get some heat accumulation. ii. I just haven't run enough km or at high enough heart rates to move these limits yet. iii. My aerobic fitness for these heart rates was already pretty well trained on June 20.

By the time of the next test the weather will be starting to get milder and I will have been doing more distance at upper aerobic pace, exhausting though it is. So it will be interesting to see what will happen next.

Hypocrisy of the Most Breathtaking Kind

2007-08-07T15:42:00.000+09:00

For those gentle readers who do not like my occasional forays into Australian politics, please look away now. But this one is relatively brief.

In perusing the blogs and the news today, I just couldn't help but notice that in one breath PM Howard is ramming the NT Aboriginal legislation changes through Parliament with barely enough time for consideration, let alone debate or, heaven forbid, consultation with the communities concerned, while in the next breath he is attacking Queensland's proposed forced local government mergers for having a lack of community consultation.

The sheer bald-faced audacity. Consider these two reported quotes from Honest John:

1. From the ABC a couple of days ago

"[Labor] is entitled to see the legislation and to express whatever view it wants, but I want to make it clear, we will not be changing our approach in the Northern Territory," he said.

"We will be going ahead with all of the elements of the intervention plan that [Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal] Brough and I announced, including in relation to the permit system and the prohibitions on alcohol."

In other words, not Labor, which has indicated a willingness to take a bipartisan approach on this issue, not the academics who created the original reports on which Howard and Brough are acting, not aboriginal leaders in general, and not the communities concerned are to be given any voice or influence over the specifics of the legislation. They can all just go to Hell because We Know Best (or will not have Our Agenda meddled with).

2. From today's SMH

"I challenge the Premier of Queensland, let the people speak on your amalgamation proposal.

"Let this be a reminder that if you remove the check and balance in our system and if you have Labor governments at every level, this sort of behaviour will become the norm."

Checks and balances. Yeah, right, you are something of an expert about the abuses that can occur when checks and balances are removed aren't you, Mr Prime Minister. Makes me retch.

Feelin' alright

2007-08-07T10:53:00.000+09:00

It finally feels like my body has caught up to the new workload. All leg and health issues are in good shape apart from the left Achilles, which continues to yip away. I now see the great benefit of slowing down a little and evening out to some extent the daily load. I ran 14 km this morning at an average pace of 4:41/km and it was just a steady rolling pace, well within myself. The milder 26 degree temperature helped.

Now, to deal with a couple of things raised in comments to my last post.

To Ewen: Yes, my lower aerobic runs tend to be relatively easy judging by heart rate, though not necessarily by how my legs feel. Though that is now finally turning around, as per the above note. Thanks for the prod, I added the link to my on-line log over on the right there. That takes you to the summary page and then you can click on Calendar or Workout views to see links to individual runs.

Clairie: "Do you throw in a 'drop down' week after several high mileage weeks?"

My reply: I probably should but haven't specifically programmed it in. I think I will do that if I feel myself starting to get worn down. But the specific strategy behind my current program is to run at distance/pace combinations that stress the system only slightly and from which I can recover from and adapt to and start to feel strong, as is happening right now. So with three 90-100 km weeks behind me, and this will be a fourth, I will try to ratchet up by 10-15 km adapt to that, then when it becomes comfortable, ratchet up again. I will also need to start introducing some hills and small amounts of speed work, moreso after the next four-week block of steady distance.

Clairie again: "I'm curious to hear what an 'easy' pace is for you as most of your runs seem to be tempo or decent pace for someone doing that much mileage."

My reply: I am using two kinds of reference systems for pace. One is the Lydiard "steady state" pace (the fastest pace you can run 10 km every day and recover from for the next day). I judge that to be about 4:30/km for me at the moment. Training paces are based on percentages of that. The fastest training pace is that pace and the slowest is supposed to be about that pace plus 10% (about 5:00/km). The other system is Hadd percent of maximum heart rate zones, which roughly line up with the Lydiard pace guidelines. I wouldn't say that any of my runs (except a 5k time trial two weeks ago) have been tempo pace (defining tempo as lactate threshold). So I guess the bottom line is that anything slower than about 4:55/km falls into "easy" (depending on the overall distance), and that is what I will use for warm-up, recovery and long runs. Just about all other training paces at the moment will be between 4:50/km and 4:20/km and if you did a frequency histogram of recent runs, the distribution would be skewed towards the slower end of that range. (But this will change as time progresses.) Because of the current heat, I am also not at all concerned about going slower than steady state + 10% if heart rate or common sense dictate.

milesandmiles: “Always amusing for us training in Singapore to hear people complaining about a 29 degree day :)”

My reply: yes, yes, I know Arnaud, you Singaporeans have the worst of everything. Almost as bad as Texans, you are :-). At least you have the whole year to get used to those temperatures. We have to go from 4 degrees in winter to perfect conditions in autumn and spring, to boiler house conditions for 6 weeks in summer. And yes, I agree that cross training is helpful. I did use it to some extent during the early part of this build-up.

-17 weeks: 90 km getting easier

2007-08-05T21:25:00.000+09:00

That was the third week in a row over 90 km and it was much easier to handle. A combination of improved health and improved fitness I should think.
Mon: Rest
Tue AM: 13.5 km @ 4:51/km, HRav 129 (lower aerobic)
Wed PM: 17.2 km with 15.8 km @ 4:54/km, HRav 133 (lower aerobic)
Thur PM: 11.5 km @ 5:01/km, HRav 133 (lower aerobic)
Fri AM: 14 km with 6.3 easy. Then 7.7 @4:37/km, HRav 149 (upper aerobic)
Sat AM: 12 km @ 4:29/km, HRav 142 (upper aerobic, average lowered by including early part of run)
Sun AM: 26 km @ 5:25/km, HRav 134 (long run) in 29 degrees!
Total: 94 km

Health wise, my body is feeling better than it has for a while. I went to a urologist on Thursday who diagnosed epididymitis for the problem downstairs that I alluded to last week. I'm now on antibiotics and off the drink. It had been feeling better but I decided to go get it checked out to be on the safe side. I'm glad I did because I think it explained a lot of the other malaise I'd been feeling on top of the fatigue from increased mileage. Now all I have to worry about is the normal heat stress. This morning's long run was a bit of a killer, but I survived it OK. Longest for a while and at a better pace than last week (not that that is saying much).

93 km for the week

2007-07-30T09:07:00.000+09:00

With work and life crowding in, I seem to be reduced to weekly updates. Probably not such a bad thing.

Started last week feeling tired and lacking in energy, empty legs, and sore back. Slight tummy discomfort. High temperatures and humidity added to the challenge. I scaled back distances and intensity on Monday (easy 8.4k) and Tuesday (12k). Still not feeling great on Wednesday evening, but jumped into the monthly 5k time trial with a view to run it at HR no higher than 165, which is the same thing I did last month. The 20:06 turned out was somewhat slower than the previous month, but the heat and feeling poorly surely contributed. Ran home from work on Thursday night (12.7k) and found energy levels slightly better. Friday (12.6k) I ran back from home to work and finally starting to move more freely. Saturday morning I was up and out the door reasonably early to try and beat the heat (ha!) and actually had a decent 12 k, fastest of the week, not counting the 5k of the time trial. In the shower later I noticed that I am tender in my right nether region, so might have an infection down there, which would go some way to explain my doldrums. Might have to get it checked out. Sunday (yesterday) morning I got going quite early and headed out to try and run 2 hours, I didn't mind how slowly. Ended up making it to 22 km on the nose in 2 hours and 5 minutes.

I recovered pretty quickly from yesterday's slow run, but with the stomach and abdomen discomfort this morning I have decided to take a day off. There was a cool change overnight and it would have been lovely running weather this morning. Plus yesterday was my 20th day straight. That was something I really would have liked to have continued and it took quite a bit of will-power and mental struggle to resist the urge this morning from about 5:00 as I woke and dozed fitfully, got up, went back to bed, changed my mind about four times ... finally accepted I had to try and do what is best for my body... damn, it will be a low mileage week now ;-)

End of a solid week

2007-07-22T14:23:00.000+09:00

Well, running and work have both been conspiring to make it difficult to find time to blog. But this past week I set about trying to apply the principles of the Lydiard running approach while mainly using Hadd's heart rate prescriptions to control my efforts. The principle of the Lydiard approach, as I understand it, is to run as much as you can while keeping the distance and exertion up near, but below, the limit of what you can recover from each day. And the aim is, then, to run every day. Every day. Like all runners, the biggest threat I pose to myself is to go over the edge and head into a slow death spiral of increasing fatigue. Work pressures this week almost caused that to happen through a few nights where I didn't get as much sleep as I needed. But somehow I have got through and logged 97 km as 12, 12, 18, 13, 7, 12, 24. At this stage of the game, 18 weeks from tomorrow until the marathon, this is a pretty good place to be, but I still think that I might have over-reached slightly and will simply be trying to consolidate this next week rather than add on any more distance. At least I kept the intensity down on most of these runs, easy or lower aerobic, and haven't felt any major physical difficulties backing up each day. The only exception was Friday, when ideally I should have been doing 10 to 12, but the efforts on Wednesday and Thursday had left me feeling tired, so I backed off for an easy lap of the Palace with Ms Uchida from my office (she continues to progress and ran a PB for the course!). Today's long run, at 24 km, was a few more km than I should have done, but then it was also a bit slower than it should have been too. The temperatures are staying mild so far (low to mid 20s), but every day is overcast and humid. Bring on WM-18! (=marathon week minus 18 weeks).

Lining up Hadd and Lydiard-cum-Mystery Coach

2007-07-17T15:36:00.000+09:00

Before I get to the title of the post, I'll just fill in the last few day of running. A typhoon brought a very rainy old weekend. On Saturday morning I visited a sports club and got in an upper aerobic 10 km on a treadmill. I discovered the incline function (all the controls are in Japanese you see, so I'd never known what that button was for) and found that it can really help you get a decent workout without constantly feeling like you are about to get thrown off the bloody thing. I still don't like them.

On Sunday the typhoon had set in properly and rain was falling constantly, but there was no wind and it was warm, so I headed off into the rain. I had discussed my intentions with Gareth and tehre was a chance I might meet him in Yoyogi Park. (Colin and others were all off at a race in Nagano.) At the designated meeting time of 9:00 in the park, the rain was growing steadily heavier and not a soul was about bar a few soggy crows. I gave Gareth the customary 5-minute allowance, still no signs of life so I headed off. With a couple of minutes I bumped into Mika T coming the opposite way and so we shared a very wet but warm 10 km together and I turned for home. A soggy but satisfying 20 k. That brought up a satisfying 77 km for the week.

Yesterday (Monday) was a public holiday (Ocean Day). I met up with a friend who has a predilection for speaking Spanish and all things Mexican and ran a couple of laps of the Imperial Guest House (Gosho) with her, generally easy but surging up the hills. An invigorating 12 km all up, though the warm conditions started taking their toll by the third lap.

This finally brings me to today and the title of this post. I've been reading up on all the Lydiard related theory posted by the enigmatic "Mystery Coach" (and commenters) on Mike's blog. As Ewen and others have noted, the methods of Bideau and Hadd, et al. all have a basis in Lydiard. Lydiard's prescriptions tend to be pace related determined from what he calls your "steady state" pace, the fastest pace you can run for 10 km or so every day and be recovered enough to run the next day without getting worn down. The most important word here is not "fastest" but "be recovered". Workouts are then based on a percentage of this pace, ranging from about 8% slower to the same pace.

Hadd, of course uses heart rate based prescriptions rather than pace-based. I have been basing my training on Hadd, but have been seduced by the incredible knowledge of Mystery Coach and really attracted to his ideas on the fiber recruitment model.

So to see just how the Hadd method compares with the classic Lydiard approach, I had a play around with some of Mystery Coach's numbers that he provides for developing a stamina build up. From an educated guess I assumed that my steady state pace is about 4:20/km, from which I calculated that the easier paced days that Mystery Coach prescribes for the early part of the program would have me running at about 4:40 pace. I thought that sounded interesting and based on recent experience was probably not too far off the mark for the Haddish lower aerobic heart rate runs.

So today when running around the Palace on an unseasonably cool day, I put this to the test. The first lap (5k) at 4:40 resulted in a HR considerably lower than the upper range of Hadd's lower aerobic, but that would not be unexpected even if I was following a heart rate guide for the run, since it does take a while for the system to get loaded up. It is the latter part of the run that the prescriptions really come into effect. And sure enough, during the second lap, although I did at times dip down into the 4:20s, the average pace was only a bit faster than 4:40 and the heart rate was right around the 139 to 143 area, exactly spot on for a lower aerobic run. You can see the data here. So this is good stuff. I feel that I much better understand the relation between these two fundamentally similar systems and feel the ability to mix and match somewhat without compromising the integrity of the program. In particular, I am pretty keen to adopt Mystery Coach's suggestion of running faster (100% of steady state) on Saturday (the day before a long run) to activate/fatigue the harder to get at muscle fibers and then bring them into use, i.e., condition them, during the next day's long run. Of course, all this depends on me staying injury free :-(

And if you have read this far, I'll reward you with a little anecdote from today's run, slightly grimace inducing though it is. On my first lap, I was running along concentrating on pace and heart rate and so on, and a nice fine drizzle had started. It was near the Otemachi stretch where the path is a little narrow and the paving is surfaced with that fine pebble-crete stuff. A guy and girl were jogging along side by side ahead of me and I started to pull out to go around them which would have blocked off the path, but I looked ahead to see a guy on a bicycle hurtling towards the gap I was about to close. I saw him in plenty of time to pull up and leave the gap open, but he, the poor bugger, saw my move and reflexively went for the anchors, unfortunately locking up the bike causing his front wheel to slide out from under him. Thereafter he involuntarily used his right knee and elbow as landing gear on the way to becoming fully sprawled over the pavement. He was still a good 10 m in front of us when he went down, indicating the prematurity of his actions, and also the speed he must have been going at. We scraped him and his bike up off the pavement. He was grimacing in pain but being very stoic. Luckily with the greasiness of the path he didn't lose any skin. He was a bike courier and was pretty good about the whole thing. I think he knew that whichever way you diced it, he'd screwed up: too fast for the conditions, notorious place for joggers at that time of day, misjudged and hit the anchors way too early...still, I couldn't help but feel bad for my part in it.

Getting back to normal

2007-07-13T12:45:00.000+09:00

The back is still a bit stiff, but much better than it was. I went for a bout of cross-training last night. I spent 12 minutes on a stationary bike, then 5k on the treadmill (does that count as cross training?) and 1 k of freestyle. Plus I did a few strength exercises, but I need to approach those in a more structured way.

This morning the alarm woke me from a deep sleep and I fumbled my way out the door and ran a lower aerobic 15.5 km in 1:14:35, average pace of 4:48, average heart rate of 141. The humidity made this a tough little run. I only aimed for it to be lower aerobic, but despite the conversation over at Ewen's place, I did find that my heart rate crept up past the upper figure (143) for lower aerobic. I slowed as necessary to stop it going too far out of range, but still the average HR after 30 min is above what it should be, and the gradual heart rate drift can be seen in the pace vs heart rate of the splits.

I was still definitely a lot happier with it as a run than last Friday's, which although doesn't look too bad on paper, practically did my back in.