-17 weeks: 90 km getting easier

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

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

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

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

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.

Germaine Greer on Aborigines

oldsprinter posted a link to a very good article by Germaine Greer on the aboriginal issue. At first it seemed like she was just going to rehash the same analysis that many other commentators have provided on why Howard's Crusade (as oldsprinter put it) is deeply flawed and cannot be interpreted as anything other than a deeply cynical political and ideologically driven exercise. But the article goes much further and draws heavily from her own experiences visiting aboriginal communities and friendships she has made within them. She provides some important insights and gets closer to the source of finding enduring practical solutions to the issue of improving the aboriginal condition than most other commentators.

There was one passage though that I did find a little hard to reconcile with my own understanding of the history of early white settlement. She said:

The Aboriginal peoples reacted to contact in different ways. Some were used to foreigners visiting their land. Most assumed that the newcomers would adapt to their way of life, and offered to help them find food and show them how to survive by studying and venerating country. Even when diseases brought by the Europeans reduced thriving communities to a handful of traumatised survivors, there was no concerted attempt to drive the interlopers away. By the time the Aboriginal peoples realised that the newcomers had laid claim to the whole country and everything in it, it was too late.

To suggest that there was "no concerted attempt to drive the interlopers away" is a complete misreading of the real history. When aboriginal tribes understood the enormity and permanence of the white "invasion", they did resist. And they resisted stoutly. In NSW there was something of a guerrilla war that lasted fifty years or more after the first fleet (I guess these days it would be called an insurgency). But ultimately, guns, germs and sheer weight of numbers won out. Perhaps this is what she means by realizing too late. Still, it smacks a little too much of the noble savage rendering of history, and there are one or two other examples of that in the article. Which is not to diminish its overall thrust. It just brings to mind the reality of the sordid early history of white settlement. A legacy that I think hangs around our neck to this day.

I have been reading a book, actually two books in one volume, about the Northern Territory. They were written in the early 1960s. One is by Douglas Lockwood called Up the Track, and one by Bill Harney called To Ayers Rock and Beyond. Well worthwhile getting your hands on, especially the Bill Harney book as he recounts his time as the first ranger at Ayers Rock (as it was then known) after it was declared a national park in the late fifties. He shares a lot of what he learned from the aboriginal elders from the region during his time there.

But it is the Lockwood book that is germane to why I think Germaine glosses over the reality of the nature of the early contact. Lockwood recounts several incidents of history that are at once brutal and ugly and difficult for us descendants of those times to come to terms with. I will reproduce here an expurgated (for brevity) version of one passage. As the passage starts, Lockwood is being given a tour of an old telegraph repeater station in Barrow Creek by a chap called Tom. He goes on to describe an incident that occurred in 1874:

Perhaps it is not surprising...that the repeater stations in these remote spots, weeks and probably months from help, were built as fortresses with stone walls two feet thick and narrow loopholes commanding large fields of fire from within. The linesmen who had to go out on horseback to repair wires cut by the malicious natives generally travelled in pairs. Even so, there were those who failed to return.
...
Tom was saying something about the stone in the walls . . . but I had wandered off again to that hot as hell night in 1874 when the Kaiditj came down from their cubby-holes in the table-top mountains, their black bodies unseen in the dark, and crept to within a few feet of five men sitting on the front veranda of the station. The white men were unarmed and separated from the safety of their fortress. [Lockwood then introduces a couple of the men in the party, James Stapleton and John Franks.]
Suddenly, an incredible shower of spears fell among them, hurled by shadows now dimly seen but unmistakably heard as the quiet evening was pierced by their yells. The white men tried to regain the safety of their fortress through a gate leading to a courtyard at the rear. . . "Yes, that's it," Tom was saying. "They tried to come in through here . . ." but they were driven back by a second volley of spears from primitive tacticians who must have expected them to do just that.
John Franks was speared through the heart and died within a few minutes. At the gateway, Stapleton fell with no fewer than four spears in his body.
Finally the men were able to get through into the fortress. They armed themselves at once and poured a volley of shots through the loopholes ... and cleared the ground.
[section of waffle omitted]
The natives reappeared on the following day, but were fired on from five hundred yards and retired after leaving a dead man on one of the world's loneliest and least publicized battlefields. There was a grim sequel. A punitive expedition was soon organized and rode out to extract revenge. At least seventy aborigines, men, women and children, are known to have been shot. A near-by watercourse was named Skull Creek, for the obvious reason. And there is said to be a mountain named Blackfellows Bones, though I don't know it.
The graves of Stapleton and Franks are still there beside the road in Barrow Creek, a lonely monument to courageous pioneers who rode into unknown hostile country so that Australia might communicate with England.

From "Up the Track" by Douglas Lockwood, 1964 (1995 reprint by Seal Books)

There is a certain poignancy to that last phrase. Scenes like this were played out all over Australia from 1883 until as late as the 1920s. The aborigine has always just been "a problem" to be dealt with using the most expedient measures available and acceptable to the times. Ignore him, shoot him, civilize him, assimilate him, but don't try to understand him and meet him on his terms. He isn't really human enough to deserve it. It seems some things never change.

Easy easy

The back is sorta kinda improving each day. After the easy 10k yesterday morning I went for a pretty serious bit of massage last night at a clinic (K's in Ebisu) that treats some very good athletes, including Mara Yamauchi, who came second in the Sapporo half marathon behind Mizuki Noguchi on the weekend (and ahead of 6th placed Catherine Ndereba). I digress. The masseur also deigned that I was in need of getting a few needles jabbed in me, so I came to have my first encounter with acupuncture. It wasn't bad, but I cannot proclaim it to be a miracle cure either. Not for whatever I've got, anyway. I was in great fear of the massage, not for any pain I might feel, though there was some of that, but for the fact that I might find myself thinking that this is something I need a lot more of. I had good reason to hold that fear. Damn it was good. But at $50 a pop, I just can't do it very often. I dunno, maybe I should aim to go once a month or something. Do a night a month at a host club in Kabukicho to raise the readies.

Tonight, track night, I skipped track and had a good run in Yoyogi Park with Colin. One hour and fifteen minutes of nice easy/steady pace in pretty high humidity and a few squalls. Under the circumstances I think it is a good outcome. And rest assured, the back is getting plenty of stretching.

Caught short

I have often wondered if my continual niggles in the left leg have any structural or gait basis, but never got around to doing anything about it.

With the fact that I am going for a sports massage tonight in mind, I did something simple this morning that I have meant to do for ages, check whether my legs are the same length. After the shower, clad only in my best pair of Bonds briefs (an image I could have spared you all, but ha!), I sat with my butt against the wall, legs stretched out straight, and got my wife to come and give the old pegs the once over.

"Your left leg is about a centimeter shorter than your right leg," she immediately blurted out with a kind of sadistic smirk. Sure enough, I could even see it myself. My left ankle bone touched against my right leg quite conspicuously above the right ankle bone. Damn! Fourty-four years it has taken for me to notice this.

Now the million dollar question is whether this is a) the cause, b) a result of, or c) not even related to my back and other left side problems. And finally, what kind of practitioner do you see about getting a definitive analysis and remedial measures? I have heard that short-legged bastards can get a heel lift shoe insert. I wonder if one centimeter is enough to justify such an intervention?

A tentative come back

Thanks for the assorted "Get well soon" comments.

I took Saturday and Sunday off running. It was hard to swallow given that I was on track for such a good week, but there wasn't much option. I got onto the Ibuprofen and generally just took it easy.

By yesterday morning it was feeling somewhat improved, but far from 100%. SO I decided to use the ticket to a sports club I have and went for a swim before work. That was fin and I did 2 km in 40 minutes. By theend of the day the back was feeling heaps better and the little hip injury thing had pretty much faded into the background. Great stuff that Ibuprofen.

So I braved a run this morning. I ended up having a reasonably crappy sleep and the back was a little tender when I woke up. This time I decided to a) not force the pace, and b) Just aim for 50 minutes. So in the end it was a very easy 10k in just over 50 minutes at an average heart rate of 126. I felt only mild discomfort and never that I was making things any worse. So if I can continue to nurse it back to health this week while keeping up a few runs like this, I shouldn't go too far backwards.

Hobbling & humbling

My lower back has flared up. I worked at home on Tuesday and I think the chair I used is the main culprit. It was a bit stiff on Wednesday, but didn't really hinder my running. Yesterday it was somewhat worse, and due to the discomfort combined with a deadline at work, I didn't run.

So I woke up this morning, got moving and knew immediately it still wasn't the best, but I have run through lower back pain before so thought I'd give it a try. Ended up being a pretty difficult run. Quite painful and slow for the first 4 km or so. Then I stretched my legs and back when I hit Komazawa Park, and it improved a little. I finally got my pace better than 5:00/km, but not much. Still felt like I was hobbling. I did a couple of laps only and then after a toilet break headed home. When I was fully warmed up I was moving OK, but it was a bit of an effort. My heart rate was higher than it should have been for the pace. By the time I finished, my right hip was hurting, probably because of an altered gait. I should have known better. Here's the breakdown.

From a training perspective it wasn't complete write off, but I hope I have not set myself back further by pushing through. I have a tendency to do that, especially when, as now, I am trying to lift the workload. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

A good compromise

Last night it was Wednesday night at the track, i.e., VO2max intervals of some sort. When in aerobic training in the past I have skipped these and gone into Yoyogi Park and tootled around at below LT pace. Got an email from Gareth in the afternoon asking what my plans were for the evening and I said I wasn't sure. Track is more fun and interesting, but I have started aerobic base building so want to avoid running above lactate accumulation pace.

After a 5 km warmup in the park we headed to the track (at which point the drizzly rain decided to get a bit more serious). With none of the regular leaders in attendance, Gareth took over the podium and stop watch and announced we would do 5 x 1200 on a 7-minute cycle. I decided to run them at a lower intensity than I would if it was a full-on interval session, thus they became what McMillan calls cruise intervals (4:26 to 4:32/1200 for me).

Rather than think about pace too much I just said I'd try to not let my heart rate get much above 160. As it turned out, that gave me a set of times just a bit on the slow side of McMillan's suggested range. They were pretty comfortable to run and I was even talking a little bit during a couple of them. So I did one more for good luck. Final result: 4:40, 4:38, 4:33, 4:31, 4:34, 4:31. Full log entry here.

Back into the routine

I meant to post yesterday morning's run much sooner but just got too busy. Basically my stock standard Tuesday morning route to Komazawa Park with a few loops for 14 km in 1:03.

Average HR of 140. So a bit harder than Monday and heart rate drift was noticeable. It was meant to be lower aerobic, and the average heart rate definitely is, but late in the run I was straying into upper aerobic territory. I am determined to try and stop doing that so that a lower aerobic run stays in lower aerobic territory the whole way. Most important.

A new start

I bought some new Asics Gelfeathers, a pair of discounted New Balance trail shoes, a top, shorts and socks yesterday at Art Sports. So decked out in an all new ensemble this morning I had a nice easy to lower aerobic run of 10. 5 km at an average and pretty even 4:39/km. It wasn't hot, but the humidity was incredible, as it has been the last week or so, and as it especially is tonight. Sultry, muggy, steamy, oppressive. So while there was no stress at all on my legs, I was still a lather of sweat by the end.

It was a good way to kick off the first week of my new marathon buildup. Yep, 21 weeks until Ohtawara, and the training starts now. Feeling pretty good too because I am certainly in better shape than I was at the same time last year, and I don't think I really even thought about the marathon until August last year. So let's hope I get the buildup right this time.

I don't normally run on Mondays, but had to do my long run Saturday to free up yesterday for judging in the WanCup home brewing competition out in Chiba. That was very convenient for my anal retentive side because it meant I could get the log up over 300 km for June, whereas had I run Sunday, those km would have gone into July's ledger. Only just scraped in over the 300 too.

For the Saturday run I was up at 6:00 and out the door by 7:00. It was already quite warm and, yep, humid as hell. "Thank goodness I am not delaying this until later." I thought. I found it fairly tough going toward the end of the 21.5 km. Turned out that was about the warmest the temperatures got all day! It seemed to be noticeably cooler by 10, perhaps back up to the early morning temperatures around 1:00, but by 3:00 it really cooled off where it stayed until the next day. Very strange weather.

Anxiously wondering how some fellow bloggers went yesterday at Gold Coast ... just when ya ready fellas ;-)

Evaluation run 5k and a new on-line log

So I have been running a bit, though this blog would not stand testimony to it. Sort of 60 to 70 km a week. Until a couple of weeks ago I was trying to put emphasis on speed "renshu" (training), but there are no races or anything coming up, so my motivation has flagged and I am now looking towards the aerobic endurance build up over the next 20 weeks for an autumn marathon. I am thinking that if I can keep injury free and can juggle family and work enough to put in the miles, it would be so nice to try and make a tilt at a 2:50 marathon. After last year's disappointments that seems a bit ambitious...but there is no point namby pambying around. Let's aim for perfection and perhaps we will end up with very good (or however it goes).

So tonight was the monthly 5 km time trial. I decided to run at around my lactic threshold, which is the heart rate that Hadd says you can run a marathon at IF you are fully trained. For me, that's about 165. Intersting results that showed I have a way to go before I could run a marathon at that pace.

I have discovered this really excellent on-line log called RunningAHEAD. I mean really excellent. Has a pedometer tool and other neat ways of displaying your data. About 100 times better than the one I mentioned six weeks ago. See if this link shows you the results of my run, then take it from there if you are interested.

And now for something completely different

Running!

Last Saturday I joined a large (16) group for a trail run. The idea was to run from Hakone-Yumato to Gotemba. I really didn't have time for the full version, so together with a couple of other pikers ran (and I use that word very loosely) out for a couple of hours to the top of some peak or other then turned around and came back to where we started and had a bath in a hot spring and bento (lunchbox) beside the river. The trail was bloody rugged in places and even though we we out for almost three hours, we only logged about 15 km. Prior to turning around we probably lost 30 minutes waiting for the back-markers, which, considering I was only out for an abridged version, I found a bit frustrating. Still, it was bloody nice to get out of the city and into the bush for a few hours. Thanks to Shoji-san for organizing the run.

(photos from Shoji-san's blog)

WWKD?

A comment from Gordon (oldsprinter) on my last post has prompted me to follow up a bit. You know that hackneyed evangelical refrain, What Would Jesus Do? Well, Gordon opined that Whitlam and Keating never said sorry either. While no Australian government can exactly shower itself in glory over issues of aboriginal reconciliation, neither Whitlam nor Keating, nor Hawke nor Fraser, nor any who came before them, had a Stolen Generation report to respond to. Howard did, and his response was to duck and weave and consider it an embarrassing part of Keating's "black armband view of history".

So let's just stop and ask ourselves for a minute, what would Keating have done? The thing is, Keating, I believe, came closest to a sincere and honest response to aboriginal justice. In 1992 I was driving home from work and his Redfern Speech, delivered earlier in the day, was being replayed on the ABC current affairs radio program, PM. I have always strongly felt a sense of injustice and shame about the long sad treatment of aborigines. I had long wondered when would our politicians stop the obfuscation and shirking of responsibility. And here was Keating's voice, the new Prime Minister, delivering these powerful, moving, honest words. Here was the representative of the Crown admitting that there were wrongs and inhumane injustices in our past that needed to be confronted before we could move on to build something better. This was a real and true brand new dawn for reconciliation. I suddenly realized that it could happen. The emotion was enormous and overwhelming and I found myself weeping openly in the car. Tears were streaming down my face and snot was running out my nose. I still remember where I was, right there in Mowbray Road near the primary school headed towards home in Artarmon. I remember it like it was yesterday. When I got home I sat in the car and listened to the end of the speech and then had to sit some more before I could go inside.

Of course Keating's short few years in power didn't exactly create domestic bliss in every aboriginal home throughout the land. But it was the Keating government that introduced the Native Title legislation in response to the High Court's Mabo decision. This created howls of protests from the States as they saw Crown and leasehold land slipping "into the clutches" of the aborigines. It required enormous political will to make this happen. And I believe the impact of this legislation on furthering aboriginal pride and dignity and giving them some basis for self determination is vastly under-estimated. Don't forget Keating also tried to set us on a path towards becoming a republic and tried to get us fully engaged with Asia. Compare all that with the Howard government's approach.

I don't mind admitting that the other time that Keating made me cry was when he was voted out in 1995. I couldn't, still can't, understand how the Australian people could not see what great things he was doing for us as a country. I really think that was the single worst thing to happen to Australia in my lifetime. And I was alive during the Dismissal (though a bit young to remember it. I still think it rates behind 2 March 1996).

Anyway, here is an excerpt from the Redfern Speech. Listen to it, think about the legacy of the Native Title legislation, and ponder what else might have been...

Jackboot Jack

John Howard sits on his hands with regards to aboriginal issues for ten years. No, that's not quite true. He does actually engage with the issue rather robustly, and on each occasion it is to find a way to smack aboriginal Australians in the face. He refuses to implement all the recommendations of the Stolen Generation report. He attacks land rights gains won in the High Court, he publicly insults and belittles aboriginal leaders, he even goes so far as to abolish ATSIC.

So when I read on the SMH web site yesterday that he will be tackling the social problems of aboriginal communities by marching in with his jackboots, I was outraged but not surprised. This is just so exemplifies how myopic, small-minded and bigoted he and his coalition henchmen are. It is entirely consistent with his patronising and paternalistic pre-1968 world view that aborigines are incapable of self-determination and beneath being treated with equal respect.

This is a highly complex and nuanced problem that requires concerted sophisticated solutions. Is it a crisis? Of course. Has it just suddenly reared up out of nowhere? Of course not. The politicians have for decades done nothing to seriously address the underlying causes of the social dysfunction, of which drug abuse, violence and sexual abuse are but symptoms, not some kind of primary cause. And now, when they finally decide to act decisively in the face of a horrifying report on the state of affairs, it is through high-handed, draconian, knee jerk measures that only serve to reinforce the alienation of aborigines -- they are different to "us" so can be treated differently to "us". This is a sickening response calculated to appeal to the deep-seated racial bigotry of every simple-minded ugly Australian -- the ones who have recently deserted the government in droves. The ones who need a Tampa to bring them back. This is John Howard in Pauline Hanson's clothing. This is vintage Howard seizing a political opportunity, playing the charade of care and compassion for the underprivileged while having nothing but political expedience in mind.

I was surprised then that the initial responses and commentary were pretty positive. Oh, yes, isn't it terrible, all the sexual abuse of the poor children. Cluck, cluck, coo coo. Kudos to Mr Howard for having the guts to do something decisive.

Bullshit!

This has to be seen for what it is. A mean-spirited grab for the minds of bigots and a push to exert greater Commonwealth control over aboriginal lands. I was relieved then to start to see s ome comments surface that accord with my reaction, and I hope that this trickle becomes a stream, and the stream a torrent, and the torrent a deluge, and then wash this evil bastard and all his witless cronies into electoral oblivion.

And then perhaps we will find a more humane and respectful way of addressing this tragic problem. How about massive public education campaigns? How about handing greater power and responsibility to the elders of these communities? How about a big increase in health and social workers to help those who are vulnerable to these problems make better choices? These may not offer immediate and comprehensive solutions, but it would be a far more measured and humane response than basically labeling every aborigine a drug-addled, alcoholic pervert until proven otherwise.
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Update: I dashed off the above before checking any of the political blogs to make sure that I was relying pretty much on my own analysis. I don't always trust my ability to analyze an issue, but I am pleased to see, now that I have had a bit of a look around, that I am not alone and that there are other much more considered and intelligent analysts coming to much the same conclusions. See also: Andrew Bartlett, Larvatus Prodeo, Club Troppo. A common theme that also disturbed me, but I didn't mention above, was Kevin Rudd's inability to spot the leading edge of the wedge. Labor should have thought through their response a bit more carefully, though I don't believe they have put themselves completely into a corner and still have an opportunity to turn this back on Howard. I only hope they do.

To everything there is a season

Another week, another Wednesday at the track trying to pop a foo-foo valve.

Funny how we go through these phases. When I first joined Namban Rengo it was my introduction to interval workouts. Hell, I didn't even know you called running "workouts". That sounded kind of weird. I thought you did workouts on a weight machine in a gym or in front of a TV screen with Jayne Fonda yelling at you. But I got into these lung-busting sessions and quickly enough got used to calling them workouts. The first few I went to certainly worked me out. Or over, or something. And I enjoyed it in an S&M kind of way. It reminded me of those nasty "one lap of the oval" things we would do at footy training when I was a kid. I think I progressed quite a lot due to the dual approach of intervals on Wednesdays and long runs on Sundays with Team Touch of Grey.

But then two years ago I discovered heart rate training. I became a slave to the HRM. Building mitochondrial density. Racking up the miles at sub lactate-threshold pace. And it got results too. I largely eschewed intervals and anaerobic speed training, though I would still join the occasional track session or do a couple of 1600 m repeats by myself.

So this spring, after an ever so slightly disappointing string of fall and winter marathons, I resolved to spend the spring and early summer putting a bit more focus back on speed work with a view to going into the next aerobic base building phase with increased leg speed.

A few good sessions at the track through May led to the 17:47 around the Imperial Palace in late May. And ever since the 5 x 1200s the Wednesday preceding that race, I have felt the interval sessions starting to have more quality about them. So it is all starting to feel like things are going to plan.

After last week's 6 x 1000s session, Ewen suggested that some shorter reps wouldn't hurt. So in amongst a 10 k run last Saturday I did 5 reps of 80 m stride outs, building up to top speed for the middle 50 m. I'll do some more of that and would like to do a session of 200 m to 400 m repeats one day soon. I've never really done any significant number of repeats that short.

Last night club leader Bob set us the menu of 800 m, 4 x 1200 m, and a final mad dash 400 m. The 800 was supposed to be more or less a warm up. My times were 3:11, 4:09, 4:16, 4:14, 4:19, 1:12.

I'm a little bit disappointed with the spread of times on the 1200s, but I was slightly distracted supervising a couple of other runners I am helping at the moment, so that's OK. And they were faster overall than the five x 1200 last month. The 400 was flat out and I recorded a higher heart rate than I've ever seen before, 186. I guess that's my new HRmax.

In contrast to all that, I went out at lunch time today for two laps of the Imperial Palace (5k per lap). During the first lap I worked my heart rate up to high 140s, approaching 80% of HRmax. That all felt quite comfortable despite a reasonably brisk average pace of 4:17/km. On the second lap I decided to maintain my heart rate at around 150 as much as possible. If it got up higher, I would slow down. This is what I will be telling the people I coach to do, so I have to do it myself. It felt so slow, but with a 24 C humid day, the heart rate and breathing were always threatening to race away into "hard" territory. In the end the lap pace wasn't that slow at 4:29/km, but it was definitely a big slow down from the first lap and an average HR of 150 versus 145 for the first lap.

So I think the story overall here is that I am getting a clear indication of how difficult it is to train or maintain two energy systems at once. Right now I'm getting faster, as far as interval and 5k type race distances are concerned, but I'm losing aerobic endurance. To everything there is a season...speed work now, aerobic endurance later.

I can also report that my left leg injuries are relatively good right now. They can feel a bit niggly after a run or workout, but are much better than they were right through the winter. Fingers crossed.

Running towards motherhood……

No, not me you silly sausages, my Melbourne-based friend Nicola. Nic wrote the article below for a sports web site of some sort, something to do with adidas I think she said. Anyway, she gave me permission to post it here. Reading of Clairie's exploits the other day, I decided I should put it up. Here's to all the expecting mums...

Running towards motherhood……
As a seasoned and serious runner, driven by PB’s and how many km’s I can run in a week, my reaction to my pregnancy news was somewhat mixed. The excitement of becoming a mother for the first time was somewhat tempered with the trepidation that my running days as I knew them would be over. Every pregnancy book I read, written before 2005, extolled the virtues of exercise in the form of gentle swimming and an occasional brisk walk. Difficult for a 90k a week, 3:15 marathoner to hear! Luckily, enlightened health care and sports professionals put my mind at ease and outlined the benefits to both mum and baby of maintaining an existing exercise regime, including running.

Naturally, as the weeks have progressed, I am no longer a slave to my running watch. And I have realised that a longest run of 10k is an achievement, even if it takes me 70mins. So, at 29 weeks, as me and my tummy are running slowly along the beach, and the thought crosses my mind, “will I ever be able to run like I used to, will I ever get a new PB?” I think about how lucky I am, how I can still do what I love, and that I’m going to give birth to a future Olympian!

Nicola Thomson and Bump, 17^th May 2007

Going hard

I am definitely falling a bit behind on the old blogging front at the moment. I have a fair bit going on with work, keeping up the running, and I brewed a beer last Sunday afternoon/evening (a story in itself).

Last week I treated as a kind of recovery and mental break after the Ekiden. I only ran 42 km from three runs: Wed, Fri, and Sunday. I also swam 2 km on Thursday night. Sunday was a pretty sedate kind of 20 km in Yoyogi Park.

Yesterday morning I forced myself out of bed early and ran around a loop I used to run a long time ago. Nothing really special, just a good steady 10.8 km in 47:56 (4:27/km), average HR 139, max HR 165 (up the hill at the end of the run).

Tonight was the more interesting run. After a 5.5 km warmup with Gareth and, later, Stuart, I joined the interval workout with the rest of the club. First Wednesday of the month, so therefore 6 x 1000 m.

The first one I did in 3:35 and it felt solid but almost a little bit too relaxed. The next one I seemed to start off a bit faster and held it and finished in 3:32. This time I was closer to someone, lets call him J-meister, who finished somewhat ahead in the first rep causing me to remark to myself, "gee, J-meister is in pretty good shape at the moment." I didn't set out to chase him, but in rep 3 I finished in 3:27, right there with the J-meister. Rep 4 saw a 3:26 posted. I think this might have been the rep in which speedy Gordon came whizzing past me at about the 600 m mark, but I then found myself pulling him in over the last 100 m and finished about a second behind him.

Reps 5 and 6 were both bang on 3:27. Rep 5 I led J-meister the whole way, rep 6 he got a jump on me at the start and would have finished several seconds ahead. But that was OK because I knew I had put in a lot and finished really spent, but with a nice even set of numbers. Maximum heart rates for the six reps were: 170, 171, 178, 179, 179, 180. Last time I looked, my HRmax was about 184, so this was really getting up there.

Actually, on that last rep, I remember now that I really ran the last 400 hard. A lady in our club called Masako, very fast runner with a 2:40ish marathon PB, came past me at about 400 m. She stayed just ahead until 800, then I lifted and sprinted past her on the home straight and yelled at her to finish it hard. "Come on Masako, finish it!!" It really gave the sense of a hard workout. The 180 maximum HR would seem to agree.

So, what do you think Ewen? Is that a good solid interval workout or not?