Saturday, July 14, 2012

Starting again

I had plans to start some big training after the city mile but a decent week was followed by a viral chest infection that kept me out for about a week then another easy week coming back from that. Last weekend I managed to do the Athletics NSW road relays for Striders, I ran the first leg of 35+ and the last leg of the open team. It's a good event, always nice to be running for a team rather than alone and the Striders team of Tuckey, Fattorini, High and Highnam won the gold which made it even better. The time wasn't great but not too bad and some more speed work and consistent training will help with that. Sunday saw me do my first long run since the North Face 100, 35kms along the M7 cycle path on a warm winter's afternoon and it was run at around  4:10min/km pace so that's a good sign.

All plans now are around the world long distance mountain running championships in Switzerland on 9th September, they are being held in conjunction with the Jungfrau marathon which is a race I've wanted to do since walking parts of the course with my wife many years ago. Race details can be found here http://www.jungfrau-marathon.ch/en/ but it's basically an uphill marathon with most of the climbing coming in the last 15k. Looks pretty tough and there should be some crazy fast times by the top runners.

My in-laws arrived from Wales a few days ago so they can help with the kids while I'll be aiming to get some consistent big weeks of training in and I'll also head to the blue mountains a few times to bash away at some big climbs. Speed is also something I'll be looking at and I started today with a bit of a test at the ANSW short course cross country championships. 3 loops of the course for 7.5km and I came 21st overall in 26:07 and 3rd place in the 35+ category (can't believe I'm officially racing in the old-boys category now). Happy with that although I ran 24:51 in 2009 on the same course so not quite where I want to be. Another team gold medal for Striders 35+ though with Fats, Tongey and Macca so Captain Tom will be happy. 4 weeks now to C2S which will be another test.


No comments:

Post a Comment