MY YEAR IS OVER

I started last week wanting to race (and win) on the weekend, and that would only be as a build up to seeing if I could run a fast time at next weekends half...

Well things started off ok and on Monday we headed into the forest for a hilly recovery run, and with just over 10km done I was happy how things had started.

On Tuesday I took the squad down to Boshoff Ave for our 1000m repeats. We don't always like running our reps on the track, and with the wind blowing the road was calling. It's a 3.5km warm up to get there and then after a little stretching we set off:

3:28  3:26  3:24  3:21  3:24  3:14

Kept winding it up...

Wednesday turned into a special day as Stephen 'Fastfeet' Courtney, one of my students from years ago was in town (out from Perth, or one of the cities from that island down under) to join us for a run. We talked and ran for over an hour through the forest to Kirstenbosch before heading back on the road.

Thursday did not go my way as I was shattered and after a 5km warm up I let the guys run 200m's on their own.
I didn't mind the rest and together with taking Friday off I would be ready to give Saturday a go... Now before we get to Saturday's race, we had our clubs end of year function on Friday evening. My plan for Saturday was to leave Dawn to run on the road and I was going to do a trail race. Now New Balance put on a couple of trial races though the year and I try and run them from time to time. with the fields being small and this being December, I thought I could pull of a win and win me a pair of New Balance shoes. (I already know what shoe I want...) So come Friday night at the end of year party I was lucky enough to win a prize (one of three). Oh wait for it.... I won a pair of New Balance shoes!!!

With a pair of shoes won I didn't head out to the tail race, but went with Dawn and ran the road race. A 15km .

Around Rietvlei, very flat

I didn't race, but set off at 4min/km and held it there till 6km by then I had lost all the people I was running with so I upped the pace and start to run down the guys ahead of me. It's the longest race I've done in 5-Fingers and running at sub 4min/km made my toes hot!!! I finished with 58:09, nothing special...

Sunday is normally a long run day, but I needed to train, so I decided that Saturdays 15 had been long enough and I was running out of time if I was going to make it to Church on time, so I headed for the hills.

6 little bumbs

 6 hills with the first the slowest and the last the fastest... another thing about this run was the fact that I left in the rain and can back in the bright sunshine!!!