I had other things on my plate on Monday, so I was unable to join the guys for a last session on 200's, so with my marathon in mind I headed to a hill near where I live and start a little 10 x 500m hill session!!!
Tuesday easy 10km I turned into 14 with 4km on the track, with hte last 2 run a little quiter than marathon pace.
Wednesday had me running 5km warmup before a 10km tempo run at the local race. Well with the rain falling and me on the motobike I didn't get the warmup in and started very cold... In fact my feet didn't want to bend and the ankles were stiff! The top lady of the day sped past me as the gun went and I watched her Olympic body disappear up the road and there was nothing I could do about it...
After lossing time in the first 2km my old body warmed up and I started to hit the splits I was looking for!!! I past 5km in 17:41, and through the rain (yes it was raining, almost) I could see I was catching a couple of guys and hidden in the middle of them was Tannith... I would like to be telling you how I picked up the pace and started to run them down, but I think it was them who were slowing as I closed the gap.
7.5km and she was mine... In passing her she dropped the guy she was running with and set chase, but with the turns and damp on the road, she couldn't hold on as I chased down a 40+ guy. I would catch him on the straight and then he would cut through the flower beds and pavement to put 20m out on me!!! With 500m to go I caught him again, but having run 50+m longer than him in the last 1km I didn't have the energy to out kick him...
Thursday was still wet so we left the stairs to the tourists and hit the road for an easy 15km.
I had planned an easy 10 for Saturday, but Eddie had time off from Daddy duty, so I mixed things up and joined me at R/Mem for a little forest and mountain run... Eddie doesn't get on these trails much, so I took him on a run that he would never forget...
Loop round here and single track across there, then it was Woodcutters and through to Kirstenbosch... Then up what I call Leo's Ladder, well the 2nd half of it... THEN
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| Can you see him? |
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| Good thing he left the path... |
That said, from the Block house we took the gravel road for the most part and then he almost stood on..
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| Not so scary! |
Sunday saw the 12th running of Landmarks half and for some reason I have run them all Sunday I was again on the start-line. With my marathon in 2 weeks and a long run already in the legs I was just aiming at running this at marathon pace...
The first couple of km were hard going, but I had 30sec in the bag before the little hill up to Rhodes Mem. I didn't see the 10km board, but Ms 310 told me that I was now 50 sec behind pace, but the 2nd half was mostly down hill and it didn't take me long to be back on track. I was happy the way I was running and at the 19km board I looked at the time 1h12:02, about 8 min for those last 2.1km should be easy, up the road, turn left and left again... wait why is Mr Marshal sending us straight?
- Me: Has the route changed
- Marshal: Yes, straight on...
- Next Marshal: follow the brick road around the busses...
- Me: (200m later) *%^$# where to now, we can't finish now #$%&#
- Me: finished 20.3km in 77:03, not a happy camper...
Snakes alive!!! We occasionally come across adders but they wriggle away pretty smartish - too fast in the case of the last one a couple of months back. It was basking on the path just below the Gemmi Pass in Switzerland, round about 7,000ft, but shot into the undergrowth before I could get the camera out.
ReplyDeleteYou sound to be putting in some quality training. Good luck in your forthcoming marathon...
I may love trail running, but snakes? Not so much. The turtle, however, is a keeper!
ReplyDeletePoisonous snake? We get quite a few snakes around here but I've never seen one on a run. I've seen quite a few around our house though.
ReplyDeleteHmmm....errant marshals. The Knysna marathon this year was my first marathon and at the turn-around point the marshal thought he was merely a security guard. The lead vehicle and the first 250 runners went straight past. Ended up running a 44.2km first marathon :(
ReplyDeleteWow that snake is huge! I've only encountered a couple snakes while running, they were really small ones. About Mary Decker, I appreciate that you made that comment, that is why I put that post up! You are probably more knowledgeable than anyone about track. I do think that Mary panicked when she got bunched up during the 3K final, she should never have decided to fall back a bit. Not sure that I agree that she should have been disqualified, but she may have ran up the back of Budd since Budd wasn't keeping a fast enough pace that Mary wanted to run. I don't know who is at fault for that. I still think Budd should never have made that move given that she wasn't going fast enough.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that is one thing that I don't understand about Olympic finals - they seemed to be so tactical. Just seems to me that if you are the #1 runner, you should start a fast pace to thin out the field and make people run an honest race to keep up with you. That was Mary's mistake I think in not doing that. You can even go back to Prefontaine in 1972 during the 5K - should have been trying to run from the front like he usually does.
ReplyDeleteAs for the world tennis finals, I didn't get a chance to watch, though I'm glad that Novak won. I'm probably one of the few Novak fans out there it seems like. During american football season it is hard for me to pay attention to any other sports.