PCRG Times Two

Considering the nature of Wednesday's run the leg muscles felt surprising good Thursday morning. Still I erred on the side of caution at Pat's and didn't go flat out. We did the warm-up out to West End then ran outbound doing 3 mins fast, 30 sec jog, 2 mins fast, 30 sec jog, 1 min fast, 30 sec jog, 30 sec fast, 30 sec standing recovery. Then we turned around and did the same thing coming back.

It was only on that last effort that I really pushed it. I had no choice with Matty sidling up to me and mentioning me of the excesses of the silly season. As if I needed to be reminded!


*****


With Tuggeranong Don making a special guest appearance I just had to go back to Pat's today. Also Clairie was coming along, and I hadn't seen her for ages ... a whole three days :-) But I had to be at the desk ready to go (showered etc) at 7am which was going to make it tight, so I parked at work first and ran to The Ship Inn.

The pgm was the same as yesterday, and as Pat announced it to the group he said it seemed like Groundhog Day. Some of us who were backing up (Cassie, Jules, Phil, myself) half smiled and nodded, we felt the same way.

I thought I was moving faster today, at least I hoped I was as I was giving it everything. The test would be how far I traveled by the end of the first set. When I got there I was maybe 50 metres or so further on than yesterday - whew!

Hopefully TD enjoyed he hit out, he sure was flying especially in that second set. As I had to veer off during the warmdown and head back to work I didn't get too much of a chance to talk to him. With a bit of luck he be able to join us for our Go-Between's Bridge loop from South Bank tomorrow. After the tough run he and CJ took me on when I was in Canberra recently we might go via Mt Coot-tha as payback :-)

And So This Was Christmas .....

and what have I done ....


Christmas Day was the traditional Brisbane Running Buddies Xmas Track Ssession. This has been going for six or seven years and when it started out was a serious session with lots of 400m reps. Its kind of degenerated into 'whatever'. So this year after the warm-up my 'whatever' was participating in the all out 100m race and then doing a couple of Yasso 800s with Lizzle. We finished off the morning with champers and OJ, lots of fresh fruit and some yummy things provided by Little Tara including the best chocolate brownies.


*****


Boxing Day morning was cool and wet so it was hard to resist getting out for a recovery run (recovery from the food and drinks of the day before that is). I was at my sister's at Cornubia and even though I didn't head out until after 8.30am conditions were perfect - cool and rainy. With the Fatass run the next day I didn't want to do too much so it was just an easy 7k, most of it on pathways through Cornubia Forest Park. Noice :-)


*****


Yesterday was Fats Festive Fat Ass Run, another Christmas tradition. Most of my regular running buddies didn't make it because they were working, or sleeping in, or aren't waterproof. A couple aren't too well (real lurgys, not self inflicted Xmas ones) including Lizzle. She and Glenno came along but just for a walk. So I was pretty happy to see Mat, Shane and Geoff there amongst the crowd of about 25.

The start was at The Gap where there is a graded forestry trail that goes up (and up and up) to Mt Nebo. The finish point, or turnaround for those doing the lot, is 24k. It ends at a cafe that Fat Bloke had organised to be open up for us. My plan was to run out for about 14k and then run back to the start again.

Mat, Shane and I stuck together the whole way, though did have various others with us at different times. At 14k we had to make the decision, do we keep on going another 10k, mostly uphill, or head back to the start which would be longer but mostly downhill so easier. We took the shorter but tougher option - we'd got that far and had never run the whole way to Nebo before.

It was such a relief to hit the cafe, fast guys were already there getting stuck into brekky. With the rain and the well below normal temps it was quite cool so the hot coffees went down a treat. Hard to believe on this same run last year it was so hot and humid we all nearly melted!

Thanks to fellow bloggers Shane and Mat for keeping me company on what has to be one of the toughest runs on the calendar, and for suggesting we go all the way to the top. And extra thanks to Mat for providing jelly beans and not whinging too much when I kept taking the black ones :-)

A Bridge (Not) Too Far

Brissie's latest bridge, linking UQ with Dutton Park, opened for business on December 17th. Its just for busses, bikes and pedestrians and for some time it was known as the Green Bridge. In August it was officially named the Eleanor Schonnell Bridge, but some of us prefer to call it the Go-Betweens Bridge :-)



Anyway, it had to be christened so for our Saturday run we dressed in green and did an 18k loop. The Regatta Runners, wearing red, were doing a similar loop starting at Toowong and they were running clockwise so we ran anti-clockwise so our paths would cross twice. Lizzle was running in their pack and hid candy canes on the new bridge for us to find. Unfortunately Glenno, who was with us, was the only one who knew and forgot to tell us. Or so he says, I reckon he was going back later to snaffle them all for himself.

It was a great morning ... well for most. Poor Clairie was suffering with some sort of cold/fluey thing but was determined to "do the bridge". So along with Toasty, Mat and Scotty we acted as shepards, though the only ones we were guiding were ourselves :-) The rest of the herd were kind enough to wait for us before crossing the new bridge, so we could do it together.

We topped off the morning with brekky at Poppy's. I looked around the table at our mob and realised what a 'united nations' we were. There were 5 1/2 x South Africans (the half was a toddler), 1 x American, 1 x Welch, 1 x Irish, 1 x English, plus a smattering of Aussies representing just about every state in Australia. How cool is that!

And speaking of cool, hope everyone out there has a Cool Yule :-)

PCRG Xmas Run

I was too tired to run Wednesday morn so planned 10k in the arvo but ran out of time and it turned into 5k. Better than nothing I suppose and at least it didn't take anything out of me before Pat's Thursday Xmas Run which I knew was going to be big. And I was right, there were over 100 people! So it was a real party atmosphere as we gathered at The Ship Inn at 5:40am.

But the fun didn't last long as we were soon off for what seemed like an extra long warm-up (or maybe my cape was slowing me down) before launching into a normal speed session. We did 2 x 4 minute efforts followed by a few hill reps, then a few more hill reps, then a couple more, then just two more, then one last one ....

Kids were invited along with Pat's partner Susan taking care of them and organising them in strategic spots with their water guns. There was no dodging the little buggers :-)

We finished up the session at the South Bank pool with a great brekky (provided by Intraining) and the usual prizes. We had a Secret Santa where I scored a giant packet of Powerade mix, just what I need for Fats Festive Fatass run next week.

The Group Award went to Matty. You'd be hard pressed to find a more deserving recipient. He is always full of so much life and enthusiasm I sometimes wonder what he's on ;-) And still no sunnies for me but it was worth not winning to see them go to the lovely Cassie who scored 11 out of 10 in the excitable stakes. Ciaran dubbed her "Clairie's Cousin", I have a feeling that name will stick :-)



Coach Pat with a couple of Superheroes (Dan & Peter)



Such a devious look on her face!



The Riverstage Hill



PCRG Wonderwomen Tesso & Clairie - that's glitter on our legs, not scabies :-)

Bells and Whistles

Monday morn I put in an easy 6k before work (headed out just after 5am). Nothing much to report, other than a distinct lack of runners out there at that hour but a stack of walkers.

*****

Though our Christmas run is tomorrow Clairie got in the mood early and wore one of her collection of Chrissy hats to Pat's yesterday. It had with these little bells that rang with every step she took. She couldn't figure out why nobody wanted to run next to her :-)

We did 30/30s around the square in The Gardens and rather than stand in the middle and scream out Pat brought a whistle along to indicate when to speed up or slow down. It worked a treat but meant there was no way one could confuse "go" with "slow" ;-)

Lessons Learned From Rocky 1 To Rocky 3

I spent the weekend in Canberra as a good friend was turning 50 and required my valuable assistance to help her celebrate - a tough job, but somebody had to do it. To get it done properly, though, I needed to work up a thirst and fellow bloggers Tuggeranong Don and CJ were happy to help me do just that.

So Saturday morning Don and I headed out from Mawson shops at about 6.30am. Along the way we discovered he worked with a girl I went through school from Grade 1 with. Small world!

We got to the base of Mt Taylor but realised we didn't have time to climb it as we were hooking up with CJ at 7am. Bummer ;-)

CJ said she was planning an easy 13k, and that sounded perfect on top of what we had just done. Ready to go with her was Steve, he was going to give her (and us) a bit of a look at what she'd be running the next day in the Tour de Mountain. By that I thought he meant we'd be running the flats and looking up at the hils. Wrong! He took us up and along Isaacs Ridge, then up and back Mt Wanniassa.

It was the toughest "easy 13k" I've ever done! All I could think was poor CJ had to go back the next morning and race it, plus throw in Mt Taylor to boot.

Steve is such a mountain goat, I've never seen anyone fly down hilly trails like that without fear of going belly up. Before the last big downhill we asked him how he did it. I tried to put what he'd told us into practice and it worked - you learn something new every day. Unfortunately Don, on that same downhill, also learnt something about tempting fate when he uttered the now famous last words "I never fall over running" :-)

What a great morning! A tough run for sure, but the fantastic company made it well worth the effort. Thanks so much to Don, CJ and Steve. Now I was ready to party.

Actually, I was ready for a nap ... but after that I was ready to party :-)

Grinners :-)

The legs were still a bit sore Wednesday but I'd arranged to meet Lizzle at The Regatta at 5.30am. Luckily she was feeling much the same way so along with Geoff with just cruised on into The Gardens at a nice easy pace. He wanted to do a little more so left us as we turned after 5k to come back.

Finished off with 20 push-ups (a la Clairie) when we got back to the ferry terminal, Lizzle even joined in for a few.


*****


This morning at Pat's was 4 min fast, 30 sec jog, 2 mins fast, 30 sec standing recovery. Repeat. Then 3 mins fast. Then we all did the hill up to Vulture St. The legs feel almost totally recovered, as the reps wore on I was able to rev it up a bit.

It was another fun session. Simmo, Big Stevie and I formed a bit of a pack a couple of times and did some serious chasing, trying to drag others along when we did catch up to them. Afterwards the three of us made a pact to gang up with a couple of others and run sub 12 in the January TT - gulp!

And as if I wasn't in a good enough mood after that I won a random draw prize of this little FM radio/clock/pedometer thing called 'Runner' donated by the Gold Coast Airport Marathon.

But wait ... there's more. I also picked up the Group Award! There was a choice of several things including a double pass to the Gold Class Cinema which I couldn't resist. Boy, I sure had a lot of new buddies after that ;-)

The prize was courtesy of Majer Recruitment. These guys are one of the sponsors of the PCRG Summer Series, and quite a few of them are members including Lou who will be with us running 11:59 (or quicker!) come January.

Re-kurrawa-very Runs

Still down the coast Monday morning Lizzle, Glenno and I headed out for a very easy 5k, up to Surfers and back. The first few steps were very tentative, but once we got moving the soreness in the legs lessened.

We dropped into the new super duper Ikea store on our way home to Brissie. The three of us made a bee line for the escalator up from the car park. Walking up the set of stairs right beside us was a very elderly couple :-) The top floor was great, lots of comfy chairs to, er, test. The lower floor was a struggle though, no furniture.

*****

I wasn't feeling too DOMS-ey this morning so drove into work early then ran over to The Ship Inn to do Pat's. I figured I could just take it easy, the only thing that would probably hurt would be if it was a hill session. Just as we were about to take off on the warm-up Pat called out "we're doing hill reps in The Gardens".

It was good to see some other of the Kurrawa runners fronting up, it looked to me they too were holding back a little. As it turned out the hills weren't too painful, actually the downs hurt way more than the ups. As the session wore on my legs felt better and I was able to increase the pace with each rep, but still didn't get to flat out.

I had to head straight into work from The Gardens and so don't know who was the lucky winner of the sunnies this time. I'm guessing it wasn't me.

Kurrawa to Duranbah Relay

This is one of my favourite events and this year was no different. The weekend got off the perfect start with Clairie and I doing the 1 hour road trip to the Gold Coast on Saturday arvo, laughing all the way - a bit like Santa :-)

My goal was 2:05 to 2:10 if the weather wasn't too bad, and 2:10 to 2:15 if it was hot. Last year I did 2:00.xx but the course was 1k shorter (24k instead of 25k), and I ran the first leg which is always so much cooler.

With a long line at registration the race, due to start at 5am, got going after 5.30am. Still, the sky was overcast and it was almost cool.

My relay patner Nick is coming back from injury was expecting to take around 2h30m(if 100% he'd be closer to 1h50m). Scotty's wife/relay partner Little Tara was thinking she'd do a similar time, so we drove the 25k to the handover together, crewing as we went.

We got to Duranbah at 7.50am. Somewhere along the way the weather had taken a run for the worse .... for running that is. The skies had cleared and it was hot.

The organisers had announced anyone who wants to take off at 7.30am (missed that!) or 8am could, and the times would be worked out later. Our runners were still a couple of kms away and Scotty decided to go at 8am, but I hung around and waited to watch Nick run in, that was about 8.10am.

The sun was really beating down by then. I managed to stick to just seconds over 5 minute pace up to 20k. With 2 1/2k to go I caught Scotty and was tempted to slow down and run in with him, but strangely was feeling okay so pressed on.

Until then I hadn't been passed by a single person. I'd passed quite a few, most of them ultra runners do the whole thing.

Suddenly 1k later I was ready to sit in the gutter, and that last 1 1/2k seemed to go on forever. I was sooooo tempted to walk, but kept checking the watch and thought I might make it in around 2:11 or 2:12 if I didn't. Also after getting this far without being overtaken I didn't want it to happen now.

Spotting the big blue Kurrawa SLSC a few hundred meters away was like seeing an oasis in the middle of the desert, the finish line is maybe 200 meters on from that. Glancing at the watch I figured I might just break 2:10 and so broke out of the slow shuffle into a fast shuffle.

After what seemed forever I got to the line and couldn't believe it - 2:08 :-))))

Next year I get to run first again, goal is sub 2 hours.

Kurrawa 2007 - bring it on!

Monday Music - 11 December 2006

The Atlantics - Bombora (1963)


I was reminded of this Australian classic when I saw it on Delightful Rain on the ABC the Saturday before last. According to the website, Bombora is 'an Aboriginal term denoting large waves breaking over submerged rocks'.

Perfect for a run at the beach, it was on my Kurrawa playlist :-)

Kurrawa Playlist

Maybe I should've rested up but I knew I'd feel better going into Sunday's race if I had a bit of a run this morning. Pat mentioned yesterday that today's session would be 'sprints in The Gardens', that's where we go fast/jog/fast/jog around a square.

It sounded perfect, I could turn the legs over but not thrash myself. And that location meant I could park at work, do an extra long warm-up and then run my warm-down back to work and be ready to start at 7am.

The sprints seemed to be over almost before they started, its amazing how much quicker the time passes when you aren't going 100% :-) The last couple of laps I hit out a bit and it felt good.

I'm slightly more confident about Sunday now.

2P - haven't won any sunnies ... yet.
Clairie - don't give up your day job, you'd make a terrible psychic.

Still need to get a few things sorted for the race, like drinks etc. The most important task is done though, my playlist. Here it is. Its a bit of a mix - old, new, covers, World, daggy, dance, etc.


To get in the mood before relay partner Nick runs in ....
Kpanlogo - Ben Baddoo

So I know what to do when Nick does runs ...
Run Rabbit Run - Flanagan & Allen

For the rest (not totally decided on the order and I may delete a couple and add a couple of different ones) ...
Sing Sing - Serena Ryder
Sleepy Little Deathtoll Town - The Panda Band
Young Turks - Rod Stewart
Tears On My Pillow - Clem Snide
Superfreak - Rick James
Speedy Gonzales - Pat Boone
Bombora - The Atlantics
Right Here - The Go-Betweens
Aloha Steve & Danno - Radio Birdman
Send Me An Angel - Thrice
psycho Ex - Andy Prieboy
Love Generation - Bob Sinclair
Blame It On The Bossonova - Eydie Gorme
Here It Goes Again - OK Go
Listen To The Band - Mike Nesmith
Le Toi De Moi - Carla Bruni
Macarthur Park - Donna Summer
I Like To Move It - Sacha Baron Cohen
Hurricane - Faker
California Sun - Los Straitjackets
LDN - Lilly Allen
Hit Me Baby One More Time - New Found Glory
Hang Up - Madonna
Gnawoe - Orchestra Boabab
Game Of Love - Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders
Elevate Myself - Grandaddy
Desert Rose (remix) - Sting & Cheb Mami
Daydreams About Night Things - The Meat Purveyors
Creeque Alley - Mammas & The Pappas
Copacabana (original disco version) - Barry Manilow
Come A Little Bit Closer - The Mavericks
Butterfly - Mason Jennings
Build Me Up Buttercup - The Goops
Brown Eyed Girl - Reel Big Fish
Hey You - Basement Jaxx
Don't Cry For Me Argentina - Me First & The Gimme Gimmes
El Questro - Downsyde
Boogie Woogie #5 - Puffy Ami Yumi
Chinese Translation - M Ward

Hopefully I won't get to these but if I'm having a bad day they may well be meaningful ...
Swimming In The Darkness - Custom Kings
Parachutes (Funeral Song) - Mates Of State


It might be hot but at least I'll have some cool music to keep me entertained :-)

Downunder Runner Comes To Town

This morning at Pat's was the 'steady' 50 minutes followed by the no-watch 1k. I always try to do the 'steady' run a bit on the fast side, but with the Kurrawa to Duranbah relay on Sunday thought today should just be a relaxing one.

It was a little special today, we had the pleasure of CR Downunder Runner's (Diana) company. She's in town for a week and on Tuesday stumbled across Matty wearing his CR singlet. So he lined her up for a run with the PCRG today. It was great to meet her after reading so many of her posts. As she's doing Shepparton HIM on Sunday she also wanted to take it easy and so hung around Clairie, Mat and I.

For the no-watch thing I'd nominated 4:10. Clairie put down 4:00. Ah ha, I conjured up a master plan - just stay 10 seconds behind her! During it I felt like going a little faster but held myself back, and as I'd see Clairie pass a landmark (eg a signpost) I'd count how long it took me to get to the same spot. It was always around 10 seconds. Laughing.

Well, I would've been laughing if Clairie paced herself properly, we were both about 5 seconds too fast :-)

3k Time Trial

Going into today's 3k Time Trial I really didn't know what to expect or even hope for. During the warm-up Simmo told me he was going to pace Lou to sub 12:30. Last Tuesday Lou and I ran our 500m reps together and I thought that he might be selling himself a little short if he just wanted a 12:29. If I could go under 12:15 then he could too! I hunted him down and let him know :-)

We took off for the TT to the sounds of the bongos (yay, the boys were back with us!). Simmo, Lou and I ran in a little pack and when we turned at halfway my watch read 6:03:xx. Great, on target for a good one. Lou and I kept up the pace but Simmo dropped back a bit.

With about 50m to go Lou upped the pace and after hanging around hime for the previous 2950m I had to go too. He finished with a fantastic PB of 12:06 (down from 12:40), and I was just one second behind in 12:07. Woohoo - I haven't gone that 'fast' since May 2005. And dead even splits.

What a way to end the year :-):-):-):-)

There were lots of great runs by fellow bloggers including Mat. He's such a good hill runner we reckon if the TT was up Mt Coot-tha he'd come in first. Clairie gave up her own TT to pace Sarah to a PB - a lovely parting gift for her as she's about to go overseas for 12 months ... Sarah not Clairie :-) Matty was flying even though he was holding himself back a tad and encouraging others the whole way. And it was good to have Shane along again, he's back on track just in time for a big one at Kurrawa.

Today was the start of the Adidas Sunglasses PCRG Summer Series. We all put our names on bits of paper to go into a draw for a massage or adidas sunnies (worth $265). Just as Dan was about to pick out the winner of the sunnies one piece of paper blew out of the box. It was like everything was suddenly in slow motion as it floated seemlingly forever through the air and into the crowd. All eyes were on it knowing the name on it was going to take home the sunnies. After what seemed an eternity it landed in somebody's hands. Ha ha, it was Toasty's name on it so he scored himself a very cool pair of shades to take with him to Hawaii for Sunday's marathon!

There were lots of smaller random prizes given away too. I won a $25 dry-cleaning voucher. No concerns now about red wine spillage on my good clothes during the silly season. Bring it on!

Monday Music - 4 December 2006

The Go-Betweens - Right Here (1987)

TripleJ finished off Aus Music Month with a live cross to the Go-Betweens Tribute show here last Thursday night (they formed in Brissie in 1977). Sadly band member Grant McLennan passed away in his sleep on May 6th this year.

Its hard to choose a favourite track of theirs but I picked this because they look to be having so much fun.


PS Its on my playlist for Sunday's Kurrawa to Duranbah relay :-)

And on the 7th weekend she rested ...

... well, she didn't race :-)

I thought it had been a while since I'd had a race free weekend and I was right. Checking back through my blog the last one was mid-October when I spent the weekend driving back from Sydney.

Prior to that my last race free weekend was early September when I crewed for the guys at Glasshouse. And the one before that was mid-July. It was the morning after the night before (the PCRG annual dinner). Three pretty valid excuses. And another valid excuse this weekend, there were no races on!

*****

Saturday a mob of us who are racing (yay!) next Sunday at Kurrawa got together and had a nice steady 14.5k run from The Ship Inn. It seemed a bit weird not being out there for too long, we spent twice as much time at brekky :-)

*****

I wanted to visit a friend on the Gold Coast today so seized the opportunity to do a bit of a reccy on the Kurrawa course. I parked at Burleigh and headed south and down to the beach at Tallebudgera then turned around and went north up towards Mermaid. Bumped into CR Repete along the way.

It was about 12k or so all up at a pretty cruisey pace. The hill at North Burleigh/Miami didn't seem hard at all, though that was only 6k or so into the run. Could be a different story next weekend where I reckon it must be at about the 19 or 20k mark.

Some things never change

I couldn't get to Pat's yesterday morn so went along today instead. On the pgm was 2 x 1500m with a 45sec recovery and then 2 mins out, turn around and run back (no recovery!).

My 1500 times were -

5:57 :-)
6:08 :-( <-- funny, it didn't feel that slow

Even though the legs and lungs were objecting 45 seconds later it was time to go again, running up the road for 2 mins. Like the earlier reps I tried hard to hang in not too far behind Ally, its great to have somebody to chase and she is so consistent with her pacing. She, Kelly and I all got pretty close to the 500m mark before we had to turn for home.

Coming back Kelly really kicked in and egged me on to keep up. I got to the finish in 1:53 :-) That 7 second negative split almost made up for the earlier shocker, especially considering it came at the end of the session.

I've been training with Pat for over three years now. I can honestly say it never gets boring even though we've done the same sorts of sessions many times. But still he comes up with new things, or twists to old things.

One thing that has never changed in that time is the encouragement everyone in the group, from the fastest to the not-fastest, gives eachother.

And the comment they all make at the end of every session .... God that was hard!