Three runs this week

This week I managed to meet my goal of running three times in a week. I haven't managed to do that since the half marathon back in May.

On Tuesday I ran with Krissi, 7.85 km in just over an hour (8:10 mins/km). We took the warm up a little faster than usual, on purpose, as I'm trying to work on my lactic acid threshhold. I was struggling with feeling sick but managed to survive. I was relieved when we were able to ease back though. It was a lovely day in Canberra, which made the run even more enjoyable.

On Thursday, Fontessa and I ran bridge to bridge, 6.18 km is just under 50 mins (8:03 mins/km). Fontessa runs faster than me. My plan was to encourage her to go on ahead and come back for me at regular intervals, while I aimed to stay reasonably close to her. After a couple of kms I was ready to ease right back. Fortunately, I looked at my Garmin and realised that I'd probably already eased back. I stuck with it and found that I was able to stay in touch. At the end I suggested that we take it home quickly, which was a great idea, up until the point where I lost some of my breakfast on the pedestrian bridge. I felt terrible, particularly as there would be more foot traffic there than usual because Floriade is on. It was also the first time in ages that no rain was forecast! Oh well, as Fontessa said, "Food for the ants!".

On Friday I had a mini run, doing my warmup on the treadmill before my PT session. It was only 15 mins, 5 of which were walking. Krissi was pushing me to go a little faster than usual. Only a couple of decimal points but it seemed a lot more.

I was supposed to meet Krissi and Fiona for their warmup on Saturday morning. It rained overnight (good for the pedestrian bridge at least) and was still raining half an hour after I got up. Not heavily but I was running on Sunday as well, so I gave it a miss. Later that day Fiona called to ask if she could come along with Lola and me as she'd not been well that morning. As Fiona is training for the Melb marathon she didn't want to miss this weekend's scheduled run. Her plan was to run with us around East basin then do a loop of Central basin.

On Sunday I didn't even notice the weather when I woke up. I was focussed on losing my hour's sleep. I am one of the "hate the start of daylight saving with a passion" brigade. It seems to take me a week to settle into the change.

On my way out the door it occurred to me that I didn't know how to drive to our meeting place at the Hospice. I've run there and cycled there, but never tried to drive there. I'm glad I realised it before I was on my way. Graham kindly gave me directions and I made it there on time.

The three of us headed off clockwise, which had us running through the wetlands before we got to Kingston. Lola and I had discussed that during the week. Neither of us was confident of the path going the other way so we decided to stick with what we knew. It was a lovely run. The first 4 km were part of the route my first Mother's Day Classic had taken. I remembered it as much more of a struggle on race day. Mind you, I weighed a lot less and ran faster back then.

Running through the wetlands was enjoyable, although I didn't really try to spot any birdlife. I was too busy watching my footing on the pathway, which was covered in puddles every so often. We made it to suburbia, which was a little dull, then back to the lake again. Fiona decided to do a figure 8 which meant that she ran back across King Edward Ave bridge with us. We turned back towards the car while she headed on around central basin.

I was tempted to go with her, but I'd told Graham I would be back early enough to go to the Hall Markets. As it happened, we decided not to go because of the weather. I'm glad I didn't go with her though, as I found myself struggling along back to the car. I realised that it was the longest run I'd done in months. Lola and I were out there for 1 hr 20 mins, running 9.5 km at an average pace of 8:27 mins/km. We were both pretty happy with that.

All up, I ended up running 23.5 km this week. It doesn't sound like much compared to a lot of people, but I'm proud of myself. If I can keep this up over summer, I'll have a great fitness base for next year's half marathon.

Next week, Lola and I are planning to run bridge to bridge on Thursday and then do a run out at Mt Ainslie on Saturday morning. The weather forecast for Tuesday is good, so Krissi and I will probably run then as well. My friend, Alex, is going to walk up Mt Ainslie with me on Wednesday evenings during daylight saving, which is part of my training for my goal of being able to run up it in March.

All I have to do now is get the eating part right and I'll be on track to lose my last 20 kilos. More of that on "The Last Twenty".