Over a Week in Arrears!

Where do I start? I need to go back to Tuesday 9 March I guess when it was the Cross Country race at Acton Ferry Terminal. This was on the cycle track heading out to and round the museum and out a bit further towards Black Mountain before turning back the way we had come. My time was a little slower than last week but it's difficult to compare on a different course.

Total distance: 5km
Time taken: 26:52
Average pace per km: 5:22
Place: 86th (out of 108)

I ran a 2km warm up with Maryann and a 2km cool down with Maria, Margaret, Geoff, Jen and Ewen.

Total distance for day: 9km

Wednesday 10 March

Geoff, Chris, Andy, Jen, Colleen, Richard, Ewen and I ran from Parliament House to Daltons Book Shop near Marcus Clark Street to listen to Melanie's book launch. It was lots of fun. She's such a good speaker. Most of us bought a copy of her book and I'm really enjoying it. Mel has had lap band surgery done and has recently moved to Canberra from Darwin and has joined the speedygeese running with us, when work permits, on Mondays. She is certainly inspirational. The book is called Fat Chance and is the story of her journey to lap band surgery and beyond. It's written in a light humorous way and is very easy to read.

After a few nibbles (and in Ewen's case a glass of wine!) we ran back to PH. It was just a short run but a fun event although Ewen felt decidedly seedy when we arrived back - a result of wine and three egg sandwiches!

Total distance: 8.44km

Time taken: 57:39

Average pace: 6:49

It was a slow run but my legs were hurting and I was glad we did a gentle run tonight.

Thursday 11 March

Tonight was the final spiral handicap for the season. I was nervous and under pressure as it was a race against Helen and Bronwyn to win the pointscore. I ran a 3km warm-up with Margaret before the start of the race but didn't enter any other events.

I started in Group 33 while Helen and Bronwyn started in Group 43. As soon as they called my group I ran for my life, or my place! I really tried hard and was so happy when the girls didn't catch me at the end. I ended up running a PB for the 7 lap spiral which pleased me heaps.

7 lap spiral (distance 2.97km)

Time taken: 14:31

Average pace: 4:53 per km

This will make me the female winner of the spiral handicap. Yay, how exciting!

Total distance for night: 6km

Sunday 14 March - Weston Creek Half Marathon

Today was the Weston Creek Half Marathon starting at 7.30am. The conditions were perfect with cloud cover and cool to start. I was chugging a bit to start but by the second half of the race I felt very comfortable. I just wish I had run a few seconds faster as I really felt good in the second half.

Total distance: 21.1km

Time taken: 2:00:16 (1 second faster than last year!)

Average pace per km: 5:42

Calories burned: 1233

After the race there were lots of barrel draws and my name was the first one called. I was lucky enough to win a lovely bottle of NZ sauvignon blanc. Woo hoo!

Total distance with warm-up - 23km

Total distance for week: 62km

Monday 15 March

I ran gently with the 4.30pm speedygeese and we just ran 6km for our early warm-up tonight. There were lots of tired legs at the 5.30pm training after yesterday's half marathon event. However, we split into teams of three and ran a similar training session to last week using the sloping grass in front of Parliament House. We ran fast on the diagonals and uphills tagging our team member after each fast leg and ran slowly across the straights inbetween. My team members were Caroline and Jen. It was fun. This main session lasted 30minutes. Then we ran a gentle warm down to finish off and I ran a bit extra to make up the distance.

Total distance: 15km

Wednesday 17 March

Yesterday I had an extra rest day as my body objected to more racing. This afternoon I met up with the Wednesday group at Parliament House and we ran a gentle undulating run through the Australian University grounds with speedygeoff as our leader as neither Ewen or Chris were there tonight. Ewen had run 6' track in the weekend so was definitely still recovering. It was just speedygeoff, Richard, Jen, Colleen, Andy and me.

Total distance: 15.7km

Time taken: 1:47

Average pace per km: 6.5mins

Thursday 18 March

There were no track events tonight so Jen drove to my house after work and we ran from home to and round Lake Ginnninderra and home via Giralang. It was a beautiful evening but was very dark by the time we headed home and we had to run with care as there was no lighting. It was great having company.

Total distance: 16.53km

Time taken: 1:43:36

Average pace per km: 6:16

Calories burned: 967

Saturday 20 March - Long Run

I met up with the Molonglo group at 7am and started running with Chris, Maryann, Andy, Michelle and Stuart. We all ran from Molonglo Reach and to Mt Ainslie where Maryann and Stuart went in different directions. Chris, Michelle, Andy and I ran the Mt Ainslie loop before running past the war memorial, down Anzac Parade and down to the lake where Michelle, Andy and I turned right to run the west basin but Chris headed back to Molonglo. Michelle ran ahead and I ran the rest of the way with Andy. After a call from Ewen he met up with us near Scrivener Dam and ran with us for about 4km before turning back to his car and organised to meet up with us later for coffee.

It was a beautiful morning. The lake was still and the air was cool and didn't become too hot until later in the run. By about 25km we were stopping at every drinking fountain for water as our supply was becoming low and we were very thirsty. That's one advantage of running by the lake, there are plenty of water fountains available. The last few kms were difficult and it was slightly further all round west basin than we had anticipated but we made it and freshened up at Molonglo before driving to Campbell to meet up with the patiently waiting Liz and Ewen for coke, coffee and omelette - beautiful!

Total distance: 35.42km

Time taken: 3:48:28

Average pace per km: 6:26

Calories burned: 2,057

Sunday 21 March

This afternoon I ran from home down to the AIS just in time to watch the 800m vets' sprinters race with amazing results. It was fun to catch up with a few people and after the race I ran with Nadine and Brett round the back of the AIS and up O'Connor Ridge on the trails. It was a lovely run and the views were magnificent. I left them after about 4km to run home again. Although the start of the run was difficult as my legs felt tight I found the hills helped me and I felt ok for the second half of the run.

Total distance: 12.45km

Time taken: 1:22:14

Average pace per km: 6:36

Calories burned: 728

Total distance for week: 95.1km