Highest KM in 20+ years

Distance 64.7km [total: minimalist 285.6km: Barefoot 3599.1km] Week36

Monday, 10-Sep. 7km

Only time for a short run this evening as I had a movie night in the city later on. I ran along the road from the sailing club to the river outlet then ran back along the beach. I put in a good effort all the way up the beach, the heart rate monitor was beeping in the last kilometre as I pushed out of the aerobic zone. These are the kind of workouts that runners hate, were the body is shouting at the brain to stop or slow down. The more of this kind of running I can manage the better the racing will become.

Tuesday, 11-Sep. 13.5km

First of the warm spring days. The temperature got up to 24C today, it would have been a bit cooler by the time I got to the beach but I noticed the difference. I had some dryness in my throat and I felt more fatigue. I kept a steady heart rate of around 130 bpm and tried to run in an efficient energy saving manner. I started to feel hunger creeping into my stomach on the way back. I had intended to run around 16km but the sun was starting to set when I got level with my parked car, I would have had to continue running for another 12 minute and I didn't have the energy.

Thursday, 13-Sep. 11km.

Lots of runners out this evening, all getting in their last training before the 12km City-Bay on the Sunday.
A friend of mine is running in it so I'll probably go down and have a coffee with him after the race. He is suffering with a calf injury at the moment which he is hoping will dissipate before Sunday. Calf injuries take a while to work through.
I'm glad we have the extra daylight at this time of year, I don't have to rush out of work in order to get to the beach before 5pm. At the moment the sunset is at 6:07pm.
A good paced run at the top of my aerobic band with a burst at the end as I chased down a hare. As I was running along the pavement just north of Henley Square a girl running at a good pace was running in the opposite direction, she was running quite fast as she must have turned around at the jetty and caught me up around 50m from where the path leaves the road. That was the challenge! I trailed behind by around 10m managing to match her pace. I had to slow going across the rough bitumen near the sailing club but then it was concrete all the way back to the car. A 500m chase. I caught up around 100m from the end then took off at full speed, pushing the heart rate up to 150bpm. I reached the coffee shop and slowed. The hare was about 20m behind. I was going to say "Hi, good race" but she had a bit of pained expression on her face so I let it go.

Saturday, 14-Sep. 25km.

The longest run for well over 20 years. I set off at around 9.30am, the tide was at it's low point for the day. It was warm enough for shorts and T-shirt, a slight northerly breeze, not enough to chill me on the run. I ran north to Semaphore jetty and the further to Largs jetty another 1.58km. I felt a bit sluggish at the start as my breakfast was still hanging around. I felt ok by the time I got back to Semaphore jetty to do a stretch along the footpath, the extra 3km would start to affect me in the last part of the run. My feet felt a bit tender at times, as I started to tire and didn't land them as gently as I could. I was glad to get back to the car at the end, I had put sunscreen on but I was still out for over 2 hours so I have to be careful.

Sunday, 15-Sep. 8.2km

My usual morning run was moved to a late afternoon run as I went to watch the City to Bay run in Glenelg during the morning. I got to Glenelg and parked the car a couple of kilometres away, it began to rain as I walked to the main street where the runners would run down. My timing was good, the rain stopped and the sun came out and shortly after the first runner came racing down the street with quite a large gap between himself and the next runner. The first runners had a great style and as more and more runners came past the style became more varied from neutral to bizarre. Also the expressions on faces looked more pained in the slower runners.
The weather picked up in the afternoon after another bout of rain as I walked back from the race. I did my usual 8.2km loop at an even pace, no racing at the end this time. This was my highest distance week in many years.