Sun 14 Jan 07, You Yangs

This morning myself, David T & Adrian took off for a 90 min run at the You Yangs, Adrian who is faster ran probably 100-105, he continued on when I stopped at the toilets and also he ran a bit afterwards too. Today's run for myself & David was just short of 15km but in 87:30, with an average pace of 6:05 which is extremely slow for both of us and this gives you an idea of the terrain we encountered. We started at the front gate and then made our way up to the Flinders Peak car park then the Branding Trail, then our 'discovery' tour began... We ran from the car park (157m) a couple of minutes up the stairs to Flinders Peak and took off on the West Trail which was very windy, rocky, hilly & technical, we found ourselves running up & down little hills, which peaked at 280m. A lot of bushes which let marks on us all, I have scratches on my torso, legs & a few on mine arms. A good trail, but not one we would want to do all of the time, as there was a lot of twisting, stopping for BIG rocks and getting around them, but overall a fun morning.

Sat 13 Jan 07, Rested on Friday, walked around my local area with Connor, Declan & Kaelan but no running, probably walked 5-6 kms, just doing general stuff, walking to the shops and parks. Today the NorthWest Region were meeting at Newport for the AV Shield Comp (Round 8), but I also had Little A's starting at 4pm, so I was only able to run an 800m and in the 4 x 200m relay team (Div 4). With a big 10 days or so of running and a strong wind I knew todays 800 wouldn't be great but I was hoping for a good effort. Started with a 15 minute warm up along the Willi foreshore and then some stretching. Twenty minutes prior to my race I started doing some strides, which was a great idea in hindsight, after doing the regular four strides I was still feeling very stiff, so some more stretching and four more strides of 50m or so, on the starting bend.

I was allocated into the 2:25 heat with nine others, starting in lane 6. After the cross over I was in 8th spot, a few had gone out quite hard. My first lap was 68, which would normally be great but today I knew the week preceeding would start to catch up, which it did. On the starting bend, second time around I moved into 5th, but I was past in the finishing straight and finished 6th in 2:23.4. So happy enough with the time, but I would like to get back under 2:20 in the next 2 weeks. I also ran in the relay, which we easily won, then straight off to Little A's duties.