Running adventures and finding elevation: Back on track...

Monday: Perth Zoo :)

Tuesday: Beautiful 10km run along the coast from Trigg Beach. Me and Liz headed there early morning and had a great morning running. Liz also did her run while I was out running and we then hit the beach for a swim afterwards. I ran this one pretty steady and had a nice average pace for the run and it felt like minimal effort so that was pleasing.

Wednesday: After yesterdays run on the bitumen path I was keen to get back on the trails today. The plan for today was to increase distance from yesterdays run and to finish feeling good. I ended up doing just over 15km along the Munda Biddi trail from The Dell. About 200m from leaving the car I had some mountain bikers going past me just before hitting the first hill. These opportunities are always too hard to pass up so I proceeded in passing the mountain bikers and charged to the top of the hill. It doesn't seem to matter when in my run this happens but I always find myself racing mountain bikers up the hill.

Thursday: I headed up to Bold Park early this morning for a short 8km along the Zamia Trail. A nice way to start the day and I finished running around the grass oval barefoot for about 1km which was cool.

Friday: Rest Day

Saturday: Today I headed out with good mates Dan and Mark for a 30km run along the Munda Biddi. We decided to meet at Pickering Brook for an early 6am start as it was Australia Day so we all had places to be afterwards. The run was a nice one, we all stayed together until the 15km turn around where I decided to go out another km from where Dan and Mark turned. I picked up the pace to around 4:10min/km for the next few km and eventually caught up to them after about 23km I think. I was definitely going along faster but just rolling with the undulations and loving running along some sweet trails at speed. After catching up to the guys me and Mark picked up the pace a little and finished a bit quicker. Although Dan came in not too long after us so had run the last 5km or so pretty well too!

Sunday: This morning I headed out with some of the guys from the Northern Suburbs Running group. Another 6am start and it was quite a cool morning which was nice. The first 15km I ended up cruising with a new mate Mark who I had caught up with a few days earlier to give him an old pack of mine to use. We ran pretty steady to the Camel Farm (8km) and then on to Mundaring Weir (15km). I did a few out and backs when some of the others were waiting for other members of the group which by the time we got to the weir I had added on an extra 3km. For the return leg back to Kalamunda I decided that I was going to head off at my own pace back to the Camel Farm and then turn back towards the weir and run to the back of the group where mate Rob D was. After a quick chat with Rob I was off and heading back to the car at Kalamunda. The last 5km were pretty tough going back up the steepest part of the run today. And by that time it was about 10am so definitely heating up. Definitely no inclination to sign up for Badwater anytime soon for this Kiwi! Total km's for the day was a touch under 39km. Normally a 30km out and back so I was pretty stoked to get some bonus km's in and felt really good the whole way apart from the last couple of km where I started sulking and wished I was at the shop buying a chocolate milk already :) It was a great run meeting some new runners from the NSRG who are all a great bunch of people.

So the week training went really well without any hiccups and no sign of the random calf niggle I somehow picked up a couple of weeks ago. I think the few days rest and icing heaps definitely prevented it from turning into something bigger. It was nice to get over 100km's for the week with approx 2,500m elevation. Still plenty of sharpening up to do before Tarawera in March but I am confident I should be getting on the plane in pretty good shape. It's looking like I might be lining up for a half marathon in a couple of weeks so should be doing some speed work between now and then. One other exciting thing to happen this week was I created a new running group called Run Eat Sleep Repeat. Basically just a group of runners from all over Perth that can catch up and head out for a run together. Look forward to heading out with them soon!