Running adventures and finding elevation: It's game on!

"If you want to become the best runner you can be, start now. Don't spend the rest of your life wondering if you can do it." -Priscilla Welch

The last few weeks training have been brilliant. The start of all this training basically started with a hamstring that wasn't playing game in the Mt Helena 40 mile race on the 1st of April. I was running along really well through 46km less than 5mins behind one of WA's best distance runners in Todd Ingraham and I was starting to close the gap. Flying through the 46km aid station thinking this is going to be an awesome finish. 2km later things took a turn for the worst. My left hamstring started cramping and anytime I got on top of things and tried to lengthen out my stride the cramping threatened to come back. This pretty much went on for about 7km right until the 55km aid station. During this time my running buddy James caught me up after I had made a break after running the first 39km together. He caught me whilst I was walking along having a bit of a pitty party and we then jogged briefly for a few hundred meters before James kicked on strongly and made a pretty big gap real quick. About 200-300m from the 55km aid station turnaround James was already heading back and looking real solid. I took on a heap of Hammer Endurolyte tablets to try and keep the cramping at bay and then headed for the finish line. Things picked up a little on the way back and I got into a bit of a rhythm but the 7km of walking/jogging earlier had messed up any chances of a time I was going to be happy with. I was looking forward to finishing and getting the DNF of Tarawera gone as my last race result. I ended up coming in with a time of 4:56 for the 40 miles (64.4km) and 3rd place, way off what I was hoping for but still a solid hit out.

Training resumed the day after with an awesome run with Liz along the Bibbulmun Track and I haven't missed a beat with training in the last 2 weeks which has been awesome. During the whole "build up" to Tarawera with training I was always taking a less is more approach because of the end to 2012 that I had with injury. My training recently has been more of what I want to do and when I want to do it. The paranoia of something popping up injury wise is now gone and it is an awesome feeling. Mileage wise I had my first 100mile week last week and have backed up this week with another 100+mile week. I feel like this is going to be my "normal" routine from now and am really looking forward to seeing what rewards my training might bring for me.

The other really awesome things that have been happening of late is how Liz's running has been going. I have dubbed her the queen of negative splits as she has been tearing up the pavement on her way to running two massive p.b's in the space of 7 days. She ran a 50:09 10km last Sunday and backed that up this weekend by running a 1hr48min half marathon on a challenging Bunbury course. Time for a bit of rest for Liz now before doing the Santa Monica Half Marathon in 2 weeks time when we are in the USA. Good mate Grant smashed out an awesome time in the Bunbury 50km today and I ran the final 8km with him which was pretty cool, and also Big Kev tore apart the marathon in 2:43xx with an awesome performance!!

I have a race coming up called the Truth or Consequences 50km. It's on some relatively hilly and technical terrain so I'm hoping to put Mt Helena behind me and get on some terrain where I feel much more at home. It's not going to be an all out slog fest at the 50km but I do really want to have a satisfying run before we head to the USA and Alaska.

The last couple of weeks have involved a few cracker runs in some awesome places and here are some photo's from the trails...