Perth Half Tempo builds momentum slowly

Sunday 21st June AD;
Ran Perth Half Marathon in 2hrs 00min 35 seconds...(5min 42 per km average) Ran it tempo run style, (thanks Slingrunner for the advice on that one although I didn't decide on running tempo style until sunday) as felt too trashy to race it after tough night at work (finished 0210, slept 0315 to 0615, raced 0800)) where we had 70+ calls waiting for most of the night, and not until 1am did the 20 of us get it down to 0 calls waiting...Forgot to take HR. Splits from my wristwatch and th K markers on the course;
10.55km splits; 58.09/62.26
First 21km; 7km splits; 38.19/40.30/41.09
Other key times; 1st 1k a cruisy 4.36.
10k 55.19. 20k 1.53.53...

Heaps of fun catching up with various people including the "Simon Says Sub 4" girls, Hills group people, CoolRunners mjail, turtle-runner and others, and Silvio with his swiss bells gave me a lot of encouragement in the last 6-7km.

Saw Clown training (not racing)out there going on about the latest wet toast player Nick Nanatuni (very good recruit I must admit, saw him playing for Swan Districts last year actually with some mates of mine at Bassendean Oval...Jeff Farmer (ex Fremantle and Melbourne AFL football legend, "The Wizard" and that he is!!! should be playing AFL this year but Fremantles overly aggressive "youth policy"...look what its done for Melbourne...relegated him and Peter Bell back to South Fremantle to kick bags of goals for them every week, and Peter Bell captained the WA state side... ) was playing for South Fremantle that day too...weaving his magic...Nick has an incredible leap, and I have read meters on his home street, and it was very low socio-economic area, Nick Yarran (Carlton) and a couple of other AFL players all lived on that trashy street in downtown Midvale/Midland...Fijian born dreadlocks Nick will I am sure thrill my Wet Toast fanatical wife for years to come...and give John Worsfold some hope again...wonder if John will run the Perth Marathon again this year???

Had a fun time...enjoyed the run immensely after I started to feel better from 5km onwards...

Overall not what I'd planned but headache and lack of sleep, lack of motivation to run fast = totally uninterested mentally in racing hard today...so a fast tempo run instead...not what I planned but I think I made some more big gains today.

This means this week is a good momentum builder for the Perth Marathon in 2 weeks, probably will try to go harder this week at the training. Next week (June 29th onwards) I will drop the volume, and avoid long intense runs in the last 3-7 days before the Perth Marathon on July 5...so I have some sort of taper...Have arranged for time off work on the saturday before the marathon so I will be ready to race...Hopefully I can at least beat the "Simon says Sub 4" girls I saw out on the course today...cool idea that one hahaha...If I can finally beat that 2004 PB of 3.55.02 I will be a happy man......Hopefully the injuries will stay away in the second half of the year, and I can get the weight down, and hit Melbourne with everything Ive got in October...

Friday 19th June AD;
AM; While my wife Kathryn was busy doing Jacobs swimming lesson, I snuck away and jammed in a 500m swim session in 17min 23, (HR 138) my first swim session for a very long time...Pretty slow time, but felt good to do something different and get the day off to a better start...

PM; Ran 4km 5-lapper course on oval in 17min 30, HR -165. Solid but nothing incredible. Although I did hit the first 800m in 2.56 only my second time under 3 minutes on this course...Sweated out the chlorine from the mornings swim, and hit the showers feeling really good and ready for the back-to-back horror Friday/Saturday night 1800-0200 shifts in the callcentre...

Thursday 18th June AD;
16km reps session (long reps) 71min 24secs Heart rates 165-192 at the end of each rep...

Average speed for reps session was 4min 27 per km, and the 16.31 4km is 4min 07 per km...
So if my course is not too short (it is very flat of course being an oval), thats some pretty good paces...I.E...about 40-45min pace for 10k...so hopefully if I can build on this I can see some sub 45min 10k race action later in the year, and prove a few people wrong on that score...

Hit the first 800m of the 16.31 4km in 2min 54, which is my quickest on that 800m lap course...

Was extremely shattered after the the rep with the 192 Heart rate, had to back off a bit after that one...First rep was 4km in 16min 31 secs and that was a PB for that course by 20 seconds, so was ecstatic with that rep, and surprisingly HR was only 165, but after the next rep the heart rate at end was 192, so the accumulated lactic acid started to bite in the second rep???...

Poured with rain quite heavily in second half of the session when I was weary enough to consider giving it away, but I stuck at it, the rain cleared up and then I had trouble towards the end with a council truck driving all over the oval throwing out clouds of fertiliser into my face, and I was already digging deep, but stack at it finished the session, took the trucks number plate, and beat my last effort at this session in June 2005 by 3 seconds, although that was on a much hillier (therefore heaps tougher) Arena Joondalup course...

Extremely happy with this session one of the best ones I've done this year...Maybe the best this year in many ways...When I did it in June 2005, a few weeks later I ran 4.02 in my second Perth Marathon. My USA based brother and wife helped me with drinks on that one...
Made up some significant conditioning and fitness ground with this session...

Tuesday 16th June AD;
Ran 4km in 18min 35...(oval 5 lapper) Nocturnal nine pm run in the dark, thought floodlights would be on, but they were not, but I was keen to run, so did, didn't matter too much that I couldn't see the ground...