Describe Your Running Today, Part II

mopak, yes i gather they are also called Ibex. I've always referred to them as "Stambecco" in Italian and "Capricorno" when i was a kid because of the zodiac reference.

Truly quite a site. I have seen lions, bears, sharks and other high-end frequenters of the foodchain in the wild but never the Ibex. I got a pic of the 12 of them on my cell phone. I wish I had had something higher resolution to share.

Maybe i didnt catch it, but is driske going Ultra? LOL

today: at the park with my son; walk, mucking around at the chinup bar, 200m and 600m chase. In the absence of his older sister, He says he is appreciating being an only son. What a wise guy.

next week: 12x1hr race, a moment of truth of sorts

545 days till Gimmelwald 2011

No ultra's on the immediate horizon. Did a couple 50's back in the 70's and I'm not in a hurry to revisit those efforts.

Reference to the "dark side" was the triathlon world. If the truth were to be known, I enjoyed it. No future or past performance standards exist for me so I was free to be a slow as I felt like. No worries mate, just good clean fun.

Apparently we have a litter of vocal coyote pups learning their chords from the parents. The nocturnal cacophony issuing from the woods has precluded a full nights sleep for the last 3 evenings.

Chamonix, what beautifully delicate creatures.Perhaps we'll have the good fortune to see some in 2011.

DJJ; keep on cruising. it's a relief to know there's still some speedy guys hitting the roads and streets.

AM. 25 minutes of serene road and shaded trail.

1hr 53min run. Ventured along a track that runs between 2 farms below MtIda.

After a few kms I passed the boundary of the farm on my left and headed straight up. No trails and 1 in 3 steep. Lots of rock hopping and log jumping. The calves were feeling well tickled by the summit.

Ran down the main track for about 2kms then turned and ran back up at a strong pace.

Descended back the 2kms then picked up a sandy trail that took me back over the ridge. A steep and rocky descent took me into the grass tree and ironbark forests of the Dargile.

Rattled along Rodney track and then turned off into the scrub and descended a dryish creekbed back to the starting point.

One of those runs where pace is decided by terrain, sometimes little faster than walking pace. A few times though I was working at threshold levels.

I was disappointed not to see any goannas or emus. It is an area where I've often seen both. The roos and wallabies were out in force but didn't see the feral goats.

A wedge tail eagle was circling below the summit.

Daniels' Marathon Training Plan A, 8 weeks to go:

11 min warmup @ E, 1x 800m ( 3:50 ) pace track, 2x 3200m Tempo / ~2min 400m recovery ( 6:21, 6:14, 2:16, 6:11, 6:10 ), 80min/10miles @ E, 1x 4800m Tempo track ( 6:13, 6:13, 6:07 ), 1x 1200m recovery ( 6:25 ), 11+min @ E

21miles all in

today: Villa Pamphili lunchtime session, everybody, really everybody is back.

So suddenly as a pack of 10 was off to a slow start another group of about 8 joins in, but manages to convince everybody to do a fast 1k to welcome back this veteran villa runner, visiting from Germany.

It was like they let wild bison out of a corral! Dust was flying all over, oncoming runners were jumping off to the side, it was like 3 and a half minutes of loud, dynamic, insanity.

So then it was goodbyes, and I warmed down for another 5 k; finished with 10x100m striders in the sun. Dont know if you can call these animals, but it was very close. Not so much for the beahaviour, but for the time it took to just go nuts!

Season's started.

Kids Athletics coming up in two weeks.

Only 544 days to Flora&Fauna enriched Gimmelwald 2011.

Terme Di Caracalla track: on grass, 4 lap walk, 18x100m striders plus quadrupedia, felt real good.

only 543 days to Moarg, Gimmelwald 2011

Yesterday, hit the water for an hour of paddling. Very relaxing, no one but me and the birds of the lake.

Today, a 2hr hammer on the mtb. Started out along the (currently dry) shoreline of the lake. Picked up a flowing Mt Ida Creek to an old road bridge. This bridge would be submerged when the lake is full. Headed across to the Knowsley Forest. This forest looks pretty flat but within it's boundary there is one tough hilly track. I gave that track a bit of a belting, feeling great on the climbs. Did some fun single track then hammered out some road kms at 30-35kph before heading back along the "shoreline".

My wildlife report -At least 1000 roos seen in the Knowsley Forest. Plenty of wallabies about. Pelicans down near the old bridge, I saw heaps of them yesterday on the lake. Spotted a goshawk flying with some prey in his talons. I got swooped by just the one magpie. It is their mating season and they are always pesky. This one hit my helmet 3 times before he got sick of the game.

Also saw a mallard, I've never seen one out in the wild before.

did a 60' run Friday then went to an all day party on Saturday.....took Sunday to recover......50' on Monday......yesterday was prepping the team and handing out equipment.....too busy.....meet today......we'll see what we've got!....

Mopak,

Mallards a one of our more common ducks locally.

Yesterday, Timm's Hill Trail: 16 miles with a hungover Fish. Man, some people are hard on themselves. It got warm and he bonked at 14, we had to shuffle in. Got him home in time for work, but I'm guessing it was a long shift.LOL.

Did some yard work PM, then got out for 10K at midnight. Warmed up sedately enough and then pushed the last 2-3 miles at LT. 45:45 for the entire stint.

Leaves are beginng to turn here, the woods are splendid.

a 1000 roos? In one single sighting??

today: buddy from Canada was in town. Went to Caracalla track, usual grass warm up routine, quadrupedia galore, 8x60m sprints on a rather busy track, then 2x800m without watch to get a sense of pace, first came in at 2:52 seemed ok but "nervous". Second at 3:10 just fine. Just trying to focus on Saturday. Holding that for an hour would be fine.

542 days till Gimmelwald 2011

How much do 1000 'roos eat in a day??

I'm bushed, no PM jaunt. AM 20 mins. on the Catskis.

My guess about Fish's long shift was wrong. He got hauled to the ER after 3 hours. Dehyrated, needed an IV to get straightened out. Bummer. It just keeps getting harder to find training partners.

driske wrote:

My guess about Fish's long shift was wrong. He got hauled to the ER after 3 hours. Dehyrated, needed an IV to get straightened out. Bummer. It just keeps getting harder to find training partners.

LOL

driske,

we'll straigthen him out in Gimmelwald in 2011. As far as training partners go, at this point, it's a must do.

Today: unplanned protein rich dinner (abundanta swordfish and zucchini, no carbs), woke up at 5AM, putzed around and eventually ran some errands and walked for an hour in the park. This might be a good way to ease into doubles.

70mins of running today. Ran along the creek to the golf course (in shoes) and then ran 10x150m striders barefooted, had to move from fairway to fairway to keep out of the way of the golfers. Ran a barefoot lap of the trotting track but abandoned the next lap when a horse moved onto it for training. Ran back (in shoes)along the creek.

You are a hard man Driske, pushing your training partners so hard they need hospitalisation.

Wildlife report - A noisy flock of sulfur crested cockatoos, a heron, flocks of galahs and a couple of dozen sleepy roos. They were happily dozing iunder the trees between fairways, seemingly oblivious to all the human activity around them.

Not sure how much 1000 roos eat in a day. Our yard is grazed by 25-30 most nights. We still need to give our acre a mow every few weeks in spring. I'm guessing they eat maybe twice what a sheep would. The area around Lake Eppalock, Knowsley and the Campaspe River Valley is ideal for them it's a mixture of forest and sheep grazing. The lake is at 6% of capacity so there is a huge expanse of land there and the valleys are beautiful grazing land.

I once rode the bike around the edge of our township at dusk and tried to keep a rough count of the roos I saw. In an 11km loop I counted in excess of 400.

AM;8 miles,70 minutes on the road. Influx of doves , they are gleaning the machine harvested grain fields. Hazy fog lifted as I ran and the temp rose to 70 by 9. Trees and vines are vivid shades of reds and yellows. How do we cure a Fish.

today PM: beach, swim, walk, strong bike commute, chin-up bar exercises. Definitely a cross-day.

Speaking about fish: saw fishermen catching loads of "guglie" at Fregene Beach, guglie being these 10-15cm very thin fish with a elongated-beak-like mouth. A sure sign the water is relatively clean.

PM. MTB,Cattle lanes and sideroads at dusk. 8 miles at varied effort.

I could write a book about Fish. We go back about 40 years. How many guys do you know who ran their first marathon in a pair of Red Ball Jets, rides a Harley Soft Tail to the races,dyes his Don King style hair blood red, has pierced nipples and never runs with a shirt on??

Once in awhile it's hard not to challenge a person with that much attitude.

Sorry for rpt typo, its "aguglie" with an a in front. Here they are:

http://images.google.it/imgres?imgurl=http://www.marazzanopesca.it/pesca_mare_fiume/slides/Aguglie.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.marazzanopesca.it/pesca_mare_fiume/slides/Aguglie.html&usg=__kaqZ3jKsAnMI4bI6aaub1_cJw34=&h=525&w=700&sz=141&hl=it&start=2&tbnid=muEQ9rLkFpwvbM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3Daguglie%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dit

What's their anglo counterpart?

today: AM, 1 hr walk in the park. Among the early bird running crowd, inspired by Angela, 75, on two crutches at 7 am, doing post double hip operation rehab on the trails...

A nice 50min paddle in the lake, launched from a different point of entry. Spotted 4 mallards around that same area I saw that one on wednesday. Some black swans with cygnets and pelicans too. Not a kangaroo seen all day. My headlights found a dozen of them in my front yard tonight as I arrived home from work at 11pm.

I'm enjoying my new method of movement.

PM: rest. race tmw.