Describe Your Running Today, Part II

30 mile road bike ride. Tour de Whittlesy. Homesteads, Churches, herded cattle, hogs, lakes and bogs were all part of the viewscape. Stopped off at Ken's and were given an enthusiastic presentation of his extensive array of exercise toys. Kettle balls. heavy ropes, weighted sleds, paddle craft, and a garage full of bikes. His knees no longer permit running, but he sure didn't give up the fitness chase.

LOL, Kettle Balls, LOL that'll make for some pretty anabolic tea, LOL, LOL

one typo at the time, one thought at the time, heading, keyboard and foot to.....The MOARG The Mother Of All Running Gatherings in Gimmelwald, Switzerland, in 2011.

-209 days

Back in Milan, with a mileage-beaten skeletal system, looking forward to some normal running.

6 x 1 mile at 5:30 or faster

60' yesterday.....40' today.....day off tomorrow.....the summer plan rolls on.....quads a bit weary in recent days, but not enough to stop.....also a bit of hip flexor cramp at the end today, but I don't think it is anything long term.....finished with a dip in the sea.....you gents keep the port, I'll take the portER.....life is good....

20x400 1 min rest, 62 secs per lap.

AM: 7 miles on the road bike. 68F, calm, foggy patches.

Exchanged greetings with Sarah and Dianne, out on their morning walk.

tpcb. There's not much I can say to redeem my self from the "kettle device" slip( gaffe) whatever. Freud wins;the tin foil dunce hat is my proper head gear. LOL. WTH was I thinkin'. LOL. despite the fact it was at my expense, I got my share of chuckles for the afternoon. Anabolic tea; McNutts Bridge, Kettle B*lls....

Bushman,

Forget online redemption: Gimmelwald will be our Sweat-Lodge.

Sedentary AM starts with on a marked roL-O-L as i read Bushman's post...

...the Madras Limerick, and its stormy weather context, clearly is one of the evoked Freudian possibilities that are shared by AgeGroup oxidation fears...Iron Man, Iron Kettles, Iron Alls.

Actually in Madras, 'twas a lesser alloy.

Yesterday:

1 hr total, run, drills, run sequence, centered and adjusted all systems. Heard and felt some reassuring osteopathic noises.

AM: 2.5k walk to work, brisk and light after a good good sleep.

Monday was an enjoyable post work paddle into the sunset on some quite choppy water. Just me and a few cormorants, wood ducks, plovers and a solitary hawk.

This was followed up by a brisk 5kmish run on the grass of the local football oval, barefoot slopping through mud, a dozen grazing kangaroosglancing at me in annoyance. Every lap a possom would dart back up his tree. Some quite quick striding on the firmer sections.

Tuesday. An hour on the mountain bike (21kms) climbing up muddy tracks to Dairy Flat into a solid breeze, the return was much easier going mostly downhill with a tailwind.

Several hours were spent on the chainsaw dealing with a fallen Stringybark. At dusk a free striding 5kms around the golf course again minus the shoes. Again I was an annoyance to the local marsupial population.

Yesterday. 20kms of running. Much the same as yesterday's bike, climbing up to Dairy Flat on the muddy trails. Legs were a bit weary and back a bit tight (all that chainsawing/wood carting??)so the pace a bit slow, out in 54 back in 50.

Working night shift tonight. I will soon head out to the lake for a paddle and a bike and perhaps an easy run.

Perhaps a nice cup of anabolic tea before a visit to McNutts Bridge.

"...barefoot slopping through mud,..."

mopak, this reminded me of highschool days in the far east, running on the rugby pitch during muddy monsoon season, with the mud squishin extrusion style through the fingers...LOL... and sometimes slipping as if the rug was pulled from under, and whamming down, no pain, but perfectly one-side earthly coated...and so to even-up the paint job, it became mudly repetitions of dive-and-slide... a competition to see who could get muddier...sometimes it happened during pickup rugby games, the ball was completely unhandleable, so we just tackled to exhaustion. It got to the point where it was ok to go face down in the muck... gotta love these memories

Yesterday PM,

about 1h20 in Trenno park, kinda like running on a polo course, so much grass, picked it up for 30 mins when i got to the park, plus some strike drills, high turnover cool down.

Marsupials, gold diggings, Rugby, mud, and all the drills. tpcb, mopak, you guys embody variety.

AM. Road bike for 18 miles. Sedate pace. The Bride is on the mend from some rotator cuff troubles, and took it easy.

PM. This evenings 68F felt cool in comparison to the 88F and high humidity of the past week. 2.4 miles in 20:30. Longest run in the last month. Nike Frees seem to be doing the trick.

Man, this felt good. Deep soothing, run from the core, pain free good.

mopak, the chainsaw---great tool. Translates to like a 6 kilo outdoor gym. All around workout to be sure. Then there's the macho side as well. We were walking through school with one of the kids 7-8 years ago. Spying the bandage on my left leg, a friend observed "don't know if I'd be carving on my legs with a chainsaw, if they were that skinny to start with."

Make mine a Jonsered/w smokeless oil.

yesterday:

rest (keep in mind always 5Km walk to work and back)

-203 days to The MOARG The Mother Of All Running Gatherings in Gimmelwald, Switzerland, in 2011.

And just a few hours for yet another 100m bout, not to be missed.

Managed the kyak and run yesterday but no bike.

I had a good drive around our lake before my paddle. Quite exciting to see a lake forming at the end of Foreshore Rd. I kept thinking how sad it is that Foreshore Rd ended atop a hill looking over dry sheep paddocks. Over summer I ventured down from there on the bike and tooled about on dusty trails (and over McNutts Bridge lol). Now it is, for the first time in perhaps 8 years, a body of water, still shallow but at least it looks like a Foreshore Rd.

I spent a nice hour in the kyak. Strong westerly, windchill pulling temps to low single digits (celsius).

The return journey into the teeth of that breeze and skipping across a lively chop was very invigorating.

Birdlife on the lake is a bit thin at the moment, many having opted for warmer climes than ours. A wedge tail eagle was visible high in the sky. At one point as he got lower a troop of aggressive magpies harassed him, wisely he floated backup to the clouds.

The run didn't happen until 8.30pm. My club rooms are alongside the velodrome and opposite the hospital where I was doing a night shift. I took to the infield of the velodrome and ran 10 laps barefoot, quite briskly. A quick shower and change and off to 10.5 boring hours of nightshift in the rehab ward. Much prefer the crazy dudes in my usual ward.

I didn't cop a single punch, kick, bite, scratch, pinch, not even any verbal abuse or getting spat on. Easy money I guess but a long, long night.

Hit the hay at 0900 and didn't rise until 1330 after a solid sleep.

Took the bike for a short drive to the Dargile Forest. A solid hour plus of trail work among the ironbarks, grass trees and gold diggings. Just a tick over 18kms covered. Slow going, some nice rocky climbs and descents, a bit of mud.

Stopped at the golf course on the way back and ran 25mins fairly easily, striding out occassionally.

Bushman, my little Stihl was fighting above his weight against a 12 metre stringybark. It was a long battle but we were successful.

took an extra day off to play things on the safe side......hadn't taken 2 consecutive off days for many weeks, so I felt I deserved it......60' today without the usual pickups.....again being safe.....but the pace was good and honest.....

pm; 30 miles on the road bike. 15.4MPH avg. 22C and high humidity.

Spent the weekend out of town at my Cousin's wedding. The last 30 years seem to have transformed from a party animal, to a teetotaler with an aversion to the loud noise a rock band produces. Multiple portions of good food still find a welcome place near my heart though.

mopak. The Swiss Bro-in-law grows some eucalypts in CA for fire wood. Super fast growing compared to our northern hardwoods. Got to dice it up when it's green though. Once it dries there's no touching it with a saw. Does that hold true for your stringy bark types as well??

I trust your football and rugby background is an asset to your effectiveness at work.

a pleasant enough 60+' despite the high humidity....a nice breeze at times seemed to help.....did 4 x 160m on/off during mile 5....finished with a dip in the ocean.....cool and refreshing.....1K walk back to the shanty......life is good....

Bushman wrote:

mopak. The Swiss Bro-in-law grows some eucalypts in CA for fire wood. Super fast growing compared to our northern hardwoods. Got to dice it up when it's green though. Once it dries there's no touching it with a saw. Does that hold true for your stringy bark types as well??

I trust your football and rugby background is an asset to your effectiveness at work.

Yeah, once these babies dry and weather you are in trouble.

The stringybark looked in fair condition but the combo of 10 years of drought, recent heavy rains and a howling wind took it out at the roots. She crashed straight onto an old carriage relic from the mining days.

The carriage had one full wheel but the other wheel had long ago broken. The trunk landed between the gap in the broken wheel and came to rest on the axle, causing no damage. The crown landed alongside the grandkids cubby house, again no damage. Ironically we'd been chasing up an arborist that day about felling several trees near the house. We have several glorious ghost gums unfortunately way too close to the house. They will have to be climbed as there is no access for a cherry picker.

Saturday, club relay event.

Good fun this one. A 1k leg for real young uns, followed by a 2 2k legs and then 2 3k legs, mixed teams to try and even it all up.

I had the anchor 3k leg.

We had little Yas, as tall as mown grass, maybe 8-9 yo running leg one. She was up against some older boys of good regional level. Didn't matter 'cause I reckon this little girl has some Kenyan in her.

Smiling all the way around she kept us well in touch of the leaders.

We took the lead on the third leg. We lost it again on leg 4 as my man Grant got out kicked by the cunning Wolfman. Fortunately these two had cleared out as there was a lot of scary talent waiting to run the last leg.

It came down to me and Yas' big sister, all 32kgs of her. Fortunately a hard morning netball game had taken the sting out of her State Schools xc champion legs and I managed to get past with a km to go and roll in victorious.

Sunday, club 6.5km trail handicap out in the Whipstick Forest. Quite a sneaky course this one. Pretty fast for 3.5kms then some rough terrain for a km then climbing continuously for 1.5 kms before a dash downhill to the finish.

Some days you just feel good straight away and this was one of those. I attacked hard and felt great, 1.59 first uphill 500m, 9.36 at 2.5, 13.30 at 3.5. I was surprised to have footsteps following me through the rough stuff between 3.5 and 4.5. It was a guy who's pretty new to the club. He'd started 40s behind me. He passed me and put a gap into me as we started the climb. By this stage we'd caught all but a handful of frontmarkers.

1.5k from the finish I was about 25m behind him, he was now 2d about 80m behind the leader. Unfortunately a marker had been knocked over and the leader took a wrong turn and our new boy followed her. I almost followed then realised the error and called them back.

I pushed on and ended up winning fairly comfortably in 25.50. It was a little disappointing to not get a chance to continue the battle. I think he had me covered but I would have enjoyed trying to prove otherwise. I think I would have run quite a bit quicker too.

Yesterday, a cool 1hr kyak then 25 mins barefoot on thegolf course.

racing through your world and words. thanks for the vicarious account, mopak.

AM. 15 min. catski 60% effort.

PM. Bike polo with MTB group . 90 mins. approx. Cramped and fatiqued with the heat of the day.

Gino and Princess Laura put out a fine bit of sustenance and libation post ride.

40' yesterday followed by a dip in the sea....day off today.....will modify the next 3 days due to a "race" on Saturday.....plan for 40' tomorrow and off on Friday.....then we'll see what's up on Saturday.....