Taking it slow..

No speedwork for a couple of weeks, just slow paced mid ranged runs for me at the moment. I was pretty beat up after that last marathon. Looking back over my training schedule I'd only done 1 long run of 30 kms in the 10 weeks before that marathon. Mostly I was doing a lot of fast mid distance runs, like 20kms at sub 4:20 per K. Good for the half but they left me wanting in the full.

Anyway, going to have to really look at what I'm doing for my next marathon. In fact I'm in the process of writing a plan that I will show you all and hopefully get your advice on what looks good and/or what you reckon is missing etc.

In the time being have a look at this clip. I Really love Bob Marley and that line: "It'll make you rebel..............Against what?!"

Blowout!

Did a full marathon in Ishikawa prefecture today. Ishikawa is on the sea of Japan, a beautiful, mostly rural place about 6 hours drive from my home here. We went to this area because it has a lot of hot springs and me and the family were able to stay over night at a resort there.

On Sunday morning I went out to the the start by myself leaving the family still eating breakfast at the hotel. It started at 9, although the wind was strong it was otherwise perfect weather, not a cloud in the sky.

This is a very small marathon by Japanese standards with only about 400 people doing the full marathon, nevertheless well organised, picturesque course out and back with rolling hills none much above 35%.

I set off feeling great stayed with the top 20 leaders almost up till the 30km mark and then everything fell apart. My first 5km split was 20:31 and I kept under 22:00 right up until 30K but my legs just gave up the ghost. By 35kms the poor old pins were "swimming in a sea of lactic acid", (always wanted to write that ;) ) and I walked/ran Galloway style to the finish.

I know some of you are going to say I'm an idiot and it was never an option to to run a fast PB after doing a fast half only the week before. But nobody has ever accused me of being running smart ( I used to think "lactate threshold" was something you carried your pregnant wife across) besides I had convinced myself that the rules didn't apply to me and I kept repeating "Rob the Runner"'s last comment like a mantra: "You're on fire" "You're on fire" You're on fire."

Well as I sit here something is definitely "on fire" but it's my calves and ankles. Anyway not disappointed with this for one thing I didn't drop out like I wanted to on many occasions and I toughed out the last 10kms like I haven't done before in a marathon. So it's a lesson well learnt and I did survive.

No more racing for the next 12 weeks I'm going to relax a bit and train like a mad man to PB in Townsville come August. Thanks for your continuing support.

Photos, the day before the marathon and today limping into the finish with Casey, my son, showing his old man how it should be done.

Almost forgot. Finishing time 3:23:32

PB and a half

I'm looking forward to reading all your blogs on how things in Canberra went so post as soon as you can. I couldn't wait to post this one. I had a half marathon today and PBed by a whopping 4 mins! Only two months ago I was running 1:35 for the half and today I did 1:23 and some change. Really doubted this at first but it was a chip time and this course is the same one I ran a couple of times before.

To say I'm happy would be to understate it. I have a full marathon next weekend and if all things work out there I should be PBing again :)

I'm going to have a bath and spend the night with my family and my nephew who is in Japan now and visiting with us, see photos. My nephew said to me, after the race today, "You're bloody fast." That's enough to make an old uncle very proud ;)

Anyway hurry up with those Canberra reports.

My official time 1:23:41 43rd place, that's out of 2010 people entered.

Spring

Things are fine, although I haven't posted in a while it's only because I've been busy preparing to go back to work after a nice break. I start in earnest on April 7th and will be pretty much full time until the next holiday which starts at the end of July.

For those that have been following this blog you'd know that I was asking you for suggestions about where I should run when coming to Australia. Thanks for your suggestions by the way. Well after much thought I have decided to come and do two runs in Australia. In late July my family and I will fly into Cairns, stay with my sister there, see my father, and also do some camping in the general region. As for running I plan to go down to Townsville with my family to run a full marathon there on August the 3rd.

The other race I want to do is the Noosa half, I was thinking to leave the kids with my sister for a few days and fly down to Noosa with the missus and do the race. I've been able to swing this with my wife saying it will be a romantic long weekend, just the two of us ;) We runners will sink to almost any depths to do a race ;)

This is as certain as can be so I hope I will see as many of you as I can while I'm there. Has anyone of you done the Townsville marathon? It looks good, relatively small event, but fast and not too hot about 10 degrees at the start and 25 at the finish. I should be able to handle the humidity as I will have been training for it in the early summer here Japan time. How about a few of you come up to Townsville for this race?

Just one more thing for now. I did a good session on the treadmill the other day 8 x 800m each just under 3mins. I was happy with that but wondering if doing that on the tready is the same, effort/difficultly as on the track. I suppose I will try next week as see for myself but I have a feeling its easier to run this inside.

I'll upload a photo of me and the boys taken yesterday among the cherry trees.