Dante's Puke

It's been a funny old three weeks since my last post.



Let's start with the running. I think I've been pretty good at listening to my body. With no defined target race I had a couple of very light weeks. I took 2 weeks to get back into any form of strength or speed work, but when I did I picked a doozy.



Marlz and I had been eyeing off this hill over the last couple of months. It's bloody steep, it's not cemented or paved - it has a rough track up the side of it and it just looked like it was too juicy to resist. The only problem is that we needed complete light to do it, and we start our speedwork sessions at 4:45AM.



Last Friday I felt up to it and there was enough light, so we warmed up and then we ran up the bastard. It took me about a minute to get to the top, and at the top I felt completely stuffed. We walked across the flat bit at the summit and jogged down the other side and then jogged the base of the hill. This gave us a four minute recovery jog, and that's about what we needed for each assault on this ascent. We did five repeats on this hill before a warm down on a pair of jelly legs. On the way home we earnestly discussed names for our new form of torture. The winner was "Dante's Puke". We had another shot at it this morning, and the same five ascents have given me a great workout. Marlz did 6 and a half.



With daylight saving kicking in this weekend it's unlikely we'll be able to do it again for a while, but it's a lot of perverse fun.



John turned six months a couple of weeks ago. With his dodgy breathing I'm loathe to take him out at 5 AM, so we've only managed one pram run so far - 9K along the Parramatta River bike path. It was a bit of a killer - I reckon it makes me about 10% slower, but John loved it. For an hour he was mostly asleep or gibbering, with only a few minutes of grumbling. At the moment I'm hoping that I'll be able to take him out to Lane Cove for the 10K on Saturday week, but we'll have to see how that fits in with DJ's plans. Next week is her first week back at work, and I suspect she won't want the little tacker out of her sight for the entire weekend.

This segues nicely into the other event of the last few weeks. As I mentioned briefly in August I've started on part-time paternity leave. This week has been "handover week" - I've worked two days and DJ has been at home to show me the ropes. Next week I'm on my own. The children will be at home with dad for three days (except when the elder ones are at school), with the other days split between various grandmothers and child care.

After this week I'm feeling pretty confident about it, but in some ways it's more full on than my regular work. I'm excited about it, and I suspect my training will benefit.

My Body is Telling me Something

So I ended up attempting to do an easy ten on Saturday. Marlz and I took off at about six minute pace, but after 4K I was really struggling, and I felt like there was absolutely nothing left, so we jogged back to the start and I ended up with a very weak six kilometres.

My body is trying to tell me something and I think I've been a bit obstinate about listening to it.

So I have definitely pulled the pin on Fitzroy Falls, and I don't intend to run again until at least Wednesday. I want to give myself a full recovery before I embark on anything else.

I'll shift the focus to the Black Stump run on New Years Day, but along the way I'm going to start doing some training with the pram and I'm seriously contemplating having a go at a two hour half marathon with the pram (and John) at the Central Coast Half in December if the weather isn't too inclement.