Ready for a new home!

I haven't blogged in a little while as I have been busy with training, work, racing and house arrangements. Everything is calming down a little but it is going to get busy again as we close on our home next week and I will have to start moving everything into the new house. I also head off to Atlanta on next Friday for the famous Peachtree Road Race (10km) which takes place on Sunday 4th of July.

Training has been going well and my speed is coming around now. Its funny how all the marathon training I did has translated into giving me a lot of speed. I guess the saying that your strength is your speed is totally true. We have been more track based workouts as Greg and I had discussed as I would like to be in good 5km/10km shape before I go into the next marathon training phase.

I had my first race back since the marathon last week in Peoria, Illinois at the Steamboat Classic 4 mile road race. I travelled over a couple days before the race and was taken back by how bad I felt when I got there. I was wanting to run for around 60 mins when I got there but it ended up being 20 mins and a walk back to the hotel as my body wasn't responding. I decided not to push it and figured it was just reacting to the high heat and humidity. Luckily, I felt ok the next day and ran around the course with Ian. The race itself went well as I placed 5th in 18.04. I was 3rd with 100m to go but a couple of Africans had sat behind me and took off to beat me by a second in the end. It felt good to run well in my first race as I usually don't run too well on my first outing. I did think it wasn't going too well during the first mile though as the start is on an uphill and I was breathing incredibly hard. I realised everyone else was too so I wasn't too worried as we passed the mile marker in 4.26. I felt more and more comfortable as the race went on and passed 5km in 14.09. I decided to push the pace with 800m to go and it almost worked out well but it wasn't enough to shake the 2 guys off my back. The race brochure said that the Scottish record was 18.33 before so I guess that would be my first (unofficial) Scottish record. It was a good weekend as we were treated to a baseball game on the evening after the race with all we could eat and drink. The night was concluded with Jorge Torres and I pairing up to be unstoppable at the pub game, Bags. I left the next day to head back to Arizona but I got back late so I stayed in Phoenix with Julie's parents and left in the morning after an easy 40 min run.

The whole time I was away, Flagstaff was on fire. A big forest fire broke out on the south side of town and was pretty much controlled by the next morning only to be outdone by an even bigger fire on the mountainside north of town. It was slowly being put out and dying down but as I woke up from my nap today, I stepped outside to find the whole mountainside was ablaze again. The wind picked up and in a matter of an hour, the fire was out of control. Town seems to be pretty safe as the wind is blowing the fire north easterly but you just don't know what is going to happen.

We are getting ready to close on our house in the next week. Everything is looking great and we are getting excited to see how close to finishing the builders are. I think with Julie being at work all day, I will be doing a lot of the moving in myself but I guess I have to pull my weight sometime! Luckily we don't have a huge amount of stuff so it should be easy enough to transport everything over but organising it might be a different story. At least we both have our own closets so that will ease the matter. I will also have my own office to do my work out of so that will be a great place to just focus in. We bought a great sectional sofa a couple of weeks ago so that is also going to be fantastic to relax on. I now have to get all the home insurance sorted in case that fire comes down the mountain!

I had a good talk with my agent last week and it looks like I will be running the Chicago marathon but there also may be a possibility of doing Fukuoka but that is after the wedding so I would prefer not to have to worry about training hard during that time. Hopefully i'll find out in the next couple of weeks.

I hope everyone is training well and enjoying the summer sun!

6/3 to 6/9

Thursday – It was another early morning on Thursday so that I could get down to Sedona before it got really hot. I managed to get there for 8.30am but it was already hot so I ended up sweating quite a bit when I was doing my stretching as the fake turf was getting up to cooking point. The warm up wasn’t too bad as the warm up trail was under the shadow of a big hill. I wasn’t feeling too perky when I was getting on with the first rep but as I was going to be on the track for a while, I knew I would start to feel better. The session was 8*800 with 400m rec (in about 3 mins), starting at 10km pace and working down to 5km pace. I ran the first rep in an easy 2.14 but the legs just weren’t used to it yet so the next one in 2.10 helped me to get my body into a good rhythm for the hard efforts. From here on out the workout got pretty hard and I had to use a lot of mental tricks to get me through it. I ran 2.08s for the remaining reps and it was surprising how tough it got towards the end. There was no problem with breathing but my legs were getting tired very quickly. All in all, it was a good workout and I had a really nice sit in the creek afterwards before I headed back up the road to Flagstaff.

I missed my evening run as we were at Home Depot for close to 3 hours picking out lights and fans for the house. This process was a lot tougher than I imagined with all the choices and budget restrictions. We came away with some nice stuff so I just hope it looks good in the house.

Friday – I only had a couple of easy runs on the cards today so I could recover well from yesterday and run well on tomorrows long run.

Every first Friday of the month, there is a downtown art walk and tonight was the busiest I had ever seen. It was simply packed so we let Julie’s parents walk around while we caught up with some friends and had some drinks out on the patio of one of the central restaurant patios. The weather was gorgeous so it made the evening really nice. We had dinner at Mountain Oasis and it was amazing. I got a Prime Rib that was fantastic (I always order this whenever I see it on a menu) and everyone else was really happy with their choices. With the amount of wine we had that night, we simply passed out once we got back to the house!

Saturday – We met out a A1 mountain road at 8am for the long run and the temperature was already creeping up. Luckily, no one was going super long so we wouldn’t suffer too much. I ran with the guys for first 9 miles and then picked the pace up for the last 7 miles. The first 9 miles were in around 61 mins and I ran the last 7 miles in 37 mins. It felt good to be running quickly on this run and I was really able to open my stride up in a few sections.

We all headed to out breakfast afterwards which did a great job of filling me up and then I headed back home while everyone else went down to the creek for the day. I can’t actually remember what I did for the rest of the day but I do know it was a hot day.

In the evening, Julie, me and her parents went to a wine tasting and then had dinner at a Greek restaurant. It was a really nice evening and a good way to finish off the weekend with Julie’s parents (they were leaving early the next morning).

Sunday – I woke up pretty early on Sunday and drove out to Country Club and met Lee Troop and Craig Mottram for their long run. We headed into the trail system out there and just ran easily. I was finishing after 60 mins so we went back by their apartment to drop me off and so that they could grab a drink before heading off for the rest of the run.

Julie and I went back out to the furniture store to try and haggle the price of a sectional down but weren’t too successful in getting the guy to budge on the price so we are going to try again later on in the week.

Monday – We met at one of the high school tracks so we could all do our workouts. It was quite strange that all of had workouts to do but only 2 people had the same one to do so we were pretty spread out. Greg must have had quite the time trying to time everyone. I was just doing a short speed workout of 14*200m hard with 200m easy. I ran 30, 30, 29, 29, 28, 28, 28, 28, 27, 27, 27, 27, 26, 27. It felt pretty easy and relaxed so hopefully that will set me up for a good workout on Thursday.

I didn’t do too much for the rest of the day apart from sleep and recover! Its been pretty tough to be in the house as we don’t have air conditioning and its been getting pretty warm during the day. This is the case even more at night and Julie and I are now sleeping with 2 fans on while we sleep! Its pretty noisy but we’re used to it now so it doesn’t bother us at all.

Tuesday – Today was a good and busy day. I was late to the run as I thought it was at 8.30am but I hadn’t realised that it had changed to 8am. I just ran alone on the Fort Tuthill trail and was feeling pretty good so ran at a decent pace. I went out for the first 5 miles in 32 mins and came back in 28 mins. We then headed over to the Pro Formance training facility so we could do some core and strength training. For some reason I couldn’t sleep after this so just got on with a lot of chores around town before I headed out to Greg’s house for a meeting with him. I was really tired for the second run so I just ran very easily from the apartment up to Buffalo park, one lap of it and back.

New interview

Here is an interview I did a couple of weeks ago:

Interview

2/6/10

The past 5 days have been a bit up and down for me as I have had to really listen to my body and rest when I needed to. Thursday and Friday were just easy days for me although I did my strides on Friday on an incline which quickly tired me out! I also left work after just 2 hours on Thursday as my stomach was bothering me and I felt like I was going to be sick. I kept having to run to the bathroom so my workmates were kind enough to let me go home and try and sort it out. I was fine by the next day so I don't know what was wrong.

Julie and I headed down to Phoenix again on Friday as it was going to be a long weekend (Julie had Monday off of work for Memorial day) so we left right after she finished work. We grabbed a great dinner at Burritos Fiesta before we left Flagstaff. I had an amazing Burrito so that made me very happy! We got down the road quickly and relaxed outside in the back garden with Julie's parents.

I woke up at 7am the next morning so I could get out to do a long run before it got too hot. I set out with the idea of doing 15 miles at a good pace but as soon as I got to the first hill I could really feel my left hamstring pulling so I eased off the pace and stopped at an hour of running to be safe.

After some breakfast, Julie, Cory (Julie's younger brother) and I headed out to Scottsdale to meet Michael (Julie's older brother). We first headed over to a supplement store that was doing a promotional day with lots of free stuff. They gave me a bag of stuff but I gave it to Michael as a quick glance at most of the products showed that I would fail a drug test if I took them. We then headed over to a kilt hire place to get the guys fitted for kilts as they will need them for the wedding. It was run by a typically Scottish guy and the guys seemed like they had fun trying them on. After doing that we headed over and had a spot of lunch before heading to the Phoenix rock gym. This is a big rock climbing gym located in Tempe and I had been here once before when Julie and I took my sister and her husband back in November. As usual it was a lot of fun and very tiring but Julie and I both managed to climb a rope (something neither of us had done before) and Cory had fun on the hanging rings. We also had a little speed competition at the end of the day and you can see how it went below.

We all headed back to Julie's parent's house and had dinner while watching the Phoenix Suns lose to the LA Lakers for the Western conference title. This was a good point to head back out to Scottsdale to head out with Michael and some friends. We had a good night but did get to bed pretty late.

We woke up pretty late the next day and it was already far too hot to run so we headed out to meet Julie's high school coach who I had never met before. We had a good talk before heading out to lunch at a mongolian grill. This place was amazing! You get a big bowl and fill it with all the ingredients you can and then they cook it up for you. I thought I was going to be really full and not be able to eat much dinner but because its mostly vegetables, you are fine by dinner time and ready to eat again. Once we got back, Tim (Julie's coach) sat me down and grilled me on a lot about what drives me to be a good runner and where I get my motivation from. This was really good as he made me realise a lot of things that I had never thought about but because I was verbalising it I was realising why I became a good runner and how and why I interact with all my coaches (past and present).

I intended to get a good run done once the sun had gone down but I was really tired and with my hamstring still tight, I decided to take the day off and let it rest.

I woke up a little late on Monday morning so it was already 100F when I headed out to get my workout done. I was lucky that it was a speed session of 3*300m hard, 200m jog, 200m hard, 200m jog, 100m hard, 400m jog and it wasn't going to take long so I was happy about that. I shortened the warm up to 15 mins as I was sweating like crazy and was beginning to get tired. I did my usual drills and started the workout feeling pretty rusty. I ran 46 secs, 30 secs and 14 secs for the first set and I decided that wasn't good enough so I picked it up each rep after that. I ran 44 secs, 29 secs, and 13secs and felt much better. The final set went well and I ran 41 secs, 26 secs, and 13 secs. I was happy with the way it went as I felt fine running at speed and I wasn't exhausted after it (Greg told me to save something for the workout on Wednesday). THe rest of the day was spent relaxing and doing crosswords by the pool as Julie and her mum went to see the new Sex in the City film. I headed out for my second run around 5pm and it was still blazing hot. It was fine though as there was a bit of a wind and that was cooling me off nicely. After a great dinner of steak, corn on the cob and leftovers, we drove back up the mountain and unpacked.

I woke up on Tuesday morning feeling pretty tired so went out to the gym and ran out on Woody Mountain Road. I started out slow as I was against the wind and feeling tired but after around 3 miles I started to feel ok and by the time I turned around I was flying along. I finished the run feeling good and went into the gym to get my core workout done.

After a nice sleep, I headed out again for a second run at 2pm as I had work at 3.30pm. I was a little tired but I expected that and I just took it nice and easy. I headed into work and it actually turned out to be pretty busy for a Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning was a bit of a disaster for me as I was supposed to be doing a workout but I felt how tired my legs were right when I stepped out of bed. I went out to Trina's loop with the intention of getting a workout done but just ended up running nice and easy with Carlson. I really needed this and i'm now looking forward to doing a good workout tomorrow on the track. I have to head out for my second run early again as I have work again but then I have the rest of the week off.