Yet another ... Longest Run Ever !!

I'm going to have to work out a different way of titling these posts if my runs keep getting longer and longer.  And I am absolutely blown away that I set my mind to 18km and actually achieved it on Sunday.

I'll back track a bit, as it wasn't ideal circumstances in which I ran the 18km.  Saturday night Mike and I headed down to Geelong to a birthday party of a dear friend of mine.  Dress ups, fun fun fun, the whole shebang, it was terrific.  I drove home the 2 hours (Mike married well, me being the designated driver!!) and we didn't get home till 12.30am.  Wind the clock back so okay lets call it 11.30pm when we got to bed.  Knackered!

So the alarm went off and I opened one eye and thought, urrrgh, late night, can't I just roll over and hit the snooze.  Nine minutes later it went again.  I remember my friend Munuela once saying that the pain I would put myself through not doing a run, would be worse than the run itself.  So I dragged myself out of bed, splashed water on my face and woke myself up and got ready.

I knew I wanted to do 18km, this would be it, this would be the top run of my half marathon training and Mike had suggested running from Mortlake to Noorat would be about 18km.  So Sunday morning about 7.30am I set out.

It's a long road for sure, cows in the paddocks for company (actually the cows ran from the fence faster than I was running, that's for sure), I ran on the side of the bitumen and the handful of cars and trucks that came the other way were very courteous, but of course I jumped all the way into the gravel or grass when they went by, urrgh prickles!

And look.  Look at this!!!  2 hours 30 minutes.  I wonder if this puts me in good stead to do the half marathon in under 3 hours.  It's only another 3 kilometres right?  That's my goal, under 3 hours.  Actually my goal is merely to finish, but under 3 hours would be great.

The aim of Sunday's run was to run to Noorat where I would ring Mike to come pick me up to take me home.  Around about 2 hours after I left, little did I know that Mike decided to drive up to see how far I'd come.  I hadn't seen him drive past and when I got to a certain angle of the road I looked ahead and see him leaning against the car parked on the side of the road.

Got to love it, as he saw me approaching he ran across to my side of the road and held out the drink bottle!  In true race style hey?  I stopped for a bit, bemoaned that my knees were hurting and that I didn't think I could run the rest, but he told me to pull up my big girl panties and just go for it.  He knew I wouldn't be satisfied if I got that far and didn't complete the rest.  As once I hit the mount up ahead it was downhill all the way.

So then he got in his car and slowly drove a bit further up the road yelling out encouragement and parked again and snapped a few photos.  Very blurry, but yes, that Mount in the background there is Mount Shadwell on the outskirts of Mortlake.  Yep, I had run THAT FAR!

So off he went again yelling out he'd meet me at Noorat.  I tell you, running downhill into town was the best feeling.  A sleepy tiny little town, no one in the main street except for Mike cheering as I got to him.  Yay, I had done it.  "Not quite" he yelled, I had to keep going another block up the road to hit the magical 18.  I begged to differ, but I did it anyway.

GRAND TOTAL 18.24km and Runkeeper gave me a nice trophy there.  Thank you Runkeeper, I live for the recognition!

So wow, what can I say, I'm very VERY lucky to have Mike as my support crew in my corner.  He's so very proud of me and what I have been achieving and he too is looking forward to the half marathon coming up.  Oh and what a guy, he even remembered to bring the chocolate milk for when I finished my run.  Yes folks, I'm enjoying a choccy milk at the end of a long run, a hint given to me by an ultra-marathoner that I work with.  Yum.

So I expected to feel sore after Sunday.  And yes Sunday afternoon and evening I was walking around like a little old lady.  But I have sprung back surprisingly well.  I was surprised.

Oh and something new I tried on Sunday, finally took some sustenance with me.  After the week before I was so famished at the tail end of my run, I reckon I could have eaten one of the cows I ran past, so I knew it was time to start downing something during a run.  I have never tried Gu or Gels, but Matilda of Run Mum fame had mentioned Amazeballs from Runners Kitchen.   So I placed an order during the week and as quick as a wink they were here.

I had one ball before my run, being that I had just gotten up and don't usually eat before I head out.  That's a lot of kms to run on an empty stomach.  And I took two with me in my pocket.  I had one at the 1 hour mark, and another at the 2 hour mark when Mike met up with me.  And I can honestly say I felt good, no after affects, no stitch, and most of all no hunger that would make me bite the belly of a low flying duck.

Thanks Matilda for the recommend.  I'll definitely be a repeat customer now.

Longest . Run . Ever !!!

Un-freaking-believable!  Today was the day I wanted to aim for 16km.  End result ... 16.6km ta daaaah!

My Sunday started nice and early but I didn't think if ever hear myself say it, but I'm ready for the clocks to change back.  It's just way too dark of a morning.  Sunrise was listed for 7.34am or something crazy like that.

Being that I was heading out of town I pottered for a little bit and set out about 7.15.  I didn't want to carry a torch and at least that way is be running through town under street lights just before sunrise.

Stepped out the door and couldn't see the hand in front of my face.  FOG!!  But I would soldier on.  Music pumping I powered through town and then hit the road out of town.  The morning was getting lighter but no magical sunrise, this was my view all through my run.

But strange as it was I loved it!  Running in the fog was the best.  Firstly I did need to stay even more alert being that the odd car coming toward me came out of nowhere.  But I think the best part of running in the fog was that you didn't see the long road ahead, you didn't set your mind on upcoming hills and rises and start talking yourself out of them before you even get to them.  You didn't have those mind games at all.  Superb.

At the half way mark before I turned around and ran back home.

I was sodden by this stage, a combo of dampness from the fog and liquid awesome (sweat)!!

End result...

I'm slow I'll grant you that. but I ran easily 95% with only a handful of short short walk breaks.    And thank you Runkeeper, I like it when you give me a medal.

So that was this morning, lots of stretching, feeling like a little old woman tonight.  

Oh but before I go, how do you like my new tshirt.  Even when I'm not running I'm thinking of it.  :-)

Have a great week all.

PS Yes Matilda I am entering Run the Gap, just haven't yet.

#118forboston

One thing I have come to realise on this running journey that I've been on, is that there is a running fraternity out there.  I'm not just meaning the little nod you may give, or a hand wave acknowledging a runner coming in the other direction.  I am meaning wonderful WONDERFUL people and groups out there who have your back, who will talk running with you when other people's eyes glaze over, who celebrate every single kilometre you string together, who understand that blisters are foremost in your mind, who join with you when you feel like you have accomplished world domination when you do your longest run ever, or a PB, or any number of high five moments.

I might not be in a running group where we meet up and actually run, but I'm so lucky I am in a few running groups online where I get all of the above and more.

The first one is "I'm going to run or walk 1000 kilometres in 12 months".  A great group for motivation and commitment, so many of the people on it I know locally as it was started by someone from my work a few years ago, but now it is open to anyone on facebook and there are people from all over Australia on it.  We just track our runs, report in, and give our YTD total.

I'm already ahead of the game, this is my second year tracking my runs.  So far this year I am up to 208km.  Go me.  I've run from Mortlake to the other side of Castlemaine!    Last year I totalled 621km all up, so I'm ahead of the game pro-rata already.

The other group which I absolutely adore, I can't go a single day without checking in with these inspirational girls (and a few guys) is "12WBT Runners Connect".  We've all come together with the common nexus of having done 12wbt and through same developed a love for running.  We've shared training tips, our runs, our races, our PB's, our highs, our lows, we are at all different levels, some members are trying to string 1km together, others are training for marathons and ultra marathons.  All as equally important.

So they are my local running fraternities that I am involved with.  But we who run are part of runners worldwide.  I think on my long weekend run that there are a stack of people out there doing exactly what I'm doing at that moment.  It's a united feeling.

So tonight I stumble on this website, via another blog.

#118FORBOSTON

So basically the 2014 Boston Marathon is in its 118th year.  So after the tragic events last year, it seems runners worldwide are uniting and using Runkeeper to track 118 million miles between 1st March and 21st April.  Just need to use the hastag #118forboston and your activity is counted.  I love that the website seems to be real life updating, adding your runkeeper profile pic as your mileage is added.    I am totally on board.  It won't change the past, but it will make me feel part of the worldwide running fraternity.

So my first effort last weekend was my longest run ever.  I used to get hung up over the run/walk/run but I don't any more.  Wiser people than me have said it's okay, I'm still moving, I haven't stopped (except when I had to take a quick break at the public loos at the park!!).  I'm still way behind where I wanted to be with my half marathon preparation.  I've been told if I can get to 17km I should be okay on the day.  The way I'm going it's going to take 3 hours to finish the darn thing.  Mike is looking at maps for the nearest pub to hang out in I think!!

It was slow, it took near on 2 hours to travel 14 and a half kilometres and truly I have outrun this town I live in, I literally painted the town red!  I'm sure I had some funny looks from drivers, and there were a few toots as I was running down the highway.  I figured either hey I really look like a runner, or hmmm, I just may have loo paper hanging out the back of my tights having just visited the park.  Ha!

So the old knees were a bit fragile today, so I went for a nice big walk at lunchtime, just to keep myself going.  It's way too easy to just sit in my job.  I'm aiming for 15.5 km next weekend, but before then I have some more runs to get in.  One of which is the third 5km virtual fun run for Licorice & Olives is up this week.
Hope everyone has a great week ahead.

Ouch!!

I hurt!  Tops of my legs, my chest and my underceps.  You know, people have biceps and triceps, well I call my wobbly bits under my arms my "underceps"!  Some of the girls from our Warrnambool & Surrounds 12wbt crew met up for a PT/Boot Camp session run by the lovely Kate.

Kate is a 12wbt success story.  She has walked a mile in our shoes and she has come back to Warrnambool as a certified personal trainer.  And she was good enough to come to us.  For those of us out of Warrnambool we usually have to travel in for group activities.  Well on Tuesday night we decided on a central spot of Noorat and those of us from Mortlake, Terang and Camperdown came in for a session.

I haven't worked out like that for a while.  It didn't hit me till Wednesday and today I'm still feeling it!  It's a good sore, don't get me wrong.  It's just my muscles saying "what the hell are you doing to us!"

Here we are at the end of the session, together with our little mascot Miss M, who delightedly urged us on.  Flushed with success we were.  That's Kate there in the black.  And we wish her all the luck in the world with this new venture.

But with a sore chest, arms and legs, I ditched running in Wednesday, and knowing I have a long run coming up on the weekend, I wanted to get some kind of run in today.  So I just grinned through clenched teeth and just went with it.  A very slow shuffle, run, walk tonight, 5km around the beach.  Beautiful late afternoon for it.  And so glad I did it to try to sort these aching muscles out.

But ouch!

I took on The Elephant yet again !!

So yesterday I took on the Elephant again this year.  It was the second annual Derrinallum Market to Mount Fun Run, 5km from the Football Oval on the far side of town, a lap of said oval, then up the Hamilton Highway, through the town, past the Sunday market, out to Mount Elephant and then scale that darn elephant any way you could to finish on the top of the peak.

So to set the scene, the area around here is full of old dormant volcanos.  Kind of makes you feel a sense of thrill right?  They're dormant, not extinct, they could blow at any moment!!   So just so you know (Leitchy I'm not crazy!!) but I took these photos AFTER the race had finished and I was on my way back into town.  But just showing you them here in order as I would have seen them on the run, to set the scene.

So we ran out of town and hit a head wind.  It was nasty.  All I could think of was when I turned to head to the mount it would be at my back.  No, not so, the wind turned.  Gaaaah!  I hate that.

So here's the view of the mount as we left the highway.  It doesn't particularly look like it here, but in some angles it actually does look like a big old elephant laying down.

Continuing up the slight rise dirt road almost to the base.  The gravel was nice and smooth here, not too bad at all.

Until we hit the first cutting which in the photos above you can see diagonally rises from the base on the right up towards the middle.  It is nasty scoria and some of the rocks are big.  There was no running at this point, it was one foot in front of the other just to make it to the top.  Don't worry, we knew what the track would be like, we were warned well in advance, and I did this run last year so was expecting it.  Somehow though it felt harder this year .... hmmm perhaps because I'm another year older!!

You get to the top of the scoria and have a slight reprieve where the track dips down slightly and a welcome water station, and then rises yet again, but this time it's two tyre tracks and cut hay.  It was like we were heading up to the clouds!

Closer and closer to the finish at the top, one more turn around at the top and the flags were in sight!  Yep, it was steep alright!  And funnily enough I got to the top, saw the flags and took off at a run to finish and the Rocky theme started on the headphones.  How appropriate!  I resisted the urge at the top though to jump around arms in the air like a mad woman.  All I wanted was more water!

The pain soon subsided though when the elation of having made it took over.  I was on top of the world, you could look out in all directions as far as the eye could see.  Just to the right of my head there is the township of Derrinallum where I had come from.  I look really short in this photo, now I might not be the tallest of people, but this really is an optical illusion.

So times...

Last year I did the run in 47 mins 33 seconds.

This year the official time has just been posted today ... 46 minutes 55 seconds.

I beat my time by 38 seconds and that is a win in my books!  That's all I wanted to do was beat my time.

Plus I came 45th out of 64 runners so I was happy with that placement in the field.  I definitely wasn't last (not that anything would be wrong with that).  I might add that there was (at a guess) a 70 year old man ahead of me, he was remarkable, obviously athletic.  I told him at the top I was keeping an eye on his butt the whole race.  He was delighted!

And check this crazy elevation map out from my Runkeeper.  This is nuts seeing how the 5km panned out.  Mind you the steeper the elevation, the slower my pace got until it was almost non-existent!

So after a bottle of water and a banana at the top, I started making my way down again.  This was where I slipped and fell last year, so I took more care this time round.  We were able to get down to the base of the mount where there was a bus that would shuttle us back into town.  Pffft to that, I decided to run back into town, so all up a 9km day (5km out and 4km back) back to the market where I met back up with Mike and had the best egg and bacon roll for breakfast that I swear I've ever eaten!!  Then waited for the presentations.

It was a long day yesterday, we ended up travelling through to Ocean Grove to meet up with Mike's family for a farewell lunch as his sister and family are heading overseas for a wonderful holiday.  We decided to try an Academy Award style selfie a la Ellen deGeneres.  We may not have broken Twitter, but I don't think the kitchen chair fared too well at the back! ha.

Soooooo the next race I've entered is the Half Marathon at Geelong.  40 days to go.  Gulp!

The long weekend run

I wanted to get out and run 13 kilometres today, and Mike was heading up bush nice and early so I got up when he did.  I hit the road, he hit the car.  The sun was already rising so I quickly headed out of town.  My usual route up to the road that heads out of town had a commotion of horses on it, the equestrian oval that I run past was to have show jumping later on during the day.  They had part of the road blocked off so I hopped through a material kind of fence only to be faced with a wooden fence at the other end of the street.  Darn, had to back track and then run through the park passed startled horses.

It was a great morning for it.  I had ensured I had the Natures Botanical on, so the flies didn't annoy me.  It was about 7.15 as I left town.   I ran out of town near on 7km, there were a few sneaky walks during that time.  I used to fret about that, but I don't fret any longer.  As long as it's not my head playing head games, I'm listening to my body and if I need a 20 second breather, then so be it, I'll walk for 20 seconds and then get going again.

I need to invest in some decent socks though.  My three sets of Under Armour ones, which are getting a bit scratchy, were in the wash, so I wore some non-descript sports socks and the hot spot on my foot started rubbing and I could feel a blister starting, despite the fact I had the Body Glide on.  Good to say it didn't end up a full blown blister but it's a bit tender.

This was at the half way point in my run.  The cows were definitely curious.

And here I am heading back into town, I had about 5km to go.  The shadows were definitely long, the sun was still low.

The map just cracks me up, it was long and straight, clear out of town.  As you can see my pace was slow, but again, that's okay.  I was moving.  And look at that calorie burn, yeah baby!

I fear next weekend I won't fit my long weekend run in, as I have the Market to Mount 5km fun run to do.  5km, pffft, I hear you say.  Yep, 5km straight out of the town of Derrinallum and end up at the top of Mount Elephant.  Fun fun.  Yeah Mish, you wanted hill climbs, I'll give you hill climbs!   Here's a sneak peek.  Mind you I swear it nearly killed me last year.

Monday Public Holiday for Labor day tomorrow, I do believe it's going to be my rest day with a lovely sleep in planned.

Noorat to Terang

What fun last night.  Another great locally run event with a wonderful atmosphere.  Local runners all combined to run the 5.92 km race (sheeesh for an even number girl, that number really annoys me!!!).  It was all very cruisey and low key, no timing chip, you got your race time on a slip of paper at the end for the certificate you would pick up.  It's all fun, run by the local Lions Club.  

I did another jump for joy at the start, don't mind the crazy eyes.  You may remember I did this last year too.  Looks like it will be an annual event.  (Mind you it took Mike about 10 goes to get this pic in focus, I was knackered by the start of the race!!)  Yes, this is a little country town, you'll notice the stone wall fences behind me.

And of course some of the fabbo girls from our Warrnambool & Surrounds 12wbt crew were there.  Sue here from the crew, and a friend from the town I live in.

And here's Jill and my dear friend Lynn who makes a regular appearance at these events on my blog.  

I'm also in a 1000 km Facebook group, which has the aim to run or walk 1000 km in 12 months.  My goal is to run it.  I'm up to 146 km for the year.  The group is all inspiring and from all over Australia, we just check in with our distances and a bit about what we've been doing.  However Adrienne here is a local girl, and we've never met.  I told her what I would be wearing and she found me.  Here's to new running friends!  Although I might say I didn't see her for dust, she took off and I was a plodder near the back of the pack.

Here's the race start, the walkers had taken off at 6.30pm and they would be using the walking track between the two towns.  The runners however got to run on the main road as the cars had been stopped.  Ready set, waiting for the starters gun, bang!  And they took off.  All except me.  I had started my Runkeeper and was fiddling trying to get my blasted phone in my Spibelt and I looked up and everyone had gone.  Mike was up a little bit waiting, waiting, waiting with the camera, wondering where the heck was I.  Then like a little red caboose I sprinted on past him with a wave and a cheer.

Here I am coming down the home straight, the finish line was in sight.  Hey you don't usually see a pic of me self-levitating, both feet off the ground, go me!

A look of sheer concentration, putting the sprint on to the end.  I had a PB to make.

Oh come on Mike, what have I told you about the bum shots!!!  There will be NO BUM SHOTS!

And winners are grinners!!!  I have no illusions, I will never make a a cracking pace, and mind you the pace did go out fast which saw me get a stitch and had to have a few walks along the way to catch my breath, ouch!   But I was extremely happy.  Last year 43:07.  This year 42:10.    Only 57 seconds faster, but I'll take that and run with it, literally!  :-)

Now I have to pay kudos to Mike, he took lots of photos last night, of friends at the start, of runners passing by, he was snapping like a wild thing, and that camera is heavy you know.  Scoop Gilmour taking a rest at the finish line!!

Seriously ... I love this man.  He's always by my side, always cheering me on.  He would have been running last night if not for his knee and ankle problem which he is working on strengthening.  He may have been a bit wistful as the runners ran by.  But I tell you he was there cheering me at the end.  

Next Fun Run is Derrinallum, Market to Mount, 5km finishing at the top of Mount Elephant ... 16 March.