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.

Fun run tomorrow night

Well not tomorrow NIGHT exactly, but certainly early evening.  6.45pm to be precise.  It's the only fun run I've done that's not early morning and it's a different feeling, the weight of the day on you.  And don't you just love it, it's a 5.92 kilometre fun run!!!  Why don't they just start it 80 metres back up the road and make it a 6K!  Crazy.

But it's a locally run event, it's running from one town to the next, Noorat to Terang.  And it's a clear passage, walkers are on the walking path, runners down the road with the traffic stopped.  No pushers in the way!

I remember last year I was in the Veterans category.  What was the deal with that, a freaking Veteran!  Wheel chair waiting at the end for me please. ha.

I love this pic that Mike took last year at the start of the race.   I like supporting locally run events, it's a good feeling event, lots of camaraderie.  Hmmm except when you get to Terang people are usually sitting out on their naturestrips if it's a nice night and they will give you a hosing if you give them the thumbs up for it.

43 minutes and 07 seconds last year.

I have a PB from that race to beat!