Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Playing Hookie

felt like i was playing hookie today.
gee i hope mick or digger dont read this.
had entered the victoria pt HM but just couldn't face 21km of hot concrete.
forecast was for 29 degrees and 60% humidity for 9am (race started 7.15am).
due to a busy week at work had pieced together some rather crappy training mostly on concrete bike paths.
yesterday ran for an hour along minnippi parklands which was nice as i hadnt been there much before but just coudlnt face the same again today and felt an urge to hit the trail.
the other thing putting me off was the drop back from a 10km circuit to a 5km circuit of which we would do 4 loops.

so i asked mellum last night.
what should i pick?
trail or friends?
and it was unanimous.

...so did a nice JRR at coot-tha.
heaps of people enjoying the mountain today.
including about 40 from galeforce running.
relatively cool early.
was almost finished by the time i would've started at vic point.
home by 8am.
gold.

trail is my mistress.
and i visit her as often as i can.

saturday: off
sunday: 45mins local park morningside
monday: 30mins hill walk tready
tuesday: minnippi 13km approx and massage
wednesday: JRR 14km coot-tha 93.30
off tomorrow

Friday, January 21, 2011

Solid

some solid runs this last week.

thurs: 14km flat
fri: off
sat: 14km flat
sun: JRR coot-tha 14km 1.34
mon: off
tues: MGTT coot-tha 19km 2.22
wed: off
thurs: 14km flat
fri: 13km flat

my usual flat runs are now all over the place because all the bike paths in brissie are still closed.
but thats the least of anyones problems.
often run from home to kangaroo point and back.
MGTT on tuesday was in apparent temp of 37 degrees gee i hate the heat.
suffered all the way.
will probably trot the vic point HM on wednesday.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

floods


thornton st ferry kangaroo point thursday 6am


same place looking east. this is where i start my usual 14km run.


same place saturday 8am. the drinking fountain is no longer >1m under water.

hard not to comment on whats been happening this last week.
returned from bogong monday night.
just horrified by the footage of the 'inland tsunami' in toowoomba and lockyer valley.
this was the middle of the toowoomba cbd.
on top of the frigging 'range'.
there is no river/creek there it was just flash flooding.

all hell broke loose in brissie tuesday.
i was supposed to work 8.30am to 11pm (had some teaching work in the morning then an evening shift) but things were delayed so went in later (10) and just before heading in heard two things on the tv from the premier that i preferred not to...
1. the brissie river has just broken its bank
2. modelling shows the floods will be worse than 1974
things seemed to go from defcon 1 to 10 in about a minute from then on.
did what i had to at work initially.
headed home at 2pm to check on the dogs (it was pissing down) and the cbd (and other large sections of brissie and ipswich) had been evacuated so it was like peakhour x 3 fold.
headed back in a little late as i didnt know if the nightshift could come in and i would have to work all night.

got home ok that evening and realised as i had been away we had bugger all food in the house!
joined the masses for the panic shopping wednesday 8am and predictably got called into work as 4/5 docs had called in unavailable that day.
work was 'interesting', patients tended to stay at home but just as well as trying to contact people when phone and paging systems were down was problematic. lots of staff had trouble getting in so a lot of usual services were running very slowly.
we had power 'issues' that evening as icing on the cake (slow service was better than none).
the power had gone out at home at 1pm but TOH had arranged a generator from her brother.

in the end we knew we would be high and dry by a long way and pleasingly the peak at 4am thursday was less than predicted.
didnt get called into work that day which was good and we only lost power for a little over a day.
so we werent 'affected' at all really but its good for me to type this and remember an important time in history that will unfortunately be the present for a lot of people for a while.
condamine flooded for the second time yesterday.

...and there is still more rain coming this week.

mojo

felt like i got my mojo back at bogong.
just did the 'egg and spoon race' (35km to langfords).
admittedly the weather was 'porefucked' as spud would say and the track as cleared as it gets but was surprised i could manage a 6.24 with such ease.
previously did a 6.18 to langfords the year i finished the thing but i was much much more shagged when i got there.
was a hotter year though.

really had only planned to do an easy 7.00-7.30 and miss the 6.30 cut.
got to mt bogong in 1.56 a minute off pb (couldnt help myself chasing people could i?).
'swicthed off' and got to the river in 3.35 (left at 3.39) and could only remember getting there last time in 3.10 or thereabouts so figured i would go 7hrs or so but rocketted up the hill.
figure my splits were a bit off for the river to ropers section too.
trotted most of the ropers to langfords section and felt strong all the way.

splits: biv hut 1.12 bogong 1.56 cleve 2.31 madd hut turn 2.49 big river 3.35-3.39 ropers 4.46 warby 5.14 track intersection 5.50 langfords 6.24
nice to catch up with the usual suspects.
whippy did a great job as RD too.
have pulled up well.

mojo is back.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

40


view from main island lookout hamilton is.

spent a week in the whitsundays for my 40th.
some nice trail on hamilton and hayman islands.
got back into some regular 'training' with lots of time on feet.
couldnt resist having a crack at a fastish 'passage peak' time whilst on hamilton and got up there in 23.10.
most of my runs were over 9min/km which says a bit about how hilly these are and hot/humid the conditions.
blue pearl bay on hayman is just wonderful.
a few yachts off shore but the first day we were the only ones on the whole beach.

friday: (hamilton) 1.07 run plus 2.5hr walk
saturday: off
sunday: 1.07 run
monday: (hayman) 2hr walk
tuesday: 1.25 run and 2hr walk
wednesday: off

will head down to mt beauty/tawonga for B2H this weekend: though will only do the 35km (B2L).