The Rebuild for 2010

Well all journey's start sometime and somewhere. And perhaps the rebuild for 2010 started today.

I have reflected on 2009 and over all is has been a very disappointing year. Serious training started in December 2008 for the Canberra Marathon and what was to be the focus race of the year the Gold Coast Marathon. Each marathon was more disappointing than the one before.

In July/August things did not get better but I ran a lot of marathons in the period but the times were drifting to near 4 hours and there was nothing I was doing in training to get some endurance and stamina to at least give 3.30 a shake. In this period I was just chasing marathons and finishes but I always do that in this period each year however the times are usually been much quicker - I was taking quantity over quality and doing very little training other than a taper/recovery between marathons. I did however have some pleasant weekends away in Canberra, Wagga Wagga and Mudgee and despite the marathon times enjoyed the weekends.

I had great pleasure in running a marathon on Saturday and then being the 4 hour pacer on Sunday at M7. That was a ball of a weekend. Off course running the Sydney marathon was a pleasure even if it was the weekend after the 100mile finish at Glasshouse. That run with Jane was probably the most rewarding run of the year. I was not injured, we worked hard but steady all race and has a respectable time.

That was mid September and I guess since then I would have run 200k in training. If casually turning your legs over a couple of days a week. It was more like pretend training. It was not real and it was doing nothing for fitness. A couple of business trips in September/October for a week at a time interstate didn't help with the training. Also a solid teaching load meant that more often than not the morning training that gives me so much pleasure and starts the day off well had to be missed to get to work early to prepare for the unusually heavy teaching load that I had at that time.

I was a runner pretending to be a runner pretending to be training.

The Worlds in Sydney were a disaster for me. I had not trained for them and I got my present Achilles injury when competing. I would have been much better off to have ignored them.

I went into GNW with very negative thoughts arising from the injury and the lack of any training. I don't think the fitness from Glasshouse in September carried through without being maintained. It was not being maintained because of the injury and lack of training. Despite those thoughts I thought my experience on the course and the race itself would allow me to finish just under the cut off. At no time did I contemplate being timed out at 81k because I was too slow. That realisation come about 10k from the CP when I thought I had to be there by 10pm, made a calculation that I would not make it and started to walk, 90 minutes later I made another calculation realised it was an 11pm cut off and by that time my walking had caused me to the timed out.

Anyway where from here?

Two minds the C2K crew etc are still ready and will go with Jane whether I start of not. I really do want to start but as I continue to hobble around most of the time that seems like a very unwise decision. I really am having difficulty making up my mind what to do. I do have another CR who is prepared to crew for me but that would mean splitting our existing crew of 3 girls and I don't want to do that. They joined the crew to be a crew with each other and I am reluctant to split them just because I want to run and there is a real possibility that I will DNF at some stage.

However if that happens I guess Jane will have more crew.

Anyway it is time to start to rebuild from the ashes of 2009 both mentally and physically. So today was the first run since GNW. There was some Achilles stretching before attempting to run and the stretching was less painful than the week before C2K which maybe a good sign. I suspect most of the discomfort from the stretching came more from lack of running than the injury.

It was then just 3 x 1k at about 6.30 per k and some stretching in between each. It sounds so simple run 1k in about 9 minutes and repeat 240 times - nah don't even think about that as a way of looking at C2K. Anyway that is the start of the rebuild that may or may not be interrupted by a long run. One way of looking at it is if I start and it becomes too much I just hop in the car and become crew for Jane and have a pleasant time away for 4/5 days.