Rain

Pouring with rain now but that's ok because in 7 hours I'm about to fly off to Indonesia for a week for work. Will be hectic - I'm taking my running shoes on the off-chance I get sneak a run in.

Yesterday had a couple of vaccination jabs and am on anti-maleria drugs as a precaution. Knocking me about a little - went for a run with James this morning and the run was a bit substandard really.

Bike Maintenance

Small amount of bike maintenance on the weekend. Sick of wearing splash back on the way to work fitted some mudguards ($25) and replaced the rear v brakes ($15).

Another bonus of commuting by bike is the maintenance costs are cheap and you can do a lot of it yourself. Just in time too because its raining hard today.

Fast(ish)

So I did the 1 mile (~1.6km) race challenge on dailymile called outrun the horde:
http://www.dailymile.com/challenges/1266-outrun-the-horde

This morning I mapped out a local course along my road and into the next, quietly wishing it was flat rather than undulating.

Warm-up go was 7:29 (4:32 min/km).

Took a deep breath, opened the taps, and put my foot down.

5:57 for a 3:42min/km pace.

Tough! Really breathing hard at the end and very clearly not used to that pace/effort. Still gives me hope to build up to a sub 20 5km run one day.

Running fast(ish) does make you feel alive - and safe from zombies!

Getting closer

The swimming must be helping, or perhaps it's the fast runs with Claude the Frenchman at work but I'm starting to get close to my short term goal weight of 83kg. For added incentive I have given myself a carrot of new running shoes when my physicsdiet gets to 83. Definitely motivation. Good weighing in daily in the 82-83 range regularly.

My ultimate goal is to get back to my BM (before marriage) weight of 80kg.



Looking back it was only a few years ago that I was up at 100kg. A desk job and not enough exercise did that. Running has fixed that although I am finding the last few kg's are really hard to shed!

In other news my friend J mentioned to me about the "Outrun the Horde" challenge on DailyMile. Basically you run the fastest mile to escape the horde! Someone has been watching too many zombie films but sounds like fun. I have never tried to run a mile flat out before so should be interesting. Will try tomorrow morning along a suburban stretch. Maybe I'll get close to 4min/k pace - 6.4min/mile (if I'm lucky...)

Mean Sign

From my run this morning. Wasn't that bad 4:55min/k for 13.3km

:)

Dance Card

It seems like people want to go running with me at lunchtime. Most of the time I go running alone so this makes a good change.

Last week a run through Parnell with Ray. Ray is from another department at work (we were in the same "team" for the corporate tri). That was a relatively easy pace on an undulating course.

Yesterday the Frenchman and I did a relatively quick out and back along the waterfront (flat). He is a sharp 10km runner and I sweated a bit to keep up - we on about 4:40 pace. Good for me being pushed along. A little embarrassing considering he is 50 but offset that he has been running since he was a kid. I put it down to those 15 years of additional conditioning!

Today my friend J wants to head out as his company has just moved into the area. Should be good.

My dance card of midweek runs is full this week. :)

A sure sign of getting old

On my "long" run yesterday I thought a good idea to help pass the time to listen to the BBC World News podcast. It was actually quite good catching up with current events and I might even do it next week.

I'm a little worried that the next step is writing cranky letters to the editor.