Next weekend is the Great Train Race. I did this last year and the train beat me by about a minute according to my watch, but my official time was about 3 mins slower due to the disorganisation factor. It took about a minute for me to get from the middle of the pack to the start line, wasted a lot of time trying to push past people and getting stuck behind people on the hills, then at the end there is a disorganised queue at the finish line while you wait for the volunteers to manually clock your time.

The plan next week is to start closer to the front, run like hell and hope for the best.

I only really entered this race because so far this year the races I've wanted to do have either been cancelled due to bushfires, or on at an incredibly inconvenient time for me to get there. So I haven't done any specific training. Yesterday my long run was 27k and I spent the time avoiding hills and enjoying the local trails - kind of the opposite required for the Great Train Race.

Allendale Rd + 1 Mile Nation

This weekend turned out to be rather grueling. Yesterday we had the Allendale Rd race. Basically the winner is the person who goes the furthest before taking a walk break. If you take a walk break, you have to yell out Soft Arse so everyone can hear who the soft arses are. Unfortunately 1 guy thought it was on Sunday and a couple of others were no shows, so it was just me and Tony. To give you an idea, here is the elevation profile:



It was really tough. Tony is naturally much faster than I, and he was obviously slowing so he wasn't too far ahead, and I was going much faster than usual trying to keep up. He jogged in circles at the top of the hills while I caught up and I am please to say we both won, we are not soft arses, we ran the whole way. I didn't wear my HR monitor but I didn't need it to tell me my HR was at the max most of the way. Some of the down hills were so steep I am not sure if it was harder to go up or down. After all that my legs were so trashed, they have not felt like this in a long time. It is a beautiful scenic run and hopefully we can get some more people together and do it again.

Then this weekend is the 1 Mile Nation virtual race. Yesterday my legs were in no shape to be doing anything else so that left today to head down to the track. My legs were (make that are) still sore so I knew it would be tough to crank out any speed.

As usual at the local track, lanes 1 + 2 were blocked off so that meant lane 3 was the shortest lane I could run in. I did a warm up walk, some high knees, butt kicks and slow jog before a couple of 400m to test my pace, then I went for it. Laps 1 and 2 were ok but on lap 3 my quads felt like blubber and I struggled on til lap 4 when I managed to push on to the finish. I did 1 mile in 7:33.

Although I am more interested in long distances, I think 1 mile is a good distance to test leg speed and heart rate. Leg speed particularly is something that I have been working on over the past 6 months and I can already see great improvement. It helps pick up your long distance speed, and running at that pace improves your form, which of course you can carry over to any distance. When I run at that pace and feel myself tiring, I just make minor corrections to my form and suddenly my pace picks up again. It's great. It just feels so natural.

I was considering wearing my waffles but my feet would have been uncomfortable. I wore the Five Fingers and had NO ACHILLIES pain AT ALL...not until after, that is, which is to be expected.

My quads are still trashed from Allendale Rd and that 1 mile did not do anything to ease out the sore muscles. I just took my grandma's dog for a brisk walk and did a weights workout and a good stretch session, but it has not made a difference. A recovery run is needed tomorrow for sure.

Allendale Road

I missed 2 turn offs today which meant my planned 25km run ended up 32k. I was so buggered at the end. My legs were shaking, I couldn't concentrate on anything, felt nauseous, and straight after a shower I just curled up in bed for an hour.

The destination today was Allendale Rd, Diamond Creek. Next week a few of us are racing this road - out and back - so I thought I better get some training in. The winner is not the person who goes the fastest, but the person who goes the furthest before taking a walk break. And when you do take a walk break, you have to yell out SOFT ARSE so everyone can hear who is the soft arse in the group.

Today I just took in a couple of kilometres of Allendale as part of my run. Do you see that road in the distance that goes straight up?


I got to this sign and would've kept going, but will save that for next weekend. I wanted to head off in a different direction so turned at an intersection near there.


Next weekend is also the date for 1milenation's international 1 mile race. Just sign up for free on the website and run 1 mile on a track some time over the weekend. Send in your result and you have just raced with people around the world! There are prizes on offer but I haven't bothered paying attention to what they are. I have registered, but I don't know if I will feel like it after the Allendale Rd run.