Sunday 12 November speedygeese long run report [
Dave]:
Cool, overcast and slightly humid with no wind for this morning’s
Speedygeese long run on
Jen’s Coolemon Ridge and Narrabundah Hill route. Twelve starters this morning, including several ultra runners. There were no falls, no injuries (at least no new ones), no getting lost, no dramas of any kind – just a pleasant undulating 17k run.
Thach ended up with 19k, I did 18k and
Graeme, Jinny, Shuji, Paul, Jen, William, Adam, Lisa and
Sandeep did 17k.
Judith turned back to finish with a shorter run. Average pace over the full distance varied between runners, from 5.25 to 6.05 min/km.
Narelle, who is still recovering from the flu, decided our 17k 250m elevation run at 5.40 pace was too risky, so she did a 20k 300m vert arboretum run at 5.15 pace and still managed to join us for coffee. 😯 😷
We adjourned to the Meating Place for coffee (or coffee thickshakes) and breakfast, although some achieved a new PB for meal waiting times. Perhaps we should have gone to Thach’s house to try his new weasel poo coffee. 🤣
Other runs today by Speedygeese included an easy 7k for
Pete B who is recovering from a back injury,
Ewen’s 24.18 for Fishers Ghost 5k fun run, and a new PB of 1:28:03 (unofficial) for
Jennie in the 15k City2Sea. 😯
Bronwyn (1:15:01) and
Matt (1:19:04) also did City2Sea.
Mhairi just did a 19k in New Zealand (over 1,000 m vert). 😱
The biggest excitement for me was testing the photo quality on my new iphone 8plus. I’m also still enjoying the novelty (since yesterday) of having Strava, Garmin Connect, fb and messenger on my phone instead having to upload everything to my laptop (no longer in the dark ages). Now I can waste twice as much time and spend half as much time socialising when out with others. 😵
Paul has organised next week’s run and has already provided the pre run briefing and prepared a detailed description that almost beats Sri Chinmoy’s.
Monday 13 November at Parliament House: The session was 6 x figure 8 loops with pushups each interval; on 5 minutes.
I was still very sore and jogged a couple of the loops. Participating were
Sandeep, Chris, Christopher, Sarah, Ewen, Giles, Ruth, Warrick, Thomas, Jen, Isaac, Narelle, Rae, Colin, Bronwyn and
Jinny. Jessica watched.
On
Thursday 16 November back at Woden Track, I couldn’t go and
Bronwyn repeated last week’s intervals. Others just ran track.
Sunday 19 November:
Speedygeese long run report [
Dave]
Today’s Speedygeese long run was a squealer. We headed off from Cook shops in almost perfect conditions.
Narelle and
Graeme were running a few minutes late but soon caught up and Narelle the gazelle disappeared in the distance shortly thereafter. With 15 starters of various abilities we soon settled into a few smaller groups, with occasional catchups at the “holding points” (usually the top of hills).
With 15 runners at various speeds there was always going to be potential for unplanned exploring and adventures. It soon became clear that we should have paid more attention to
Paul’s pre-run briefing. 😳 The first detour occurred at the arboretum “Cork Oak”, where
Jen and I left the group and took a photo opportunity at the “slow down” sign, before she took off at 4.15 pace to beat the others to the next holding point. Then it was a tussle between Narelle, Jen and I to get to the top of gun barrel (the roller coaster Strava segment), where Jen took out the segment record. 💪
A few of us took a cross country route at the arboretum but regrouped at Dairy Farmers Hill. Narelle snuck in a couple of extra km by heading down to the river (intentionally, I think) and
Bron added a sneaky trip through Aranda bushland to Mt Painter and ended up with 12k.
Ewen and
Roger were smart enough to take a shortcut to the zoo (or maybe they just got lost?).
Ruth and
Margaret submitted a disclaimer early on - something to do with being super slow – and weren’t to be seen after the first couple of km, but magically appeared for coffee at the end. Not sure whether they "cheated" or outran us. Various people (including
Sandeep, Roger and I) were spotted jogging in circles at the end to satisfy their Strava neuroses.
According to Strava, Narelle finished with 22k,
Giles and I did 20, Graeme, Jen and Sandeep 19k, Roger and Ewen 18k.
Warrick turned back after Dairy Farmers Hill to finish with about 10k.
Bob strolled a couple of k from home to meet us for coffee afterwards (a piece of cake for Bob after heart surgery a week ago). 😯 💓 The others did around 18k.
I should also mention Shiree's amazing 3:30 hilly marathon yesterday in New Zealand. Inspiring, to say the least. 😯
Coffee, banter and cavorting followed, as we “pigged out” (sorry) at Little Oink in Cook shops. Narelle couldn’t resist spending some quality time with the pig. 😂 🐖
Thanks for the run and company everyone. Next week is the Mount Stromlo Running Festival lightning strike trail races, ⚡ with the one and only Deek as MC, so no official long run is planned at this stage. 🤓
Monday 20 November with
me supervising the Speedygeese, we ran relays on a loop of 360m or so from the tennis court area, a loop which included our “favourite” hill. Participating were
Bronwyn, Thomas, Warrick, Sandeep, Ruth, Jennie, Vanessa, Brownie, Isaac, Narelle, Jen, Dave, Pieta, Andrew, Chris, Bron, Giles, and
Ewen who also ran early. Thanks Pieta for the celebratory champagne and lemonade afterwards!
Thursday 23 November back at Woden Track
I looked after the group who ran ~8 x 330m with 110m walk recovery. Running were
Bronwyn, Brownie, Colin, Sandeep, Jennie, and
Ewen (briefly). We saw
Ruth and
Margaret who were running on Woden track.
This Sunday I may (no promises!) go and watch part of the Stromlo Running Festival and do a little training there. The 50k takes off at 6:00am (a tad early for me), the 30k at 7:00am, and the 10k at 7:30am. I won't be staying for the presentations at 11:00am.
