April in Paris

"A thief broke into the local police station and stole all the toilets and urinals, leaving no clues. A spokesperson was quoted as saying, 'We have absolutely nothing to go on'."
Thanks Strewth, that will be all.

Alan Duus

Come on admit it - you noticed Alan Duus first.

This blog has been decorated with some good photos, don't you think? I have also completed other improvements - a new icon as you would have noticed, and changes to various links and labels. Thanks to Ewen for hosting a couple of files I needed for these changes.

One of the new links I have just added to the side-bar via Google Reader is to a blog named "Younger Legs for Older Runners" at http://petemagill.blogspot.com/ - this is a brilliant blog, great content, great presentation, and should be on everyone's "following" list. In any case it is now linked from here, and I may extract quotes and links from it from time to time. The author often updates twice daily, so there is always something new to read. A must for masters athletes! Thanks to Ewen again for discovering this blog.

Today’s quote from the “Younger Legs” blog:
"If you do everything you can to combat the cold -- rest, fluids, vitamins, medicines, chicken soup -- the cold will go away in about a week. If you do nothing to treat the symptoms, the cold will last about seven days." - unknown, as related by Dr. George Sheehan to Joe Henderson

April in Adelaide
Forty-six ACT Athletes are competing in the AMA Nationals at Easter. I have derived the following list of names from the official program. The event count includes "multi events" which i have counted only once, and does not include any relays some will be running. Close to the time I will post more detail - times and event details for every ACT entrant.
Speedygeese of course have a yellow highlight.

35007 Ellis-Brownlee, Rachelle W36 4 events
35019 Osborn, Brad M35 12 events
40019 Forestier, Katie W43 4 events
40055 Walker, Amanda W41 4 events
45019 Graham, Bruce M47 3 events
45021 Hanley, Peter M45 3 events
45022 Hardy, Jayne W46 6 events
45041 Masters, Carol W47 4 events
45047 Muell, Matthew M46 8 events
50008 Crumpton, Geoff M54 6 events
50029 Kennedy, Leo M51 3 events
50039 Morton, John M50 5 events
50042 Palmer, Denise W51 6 events
50043 Parker, John M51 7 events
50044 Pilkington, Roger M50 4 events
55014 Burden, Noeline W55 9 events
55040 Lamb, John M59 2 events
55054 Rossiter, Maureen W58 6 events
55058 Sims, Kathy W57 4 events
55066 White, Ken M55 4 events
60002 Banens, Robert M60 6 events
60008 Chamberlain, Kevin M62 2 events
60022 Green, Ray M64 6 events
60031 Maher, Garry M62 7 events
60036 Moore, Geoff M60 4 events
60051 Sims, Geoff M60 3 events
60053 Taylor, Margaret W61 8 events
65002 Banens, Janice W67 6 events
65013 Glover, Clive M68 3 events
65038 Rudov, Raylea W65 5 events
65050 Thomas, Bryan M67 5 events
70012 Collins, Cory W72 5 events
70037 Schmidt, Joyce W73 5 events
70042 Wahren, Mary W74 5 events
70044 Young, Anne W73 4 events
80004 Gleeson, Gwen W80 3 events

Tradition

Bad joke alert
If you were to rush into a busy doctor's office and shout "Doctor! I think I'm shrinking!!", would the doctor try to calm you by saying, "Now, settle down. You'll just have to be a little patient."?

Note - Strewth was responsible for this joke.

2 April: Final Thursday night track program.
As far as I know the program is unchanged:
6:00pm sprint hurdles
6:15pm 60m
6:35pm mile walk
6:50pm mile run
7:10pm 200m
7:30pm 3000m
7:50pm club presentations

Advance posts
I am preparing some advance posts for while I am away in Adelaide. That means from Monday 6 April, until I get back on about 18 April, what pops up here will have been prepared this week.

AMA Nationals
One of the things I plan to include in the advance posts are some lists of who is competing from the ACT, and when, in the Australian Masters Athletics Championships over Easter. Not only in the running events but also the other events; jumps, throws, walks, dances, whatever is called "athletics". Here is the full program taken from the SA Masters Athletics website. There is a very good representation from all over Australia including a large number of entries from the ACT.

what I am viewing: I watched an old Pink Panther movie last night - "A Shot In The Dark". This was my favourite Peter Sellers movie once, but now seems oh so old-fashioned. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Tradition - one man's view
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. - G. K. Chesterton

Caution Cyclists Steep Decent

So reads the large, official sign, just before Coppins Crossing, which I read on Sunday morning as I drove down the decent hill before the crossing. It has been decently steep for decades, and it about time a sign appeared, but they could have spelt it write.

Monday training at Parliament House was another warm, still, dry evening with a good turn-out. Alan, Bronwyn, Ewen, Helen, Margaret, MickC, Miranda, Neil, Rachelle, Ruth, Tim & Yelena took advantage of the last Monday of daylight saving by running three "1k" loops fast, with another loop recovery where the recovery included exercises of their choice at the stations; pushups, dips, chinups, situps. The "1k" is about 930m with a few little twists and turns, and for this week only, running into the sun at one stage.

Neil

Neil will be able to get into some serious training now that the track season is drawing to a close. He has been so busy!

I am going to use a yellow highlight for speedygeese from today on, instead of red text, because this new format uses red text for links.

Song of the week. Evermore - Hey Boys and Girls (Truth of the World pt 2)


This song has taken off and the album is seriously brilliant.

No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

Transformation by Imitation
Teaching people about transformation does absolutely nothing. And telling people to change for the better is usually a waste of time; people know they should exercise, eat well, avoid cigarettes and drugs, live peaceably with one another, and so on; but how many actually do all this? Maybe it's obvious to runners who train together, but the answer could simply be: get alongside someone who is the kind of person you would like to be, who is doing what you would like to do and achieving what you would like to achieve, and imitate them. Mind you, there are some terrible role models in the world of sport, few deserving hero worship. But if you spend your time with a group of people doing it right, you will grow to be like them.

Coming up:
End of daylight saving this Sunday 5 April
Women's and Girls' Fun Run this Sunday 5 April
Dickson training resumes Thursday 23 April
Speedygeese group dinner Monday 4 May

Speedygeese results
CCC 28/3 Winter series race 1 – Rani Road – no speedygeese ran. There were 43 finishers. I for one had no idea how to get to Rani Road from Belconnen and had no intention of finding out and going. The Crows were running rings around the Magpies at the time and I wanted to enjoy the occasion.

There are just two weeks until AMA Nationals in Adelaide. I will be heading off next week, not turning up again until the Canberra Marathon in three weeks time. Adelaide, the best little puissant town in the world. That should be puissant, of course, not pissant

Katie is one of the well-performed speedygeese off to Adelaide for the nationals. Others are Amanda, Rachelle, Ken and myself. I believe Katie, Amanda, Rachelle and Ken fine-tuned by running on the track on Sunday. Between us we could collect a medal or two in Adelaide.

Tale of two viewpoints

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I ran only 16:29 for today's 4k race. Two runners were quicker than me; Ken Gordon won gold in the short handicap with a 16:26, and Bill Taylor an M30 also ran 16.26 off the same mark as Ken (two start groups in front of me).

On the other hand my age percentage was a meritable 83.2%.

I keep on oscillating between "I am running pretty badly" through to "I am running OK for my age" (with "and I can expect to keep on getting slower", which doesn't help.).

One indicator of my "progress" is how much training I have been able to do. With a quarter of the year already gone, here are some first-quarter comparisons.
2006 1099k
2007 1343k
2008 1158k
2009 935k

I have not been feeling too good this year, and it shows in my training. All is expected to improve after Easter! To keep myself motivated, I am trying to focus on improving that age percentage.

Here are the speedygeese times today:  
Stromlo 4k
23 Geoff Moore M60 16:29 83.2%
26 Neil Boden M55 18:45 71.9%
32 Cathy Montalto W55 20:03 76.8%
53 Gary Bowen M50 22:02 58.3%
54 finishers

Stromlo 8k
16 Ruth Baussmann W55 44:14 72.0%
24 Mick Charlton M55 41:55 65.3%
26 Alan Duus M60 39:48 71.6%
29 Yili Zhu M45 37:39 66.3%
31 Christopher Lang M55 41:19 66.9%
37 Roger Pilkington M50 35:08 72.8%
42 David Baussmann M55 38:54 71.1%
44 Miranda Rawlinson W55 43:16 71.2%
48 Rod Lynch M45 31:04 81.8%
61 Bronwyn Calver W35 38:57 67.5%
62 Margaret McSpadden W60 50:33 66.2%
96 Adam Robinson M35 47:38 47.8%
99 finishers

And now for something completely different ... everything you love about coffee..

...good to the last drop.

Or for Ewen, "goof to the last drop". (This is an in joke. LL understands.)

The Eagle has landed

Eagle sneaking up on lame goose.



These are the two photos Jim White took late in the 2008 Canberra Marathon eleven months ago. Eagle is catching me. I should add that every runner you can see behind me ended up ahead of me. Not just Eagle, also the guy stretching, apparently out of it. I am not going through that much marathon pain ever again!

Thursday night speedygeese results (all hand timed)
400m
W35 Rachelle Ellis-Brownlee 71.1 70.6%

3000m
M45 Rod Lynch 10:47 77.1%
M50 Roger Pilkington 12:52 65.2%
W35 Bronwyn Calver 12:59 66.9%

One Hour Run
M50 Roger Pilkington 13343
W35 Bronwyn Calver 12672
M50 Ewen Thompson 11736
W55 Ruth Baussmann 10852
W60 Margaret McSpadden 10067

1500m “Pennington”
5 Tony Booth M70 5:57 79.8%
6 Kevin Chamberlain M60 5:25 82.1%
8 Kathy Sims W55 6:00 84.3%
9 Rod Lynch M45 5:03 78.8%
12 Ken White M55 5:30 76.3%
14 Katie Forestier W40 5:29 77.2%
15 Amanda Walker W40 5:36 73.9%
17 Rachelle Ellis-Brownlee W35 6:00 66.1%

oh look, an eagle

you have to be able to run fast, too, to do this...



relaxation re-post
Regardless of running style, all running effort should be free flowing; instinctive; relaxed; emerging from within; bubbling forth; an expression of oneself; easy. It should look easy. Liquid running is the best running. Often when one runs one’s best time, the performance looks the most effortless, not full of the tension or strain a non-runner might expect to see when a runner is at their fastest.

Relaxation is one of the keys to this effortless way of running. By relaxation I do not mean a passive, inward looking, tuned-out escapist kind of running (dissociation); I mean a conscious, aware, intentional focusing of the mind on muscle relaxation (association).

In what running events is relaxation most important? Answer - all of them. From 100 meters to marathon, the ability to relax is the key to success.

Relaxation starts in the neck and throat. A truly relaxed runner makes noises as they exhale, like a tennis player hitting a ball, or like a shot putter at the moment of release. Exhalation is the exertion phase of the running rhythm. As you exhale, you surge forward, you can hear how relaxed you are by how relaxed your throat is. As you inhale, you might ease off the surge a little; your neck is still relaxed and you may make some noise but not as much as when exhaling.

Come on, no need to be self conscious. You have overcome your worry about how you look by going out and running regardless; you can overcome how you sound as well.

Breathing out forcefully as you exert maximum effort will always result in noise if the throat is relaxed, as it should be. By the way, you breathe in and out through both the nose and mouth, never “in through the nose, out through the mouth”.

Tension in the throat spreads to shoulders, arms, the whole torso. Relaxation in the throat relaxes the body and results in better movement of the body.

As you breathe out the body lowers slightly, the arms lower slightly. As you inhale there is a slight rise in body position and the arms rise slightly too. This natural rhythm of the body is compromised if the neck, arms and shoulders are tense.

A free flowing natural rhythmical running style should be your aim. What comes naturally is the best. But you and I have been trained and conditioned from a very young age to run tense: to stick out the chest; to pin the head still; to lock the elbows into a high bent position; to run mechanically and breathe shallowly. All that must change! I will come to these things in later articles. But it all starts with the throat.

When neck, arms and shoulders are as relaxed as possible, then full and vigorous driving from the arms is possible. Legs follow arms; power, drive, and relaxation all flow from the arms to the legs. What the arms dictate the legs copy. Your legs will move with free flowing and powerful rhythms of surging and coasting only if the arms set the pattern for that. And the arms will move freely in that way only if there is conscious active relaxation starting at the throat.

...more at "links", above. But I would add now, that as you get older you need regular stretching and massage so that you can loosen up enough to relax!

Mastering our sport

The Member Services SubCommittee (MSSC) encourages all club members to attend the Annual General Meeting on 19 May.
How we proceed with the proposed transition to “Masters” will be debated.
Your participation in the meeting, and your vote, will be important.

NOTICE OF MOTION
"The Committee gives notice that the following motion is on the agenda for the AGM on 19 May 2009: That, in accordance with s34 of the Club’s constitution, this general meeting amends the constitution so that “club” means the ‘ACT Masters Athletics Incorporated’, and ‘Masters’ replaces ‘Veteran’ or ‘Veterans’ where they occur."

AGM DATE: Tuesday 19 May 2009
VENUE: Southern Cross Club Wests, Catchpole Street, Macquarie
START: 7:30 pm

Club President, and member of the speedygeese, Christopher Lang

Transitioning to The Great And Better World Of Tomorrow
A few little hiccups with the new blog design? (WHICH DOESN'T MEAN THE OLD ONE WAS BETTER!) The date might sometimes not display, and when it does it only does for the first post each day, if there is more than one post for the day. And I might replace the "J" icon. And I should add useful categories to posts now that I have decided to use categories again. Adding code for an rss feed link will be done when I get around to it. Fixing the "links" section from the menu bar. Improving the appearance of the sidebar, Resetting the "archives" section to something different, looking at how I link with google reader to other blogs. And anything else I can think of or which you might suggest that I can do to make this blog better if and when I feel like it. You can see there are a few outstanding issues, but they can wait.

The Great And Better World Of Tomorrow

song of the week: "Between The Lines" - Evermore, from their brand new album, "Truth Of The World (Welcome To The Show)". For those who don't remember Evermore, think "Light Surrounding You". This album is just as good, if not better because it is big picture stuff about sorting out truth from lies. Today's title is a quote.

marketing
1. I will freshen up this template very soon. Perhaps today, testing is nearly complete, only a couple of bugs still to fix.
So once finished, welcome to the new look, I hope you like it! Red white and black, a nice change.
2. I will get some "business cards" run off professionally sometime very soon.
3. I will resume research into a speedygeese T-shirt sometime soon.
4. I will add to this list very soon! How else can the speedygeese be promoted? Should our "image" be improved? I prefer truth to lies. Usually, buuuuut, see below.

this won't be the t-shirt design:

... the t-shirt won't have Ken's photo on it. But the t-shirt might be worn by this model, we can only hope.

viva indifference

Monday's training saw Alan, Bronwyn, Cathy, Ewen, Helen, Jodie, Joel, Mick C, Miranda, Neil, Rae, Ruth, Suzie, Tim, Yelena, Yili, with me supervising, run a 20 minute relay in teams of two which included a smaller lap recovery jog where runners couldn't "hang around" or they wouldn't get back in time. A very hard session. Some uphill attrition sprints after the relay, this time Tim was again the quickest but Joel just held him out on handicap in the final sprint.

Been thinking about how we promote the group and whether to do a bit more work marketing it. But no, I dislike mis-representation, which is what most marketing does, or would do if it needed to. And I tire of biased sports reporting in our media, particularly of the type "we are the best"/"we were hard done by"/"we deserved to win" which has its us/them mentality and under-rates the efforts of the "them". So I will continue simply to hold out for public scrutiny who we are and what we do, and people can choose whatever. We're free, but!

And I will freshen up this template some day soon. And I will get some "business cards" run off professionally. Can you think of any other simple things you and I can do to "improve our image"? (Short of plastic surgery, although in my case that is probably a very good idea.) But it's not super-important to me, whatever will be will be.

On Marketing:
"An interoffice softball game was held every year between the marketing and support staff of one company. The support staff whipped the marketing department soundly.
"To show just how the marketing department earns their keep, they posted this memo on the bulletin board after the game: 'The Marketing Department is pleased to announce that for this year's softball season, we came in 2nd place, having lost but one game all year. The Support Department, however, had a rather dismal season, as they won only one game.'"

Peter

After all, we are all stars. No proof required.

distance makes the heart grow stronger

Coming up: Monday

4:30pm jog at Parliament House

5:30pm speed work at Parliament House

Tuesday

6:15pm Summer Series #8 - Stromlo FP 5k

Wednesday

an easy run?

Thursday
Revised program for this Thursday at the track:

6.00pm 3000m

6.20pm 60m

6.30pm 1000/3000m walk

6.55pm 100m

7.10pm 1500m

7.30pm 400m

7.45pm One Hour Run

Friday

a long easy run?

Saturday

a long easy run?

Sunday

9:00am ACTMA Handicap, Stromlo FP

... but speedwork is GOOOOD too!

Jodie looking forward to getting faster this winter

running for office

And winning.
Congratulations to Anna Bligh winning the Queensland state elections yesterday, she is the first woman to win an Australian state election. And she succeeded in keeping the other mob out, decisively, against some expectations. Hurrah!

Anna has been a member of the Pat Carroll Running Group (PCRG) in Brisbane for the last four or five years. So she is well known to, and has run with, Kelley and Tesso amongst other good friends.

Spiral 7

This event is unique - handicapped so that the fastest runners start last, and each person moves out one lane on each lap. The photo is a good one because it shows three runners each in their own lane, where in theory the inside runners are un-lapping the ones outside them. Makes for an exciting finish. On this occasion though, Gary on the inside was struggling a bit to keep up with Nadine, one lap ahead of him.

Crows 2009
Competition of another kind begins next weekend with the start of the AFL season.  Go the Crows! In fact, GO Nick Gill, Brad Moran, Brent Reilly, Kurt Tippett, Scott Thompson, Jonathon Griffin, Nathan van Berlo, Myke Cook, Tyson Edwards, Jarrhan Jacky, Michael Doughty, Robert Shirley, Taylor Walker, David Mackay, Brad Symes, Phil Davis, Bernie Vince, Graham Johncock, Ivan Maric, Chris Knights, Andy Otten, Andrew McLeod, Brett Burton, Ben Rutten, Richard Douglas, Scott Stevens, Aaron Kite, James Sellar, Tom Lee, Rory Sloane, Patrick Dangerfield, Jared Petrenko, Greg Gallman, Shaun McKernan, Simon Goodwin (captain), Trent Hentschel, Tony Armstrong, Will Young, Jason Porplyzia, and Nathan Bock.

It all starts with Crows v the hated Collingwood, at the MCG, on Saturday afternoon 28 March. Live on Fox Sports. I will be watching and hoping for an excellent start to the season.

Not quite there yet

Thursday night results for the speedygeese
800m
M45 Rod Lynch 2:25.58 79.2%
M50 Ken White 2:27.70 79.4?
W40 Amanda Walker 2:40.20 73.4%
W40 Katie Forestier 2:41.55 74.0%
M70 Tony Booth 2:50.46 81.3%
W55 Kathy Sims 2:53.22 80.5%

3000m
M45 Rod Lynch 10:50.76 76.7%
W40 Katie Forestier 11:58.42 75.2%
M55 Ken White 13:02.05 67.0%
W45 Helen Larmour 13:04.98 74.0%
W40 Amanda Walker 13:07.32 67.3%
W55 Kathy Sims 13:23.07 80.4%
M70 Tony Booth 13:50.08 72.4%
W55 Ruth Baussmann 15:23.68 70.9%

Spiral 7
M45 Rod Lynch 11:15
M50 Gary Bowen 12:48
W55 Ruth Baussmann 15:17

So Tony has achieved his season's goal of an 800m record, in his last 800m. The rest of us are not (quite) there yet. 

DVDs I have seen
I just watched "Mr Bean's Holiday" for the first time. Yes, it is very funny! He finally got there, his holiday destination, at the very end.

Books I am reading
I am re-reading "Good Omens" by Pratchett & Gaiman, also "A Gift From Earth" and "Neutron Star", both by Larry Niven. Armageddon? We didn't quite get there.

Also, I was dipping into "Lore of Running" (the Bible of running in the 21st century), fourth edition, by Tim Noakes, and after reading a segment on Ron Clarke, saw a reference to “Lenton”. So I checked the reference list, and sure enough, it’s our own Brian. See http://www.humankinetics.com/references/Noakes.pdf for the reference list, search on “Lenton”! There are a few references there.

One Hour Run
The rescheduled one hour run is set for this Thursday. There will still be a 3000m at the start of the program, and the one hour at the end.

4 x 1500m relay
There is likely to be a 4 x 1500m relay the following Thursday, the last night of track. Talk is it will be last event when a 3000m was scheduled, and it will be combined with a 2 x 3000m relay option instead of just a 3000m. If so, it looks like a good fun way to finish off the track season.

The start of Tony's 800m

Tony Booth, lane six, getting off to a good start. Former M70 record holder Merv Collins is in lane 7. Merv broke his own M80 record. Race winner Amanda Walker is in lane 1 and runner-up Katie is in lane 5. They both ran pbs. Kathy in lane 2 is rapidly improving and ran a fast time again.

Tony straight after his record breaking run

An elated Tony talking to Geoff and Kathy. Geoff himself is on the verge of breaking the M60 800m record, having just missed it in his most recent race.

Teamwork AND rivalry

Thursday night track
Amanda and Katie continued their teamwork/rivalry in the 800m again last night, with both W40s running pbs. We were certain Amanda had broken 2:40 but the time given her was 2:40.20, with Katie just behind that. Amanda led aggressively from the start, with a first lap of around 77 seconds or faster.

Meanwhile Tony Booth broke the ACT M70 record, held before then by Merv Collins, and Merv in the same race as Amanda, Katie and Tony, set a new M80 record.

Perfect conditions later in the evening saw Katie back up, as she does so well, and run 11:58 for the 3000m.

Amanda

Amanda will have another chance to break 2:40 in the AMA Nationals in Adelaide at Easter.

What is the secret to successful 800m running?
Here it is - very simple really - race as many 800m races as you can through the season. It is the experience of racing them that improves you more than anything else. Another tip - don't bust a gut in the first few races. Instead, work up to fast times through the season. And another - think like a sprinter, in training, in approach to racing, in stretching, in warm-up, and especially in attacking the last 200m of the race. And yet another - if you really want to do well in 800m, be prepared to specialise in that event.

And it is good to train with others who also race 800s. You invariably improve together at the same rate!

I think having those 4x800m relay records to attack has helped as well.

Finally, finally, finally; is there the aspect of being able to enjoy the pain of the 800m? It is something special, that pain. Not for the faint-hearted.

Twenty Years Ago Today

... well not today, and not twenty years either. I was playing some old Beatles songs - by no means the oldest - and noticed the date ...Strawberry Fields Forever, and Penny Lane, recorded with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1966, that's 43 years ago!

Are we there yet?
...  I will never ask that question again. We are already 43 years past the best of it!

song of the week
... which made me want to go back to some old songs for my song of the week. With "No Line on the Horizon" on repeat in my playlist, I thought an old U2 song would be appropriate. U2 have always excelled.

With Or Without You.
... and if you don't have U2's "Live in Boston" DVD, you should! The best track on the DVD is an amazing rendition of "With or Without You", my song of the week this week. What a great live version, a must see!



Twenty-two.
"With or Without You" was first recorded in 1987 on the "Joshua Tree" album, still rated amongst the best albums ever.
... but that's 22 years ago!

Summer Series #7 – Lake Ginninderra 7.1k – Tuesday 17 March
35. Thea Zimpel 32:39
52. Adam Robinson 36:28
56. Caroline Campbell W65 40:06
62. Margaret McSpadden W60 42:00
63. Geoff Moore M60 42:02
66 finishers

See How She Runs

After a huge St Patrick's day breakfast, followed by a race up Mt Ainslie at lunch time, Caroline still ran really well in the 7.1k race later on the same day. Not too bad for someone born 67 years ago!

That's me in six year's time. Time will fly and so will I. Running on Athletic Fields Forever.

Lloydy! Lloydy!

YouTube now has the video of the great 5000m race in full, with the original commentary. Not that the NZ commentator has anything to say, but Monner's "Lloydy! Lloydy!" in the background is a classic. At least three of the runners - Ngugi, Pat Carroll, and Andrew Lloyd himself, were Canberra based. Maybe Ondeiki was here at some stage too. I remember when I saw this race live I was cheering for Ngugi, that is, until the finish!

Part 1


Part 2


Vale Ian Mackenzie
ACT Cross Country Club runner Ian Mackenzie collapsed and died while on a run with the "Tuesday Group" yesterday morning. Ian was about 59 years old and has been part of the running scene, both track and distance running, for many many years.

sometimes I wonder if I should dismount

21 Corporate Things to Do With a Dead Horse: "Tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. In business, however, it seems that we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following":
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this horse."
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
9. Comparing the state of dead horses in today's environment.
10. Change the requirements declaring that "This horse is not dead."
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
13. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
15. Do a Cost Analysis Study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
16. Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
- found at http://www.runningforums.com/. But I think they in turn stole it from http://blog.peoplecomm.org/article/riding-a-death-horse

Monday training saw a few people away and busy with a variety of activities; recovering from 6 foot track, returning from the Coldplay concert, busy at the cricket, away on a holiday, or perhaps just "resting"; but we who were here participated in a really great new session; twenty minutes of relays on a new course which proved to be so good we will repeat the session, or similar, again next week. Make the most of daylight saving! Join us! You will really enjoy it!
Present were Alan, Caroline, Christopher, me, Joel, Neil, Rae, Rohan, Yelena & Yili.
After the relay we ran some attrition hill sprints: the last three standing placed 1. Joel, 2. Rohan, and 3. Christopher.

Watching runners from my office

CJ - wishing you a quick recovery from the six foot track; next run, Canberra marathon!

Entries for the Canberra Marathon close this Friday! Anyone who hasn't yet entered (and wants to, of course!) should enter now at http://www.canberramarathon.com.au/

AACT track is finished but ACTMA track is still going.

Plans: I don't really want to run fast this week, but I do want to get the target distance under my belt. Last week I only did half of what I wanted to do, Thursday's 5000m was not all that good so there was little point in easing back, and I didn't train at Stromlo due to tiredness/laziness. This week I will try for 90 - 100k and try to do every planned session. Here is my schedule:
Monday 16 March - 4:30pm easy run at Parliament House, 5:30pm normal training at Parliament House.
Tuesday 17 - easy run. There is a Summer Series race at 6:15pm at Lake Ginninderra, I may be there.
Wednesday 18 - another easy run.
Thursday 19 - I will probably run in the 5000m race at ACTMA track.
Friday 20 - gym work followed by a long run.
Saturday 21 - 9:00am 200m intervals at Stromlo.
Sunday 22 - 8:00am long run at Stromlo.

Finding form

20 Feb 800m championships - 2:50.1
14 March 800m 2:48.6
14 March 3000m ~12:39, an 8 second pb

Coming ACTMA track events:
Thursday 19 March
6:00pm spiral 7
6:30pm long hurdles
6:45pm 1500m walk
7:00pm 100m
7:15pm 800m
7:30pm 200m Daniels handicap
7:50pm 3000m/5000m
Thursday 26 March will be the rescheduled one hour run. Let's hope storms hit us again!
Thursday 2 April, the final competition night, instead of a 3000m there will be a 4x1500m relay combined with a 2x3000m relay.

More famous runners

Rachelle, Roger, Helen, Maria

six foot track results

.... the ones of interest, that is. What a run by Vanessa to be first woman!!
1 Sleep TRAIN 3:15:18
2 Andrew LEE 3:23:51
3 Alex MATTHEWS 3:24:46
4 Don WALLACE 3:27:05
5 Matthew ROBBIE 3:31:36
6 Tim COCHRANE 3:33:01
7 Anthony SCOTT 3:39:47
8 David OSMOND 3:40:06
9 Tony FATTORINI 3:41:00
10 Andrew TUCKEY 3:42:14
11 David HOSKING 3:47:11
12 Martin FRYER 3:47:35
 
22 Vanessa HAVERD 3:57:51
24 Rob WALTER 3:59:48
25 Trevor JACOBS 4:00:40
28 Jackie FAIRWEATHER 4:02:27
47 Peter JOHNSON 4:12:42
49 Fleur FLANERY 4:13:27
52 James MINTO 4:16:50
57 Andy HOGG 4:19:20
95 Andrew LLOYD 4:38:37
151 Elizabeth BENNETT 4:51:16
155 Kerrie BREMNER 4:52:27
211 Carol BAIRD 5:01:59
248 Pam MUSTON 5:08:58
250 Steven APPLEBY 5:09:39
314 Michael CORLIS 5:21:20
316 Elle KNIGHT 5:21:49
345 Roger PILKINGTON 5:25:41
424 Cathy NEWMAN 5:37:49
596 John KENNEDY 6:05:45
614 Catherine MONTALTO 6:08:04
685 Ewen THOMPSON 6:23:23
745 Nick MESHER 6:37:54
773 Diana SCHNEIDER 6:45:22
dns Maryann BUSTEED

I included Andrew Lloyd because as far as I am concerned, he is the biggest running legend of all time. It would have to be the same Andrew Lloyd; the age group is 50+ which is right. I posted about him this year on 10 January, here. The video of the 5000m race in which he excelled is below. Or at least, the last 200m of that race. Worth watching again and again. EDIT: Since typing this I have removed the video from this post because the real thing is to be published on Wednesday 18 March....i.e., the full race with the original commentary

Six foot track results via http://multisportaustralia.racetectiming.com/default.aspx.

six foot this morning

Geoff Barker has done brilliantly in previous six foot track runs but doesn't appear to have made the cut this year...

Pity - the pink shorts will be missed.

Those who are running - and it starts around 8am today - include the evergreen Trevor Jacobs who is a legend in this particular run. Others we will be watching include Vanessa Haverd, Jackie Fairweather, Elle Knight, Rob Walter, Elizabeth Bennett, Steve Appleby, John Kennedy, Pam Muston, Mick Corlis, Kerrie Bremner, Carol Baird, Mary Ann Busteed, and Martin Fryer. And of course the speedygeese who are running: Ewen Thompson, Cathy Newman, Roger Pilkington, and Cathy Montalto.

Meanwhile back in Geelong:

The start of the M60+ 8k cross country

4k into the cross country, and
The finish of the cross country (I was second)

The cross country M60 medallists
The start of the 5000m track (I led briefly)
The 5000m track medallists (I was second)

The finish of the 5000m track (lapping another runner)