Tut tut

PALINDROMES are a daft fad. Most palindromes make little sense anyway. Think I'll go onward, draw no more.

Poll - change of time.
Simple solution. We meet starting this week at 7:30am at Stromlo for our interval session on the grass. If that is too early for you and you want to join in later than that, either as a one-off or on a permanent basis, let me know and I will be happy to stay a bit longer most weeks and do a bit more myself as well. However the main training group will start warming up at 7:30am. That's good for a whole lot of reasons - it gets hot very quickly; there is no shade over the grass; finishing earlier leaves more of the day to do other things; and if it is cool some of us could do a longer warm-up and train a bit later. So yes, I am happy to start at 7:30am and wait around a bit longer if others want to join us a little later. But the advertised time will now be 7:30am.

Britney-proof your kids (by James McPherson)
"In the same month that Sir Edmund Hillary died, Britney Spears was stripped of access to her two children and ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation. Hillary was a bee-keeper who dreamed of taking human endeavor to new heights. Spears was a member of the Mickey Mouse Club who dreamed of taking her career to new heights. Hillary scaled Mt Everest and thereafter dedicated his life to helping the people of Nepal. Spears scaled the music charts and thereafter dedicated her life to LAs Viper Room and other assorted nightclubs. The passing of Hillary would have been noted, if at all, by our young people, with only passing interest. Every time Spears passes out our young people pass comment. Hillary and Spears are icons of very different times. The fact that both happened to make news in the same month affords parents of teens a unique opportunity to compare and contrast Hillary’s climb and descent with Britney’s. The two stories offer valuable lessons about the difference between heroism and celebrity; achievement and fame; community service and self-indulgence."

My world is so distant from the world of these so-called celebrities, that I do not understand why anyone in Australia would take any notice of them. But apparently we do.

Last Millenium

Some of the people I coach find it HILARIOUS when I publish old photos of me. Well here's one. Have a good laugh. Can you tell who's who? It's a trophy presentation after an ACT Cross Country Championship event - must have been a "Pennington 16k" cross country championship, they had them over that distance back then (as well as the "Menzies 12k").

T Shirt

Postcard from Paris

"Lapsed runner" Helen sends her love and is enjoying her two month holiday....
La Tour Eiffel vue depuis Notre-Dame

One thing builds on another
2006 was my year of more consistent longer running weeks. And massages.
2007 was my year of the tempo runs, and of the three steps per second experiment.
2008 I plan to be my year of adding single very long runs to my routine. And regular stretching sessions and classes.
And in 2009 I might resume supplementary morning jogs as well as harder afternoon training. But you can see that, although I believe in twice a day training, I also believe it takes years to build up to it. So I am not starting it yet.

Poll
Tomorrow I will declare the poll result. In other words I will make an announcement about starting time on Saturdays.

Member Services Sub-Committee
One of my hats for the last few years is chair of the ACTVAC Member Services sub-committee. We meet monthly; we met last night. Our main focus for 2008 will be to recruit and retain younger Vets.... i.e. attract people in the 30-40 year range to join our cub and participate in its activities. Why? Because as good and as popular as our club is, we are noticing that the average membership is AGEING and not that many new members are in the younger age groups.

As a start, some of the strategies floated at our meeting were
... younger athletes featured in Vetrunner photos, especially on the front page.
... younger athletes featured on the website, again especially on the welcome page.
... current ("breaking") news updated regularly on the front page of the website
... more use of website communication, e.g. more external links to interesting relevant sites
... use of the word "Masters" to describe us, whether or not our name stays at "Vets"
... word-of-mouth promotion in government departments: identification of key younger people who can recruit others
... a presence in R4YL magazine, which is the premier grass-roots running magazine in Australia
... a free (or $1 admission) Vets Come-and-try-it day, NOT a normal competition day, where all the coaches across all disciplines are present and guide athletes through sample training sessions.

Rachelle E-B has joined our sub-committee and one or two more representatives of the younger set would be of help in our strategising.

Feedback requested
If you have any comments or any additional suggestions about how we market ourselves to younger people, please feed them through to the sub-committee any time. We are... Don, Ruth, Phill, Roger, Rachelle, Peter H and I.

We also believe that once people join the ACTVAC, the services we already offer are second to none. Still, any suggestions as to how we might change what we do so as to cater for younger people would also be welcome.

Please, please join the discussion, wherever you are, however little you might THINK you have to contribute. At stake is the future of our movement.

"Be no drone, nor Don, E-B."

"Gazelle, zag!" "Evil Tim must at summit live!"

The stretches I do #2. Rotation with hip and knee pinned.
1. Start lying on the side – hold knees down or if more flexible hold top knee down on the floor.
2. Reach other arm back behind you and aim to touch the shoulder on the floor.
3. Take a deep breath and relax then return to the start position.
Repeat until back loosens and hold the final position while taking very deep breaths for a minimum of 15 seconds.

Monday night training.
A cooler night meant we ran "zigzag relays" in teams of two. Present were Alan, Amanda, Bronwyn, Bruce (visitor), Christine 1 & 2, Christopher, Emma, Ewen, Gary, Geoff B, Geoff M, Jodie, Joel, Kathy, Katie, Ken, Mick C, Mick H, Neil, Ruth & Tim. Tim was awesomely fast! ("Smitten or in awe, I view an iron ET: Tim's.") OK, this palindrome doesn't make much sense, but Tim has competed in iron men races...

Vets program this Thursday 17th
6.00 pm 1200/2000m walk
6.20 pm 100m Boag
6.35 pm 3000m Pennington
7.00 pm 1500m
7.30 pm 400m
8.00 pm 4x200m relay
8.10 pm Spiral 5

My Track Plan A: Warmup for the 3k then wimp out and run the 1500 instead. Note - I resolve not to over-race this year! One track race is enough for a Thursday. Good news though, Thursday at this stage is forecast to be cool.

And now I am off to do an hour of stretching. It all helps I hope!

Entries being taken for AMA Nationals in Blacktown

Monday Monitor
My training progress
last week’s target: 70k
achieved: 81k
year 2008 total to date: 165k in 2 weeks
this week’s target: 80k
weight: 66kg ►◄
song of the week : You Are My Strength - from "Saviour King" by Hillsong.

AMA Nationals Easter 2008
I am in! I found the AMA nationals entry form at http://www.nswmastersathletics.org.au/, and I found the recommended accommodation at http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/hi/160/en/hd/sydrh. Done!

The entry system is quite good: and on the website you can see a list of competitors. The list is in real-time: my name was there the moment I had registered.

The accommodation is not expensive for Sydney, and I have stayed at that hotel before so I know it is fine. Given the Sydney traffic it is a very big advantage to be staying close to the track. Particularly if you don't want to stay at the track all day every day. As I won't, and I know for sure that Jenny won't!

"Retro Perth Girl Alright" - reporter.
Aki's time in Thursday's 10k was 48:45.22.

It's getting better all the time

My running is getting better - a comfortable 14k run this morning with Colin, at right on 5 minute ks, proves it. 70 minutes total. "Did I? I did."

Speedygeese results from Thursday night track:
60 metres
M45 Rod Lynch 9.38 75.9%

200 metres
M55 Geoff Sims 27.77 85.8%
W35 Emma Adams 31.55 69.8

3000m
M45 Rod Lynch 10:54.18 75.7%
M45 Roger Pilkington 12:22.38 67.2 "Go Rog!"
M50 Ken White 11:32.30 75.1
M55 Geoff Moore 11:49.04 76.5
W35 Emma Adams 11:56.19 72.2
W40 Katie Forestier 12:04.87 73.7
W55 Kathy Sims 13:25.09 79.1

10000m
M45 Mick Horan 42:32.65 69.6%
M45 Roger Pilkington 46:19.82 64.5
M50 Ewen Thompson 45:51.74 65.6
W35 Bronwyn Calver 49:48.14 61.7
W40 Amanda Walker 47:26.59 65.5
W50 Kathy Southgate 39:51.13 87.0

Apparently no results from the 800m, so I can report that Emma ran a "blinder", but I do not know the time.

There are also no sign of last Sunday's jogalong results yet.

Computer Problem
My computer crashes (goes blank and freezes) every time I try to run a movie file, any file, on any movie player. I suspect I have a crook Codec, which I don't know a lot about so I don't know where to find them and if I do I don't know whether I can safely remove some, or if I am going to be able to remove some at all. And I have tried a system restore but get a message "unable to restore". And I have tried searching for help, in user forums and elsewhere, with no success. And I have tried uninstalling recently installed programs but the problem remains. "Help"?

Spin, Ruth? Turnips!

According to the poll just completed, new year resolutions don't drive anyone's running. We are already driven enough as it is! I have already replaced the result with a new poll about when we should meet for training Saturdays at Stromlo.

We ran at Stromlo again this morning. Spin King Mick H was there, along with Ruth back from injury, Ewen, and Amanda. And me feeling good still. My average km time of 3:41 was a new Stromlo pb.

Fly tweetybird fly!

The last game in the submachine series - Submachine: Future Loop foundation

It is not long since I published some very good stretches. This time round I will publish ones I actually do.
Stretch 1. Floor lying rotations with leg extensions.
Start by lying on the floor on your back, shoulders on the floor and arms relaxed out to the side. Bring knees in to chest and slowly roll to side until bottom leg touches floor. Extend top leg until straight and push out through the heel. Only hold the leg extension for a couple of seconds. Repeat several times. Try to keep the shoulders on the floor throughout.

And the 2008 nationals timetable.
The AMA championship program -to be run at Blacktown - is as follows.
Fri 21 March: 60, 800, 10000, Sprint Hurdles, Long Jump, Pole Vault, Shot Put, Javelin
Sat 22 March: 100, 1500, Long Hurdles, Steeples, 5k walk, High Jump, Discus, Hammer, 200 heats
Sun 23 March: 5000, 200 finals, 4 x 100 relay, Triple Jump, Weight Pentathlon, 100m handicap, 400 heats
Mon 24 March: 10k and 20k walks, 8k CC, 400 finals, Pentathlon, Weight Throw, 4 x 400, Throws handicap

The new Garmin 405 doesn't look like a big improvement on the 305. In fact it has fewer features. I won't be replacing my 305.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUCyjfyVigU

No sin, oh Tara, my marathon is ON!

33.9 degrees for 3000m race

Now I won!
Actually it was Amanda who won silver in the ACT 10k championships, second to Kathy Southgate.


And Amanda is 40. Here she is with Gary and other strange people.

Now Derek can kiss ass. I, knackered, won.
Earlier a large field battled extreme conditions - it was officially 33.9 degrees at 6pm when the race started - in the 3000m. (Who is this Derek?) And I won according to my own secret rule: no one older than me was in front of me. Although Graham Bourke (M60) was breathing down my neck at the end. I ran splits of about 3:45, 4:00, 4:00, I couldn't be bothered pushing the last couple of laps this time, it was too darn hot. I had a huge drink just before the race but it didn't help, my mouth was very dry in the first lap. At least this time I ran 90 second laps for the first three not just the first two. And I felt OK leg-wise.

No, we won.

Consistency

“If I had to pick one factor that separates good competitive runners from everyone else, it would be consistency in training." Hence my attempt to plan each week and be accountable to the plan (see Mondays!). In the old days I used to write my weekly plan on a sheet of paper and tape it to the lounge room wall, ticking off each session as I completed it. Nowadays I use a whiteboard in my study, though it becomes tempting to use an eraser to change what's on the whiteboard. Then the focus was purely on conditioning; now there is a focus on form, but conditioning is no less important. Then my paper diary was the permanent record, now all gets on public display in this blog (and is easier to locate years later!). Thinks - I could create some pre-dated posts (they wouldn't get displayed on the front page here) with archival training information taken from the old diaries.... to make sure the records are not lost.

My diaries start in 1962 (from the day in mid-March when I took up running)... Yes, why not? I should post more old photos too. If nothing else, they are good for a laugh. I could do that once my obsession with palindromes and animated gif files is past.

Lad, a smile. Mel, I'm sad. Al, ...

Too Long On The Ground

Ululate – ergo, greet a Lulu!
Friend Lulu has been advised she spends too much time on the ground. That puts me in mind of a new focus – get those feet barely touching the ground! Running on the toes (midfoot actually) and not the heels, with a very quick step, is important. We need ground-o-phobia – we are trying to fly not to plod. The quickest possible touch down and departure is what we are after. OK, the muscles around the ankle and calf need training to do that, but a quick tempo and short stride should help.

Madam, I’m Adam.
Adam Robinson ran Honolulu in 5:14ish - a sore achilles meant a lot of walking after 25k. He now has a suspected stress fracture of the shin, so won't be running for a while.

Thursday track program.
5:45pm 3000m run (GM) and walks
6:15pm Long Hurdles 200m/300m/400m
6:25pm 60m
7:00pm 800m- handicap
7:30pm 200m
8:00pm 10000m ACT Championship
8:20pm Relay 4 x 100m

Any of the Vets can run in the 10000m, opting to pay and enter the ACT open championships as well if they wish. I recommend at least the women runners enter, as the chance of getting a medal in what will be a small field will be high! But our Vets 10k championship will be later in the season.

God - to hobo - hot dog!

Barker runs marathon
Geoff Barker ran 4:18:24 in the Cadbury Marathon. Go dog! (Well, the palindrome of "Barker" would be "Rekrab"!). There is no truth in the rumour that Geoff went to the Cadbury glass-and-a-half marathon expecting it to be 21k, and discovered it was a full marathon too late to pull out.

Report on Monday night training: the first Parliament House session of 2008 saw twenty runners: Alan, Annette, Bronwyn, Carolyne, Cathy, no less than two new Christines, Colin, Ewen, Gary, me, Jodie, Joel, Katie, Kelley, Ken, two Micks, Neil and Yelena run two sets of six 190m sprints with 70m recovery. It was hot but we ran in the shade. There will be more short interval training next week again with short recovery.

Other than this anaerobic work, we are still trying to focus on fast tempo running, and on racing at even pace, i.e. starting at what feels slow, and building up the effort lap by lap to maintain consistent times. When (if!) we get the hang of this, we will switch to ATTACK! mode and see if we can learn surging!

Everyone starts too fast! It's hard to start slowly when no-one else does. But we need to start "slowly" and kill the others off in our races by surging past them, confident that their fast starts mean they will be easier to gobble up.

Oozy zoo

Monday Monitor
My training progress
last week’s target: 80k
achieved: 100k
year 2008 total to date: 84k in 1 week (6 days)
this week’s target: 70k
weight: 66kg ►◄
song of the week: Blackbird – The Beatles

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise, oh
You were only waiting for this moment to arise, oh
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

With a very hot week forecast, moderate distances are called for, hence the modest 70k target.


This morning we are off to the Canberra zoo with the Moore boys.

See you at Parliament House this afternoon, 4:30pm for a jog, 5:30pm for some intervals.

Plan no damn Madonna LP

Thursday's Track times
400 metres
M45 Mick Horan 59.70 81.8%
M45 Colin Farlow 62.46 77.1
M55 Geoff Sims 63.08 83.3

1500 metres
M45 Colin Farlow 4:56.22 78.4%
M45 Mick Horan 4:59.02 79.1
M45 Rod Lynch 5:09.05 76.6
M45 Roger Pilkington 5:30.71 72.2
M50 Gary Bowen 5:33.81 72.2
M50 Ewen Thompson 6:06.10 65.8
M60 Kevin Chamberlain 5:38.79 78.1
W40 Katie Forestier 5:34.70 75.0

1500m Steeplechase
M45 Roger Pilkington 6:16.57
M50 Gary Bowen 6:20.34

3000 metres run
M45 Rod Lynch 11:01.55 74.8%
M55 Geoff Moore 11:39.84 77.5

4 lap spiral
5 Colin Farlow M45 5:57
6 Ken White M50 6:28
8 Kathy Sims W55 7:09
9 Roger Pilkington M45 6:10
11 Katie Forestier W40 6:28
14 Neil Boden M55 7:03
15 Ewen Thompson M50 9:48
17 Geoff Barker M60 8:03
21 Gary Bowen M50 7:11

Moores Use Room

The Moore grandchildren are finally here from Brisbane - playing in our lounge room. They only have a few days before they have to return home. Meanwhile Liana's fifth birthday party out at Queanbeyan is today as well. What presents will she get - Liana, a nail! Hopefully not. Ran a good session at Stromlo this morning averaging 3:50 per km, pleasing when feeling sluggish after Thursday's race. ACTVAC track results from Thursday haven't appeared yet, let's hope they do soon as the age percentages for the 1500m and 3000m will be interesting, and are needed for the 3000m as it is a "Moore series" event. No more time to blog, it's a busy day!

Never odd or even

Last night at track no real stars in the 1500m, it was good to see Kevin returning to the track after injury, he ran a slow 5:36 but started slowly and ran each lap faster than the previous one, finishing at 5 minute pace. A good test of his recovery from injury.

In the 3000m I experimented by wearing my Nike Frees for the first time on the track. They felt really weird; the track surface seemed super soft as if I were running on feathers. My time was another season's best by 11 seconds (11:39) but the splits were strange: 3:47, 4:01. 3:51. Either I switched off in the second km, or my long Tuesday run caused some muscle fatigue, or the Frees affected my pace judgement. Whatever, I will be wearing Frees on the track from now on. It is great to run with no foot discomfort or niggles, even if they lull me into slowing down a bit until I get used to them.

Latest game Submachine 4 - another excellent game in an excellent series.

E.T. saw a sign in Rome: "morning is a waste."

Never a foot too far, even.

O, got to go!

Animated gif files in blogger

Blogger’s standard picture loading process de-animates animated gif files. This has annoyed me for a long time, ever since it stopped working when blogger changed the way they do things. But now I have found there is an easy way to keep the animation.
1. Open Google Documents.
2. Use the "Upload" and "Photos" options with an animated gif file.
3. Use the "Publish" option to save it to the web.
4. Use the "Publish to Blog" option to write it to your blog.
That’s all there is to it!

Son of Fargo
I didn't run yesterday - it was a scheduled day off - but instead went and saw Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men". A brilliant movie in many respects, with a very unusual ending at the height of suspense, possibly stopping then because only a couple of the established characters were still alive to keep the film going. Fantastic scenery, great acting, grippingly scary atmosphere. And that's my gruesomely-despatched movie-body-count quota filled for another year.

[Footnote - In February, gained four Academy Awards including best picture. Best supporting actor fully deserved!]

Here and There

Thought for the day - if a tempo run is a faster-than-usual training run, and if you usually do tempo runs, are they still tempo runs?

Don't nod
Tomorrow (Thursday) track program.
From Alice-
"JOINT TRACK & FIELD MEETING THIS THURSDAY 3RD AT 5.45PM
A couple of points that are different this week (and on the 10th also)
NOTE earlier start time.
• We MAY need to wear our club numbers to assist in recording. If you still have the ones from last year please bring them, otherwise we can write you out some more at the gate.
• All our members enter by the lower gate as normal and pay our normal fee (you may need to rejoin if you haven't already - memberships are overdue). You then need to go to the Commonwealth Room (the one where our photo finish people work), entering by the back door please and register for the events you plan to enter, For track you need to register for hurdles and steeples and for field events also, 15 minutes before the event.
• Our volunteers are also required to sign on to the sign-on sheets also in the Commonwealth room, the assigned job is on the sign-on sheet. Volunteers for Thursday are Terry Munro, Maria O'Reilly, Brad Osborn, Bob Parker, Shisei Oya, John Parker, Marlene Reid and Col Robbie (and anyone else who would like to help out on a meet that was so popular last year.)
• Check the program details on the website this week please - I will have copies at the gate for each of you. "

Also note that while Vetrunner says that the 5:45pm event is a walk, the website says it's a combined walk/run, and a "GM 3000m" at that. The email from Alice doesn't detail the program. Possibly because it is under AACT control and could change at the last minute. Here is the track component of the program, from the ACTVAC website:
5:45pm 1500m / 2000m/ 3000m Walk, 3000m Run (GM)
6:00pm Sprint Hurdles
6:20pm 1500m
7:00pm 100 metres- handicap (D)
7:30pm Relay 4 x 100m and 2 x 200m
7:45pm 400 metres
8:10pm 4 Lap Spiral (A)
8:25pm/8:35pm 1500m/2km/3km Low Steeplechase, 2k/3k Steeplechase High Steeplechase. Order of events to be announced by 7:30pm.

So as previously flagged, my plan A is to race the 3000m and then watch/time/assist/possibly pace the 1500m runners. If it is too hot or if the 3000m looks like being a "non-event" I will do the 1500m instead.

Do nod

Go jog

Go lay Barb's bra by a log

Now and Then

Now

Surrounded by good looking women. Or rather, on this occasion, the lucky guy is not I but Dave. Photo by Ruth's camera. At our Christmas function; note the Banana Leaf. s.

Then

Back when we could run a bit. At that time (or later?), ACT Vets Secretary (speedymoi) and President (Bryan). Note that Bryan was an M45. Must have been nigh on twenty years ago. There IS no finish line! It was a 10k; note the Nike spikes. I still have them somewhere.

Declaration of Intent
Established when I ran 29k this morning. Back to the (occasional) long run. I hope.

[Edit]
Sorry, I forgot to include a palindrome. After that dinner photo above, let's say, "Evade no one, Dave".