New Shoes, a Decent 10km and 6hr Strategy :)

A recent bit of artwork to amuse you. I've named it 'Gecko Girl' ;) Since making it, I'm actually not too keen on geckos anymore! I wonder why? LOL. It's actually okay for general viewing, too! Thanks for all the lovely comments, everyone. I'm bearing up - just going to take time to find my sense of direction again, but it's coming!

Anyway, am feeling slightly better tonight, after a dodgy start this morning - I turned off my alarm in my sleep and woke up an hour late! Somehow I still made it to work on time though (go figure?) so it wasn't a drama. Still feeling a bit 'jetlagged' from the last week or two, but went to run club. As I got there I decided the time had come to spend some of my ill gotten gains (debt collection wages!) and buy some new shoes :) same as last time, Aasics 2100's that everyone wears (and I do LOVE them!) only this time they're orange not blue trim :)

Love that bouncy feeling you get from new shoes :) I was feeling pretty buggered so I didn't expect to have a good run at all - with one thing and another, I hadn't really run since the TT on saturday (give or take a few kms at the gym as a warm up before a weights session) but the rest obviously did me good, since I felt and ran about a MILLION times better than last weeks effort. I couldn't help but share my joy at regular points along the way. I must have just been physically exhausted the last week or two, having come back from the UK and then doing that huge 60km week. It sounds stupid but you just don't realise quite how much difference it makes until you feel better! I'm even contemplating decreasing my number of runs to three or four a week, but just increasing the distance on the long run. Which is probably what I should've been doing anyway.... that'll teach me to get someone to look at my program. Really should take it to Phil soon!

On the run, we got about half way in and then Tracey and Sam turned back (has an exam tomorrow so wanted an early night) I nearly went with them, but I felt so good that I decided to carry on. The group went a bit slower than last week I think (Phil reckons we were doing 5:30 pace for the 70 mins) which is probably why I felt less dead, too. I actually kept up with the faster people from the middle group all the way.... except for perhaps the last km or two, when they started to speed up and I had to drop back a little. Wouldn't have been more than a minute behind them though.

Faxed my entry through for Caboolture today! 'Coach' Phil reckons my ratio of run to walk should be 4:1 and to work downwards from there - see how far I get, then decrease to three laps of running and so on. He doesn't think I should walk more than one at a go, but I dunno! Strangely, I don't feel nervous at all... I felt more nervous at the 5km TT where my stomach was in my mouth for about an hour. Perhaps it hasn't sunk in yet that I'll actually be doing it. It's probably just that I don't have any expectations for it at all. I don't even care if I don't manage the whole six hours. Anything longer than three will be a bonus and I figure that once I'm past three I'm on the downhill anyway and it'll be easier to keep on going, even if I have to crawl on my hands and knees!

The lovely, lovely Cirque has offered to be my lap scorer for which I am eternally, eternally grateful.... I'm thinking I'm going to have to be cirque's cheersquad/running buddy at the MDC :) Bring on the weekend! It should be a really good night - lots of friendly faces and a chance to have some fun afterwards, too :)