Prelude When it rains it can pour. Maybe it’s luck, maybe it’s all the hard yards during the summer that are now paying off, maybe it’s my self developed training regime. Managed to accomplish two major goals in recent weeks, namely a sub 50 minute City to Surf and a sub 75 minute half marathon at Blackmores, the latter being somewhat of a surprise on that course. In between these, I managed to bag a 5km PB of 16:37 at…
I didn’t think I would want to ever write a race report, but being asked and still feeling good about the race outcome it’s a now or never situation for me! 2019 has been an interesting season for me, and one that brought many positive surprises after a write off in 2018 following pelvic surgery and being told I should give up running and may never run again even if the surgery was done. But gave it a go regardless,…
Debut marathon at 42 over 42 It’s been a long road to completing my first marathon, while I’ve been a runner for many years the marathon has eluded me for many years. People would aways ask why I hadn’t done a marathon if I was a runner and while I could have made the distance it was about achieving a respectable time. Also I had many life events that had gotten in the way of me achieving this goal. Back…
Sydney Half Marathon – sweet 72 after a 14 year wait ! After Comrades back in June the Sydney Half was my next planned ‘A’ race, I figured the 10 week gap was enough to recover and then sharpen up again. I first broke 74 mins for a half in 2004 and ever since have been trying to break 73 mins. I came agonisingly close in 2005 and 2006 running 73:05 and 73:05 in Milton Keynes and Reading before…
Another cracking day and very pleased with a new PB, if only by a few seconds. Once again in early 2019 when I planned out my priority races for the year, City2Surf wasn’t high on the list. With Comrades in June I wasn’t expecting to have the speed to nail a good C2S. However, as with previous years I couldn’t help but enter and be part of one of the best social run days of the year. City2Surf is slowly…
As the first morning rays creep over the looming bulk of the infamous Kings Cross Coke sign, the nerves immediately begin to tingle. It suddenly starts to feel real. History dictates that it simply will not rain on us. Nor should it. Because we are assembling at the start of Australia’s most iconic running event – The City to Surf. On a global scale, this event is well known. In running circles perhaps it’s up there with how the Melbourne…
Selection for NSW team: After Sydney 10 in May, Jack Maxwell (he gets mentioned a lot in these reports) had the bright idea of submitting our names for the NSW team for the Australian Half Marathon champs to be held on the Sunshine Coast in August. I thought there was no harm in putting my name in for consideration but expected that I would be lucky to make the team of 6. I then forgot about it until I received…
The lead up This GC campaign was almost two years in the making. Last year was a stinker for me with my appendix bursting on a flight home from Washington just pre the race, some heart issues during the operation and then breaking my ribs later in the year! When I kicked off with CT in Feb at 90kgs I he was going to charges me an excess weight premium!! My first long runs were 12 slow ks, in the…
t was an inauspicious start to the day, groggily opening my eyes at 4.30am<x-apple-data-detectors://0> to see Birchy’s hairy back on the twin bed next to mine. But I was determined that things were going to improve from here. Jumped out of bed to see Barts and Jeet starting the pre-race routine. For Jeet this involves intense concentration and ignoring everyone around him. For Barts it involves bagging everyone out and generally being a pain in the ass. We were all…
From Saturday 1st of June to Saturday 8th of June my daily Strava activities were fairly boring red lines. They went from bottom to top with very little turning. Over 8 consecutive days I got to ride a mountain bike through northern Queensland with an awesome bunch of new people, for a good cause. What was I doing and why was I doing it, I hear you ask? I was riding for mental health. I was part of a charity…