The first steps

to recovery have finally been made (I hope). I decided that I must try and start to run again before we head to South Africa so that I can ensure that I actually still can run :) Was running with Aisha on Saturday and Sunday just easy round the back of the golf course, but it was a real struggle....

I hope that the next few days will bring an improvement :) but tomorrow will be a rest day. However, for my boys, the next few weeks will be hard and long - I wish them well as I head off for a well earned and very relaxing 4 weeks in South Africa...

Anyway, have a good week all,
Richard.

My Venice Weekend...

... was excellent. We had a great time and the race was very good for me.

As this is really the only race that I've actually concentrated on since the summer, I thought that I would write a few short comments here. Venice is definitely one of my favourite races, and I seem to be back year after year to give it a bash. I think, however, that we might give 2008 a skip this time as with two kids, one of them still very small, I'm not sure if we could manage it.

The race itself was good. I knew that my training would last for maybe 30 minutes of hardish running, and then I would be just trying to keep a good, stable walk-jog to the finish. I think that this type of racing has always been my favourite and I always look for a good result at Venice, so I did not want to disappoint again.

Many years ago (1997) when I first went to Venice I was given various "top" tips from runners who had run this race many times before. Since then I have developed my own strategies, which seem to work very well here, but one thing I never seem to be able to solve is the tourist problem. And this year was not different - so many people - so crowded - it was like ... well ... Salzburg at Christmas!

I had a mid morning start, so I knew there would be tourists, and I planned that in, and got off the main street as soon as possible on the way to 1. I was lucky, I had optimal route choices (no errors at all - even route choice) until 9 - 10, where I bumped intro a young Swiss guy and lost concentration for a second, and took the slightly longer route, so lost maybe 10 s here. Every thing continued going well, except my knees started to hurt, and my ankle was not feeling so good.

Approaching 16 I made a 3 / 4 s error, and leaving 16 I miss read the map, didn't see a bridge and ran round a block of buildings on the left, instead of the right. I guess it cost me 15 s. The last small mistake was the exit from 20, where I went north instead of south and this cost me maybe 10 s. So all in all a good, error free run. After about 14 / 15 my running abilities got less and less and I wasn't able to push anymore.

When I finished I was in 2nd place, and eventually finished in 12th place, which is great for the condition I'm in. The winning time was 65 minutes and I was less than 10 minutes behind. I made a total of 60 s mistakes, which I think is great, and pushed as hard as possible most of the way. There was no stopping and no uncertainty - a good race for me.

I ended up with a KM pace of about 5:35 min / km which is almost 40 seconds down on my KM pace from last year, and a full 2 min (and more) down on my best KM pace (when I was still running Elite), just showing how unfit I truly am at the moment. I'll be back - the question is when!

Maybe I'll see some of you in the next years in Venice! Here you can find the website!

Keep well,
Richard.

Quick Update.....

Well, I had the operation last week, and unfortunately it did not go as well as the first one. The "anti pain" injections started to wear off after an hour, and so the last 20 minutes I could feel almost everything. And then the stitching.....aaararrrrgggggg!

Anyway, he had to give me another injection before I went home so at least the pain went away again and then lots of pain killers (3 a day for a week) have kept it mostly away. Unfortunately it appears that the infection has spread back into the left side of the jaw again, and so it's a good chance that I'll need a third operation pretty soon. Additionally, after the first operation I was pain free in a little less than 2 days, but after this one, 1 week later, the pain is still very present - this is not good! Another hospital visit on Friday.

And to top it all, I've picked up a cold (it's going around at the moment) so I'm feeling quite miserable at the moment. Anyway, I should be able to run by the weekend, albeit very slowly, and I'm chomping at the bit to get started again.....

Thanks to all you who sent good wishes and SMS's - it was really kind of you!
Later guys,
Richard.

P.S. In the future I think I'll post these sorts of post to our family blog :) Most of you know where it is!

it's been so long

Yup, really it has, since I last posted something here. The lack of news has also mirrored my lack of training over summer, and this entire year has been a complete write off. However, I'm hoping that after next week, things will start to improve.

You might ask what happened, well let me summarise:
1) After a good winter, the performance was not what I expected!
2) Lots of tests (blood / physical / mental) didn't really help.
3) Doctor then discovered problem with teeth, Dentist said operate
4) It appears that my 4 false teeth were very badly handled when they were capped, and they have formed large infections within the bone in my upper jaw.
5) The first operation, that took 2 hours, was only able to remove the infection from the left side of the jaw, after which I needed to recover, and get the second side done.
6) That is happening on Tuesday.

This has meant that my summer has been one of NO training - why should it? No amount of training can help me here. So I basically stopped training, just occasionally running, and here and there the odd race.

It could also explain the reason why I get so very sick, when I get sick. A normal cold or fever can hang around for 4 to 6 weeks with me, infecting my sinuses, chest and throat. I hope that this will now be a thing of the past, and that I will feel generally better as well.

So there you have it! I'm confident that I will be able to start winter training in 1 or 2 weeks and am looking forward to a great winter. We already have a lot of snow (more snow this year so far than the entire of last winter) and I even managed a small jog with Frank yesterday.

Watch this space and keep coming back for more,
Richard.

A truely great session

On Tuesday we had a really nice training session at the track by the Salzsachseen. The weather, as it has been, was fantastic and perfect for running and the group was really big. Warti, Frank, Markus, Robi, Norbert, Luki, Mani, Andi and me - 9 in total - split into 2 main groups. The fast ones consisting of Warti, Frank, Robi and Markus and the slow ones (the rest) and really only a "matter of opinion".

The session was 8 x 1000m with 2 minute breaks and boy did it go well. As Warti and his group sprinted into the distance, my group spearheaded by Andi and Norbert set about running about 3:45 min KM's and we were able to stick to our guns, running the first two in 3:48 and 3:47. At this stage Mani and Luki had a longer rest and Andi, Norbert and I pushed the pace to under 3:45 and ran the next KM in 3:43. Man it was going well. Norbert was looking like he was starting to feel it, but I was still going strong.

Mani and Luki joined us again and the pace was definitely increasing, with Mani taking the lead with Andi and running these two KM's in 3:41 and 3:38. At this stage Norbert was fading and Andi was looking a bit jaded. For 2 of the last 3 Markus joined us as well - the fast boys had spit him out the backend. The 6th KM looked like it was going to be a lonely one for me, but at the last second Norbert, Markus and Andi decided to run with and we were able to push out a 3:36, this time though Norbert fell a bit behind and this turned out to be his last km, and Markus was leading by a good 10 seconds.

I was looking good for two more and the boys (Mani and Luki) would be joining us. Andi decided not to run this one and so it was left to Markus to push the pace, and push it he did. Mani was able to keep up as well and we finished off with an excellent 3:32 km. But the pace was telling though - Richi was still feeling strong - the boys were fading, the men were standing *grin*! The last one was just down to Mani, Andi and myself, and right from the word go we were pushing hard. Andi took the first lap, but then I went past and started to accelerate. Christian joined me for the last 300m (thanks) and I was able to churn out a 3min 21 km - my best KM this year. Mani took a bit of strain but was still able to run very quickly. Andi just broke the 3:30 min barrier.

Truaely a great session, and immensely enjoyed by all - I hope we have more of these over the summer!

The one with the Sprinting...

On Monday afternoon, we had a sprint practice and I really can't say anything more about this training. As a trainer I went into the map area to observe and make points on our elite runners. I found a really good spot where I could see controls 5, 18 and 19 and was able to identify a few basic sprint mistakes, and I'll just write them down here

In a sprint always go the shortest way, ie a STRAIGHT line. It's amazing how many people forget this rule. Always know before you get to a control the direction in which you will run away from the control, stopping to examine this point only wastes time. Always check your control number and control description - in a sprint it's a small area with many controls - so the area for mispunching is huge.

I had a nice run after everybody had left, however as I had already seen 4 or 5 controls it wasn't really fair. Additionally the sprint was REALLY easy so no thinking involved. The only problem was between control 5 and 8, because the control setter had already removed the controls 6 and 7 and so I had to chase her about 150 m in order to get to them, so additional distance, but I didn't actually go to the place where nr. 7 should have been.

Made up some good time at 20 by jumping over the wall - very few people did that, mostly they just ran round. 9 min 45 for 2.6 km was really OK I thought, at about 3:35 pace. I enjoyed it!

The one with the route choice...

Well, back to Hungary and it's challenging tasks set for me. Monday dawned earlier and brighter than normal, as it was a working day for the masses in Eger and as our room had windows onto the road (I need to sleep with the windows open) we were rudely awoken by the sounds of traffic driving into Eger for work and school!

The training was again to be route choice and this time there were actually one or two routes choices. It was my plan to try one or two things out and my first goal was to get round with as little climb as possible - which worked to a degree, but the route choices were not always so good. And my second was to test out the thickets (as they were sending us through some).

S-1: Naja, climb to the first control :)
1-2: also good
2-3: dodging the thickets was OK
3-4: the long left (but flat) route - going straight would have been faster, but far more strenuous
4-5: Test of thicket (dark green) - took me 2 and a half minutes to do that 250m (downhill). An extremely interesting exercise as the green between 5 and 6 was completely the opposite - no problem to get through at all.
5-6: Did some extra climb, this route was substantially faster than the right or the left one, even though I was running through thicket.
6-7: No problem
7-8: Running on the steep hang was not possible, so I walked over on the contour. Map was not so good here either. Dropped a few meters and had to climb at the end.
8-9: My do or die NO Climb goal can to a standstill here. My idea to run over on the height had to be adjusted halfway thru the leg. However the approach to the control was good, and certainly better than going direct.
9-10: Here I made some silly mistakes. Lack of compass bearing to road cost me time as I thought I was on the main track, but it turned out to be only a side one. Then the map came into play. At mistake x6 the map was substantially inaccurate as although I took the right path, it was incorrectly drawn on the map. Bummer, this cost me 5 minutes, as I couldn't get through the private property. I can't blame it entirely on the map of course and if I had checked first before charging down the path, I would have noticed that the road had an additional bend on it not drawn on the map - this would have saved me much time, but there you go. As Thomas said to me afterwards, that's the way they do it in Hungary, so all in all a good lesson.
10-11: good
11-12: very good
12-13: Tried to stay on the height and climb at the end, but I should have climbed at x7 - this would have saved me heaps of time.
13-14: just a slog
14-F: jogging on the paths back to the car.

Ended up running 12,6 km with 630 climb in 116 minutes. The interesting part was that I only managed 140 climb until halfway through 8-9! Kerschi ended up with over 850 m I believe.

Lessons learned: Learn to ensure that you are where you think you are on the map (double checking). In Hungary there is going to be climb, even running to save climb I ended up with over 600 m so train those hills. Thickets are very differently mapped, so if it's really dark green, go around - not through!

The short long Austrian Champs

So before I carry on with the analysis of Hungary, here is the newest up-to-date OL story from the house of the Eurogathers :)

On this weekend the Austrian Marathon OL Championships were held in Furstenfeld, and for the elite it was quite the mouth full, but I felt that for the H35 it was possibly just a little short (and also there was almost no climb). We were running on a 1:15000 map, a total of 15.4 km with 235 m climb and 15 controls. I was hoping for quite a good showing and for the most part it started well.

Looking at the start list I knew that a top 4 would be out of the question, and so my aim was to finish 5th, as close to the other 4 as possible. So with that in mind here is the control by control analysis:

s-1: good controlled start, was able to plan 7 - 8 (not really much of a route choice *smile*)
1-2: Staying on the roads, but I could have used the forest more - came round the bush the wrong way...
2-3: Small correction of route choice (xA) when I saw that thicket in front of me. In the thicket by the control I ran to what I thought was the clearing with a control, but it turned out to be a clearing (not on the map) with a plastic bag. Small correction and straight to the next clearing (on the map) where I had the control. I can't really even call this a mistake, although it cost me 1
minute.
3-4: Great
4-5: almost perfect
5-6: Again good
6-7: Route choice - should have just gone to the road!
7-8: I think my route choice was quite good. At mistake "xC" I should have just stayed on the road rather than cut off the corner. The other mistake "x2" was purely compass related - I didn't check the direction - but quickly corrected, and not really much time lost. I stopped to drink at the water, and this is where my problem occurred. As I left the drink control and jumped over the ditch towards 8, I must have landed funny on my feet and I ripped the skin of my foot (sole) from the actual bottom of my foot (this is not like a blister - there was no rubbing or blister water). It has happened to me before, but this was really very painful. So I have a 3 by 3 patch of skin over a largish 3 by 3 wound. I'm not really sure how to explain it, other to say that it hurts like hell. From here on until the finish I was really hampered.
8-9: Concentration (due to pain) was not high, and I misread a path / road junction and then ended up making my only "real" mistake of the race. This mistake cost me 4 minutes.
9-10: Felled area, was murder to run over and I almost gave it up here. Didn't see the control as I ran past and had to come back for it. Lost about 1 minute.
10-11: Limped but OK
11-12: was ok, getting over the gully to the west was hard. Couldn't see the same dam and so overran it slightly, came back for it.
12-13: Again, very painful to get past the small lake on the NW side. Otherwise no problem.
13-F: Limped jogged - no mistakes

I was really disappointed afterwards. I ended up running the last 5 or 6 controls with a heart rate under 160, so obviously I could have gone substantially faster. Still although I got my 5th place, I should have been 4th (as Much didn't actually start) so I missed my goal. On reflection, the mistake at 9 (and it was a mistake) cost me that so I can't be too disappointed. And that was the long. Christine was third in her race and so she was very happy.

The foot will heal quick (it always does) and I will even be able to run today (in normal running shoes) if it's not too bad this afternoon. More about Hungary to follow in the next days...

Check out the results here!

The one with Bindi...

After a relaxing midday, it was back up onto the mountain for our second training of the day. For those of us with enough stamina it would be a 9 km run, similar to the run in the morning, but with a specific training in mind - route choice. I was forced to use my trail runners, as blisters on both feet prevented me from using my OL shoes. On reflection the main reason for these blisters was running in the hang, and so I will need to work on this in the future.

To be perfectly honest, here the organisers let us down badly, as for many of the controls there just was no route choice available and we were inventing routes to try it out. Perhaps this did help us define that no matter what we thought, it was invariably the one route choice that lead us correctly and quickly to the control. Every thing else should be left at training.

1. After a nice warm up to the start, the route choice to 1 was simple and in order to make it interesting Bindi decided to run low and come round the bottom of the rocks North of the control. This didn't work and he ended up running the same route as me - no difference here.

2. Here I stayed on the contour and Bindi ran over the top on the flatter part. It should have been a no contest, but Bindi was quicker due to my shoes having no purchase. Normally though, stay on the contour.

3. My BIG mistake. Bindi ran straight (normally the only choice) and I was going to run left on the road. Firstly, a run in with deer threw my concentration a little, and then I made the silly error of misreading the map and interpreted a path as a road, thus running higher than planned. Additionally I then made a parallel error when I thought the area above the (nr) 16, was the area to the SW of it. To top it all, when I had discovered the error, instead of just turning around and running the intended route, I ran my mistake out and round the fence to control 3. No more comments here *sleepish grin*

4. We decided on more or less the same route and that threw us. I stayed low until I hit the last but one green (and here I must add to my defence that the map was not quite right - the green/white was badly mapped), saw the depression in green (which I mistakenly thought was the pit in white), thus believing that I was more or less at the correct height and ran over on the contour. Bindi thought that I was more or less correct and he ran after me, and past. I was able to relocate on the open area / steep dip combo and ran back to the control. Bindi did not have so much luck, and spent another 2 minutes looking for the control.

5. With a struggle we figured out two route choices here, one over the top, one round the hill right. Bindi got the correct one, and I the one that was normally not a choice. Added to this was the fact that the map was not great in this area, and that they had set the control on the wrong charcoal burning site, meant I was a lot longer looking for the control than Bindi and only found it when I saw him standing high above me.

6. Again we struggled to find two viable routes and eventually decided on straight line (me) and right over the road (Bindi). Straight line is normally faster and if it wasn't for the fact that I'm so slow on the hills at the moment, so it would have been this time. I was barely able to keep up with Karin and Thea. One lesson learned though, running at an angle over a hang can be very quick and you can make some HM easily in Hungary, especially when the ground is so stony.

7. Here we couldn't find an option and ran together to the control.

I ran back then over the road and let Bindi run on for a few more controls at his own pace. My pace is so slow. Aisha and I came upon a deer, and although she was not on the lead she behaved impeccably and didn't even think about chasing it. She was just as buggered as I was.

All in all a good training with many high meters and a few lessons learned. A quick word to the map. Generally speaking it was not bad in the scale 1:15000, but there were some areas that caused us both a few problems and certainly they were not of EYOC standard. I am sure that the maps will be better for these competitions although Thomas Krejci mentioned that this is normal standard in Hungary.

The one with the blisters...

Sunday morning dawned bright and early. Every thing was going well, all the kids had taken to Aisha, my headache was gone :) I still had blisters however. I taped myself up nicely before breakfast to protect my ankles as I knew that in Hungary the ground is very stony, and it would be no different today.

The planned training was a 9 km race which formed part of the Eger cup. I was planning on taking it easy. On arriving we were hit by the fairly cool temps and so it was quickly into our kit and off to the start. Once there (and I was the first) it was off immediately and here I picked up on an error that occurred fairly often while in Hungary. I wasn't concentrated enough when I left and as a result made a mistake straight away to the first control. Bugger. Here the rest of the analysis:

S-1: lack of concentration leading to incorrect route choice and I was unsure where I was.
2-3: Could have stayed on the road longer.
7-8: Dropped to much and had to come back up to control
8-9: Control circle problems - no real attackpoint
11-12: drifted right on a bearing
12-13: Incorrect route choice - round the hill right and path was substantially faster
14-15: Map a bit dicey, but mainly lack of concentration close to control
15-16: My blister have blisters - no concentration and tired. Bearing from road was not accurate enough and wasn't able to reallocate. Wandered, no purpose.
16-17: After the mine, followed two others on a different course and drifted off my own bearing.

I took 2 things away with me, one was that the ground was going to be difficult to run over and the other was that sometimes the map needs some interpretation on it's own.

Lunch was had down in a small valley and was really good, and the rest of the mid morning, early afternoon we just relaxed and got ready for the second training.

Oh yes, and did I mention that my blisters had blisters?

The one with the Headache...

Well, I have just returned from an extended stay in Hungary and I wanted to put down some fingers to keyboard and hold my memories fresh. This will be the area for the EYOC 07 and the WOC 09 and so it was really good preparation for those two events. I will put my maps and thoughts here, feel free to comment!

As I am the Austrian Team Manager, I got to go on this training camp as a official (the one with the money) and obviously I was able to do some of the trainings as well. I left Henndorf (with Aisha) at 6 am on Saturday morning the 31st of March with the intention of meeting some team members in Vienna at 8:30. Perfect planning saw me arrive at exactly 8:30 and once we had stopped for some medicine and "padkos" we were on our way. Getting over the border was no problem and one small traffic problem was all the hold up we had until we got to our accommodation - which we couldn't find due to having the incorrect address.

I arrived fairly buggered, 8 hrs in the bus is hard work, and very dehydrated and this caused the usual heavy headache - but I struggled through. The afternoon training was on a map not too far from our accommodation, but the quality of the map wasn't so good. I didn't have any problems, except between 10 and 11 where the map was not clear anyway, and various gully's were missing and so I was looking in the wrong one. I took it fairly easy and enjoyed the run where I could (headache) - however young Aisha had a great time.

I was happy - this was looking like it was going to be a good week. My only concern were the high meters, and a few blisters picked up while running in OL shoes that haven't been used all winter!

The evening saw us try out our local "restaurant" and I must admit they were good through out our stay in Hungary. Generally speaking the food was good albeit heavy - far too much meat was on offer (every meal incl. breakfast) but we were well catered for, only vegetarians need to worry about Hungary.

As usual you can find my training here on Attackpoint!

Cross / Orienteering combined

Anyway, after way ums and ahs over the last months, they finally (they being the SLV trainer) convinced me to organise a training cross country here in Henndorf. I agreed and then was hoping that I would be able to combine the SC with the cross country. However, the guys organising the SC said they wouldn't do it, so in the end I agreed to organise this as well.

My organising team did a wonderful job in the end, the cross country course was fantastic and the orienteering was just right for the start in the new season. The XC course was set on a large field, with some small uphills and downhills, lots of direction changes, a bit of forest and of course lots of fast flat on the fields. Although not a lot of people turned up (we were 11 in the senior cat) all that run really seemed to enjoy it.

I had a really OK run, considering that I was extremely busy and tired the entire week before that. I started out at about 8:30 a lap, and was able to more or less keep that constant, with my last lap (out of 4) being the fastest lap. I was happy.

The orienteering also went off without hitches. I started everybody (Christine just ahead of me) and when the last person had run, I ran myself. Christian had set the course and put out the controls so I was free to do this. It was really nice and simple and I was able to run at a good speed without any mistakes (except 10 - 11 where I decided to miss the climb - but this was incorrect). I was surprized that after 8 km and major XC that I was still able to go so well during the OL. Won my class, but was 4th in total behind Felix, Norbert and Robert. (Winning my class is not so hard :) )

And that was the last weekend. Unfortunately since then I have been ill, and was not able to train the later half of last week, but I will head out for a little jog this afternoon to see how my body has recovered!

I wish you all well!

New records all round...

During Jan / Feb, I was doing some good running and I past another milestone or two in this time. First major milestone to fall was the 122 km week Nr. 6! As far as I can tell this is my official longest week in Austria since moving here in 1997. I have had 2 longer weeks, but both were coupled with Training Camps that were not in Austria (Hungary / Finland).

Additionally I hit the all time longest (on my feet) run for time and height that I have ever done - even my 5 or 6 marathons were never that long, and the height - well - the height (or climb) was just stupid. Christian and I decided to run with the Youth National team on their Sunday morning long run, and then run back to home from where they were - only problem was that they were first running up the Gaisberg, and then to get home we had to run another 20 km.

I have never run up the Gaisberg in total so I thought this would be a great run - and it was! I suffered for the entire following week. We started at 9:30 at the foot of the Gaisberg, and ran up (6,5 km 850 hm) in about 50 minutes. We then had a short tea / biscuit break and started on the way down, but we couldn't find the path, so we decided to just to ... well ... run down the side of the mountain. At gradients of up to 60 degrees, this proved much harder than expected, and both Christian and I hit the level (1,2 km / -600m) about 35 minutes later (that's around 30 minutes a KM).

After this we crossed the valley - took a second stop for refreshments - and started up the Dachsteinblick. Once on the top (another 350 m climb) we followed the ridge track to the hotel "Dachsteinblick" (another stop), took a bearing on Leo and Gitte's house, and ran directly over the fields to them. Man, I have rarely been so buggered - very few Dion / Richard runs got me to this destroyed, but there have been one or two (Swellendam Trail comes to mind).

So all in all, 3hrs 30 minutes on my feet, 28,5 km distance and a massive 1250 m climb! Not bad for a Sunday.

As I said the legs suffered immensely on the following days, due of course to the murderous downhill! I hope that I have learnt a lesson from this - next time use the road - 5 km longer, but easier on the legs, which currently feel like steel.

Here are a few pictures from the long run a few weekends before, which was also a monster. We started off from home and ran the Kolli / 3 peaks extension run. 3 hrs, 26 km and 815 m climb. Markus and Felix ran with me most of the way, and Christian and Mani did a shorter run over the Cross back home!

It was a really great run!

Wow - major long time - no post

Sorry guys,

Have been busy, and with training - just no time to find the time to take the time to post a comment :) But I'll do a few now...

Enjoy!

Another record week!

Well, I am surprized, especially after yesterdays failure (I was aiming for 30 plus kms and only ended up with 23), but I still managed a record week. And this record week seems to be an all time Austria record week, as I cannot find any mention of a week more than 115 km or so in my logs - doesn't mean there wasn't - just means I can't find it!

Still no orienteering or racing until now this year, but I'll keep that preparation doing well and hope for the best when it eventually does come around :) This week will be a well deserved rest week with no hard training (except the coopers test on Saturday :) )

Some pics (taken with the phone) included from yetserdays run! 10 - 15 cm new snow on all the roads, more off the beaten track, so very physical run. 2hrs 40 for 23km plus 600 hm!

The most Brutal run of my life!

Today was one of those runs, one of those "never done that before" runs. After months of mild warm winter, the reality of an Austrian Winter came back this week Tues and we have been having some snow and gale force storms around here, which of course is great for the coming Ski Jwoc, but rubbish for running.

Today took the cake though, blizzard going like crazy, snow falling horizontally, icy roads (and I mean reallllllly slippery), snow drifts! I've done some tough runs in my time (some of them with D, but many of them since I moved to Austria), but I'm sure this was the toughest I have ever done. I recon the wind chill factor took the temperature way under - 30 degrees. Adding layers and layers of clothes doesn't help either (2 hats, 3 shirts / jackets, 2 long tights), must have been 1 kg more than normal plus the added resistance of the extra layers.

Every ten steps or so was a slip, every third step was fired out backwards. Although I had APP for the entire run, I was still 40 s slower round the loop this week (Warti was 6 min slower), but the extra power certainly paid off as I was able to out sprint Warti at the end. Certainly running into the wind Aisha is not affected, so I was able to keep those heavy wind KM's around 4:45 to 5:00 - poor Warti died! I know I'm getting fitter and faster, so just shows what a difference the weather really can make to any running (if you compare it to last week).

Whew, not fun, but in the end great for the mind. If I can train in this weather, then I can train in anything :) Hope not to have many more runs like this in my life! Greetings from a cold, windy and snowy Austria (thank god some things have gone back to normal *grin* )

Record week!

So, this week is gone past, as usual in it's normal rush. Just thought that I'd post a quick record here :) Since Hanna has been born I haven't really trained that much, but it is slowly improving at the moment, and I have reached a new post Hanna record of 110 km in this week - great for training towards that marathon that Dion's being talking about (but will NOT be jungfrau, anyway not this year!)

A quick check of the logbook puts the last week over 110 km in May 2003 - thats a long time ago :) Anyway, lets hope I don't get injured in the next weeks and that I have a good FEB and Mar and then I'm looking for that sub 2:48 marathon again before the end of the year! Keep training.

Online Training Logbook

12 minutes of hell

We ran our first Coopers Test in 2007 last night, on a track without light in the pitch black of night. Luckily I had my headlamp with and so at least I could see my watch, but it got me thinking about the coopers tests I have done over the years.

My first coopers test (as I'm sure Dion will remember) was run around the rugby fields of Westerford on a windy, rainy day in about 10 cm of mud with bare feet. As far as I can remember my distance was around 2800m, but don't quote me - we didn't actually run on a track even. In those heady days of Norman Davies, the boys used to run first (and completely muddied the fields) before the girls started afterwards. The idea was that the boys would then help push the girls through to some good distances.

The most remarkable one was the one in which I ran my PB. It's funny how time changes things, and warps your memory but I had always thought that my PB was just over 4000m, in fact it's just under 4000m at 3949m (which is for me good anyway :) ) - checked my logbook from those times. This was run on the UCT grass track and we had a very special guest taking part, Simon Mugelstone, who ran close to 4400 m (at the time he was also the reigning European Junior 5000m track champion).

That was a funny old track, it was just over 440m long but it had character, all of my best ever track sessions were run on this track, and I have many fond memories. I have been over the log books (there are many holes in them) but I have counted a total of 35 coopers tests over the last 23 years (my first test was 1984)!

The strangest test I ever ran was on my own up in Johannesburg in 1992. It was shortly after the move, and I had still properly acclimatised. I knew there was a school nearby with a track so off I'd jogged to find it. I eventually found the school, but couldn't find the track and was almost ready to give it up when I met a school pupil who told me where to look. By this stage I had been running for almost 80 minutes. Once on the track I started my run immediately, but after only about 3 or 4 minutes my nose started to bleed. I pushed on regardless (in those days I was still a member of the polar bear club - tough, young and shirtless) and had some very strange comments and looks while I warmed down the 80 minutes back to my digs! I never repeated that exercise again :)

I have run coopers tests in the rain, snow, driving snow, driving rain, wind, strong wind and the funny thing is I don't remember the good days, just the bad ones. I will always associate a coopers test with bad weather I think!

And no matter what happens, I will always think of the coopers test as 12 minutes of hell!

See my clubs all time list here!

My online training log can be found here!

Silvesterlauf

Well, what can I say about the 31st of December (besides the fact that it's my birthday)? Well the nice part is that I always can end the running year with a running race, which is good but generally means that I start the new year with a rest day. And so it was this year as well!

The annual silvesterlauf (New Years Run) is currently held in Seekirchen, very close to Henndorf on a short 5,8 km track. This was only the second time the race was held, but already this year they had well over 300 starters. The weather was fantastic, 10 degrees plus, sunshine and no snow or ice! (Is this December 31st?) The problem I have is that I run in the Veteran category, which is by far the strongest cat. of them all, so all I'm ever looking for is a good run.

This year I decided to run the first loop (of two) without Aisha and to pick her up at the start of the second loop. All went well at the start, except somebody kicked me in the head while I was turning on my foot pod - ow! Then after about 600m there was a sharp right, then sharp left immediately, and some poor women got knocked off her bike by some of the more die hard racers. And everybody just carried on running past.

Well I could not stand for that, so I stopped and helped her up, which was not easy as she wasn't the smallest lady, and her legs were tangled up in her bike. With the help of a marshall we were able to get her on her feet and back on her bike in no time at all - except of course if you are running a race - 90 s gone. So then I just carried on, running at a good speed but not full.

Saw a friend Gerhard Haider as well and then caught up with Birgit at around KM 2, picked up Aisha at KM 2,6 and then just carried on through until the finish - no more mishaps. KM times were 5:15, 4:02, 3:57, 3:59, 4:02 and 3:17 to finish up with 24,25 for the 5,8 km - last year I ran a low 22 min time, so quite a lot off the pace :)

Anyway, hope everybody else had a good end to 2006 and a great start to 2007!

P.S. Results can be found here!

P.S (two) Pictures can be found here!