Red Sock 8km. Second day in a row I had to get up before 5am for a run. I’ve only done a month of training and I need a break already.

Running notes:
Route: Mouille Point Lighthouse – Seacliffe Road – Mouille Point Lighthouse
Distance: 8km

Last week I did 5 repeats on top of a 3km jog to the base of the hill. Today I just could not be bothered to run there so I got in the car instead. I’m being really tough on myself for 1 June but give me a chance to be just a little bit lazy and I’ll take it every time. It really is soul destroying running up and down the same hill 6 times in an hour and a half, but it does entertain the old boy at No.12 who sits in his front garden if the weather is nice.

Running notes:
Route: Bottom of Bellevue Street – 6 x 600m hill repeats 
Distance: 7km

24:02. 39 seconds faster than last week. I find that doing a 1km warm up improves the end result. It has taken me more than 5 years to listen to this good advice from the older guys in the club and believe me it works. Though, if I had concentrated a touch harder somewhere in the middle I might have been sitting on 23:59. Damn.

Running notes:
Route: Wakame – turn around point – Wakame
Distance: 6km
Time: 24:02

So tired after work and tonight’s 7-8pm session that I could only manage to cook peas for dinner. I live a small sad life.

Notes:
360 Training

Another late start on the mountain, interestingly enough the legs didn’t feel too heavy. The quads felt okay and the calves were a bit spongy, the difficult bit was generating the motivation to run a large portion of the same route as the race yesterday. Bleurgh.

Running Notes:
Route: Kloof Nek – Cable station – End of Tafelberg Road – Cable Station – Kloof Nek
Distance: 12km

Got the Kloof Nek Classic half marathon tomorrow morning and want to race it, so only did a quick 10km today.

Running Notes:
Route: Camps Bay – Twelve Apostles Hotel – Camps Bay 
Distance: 10km

Final run of the week for the Red Sock 8km. Pleased with the distance this week. Will drop it down to about 65km next week and pick it back up the following.

Running notes:
Route: Mouille Point Lighthouse – Seacliffe Road – Mouille Point Lighthouse
Distance: 8km

I could have cried real tears I was so tired. After the first hill repeat I wanted to curl up on the tarmac and go to sleep. I had a big pretend stick and I had to hit myself with it.

Running notes:
Route: My house – bottom of Bellevue Street – 5 x 600m hill repeats – My house
Distance: 12km

What a scorcher. The denizens of Sea Point were relaxing on the promenade lawns supping sundowners as the AAC time trialers ran past spraying them with sweat. I was disgusting by the time I finished 5km. My heart was in my throat all the way round due to the heat. I was also one of the worst times ever: 24:41.

Running notes:
Route: Wakame – turn around point – Wakame
Distance: 5km
Time: 24:41

Mental note, remember to eat something before.

Notes:
360 Training

I thought last Monday was bad. I’d been watching the tablecloth from my office window all day, and it was looking spectacularly violent by 4pm. The lamp posts on the highway were bending by the time I left at 6pm. After I’d done 3km on Tafelberg Road I was considering turning around due to the fact I couldn’t see. The blasts of gale force winds are vicious enough to squash your eyeballs to the point you lose your vision for a split second, which isn’t comforting when you are running on the side of a mountain. Of course I carried on, and it ‘stopped’ a bit under Devils Peak. I did have the pleasure of of being slammed again on the 3km back to the car.

Running Notes:
Route: Kloof Nek – Cable station – End of Tafelberg Road – Cable Station – Kloof Nek
Distance: 12km

By myself, we’ll sort of because the voice is back. I don’t think I’ve mentioned ‘him’ before but he is always there when I’m feeling a bit crap. He joined me as a small voice at 2km when the exhaustion of the last week of training and a particularly trying 60 hour week culminated in me walking a step or two. ‘Is this all you’ve got? Is that seriously the best you can do at 2km? Tell me how you’re feeling at 75km, because that’s tired, that’s exhausted. Now crack on.’ Right then I will. Oh, and I did inhale two packets of jelly babies so we both felt a bit better after that.

Running notes:
Route: My house – Kloof Nek – Camps Bay drive – Twelve Apostles Hotel – Camps Bay – Kloof Road –Kloof Nek – Signal Hill – My house
Distance: 30km
Time: 3:30

How is it that my most hated race of the year becomes the one I want to do now I know I can’t go…?

Running Notes:
Route: Home – Kloof Nek – 1km down the other side – Kloof Nek – Home
Distance: 10km

I wouldn’t usually write about the sorry state of my upper body strength, but today I’ll make an exception. I thought I’d say to the PT at the session this lunchtime that I wanted to do push ups. He paused, looked a me with a glint in his eye, and said ‘really?’. Oh, you can only imagine the beating I received.

Notes:
360 Training