Until next year when I am back to running again,
Tom
Tuesday, 28 October 2014
Switching to Tom Alfry blog
Hi. If you have arrived here then welcome. However for now I will only be writing on my personal blog at www.tomalfry.blogspot.com. There are two reasons for this. One is that I am incredibly busy and don't have the time to write posts for two blogs and the other is that I am not running at the present time. The latter leaves very little I can write about on this running blog, so tune into my blog above instead.
Monday, 13 October 2014
Marathon round up
I am suitably sore from the weekend's marathon adventure. Not running more than three times in the last three weeks before a marathon is not advised! As I look at how the marathon went and what I could do differently this is just one of the things that stand out. The other was getting a massage the day before the race. Don't get me wrong it was great prep for the run, I felt great after and was extremely relaxed. But it probably aggravated my traps a little too much before the race because I was having to constantly massage them as I was running. I like to break the rules and I certainly broke them in style again this time.
In the end I ran 3 hours 43 minutes, which is my second fastest time, so I can take some consolation from that and know that even without running in the last three weeks of my program I can run a half decent time. Could I have done things differently? Of course. But that would have required me to say no to carpentry work that I did on top of working at Apple and I was focused on earning that money to pay off debts. Like everything in life it is a constant balancing act and when the work is there I am motivated to take it. The knock on effect was that I felt knackered and wasn't motivated to train at all. So my race result was to be expected. You can't fluke a marathon, unless you are naturally gifted and those people deserve the post race soreness they will inevitably experience!
My running mate Andrew ran a new PB by about 5 or 6 minutes, so I am chuffed for him. We were both feeling the effects after 16km of the run, which suggests that something wasn't right. For me it would have been not training and being overworked, for Andrew it may have been his running shoes as his feet were hurting him from this point onward. The good thing is that we both have the sub 3:30 goal to aim for next year, possibly at Canberra marathon, so our motivation levels are probably higher than if we had achieved it this time around.
For now I am taking a little time off running. I have been swimming in the ocean the last couple of mornings and have made this a regular thing the last two weeks. It is great to get down to the water, have a dip for 15 minutes and enjoy the beach at it's quietest. I am planning on getting back to strength training, so I will most likely do a light jog to the bars at Queens Park or on the Coastal Path overlooking Tamarama. In my mind the latter is one of the most amazing outdoor gyms I've experienced, it is all too easy just to look at the view and watch the surfers rather than actually train! Over the summer months I will probably work on my speed over 5 & 10km and do some good hill training. That way come January when I start training again for Canberra I will be fitter and faster.
I was going to focus on half marathons next year, but as I just confirmed above the Canberra marathon is my next target. I will probably aim to run a fast half or two in training for the marathon as I am fairly confident I can go sub 90 minutes. As our friend Ellis the Achilles Chairman said on the weekend, "the trouble with marathon runners is that they have a terrible memory". I can attest to that, I have almost forgotten the pain from the weekend already. I must be mad.
T :)
In the end I ran 3 hours 43 minutes, which is my second fastest time, so I can take some consolation from that and know that even without running in the last three weeks of my program I can run a half decent time. Could I have done things differently? Of course. But that would have required me to say no to carpentry work that I did on top of working at Apple and I was focused on earning that money to pay off debts. Like everything in life it is a constant balancing act and when the work is there I am motivated to take it. The knock on effect was that I felt knackered and wasn't motivated to train at all. So my race result was to be expected. You can't fluke a marathon, unless you are naturally gifted and those people deserve the post race soreness they will inevitably experience!
My running mate Andrew ran a new PB by about 5 or 6 minutes, so I am chuffed for him. We were both feeling the effects after 16km of the run, which suggests that something wasn't right. For me it would have been not training and being overworked, for Andrew it may have been his running shoes as his feet were hurting him from this point onward. The good thing is that we both have the sub 3:30 goal to aim for next year, possibly at Canberra marathon, so our motivation levels are probably higher than if we had achieved it this time around.
For now I am taking a little time off running. I have been swimming in the ocean the last couple of mornings and have made this a regular thing the last two weeks. It is great to get down to the water, have a dip for 15 minutes and enjoy the beach at it's quietest. I am planning on getting back to strength training, so I will most likely do a light jog to the bars at Queens Park or on the Coastal Path overlooking Tamarama. In my mind the latter is one of the most amazing outdoor gyms I've experienced, it is all too easy just to look at the view and watch the surfers rather than actually train! Over the summer months I will probably work on my speed over 5 & 10km and do some good hill training. That way come January when I start training again for Canberra I will be fitter and faster.
I was going to focus on half marathons next year, but as I just confirmed above the Canberra marathon is my next target. I will probably aim to run a fast half or two in training for the marathon as I am fairly confident I can go sub 90 minutes. As our friend Ellis the Achilles Chairman said on the weekend, "the trouble with marathon runners is that they have a terrible memory". I can attest to that, I have almost forgotten the pain from the weekend already. I must be mad.
T :)
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