Farewell, winter solstice

I haven't had to deal with winter training for a couple of years... well, not in the deep depths of winter, otherwise known as the winter solstice. Even as I sit here on Monday morning, writing this, it's only just getting light and it's nearly 7am.

It only lasts for a couple of days but every year around the solstice I feel like the world is darker, less shinier. And it's definitely colder. I don't know why, but it affects my mood. All I want to do is hibernate until it's over.

I didn't have a great weekend of training over the weekend, but yesterday I trumped winter solstice.

Ride one, run two

Last week was my first week of fairly consistent training in a while.

This week I almost lapsed back by bailing on my Mt Coot-tha bike session yesterday. (It was raining. Descending in the rain isn't particularly safe.)

I saved it today by following through on one of my dumbest ideas yet.

Thirteen suburbs, two bridges, one long run

Well the title of the post sums up everything really.

36ks covers a lot of territory.

It was a big day. I'm still feeling it now.

Racing the Suburbs

This last week I've been running a lot.

In fact I ran six times last week, so that I could make a video of myself running six times, for my friend Kate (aka Speedy Reidy), of House of Goals fame.

Speedy Reidy is about to embark on a 250k, six-stage ultramarathon in Iceland - Racing the Planet - so running a measly 55ks, and documenting it, was the least I could do to support her.

Post Ironman blues and pick me ups

It's been around a month since Challenge Roth, during which time I cycled up a few cols while on holidays, then came home and sat around watching the Olympics.

I had jetlag (maybe) and the post-Ironman blues (probably).

No-one tells you about the post-Ironman blues before you get them. Well, actually, I'm lucky. My good friend Andy did tell me. But that's a whole other story, the short version is, if you ever do an iron-distance race (or a marathon, ultra marathon, or some other race that you dedicate your life to for the better part of a year), make sure you've got something to look forward to afterwards, because it can be quite a come down.

Worldwide Festival of Races: the Zen 10

The Worldwide Festival of Races was here. Time to run with Speedy Reidy once again! Well, virtually, anyway.

I joined the Speedy Reidy Runners a couple of months ago when the challenge was first issued by Speedy. I needed something to aim for and given that you could choose to run anything between 5k and a marathon, aiming for the Zen 10K was achievable, while still being a challenge.

My goal was to run no slower than 7.5 minute Kms, but also given that it was a virtual run with Speedy, to also capture the experience for her and show off Brisbane to the world.