Preparing for GNW100 - Week 1 - Tuesday

Tuesday is a proper training day, with lots of running

Training

The morning starts with an easy 10km run to the tower at Cromarty & back. Technically this is closer to 11kms, but I count it as the 10k run. This is my favourite run and a pretty standard one I'll do a few times a week. Sometimes easy pace, sometimes faster. Most of the track is through the bush following the coastline from Shelly Beach to the Tower at Foresters with a couple of decent climbs up to Crackneck, then up to Cromarty lookouts. It's a particularly spectacular track in springtime when all the flowers are out, but at this time of year I'm running in the dark with only the possums & wallabies crazy enough to also be out. The descent down from Crackneck is notorious for tripping people up with the loose rocks, tree roots sticking out and washed away track. I have fallen over here more then once, Katy tries to fall over here at least once a fortnight. It's a fantastic run!

The evening track session is at Mingara Athletics Track where Margaret Beardsley (from the Coast Runners Shop) is the coach. I'm never going to be a great track runner, but the speed training is important. Plus it teaches me about pain and the fact that I can still run even when I'm not so sure I can breath. I'm positive the track work is what made a huge difference in my speed, prior to do any track work I was a 5min/k runner at race pace. Now I can hit 4min/ks or faster (depending on the distance). Tonights session was a good one, we started with 10 hill repepats as a warmup, then it was 6 sets of 600m, with a 200m kick at the end. Half of these were done with sticks in our hands and half without. The sticks help with arm swing and seeing how you're actually running. Tonight I can say I learnt something, and my arm swing was improving, but it took so much more energy to swing my arms that much. This is definitely something I'm going to need to practice at.

After track it's a core workout at home. I try to do these as often as possible, alternating what workout I'm doing for the day. Today it's the Standard Core Routine. It's not crazy hard, just hard enough to feel like my muscles are working, plus I can watch TV while I'm coring.
AM - 10km run with 6 * 30 second run throughs
Lunch - Stretching & Rolling
PM - Track (10 hill repeats, 6*600m) & Core (2 * Standard Core Routine)

Food
The Office Sandwich Toaster gets used by me almost daily, he has his own Facebook page, Instagram account and soon to be website. Today it's Corn Fritters on the sandwich toaster... The rest of the day It's leftovers or things I have at home. Not super exciting, but tasty
Breakfast: 2 Corn Fritters with Lettuce
Lunch: Slow Cooked Quinoa, Sweet Potato, Mixed Beans & Turkey Mince with melted cheese on top
Snacks: Banana, Small Mocha, Orange, 1/2 piece leftover blueberry & coconut cake
Dinner: 3 Corn thins with cream cheese & a glass of milk
Work

I come into work early of a Tuesday so I can leave early to try and get to track on time. Normally I'm close to being on time, and every so often I'm early. I very much appreciate that work lets me start and finish early of a Tuesday, otherwise I'd never make it to track. Even tonight I'm running in right on 6pm.

What Else I Get Up To
There's not much spare time today with the training. But my Sourdough project (I'm currently working on a Sourdough starter) is coming along nicely. He's in the fermenting stage and I feed and massage him daily. In a couple of weeks time he should be strong enough to start baking bread.