The long and winding (and hilly and lonely) road

Friday Total: 34k
Week total: 75.4k
Month total: 202k
Year total: 1,584.5k

Time: 3hr 19.42min
Av pace: 5.52min/km
Av Temp: 11.7*c (10.36am)
Rel. Humidity Av: 72.4%
Wind Spd Avg: 27kph (NW)
Started with: Knights of Cydonia - Muse
Finished with: Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance

There were many ups and downs today - both literally and mentally. The plan had been to start the run early in the morning but this never eventuated because I had to take son #1 into Civic for an interview (he was successful and starts work on Monday - yay!). The weather wasn't looking great either - black clouds, stormy looking, with a brisk wind (which I seemed to run into when running up hills).

I mentally split the run into 3 stages and only focused on the stage I was running, rather than think too much about what was still ahead of me. The first stage took me from Black Mt peninsula, along the cycle path to Aranda bushland and then into Black Mt nature park. This was my favourite run and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Everything was damp and fresh from the overnight thunderstorm,and it was soft underfoot.

Stage 2 was through the Cork plantation, up Gunbarrel Hill (and I did walk a bit of this), and then up a couple of other hills including Dairy Farmers hill(?) (more walking) before heading back down again. This was hard work and took a lot out of me. The wind wasn't helping either. I headed off down towards the river, across Clo's Crossing (?) and then ran the old jogalong course in reverse. It was bleak out there - the wind blasted across the exposed land and it was threatening to rain - there was some sprinkles but that's about it.

Stage 3 was the run down by the river (part of a Vets course) towards the zoo, then cross the road and run along the cycle path back to Black Mt peninsula. I passed Helen L coming the other way at a cracking pace - the only other person I saw the entire time I was out. By now I was in a black mood and very very tired. I was like !@#$%^&* whenever I came to a hill! I thought a lot about the banana smoothie I was going to have when I got home. I came up with different headings for today's blog entry but a lot of them I couldn't print! My Chemical Romance's song Welcome to the Black Parade came on when I was close to finishing and it was exactly how I was feeling, especially when it spoke about the "broken, the beaten and the damned"!

Finally the Garmin said 34km and that was it - I was stopping. I had run long and far enough. Too bad that I wasn't back at my car, too bad that I still had to get up the hill at Black Mt peninsula - I was walking!

Tomorrow I am off to Noosa to SPECTATE, peoples! Its not a case of being able to do the distance, I know I can. But I'm in the building phase of my program and so its a case of consistency and increasing the distances. Speedwork won't happen for a few weeks yet and I don't plan on doing anything that could jeopardise my training, ie injury. I have had 3 weeks of building so its an easy week and I intend to enjoy it! Besides I make a very good spectator! :-)