Chipping away

I must admit to getting a little carried away with it all last week. To quickly recap on the week gone I ran my grass loop on Tuesday, I ran down to Greenwich Wharf on wed and around the bay on Thursday morning. I actually ran into Ray on Thursday who remarked to me about my right foot not making the same noise as the left(meaning I was favouring the right). The truth is there was a bit of soreness there still, but now it is further back in the heel. I also seem to have a stiff outside arch on the injured right foot, probably a combination of a change in foot strike and getting used to the orthotics.

I am still struggling with my fitness, it is not coming back as quickly as I had hoped. I think that staple of about 30 minutes of swimming for so long has left my running a bit shy once half an hour ticks over on the clock. Also swimming is great but it is no substitute for running. I think I am a good 6-8 weeks away from getting back into any form.

So a couple of days off and back into it on Sunday, hosting the 7.00am star runners. What a disaster. We had a real mixed bag of around 30 or 40 with some good runners and some slower runners. Before we got to the first drink stop at Birchgrove Oval we had a 500 metre gap between the front and back runners.

So I spent time running between the front and the back in the tricky Balmain section (which I had only ran once myself) trying to make sure every one didn't miss a turn. However it was inevitable and the front group failed to take a turn and off they went. I thought about chasing them and calling them back but I thought bugger it, if you want to take off from the group be prepared to read your map. Along with the backmarkers who opted to run short, the group of 30 eventually turned into a group of around 10 with a rather deflated host!

What pissed me off was that the crowd was predominantly Striders who I assume know that this is a slow group and mainly for new members. Personally I don't understand why some of these people didn't run the short option of the various 6.XX groups. Perhaps a few slept in. But I know if I was a prospective new member running for the first time I would have been well disappointed at being left behind.

I nursed a few of the slower in the group of 10 back down Lilyfield Road and around the eastern side of the bay to iron cove bridge and back to Brett Park. But I did enjoy it, in particular getting the last bloke Ian back when he was really struggling about 5kms out. I think he may have pulled the pin without some encouragement and someone to run with. He was getting himself ready for the smh half and I think he will take some confidence out of finishing the run 'running' as opposed to walking back from the start of Lilyfield Rd.

All in all a good experience. I will try and make it a quarterly thing to contribute at one strider event be it a star, 10ker or superseries race.

As far as my foot goes, I am still incredibly nervous about reinjuring so I am trying to be as conservative as possible whilst chipping away at the base. No compromises this time though, if its not right the base will just have to wait.

The other news is that I wont be running the smh half this year. We are having a well earnt family break up the coast and I was hoping that we were going the week prior to the half but we are actually going away on the friday prior.

At $65 a pop however my disappointment has been quelled somewhat! I make a bit of a sport of bagging this race but it did provide me one of my favourite running memories last year. A group of 4 striders - Leftie, Vat, 26 and myself, running the first lap and part of the second together. I have a photo of the 4 of us coming into Macquarie St, we were all having a laugh but at the same time we were running as hard as we could muster but working and really encouraging each other. It is definitely one of my fondest running memories. I might try and resurect the photo and drop it into this post later.

edit: here is the photo I mentioned, left to right in striders singlets; partially obscured is the hairless 26, vat, me and on the right, leftie.