Friday Thoughts #16

Noosa has been incredible so far. The weather has been stunning, although a change is coming this weekend. Last year while we were here, I didn’t swim in the ocean once. After the success of my goal to swim five times over summer, I’ve decided to do the same thing while I’m up here. I’ve already swum twice, including this morning. Of course, hitting this goal with a water temperature of 22C on Noosa’s main beach is not too hard.

We’ve also been taking advantage of the weather with walks along the river in the morning when we don’t have a run scheduled and around sunset every day.

Sometimes we sit on a bench and watch the sun go down, and then the sky flare into colour.

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I ran the runaway Noosa Half-Marathon last Saturday. This is the sixth time we’ve come up for the Noosa running festival. Usually, in Melbourne, at this time of the year, the weather is turning, so it’s been good to flee to some warmer weather. This was their biggest year with about 6000 competitors over the various events. The course was slightly different this year, with two loops off the side of Noosa Parade. I liked the change; it broke up one of the long straight sections.

With my disrupted preparation, I’d decided to make Gold Coast, which is in a month, my goal race and run this as a solid long run with a quicker finish. I planned to run with the sub-2hr pacer and then, around the 16-17 km mark, try to hit my GHM pace until the finish. The most important thing was not to trash my legs so I could continue my training plan this week without interruption. The plan went a little haywire as by the time I crossed the start line; the 2 hr pacer was nowhere to be seen. I caught him up over the first four km and then sat with him until about the 17 km mark when I picked up the pace, although not quite to my GHM pace. Although since I ran a sub-GHM pace in the first four km, I wasn’t too concerned. My official finish time was 1:58:14, which I was pretty happy with, considering my effort levels during the race, and I’m feeling pretty confident that provided I stay well, I’ll be able to get a PB at Gold Coast. So far this week, I’ve been able to do the runs I had planned, although in my workout on Tuesday, I just missed the pace in the back end of the final interval. I went to Pilates Wednesday night with lots of glute work and then had no problems on a hilly trail run through the National Park.

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Our car is still down in Brisbane. The problem was dirty fuel, which is frustrating because we’re always careful to pick bigger BP or shell service stations. Our insurance should cover it, but they’re taking a little while to sort it out. We’ve approved the service centre to fix the car as it will take five days, and hopefully, by then, our insurance company will have sorted themselves out. We’ve got ourselves bus passes to reduce some of the walking. But the supermarket is nearby, and our friend has also been giving us lifts.

The weekend looks like a long run, dinner with friends Saturday night, a recovery run and hiking. How about you? Any plans for the weekend?