Sydney - 3

Endomondo Running Workout: was out running 30.74 km

That'll be my last "long" run before the Sydney marathon on the 18th September. I'm feeling pretty good about it now, because unlike the last 30km run I did, there have been very few lingering after-effects. I'm not stiff, I only needed to collapse in a chair for about 30 minutes to recover & I've managed a fairly active Sunday - cutting down trees & grocery shopping. I can't say I felt quite so good on the run itself, which wasn't particularly fast & wasn't particularly comfortable, even as early as 20 km, surprising a little in that a 20 km run is the usual Sunday routine & pretty much a minimum distance. It's all a mystery. Liz thinks I need to change my training routine & perhaps she's right. More sprints. More hills. More time in the gym. It's probably necessary to strike a balance. In a sense, I'm not so fussed about the result of the marathon, but I'd like it to be moderately predictable. Right now I can't decide whether to attack it and hope to hold on for 3hr:30min, or whether to set out at a 3hr:50min pace and accelerate at the halfway point, which would probably get me about a 3hr:40min assuming no unforeseen incidents.

I think I'm temperamentally inclined to the former; but the general marathon "wisdom" seems to be that the latter is more likely to result in good times.

We'll see.

BTW, if you are curious, you can sign up to Endomondo and connect to me as a "friend", then you'll be able to monitor my progress. If you don't have any paint drying to watch, it might be interesting.

It was a fantastic morning for a run, but apart from the fact that the wattles are out in full flower, there's not a lot to say. The Botany Bay route is one of my favourites, but I didn't really see anything that stood out today. Well, I did notice the angle that planes take off from the airport, even heading out to sea, is extraordinarily steep. Running north along the bay cycle path watching the planes take off, apparently silently, is pretty amazing. It reminds me that physics is a bit of a mystery still, because the standard explanation for why planes can fly (curved upper surface on wing) doesn't actually explain why planes can fly upside down. Not that any were trying this morning.

Spring is definitely well on the way, because the numbers are out - sadly, predominantly cyclists, who are a menace at corners - in force. Cyclists are to pedestrians as cars are to cyclists: a parallelism that hasn't imposed itself on many cyclists' minds.