A good strong week

Really pleased with my week, finished up with 75Km. Headed down to the Yarra Trail starting in Templestowe today, seems on any given day I am running a section of this fantastic trail. The day dawned clear and fresh, it was 6 degrees in Blackburn so I chose shorts and a long sleeved top. I wasn't counting on it being -1 in Templestowe, Brrrrrr. At least I had long sleeves, the boys, Clarkey, Mark and Ron where all in T-Shirts, not even my gloves stopped my hands from going numb. I wanted to get 20Kms in, Clarkey and Ron had gotten started earlier and done 30 minutes extra before Mark and I met them. I was a bit apprehensive about running with the boys as I would clearly be the slowest in the group and did not want to hold anyone back so I told them not to worry about leaving me behind if the pace was too pedestrian for them. Saw a few Kangas early on, me "Oh, look at their cute little faces", Clarkey "look, Dinner!". Well, it was a fast run (well for me), we got to the 10Km turn around in 54:02, at which point I re-emphsised, please don't wait for me, I really should slow down. "I really should slow down" then became my mantra, thing is, I didn't really listen to myself. Mark headed off to pick up the pace but Clarkey, bless him stuck with me to the end. I was pushing it for a long run but I was able to keep talking (just about) for most of the way and we finished up with about 20.2 km in 1:48:53 which was an average pace of 5:23. Let's have a look at that again, 20.2 Kms, that is 900 metres short of a half marathon, in 1:48:53. My half marathon time 6 weeks ago, 1:48:00!!!!!!! Very amused to get back to the picnic ground to find Ron who had turned back earlier getting stuck into a roll and a thermos of tea, very well prepared :-) Needless to say I am looking forward to Melbourne. Part of me wants to reign in the confidence, you know, in case I fall on my face, die in the arse and limp home in October in a worse time. But the new me has self belief and confidence, if I don't do as well in October it won't be for a lack of training. I won't post my training for the coming week, it will be much of the same until the taper week starts. The only variation will be in the Tuesday night sessions and the daily sessions will vary in length to include some 80 Km weeks and some lighter 75 Km weeks. 80Km seems to be just about my tolerance limit at the moment, any more and I think I run the risk of breaking down. I have a massage on Wednesday night, just the usual niggle with the calves and quads. PS - forgot to add, Anna Thompson was the first female home in the City to Surf, well done, a Melbourne girl as well. She is a bit of a running hero of mine at the moment, finally a nice tall distance runner for me to look up to (literally), but based on some interviews I have read with her a lovely girl as well. I was over the moon to see her get over the line first.