Renae says to keep it anonymous...

"Bernard is not horrible... he's just slightly troubled."

Who said that?

NEEC/Turbines/Training

You may recall that I was blogging about the National Energy Essay Competition. Well, we've got some results... but they're strictly confidential! It was a 10000 word essay, and they had about 100 entries from across Australia. You had to be below 31 as of some random date... don't actually know exactly how we went... oh well.

I also found out that we have tower climing training and a site visit to Woolnorth. That will give me some much needed credibility as a renewable energy engineer who works primarilly in the wind sector.

I also had my first training session for the "summer" today. 15 200s with 200m jog recovery. Why do people who have no sense of recovery take the pace in the recovery??? I don't know. Anyway, my legs were hurting before I started, and now continue to hurt.

Burnie 10

Burnie was filled with drama on Sunday as about 4000 people charged off the start line.

I was fortunate to have met up with a guy I had previously trained with who was classed as an "elite" runner, and so I warmed up with him, and lo and behold ended up in the elite runner's section of the start. Stoked with that.

So, I set off, too quickly.

First km in 3min24. I was hoping to run under 40mins for the first time in my life, so when I saw that first km split, I was mightily worried.

Second km split wasn't much better at 7min. At training, running a solid 2km rep, we'll do it in 7mins, and then have a few mins off before doing anything again. So again, quite worried.

I didn't check my watch again til half way... cos I was absolutely buggered. But the clock said 18min 30 at the turn... a time that I wouldn't be too displeased with for a 5km race...

And then on the way back was the wind. Wind in the face and my legs were not up to maintaining my previous speed, so I couldn't just sit behind anyone.

But I tried to hold on to people where I could. At the 7 or 8km mark I dropped back, thinking I'd have a red hot go for the last km. And so I did...

I put the foot down with a km to go - as much as I could muster. I turned on to Wilson St - 400m to go - a nasty hill to the finish. And somehow I sprinted. There was the initial hill - about 200m then a flat for about 20m and I eased up on that then realised that the hill hadn't finished, so I sprinted again, another 200m. I sprinted and caught up all the people that I had let go at the 7 or 8km mark.

But my transponder didn't register, so they registered me after... after the people I pipped had gone through. 6s. So, I'll tell you my story. I stopped the clock at 38min45s. I staggered through the stalls holding onto the side so I wouldn't collapse. (It should be noted that I have had several comments about frothing at the mouth... so I can't have been a pretty sight) I was given my little medallion... and my water bottle. Then it is a blur. I next remember being slumped against the Sussan's shop front. I think it was a shop assistant who asked if I was ok... I'm not sure what I said. Can't have been convincing because before I knew it, some St John's lady was there looking after me, getting me ice and towels to wipe myself down with... and more water. I was a wee bit buggered.

Anyway, saw lots of people I knew, which was great. Ride home was fun. Jonnie and I got stuck behind a bus of mainly chicks. They were waving at us to pass. They obviously didn't like us, cos every time they tried to wave us through was when there was oncoming traffic... so we bided our time... and they kept waving and laughing at us.

Eventually we got past...

And then we stopped... I think it was driver change at Campbell Town, and ended up behind them, again.

Again they were waving at us to overtake.

And again it was unsafe to do so.

And then they started doing footy umpire signals... I feel bad cos I don't kow who it was... Hmmm... And they continued to laugh at us... I was wondering at one stage whether I'd forgotten to do up my fly, but it really wasn't visible from that angle - even if it was... which it can't have been... my shorts didn't have an openable fly... too much information?

Galacticatica

Flaws of the creatures ending their lives when they die and live crying for the feet and deepening the gap between teeth, nails and metaphor.

Where is my mind these days? Perhaps it's in my back pocket.

Didn't quite make it

I ran today. I got a quarter of the way up the hill and had to stop. We were 20x below world record time. My legs had nothing left. Nothing at all. So we stopped for a stretch. Then we kept going. And we ran up at the same rate as we did on Monday, so it was a bit crappy, but good to do. Legs are pretty buggered at the moment.