2000 k's for the Year - Cool Runners Brimbank Park 21 km run

Milestone What a day, after today's run I've smashed 2000 k's for the year. 2004.3 km to be precise. Planned Cool Runners Brimbank Park 21 km group run. I was up about 6 am as I wanted to eat something before today's run. I have to get up a little earlier in order to give myself time to digest breakfast. While I'm on the subject of breakfast I had a bowl of Nutri Grain, Orange Juice with 2 multi-vitamin tablets and coffee. I retrieved my homemade gel from the fridge, filled my water bottles and out the door. Oops, nearly forgot my cap, back inside, make noise, get cap, wife not happy and back out again. Arrived at Brimbank Park Scenic Lookup carpark about 7.45 am. Morley was already into stretching and a little warmup jog. Travis (CR - Antipop) arrived a few minutes later. For todays run only three of us running. Travis was wearing a Camelback for the first time, carrying 1.5 litres of water. He also wearing a Timex GPS watch which he recently purchased (that's from his blog). During the run we compared readings from his Timex and my Garmin and both were similar. We headed off on a slightly different route from last time. Morley suggesting that following the road to the track is a more gradual descent than the track we followed last time. Who was I to argue; it was still going to be a 21 km run. The run itself was basically a nice even slow pace and we followed the trail along the Maribrynong River to an 8 km marker (same point last time) which is about 10 point something k's gone and then returned following the same trail. Morley was the only one not carrying his own water. Travis had a PB Sports Gel and I consumed my own gel every 30 mins flushing it down with water. Note to self, "add a bit more water to the mix - to dilute it further". It's very hard to determine whether my gel did the trick. What I did notice is that at about the 20 km mark both Morley and myself were heading up a steep hill. I was feeling rather good within myself and so sprinted up the steepest part of the hill to the apex. At the top I slowed, took on water and waited for Morley and we then finished together. Travis finished a few minutes later (not that long). In the second half of the run Travis complained of a slight problem with his right knee. We slowed down somewhat as we wanted to stay together. The pace though seemed to pick up and Travis didn't complain. About the 17 or 18 km mark at a park just before the hill Travis slowed and told us to run on, so we did. My Garmin registered the distance at 21.28 km, for a time of 1:49:34. That equated to an average pace of 5:09 /km. Max heart-rate 167 and average heart-rate 137 bpm. I have my Garmin set-up to automatically record each km as a lap. Here are some, what I think are interesting figures:- Slowest lap - 5:28 Fastest lap - 4:45 Lowest Avg HR - 132 (lap 15) Highest Avg HR - 148 (lap 20 - was the steep hill) All in all quite an easy paced run today. After the run I called in at Mum & Dad's as they live nearby.

Stats Weight : 77.8 kg Last 7 Days: 49.0 km Last 28 Days 186.5 km November 2005: 124.2 km YTD: 2004.3 km Weekly Avg (2005): 42.6 km Monthly Avg (2005): 182.2 km Yearly Avg (2001 on): 1468.3 km Total (2001 on): 7341.8 km

Next Sunday The group have planned a run at Williamstown next Sunday but unfortunately I will not be able to make it as I've committed myself to the "Two Bays Trail Run" also being organised by the Cool Running website.