Sat 24 Dec 2005 - You Yangs again - solo

Headed out to the You Yangs again for another run, my second there. Whilst driving there I hadn't made my mind up on which direction I'd run it. Decisions, decisions. In the end I thought I'd give the other way (anti-clockwise - into the traffic) a go. Stu Mac (stuart), a fellow blogger (sounds offensive - doesn't it) runs anti-clockwise and claims that others reckon the clockwise direction is harder. I thought in the end there is only one way to find out, so I ran it anti-clockwise. The photo above is where I start and finish, just opposite the driveway to the car park (next to the sign). The Park Office is to the left of picture slightly behind the camera. Stats at a glance

• Distance - 13.12 km
• Time - 1:00:28
• Pace - 4:37 /km
• HR Max/Avg - 161/149
• Elevation gain - 208 m
• More data here

I was travelling solo today, Glen didn't want to come, he mentioned something like "stuff that". I think he still remembers the hills from Wednesday's outing. Admittedly though he did have other things planned this afternoon, xmas shopping and oh....there's a girl (Mel) on the scene. Even though the course is only 13 km I wore my fuel belt anyway and it conveniently stores my mobile phone. As I mentioned I tracked in a anti-clockwise direction. I recall it being a easy and gradual rise from word go. I was feeling very strong, maybe the result of a rest day yesterday, and so was pacing out under 5:00 /km. About 4 km into the run, still running up a gradual rise, pacing at 4:30 - 4:40 /km, relatively easy, I therefore decided that every km had to be under 5 mins. I spoke too soon, because when the 6 km mark arrived the grade of the ascent dramatically changed, got steeper, much steeper. This killed me, I got slower and slower and hate to admit was walking in some parts of that split. The elevation graph clearly shows the sudden rise in steepness of the grade. The splits graph also clearly shows that split # 7 took me 6:52 mins, clearly the slowest split. So out the window every split being under 5 mins. Even though split 7 killed me and I was stuffed and energy sapped I'm happy that I recovered relatively fast and got back into my stride. Admittedly the last 4 km's or so it's basically all downhill and I was running strongly. Towards the end my next goal was to finish in under 60 mins and I thought it was on until just near the end there was one slight steep rise which slowed me down, I reckon by about 28 seconds (I'm guessing & hoping). I came in at 1:00:28 (missed my goal by a lowsy 28 seconds). In any case I'm extremely happy with today's performance. I went out hard attacking the gradual rise, pacing at 4:35 - 4:40 until the steep hill killed me. Recovered well and increased the pace home. Overall pace at 4:37 /km, I can't complain with that. Now, is the anti-clockwise direction harder than the clockwise direction. I don't know, I'll have to run them again, a few times to make my mind up. Heart Rate Monitor problems Earlier today and from advice I received from Motionbased.com I purchased conductive gel and used that on my chest and heart strap. I also cleaned the heart strap with a tooth brush and toothpaste. Of recent times I was getting too many heart rate readings exceeding 200, clearly not correct. Well today, as can be seen by the heart rate graph, no such spikes so I'm assuming the conductive gel and cleaning did the trick.

Stats as of 24 Dec 2005

Weight : 77.3 kg Last 7 Days : 88.3 km Last 28 Days : 328.6 km December 2005 : 273.9 km YTD : 2386.0 km Weekly Avg (2005): 45.9 km Monthly Avg (2005): 198.8 km Yearly Avg (2001 on): 1544.7 km Total (2001 on): 7723.5 km