Running around the zoo in the cold and dark.

While we were warming up, or trying to warm up, someone remarked he had been colder once - in Canada.

Thanks dude. This is Australia. It's meant to be a Mediterannean climate.

We started at the south-east corner of Princes Park, after doing run-throughs (fast warm-up semi-sprints over eighty metres) on the darkest and wettest section of the entire Princes Park circuit. Like, can we do it somewhere I can actually see? Guess not. The coach is such a creature of habit.

So the session goes like this: run hard for eleven minutes, jog gently for three. Repeat four times.

Heading north we turned into Princes Park at the old railway line, followed it through to Royal Park, hard right at Royal Park station, left at Park Street by which time the first eleven minutes had elapsed. Three minutes jogging found us on Oak Street where we launched into the second repeat, up through Royal Park to the Hockey Centre (Melbourne is basically filled with parks, gardens and sports centres!) finishing outside the Zoo entrance. The third repeat ran clockwise around the zoo ending back in Princes Park with the final repeat a circuit of Princes Park ending up back at the track (which can be seen at the bottom right of the Royal Park link above - look for the red track encircling a white pitch).

Not so cold now. We were steaming. It was a long hard session, so into the showers after warm-down stretches and off to a well-earned dinner.