Track season is over and we're heading towards autumn and winter which means cross country and road racing. That's a lot of fun. You haven't lived until you've run ten kilometres through mud in driving rain.
It's been a long and tiring summer track season stretching from October. We failed to make the final so the season ended Saturday. The finalists go on into April.
I doubled up in most meets, performing my 'specialty' event, the two or three kilometre walk; and then running either an 800, 1500 or 5000 an hour or so later. One Saturday I completed three races. I'm spent. I've been doing this for over thirty years. I must have run a zillion laps on athletics tracks all over Melbourne. But I still enjoy it so I'm never going to stop, I'll just get slower and slower!
(Speaking of walking, it is an odd event: we have a young guy from Ethiopia running with our group - Amir - who came along to his first track meet just as the walking race was getting under way. 'What are those guys doing?' he asked, amazed. 'They're walking, Amir.' 'But why?' he replied.)
At training last night, coach Tony said he was going to 'nurse' me and a couple of other old crocks through to the start of cross country season! Cool - that meant a 50 minute run with a fifteen minute surge at the end (i.e after 35 minutes) with three of the others. The rest of the group were doing one of the most brutal sessions - 6 x 1600 metres with a three minute jog break in between each.
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