Well it’s my first personal best but that’s gotta count for something. We (being me and E.) ran in the Melbourne Mother’s Day Classic on the weekend. I opted for the 4km run as I’ve had a pretty sore ankle this last week.

The event was pretty fun and we had perfect weather. Soooo many people. I was pretty shocked and didn’t quite expect the mountain of people running down St Kilda Rd and through the gardens. What I found most amazing was the variety of people. You hear people say it all the time, but until you experience it, you really don’t understand how varied the variety really is. There were literally all sorts, including a gorgeous little kid in a Superman outfit, cape and all!

New personal best …
4km run, 27 minutes, 54.26 seconds
E. did really well too: 31 minutes, 10.45 seconds.
The image is of my heart rate during the run. I have one of those fancy Polar watch gadgets which measures your heart rate and all sorts of stuff as you exercise. I’ve finally gotten it working with my Mac so I can produce the cool looking graphs. It tells me that I ran at around 9.8km/hr for my last 2kms. That’s pretty cool for me. On average I ran around 8.5km/hr which is a nice comfortable tempo.

The odd things are the dip around half way through – that was the drink I slowed down for (and walked for 30 secs). The other oddity is that my heart rate high 199bpm at the start of the final kilometre! It must’ve been a glitch cause by all accounts, with that heart rate, I should’ve been a goner.

I can’t wait until my ankle gets better so I can actually get out there and run some more. Sheez, how things change!

As I ventured out on my first morning bike ride, I felt somewhat odd. It wasn’t the strange shoes, nor was it getting used to feeling the wind as I moved down the street.

You see, I opted to just go for a ride. Nowhere in particular, just loiter around the back streets of Mornington for 30 minutes and make sure I get home in one piece. Unlike running, I felt that riding needed a destination.

Run around a block 5 times and get home feeling a great sense of achievement. Ride around a block 5 times and get home feeling stupid. It probably has something to do with the speed I’m traveling. How fast do I need to be moving before I feel like I have to get somewhere.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be riding up to “Morning Star” and back. If you know the area, Morning Star is at the peak of a pretty long hill. If I can make it up there and back home in one piece, I’ll have no problems riding to work next week. That’s my goal for the next week – let’s see if it get me anywhere.

Picked up some new wheels last week and just got home from my first ride on them. It’s a Giant OCR Composite 2 (2007 model) with the clipless pedals and all.
Now, why they call them “clipless” when they clearly have clips on them, I don’t yet know. I do know that you need to remember to unclip your foot when you come to the lights or you might just be getting cosy with the bitumen.

If you’re going to buy a new bike, I would highly recommend the folks a The Freedom Machine in Prahran. They seriously wont let you out of there until they have fitted you properly to the bike, given you a training session and taught you everything you need to know to ride it properly. They were pretty exceptional.

The new wheels have come just in time as my running fling is started to wane somewhat. It’s mainly because of a terribly sore ankle I have developed over the last week. It kind of sucks because I was really starting to enjoy my morning runs. Hopefully the biking will help me keep active until my ankle returns to normal.