After the excitement of the Trail Running Series and my run over Banyule in the previous weeks, this week was somewhere on the mediocre in terms of interesting runs.

Don’t get me wrong, my short runs were quite pleasant, I did a very nice 10K with one of my River Runner friends on Thursday, which later involved a very dog-interrupted final 400 metres as I met up with Sandi and our new pup Missy who just loves runners and wants nothing more than to give them big cuddles.

The Long Run

My long run on Sunday was maybe too ambitious, I tried for both fun technical trail and distance, punching for 20K but stopping at 18.

I took on the single trail along the Yarra River between Black Flats Reserve and Blue Tongue Bend. I always enjoy running this piece of trail, for the most part, a very narrow track embedded in the side of the hill, steep tree’d bank on one side and the Yarra River on the other, the recent rains have eroded the trail a little so it is more rocky than I remember and I hope that, excuse the coarse Aussie pun, that I am not rooted by a thirsty tree.

The six’ish kilometre out and along this section of trail – in truth – felt like 20, I guess I was a bit tired and although I was happily bouncing along the trail, it was hard work. But I persevered, the view at Blue Tongue Bend is always worth it, it’s a peaceful spot – probably because the slog there is quite tough, along that windy river trail and the alternative (the fire track) is very very up and down, and made up of that dry rock stuff that seems to suck the moisture out of Camelbak.

Post Jumping Creek / Blue Tongue park I took the gravel road from Black Flats to Warrandyte Common, I spotted a small group of Roo’s on my way to the common, lounging in the grounds of someones property.

Skirting the edge of Warrandyte Common, along the Fire Break Track made a change, although a lot of dog owners in those properties and I was struggling with the hills a bit, but looking back at the data, my erratic pace on the tricky trail and the hard slog up the slopes on the common were elevation related as my final few K’s through the township were back to a consistent plod.

I guess it wasn’t that bad really and I was out there for two hours, which is invaluable time on my feet – Marysville is going to be a five+ hours affair so the longer I can run for in training, the better.

Week Five highlights will include a killer hill session on Wednesday – I have this nice 1K loop with 30 metres of vertical ascent over half-a-kilometre, I managed five repeats two weeks ago, will aim for between eight and 10 this week.

I also plan to run 25K on my long run this week, I have a couple of options at the moment, it’s going to be nice!

Keep running!!