Idlemind - nickcoster.com

It has been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. I have run the half marathon and although I just missed out on my target time I was really happy with my 1:03:19 time fo rthe 21k run.
I didn’t get into the NYC marathon. Maybe next year.
I have changed jobs, leaving the bank and moving to eBay. This kicked with a trip to the US to get to know the US team and find out about upcoming projects. My first day in the Sydney office is tommorow.
That’s all for the moment.

After a pretty long break I have entered a couple of running events to refocus my training and fitness.

The first one is the Sydney Half Marathon. This is like my home event since I run a lap of the course whenever I am knocking out 10k in the city.

I would really like to beat the 100 minute mark but I just don’t think that I am fit enough with just 4 weeks to go. The run I did this morning was 10k in 52 minutes. That makes it 104mins if the pace is the same the whole way around which is unlikely.

I have also entered into the NYC marathon lottery. The run is in November and I would be great to take some time out over there before or after the run. How cool would it be to run accross the Brooklyn Bridge? Here is hoping that I get picked.

On Sunday the 14th Adrienne and I ran the 35th City to Surf. I have actually lost count of how many I have done now (I think It is around seven) but I always really enjoy the run. The distance is no longer the challenge and the crowds are usually too deep to really clock a proper official time, but the carnival atmosphere of the day is just fantastic.

This year they claimed to have over 65,000 runners at the start line and although I was qualified to run with the lead pack, I wanted to be with a Adrienne and “Team Illy” starting in the “Back of the Pack” group. Team Illy is headed up by Neville Brown, who was determined to see how many slow moving ankles he could tear off with his High Speed uber-chair. This is where Team Illy came in. We ran a security perimeter around him to clear the way and save countless unnecessary injuries.

Neville has reported that we finished in an official 94 minute time, which if correct is pretty damn good for the whole team. I have some snaps of the proceedings of the day up on Flickr.

The next run will be the pub to pub on the 28th of August. I’ll take the camera to that one too.

With just 69 days to go I have just signed up for the Sydney Marathon (42.195km) for the 3rd year in a row. I have really just started running again with this event in mind. I was feeling pretty crap body wise, body stressed and struggling to relax on a run. After 3 runs in 3 days I can just begin to feel the cobwebs and bodily pollution clear out.

This morning I climbed out of bed and crossed the mental barrier of the cold and the dark and managed to get out for an 11k run before work. This is something that I have never really done in the past. I feel good now though so I think that it was worth it.

I have also been trying something else new. More »

Less than 100 minutes.

I have better do the math and work out what average time I need finish the Sydney Half Marathon in under 100 minutes, a time that has so far eluded me.

Ouch. I have to run between 4.5 and 4.9 minutes per km pace. what that means is that I have to really step up my training. I have been running with my brother, who is just starting a long climb to fitness. He is doing really well and is running distances with me that I didn’t think that he woudl be comfortable with at this stage.

The only problems with this is that I am running too slowly to really help my training. I have to get in at least 3 runs in a week. At the moment I am only doing one at best, and that has been with bro.

The last run we did was about 13km and we finished in 1hr 28min. Which was actually an amazing improvement for Bro, who added a km to the previous run and shaved 2 minutes off the total time. I’ll have to get out and do a long one one sunday on my own. It might be good to get out and run the course.