I have been carefully monitoring the floods that have been taking place in Queensland over the past couple of months and indeed experienced parts of this during a trip to see friends in the area over the New Year period. My first observations were that I had never previously seen Queensland so green from the air, but it soon became apparent that this has come at a great cost with many who have been on the land for years and years commenting that they have never previously seen as much rain as this in all their years on the planet.
So many have merely given up cleaning up as as soon as they start it just starts raining again. In an ironic situation, where we usually pray for rain here in Australia, we are now praying the rain to cease. Aside from this, we as runners and more importantly as human beings have an obligation to help our fellow man. After all many of us have friends in this region or indeed have fond memories of running through beautiful areas of this state.
You can help by donating to the appeals that are running to raise money to help these communities. Let’s show these communities that we actively care about them.
Running together – (while showing compassion for others). Stride for Stride on a life changing ride! – Sean Muller
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Focusing on getting the pace just right
Family commitments over, I shall get back to devoting more time to this blog and my readers.
Having been rereading Pfitzinger and Daniels of late, I have once again become aware of the need to keep strictly to ones training paces in order to attain success. So many folks I know tend to get carried away when they are feeling good and blow out their training regime.
While all training paces should be carefully adhered to, I find that in particular the long run and the recovery run are the ones that can cost one the most and are the ones that we are most likely to get wrong. I was out running with a friend yesterday and while he can’t yet manage 5min/km over the marathon distance, he was attempting to hold this pace over our long run. I kept on trying to say to him that this was the wrong way of training and that for his fitness and ability he would have been better going slower and finishing stronger, but he was having none of it and I gave up in the end.
Both Pfitzinger and Daniels advocate the long run being run 10-20% slower than the marathon pace. This means that anyone running 5min/km in the marathon is safe sticking to 5.30 ish in the long run.
The recovery run is another kettle of fish and one where alot of people feel good and go out harder than they should ideally. This run should be slower than the long run pace and at times dead slow to allow the blood to flush through the muscles and to just keep the legs ticking over. There is nothing to be gained from the recovery run except – yes you guessed it ... recovery!
Keep training at the correct paces – keep being positive.
Running together – stride for stride on a life changing ride! – Sean Muller
Having been rereading Pfitzinger and Daniels of late, I have once again become aware of the need to keep strictly to ones training paces in order to attain success. So many folks I know tend to get carried away when they are feeling good and blow out their training regime.
While all training paces should be carefully adhered to, I find that in particular the long run and the recovery run are the ones that can cost one the most and are the ones that we are most likely to get wrong. I was out running with a friend yesterday and while he can’t yet manage 5min/km over the marathon distance, he was attempting to hold this pace over our long run. I kept on trying to say to him that this was the wrong way of training and that for his fitness and ability he would have been better going slower and finishing stronger, but he was having none of it and I gave up in the end.
Both Pfitzinger and Daniels advocate the long run being run 10-20% slower than the marathon pace. This means that anyone running 5min/km in the marathon is safe sticking to 5.30 ish in the long run.
The recovery run is another kettle of fish and one where alot of people feel good and go out harder than they should ideally. This run should be slower than the long run pace and at times dead slow to allow the blood to flush through the muscles and to just keep the legs ticking over. There is nothing to be gained from the recovery run except – yes you guessed it ... recovery!
Keep training at the correct paces – keep being positive.
Running together – stride for stride on a life changing ride! – Sean Muller
Thursday, January 6, 2011
How lucky am I/what more can I do in 2011?
Yesterday I attended Jane McGrath Day at the Sydney Ashes test. Those of you who are cricket fans will know that regardless of who you support, there is nothing like a cricket test between Australia and England in the Ashes series. The fact that day 3 of the test was honouring the life of a great woman and raising money for breast cancer was just the icing on the cake.
How is my day at the cricket relevant to running and staying active you may ask? Well quite simply it made me think and reflect more on what I can do to assist others through my running. I thought back to friends who have been affected by this dreadful disease of breast cancer and in particular a young friend of mine (and fellow runner) who passed on at the age of 27. She was taken way too soon.. I thought also of Comm Games champ Kerryn McCann and her battle and how she bravely fought before sadly passing on.
What can we do?
Simple things like offering as much support as you can to organisations like the McGrath Foundation in Australia (I proudly wore my pink cap at the cricket yesterday – yes real men do wear pink!), raising money through you running or indeed volunteering to help these organisations can and does all help.
After all we are so blessed to have the gift of running and good health and no matter how selfish your objectives with your running are, the fact remains that something can be done to help someone else without use sacrificing too much if we don’t want to.
Running together – Stride for stride on a life changing ride! – Sean Muller
How is my day at the cricket relevant to running and staying active you may ask? Well quite simply it made me think and reflect more on what I can do to assist others through my running. I thought back to friends who have been affected by this dreadful disease of breast cancer and in particular a young friend of mine (and fellow runner) who passed on at the age of 27. She was taken way too soon.. I thought also of Comm Games champ Kerryn McCann and her battle and how she bravely fought before sadly passing on.
What can we do?
Simple things like offering as much support as you can to organisations like the McGrath Foundation in Australia (I proudly wore my pink cap at the cricket yesterday – yes real men do wear pink!), raising money through you running or indeed volunteering to help these organisations can and does all help.
After all we are so blessed to have the gift of running and good health and no matter how selfish your objectives with your running are, the fact remains that something can be done to help someone else without use sacrificing too much if we don’t want to.
Running together – Stride for stride on a life changing ride! – Sean Muller
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
New Year of running
Firstly Happy New Year to all my readers.
I know that I have been very slack over the holiday period, but that has been due to family and friend commitments. I have however been reading loads and doing some master classes on running and techniques etc.
The New Year’s run was not the traditional half marathon or marathon distance that I have been doing around Sydney over the past couple of years, but rather an enjoyable 9km jaunt through the Brisbane suburbs where my friends live. Some really good hills and humidity made for some challenging conditions – so good to see many others out there in the heat. Some of these looked distinctly like I did about 7 years ago (very overweight and unfit) but still onward they puffed.
I am only hopeful that anyone new to the joys of running sticks with it and sees the benefits of a healthier life as I have.
Good luck for 2011 folks – may many good things come to you.
Running together – Stride for stride on a life changing ride! – Sean Muller
I know that I have been very slack over the holiday period, but that has been due to family and friend commitments. I have however been reading loads and doing some master classes on running and techniques etc.
The New Year’s run was not the traditional half marathon or marathon distance that I have been doing around Sydney over the past couple of years, but rather an enjoyable 9km jaunt through the Brisbane suburbs where my friends live. Some really good hills and humidity made for some challenging conditions – so good to see many others out there in the heat. Some of these looked distinctly like I did about 7 years ago (very overweight and unfit) but still onward they puffed.
I am only hopeful that anyone new to the joys of running sticks with it and sees the benefits of a healthier life as I have.
Good luck for 2011 folks – may many good things come to you.
Running together – Stride for stride on a life changing ride! – Sean Muller
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