Sunday - 30km

What an extreme change in weather! It went from unbearably hot and humid to quite cold and windy! Not that I’m complaining about that (ok, I will whinge a bit about the headwind on the way home, but I still reckon the trade off is worth it)! In the spirit of shaking things up a bit, I decided that I needed to change the route of my long run (there is only so many times you can run past Brookvale Bus Depot before becoming depressed. So I went for the hilly option (i.e. ‘hardcore’) of running along the coast like I did back in the old days (and to be honest, a much more scenic route). Started from mine and headed towards Shelly Beach for the initial short 4km loop. Caught Scotty, Darren and Justin at Shelly Beach, where I was stoked that the former joined me as he was happy to push the pace a bit more. In saying that, I had always anticipated today’s long run to be run at a slower pace - both because of the course itself, and the fact that I did a session yesterday. So having Scotty join me really reinforced that, which was great. The pace was solid, but easily talkable. Having already run 14km, I was left solo heading north at Collaroy (otherwise Scott would have ended up running 42km if he had continued with me - I did try and sell it to him though). Kept the pace controlled all the way to Turrimetta Headland before turning around into a very strong headwind. The upside was that it kept me cool the entire way home. I forgot how tough it is having Dee Why, Curl Curl and Queenscliff headlands to run over in the final 5km (as opposed to Dee Why Flats). Nevertheless, a great solid run without killing myself, getting home in a respectable 2:01:23 (4:03’s) - although the GPS underread (as it tends to do these days, so in fact was slightly quicker than that). Straight back home for some brekky and to wear an actual t-shirt (instead of no shirt or a singlet).