Jucee Lucy

Thanks Jucee I was wondering why you mentioned Monnas and I see he ran parkrun yesterday too, 16:26

Quite tight between Monnas Brave heart and me!

This morning I ran the Sunshine Coast XC series race 1 at Buderim!
Ronnie and Scroopy were also taking part. Queensland must be one of the few places were you need to apply suncream for  a crop country! It was hot!
Ronnie's son Johnny took off at the start and that was about all I saw of him until the finish! Another youngster was in second and I was 3rd from the gun. The Bockster was 4th (Peter Bock) he's not one to race XC seriously much more of a 1500 guy.
Anyhow the kid looked like he was coming back to me after 2 of the 4 laps, but I wasn't in a great hurry to chase him down as the effort was too hard!
However the kid caved and I caught and past him early on 3rd lap, to bring it home.
I twisted my ankle slightly on a small ditch close to home and decided to give the 3km a miss. Didn't really get a chance to catch up with Dave or Ron.

8 x 1000m ave 3:15.6 with 53.7sec recovery

Sunday I headed off to Scarborough for 20km easy along the peninsula (4:07km)


Tuesday back to Nudgee for 8 x 1000m.
Conditions warm humid and breeze was picking up.
2000 warm up and into it. I run with the Garmin but can not read it when im running so never know what my splits are till I get home. Wanted to keep the recovery short but also wanted to run the same 2.5 laps, so decided to run back across the infield each rep. Felt like recovery was pretty swift covering 100m in ave 55secs and the Ks ave 3:15 which I was happy with in those conditions.
The rest of the week was recovery though I had to change things about a bit when abroad closed off my standard roo+lake for 3 days!
This morning I headed to North lakes parkrun for a bit of a tempo 5km. Took it quite easy at start, chatting with 2nd placer Ben Merlin for first lap. But your not supposed to be able to chat on a tempo so I put my head down and hot to work. I didn't mind getting blocked overtaking from lap 2 I was just trying to keep in controlled looking for the gaps to pass. I felt quite light on my feet which is a good sign. 16:28 official time including a 3:12 km which is race pace!
Tomorrow I want to head up to Budrim for the first Sunshine Coast Cross Country 12km plus 3km.
I enjoy doing that much more than a long run by myself.
Sydney Nationals 10000m on Friday 5000m on Sunday staying with relies in Engadine.

Three Half Marathons

Its been a few years since I completed a Half Marathon so I have just entered THREE of them!

Queensland Half at Deagon on 7th June

Gold Coast Half at Southport on 5th July

Sunshine Coast Half Alexandra Headlands 30th Aug

Better start getting the miles in! 

Calf is OK to run on but still painful when rotating ankle. 

Many other aches and pains but hope that putting these on my calendar keeps me motivated.

Check out this web site that lists the world age best records.

http://www.arrs.net/SARec.htm

There is an occasional gap or lapse where you might be able to exploit! Goodluck!

If only we had "indoors" here!

I'm going to be racing over 10000m and 5000m over Easter at the Australian Masters championships. Bruce Graham and Keith Bateman will be there.

M45 Dennis Fitzgerald is running the 5000m and XC, and our front cover model, Phil Davies is entered in every event!

http://www.amasydney2015.com.au/

two of the best M50's in the world : Andrew Green and Mike Trees

You may need to register with powerof10 to open the following links; 

this is Mikes results history from the past 10 years;
http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=4851

and this is Andy's;
http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=409922




I tweaked my calf on Tuesday 8x800 ran OK on Wednesday but thought discretion the better part of valor and decided to rest it for 3 days.
No point in pushing it beyond limits and besides don't plan on racing for at least three weeks.

Major goal now Tokyo where I'm meeting up with two of the worlds greatest M50 runners. These guys were one year below me at Loughborough Uni. Mike made a career as a pro triathlete in Japan while Andy ran 2:10 Mara racing all over the world on the road.
Mike topped the M50 World rankings from 1500 to 10000 in 2014
Andy has just run 15:33 and 31:32 on the roads in the UK both world Age M52 records!

Andy is single handedly redefining what M50 World Class running is all about! His training is phenomenal.
So I have my work cut out just holding my head above water racing these two over 5 or 10 on the track and a 10km on the road! My target goals the Aussie M50 records look pedestrian compared to what these guys are doing.

Queensland State Champion !

Queensland State 10,000m Championship 1st 33;43

I get to the car park at SAF and saw an exact replica of my car (same make model class and colour) but with the rego 
JUICEE, 
it was a prophetic sign, sent by the Robot to inspire me (he has often written about LUSTY Lucy but a JUICEE  Lucy will do).
The conditions were ridiculous. 
I sat for half an hour in my car in the car park with the air con blowing and the outside temp showing at 34 O C and it was windy as too!
I cut down my warm up to 2km and even then got back sat down and the sweat poured off me.
I felt awful and didnt feel like racing at all.
All up about 20 runners started and I for once didn't go for time, 
this was only ever going to be about the race. 
I tucked into a group of about 6 of us, Dennis Fitzgerald did all the leading, Mick O'Shea, Clay Dawson, Patrick Hagan and Michael Colston (along with me [Sweeney] this race could have been in Ireland!).
The heat and wind were oppressive and I did well to tuck into the inside lane except during the multiple lapping scenarios. 
Early on I didn't feel great and there was a point where the group very nearly dropped me.

The guy in the orange vest Siune was a PNG runner who ran about 65 on the first lap (!!!) he hung with our group for a while but I ended up double lapping him!
His name is a pigeon version of mine!!
Soon after the 'near dropping', the pace slowed and I started chopping my stride to stay at the back of the group. It felt very easy and we carried on like that for 15 laps!
I went through 5000m in 16;33. 

Are you looking at me??

Patrick Hagan was the class of the field, not sure what time he's run for 10KM but he's about a 30 minute guy easy. With 10 laps to go it looked like Patrick was going to make a break as he pulled wide but he actually dropped out! But as I was covering his move and pulled wide and decided to keep the momentum and make a break with 10 laps to go!
What was I thinking??

I gapped the field immediately, we'd dropped from running steady 80's 81's to mid 80's and I reckon I must have gone sub 80 for 2 laps. I was convinced that I would be caught but managed to work hard and hang in there. At the bell I realized I had it won because the bell wasn't rung again till I had passed 300m to go! 
Wow  I was going to win the State title at 53! 
It was definitely worthy of a finish line salute!

Ronnie won the State a few years ago so I wont claim to be the oldest ever State track Champion but nevertheless it was a tremendous thrill for me and I was chuffed to bits! 
Of course in many ways my victory is a damning indictment on the state of 10,000m running in our State but in truth you have got to be seriously motivated to race 10000 on the track in our conditions. My time was shitehoussen but I'd be a minute quicker on a calm cool day.

Bronzed Lasse Golden Bazza

The great Finn, Lasse Viren seen here holding a limited edition bronzed statue of himself. 
He also has a life size statue erected .
We should celebrate our champions and immortalize the greats.
Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp have their statues at Arsenals Emirates Stadium. The King (Wally Lewis) is immortalized at Suncorp. 

Which running Gods in Australia deserve to be immortalized?

North Lakes parkrun 1st 15;56

Colourful start

Clare had help pacing her under 17mins!

The loneliness of the long distance runner?

It was not very comfortable heat and humidity

OK so you can see my dilemma on laps 2 and 3 when you come up to lap groups, inside blocked and dogs on leads, I'd have gone wide right onto grass. 

I was about 200m from the finish when I lapped a guy and I hear him say to himself "I'm not having that!" and he took off to try and unlap himself but I say to myself "Oh no you dont! I'm in sprint mode and your not going to pass me!"

I've got a bet on with a mate to see who can go the longest not having a hair cut! Its starting to show!

Effortless tempo training run finish! Garmin Pose!