Princes Park Rerun

The wind that has torn at Melbourne these past few days has, at least for the time being, finally abated. Today has been quiet and calm. The birds endlessly call to one another, their minds on Spring hatchlings. The traffic hums pleasantly. Not one siren sounds, the MFB and Ambulance vehicles are cold and still in their depots after a busy night. Even Thor's hammer has been laid to rest, having beat out a few cracks to join in with last night's chorus.

I cannot recall the last time I had such a luxurious morning. The dawn might have called but only noonday was answered. Weeks busy with training and work and not enough sleep between seem to have finally caught up with me and so I slept long and hard as I have not done so in months. I still have a 9k run to warm my legs on this dwindling afternoon and an engagement with that old whoremongerer the 1000 Steps with my new weighted vest tomorrow. But I feel rested and unhurried in a way that I have missed.

I have finally broken my running drought, particularly the long distance one. A few short 2.5 or 3k jogs here and there (most often with my weighted pack down to the car park from the top of the 1000 Steps), 3 weeks ago now I put on my much loved and increasingly worn ASICS Kayanos and took myself on a 2 lap trundle of my old training ground, Princes Park. I spent months acquainting myself to its 3k circumference while training for Nepal last year. I ran my first half marathon distance there albeit broken a few times at the end to make use of its water fountains and to stretch my sore legs. As part of my training for Kilimanjaro, I intend on running (read: jogging) more than one of those bad boys but I also intend on doing it with more finesse and care. I was on a tight schedule last year and so those last 2 laps of the park grew increasingly uncomfortable until it did not matter whether I ran, skipped or walked back to my car, only time relieved the impressive soreness left behind.

I have become much more clever in managing the recovery of my legs also since I discovered that iced calves do not persistently ache the way that they had been when I first started stair training a couple of months ago. I work my legs a lot, knowing how important it is that they be strong and resilient and enduring of the steady work that will be required of them for days on end. That was the second biggest mistake I came across in Nepal after acute mountain sickness. Something that I've heard tell time and again from others also. People taking for granted the importance of their legs to a trek, their knees especially. Persistent downhill is hard on knees. That is a reality of trekking. I have met those with bad knees from trekking trails such as Kokoda as young 20-somethings without prior training. Developing osteoarthritis from a 1-2 week trek competed at age 22 is an absurd and unnecessary lifelong complication. It is ultimately far better and less inconvenient to train.

I recently read an article about a 60-something gentleman who had just competed his 200th sub-3 hour marathon. In all that time, he never suffered a major running injury. He strongly advocated listening to your body when exercising. If your body told you that you werenl not fit to finish your weekly long run as planned, then you did not do so at risk injuring yourself. He advocated also training tired. I do not mean that he recommended training injured or training hard when your legs are tired, but going for a long slow run on tired legs better equips them for what they will experience in a marathon. The same is true for trekking and hiking, I do believe. If I want to spend 1-3 weeks walking in excess of 5 hours a day every day (something that my ordinary life does not provide for) then my legs must have the endurance to do so. They learn that endurance by training until they are tired multiple days in a row. I will endeavor to improve upon this endurance slowly over the next 4 or so months. While I certainly do not advocate doing too many kilometers too quickly (as I may have done), I never experienced the pain or exhaustion in Nepal as I did for every kilometer ran over about 16k. I was grateful for the comparison and preparation it leant me but I need to be fitter and harder for Kilimanjaro, at least for summitting day.

Headwind

This week, short as it has been with only four days, has been a trying one nonetheless. A rest day tomorrow is well overdue, although I am trying to mentally prepare myself for a short run in the hopes that it will come to fruition. I've struggled with the motivation to really get back into running.

It seems more and more that I ride my bike uphill into a headwind in the evenings with other road users that behave with ever more self entitlement. This week I have been forced to swerve car doors opening into my path when my strobe light into their rear vision mirror, especially in the dim light, should have made my presence plainly known. To stop and give way to cars that have pulled out into the road in front of me, cutting me off (both from turning right across my path into a side street and turning left onto my road from a side street). To stop because a vehicle is abreast the shared bicycle-pedestrian pathway. To negotiate cars parked in clearway zones at clearway times. To avoid cars that drive two wheels into the bike lane.

Cyclists are by no means a perfect community of road users but the damage a cyclist could cause to a driver and vice versa are incomparable. A fright and scatched car versus death or lifelong impairment hardly fit onto the same scale. Yet how careless some drivers have been toward me, and I'm not even including those that have failed to overtake me at a reasonable distance. To top it all off, winter winds push against me, fighting me for my forward momentum, as I square myself against the enduring rise of St Georges Road, my hip flexors protesting and teeth set. My calves are particularly sore and hardened, their recovery from last weekend delayed. I am grateful for the breeze, however, that keeps the sweat from sheeting off me, the cold blooded Scotsman descendant that I am.

There is something invigorating about riding to work in the morning, however. Even when it is so cold gloves must pad my fingers to retain the sensation in them and my ears are hidden beneath the neck buff that I tuck under my helmet. A little bit of water on the road is even better, as there are less cyclists to contend with and it is quicker to ride than to drive. I try to ride to work at least 3 times a week, each day saving me at least an hour of petrol. I feel that I begin those days at my desk alert and functioning, without the need for a strong caffeine injection. I begin the day well grounded also, especially if I have seen the homeless gentleman that sleeps beneath a narrow overpass on my route, his belongings packed into 3 or 4 green square Woolworths bags lined up neatly in a row.

The weather is truly winter now, our mild autumn ended a fortnight ago. It is so cold that I can hardly feel my hands as I carry my bike down a flight of steps, even in my windproof gloves. I store a cap in my bag in the event I need to keep the rain out of my eyes while I ride. And today as I made my way toward Ferntree Gully to climb the 1000 Steps, I watched as mist enveloped the hillsides so thickly and unexpectedly that I wound my window down to smell for fire, I could hardly believe what I was seeing was cloud. The damp day did make for much less traffic during the 2 hours that I was on those stairs.

My Salomon XA PRO 3D Ultra 2 GTX shoes are slowly but surely being broken in. I bought them specifically for training conditions such as the Steps where I might be inclined to jog or trot downhill. Something that I do quite frequently where pedestrian traffic permits, today being no exception. It is, I believe, the reason for the slow recovery of my legs this week even with a few days of hill and step work already breaking them in. They are less sensitive to the touch today, and I'm hoping they will improve and not worsen again.

On a trek proper, I prefer to wear my Scarpa Mythos nubuck leather hiking boots. They are much sturdier and provide greater ankle support. Last weekend I realised that I have cracked the heel of one orange Superfeet insert that I took to Nepal. Possibly on my rapid descent down the mountainside after the ascent to Kala Pattar. As someone with high arches, I prefer the extra arch support of the orange Superfeet on long hikes to prevent cramping although so far, I have not needed any additional inserts in my Salomons. I have not done a full day's hike in them yet but I will in the next month or so.

I will need to rejoin my hiking club to insert full day walks back into my training calendar for Kilimanjaro. I hiked at least 2-3 Sundays out of the month in preparation for Nepal, routinely carrying 12-14kgs in my pack, keeping pace with other hikers carrying less than two thirds that weight. This, I felt, was an important contribution to my training that I would have wanted for had I not included it in my training regime.

Tonight at my best friend's bridal party dinner, I was seated across from the partner of the Best Man who intimated to me that she thought that while trekking the Kokoda trail a few years before she got by mostly on the vitality of youth and not training, the consequence of which seems to be a persistent weakness in her knees. This is not the first I have heard of knees permanently damaged in twenty-somethings lacking trek preparation, I have heard it applied to Mont Blanc also. Descent is wearing on joints. I try to train specifically to build up the stength of the stabilising muscles around my knees to protect them which is what makes the 1000 Steps such an appealing training ground. It seems that others share that sentiment as I saw a singleton as well as a group hiking with weighted day packs and hiking boots while I was there today.

Over preparation has to be better than under preparation when trekking. Within reason, of course.