Striders Ten Bridges

Sunday, October 19, 2014


Finished the week off strongly with the Sydney Striders STAR run. I've only done this weekly event once before, but the 'Ten Bridges' sounded fun - a loop around much of Sydney's best waterviews from Longueville, with options ranging 15-30km. 

Stumbling out the door at 5:40am, I had to cover 4km to the 6am start point at Central Park, down past Lane Cove. It's well organised, maps are given and we set out in a pack of 10; these guys are not sub-3 marathoners so pace pretty easy. Hats off to Wooey who turns up eagerly at 6am, being 2 weeks from Auckland half, 1 month from kid #1 and 3 hours from a waking 8 month pregnant wife.  


Wooey at the start line. 

A good amount of hills keep the legs honest as we rolled along River Road, ended up at Blue Point and through the boardwalks along Lunar Park. Felt very comfortable but not in the mood to push any faster than 5 min/km pace. 
City view from the North Side

The bridges offer incredible views in a clockwise route circling several bridges: Harbour bridge, Pyrmont bridge, Anzac bridge, Iron Cove bridge and Gladesville bridge. The morning also happened to overlap with the Spring Cycle - got caught in some man-traffic at Observatory hill. 

Sleeping Darling Harbour
Just after the Anzac Bridge, the pack split in half with the 30km group adding a 5km out and back. The remaining five including myself did the 25km course which cuts straight down Victoria ave. through Drummoyne. The best part was the last 10km, which went through several discrete trails and parks through the Lane Cove area.   

Random park in Lane Cove -
The return to the Striders tables at Longueville was a welcome sight after battling too many hills to count, 30km and 2.5 hrs running. Made the decision to hold off on the cookies and cakes and do an easy 4km back through Artarmon. By that stage I was getting ready to wave the white flag. . 

Run summary - 34km in 3:00 hours at 5:17 min/km pace. Almost 700m of elevation! I did this one on no water, no breakfast and no mid-run nutrition.

Importantly the map reminds me of rotund mouse. The return from Artarmon to Longueville makes a great tail.

Run map - an overweight mouse??
Evening update - Lorie decided to dust off the runners and wanted company. She planned a 4km, but added 2km after I explained why running 148km for a week was tragic. I used the following analogy - 'Let's say you have 15 tops to iron and you get to the last one and leave the left sleeve creased. How would you feel? Would you be happy leaving it? - this worked like a charm. We ironed that final 2km sleeve together and I got to 150km. Even ran into my sister-in-law at the park and ended up pushing the nephew and wife on the swings.

Uncle and husband duties in the playground
Looking at the weekly log, it's been the heaviest week since July. Better yet, my fatigue feels mostly muscular rather than anything suspect.
Weekly run summary

Weekly summary - 150km running with one speed session and lots of hills, 1 hr cycle commuting, 2.5km swim. Fatigue score - let's say 7 out of 10.

Have a great rest of the weekend.

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