Just when you need a power song...

While out on my 17km long run today the random cycle of my Sony Walkman selected the live version of AC/DC, Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap).

This power song came at just the right time. I was at the 13.5km mark and struggling at the top end of a long hill. Those fine vocal cords of Brian Johnson and lead guitar rifts of Angus Young gave me the extra lift needed to finish off my tough Sunday long run.

More Motionbased details can be found here.

Elevation chart of todays long run.

Today's run and another 12km run earlier in the week brought my yearly total to 111.2km's. According to my map on MapMyRun this has me approaching the Victorian town of Seymour.

The area of Seymour was surveyed in 1843 and named by the explorer Thomas Mitchell after the British parliamentarian Lord Seymour, the son of the 11th Duke of Somerset.

When Lord Kitchener came to Australia in 1910 to advise the government on military matters, he inspected a major encampment at the racecourse and recommended it as a permanent military training area. When World War 1 arrived, a few years later, the permanent camp was set up and, in 1920, Seymour Shire became the chief military area in the state. This ultimately led to the establishment of the Puckapunyal training camp in World War II.

With only three days left in January I am a little behind my 165km a month target. Hopefully it is something I can make up for later.

Just down the road.

I have only managed one 10km run since my last post.

This puts me only a short way up the Hume Highway alongside a small place called Waterford Park.

I'm not that familiar with Waterford Park and unfortunately Google doesn't seem to have much information about this small township.

Part of the perils of Running to Rockhampton is that at times I will be stopping in some pretty quiet towns. I will endeavour to make the stay a short one.

I had ordered two large 10 oz water bottles from Fuelbelt to replace the 7 oz bottle I lost while running and another bottle that had developed a rather annoying leak.

The original 7 oz is pictured with one of my new 10 oz bottles.

The two bottles arrived in the post yesterday and hopefully I will be able to hang on to them for a little while longer.

I have copied a fun tag from A Girl Running.

1. Find the nearest book.
2. Name the book & the author.
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page.
Copy out the next three sentences

My book is a rather graphic, fast paced action book called "Ice Station". The Author is Matthew Reilly.

An unspoken understanding instantly spread throughout the nine remaining people in the pool.
The killers didn't care wheteher they were moving or not ...
The nine people in the pool moved as one, breaking out into frantic swimming strokes as the killer whales rose to the surface beneath them and commenced their feeding frenzy.

Feel free to take up the tag if you like. Please let me know if you do.

The quest continues...

I woke early this morning to run my regular, 10km circuit. I completed the 10.14km distance in 0:52:06.

More Motionbased details can be found here.

Today I took the chance to trial a new running accessoriery. While away on Strike Team to Briagalong late last year I acquired a Hi-Vis Camelback from the Department of Sustainability and Enviroment.
Yes, it is very bright, but it was free, and I ran the 10k's with no rubbing or hinderance. A handy, 2 litre hydration pack for my long runs.

This run brings my yearly total to 71.28. By my it calculation I am approaching Wandong in Victoria on my quest of Running to Rockhampton.

Wandong is a town on the Hume highway with a population of 1,500. It is situated on the Great Dividing Range and adjacent to the Mount Disappointment State Forest. The township was formed in 1876 and in its heyday Wandong boasted a large timber industry, seasoning works and brickworks. The name 'Wandong' is aboriginal dialect for 'Ghost' (gee I love Google). It is also home to the Wandong Country Music Festival (Yeehaa!).

Late Edit: I have read everyones blogs via Bloglines but for some darned reason I can't post comments at the moment! Fark Farken Bloger!!! (Whoops did I say that out loud??).

Looking forward to catching up when the Blogger boffins get their shit together.

Strike Team 0844 at Swifts Creek

I returned yesterday afternoon after spending three night shifts at the Swifts Creek Fire Complex.

We spent most of the time on Asset Protection duties. Thankfully the weather and fire settled down overnight leaving the night shift with not much to do.

We stayed in snow villa's at Dinner Plain snow resort and enjoyed luxury accommodation and food.
The Onsen Health Retreat and Spa provided free entry for firefighters and I managed a short, 5km run on the retreats gym.

The spa facility were also well used by our crew.

It wasn't quite all rest and relaxation. While traveling to the staging area for our last shift we were confronted by a huge column of smoke pumping out of the area where we was headed.

As mentioned earlier the fire behaviour did lessen considerably overnight and the properties we were sent to protect at Brookville never came under direct ember attack.

My crew and I on Berwick Tanker.

The road back home had been cut off by fire so it was a very long, seven hour trip the long via Wangaratta, back home.

I seem to put on 2 kilos after everyone of these trips so after a nights rest it was back to exercise this morning.

I ran 10.1 kilometres in 0:52:33 losing one of my fuelbelt bottles along the way (ggrrr).

More Motionbased details can be found here.

Back to the bushfires.

Woke up early this morning to squeeze in my regular 10km circuit. Completed the distance in 0:50:22.

Motionbased details here.

It looks like as it is my last run for the week as I am heading back up to the Gippsland Bushfire's this afternoon.

This time I am crew leader on a truck and our Strike Team will be doing night shift at Swifts Creek.

I was thinking about taking my running gear with me but fear that out of safety concerns I may not be able to wander too far from the Staging Area. And after a 12 hour night shift I'm not sure I will be in the mood for a run.

Hope to catch up with all your blogs when I get back.

Finally a purpose.

Today I went out for a run during more civilized, daylight, hours.

A long run of 15.4km's was completed in 1:21:06.

A suburban, local long run.

More Motionbased details can be found here.

Sometimes I get some crazy ideas while running and here is one of them.

Back in the peaceful 1980's while in year seven at a new school, my running obsessed class teacher organised a trip.

It wasn't a trip on a plane, train or bus but it was a journey on foot.

Most school days started with the whole class going for a run around a 1km track surrounding the school grounds. At the end of the fitness session all our laps were tallied and the total kilometres place on the blackboard (wow a blackboard...showing my age here).

The total kilometres was then used to map our run against a map of Australia.

Starting from Melbourne and heading up the east coast our progress was recorded with drawing pins.

We would do research on the towns and cities we passed through, learning a bit of Aussie history along the way.

From memory we did a complete lap of Australia. It was an interesting learning experience.

So with keeping with that theme I have started my progress from Melbourne down the Hume Highway and heading north.

With the help of http://www.mapmyrun.com/ I have worked out that with my kilometre total of 35km at the end of week one, I have reached the intersection of Hume Freeway and Cooper St in Somerton Vic.

The road distance from Melbourne Vic to Rockhampton Qld is 1980km's and I would like to be at least there by the end of the year if not further (maybe Mackay Qld, 2316km's??).

Feel free to come out and cheer me if I go past your piece of this beautiful country.

Midnight Runner

With Summers high temperatures and my shift work it has become necessary to re-start my midnight running escapades.

Some of you may remember way back in January 2006 I had my first and only after midnight run. Since then the need for running during the AM side of 12 o'clock hasn't been needed or really desired.

But due to my mostly late evening working hours this week, last night I added a torch to my 'Inspector Gadget' collection and headed out into a warm, 22C degree, night.

In all I ran 10.1 K's in 0:52:31. Not a very fast time for me but I did have a few stops to adjust my light that I was carrying as a headlamp. I ended just taking it off my head and wrapping it around my fist.

It was a very warm night but without the glaring sun the heat was quite manageable.

At this point I would supply a link to Motionbased for further stats, but seeing as the site is currently down and being a pain in the arse I wont bother.

Goals for 2007

I have thought a lot of my running goals for the coming year and here are just a few of them,

1. Run for the Kids, April 1st (already entered).
2. Great Train Race, May 6th.
3. Fatass Bellarine Rail Trail (I thoroughly enjoyed this event in 2006).
4. Melbourne Marathon, October 8th.
5. 2007 kms in 2007.

The 2007 in 2007 is just a figure I have plucked out. I am planning on at least 2000 k's for the year, hopefully I will do more.

Happy New Year

Welcome back all. I hope everyone had a safe and happy festive week.

For Christmas I bought myself my first MP3 player. I was looking for one that I can use running and also for work so I decided on the Sony S203F. Purpose built for running it has 1gb of memory and a built in FM tuner. I picked it up last week and have had fun playing with it since.

After quickly loading a few songs into it I went for a run over my regular 10km circuit last Thursday. It occurred to me that with the MP3 player and Garmin Forerunner, I was running with $650 worth of equipment strapped to my left arm. Feeling like a cross between the Six Million Dollar Man, and Star Treks 'The Borg' I ran along to the sounds of Wagner, Young Divas and Eminem. I think my playlist needs some more fine tuning and any recommendations will be cheerfully added.

All my children are now over the Chicken Pox epidemic that swept through the house. With a little complaining last week they rode their bikes while following me on a short 5km run. They enjoyed themselves at initially but struggled on the first hill. I had a great run though and look forward to more family bike/run outings.

With Fire Brigade duties, hot weather and Chicken Pox as some of my many reasons, I am full of plenty of excuses of why I have done so very low kilometres in December.

Instead I will concentrate on the 1814.8 kilometres that I have run in 2006. Considering the the road distance from Melbourne to Brisbane is 1669km I think my yearly total is a great achievement. Also a very promising total to beat in 2007.