Off-road at Omana.

Sunday 01/10/06:

First day of daylight savings - yay!
One hour less sleep - not so yay... but never mind!

Even though the legs weren't feeling too bad at all last night, I slept in the Skins anyway!
This morning they felt completely refreshed. Plan called for a 35min jog only.

Courtney headed off with her Dad for the day at 9am. Straight after I headed off for Omana Regional Park, which is just beyond Whitford Forest, where I ran last Sunday.
As you would imagine, this is a large public park area, which also has a camping ground, a farm with kids petting zoo and some walking tracks thru the bush. It is also situated on a peninsula, so has some awesome sea views and the beach is just below the park. It was another pleasant morning - although cloudier than yesterday, it was still quite warm.

Walked a couple of loops of the carpark to warmup and stretched before heading off at a jog up a paved path. Soon onto the grass and running past paddocks. Ran past 3 goats that were chained to their houses and they all gave me a strange look as I went by. Two had names painted on the sides of their houses - Trixie and Dixie (and they had the right to look at me strangely??) so I said Hi!

Grassy mounds soon gave way to dirt track and I was into the bush. Track took lots of twists and turns and lots of up and down hills too. After 15 mins I emerged onto the road beside the park entrance, so continued down the road a way, to the beach. Ran along the beach for a way, then turned back and headed back into the bush on the same track, only going in the reverse direction. Even though my pace was somewhere between easy and steady most of the time, the perceived effort was greater due to the terrain, but I was totally enjoying the surrondings, lots of native birdsong and some lovely views.

There were other people on the track by now, including a family of four who were trying to ride their bikes on it - its fairly narrow, single file space only really, unlike the much wider access road at Whiford Forest. Trying to ride a bike on it - especially with kids - was not a good idea and I had to fight my way past them, as they had all stopped dead in the middle of the track...
"Hello people!?!? - what are you thinking?!?!"

Arrived back at the carpark in 44.30mins and walked a few more loops of the carpark after grabbing a drink from the car. I would estimate I covered around 8kms, maybe a bit more.

By this afternoon the white clouds had turned to grey and it poured down for several hours, with a lightening and thunder storm thrown in for good measure! This is the first rain we have had in almost 2 weeks! (Guess who won't be watering the new lawn tonight!)

Total kms for the week: 61.5

Week 7 of the training plan contains the longest long run of the programme - 100mins on Sat.
However it also brings 2 rest days - tomorrow and Sunday. It also calls for 70mins on Tues, so if I am to do this in the morning, it will be another early start. Probably a good thing that tomorrow is a rest day then! Also, all afternoon and this evening I feel like I am either coming down with a head cold, or a bit of hayfever that I get occassionally. Very itchy, tingling nose, lots of sneezing and a few sniffles. My legs are also feeling a little stiff tonight. Still, it feels strange having a rest day on a Monday now, I've gotten used to running 6 days a week very quickly!