Noosa.....Here I come!!!

3 x 2k, 90 sec Standing Recovery - 6:57, 87, 7:01, 84, 6:55 - avg 6:57:66

My preparation for one of the longest and hardest speedwork sessions on our program was hardly ideal. The rot set in soon after arriving home late from work last night, but just in time for the start of play from Old Trafford. My brother Adam and I proceeded to argue for no less than 45 minutes on the best tactics for the Aussies to adopt for the final day of the test match. Adam argued that the batsmen should play their normal game as adopting an overly defensive mindset could be their undoing. I argued that our batsmen should be capable of reining in their natural games and shutting up shop like Dizzy has done at times and added that conceding the match at finishing at 2/180 would be just as demoralizing for the Pommie bowlers as going close to the out of reach target and losing most of our wickets would be. An old adage in warfare is that you can recover lost ground and lost time - you can not recover lost men. Transposed to cricket, this reads you can recover from a drawn match or a lost innings - you may not recover from one test down in a series. Anyway, neither man budged and inch and we ended in a stalemate. As such, I ended up not eating dinner till 9:30pm - discipline, Matty, discipline!!!

Hit the sack at 10:30 and was up again at 2:10 to watch the Aussies hold out over the last 17 nerve wracking overs, whilst I swore repeatedly at the television and the lamentable efforts of our top 7, Punter excluded.

So, it was on five hours sleep and a protesting stomach, that I attacked the first 2k rep at West End this morning. The A goal was to average 7:05's and the B goal was to better my avg of 7:11:33 that I achieved in my last crack at this session shortly before breaking down last year. Once I started running, I felt much better and it was just as well as the competition was fast and furious this morning with Phil K and Peter J running hard up front with the usual suspects Aaron, Slash and myself with Glenda not far away. With Coach Pat runnning hard up front all five of us went sub seven minutes for the first rep with myself at the back of the five man pack in 6:57. This was a small pyschological breakthrough for me, being the first time I had gone sub seven at this session. The pack got away from me in the second rep and I finished ten metres adrift, but with a very good time of 7:01. It would have been easy at this point in time to put in a 7:15 effort for the last leg which is always a brutal test of intestinal fortitude and still smash my PB for this session, but taking the easy way out is not my forte. I held with the pack for 200m at the start of the last rep and it quickly became apparent that the pace had slowed and I pushed forward alongside Aaron, determined to be on 7:00 pace at least for the first 500m and then I would see how I felt. As it turned out, I felt strong, so I tacked onto Aaron who was bowling along in front and the two of us cleared out from the pack. I turned strongly at the 1k and really put the pedal to the metal in the last 500 with the lungs screaming for oxygen as I just kept telling myself - "not much longer!". I was totally stoked at finishing in 6:55 for my fastest rep of the day. Whilst Phil K and Peter J hit the wall a tad in this last rep, Slash did nothing of sort, screaming past me in the last 200 and rocketing to the line impressively. Its very rare that someone goes past me and gives me windburn at the end of a race or tough session, but Slash did just that today - well done Mate - you're gonna kill them in Noosa!!

I'm absolutely thrilled at smashing my PB for this session by more than 13 secs for the 2k average and I'm confident that if I have a good preparation in the next few days, I will have every chance of breaking my 17:45 5kPB at Noosa. Bring it on!!!