Tuesday - The Christmas present dilemna

3 x 2k @ 4:30 mins/km, 2k WU and WD.

Had a nice hitout on the treadmill this morning, running smoothly and evenly. Unfortunately, not everything else went smoothly. Benno's Mazda 323 which I'm driving whilst he is overseas wouldn't start and I ended up driving Adam's Holden Astra to gym and work. As the Astra was sans aircondtioning, I walked into the office soaked in sweat. Surely this is not how Clairie does her secret heat training sessions?

The afternoon saw me dash out to the Uni of Qld to see my sprint coach and occasional podiatrist Ashley Mahoney. After Ash flimed me front on, rear on and side on doing 5:00, 4:15 and top pace, he was very pleased with the improvements in my gait which is a great stride towards more speed and eliminating shin splints. Ash is expecting the still frames from the film to quantify my progress shortly. We ended the session discussing my 400m speed. Coach Pat has told me he has a 400m PB of 52 secs and on the basis of this, I would like to be able to run a 55 sec 400m which I believe will give me the raw speed that I need to be able to run faster accross the board at all distance. Ash reckons I can run 57-58 pretty easily but hard work will be required to get down to 55.

But the real big news came yesterday when MJ texted me to say that she had won the Fitness First promo where a new member(me!!) is referred by a current member (her!!). The prize - A super duper fancy BBQ with all the works!!! I had to laugh when MJ told me about the big win because she was pretty insistent that I not sign up for membership unless I negotiated the price down to exactly what she is paying. I ended up negotiating the price down as you might recall, but was unable to get it all the way down to what she pays, courtesy of signing up five years ago, but signed up anyway. Gees, MJ's a lucky gal, don't you think!!!! The big question now is - am i excused from having to get MJ an Xmas present??? After all, how can I top that BBQ??? ;-)