Sydney the Musical

What a week it has been! In fact so much has happened that I'm not going to be able to get it all out for this one post and may need to drip feed all the fabulosity that was my weekend with Team World Vision in Sydney over a few installments.

But let's start at the very beginning, which is, after all, a very good place to start (I may have used that line before, sorry. Too tired to check.). Last week, I got the all clear from lovely sports physio Gerard to start full-on training again. Which is just as well as it is now less than THREE months until the big day! [insert muffled scream here!] Lovely trainer Peter has re-jigged the program to take my knee-related absence into account and get me through to the big day.

As I've built back up over the last few weeks on a modified program, I haven't been doing long runs and that's what needs to really start happening now. According to Peter I need to increase the distance of the long run by about 10- 15% each time. Unfortunately, the revised program and the delicate illio-tibial band 'situation' means that the half-marathon in the City to Surf won't be happening. Regular readers may remember that the half-marathon coincided perfectly with the Novice Supreme plan. The revised program has a 12km run for that weekend which I thought meant I could at least do the normal 12km City to Surf run but, as the course is so hilly, Peter has strongly advised against it for fear of upsetting my ITB. (And New York is a relatively flat course so it's not like I need to practice). I really can't risk an injury that requires any time off at this stage so it looks like I am out of the City to Surf. But I'll still be there to support Team WorldVision, of course! And I'll just do my 12km on some other route.

And so, to Syd-er-ney. I was lucky enough to get to spend the weekend staying with my lovely friend Teresa and family and got to catch up with old friend Ricardo for lunch on Friday.  Thank you Teresa and Ricardo!
I hadn't been to Sydney for YEARS (falling, as I do, into Camp Melbourne. Sorry, Sydney) and had forgotten how STUNNING that Harbour is.

Saturday was Team WorldVision day and Rose and Collette had organised some terrific speakers for us. I learned a lot, both about marathoning and about WorldVision (as well as recovery, chafing and socks. More about those topics later). But, the BEST thing (aside from Rose's flapjacks) was getting to meet the people I'll be sharing this whole mad experience with, especially Janey and Mike who I felt I had already got to know a bit through email and Facebook.

Appropriately, this weeks running song(s) : Keating! the Musical soundtrack. (It was the 'Redfern' thing (both suburb and song from the album) that got it back into my high rotation list with its suitably Sydney-esque theme.)