Running in Oz...tralia....

Interesting fact #1: Your Garmin will work in Australia, because satellites are in the sky. Not on the ground like cell-phone towers.

Interesting fact #2: Tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours of study poured into my primary education, secondary education, three tertiary degrees and two bar exams was somehow not enough to prepare me to figure out fact number 1 by myself. Thanks husband.

Last week, YBS and I went down to Australia (the country of my birth and the origin of my affinity for both physical activity and the consumption of alcohol... not at the same time). I was looking forward to some quality running time. But the first few days I was feeling too tired and jetlagged to run, in addition to having am inexplicable nagging pain in my groin that  I wanted to recover from. I was also focused on spending time with my friends and family and deliciously cute nieces. But in the end, the great outdoors called me and I got in three good runs at the end of the week before I left.

July 1-7, 2012 Workouts

Monday: Leg/core strength + 45 minutes elliptical intervals

Tuesday: Rest


Wednesday: Upper body / core workout + 30 mins light elliptical

Thursday: Easy 6 miles at around 9min/mile


Friday: This was a run for the pure joy of jogging around my home city again. I did an easy 3 miles at around 9 min/mile in Royal Park, one of the many beautiful gardens in Melbourne. It feels like the country-side but you can see the CBD skyscrapers in the background. The paths in this park go all over the place and you could get quite a few miles in without having to double up.

Source

Saturday: 8 mile progression run; beginning at 8:30min/miles, last two miles were about 7:30 during which I greatly regretted eating African curry lentils the night before. I ran this up Macedon road from my parents' house towards Mt Macedon (which you can just see behind the trees on the left hand side), where I went to school. My bus would drive up this road every day. It is some quintessential Aussie countryside, and I wish I had taken my phone with me to take pictures. In the meantime, Google's will have to suffice.

Sunday: (after a long flight home; I essentially had a rest day in between on the plane) I did a long run for 10 miles around Oceanside.

Total: 27 miles