Taking on New Clients

I’ve been working as a Personal Trainer for over two years now and in that time I’ve worked with more than 100 different clients, some just for the occasional session and some that have been with me for a significant period of time. After that length of time and with that many clients I consider myself quite experienced, I know there’s more out there for me to learn, but that’s the beauty of the way I work, I master my current level and then look for challenging exercises that can take me up to the next level. So far my methodology has worked well for me, I’ve received a lot of good feedback from a lot of satisfied clients.

Despite this, whenever I take on a new client I do have a few nerves. However I consider this to be the same as some actors must suffer on opening night, they know their lines but are fearful they may forget some or mess them up in front of the audience – I know my stuff but what if I get a blank when somebody asks me a question, or like a sportsman anxious before a big game or race – I’m usually able to combat pre-race nerves and I manage to do the same with a new client. I feel that the nerves are telling me that I really care about how my work comes across, I want to be successful by having my clients successfully reach their goals.

The way to ensure that my first session is a success is to make sure I’m properly prepared, I don’t have a stock session that I do for all comers, like some Personal Trainers do, I prefer to tailor each of my sessions to the specific requirements of each specific client. So I try to find out as much about the client before I take them on and then put a little thought into how I’m going to help them to achieve their goal. However it’s not always possible to get all the information before the first session, despite using a form asking various questions about a client’s fitness and previous injuries I’ll sometimes only find out about a previous injury during the session because the client forgot or didn’t consider it to be relevant.   

That first session then becomes the base as I find out what a client’s abilities and limitations are, what weight they can lift or push, how flexible they are, how fit they are and how capable they are with tools of instability. Occasionally I’ve made an assumption that a client is more able than they are, usually when they’ve already been using another Personal Trainer, but I just tone down the session if need be, other times their ability is pretty good for a beginner so I realise I can try some of the more intricate exercises in my repertoire. After that first session I’ll have a good idea of what we can do next time and start thinking about a plan to move that client forward in their training.

I like to keep things interesting for the client by mixing up the exercises across sessions and trying exercises that are new to them, but sometimes the client just isn’t ready for new but tricky exercises so I have to stick to more standardised solutions.

I’ve recently taken on a number of new clients and it’s been quite interesting trying out aspects of routines that are working for existing clients. The mix is good, some need more coaching than others, some need more pushing than others but all in all the feedback I’m getting is that the exercise routines I give them are fun and challenging.

If you read last week’s blog you’ll know that, last week, I pulled my lower back muscles lifting some rubble. It was really annoying, I couldn’t possibly have done that using weights, but in a different environment accidents happen. It’s meant very little exercise for me, in particular no running for more than a week (which I suppose can be counted as a blessing as it’s made me rest my knee niggle). It’s been pretty painful driving to clients but I’ve not yet had to cancel a session. True, I cannot demonstrate abs exercises but I can talk the clients through them. Thankfully in demonstrating kettlebell exercises I realised that they was actually helping to loosen up the back so I’ve been doing kettlebell exercises and some bicep, tricep and shoulder combination endurance lifting to keep me from losing all my muscle tone. No pure aerobic activity, though I did manage 20 minutes on my healthrider today, so I’ll be finding it tough when I get back to running (hopefully tomorrow, but I’m not counting on it).

Two of my marathon clients took part in half marathons over the last two weeks. Rich ran in Liverpool and managed 1:24:11 and Katy ran Wilmslow in 1:43:36. I know Katy was a little disappointed with her result but I pointed out that the temperature, whilst not baking, was significantly warmer than it had been for some time and that she was probably a little bit more dehydrated than she’d realised. It turns out that quite a few people found Wilmslow hard this year. I feel both Rich and Katy are on target for their marathon goals, at least Katy has done her Killer session, Rich is doing his next month.


Written by Roger Alsop
http://www.rogeralsop.co.uk/

Ticking Over In Australia – Part 2

Day 13 1 Mar – A new month and a new destination. It was another early morning start as we needed to get to the airport. A morning off running, too much to do, we said our goodbyes to Steve, Chris and the lizards and headed off for Sydney airport. Arriving at Hobart airport we went off to collect a car. This was the first car I’d booked from the UK so had chosen a manual out of habit, having driven an automatic in Brisbane I was now a little disappointed and it took me a few stallings to remember I needed to use my left leg (the other thing that got me was that the indicators and windscreen wiper controls are on the opposite side to the UK, back in the UK I’m occasionally setting off my windscreen wipers when I want to indicate to turn). The airport is a fair way out of Hobart but the driving is easy, within Hobart it’s pretty easy to get around and we soon found our apartment, close enough to the town for us. We’d decided to stay in Hobart for a couple of nights rather than keep repacking the cases every day. First things first lunch, we found a nice café in

Salamanca Place

and had a nice bowl of soup. Then a walking tour of Hobart. The tour took us to some interesting places and gave us a good orientation of the place, after that it was off to the centre to check out the shops, and then it rained. But this was light rain, which had pretty much stopped by the time we got back to the apartment.

It was late afternoon, time for a run before dinner. It was fairly hilly around our part of town and I didn’t really fancy more of that, during the walk I’d noticed St. David’s Park, it was fairly small but perfect for Carole and I to do a session together. Typically it was on a hill but not so steep that it was off-putting. We found a nice triangle area and busied ourselves running various sides of the triangle as reps. The sides weren’t long but using different lengths was quite good. After we’d done a few of these reps a group of runners turned up and started running around the same triangle as us. They were running around the triangle but only up to a time point, so there were occasions when we ran in the same area and it got quite interesting when I caught up with the lead runners, particularly when they tried to go with me. Session over we went back for an abs workout, showers and then to eat.

Day 14 2 Mar - Having done a hard session the previous afternoon it was back to steady running before breakfast. It was just one of those out and around runs. I didn’t want to take up too much time as we had a big drive planned so I kept it to 42 minutes. I headed along the front to the whisky shop/distillery and back but then decided to pop over to Sandy Bay. Apparently this is where Errol Flynn spent some of his early years, before hitting Hollywood. We spent the rest of the day driving around and investigating the area to the West of Hobart. On the way back we drove up Mount Wellington. Last time I was here it was too cold and windy up the top and you couldn’t really see much because of the low cloud, today was even worse, the cloud low and thick, you couldn’t see much further than your hand, let alone a view. So with the score at Alsop 0 – Mt. Wellington 2 we departed the area and headed towards Richmond, which has a lovely old bridge and a collection of people taking photographs of it.

The much photographed Richmond Bridge

Then it was back home for a cup of tea and out to dinner.

Day 15 3 Mar – We were due to leave Hobart today, Carole chose to stay in bed but I was keen to do a last run in Hobart. I wasn’t feeling like anything big and as I hadn’t really discovered anywhere better it was back to St. David’s Park. I had a think about what I was going to do to motivate myself to run hard, by rights it was a hard training day and anyway I get bored doing too much easy running in towns. I decided to utilise the triangle and decided I would do the following;

Run 1 length of the triangle, jog back to the start, run 2 lengths of the triangle jog forward to the start, run the whole of the triangle and jog to the start of the next length before starting again. 3 sets later I had started at all 3 corners of the triangle. Then I repeated the process going the other way. This culminated in 18 repetitions with alternating lengths. With warm up and cool down it took me 36 minutes so it wasn’t a bad old session.

Yesterday we headed out West, finishing up to the East, previously I’d travelled out East, so today, on our way to the ferry to Melbourne, we decided to head through the middle of Tasmania. We were aiming to stay at Launceston for the night, but were stopping off at a few interesting places on the way. I had thought that the coastal roads would be more attractive but actually the scenery along the interior is also pretty good. We stopped at some quaint townships, to stretch our legs and hit Launceston for a late lunch. Then we got settled into our motel and went for a walk around the town, using our guidebook to locate places of interest but heading for Cataract Gorge. When I last visited the gorge you had to drive out to it and the only walk was away from the town, now some work has been done and there were a couple of walks from the town to the basin, one easy and flat and one that undulated and required a lot more work. You must know me by now so you’ll know which route I chose, and the views were much better from up high. We wandered around the basin and then back the easy route and into town looking for somewhere to eat. Once we’d booked into a restaurant we headed back to the motel to clean up.

With a bit of time on our hands I decided to do a quick exercise session I’d read about. It reckoned to be pretty tough and one of the better sessions to do if you’re short of time. If you’re a client of mine, you may well recognise this as I’ve been trying it out on you too.

You stand in a static squat for 1 minute, then straight into 30 press-ups, immediately back into a minute of static squatting, straight into 15 squat jumps, another minute of static squatting, 30 more press-ups, another minute static squatting, 15 more squat jumps, 1 more minute squatting and to finish off 30 press-ups. Well I knew it would be tough as I’m no press-up king but I’ve done 2 minute static squats before so I thought I might manage it. Boy it was hard but I coped for the first 4 minutes and additionals, that 5^th minute my legs were screaming at me and I really didn’t think I’d be able to hold on but I managed to use every mind trick I know and emerged from the 5^th minute with just 30 press-ups to go, and that was a struggle, I could only manage 25 and I had to admit defeat. At the end of it I was dripping with sweat and my muscles were killing me, but I was fine after a few minutes. I’ve tried it on some clients and they agreed it was tough, I even got Lee Riley to try it and he’s the toughest guy I know (incidentally I watched CBBC last weekend, not because I think British TV has dumbed down so much that this is more fulfilling, Lee was on the programme racing up a hill in Tetbury carrying a sack of wool. This was filmed prior to his marathon world record and you can see how fit he was, he looked great (must’ve been all that advice I gave him)).  

Day 16 4 Mar – Today we were heading to Melbourne, travelling overnight on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry. The ferry didn’t depart until 21:00 and we didn’t have to vacate our room until 11:00 so it was a lazy morning, until I managed to persuade Carole to do a session in the park, which was opposite the motel. I must’ve done a pretty good job of persuading her as it was raining and she is a bit of a fair-weather runner. I enjoyed my triangle session so much, yesterday, I found a triangle in this park and proceeded to take Carole through the session. Oh what fun we have on holiday.

After breakfast we packed up and headed off towards the ferry. We had plenty of time but intended stopping off at many different places on the way. I was amazed at how we managed to do so much in such a short distance. Car handed back we got onto the ferry, found our cabin and went up on deck to watch it pull out of port. I don’t have sea legs but we’d be sleeping most of the way so I wasn’t intending to take sea sickness tablets, however at the last minute I decided it might be safer to do so. Thank goodness for common sense, it was a really rough crossing and I did feel a little bit of nausea at times. We went to bed and tried to sleep. I must’ve been asleep for a while but was soon woken up by the pitching of the ferry. The waves must’ve been huge as we kept crashing down and try as I might there was no way I could get back to sleep.

Day 17 5 Mar - We pulled into Melbourne very early but the trams were running and we headed straight to the hotel. Too early for check in but at least we could leave our suitcases and go for a wander. We did seem to wander quite a lot and didn’t get back to the hotel until late afternoon. We were on the 14^th floor with a huge window giving us views of the city. We headed down to the gym and spa, Carole did some running while I felt too tired so just did some weight work and abs, then into the swimming pool.

Day 18 6 Mar – After the best night’s sleep of the holiday I was raring to go so we hit the streets for a run along the south bank of the Yarra river, I did my standard repetition run and Carole just ran out and back. After breakfast we took a boat trip along the river to Williamstown, you travel through some dock areas, so not the best river trip I’ve ever taken, though you do get some good views of Melbourne along the way and Williamstown was really nice to visit. We got back late afternoon, we had tickets to Dracula’s Cabaret that evening. A quick kettlebell session and swim before we headed towards the evening’s entertainment. The cabaret was really good fun, I’d recommend it to anyone, though the food wasn’t as good as some of the critics had said.

Day 19 7 Mar – I didn’t want to do an out and back run today, I dislike them very much, so I took Carole for a reps set along the same route as yesterday. Then we headed out to St. Kilda, I’d not been before but I found it really interesting, if a little windy. We saw penguins, had a good walk along the beach where we stopped off at a café and I tried oysters (not sure I’ll bother again), went into the botanic gardens and then through the mall, which was pretty cool. Then we headed back to the beach before a walk through Albert Park. Unfortunately Albert Park was fairly restricted due to the following week’s Formula 1 GP but I managed to walk on the circuit, which was something I didn’t do when I was there to watch the GP. Then home abs and a swim before hitting the town for something to eat.

Penguins are a little shy at lunch time

Preparing for the Grand Prix which would be won by Britain's Jenson Button

Day 20 8 Mar – Our last full day before we head home. We decided to buy a daily transport ticket and see some of the suburbs. But first a running session, 8 x 3 minutes hard with 30 seconds recovery. We enjoyed St. Kilda so much we decided to head back there again for lunch, no oysters this time. Then we stopped off at Windsor and Prahran, both interesting suburbs, before heading up to Studley Park, in the North. We had a good long walk around the park and then went to find a waterfall that was being promoted. Unfortunately they were still building the waterfall, why didn’t anyone say! Then back to Collingwood and a tram back to the hotel. We were so tired I couldn’t be bothered with the gym and just chilled out in my room with a nice dressing gown and a good read.

Day 21 9 Mar – One last run in Australia, before we departed. I decided to run the path around the Domain and Botanic Gardens, nice and easy. We checked out and now had until 15:00, when the bus would pick us up to take us to the airport. There was a waterskiing competition going on just up from us, on the Yarra, so, as it was a really nice day, we decided to go along to watch. It was great fun and, apart from a lunch break we stayed there until it was time to depart. Getting to the airport was more fraught than we’d thought, it was a long weekend for Australians so more people than usual were heading up to the airport, but we made it and set off for home. This time I couldn’t sleep at all but managed to get through a few movies:

Beneath Hill 60 – about the First World War, really enjoyed it but then it was my favourite subject in History at school

My Week With Marilyn – Much better than I’d thought, an enjoyable watch.

The Descendents – Carole suggested this, and I did really enjoy it, it’s a bit different but thoroughly enjoyable.

Senna – Couldn’t resist watching it again.

Cowboys And Aliens – I’d run out of good films and I do like Daniel Craig, it was a bit dark at first, which meant I couldn’t see much of what was happening due to the lighting in the plane. It was ok, worth watching if you have time to kill.

Back home, absolutely knackered. In fact it took me a week to get over the jet lag, possible the longest I’ve ever suffered, but still preferable to the night shift.

Last time I returned from Australia I tore my hamstring soon after. So it’s no surprise that my knee started playing up last week, I rested it straight away, but clearly not long enough as it really started playing up again on Monday. I’m resting it more but hopefully it won’t take two months this time. Then this morning I was transporting the old bathroom to the tip when I picked up a heavy bag of tiles, that just happened to be partially wedged under something else heavy, I could feel my back muscles pulling and quickly let go. So I’ve now got a very sore back, thankfully letting go stopped it being too serious, but I’ll be stiff for a couple of days. Oh well at least it’ll force me to rest.

This means I won’t be taking part in the BMAF Cross Country Champs this year, in fact I don’t know when I’ll be ready to race again, but with lots of running clients on the books I need to get back to running well reasonably soon.


Written by Roger Alsop
http://www.rogeralsop.co.uk/

Ticking Over In Australia - Part 1

At the end of my previous blog I alluded to the fact I was taking a break from writing blogs. Well I was so sick of the cold I decided to pop over to Australia for three weeks and, as I usually do on holidays, I closed down all communications with my normal life in order to get totally away from things. The problem with that is that you get a build up of activities to carry out when you get back, though in my case this wasn’t so drastic as most of the voicemails and texts I’ve been sent didn’t seem to reach me, for some reason. So if you’ve been trying to contact me, and I haven’t got back to you, please get back in touch.

This was my third trip to Australia, I first went there in 2000 and again in 2005, but despite re-visiting some places I still managed to cover lots of new ground. Previously I’ve returned to some big races, so continued to train hard during my trips, this time however, despite also having a big race on my return, I decided to ease back a little and just tick over. It was my compromise to Carole, who still hasn’t quite reconciled herself with the fact that I’m committed not obsessed. To help myself come to this compromise I really pushed up the training before I went, to the point that I was almost overtraining, which meant I was actually looking forward to a break from training.

For the rest of the blog I’ve diarised my days so you can see what I did each day, including the minimal training I got by on. Hopefully it’ll give you some fun ideas of training to do on a break.

Day 1-2 18-19 Feb – We set off fairly early for the airport, as you’re required to turn up 3 hours before the flight is due to depart. Luckily my dad had offered to drive us so we didn’t have to get up really early. I had contemplated getting up early and doing a last run before we set off, but for once I shrugged off the idea. It’s a long way to Australia, along the way we’d lose a day but we were travelling via Dubai and Singapore so there were breaks to be had. Mind you I didn’t find these breaks relaxing as they occurred in the early hours of the morning on my body clock.

I won’t mention the airline but it is award winning. It was comfortable enough but the quality of the sound on the TV was a little lacking and the food was a little odd at times, e.g. spicy chicken for breakfast. However the thing that I found the hardest was that we always, both on the way there and back, seemed to be sitting in the area that received their food and drinks last. Those people who know me well will know that my patience levels are not the highest, particularly when there is food involved, and can probably visualise the torture my body was going through as I watched a plane load of people get their food before me. I know the trick is to put down a special diet as those people always get fed first, but I haven’t decided what special diet I should go with.

I did try to get some sleep during the flight, but I’m a poor travelling sleeper, so spent some time watching TV, there were some interesting features and I also watched two films. The first one was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which was interesting, if a little slow, and I would say probably not the best film to watch on a plane as the pilot kept interrupting with unimportant messages, in more than one language, still I’m glad I saw it. The second one was Senna, which was absolutely fascinating. I’m a big Formula 1 fan and have been for some time but there was a lot of interesting behind the scenes stuff that I’d been unaware of.

Finally we arrived in Brisbane at 00:50 on Monday morning. Thankfully we’ve got some really good friends and Zoe and Ash were there to meet us and take us to a nice warm bed. It had confused me, at the time I got the tickets, as to what day we’d arrive but I managed to clarify that. It appeared that Zoe and Ash had also been confused as they only realised they were picking us up as they were about to get ready for bed. Disaster 1 averted and off to bed we went.

Day 3 20 Feb – I’m an early riser, rarely I’m still in bed after 8:00 am, but today was one of those exceptions, we were both absolutely zonked and the warm Queensland sun, coming in through the window, helped us to doze even more so. But not wanting to waste the day we forced ourselves out of bed, just in time to for Zoe’s return from the shops with food goodies. Breakfast and a shower and Zoe took us out to see Forest Lake. It’s a really nice setting where Zoe and Ash live, within minutes you’re in a park and across a road from that you hit the lake. The Lake is about 2.2km around the perimeter and is pretty flat, so ideal for running reps, I thought to myself. Later that afternoon Carole and I decided we’d recovered enough to try running. Flying does strange things to the body, my ankles were a little swollen, all my joints ached and muscles were sore and stiff from dehydration and having been static for too long on the flight. My intention was to run around the lake 4 times, while Carole ran around in her own time. At first my body was all over the place and I started getting flashbacks to the days I used to work shifts, how I managed to train as intensely as I did during that time is beyond comprehension, but as I settled into my first lap I started to get the feeling of free running back. The second lap seemed even easier but on the third lap the heat and tiredness started to sap my strength. I knew whereabouts Carole was so I decided I’d turn back to meet up with her after I’d finished the lap, by then I was shattered so we headed back to Zoe’s. Before dinner Zoe put on her P90X dvd, so that I could try out the abs workout. It was great fun having somebody put me through a session in the way I would do for my clients. The exercises were pretty good and looked effective, I certainly felt like my abs had had a good going over. It was good to see some of the, clearly well trained, guys on video struggling with some of the exercises, as I did and there were a couple I just wouldn’t attempt this time as my lower back was giving me some trouble, from the journey. Then Ash turned up and it was barbeque time.

Day 4 21 Feb – I woke up feeling much better, my body was becoming more in synch with the clock and the aches were starting to subside. Luckily Carole was in a good mood so I managed to persuade her that I had enough time to do one of my reps sessions. I used my standard format of 1, 2 and 3 minute reps and I felt great on the 1 and 2 minute ones, but the humid conditions were starting to affect me on the 3 minute reps. Still I managed the full set and returned home ready to start the holiday for real. We were due to pick up a hire car so we could start our journey to Sydney the next day, but on the way we paid a visit to the Lone Pine Koala sanctuary. I’d been before in 2000, it’s a great opportunity to see koalas and feed kangaroos and wallabies.

post training nap, it's a Koala's life

they look so cute when they're feeding Kangaroos

       

We then headed up Mount Coot-Cha for a spot of lunch and then to pick up the car. Zoe had warned me that Brisbane was expecting hail that afternoon, but oops we didn’t have hail protection, oh well how likely is it that hail would damage the car! I drive a manual at home, but this was an automatic, unfortunately it took me an age to stop me from using my left leg and with no clutch it was the brake that took the brunt and we nearly ended up through the windscreen on a few occasions, luckily there were no accidents, just a tongue lashing from Carole.

Just before we got back to Zoe’s we stopped at a supermarket for some provisions, we were only in for half an hour but the skies opened, no hail but plenty of heavy rain. And amazingly we missed it all, by the time we came out it had stopped. Onto Zoe’s and I managed to persuade Carole she needed to go out for a run so I took her round the lake with a set of 1 minute reps with 1 minute recovery, much easier for me than in the morning, but then I was running at Carole’s pace. It was a tough session for Carole, just the kind of thing she needed, she needs more of these hard sessions if she’s to fulfil her potential.

Day 5 22 Feb – We left Zoe and Ash behind heading off towards the coast on our trip to Sydney. First stop was Byrons Bay. Byrons Bay is a nice small town with the bulk of the shops being unique, i.e. non chain, a refreshing change. It reminded me a little of Key West, it had a laid back approach. We stopped briefly but wanted to head down to Ballina before hitting Coffs Harbour for the night. For a while we wondered why all the clocks were wrong, until we realised that Queensland and New South Wales are on different time zones, which meant we had to push off a little earlier than anticipated for the long drive down to Coffs Harbour. We reached Coffs Harbour by 5 and managed to get into a motel by the beach. It was a nice beach, firm enough to run well on, so I suggested we had some fun on the beach. I think that Carole’s idea of fun and mine differ slightly but we ended up doing mine. A fun session of running hard for 1 minute, we’d both set off together but obviously I’d get further in a minute than Carole would, at the minute we’d turn to run the opposite way until I caught Carole, then we’d have a minute rest before we did the next one. If I caught Carole within the minute we got an extended rest, outside we got a shorter rest. I was averaging 42-48 seconds on the catch, which probably indicates I wasn’t running hard enough on the 1 minute out runs, oh well it was only a bit of fun. Being closer to the sea it was less humid than Brisbane, much nicer conditions to run in.

Day 6 23 Feb – It was a lovely morning for a run and Carole loves running along beaches so a well spotted motel from me. Carole needed little persuasion to get her kit on before we moved on and I used the time effectively by running along to the harbour, I even managed to find a steep hill to climb, bonus. I also managed to slip in an abs session while Carole had a shower, thought I’d try some of the stuff I picked up at Zoe’s.

Next stop was Port Macquarie, once again we were travelling down Highway 1, which according to the map was along the coast. And once again the road was inundated with roadworks, so it was slow progress, also, despite being close to the coast we were closer to thick vegetation so there was no coast to see along the way.

We arrived in Port Macquarie at about 14:00 and found a motel in a good location pretty quickly. Then off to the beach. After the beach we walked back along a promenade, a perfect location for tomorrow’s run, stopping at a bar on the harbour to have a drink and watch the sun start to set. We returned after dinner to eat ice cream under the stars, how romantic! and a good opportunity to fuel up before tomorrow’s run.

Day 7 24 Feb – I was in need of some proper quality training, but I didn’t feel like I could run flat out and I had limited time, so I decided upon one of my short recovery sessions, 20 x 1 min hard with 15 seconds recovery. It was perfect for my situation. Carole even managed to do some quality of her own, without any prompting, I hope she isn’t getting obsessive. Today was going to be another long day travelling as we headed to Nelson Bay. We arrived in Nelson Bay mid afternoon and realised we’d picked a weekend when there was a big fishing festival happening. Rooms were at a premium, but we managed to get one with a balcony looking over the harbour. Really nice view which required the necessity of a bottle of wine as the sun went down. The view came at a price, mind you so does wine in Australia, we were astounded to find that Australian wine costs more over there than it does in the UK, more surprising was that New Zealand wine was often cheaper than Australian wine, go figure! That evening we had fish and chips on the front, really nice but another curiosity was that they put the two portions together, this meant I couldn’t eat my fish and chips from my lap and had to fight off Carole’s advances for my chips.

Day 8 25 Feb – We were feeling a little tired this morning, Carole decided to stay in bed and look at the view while I went for a run along the road to Shoal Bay. I think Carole chose better as I had one of my least enjoyable runs ever. The sun was in my eyes on the way out, the pavement sloped and there were lots of people hogging the pavement, just to watch a load of fishing boats head out. Run out of the way it was time to load up and head to Sydney, at last a bit of city culture. Sydney is one of my favourite cities so I was glad to get there, and it gave me a great opportunity to catch up with the Steve and Chris, who we were staying with. I worked with Steve during my time in Germany, for a while we were in apartments in the same building and spent many an evening discussing the virtues of Irish coffee, or maybe we were just drinking them, I can’t remember. Anyway this brought us fairly close together and we’ve stayed in touch since then. Steve lives in Pymble, which is a suburb just off highway 1, so we were driving straight towards them. Unfortunately, as we hit the entry to the Sydney suburbs, my navigator decided to send me down the wrong road and we spent a while driving around parts of the suburbs. But we got there and once again enjoyed the delights of an Aussie barbeque, along with several bottles of wine and obligatory Irish coffees.

Day 9 26 Feb – I’ve stayed with Steve and Chris before, so I knew Pymble was hilly, though I’d forgotten the first one starts at the front door, once you get up the drive you hit hill number two and at the top of that hill number 3, irrespective of turning left or right. Luckily Carole hadn’t been to Pymble before and didn’t appreciate the lay of the land. I told her we were going to do a little hill playing, which meant running hard up hills when we fancied. Ok so I like hills, which meant there were quite a few I fancied, but I only took her up 16, not counting the ones we ran at a normal pace. It was good fun and meant we could get in a good hard session in about 30 minutes.

After breakfast we headed out to Bondi beach, with Steve and Chris, via the route of the City to Surf, which looks like the kind of run I would enjoy, it even has a rather long hill just as you approach Bondi beach, maybe next time I’ll be there at the right time. Lunch in Bondi then off to drop off the car and a visit to a wine a food festival, well you can’t train all the time.

lunch overlooking Bondi beach

Day 10 27 Feb – Easy running today, if you can call it that when you have to get up 3 hills at the start of the run. With all the hills and the early starts I was starting to get a few aches in my Achilles, but I knew that would fade once we left Pymble. Today we set off to do the Manley 10k walk, it’s a decent walk which involves a certain amount of elevation, but it’s a beautiful walk through the bush and the bit into Manley is really nice. Steve had told us it would take about 2 hours, but not content with 10k we added another as we took a diversion of 500m to visit a lighthouse. Unfortunately it was a complete waste of time as there was nothing to see, apart from a naked guy coming the other way. We made it into Manley, 1hr 59min 13secs, I don’t like to be late and it was a coincidence my stopwatch happened to be going. Manley is a really nice place to visit and has two beaches. Carole chose to take a dip in the sea while I read my book before we took the ferry back to Circular Quay, great views of the opera house.

one view of the opera house

Next we hit Darling Harbour, via a theatre, where we bought tickets for tomorrow night, to see Love Never Dies. Dinner, a quick walk around Circular Quay in the dark and then back to Pymble.

Day 11 28 Feb – With the Achilles protesting about hills I hit the oval this morning. Nice and flat, must be the only flat part of Pymble. With a busy day ahead I was short on time so decided on the 1 minute session again, though, because I took longer than anticipated to get to the oval, I only did 18 of them. Today was a day in the centre of Sydney, we started on the north side of the harbour bridge, walked over it, went to the planetarium, walked through the Rocks district, onto Circular Quay, around the opera house, into the Botanic gardens and around the Domain, into the Art Gallery then down towards Hyde Park, over to Darling Harbour and then onto meet Steve before some tapas and the theatre. Quite a full day and pretty hot and sunny too, but when we came out of the theatre we saw the early signs of what was to come, it was raining.

Day 12 29 Feb – Not a great day, as I tried to sleep I could hear the rain outside, even the lizards that shared the room with us had gone to ground. It was the day we’d chosen to go to the Blue Mountains, but as I lay there I was wondering if it would be a better idea to do something else. We decided to chance it as it might clear up. It was an early start so I decided now was a good day to take a break from running. The weather didn’t let up all day, in fact it got worse in the Mountains, as you’d expect. A gloomy day spent getting wet and cold, but the evening brightened up as we went to a Thai restaurant with Steve and Chris. This rain appears to have been the start of the what were to become, over the next few days, the worst floods in New South Wales for 48 years, thankfully we were off to Tasmania the next day.

Next week I’ll continue the blog with the 2^nd part of our holiday, featuring Tasmania and Melbourne.

We arrived back on the day, and too late for us to join in the celebrations, of the anniversary of the Pennington Flash Parkrun. Well done Bill and all the team, for providing us with plenty of entertainment over the last year. Although I only made it to 11 of the 51 events I did at least get a mention for achieving the most wins by a male runner, 7. Aiming for 8 this year! On the following day it was the Trafford 10k. I was keen to run it as it is a great race and a fast course, however the jetlag coming back was far worse than going to Australia and I would have struggled to beat 38 minutes, so I thought better of it and went for an 8 mile run instead. Katy, one of my clients, did run it, and set a new pb of 44:28 (gun time – 44:15 chip time).

Two days after that I was running with Katy, we were doing her Killer marathon session, and it lived up to it’s name, not only for here. For those that follow my blog you’ll know that I’ve struggled to run more than an hour, because of my knee. Before I went to Australia I managed a 90 minute run with no issues but 4 weeks of no more than 40 minutes running meant I was probably more nervous than Katy. The run took 2 hours and I did pay for it, my knee is inflamed so I’m going to take an enforced break until it recovers, hopefully that’ll be a matter of days rather than weeks. 


Written by Roger Alsop
http://www.rogeralsop.co.uk/