FEELIN’ STRONGER EVERY DAY

Stablemate DJ “In the house” Dorff mixed and beatmatched (at a whopping 180bpm) his way to a solid, 1:30:14 clocking at the Hobble Creek Half-Marathon.

Starting off at a reasonable rhythm before reaching a massive crescendo at the end was how DJ had imagined it; unfortunately, his decks seized up on him as he bonked to the finish.

After a lovely chat with his wife, Laurel, The Stable News held the line to get DJ’s account:

SN: How are you, DJ? Let’s get into it.

DJ: I’m good, thanks. I tried two new things in this HM. Firstly, I tried not going out too fast with the hope that I could finish strong. Second, I took a caffeinated gel at the beginning, instead of 30 minutes in.

SN: Sounds good.

DJ: On the first item, I still died the last three-four miles, which has been my pattern. I felt in control and smooth for the first seven-eight miles. I held back, hoping that I would finish strong. But I was still gassed come mile 10. Perhaps it was still too fast at the start.

On the second item, I took my gel five minutes before the expected race start. But the race was 30-40 minutes late starting. So that experiment didn’t go as planned.

SN: No luck, ol’ boy. Did anything come good in the end?

DJ: Not a PR (it was a bit of a short course) + I bonked at the end, so overall a bit of a disappointment. Still, I don’t want to take for granted the progress of the past year—I’m so grateful to have a healthy body that can perform at this level!

SN: That’s the positive DJ spirit we know. Plus, you are training for something much bigger than a half, are you not?

DJ: Oh, yeah; next up is the St George Marathon in October. 🙂

SN: Excellent. We are sure you will be more than happy with the result. Any parting words?

DJ: Absolutely! A big shout out to my wife, Laurel, who ran 2:00:29 and set a nine-minute PR! She CRUSHED IT!

SN: Lovely. See you in the late fall, DJ.

The Stablemaster was still relaxing in the garden, this time creaking back and forth in a not-too-stable (geddit?) hammock. (Jellybaby had finished the lawn and was now inside tidying the crumbs from Coach’s pastries): 

“Hello, hello. Still bouncing between the Dorff household and mine?”

“Indeed, I am; what did you think about DJ’s performance?”

“A fine outing for the superstar DJ. He shouldn’t be so hard on himself, but that’s what makes a great Stablemate—always striving for more. We move on to St George, where his quads will be screaming and his heart will be pounding as he hammers the downhills en route to a monumental PB.”