Training Log: bartholemeu

slept very poorly, and legs a lot worse than i expected when i woke up. relaxed a bit through the morning... but this cycle in was MAGIC! legs felt progressively better the whole way, and now feel almost perfect through the day.
Interesting though, that my brain is almost dead enough that commuting was a bit dangerous. Might mean that yesterday i spent a bit too much mental energy in the second half unnecessarily stressing about Jordan's progress, being very late for a family engagement, and navigating. Need to learn to stay relaxed mentally in all conditions.

Event: Sydney2Gong ultra
 

Loftus to Wollongong with Jordan.
Sweet route. only thing i'd change next time is through the tunnel instead of over bald head, and still would love to get up Keira at the end, although the descents at the end weren't actually that fun with tired legs.
Started out at loftus station around 4am (an hour late or so) in the rain and tried to get the coast by sunrise. At Audley had to jump over 2 foreboding "track closed" signs but was ok. Got a bit lost in the dark out of winifred falls but again figured it out, great tracks here and i'll come back during the day.
Sweet sunrise with showers mostly clearing and beautiful along the coastal track from a different direction, although every month theres more and more boardwalk.
From Otford we decided to scale down the embankment on a minor track and found the southern end of the abandoned Stanwell Park - Otford tunnel so walked through that (2k) to find out where the Otford end was (which is through a hole in the fence from the station track). Creepy af with water flowing through, pitch black, rusty machinery and who knows what in there! so cool!.
Jogged back through and continued up past Stanwell Park onto some slow technical trail, then 7 k of fast singletrack to Sublime Point. We were both pretty stuffed there and took our time to make sure Jordan wanted to continue. The tunnel and late start and faffing now meant we were about 2.5 hours later, and Mt Keira was out of the question really. Jordan was struggling but amazingly was good to continue. From there some tricky nav through the mtb tracks and maze of firetrails to the muddy af goattrack and downhill into balgownie.
Halfway down the downhill, Jordan came to a complete stop and the biggest f-ing black snake i've ever seen was curled up on the track, head about as wide as my wrist, and it wasn't moving, so we had to bushbash through lantana and lost another 45 mins or so, and lost descending flow.

Both pretty shattered at the end but still functional. Jordan was a bit more physically done, but amazing to see how solid his ultra-mindset was, which is probably from doing more 100s and milers... My body and mind could have gone further, but was pretty late, pretty shattered and only had an hour or so to spend with my brother there until he had to head back.

Ate a tonne when i arrived, but through the run, only ate around 14 servings, which seemed a bit low, but right given the lower exertion. Very little water, about 7 bottles in total.

Awesome

pretty banged up, but knee should be ok. mostly just rested to avoid sweating bandages off etc.

Eventful summer series in Mosman.
Really tricky route choice, ended up just drawing something and going as i was sick of looking at it. I think it was pretty good, except for one dip down in the contours which could have been avoided. HR shows i must have been taking it a bit easier than last week? although it didn't feel like that at the time... maybe just caused by trickier nav, or legs a bit tired going into it, or 5k warmup, or HR monitor..?

On the third last control slipped and came down hard on my knee and chin, instantly spurting blood everywhere from my face, was pretty rocked but pushed the pace to the finish. In my daze, forgot to punch a 30pointer i'd planned for last which would have taken 1 minute, so ended up 570 - 2mins. Not really a great result, but somehow equal with james 10 behind Richard

Next morning, knee pretty stiff and bloody, but should be ok for saturday. Left elbow must have gotten quite twisted, and probably should have gotten some stitches on my chin, but i've already got a scar there from volleyball, so one more doesn't bother.

easy over the bridge to cremorne and back. Enjoyable, although my technique isn't quite good enough for low-drop shoes on downhill pavement