Training Log Archive: АТ

Aye, bit of an update on my recent XT excursions.

I put my ankle in a devious little KF hole (might go fill it in) on Tuesday in the first rep, tried to run it off but that wasn't happening. I was very frustrated since this exact injury happened almost exactly one year ago, and as with then Braids was going to be off the cards; real bummer.

Anyways that is why I have been cross training. My theory is that cross training doesn't particularly work (or at least nowhere near as well as running) in the old fitness department, since everytime I do it whilst injured I seem to lose a fair chunk of fitness, shown by HR elevations across all paces on the return to running. This is why I've gone with the "double or nothing" approach to volume in the last few days. This i something that I realise is probably not sustainable in the long run with the time constraints of life and I am also all too aware of the over-training issue; best to avoid that one. However since injuries in my case have never been particularly long (thankfully) and I am a uni student, so basically don't do any work, this approach has been doable for now.

I can't really complain too much because my ankle is basically fine now, but last year I was a melt and tried to run way too soon leading to 3 weeks of terrible training, leading to being back to square 1 with the winter fitness. Won't let this happen this time so I'll be building back into running in the coming week, all being well I should be back to full running by the weekend.

I will update on how I feel about my XT theory once I'm back up and running, hoping for a positive outcome. Lets see.

84.3 km (26.8 kph) +341m.

The plan was 3 hours of riding, so I nailed them timings, however as I set off I wasn't really feeling up 3 hours in the saddle, so convinced myself I'd turn around at an hour.

Started with getting fairly frustrated by people on the innocent railway path down to the coast, just not moving etc, fun times. Once on the coast road things perked up and was pootling along nicely, enjoying a lovely sunset on the beach, not too much traffic, life was good. Got to Aberlady, where I turned around on Thursday, wasn't quite at the hour so pushed on to Gullane, however once through Gullane I came round a corner and the North Berwick Law loomed into view.

Now I'd talked with Felix about doing the two volcanoes in one ride, so decided that it looked close enough to do. Onwards! Popped a few tescos strawberry laces at this point, which were only thing I'd brought with mein the way of sustanace. Got into North Berwick and had to have a quick google maps check to work out the best way to do a 'lap' of the Law. Turned out to be quite a long way round but hey ho, I was there now.

It was as I was finishing this lap at ~95mins that I realised how far it was home, a bit of a bummer, and it was getting dark. I'd planned for the dark by strapping my O headtorch onto the handlebars so all was good, just had to gurn it oit back home.

It never got properly dark, but it definitely got colder, so was treated with some eerie fog over the fields, and a very nice orange sky that quickly turned black. Was fairly worried as my back light on the bike is a bit, well, shit, so I just hoped cars would see me, this hope worked very well on the most part and not sketchy overtaking was done by cars.

Made it back into the city fine and back up innocent, all fine, only one honk (which was me just being a pleb) so a successful darkness raid, I just had to gurn out a seat lap, which I should have done at the start if I'd planned on this ride, and then head home. Job done good stuff, very fun, would repeat. Bottom quite sore from sitting in a saddle for the last hour. Legs nicely tired but actially not too bad.

53.81 km (26.8 kph) +849m.

13.18 km (24.6 kph) +88m.

47.18 km (28.0 kph) +208m.

48.63 km (25.5 kph) +970m.

Easy gym sesh.