Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Event: Wildfire Ultralong - NOL 11
 

The ultralong day, but not an ultralong course - I was acting my age today (the decision point was in late July - after a fragmented year of training, if I was going to attempt the full M21 course, I wanted to be able to do 2.30 comfortably by then, and didn't). After an iffy week I wasn't too upset that I only had 8km and not 19, but it was still a reasonably long day's work - I've never gone much under 10s here and today wasn't going to spoil that record.

Never had a lot of strength running and had to walk most of the major hills (some, like 14 to 15, would have been unrunnable by anyone), but did improve a little in the later part of the course. Decent technically in the early stages and I think my route was decent on the first long leg to 7 (fairly straight), but wobbled a little at the end of the leg, and then struck major trouble at 9 - not being able to work out where the 4-metre cliff was in amongst all the rock - and dropped 3 minutes or so. (I suspect the 4 metres were measured using the same metres which are used to determine whether a kick has travelled 15 metres - whereas the climb on the course was measured using the metres used to determine whether someone's run 15 metres without bouncing the ball). Next time loss was about 2 minutes at 13, a small bit of bare rock in tiger-country steepness and big rock (in general I had a fair bit of trouble today working out what was mapped and what wasn't). From there, held it together reasonably technically with only minor losses at 20 and 23, and thought I was cruising in until realising, a bit too late, that Nathan Guinness was within striking distance of me at the top of the chute. He outsprinted me for 2nd; Eric did 76.

Probably dropped 6 minutes or so over the course, which I couldn't be happy with, although it worked out better physically than seemed likely over the last few days (or in the early stages of the course). Banged my knee a couple of times and it's feeling a bit sore and bruised this evening, but I'd need to have a broken leg not to front tomorrow.

C • Banged knee 2

Feeling OK in normal life but still rather weak and sluggish running; certainly noticed it going up Ruckers Hill (which is not very much of a hill). Will want to be better than this on the weekend, even if I'm acting my age tomorrow.

Still feeling a little out of sorts this morning (and logistics of the pool were easier today than they will be tomorrow) so took to the water today. A reasonably conventional session.

One of the regulars at the pool is a very keen Melbourne supporter. This week there was one thing we could definitely agree on: go Crows! (For those who haven't been following the AFL too closely, a Crows win over the Eagles means both Melbourne and Essendon make the finals, as long as the latter don't somehow lose to Freo at home).

C • Pessimist 4

Not sure what went wrong there - set out (early again) with the intention of an hour and ran into a brick wall. Temperature a bit elevated which may explain a bit (it was back to normal by later in the day) - don't want to take chances with illness this close to the NOL events (especially with a significant milestone pending).

Somewhat sleep-deprived this morning, in between having a teleconference which went until 11.45 last night and needing to make an earlier than usual start for a meeting starting at 8.45 this morning. Given that, I wasn't too surprised that this session fell a bit short of last week's equivalent, but it was still reasonably respectable by this year's standards.

Warm-up and down. As mentioned earlier, somewhat sleepy for the former.

A Monday recovery run, nothing sparkling but probably a bit better than the equivalent session has typically been this year (when it's happened at all). In a sleety rain for much of the way.

Still raining for the swim but I didn't notice once I was in the warm water below that there was cold water above. Another steady morning's work, and didn't drift out of it in the way that I sometimes do on these mornings.

Melbourne Bush-O at Woodlands. Was wondering how I would come up after yesterday's hard day, and was pleasantly surprised by the answer - not that Woodlands is exactly the world's most physically challenging area, but I was expecting it to be more of a struggle than it was. Had Steve Bird on my tail through the first few which got me going, then was running reasonably smoothly through the remainder of the course. No navigation time losses, just finding a slightly sub-optimal place to cross the creek at 2.

Unsurprisingly, this was my fastest kilometre rate of the year. I thought that the big guns might go under 30 but none did (although Kerrin did get sub-5s). Ted did me in the sprint after we were level at the last control. Around me were quite a few of the usual suspects, and one not quite so usual one - Emma Prime, making a rare appearance, who was about a minute back. If she ventures beyond local events she'll be very competitive in W40 next year should she feel so inclined.

Biggest training week for me since mid-2016 (discounting rogaines). I'm happy with that as a week's work.