Monday Apr 30 |
 | Note | |
| (rest day) |
| Feel good. Had a full night's sleep. Then had another sleep mid-morning before heading into work for my 'late' day. Slightly muscle stiff when I sit for a while, otherwise fine. Looking forward to (yet another) rest week before the silly tri this Saturday. And another drive to Busselton. Sigh. |
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| C • really..its not that far! i do... 5 |
Sunday Apr 29 |
| MTB race (Langford Park) 1:18:12 [4] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida |
| Left the rogaine after a solid 6hrs sleep, breakfast and then drove a bit over 2hrs up to the MTBO event. I wanted to see how the body was able to ride after trashing it on foot the day before. Walking and running was a bit uncomfortable, mainly a sore left hip-flexor from a trip at night and sore in the hammy insertions behind the knees.
Biking was fine though - felt really good for 50mins before I went tired. Still pushing hard but found I was in a gear one or two easier than normal so lots of effort but not a lot of forward movement. Managed to stuff up the first control in a right royal manner as I was still on rogaine scale (and just plain dopey) but after that was clean. Course was full of route choice but went back on itself several times which was a bit confusing at times working out which line was going to which control.
Oh, and did I mention I managed to beat Boltboi, Jen and Evo... Lots of sleep planned now, time to taper for a half-ironman. |
Saturday Apr 28 |
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| Event: 12 Hour Rogaine
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| Rogaining race 11:57:00 [2] 61 km (11:45 / km) | |
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| One of my better efforts at the sport of trudging in straight lines through scrub in the dark. Enjoyed the event at all times and didn't ever hit a big flat patch. Thanks to Carboshotz I suspect for that - I don't think I've ever consumed enough carbs in the past to keep up with energy expended! Rogaining with Fletch was awesome - we just cruised along spiking controls and taking turns switching off totally for legs at a time confident in the other's nav, much less demanding.
We underplanned a bit as we were expecting a bush rogaine to be lots slower than the farmland ones we usually only do. It was slower, but not by as much as we thought. A strong walk in the scrub interspersed with running in the pines and on tracks got us 45mins up on schedule at the 40k mark, then we ran 5km on tracks in about 45mins to give us a big buffer to complete our plan and add in the whole of our "maybe possibly if we are Wayyyy ahead extra-loop" controls. Ended up with 61k straightline, not much more in reality as we were pretty clean. Will measure and update one day.
Had 25mins to get from last control 1.5k to home but struck some rather unpleasant scrub in a creek in the pines. Some 15mins later after employing the "horizontal bodyweight full-length fall" technique to flatten the grass and ti-tree we emerged in the completely open pines and had to jog home to make it!
Very happy with our nav, our focus, and our ability to still feel physically purposeful through the whole event. Not so sure we'd beat Wil and Ricky when we added our inefficient "extra" controls but fortunately were a stonking 70pts clear. A nice silver badge for them for their birthday(s). |
Friday Apr 27 |
| Swimming 20:00 [3] | |
| |
| Thought I'd better do some training for the half ironman so Jen and I went for a wetsuit swim down at south beach. 400 up and 400 back plus a bit extra to keep superfish Jen company as she ploughed powerfully and purposefully like a playfull porpoise between the groynes. It was a lovely morning, and although the water was chilly it was a great way to feel a bit more energised. |
| Running 10 [2] 0.8 km (12 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot |
| 10min jog between the groynes, or as Jazz would have us believe, the groins. We weren't at Swanny though, so will stick with groynes. |
Thursday Apr 26 |
| Note | |
| (rest day) |
| Better freshen-up for the rogaine if we're to have any chance of beating Wil and Ricky - - and recover from my illness thingo. Oh how it hurts to admit I'm taking a rogaine "seriously" - don't tell anyone! |
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| C • shhhhhh!!!! 3 |
Wednesday Apr 25 |
| MTB (Gungin) 2:46:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida |
| Nice semi-cloudy day. Slept in till 730 then met Evo and Boltboi at the Dell for a 40km MTB ride. We'd been going 6mins when I pinch flatted on a downhill (forgot to unlock forks!) but after that quick stop was all good. The recent rain had made the tracks much faster - and for some reason I was having a "confident" day on the bike! Even made it up the biggest hill after Pickering Brook- not sure what it's called, MTBers seem to have a deep-seated urge to label everything, their bikes, their tracks, every uphill, every downhill. I think this one is "mother" or "the whore" - probably depends if you're going up or down. I guess that lets them name twice as many things!
We rode from Dell to Farrell Grove, then blue tag trail (oh no, now I'm doing it!), up white tag trail, down memory lane, along link track to Gungin then Mundabiddi to PB then home the direct way via Gungin spur. While riding down memory lane at speed I saw Boltboi's bike lying on the side of the track but no Boltboi. Given he was about 10s in front of me this was a bit worrying, it was ok though, he was just having a nap embedded between 2 grass trees a little way off the track! No real damage done. Boltboi was okay too, just bruised! |
| Running 44:00 [3] 8.04 km (5:28 / km) | |
| shoes: Asics Trabuco |
| Ran with Jen from Freo along coast path for a bit, turned around and headed back. Was a more solid pace than I had expected and I felt quite good at the end. New shoes feel great, will use them for orienteering and adventury stuff probably. Still sore in my abs, glutes and proximal hammies from stupid core stability mini-session on Monday morning. That'll teach me! |
Tuesday Apr 24 |
| Running 40:00 [3] 6 km (6:40 / km) | |
| shoes: Asics goretex |
| Wasn't going to run today, just coach, but it was so wet and miserable that I thought it'd be warmer running. Only Saz turned-up so I ran the 3 terrain loop reps with her, each quicker than the previous and the last rep in the dark.
10.30, 8.34, 8.28.
Felt pretty good physically but still not entirely attached to my body. |
Monday Apr 23 |
| Core Stability/Stretching (Beach) 16 [3] | |
| shoes: Barefoot |
| Slept about 8hrs which was good after the (late) night flight. Lightning storm in Sydney so we boarded, then the ground crew ran for cover, so we sat and sweltered for 45mins while the captain regaled us with stories of the number of times his plane had been struck by lightning in the air!
Headed to the beach and decided to over-rule how I felt and did a mini-version of the old Friday night beach circuit... nothing like a few squat jumps and burpees to make the world reel again. Have felt fine all day, except when turning my head too quickly, or standing up.
Sigh. |
| |
| C • Get well soon 2 |
Sunday Apr 22 |
| Note | |
| (sick) |
| Slept another 11hrs last night, woke up feeling shattered then by early afternoon was just about falling over when I turned my head too sharply. Go away stupid bugs! |
Saturday Apr 21 |
| Note | |
| (sick) |
| Not better yet, vertigo-type feeling all day and head-achey. |
Friday Apr 20 |
| Running 26:00 [1] 4 km (6:30 / km) | |
| shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones |
| Thought I was feeling better today so got up and went for a jog before the convention started. |
Thursday Apr 19 |
| Note | |
| (sick) |
| Made it to Sydney. Checked into hotel. Slept. Not feeling good. |
| |
| C • convention 2 |
Wednesday Apr 18 |
| Note | |
| (sick) |
| Wooke up to go swimming but felt a bit "funny" so decided prudence was called for and went back to sleep, especially after a big week of travel etc. work was frantic trying to get on top of things before flying out to Sydney Thurs a.m. but at about 3pm I began to feel a bit dizzy. By 330 a splitting headache and severe nausea by 430. Will make tomorrow's 545am flight hell... if I get there. |
Tuesday Apr 17 |
| MTB hills (Spin Class) 1:00:01 [3] | |
| |
| 545am: Early morning spin class for something different! Was a bit chilly getting-up so I was looking forward to being warm on the stationary bike... but all those memories from windtrainer sessions years ago came flooding back as I sweated excessively all the way through the session. Was a 'hill' session - so lots of low-cadence work and 21mins of standing.
Fun to do something different but reminded me that the reason I used to be tri-fit was that I used to train so much harder than I have been recently. Spin was better than sleeping in, or commuting, but didn't match a motivated windtrain session.... better dust-off some motivation and strive to get away from the curse of mediocrity which is steadily running me down. |
| |
| C • I can picture you in those pin... 1 |
| Road Bike (Commute) 58:52 [4] | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel |
| 8am: Road hard from Melville to work. Perfect morning for a ride, nice and still - river looked perfect for paddling, sigh. Fast flat ride from this neck of the woods, averaged 29.3kph in small ring whole way, noticed on the inclines that my glutes were a bit weary from spin class!
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| Note | |
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| Feedback Time
The SA orienteering week proved I have recovered from last year's bike crash, my chest was fine and the groin injury never restricted me - although I pulled-up a touch sore after running so hard behind Craig on the long day, and after lifting to an unfamiliar pace coming into the last control at the Badge event. On both occasions I was ok the next day. So that injury recover is a big positive.
I also went to the carnival pretty apathetic about orienteering, but came away having enjoyed the runs in the terrain. Another positive.
I felt more at home in the terrain each day and didn't carry any particular residual soreness or fatigue into day 4. So my overall fitness is good, but my running-specific speed/fitness is not up to scratch yet. I think that will continue to improve with (a) time and (b) trying harder at training, I don't do much running so that which I do should be faster!
The next few weeks are a mess, fly to Sydney for a convention Thursday, back Sun night so going to be hard to do any effective training till next week. But end of next week is 12hr rogaine so will have to avoid running and focus on swim and paddle... then the week after (idiot...) is Busso Half Ironman - so much for getting some long rides / runs in.
Oh well, all good fun!
:-)
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| |
| C • best all rounder 2 |
| Road Bike (Commute) 1:01:00 [4] | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel |
| 5pm: Rode hard back to Melville from work, was trying to match this morning's time but the sea-breeze, although not strong, made it a bit tough. I was glad to note that Evo on his MTB was NOT loitering around the narrows to make me feel bad on the way down to Canning Bridge! Averaged 28.7. |
| Running (beach) 31:30 [2] 5 km (6:18 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot |
| 630pm: Easy run with Jen from Port beach up towards Cott and back. Ankles were a bit stiff, probably from all that unaccustomed orienteering! Felt full of beans - - - until about 20mins after the run when I got a bit weary. |
Monday Apr 16 |
| Swimming 20 [2] 2 km (10 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot |
| Easy 2km jog on the storny beach - great after the dust and dryness of South Australia! Then went into the surf for a bit of a play - waves huge, little bit of adrenaline at times trying to get out past the break. Caught one or two less threatening lumps of ocean into the shore, amazing power, been ages since I've been in sea that rough. Alive again!! |
Sunday Apr 15 |
| Orienteering race (National Badge) 1:29:00 [5]*** 13.8 km (6:27 / km) | |
| spiked:22/29c shoes: Asics Orient |
| Body felt good today but I lost a heap of time at number two - a really short leg into some boulders - by just not looking at the correct side of the correct boulder. 3 loops later and after walking in again I saw it. Fortunately I was in the right frame of mind to "start" my run from there and carried on to enjoy my run. Found Ben at about halfway point as I was leaving a control, he'd caught me there I guess, but we stayed pretty close from there till the end. I think the fastest I ran all week was to hold him off down to the last control! |
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| C • video 2 |
Saturday Apr 14 |
| Orienteering race (Aus Middle) 54:00 [4]**** 6.5 km (8:18 / km) | |
| spiked:15/19c shoes: Asics Orient |
| Was looking forward to today but was scrappy most of the way through and never developed any flow. Couldn't leave controls in the right direction primarily. |
Friday Apr 13 |
| Orienteering race (Sprint) 18 [5]** 3.5 km (5 / km) | |
| spiked:19/20c shoes: Asics Orient |
| Fast and furious sprint race around a school, ovals and caravan park. Very easy nav but fun to do nonetheless. Ran strongly, faded a bit after about 2/3. I wonder whether the results will indicate all those who inadvertantly cut through the out-of-bounds creek and caravan park areas? Seems to happen almost every year, either the courses need to be set to avoid 'vague' out of bounds areas, or the purple hatch could be used to make it bloody obvious to everyone.
Or competitors could read the event instructions. |
Wednesday Apr 11 |
| Swimming 1:00:00 [3] | |
| |
| Walked into Adelaide from where we were staying which took about 2 hours then I did 2.5k in the pool. 1k easy, 1k of medley in 25s, 400 timetrial then cool down. Odd trying to count laps in a 25m pool!! Feel better for it though. |
| Note | |
| (rest day) |
| Flight out to Adelaide at 550am. And I'm not Jazz or Jen so don't get up and train at 430am... :-) |
| Running 54:00 [3] 10 km (5:24 / km) | |
| shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones |
| Easy run uphill then back down again from Malvern. |
Tuesday Apr 10 |
| Note | |
| (rest day) |
| Nothing today, just a few hours of golf with Boltboi, Rhys and Saz. Two rounds of 11 holes on a par 3 course. Exactly a year since my first (and last) round of golf and oddly I'd improved. Boltboi won the first round, just, but on the second round we all improved markedly, Saz by 15 shots, me by 11.
Legs feel really good, feel like I could carry on training this week. Unfortunately bikes and skis are back home... |
Monday Apr 9 |
| Orienteering race 59:48 [5]*** 7.8 km (7:40 / km) | |
| spiked:17/ shoes: Asics Orient |
| 1:10000 map today and a reverse chasing start. I htought I'd feel pretty smashed after yesterday's long hard run but I'd pulled up fine and after taking a few controls to get up to speed felt really good and ran hard. Enjoyed today and being caught at #5 I was able to run away from whoever it was after that. Almost feel like I can orienteer again. |
Sunday Apr 8 |
| Orienteering race 1:50:00 [5]*** 15.8 km (6:58 / km) | |
| spiked:22/24c shoes: Asics Orient |
| Tried to start faster today but Craig still caught me at 5. I hung on grimly for the next control and then my legs began to get used to his speed and up to number 11 we were working together and it was a good feeling to be running hard thru the open bush and navigating. Then my lack of racing/race fitness began to tell and it became a challenge to keep up with Craig's bright yellow shirt. I was carrying water so was relying on making up time at the water stops. There were a few controls where I almost lost him up ahead and I was really hurting but somehow I was keeping up - - - then Julian came thru, Craig accelerated and I blew up, sat down and cried for a bit and promptly made a very bad route choice with many extra contours. Glad to get through the day! |
Saturday Apr 7 |
| Orienteering race 44:00 [5] 7 km (6:17 / km) | |
| shoes: Asics Orient |
| Thought I'd run a bit faster than yesterday's sprint and generally did - although a stupid mistake at number 2 cost me over 3mins. After that I was clean and getting better as I went, but I am soo rusty after not orienteering racing for almost a year, it feels too fast a pace when actually it's not fast enough! Enjoyed today, crap result again though. |
Friday Apr 6 |
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| Event: Australian Easter Orienteering Carnival
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| Orienteering race 19:00 [4] 3.2 km (5:56 / km) | |
| shoes: Asics Orient |
| My first orienteering race since around Easter last year - I ran completely cleanly but with virtually no flow or confidence at all. Got caught a minute by Seb at some point and noticed that he was breathing very very hard - so I figured I'd aim to keep in front of him and pick up my work rate a bit!
24th today, pretty ordinary result but happy to be running in terrain again. Will try and work harder tomorrow and run myself back into form over the weekend of events!! |
Wednesday Apr 4 |
| Running long 1:16:45 [2] 11.8 km (6:30 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks |
| Meander from home with Jen and Haggles, only ran on bitumen for less than a kilometre, the rest was limestone, sand, bridle trail, beach and green strip. Perfect evening for a run, still and mid 20s. Bit longer than I should've I suppose, but nice and steady and most importantly it was fun and I felt good after a busy few days at work.
Now for Easter......
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Tuesday Apr 3 |
| Running 40:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones |
| Drills and run throughs. Felt good. |
Monday Apr 2 |
| MTB (Honeymoon Pool) 1:00:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida |
| Out and back upriver towards the dam - got steeper and rockier the further we went but much easier on the way back. Picked up a few bruises from failing to negotiate a log, a few scratches from falling sideways when we were standing talking (nice chainring cuts in my leg Saz!) and a stick flicked up and jabbed me in my monstrous quad. Ouch. Nice way, if somewhat early, to start the day. Quick freezing swim in the river then in the car for the long drive to work! |
| |
| C • no geo? 2 |
| Swimming (Squad) 45:00 [2] | |
| |
| Felt like having a loosener swim but got cold and didn't enjoy it all that much until I stopped trying and just bludged a few hundred. 2.2km. |
Sunday Apr 1 |
| |
| Event: Bridges Fun Run
|
| MTB (Wellington Forest) 1:40:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida |
| Rode from campsite along Collie River for about 25mins then up a big firetrail hill to join onto the Wellington MTB trails - there are heaps! Found the trailhead and then headed back down a good fun downhill without too many rocks (but a couple of foot-deep parallel washaways made things interesting - go the consecutive crashes from Jen and John within 3s of each other!! No harm done).
Nice nap and then drove to Dam for a run. |
| Running (Wellington Dam) 1:05:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Brooks |
| A lovely run on vehicle track through the jarrah forest from the cafe, marked with trail markers. Had a brief swim in the very low dam before last 5mins of uphill running. Nice undulating run, legs felt a million dollars. Lost the spotting competition though... |