Training Archive: ToomsIn the 31 days ending 2007-08-31:
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| W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Friday Aug 31 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:32:00 [3] 4.3 km (21:24 / km) | |
| Today was a good morning - I was awake and my arms warmed up in the warm-up rather than at the 2.5km mark! Main set felt easy (300/400/500/600) and afterwards I was ok enough to do a set of 25max/25easy for 500m and I only began to lose speed in the last 3 reps. Yeah, feels good to have some swimming strength back. | ||
| Paddling (Beach) 50:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| It was my day off from work today, but with other staff away I did a half day, 730-2, which gave me time to score a free lunch at Mum's, then head home for a 90min nap before blearily dragging myself off for a much neglected paddle. I was half hoping it was too rough to get out but the big waves were infrequent and I was able to get out with minimal difficulty, still a bit of an adrenalin rush as the potential for a bigger one to be lurking unseen out the back is always there! Headed south to the blockhouse, into the sou-wester but across the westerly swell - which with the addition of some backwash and monster rips off the shore mayde life a bit tippy, no real problems though, jsut a few brace strokes. When I got back I did 3 ins-and-outs to push my luck a bit. | ||
| Running (Beach Session) 20:00 [3] 3 km (6:40 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| RUnning within the session and the cooldown, didn't really do a warm-up as I was rushing ab it from the ski. | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching 30:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Usual exercises, increased the number of sit-ups, lunges and burpees. Was a bit weary phsyically, but awake mentally tonight. Swim and paddle make my arms tired for this sort of stuff. | ||
Thursday Aug 30 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 1:09:00 [1] 29 km (2:23 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Mmpff. Let's see, 20s a K faster last night running, 20s a K slower this morning riding!!
Tired, sore and slow. Met Jen at UWA and then along river to work. Silly body just couldn't get going - but then I did need a hot shower and some stretching this morning just to be able to walk normally to the kitchen for food! Although, now at lunchtime tucking into left-over risotto, mmmm, I'm beginning to feel much better. Will try for some better pace on the way home. Maybe. | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 45:00 [3] 19 km (2:22 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Felt much better heading home tonight. Fortuitously I got a puncture. Fortuitously because for the first time since the caffeinated race back in whenever I'd found a spare tube at home and put it in my backpack. Fortuitously too in that this week is the first week I've relocated my pump and started carrying it. Lucky too that I'd just turned to head home the medium distance way home when a maverick double-g impaled my back tyre. Really struggled to get the tyre back on, eventually my finger and forearm tendons gave up and I had to risk using a tyre-lever. Fortunately no pinching. And then even more happily the tube stayed inflated all the way home - not bad for a tube that'd been repaired 3 times. | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching 40:00 [0] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| After having a little reminder of how much chronic hamstring pain really sucks earlier this week, I was very diligent and did a solid 40mins of glute, groin, quad and hammy stretching while watching the final of the "Stupid Celebration Next to a Long Jump Pit competition". The Gold undoubtedly went to the Italian with his sub-human screeching and bellowing combined with a bit of chest-beating, chin-thrusting and obligatory strutting. Silver,again uncontested, went to his mother for the 'Possessed By and Evil Spirit" twisting, turning, lots of little jumps, head shaking and constant stream of gibberish.
It was awesomely satisfying to see the last jump by the last jumper eclipse the twit's previously leading mark. I wonder how the orienteering community will react next time say, Troysie, takes an early lead in the WOC Sprint, watches his time posted then creates his own brand of histrionics? :-) | ||
Wednesday Aug 29 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:28:00 [3] 4.2 km (20:57 / km) | |
| Pool was nice and warm this morning and I felt strong. Couldn't stay with the lead fellow but swam in 2nd in my lane. Main set was 5 x 400m with 30s rest, firm, medium, hard, medium, easy. Stayed in afterwards and took it up to 4.2km. Beginning to feel tired now, 10mins before I go out into terrible weather for a long run! | ||
| Running long 1:33:40 [3] 17.5 km (5:21 / km) | |
| ahr:132 max:153 shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones | ||
| I had a very hectic day with work, two manager types away so I am carrying the can this week -was actually looking forward to the long run to burn off some nervous energy. Evo rocked-up, and a clubbie called Ricky, both of whom are fast and it made it a quicker run than normal for Saz, me, Brian, John and Simon. It was 10 or 11 degrees w ith a really strong westerly and intermittent rain. Just lovely! Saz looked grumpy from the car-park and after about 10mins politely spat the dummy and headed off for her own run. After 40mins off hills, bridle trail and limestone we reached McGiilivray and Simon called it a day - sore from C2S on weekend. Steady pace through JTC then up past Graylands, St John's Wood, Stevenson Ave and then along WCHwy to Oceanic, sand and grass the whole way. Pace was higher from Stephenson to OCeanic but Pete and Ricky were nice enough to come back for me at SAS and then we turned back again at Oceanic to pick up Brian and John for the 10min cruise home. Was a bit stiff after this run, about 20s a k faster than normal. | ||
Tuesday Aug 28 | ||
| Running warm up/down 30:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| Running intervals (Grass Farm) 27:49 [5] 6.6 km (4:13 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| 3 x 2.2km grass farm loops. So called Grass Farm because about 15 years ago they actually used to grow turf here. Now it's just a rough oval. This is the first "real" session for a long time and I certainly felt ungainly, unfit and like I was inefficient.
9.00 9.04 9.40 (almost dark, had to be careful on eroded downhill) And tired... On the plus, I don't think that was the slowest I've run, and my legs weren't too sore afterwards although my hammies certainly felt the longer stride! Will enter HR later when I get a chance to upload from GPS. | ||
| C • Too embarassing??? 4 | ||
Monday Aug 27 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:10:00 [4] 3 km (23:20 / km) | |
| Pool was cold this morning - too windy to put the covers on last night. It meant I had to swim hard from go to stay warm, and most certainly didn't stay in afterwards. Probably a good thing as I was shattered from the set, I'm fit enough to push the whole set which leaves me more tired than when I was blowing up and then dragging through. | ||
Sunday Aug 26 | ||
| Running 58:50 [2] 9.2 km (6:24 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks | ||
| Took the dog for an easy jog down to the beach, along to Brighton back to the drain and then home on the green strip. Very very strong westerly blowing, not much beach left with the wind-blown white water washing wildly wight up against the dunes. Haggles had a great dog-style combover happening with his long fur! | ||
| Paddling 59:59 [3] 9.17 km (6:32 / km) | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| Not the nicest morning to think about going for a paddle, wild storm fronts coming through. I headed to the river near Mosman Park to see how sheltered it was there and fortunately it wasn't too bad. I paddled from Freshwater Bay downriver to near Minim Cove where I had to turn around as the headwind was a bit too much, I had waves to paddle into! Coming back was a couple of minutes quicker. My balance has improved no-end, I don't even get the wobbles any more, even in these sort of conditions. A choppy ocean would be a fun challenge though I'm sure. Was happy to make it through the full hour without being forced to stop to de-numb or de-pain my glutes, I must be adapting and also getting the ever-changing foam padding right. | ||
| Paddling intervals 18:00 [5] 2.63 km (6:51 / km) | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| 8 x 60s max with 60s float. And then a couple of mins cool-down. Average speed for the last 4 efforts: 10.3kph, 10.8, 10.7, 10.5. | ||
Saturday Aug 25 | ||
| MTB 2:00:20 [2] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Decided to MTB instead of road-bike. Road up JFNP railway line and back with a few small detours, with my MTB skills not a good idea to be too adventurous when not riding in company. On the way back to work I was waiting at a red light when the car in the middle lane that had also been waiting for a minute or so on red, pulled away and drove through the intersection (still on Red). God knows what she was doing? The oncoming car with the green filter arrow dutifully went to urgently avoid her and smashed all her rear drivers lights. | ||
| Paddling 46:07 [3] 7.19 km (6:25 / km) | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| Was running out of daylight so a short warm-up and then found a couple of channel markers that I estimated would give me a 5-6min effort. Then I did 4 x efforts. Average speed: 10.9kph, 9.8, 11.2, 10.3 with the odd reps being with the wind! Times ranged from 5.45 to 6.15 so the distance was just about right. I've got two weeks before I race in the ski for the first time so need to get some more work like this done next week so I don't lose too much ground in the (shortish) paddle to the clubbies. | ||
Friday Aug 24 | ||
| Swimming (Sqaud) 1:20:00 [4] 4.1 km (19:31 / km) | |
| A bit of a surprise today, a short warm-up and then a main set of 3km! I didn't think Coach Ross actually did real swim-sets with his triathletes! Set was two times through 2x150 medium, 3x100 firm, 2x100 medley, 6x50hard, 2x200 free/back and free/breast. 20s rest pretty much, although I couldn't keep up with the lead fellow so was short changing my rest a bit so I could still leave 5-10s behind. It was nice to finish the set without totally blowing up, and coicidentally I found both my fly and backstroke were heaps better today - in one 50m back I was keeping up with lane 2 who were doing free! Temporary though, I haven't grown those muscles yet, not enough to maintain it anyway.
Stupid fire alarm is going off at work - apparently we have a fire in our disabled toilet. I've assured security that there most definitely is NOT a blaze in there!! | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching (Beach session) 20:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Saz did half a session then headed off to party, Rhys came and stayed for the full session. Usual two sets of exercises. Just after we'd started a skinny sort of runner-type ran by, looked at me, I looked at him and said "g'day" as one does to someone else who sort of looks like they know you. He responded similarly briefly then carried on running north. About a minute later he came back and the conversation went like this:
HIM: "You look like the sort of person who'd know - - - do you know where there's a place you can duck-off into the dunes up here?" ME: " - ....." (silence, brain rapidly dealing with various weird unsavoury images) HIM: (after an eternal 2s silence) "There's a sand track or something you can run on...?" ME: (sudden synapse function restored) "Ahhh, yes, the athlete's used to run a loop in the dunes!! It's about, oh, 4 or 5 tracks further up past the drain, about a km." HIM: "Thanks". (off he trots while we remain respectfully silent for a discreet period). RHYS: "I see he recognised *you* as someone who knows where to "duck-off into the dunes"!!! It was pretty funny, poor guy probably had no idea of that bit of beach's summer reputation as an area for unsavoury characters to expose themselves to females walking their pooches on the dog beach, or consort with similarly-minded ilk. | ||
| Running warm up/down 33:00 [2] 4.5 km (7:20 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Running 7:30 [4] 1.5 km (5:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Hard runs within the session. | ||
Thursday Aug 23 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 1:01:11 [2] 29 km (2:07 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Dry morning and not much wind for the steady ride to work. Used up a few get-out-of-crash-free cards today:
(1) East Perth station when a woman saw me coming, slowed as she got the exit of the car-park, and then proceded to block the bike path over the top of the the "KEEP CLEAR" criss-cross lines. And she blasted her horn at me as I swerved around her front bumper just missing the stationary traffic on East Parade. (2)Crossed over the railway bridge S of Central Ave and was waiting in the painted median strip for a gap in the traffic- 2 solid white lines each side, 2m apart - and then a car blasted his horn at me. I looked at him incredulously as he was driving along the middle of it, a wheel on each white line, going around the traffic queued up the hill to the lights?!? (3) Hyper-sensitised now and particularly vigilant due to the "always comes in threes" theory I was heading W along Central Ave when an old guy in a combi van decided that 15m or so was more than enough room for him to pull out in front of me in his high-performance vehicle (oops, sorry Fat Rat, said the HP thing) causing me to swerve left and over-take him on his left, ultimately moving across in front of him to turn right at the roundabout 100m or so later. Unscathed to work, just. Weird, as normally I have completely safe rides. Just before the Narrows Bridge on the river were 10 pelicans, several shags and a couple of dolphins which presumably were the cause of the fishy breakfast congregation. Always nice to see dolphins while riding to work! | ||
| Running 56:30 [2] 9.5 km (5:57 / km) | |
| ahr:117 max:150 shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| An easy anti-clockwise lap of Kings Park in the dark with Jen, somehow ended up along Mounts Bay Road and then going up Jacob's Ladder once, step by step and becoming more and more in awe of Robbie J who did 10 reps of it after his 160km of running and riding a couple of weeks back! Kings Park has changed a lot since I last ran around the southern edge - the path is now concrete instead of slabs, one of the bitumen tracks down the scarp has been ripped up and revegatated and there seems to be more opportunities to look at the view. One day I'll have to come through in daylight along the roller-coaster and see what it really looks like! My legs felt awful to start with, and up all the hills, but by the end I was able to lengthen my stride a bit. | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 46:00 [3] 18 km (2:33 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Not completely sure of the distance on this one - got held up at work and had to take the shorter way home than usual to avoid the dark as I only had one back light and no front lights or reflective gear. Rode into the city along the Midland line, then out along the Freo line. Lots of pedestrians on the path and some tool came fanging past me on his bike while I was rolling along ringing my bell. Once I was clear of the people I caught him and then sat behind him annoying him by rolling whenever possible - my campag. makes a lound rrrrrrrrrr noise so I was doing it on the downhills and every now and then on the slight ups! It felt like we were doing about 32ish. Then I turned off at Subi and rode home feeling strangely satisfied. | ||
Wednesday Aug 22 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:15:00 [3] 3.5 km (21:26 / km) | |
| Finally felt strong in the water again and managed the full set without my arms turning to cooked spaghetti. Main set was 5x400m with the second 100 medley order. | ||
| Running long 1:47:46 [2] 18.9 km (5:42 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| Got to training early to do a few extra minutes. Started out and felt absolutely awful, really short striding as if I was wearing a heavy hiking pack. This took 10mins to ease and it was only the last 5mins back to the pool where I felt marginally looser. Saz arrived a couple of minutes late and just as I was preparing to go home and sulk. I asked if we could only do a 60min run - but once we got going I felt a lot better and we ran a further 92mins, pretty sluggishly, but it was dark and rainy and windy so we just did time-on-feet. Sometime in a few months I think I might be able to pick up the pace a bit without too much ill-effect on my pelvis, it seems to be tolerating longer slow runs better now. | ||
Tuesday Aug 21 | ||
| Running warm up/down (SAS Sandhill) 22:28 [2] 3.2 km (7:01 / km) | |
| ahr:122 max:143 slept:9.0 weight:76kg shoes: Brooks | ||
| Running hills (SAS Sandhill) 20:00 [5] 2.8 km (7:09 / km) | |
| ahr:163 max:167 shoes: Brooks | ||
| I wasn't feeling good in the warm-up, which was surprising given I felt good today. Once I got going in the reps though it was okay. This week was two longer pairs of hills, followed by last weeks shorter pairs with 60s break between each pair.
1.29 160 1.32 166 1.32 165 1.34 167 61 162 66 160 63 160 63 165 The downhill was obviously much quicker than the up, but my HR only dropped between 5 and 8 beats on the way down! | ||
Monday Aug 20 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| I think it prudent to have a break today. | ||
| C • Rest Day?? 1 | ||
Sunday Aug 19 | ||
| Event: TEVA Adventure Race | ||
| Adventure Race (TEVA Perth) 4:00:00 [3] 40 km (6:00 / km) | |
| This was good fun and there were lots of teams entered. Three teams we were expecting to see lots of during the event met with some misfortune - Jen's all-girl team lost a team-member the preceding weekend in the 6hr MTB with a serious knee injury. Also that weekend mdeweydavis face-planted off his MTB ending his teams aspirations I guess. Finally, Karen's team lost Ben who hurt his back push-starting a car the day before the race. They found a substitute and were at the event. However, in the short activity immediately prior to starting the race he badly rolled his ankle and was unable to walk. That left us to be out the front for the whole race. It was great to do a shorter-type of AR and it the atmosphere was much more fun than serious, particularly with regular challenges to break-up the riding and running - song lyric identification, mini-orienteering, crawling through a tunnel network with headlamps in the dark, some of these tunnels half full of water - yuck. Saz did a flying fox. Nav was trickier than most people were expecting but was the standard of a good MTBO event so we were cool with that. One big score was bumping into a control we hadn't been given the location of yet by looking into a drain under a road and seeing it! Saved us a kilometre or so. Prizes were good and it was well-organised. | ||
| C • Pick me!! 1 | ||
| C • Prizes 9 | ||
| Running 57:04 [3] 10 km (5:42 / km) | |
| shoes: Asics Trabuco | ||
| Went for a run with Jen and Leeson. Was on the way home from TEVA so the only gear I had was a sweaty shirt, a 'normal' pair of shorts and my stinking soggy shoes still soaked with tunnel water! They hammered the first 15mins or so and after that it was okay and a bit slower. My achilles were beginning to get tight at the end as we dodged bodies and gravesites in Kings Park. | ||
Saturday Aug 18 | ||
| Road Bike 4:20:30 [2] 101.1 km (2:35 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Flat from the word go, legs empty as. Hands sore too, couldn't work out why then remembered the long paddle. Rode down to Freo, across to Mt Henry, then south on the bike path to Rowley Rd. Then home via South St and up the coast, all the way into a strong nor-easter. Not a pleasant experience this one. Very slow too. | ||
| C • Taper 2 | ||
Friday Aug 17 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:35:00 [3] 4.6 km (20:39 / km) | |
| slept:6.0 | ||
| Got there a bit early today so did 400m before the warm-up. It was good actually as i got to stop and stretch when I felt like it as the lane was empty and consquenlty felt better when the main set hit. It was a much more fun session today, 2 x 200 max and then a couple of times through 2 x 100 max, 2x50 max. Stayed in and did some more drills and 500m of 25max, 25 float. Sunny day for my day-off, yayy! | ||
| Paddling (River) 1:53:44 [2] 17.2 km (6:37 / km) | |
| ahr:109 max:129 slept:2.0 shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| Was a bit tired after swimming so after sorting out a debacle with the till-off from the gym last night and the banking this morning (the joys of being spotted while swimming!) I headed home and plan was to go for a paddle. But... the washing machine was running so I had to wait to put the week's worth of festy clothes in and while I was waiting the bed was calling too strongly and the vortex drew me in. When I woke up the wash cycle had well and truly finished! Then I decided I'd head to the river as there was a nor-easter blowing which would've meant paddling north at the beach which I don't like doing. Mainly because the multi storey building at Ob City stays the same distance away for the whole paddle and makes you feel like you're not moving!
So I drove the 15mins to Sophie's power station and paddled up to Tonkin Hwy bridge and back. There was a headwind most of the way up, but not too significant - although I notice I was exactly 1km/hr faster on the way back. It's the first time I've paddled with hte gps for that sort of distance and it was pretty much 8.5kph on the way out and 9.5kph on the way back (bar one cool 500m section where I was doing 14.5kph on a small boat's wake!!). In the last 500m I tried to pick it up to a sustainable "solid" pace and 11 and a bit kph was about my limit. HR goes nowhere as I just don't have the strength yet to keep a good strong stroke up. I think a reasonable goal for non-paddler me should be to try and hold 10kph for an hour or so? What do you reckon Robbie? Amusing sighting for the session - coming back past the water ski area I saw a fat guy on a Spirit ski way ahead. Then he stopped paddling in the middle of the river. A few minutes later when I got closer I could see he was making strange jerking movements with his head. As I passed I noticed he was having an animated conversation on his mobile phone out in the middle of the river! Probably an 'investor' hard at work keeping up with the markets... | ||
| C • 10kph 3 | ||
| Running (Beach session) 45:00 [3] 7.22 km (6:14 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Ran a very easy 25mins before the session but it was a beautiful warm evening and it was nice to just potter. Then I did about 10mins of run thrus and some drills. With the nicer weather Ian, Karen and Rhys rocked-up in addition to the normal Saz and I and we had quite a pleasant session. I saw a poor little long-necked turtle with shell about the size of a 50c piece - it'd been washed through the drain from Herdsman Lake. I rescued it from the salt water wash but it was too far gone. Later in the cool down Karen and Ian spotted a big dolphin feeding just off the end of the groyne - a lovely way to end the session just after sunset. | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching (beach session) 22:00 [3] | |
| 2 times through the usual exercises - I felt surprisingly good, not fast, but pretty strong and stable in general. Shoulders were rooted, but that's only to be expected! Rhys was running like ten men and did an extra half a set while I finished off. | ||
Thursday Aug 16 | ||
| Road Bike 2:03:00 [3] 56 km (2:12 / km) | |
| ahr:110 max:146 slept:5.5 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Chilly but clear morning today, left home just before sunrise with Jen and rode from Melville along the river to the freeway, around Mt Henry Bridge and then north to the City, keeping pace with the drones heading into work on the freeway. Bumped into Gazman at the old majestic hotel site, he and Jen talked Dr stuff and then we went separate ways and I'm sure he accelerated back up to 2min ks again! We did a loop around the Bridges, saw dolphins about 10m out into the river next to the Belltower then headed out to UWA and CCGS. From there I was persuaded to avoid Mosman Park and instead we rode down the coast to Freo. Very very busy and the concept of a cycle lane seems not to have entered many car driver's heads, not even those who had just driven past us. Worst bit of the ride were the numerous large trucks heading from the container terminal and across Stirling Hwy bridge. Not a situation I really want to repeat. Really enjoyable ride and a great way to ease into a sunny day! | ||
| C • Phone number 1 | ||
| Weird Stuff (Badminton) 1:00:00 [1] | |
| Couldn't book a squash court so went with badminton. It's been an even longer time since I played badminton, but I'm much better at it than squash - in that the projectile goes mostly where I want it too! Jen's first attempt at baddy so was even more fun for me watching the ever-evolving co-ordination attempts... | ||
Wednesday Aug 15 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:22:00 [3] 4 km (20:30 / km) | |
| I didn't feel awful but neither did I feel any good today. Two guys from the slower lane moved-up and found they were swimming quicker than me. I was happy to move to the back of the lane and do the set properly ie. leaving 10s gap to the swimmer in front rather than leaving on their feet and getting pulled along. Slaves.
At one point in the main set I noticed two of Blair's type middle-aged men in the public lane next to us, they'd been loitering in the shallow end for at least the time it took me to swim 2 or 3 hundred metres - and they were there till the 800m mark! They probably tell their trophy wives that they swam for an hour... | ||
| Running 1:30:07 [3] 15.88 km (5:40 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| I was unsure how this run was going to go as I was a bit weary beforehand but as soon as we started I felt good. With the ever-increasing daylight (and the good legs) I took our group of 6 north through the steep grass corridors in north City Beach, then a dune-bolt through the swale before a few kilometres of soft sand to Floreat, no wind, lovely evening. We rounded the run off by heading down Challenger Parade to West Coast Hwy, annoyed Sarah (who surged ahead anticipating a late return) and came home via Oceanic drive and a very dark path past the water tower. Still no hammy pain and that makes me happy! | ||
Tuesday Aug 14 | ||
| Road Bike (Floreat Group) 1:06:54 [4] 35.55 km (1:53 / km) | |
| ahr:137 max:159 slept:7.5 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Optimistically set my alarm last night just in case I felt like waking for my first group ride since May, or was it April?? On Sunday the wise Elder Eoin had advised me to get my gear ready on Monday so I'd get up and ride Tuesday, so I left my gear from last night on the bedroom floor! It didn't sound like it was raining or windy so I turned the big light on so I had less chance of falling asleep again. The road was wet but I could see stars so thought at least I'd be warm to start with. At Floreat there was one guy waiting, a pommy guy who normally drags the exclusive chase group along. Then 2 others rocked-up. And that was it!
As we rolled-out Jon Gregg joined in - he's a bit of a guru MTBer. Along Challenger he and pommy fellow put the hammer down and I went with them leaving the other two behind. I struggled desperately to hang-on until Freo and then was ok in the hills. First time I've ever been able to hang on* to Jon, the other fellow pulled away. Up Devil's Elbow I even pulled away from Jon**. By Kings Park my little legs had had enough and I decided that was as good as spot as any to pretend I was now doing a 'cool-down'. While riding behind them earlier in the ride I noticed that both of them have these funny muscley bulges on the outside of their thighs which seemed to missing on my slightly more 'gracillis' version... I'll have to go on eBay and see if I can buy a pair. *maxing out, desperation stakes **Jon was on his old heavy 'winter' bike, and was complaining of very sore and tired legs from coming 2nd to Tim Bennet in the MTB 6hr on the weekend. | ||
| C • Hardy 3 | ||
| Road Bike warm up/down 40:48 [2] 16.28 km (2:30 / km) | |
| ahr:117 max:146 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Easy roll to Floreat and then grovel home from Kings Park. | ||
| Running warm up/down 19:02 [2] 2.23 km (8:32 / km) | |
| ahr:131 max:146 shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones | ||
| Cool down was 4s quicker than warm-up - I think that was the dog Haggle's fault as he was surging home thinking about dinner and I was trying to stay with him!
I'm not sure if it's my Garmin or whether it's my heart that takes time to settle down over the first 10mins of a run - it seems to read extra high readings when I start running, I presume it's because it hasn't got good conductivity with my chest until I'm warm and sweaty. I'll have to manually check next warm-up... | ||
| C • Coming back... 4 | ||
| Running hills (SAS Sandhill) 18:00 [5] 2.5 km (7:12 / km) | |
| max:165 shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones | ||
| 4 by 2 pairs of 130m hill reps, steep soft sand.
Mucked up the timing on the first pair, but the next few were: 55 / 59 161/165 62 / 63 160/161 63 / 64 158/162 Legs obviously got heavier in the 3rd set, as they tend to do in the sand and it comes a case of keeping running and trying to convince oneself to get out of the footsteps that are a touch to close for me and run with a longer stride - legs buckle a bit doing that though! Had a good group of 12 of us tonight plus the long-haired 45kg doggy cannonball who had a bundle of fun barrelling down the sandhill a couple of times like some slobbering out of control furry bowling ball! Interesting to see how much the clubbies and road types suffered in comparison to the few orienteers amongst us! | ||
| Note | |
| Just noticed that it was year and 2 days ago that I collapsed my lung. Sheesh it's taken a long time to feel ok again. Quite independently I was really really happy after the run tonight as I noticed I'd done the whole session without thinking "Was that a niggle in my hip/groin/hammy?" and had actually got through to the point where I was running the cool-down totally pain-free! Yay. Possibly something to do with the low-impact surface and short stride length, but I still suffered no particular tiredness from the hard ride today. Maybe, just maybe I might start improving again rather than delaying the decay... | ||
Monday Aug 13 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:30:00 [4] 4 km (22:30 / km) | |
| 2.9km with the squad and then I took it up to 4k afterwards with 500 of single arm drills, 200 stroke count, 200 25max/25ez and a cool down. Was feeling stronger in the water today and really enjoyed the session. | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 1:02:54 [2] 29 km (2:10 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Was a bit flat and when combined with being a bit cold I just spun easily into work. Awarded myself yet another Time Bonus today - this one was 60s for chatting with Adrian's dad as he rode along from the Old Swan Brewery to the Narrows. Apparently he was out for his big ride today as he missed Friday due to the rain and was doing the double to catch-up! If only Adrian had his training ethic...
Was nice and warm by the time I left the railway cyclepath and headed westish to work, even took the armwarmers off! | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 1:01:23 [2] 29 km (2:07 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Wasn't all that enthsued about riding home at 8pm on a cold night but fortunately the forecast afternoon and evening rain never eventuated. After about 20mins I felt warm and it was quite enjoyable as the cyclepath was deserted and traffic minimal. I had a bit of difficulty at the flooded bit of cyclepath as it was an unlit section and the city lights were reflecting off the water so I couldn't tell where the path was. I was going very very slowly and fortunately stayed on the path - just! Unusually for Perth there was no wind(!) at all so was just an easy spin the whole way home for a change. | ||
Sunday Aug 12 | ||
| Orienteering race (Marginata) 46:17 [4]**** 5.83 km (7:56 / km) | |
| ahr:141 max:160 spiked:16/21c slept:8.0 shoes: Asics Trabuco | ||
| Definitely the best set course I have run in a couple of years, including NOL events, congratulations to Graham, Ceri and their controller Helen. Perfect day to run, if a little chilly to start with. It was good to find afterwards that I was really competitive... with the girls! 4 of us finished within 60s-ish of each other- thankfully my $250 is safe as Saz finished behind me. Only one more season to last out on that silly bet!
I felt awful for the first half of the course, legs were weary on the uphills and my navigation was somewhat random. Mufti stormed past me on the way to 7 looking like an 800m runner as he puffed and smashed his way up the hill. Yeah, taking it easy these days, right! Once down the other side of the hill I got my eye-in a bit and was smoother through 14 - 19 and edged ahead of Karen, Kellie and Saz but I blew 2mins on 20 after running right past the correct boulder - I never looked for it as I was expecting it closer to the watercourse!!! Relocate down the hill, then up the hill and then back to the big obvious boulder that hadn't registered and there was the control. Thoroughly enjoyed my run, to the point that 10mins after finishing I was wishing there was another course to do. If only more courses were set like this, I'd be far more tempted to turn-up to more o-events. Oh, Mufti ran 33 or something crazily fast. | ||
| Orienteering warm up/down 12:00 [2] 1.7 km (7:04 / km) | |
| shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones | ||
| MTB (Gorrie Road) 1:17:00 [4] 16.33 km (4:43 / km) | |
| ahr:127 max:155 shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Rode the single track loop with Karen and Saz. Karen was stuffed from the last few days heavy training and bailed after one lap. Saz lead the second and did what Jen and Dalto do to me - - - made me feel inadequate on the downhills and fast windy stuff! On the third I tried to replicate the effort alone without the guiding light showing me what was actually possible and definitely was a bit more confident than last week. Saz faded on the hills. 2nd lap 23mins something, 3rd lap 21.40. Should sleep well tonight, my poor little legses are feeling the first week of cycling in a long time... | ||
Saturday Aug 11 | ||
| Paddling (Beach) 1:32:00 [3] 15 km (6:08 / km) | |
| slept:8.0 shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| Didn't sleep too well last night so went back to sleep and bailed on the loosely-planned group ride, instead choosing to make the most of the sunshine mid morning and paddle. Wasn't sure whether to go river or ocean as the swell might've been up a bit but in the end I thought I'd take a chance as I get so bored on the river. The beach was glassy out the back but there were reasonably regular medium sized waves rolling through with a gentle offshore breeze creating a (Perth) surfers paradise. I stood and watched from the dunes for about 10mins wondering whether the gaps that seemed quite negotiable from up there would be so easy to pick at water level. In the end I chose to have a shot as the water looked so inviting out the back.
The waves were breaking quite a long way out, much more so than the usual shore-dump so I planned to get on the ski and just deal with the white water until a gap presented itself. First go the ski got ripped out of my hand by the whitewater before I'd got on. Second time I got in and on a bit more urgently. As predicted, once on the ski I couldn't see the breakers beyond the immediate bit of white water. I let 4 or 5 pass under me before I got the guts to paddle forwards at the next one, got over that ok and had a green water a few ski lengths ahead. I paddled like hell as another swell was looming, looming faster than I wanted and the adrenaline kicked-in and I got over it before having to worry about piercing it. Yeah! Headed down to Cottesloe with one stop at 30mins to de-numb my left leg, u-turned at the Bell at 46mins, another stop at 60mins as my bum was sore, then got through the last 20mins with my balance getting worse and my shoulders more tired. Then into shore... followed a large swell with my ski nose pointing over the void and desperately tried to stay ahead of the next one. Fortunately a teeny little wave picked up and helped me to shore, unceremoniously tipping me out right on the edge. | ||
| C • awesome feeling 2 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 1:04:00 [2] 29 km (2:12 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Was a bit cold and tired from the paddle and first week of proper training in a while and it took a good 30mins before I stopped feeling stiff and uncomfortable, even with a light tailwind. Spun nicely past the city but had to unclick both feet and lift them behind me as I went through the recently-formed shallow lakes between Trinity College and the river! The recent rain has puddled on the grass and submerged the bikepath to pedal depth. Funny to see two sets of rugby goal posts poking out of a lake! | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 58:10 [4] 29 km (2:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Had a phone call from Mum "suggesting" I come out to dinner with them and my two sisters and their partners. THey would pick me up from home at 7pm. Problem I finish work at 6 and it takes more than an hour to get home normally. So instead of riding the shorter way home I did what any self-respecting athlete-type person would do and left work at 545, rediscovered my rusty big chain-ring and hammered! Actual time 58:40 but I awarded myself a time bonus for the good samaritan act of providing directions to two japanese students who were standing at the outside of UWA looking for what sounded like a Yacht Club. I think that time will stand until late summer when screaming Easterly winds start blowing again...
Earlier in the ride I was admiring the symmetrical wrought-iron filigree on top of the T-shaped street lights just before the Narrows which looked particularly like two pairs of pelicans sitting on top of the lights. I reckon it must warm their backsides or something! | ||
| C • Two pairs of pelicans 2 | ||
Friday Aug 10 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:25:00 [3] 4 km (21:15 / km) | |
| slept:6.5 | ||
| Arms felt terrible today, particularly delts, was lasting about 75m to start with and by the end of the main set I was getting a good 30m done before I felt awful. Session was only 3k so I stayed in and did 800m of drills then backstroke cooldown. I should start feeling better in the water late next week as I get over the intial shock of starting to use my arms for something again! | ||
| C • Training hours 2 | ||
| Running (Beach) 40:00 [3] 6.5 km (6:09 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Long warm-up and the running bits in the beach circuit. Odd day for Perth today - it rained or drizzled the entire day, including all through this session which only Saz and I made it to. Grudingingly I'll admit Rhys rocked-up too, but about 15mins late. Stayed warm until part way through the cool-down when the wind, rain and cumulative fatigue got to me. | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching 20:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Usual exercises, beach littered with bluebottles, seaweed and cuttlefish! | ||
Thursday Aug 9 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 1:00:38 [3] 29 km (2:05 / km) | |
| slept:7.5 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| It was warmer than it looked this morning and wel before I got to work I was too warm in tights and arm warmers! Tried to spin the whole way as my legs were a bit tight from running. At East Perth I thought I was a bit behind the 1hr benchmark but got the all-important green light on Central ave which put me on target again... then the lights at Homer St, the last left turn to work, went red and stayed red for 30s or so. There went the chance of the sub-1hr commute. I should get a bike computer again and then I'm bound to make it more often!! | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 59:30 [3] 29 km (2:03 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Had a great nor-wester to help me 2/3 of the way home and I felt good. Or is it cause-and-effect? Lost a bit of time by bumping into Leida at UWA but we had a chat and rode along Kings Park together just before the heavens opened and the front hit. luckily I was nice and warm by then as I was soaked afterwards!
The ride was a good way to get rid of the frustration from work today when a girl who strained a hamstring in a combat class on Mon night when I was in the office rang up and said "I've been speaking to a lawyer friend who said that the Centre should and could have done more to prevent my injury being so bad and I'm going to take it further." This from a girl I'd driven home as she could not walk after some basic first aid!!! And we wonder why people refuse to help in today's world?!? There went 2hours as I painstaking documented everything from the evening in question in case she goes ahead down the track. What a sad society we live in when a person is helped above-and-beyond and then looks to sue. Too much watching bloody Yank TV programmes I reckon. | ||
| C • Hamstring 1 | ||
| Weird Stuff (Squash) 1:05:00 [2] | |
Wednesday Aug 8 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:30:00 [3] 4 km (22:30 / km) | |
| First squad swim since May, and probably about time I start re-learning how to do it given I have several multi-sport races in the next 3 months where I need to minimise the embarassment of not being as fast as I remember I once was!
Swam a few hundred before the warm-up, then 3k with the squad (sat on the back of the lane). After that I stayed in as the pool was pretty warm and did some drills and 300m of 25max/25cruise. I felt surprisingly good doing the 25s but pretty weak doing everything else. Fingers crossed I can get back into a routine of early morning training... | ||
| Running long 1:27:30 [2] 15.65 km (5:35 / km) | |
| ahr:131 max:159 slept:7.5 shoes: Brooks | ||
| A nice evening for a run and really good to have daylight for the first 35mins or so. Had a few more people than normal tonight - Brian, Saz, John, Ben, Jen and myself. Just ran steady as Ben was tired from the Avon Descent and several of us had tight calves from the 2k last night! Meandered through Reabold, across McGillivray, through JTC, down St John's Wood, onto the beach at Challenger, down to City beach, then on the path to Floreat beach and back along Chipping, Empire, Durston Rd. This meant a few hills towards the end when everyone was getting tired and my legs regretted the route in the last 5mins when Brian and Saz were trying to set up their usual double-team to get the sprint win! | ||
Tuesday Aug 7 | ||
| Running warm up/down 42:23 [2] 6.22 km (6:49 / km) | |
| ahr:127 max:158 slept:9.0 shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones | ||
| Easy run from BPP over to McGillivray oval, 6 run throughs, cooldown back thru Perry Lakes. | ||
| Running race (2k TT) 7:00 [5] 2.05 km (3:25 / km) vdot: 54.9 | |
| ahr:164 max:169 shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones | ||
| First km 3.25 avHR 158 max 168
Second km 3.35 avHR 168 maz 169 Conditions pretty perfect although the grass was wet and it drizzled a bit. About 10 people rocked-up tonight and I made a rough handicap out of it to liven it up a bit. Ben (clubbie) ran 6.53 to be the fastest... next time he'll start behind me! I was very surprised to run my quickest time of the last 7 months (last few times 7.15, 7.06, 7.06) given my two 24hr races and no training of any significance inbetween. But then my hammies weren't sore and that's always motivating. I've worked out a 100% guaranteed way to fix the neural pain I get from stirring them up.... do a 24hr low intensity event. To be honest, it's almost actually worth it!!! Given I went into both the Caffeinated AR and the Rogaine with very sore hammies and came out with essentially 'normal' hammies I'll have to give some thought to the mechanism of repair or recalibration... maybe somehting to do with continuous low intensity stretching! The GPS graph shows I was fast for the first 300m then distinctly slowed until the 1500m mark when I distinctly slowed again! Conversely, my heartrate increased over the last 300m as I fought to maintain speed. | ||
Monday Aug 6 | ||
| Swimming 50:00 [3] 2.7 km (18:31 / km) | |
| 500 easy, 500 of free/back, 10x50 solid, 500 of 25 flat-out 25 breast, 500 of drills, 200 cool down. Had a lane to myself as it was pissing with rain but the water was lovely and warm. Once again back at square 1 for swimming... | ||
Sunday Aug 5 | ||
| Orienteering race (Club relays) 53:00 [4]*** 8.93 km (5:56 / km) +365m 4:56 / km | |
| ahr:148 max:163 spiked:14/16c slept:8.5 shoes: Asics Trabuco | ||
| Ran the 2nd and 4th leg of the interclub relays, both nominally about 3.8km. It was a lovely sunny morning and a nice part of the map. 25mins is also an achievable distance to run hard for these days... | ||
| Orienteering warm up/down 15:00 [1] | |
| MTB 1:16:00 [3] 12 km (6:20 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| The orienteering was near a 6km single-track loop so we took our bikes along and rode before heading home. Jen was flying as always and putting me to shame technically but once the legs warmed up again it was pretty good fun. | ||
Saturday Aug 4 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 1:00:19 [3] 29 km (2:05 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Ride to work on a very chilly morning. Sun had some warmth to it by the time I got to work. | ||
| Road Bike (commute) 1:05:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Slower on the wayhome, must be the little hills at the end. Lots warmer though! | ||
| Weird Stuff (Squash) 52:00 [2] | |
| First games of squash in a while, was surprisingly co-ordinated but I think the 2 fast-twitch fibres I used to have have been convinced to become slow-twitch as well! | ||
Friday Aug 3 | ||
| Paddling 59:00 [2] 8.5 km (6:56 / km) | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| First paddle in a while, been quite a hiatus since Caffienated race. Paddled from Hillarys Boat Harbour north with Saz and back. It was dead flat but I managed to spear through a 50cm wave leaving the beach soaking me. I had to do a few 2min efforts to stay warm with some circle backs for Saz. News helicopter was hovering over marina and came over us for a bit - I found out when I got home that there had been a great white shark loitering around the area the day before due to the large dead humpback whale that washed into the marina! My paddling muscles need a lot of work... | ||
| Road Bike 2:30:00 [3] 65 km (2:18 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Rode from home with a detour down to Woodman Pt to meet with the DSR staff there and update their orienteering map. Rode home again. Averaged 30kph on the way there, slower on the way home as my cycling fitness is similarly lacking after pretty much a month off the bike. | ||
| Running 25:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| A long warm-up before the beach session with Karen and Saz. Beach is quite steep after all the stormy weather but very soft as the sand all gets redeposited. Was chilly pre-start but pretty warm once we finished. Great to have daylight in the evening again. | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching 40:00 [3] 2.5 km (16:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Usual beach session but I was a bit lacklustre. After not seeing Rhys for about 6 weeks he rocked-up half and hour late and did half the session. Good to see him out and about again taking a break from his cycling training! | ||
Wednesday Aug 1 | ||
| Running (Long) 1:11:12 [3] 12.52 km (5:41 / km) | |
| ahr:135 max:166 slept:5.0 shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| Perth has reached its monthly rainfall average for July comfortably. Today set August off to a sodden start with a deluge just before running and for the first 40mins of the run. Very odd sensation to run in constant rain! The beach was awesome too, got there just as it stopped raining and there is very little left of the normal expanse of soft sand - just a narrow strip against the eroded face of the dunes. The two clubbie dudes ran well tonight, they actually like running off-road! 70mins was enough for me as my big toe was pretty sore with a rogaine-induced blister under my toenail on the big toe. This nail will fall off sooner or later when I catch it on a sock or sheet or something. I can hardly wait. Other blisters are healing nicely now, just uncomfortable rather than sore. 5 of us tonight, great to see it getting marginally lighter too. | ||