Training Archive: ToomsIn the 31 days ending 2007-10-31:
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| 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 | S | S | M | T | W | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wednesday Oct 31 | ||
| Swimming 20:00 [4] | |
| Got in the pool as the squad finished so I had a lane to myself in the sunshine to do a short warm-up and then 5 x 100 on 1:45. Swam 1.30, 1.29, 1.29, 1.28, 1.27 then 200 easy then out. Very pleasant way to start the morning. | ||
| Running long 50:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| Steady run with Wil and new girl Kate - who was running much faster this week than last week. Give her another week or two and she'll be setting the pace. She bailed at 25mins, Wil and I slowed down and then cut short, both a bit sore from the run yesterday, and in our shoulders from the rogaine. (pack carrying, I must have had too much fruitcake in there!!). | ||
| C • Snap 1 | ||
Tuesday Oct 30 | ||
| Running intervals 5:00 [5] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Run-throughs and then 5 x about 100m sprints jog and walk recovery followed by a relay in teams of 3 over about 200m, 3 x through. Running fast gives you a real appreciation of the hurt that sprinters go through! 12 people along tonight, was enjoyable session. | ||
| Running warm up/down 15:00 [3] 2 km (7:30 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
Monday Oct 29 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Went to go swimming with Jen mid-morning but fortunately my swimming gear was at work so I went along and sat in the sunshine and helped her with her freestyle technique. Result - new 50m PB by 4s! Now it's actually worth her freestyling rather than breastroking... could be an interesting tussle between Boltboi and Jenstar for 50m breastroke?
Sort of missed lunch today, so while out collecting equipment for work I popped into the supermarket to buy my week's worth of lunch ingredients and found that profiteroles were on special... 10 of them for $2.50!! I ate 7 of them between Dog Swamp and the Good Guys in Osborne Park. They were the really cheapo ones from Woollies but had great chocolate topping and just the right amount of custard filling... I'll have "lunch" around 630 to tide me over to dinner... | ||
Sunday Oct 28 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Just a bit a walk/jog with the dog this evening. | ||
Saturday Oct 27 | ||
| Rogaining 11:30:00 [1] 30 km (23:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Asics Trabuco | ||
| Walked the chilliest 12hr rogaine I think I've ever done. I put my raincoat on about 2hours in and kept it on for the rest of the event - and added gloves and beanie! Brr. Not a pleasant area for a rogaine and I was glad we (Jen and I) were just walking - lots of fallen timber with every square metre showing signs of logging from years ago. Broken lateritey-type crap with flat vague features and most descriptions seeming to include the word "broad". Poor RobbieJ had a bit of geographical shock and used his compass more than he has done in years.
I let Jen do most of the navigating but had trouble (as always) at keeping a decent walking speed up and found myself 10-20m behind. I used the hunger excuse to stop for lunch after 90mins (mmm, sandwiches and fruitcake - rogaining seemed more pleasant with time for a picnic break!). Then about 90mins later we stopped for lunch again - seemed silly not to stop for lunch again when the first one was so much fun. After that we persevered with our planned loop until it got dark and then severely truncated it so we could wander back without having to jog. One control in a broad gully we had to search for, otherwise no dramas. Another bonus of going easier was that, oddly, my body was more appreciative of the hash-house food and I ate a wider variety than normal! Was good. Have pulled-up fine, no stiffness nor blisters or any tiredness. | ||
Friday Oct 26 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 50:00 [3] 2.6 km (19:14 / km) | |
| Hardly seems worth swimming for 2.6km. But then I did work hard in 6 of the 100s. Given swimming is easily my best discipline I have to balance my desire to swim a "real" session of 4-6km with the fact that just pissing-about is enough to keep me going fast enough to be in-touch in multisport races. The other balancing act is I although the type of sessions frustrate the hell out of me, I get to swim for free. The coach uses a ridiculous system of (for example, todays set) 15 x 100m with 20s rest. The front guy who is the quickest gets in, has his 20 and goes, the next person who is slower takes less rest so they can leave close behind. After about 2 reps the lane is feet-on-feet and just swimming. So pointless. I through a spanner in the works when I am obstinate (which is frequently) by waiting a full 10s before I leave - meaning the couple of slower people behind get really stressed as they're apparantly not keeping up - but they're not game to leave in front of me as, without the draft, they swim like shit and I'll go straight over the top of them. I've spoken to the coach and asked why he doesn't just say 15x100 on 1.40? He said that no-one can read the clock. Rubbish, lazy, and with no regular cycle no-one really watches how fast they swim.
If I really cared I'd stay in after his session and do a kilometre or so of drills (I don'think he knows what they are) and a proper main set rather than the fluffy "medium" "firm" and "hard" bollocks we get. Ahhh, that's better. | ||
Thursday Oct 25 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Considered paddling then thought stuff it, I need to freshen-up rather than get fitter now so I took the dog for a walk, did the washing-up, then went back to sleep for 45min nap before rushing to work for my 1030 start! | ||
Wednesday Oct 24 | ||
| Swimming 1:05:00 [3] 3.1 km (20:58 / km) | |
| Meduim-paced session today so a nice sunny morning and pleasant swim. Next week it'll be dark again as the clocks are ridiculously moved. Oh the joy of dark mornings for riding and swimming and baking hot afternoons for running. Grr. | ||
| Running long 1:32:00 [2] 15.5 km (5:56 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| 3 new people for a very slow jog tonight, 4 if you count Boltboi, plus Jen and I. Lots of looping back, stopping and waiting. Got pretty stiff and sore by the 2/3 mark. | ||
| C • Running 2 | ||
Tuesday Oct 23 | ||
| Road Bike (Floreat group) 1:40:00 [3] 48 km (2:05 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Bloody windy this morning with a dry gusty easterly. We seem to have gone from winter to summer pattern in about 36hours. Large group today, half a dozen girls riding too, to the obvious appreciation of some guys in the group who should be riding harder. The group stayed together pretty well today, probably 'cos of the wind. I felt good but was off the pace today and did enough to stay in touch. For some reason the group seemed to leave CCGS really fast and had to chase alone all along Victoria Ave till I got up to Boltboi and his bit of the pack. | ||
| Running intervals (Beach) 13:20 [5] 3.2 km (4:10 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| 8 x 400m, 2mins rest. Big group tonight of 15, 2 new people, and 2 clubbies who I haven't seen in about 5 weeks. It was nice and warm, 26 degrees and there was light easterly blowing, start contrast to the last 3 weeks of beach running. There were even groups of people sun-bathing and trying out their new summer bikinis.
1.39 1.40 1.39 1.40 1.37 1.38 1.38 1.35 At number 4 I realised that I had no excuse for not running with a bit more hurt, after all there was only 1.6k to go. One of the clubbies was matching me stride for stride and we got a hard fast session ticked-off. Felt rewarding. | ||
| Running warm up/down 30:00 [1] 3 km (10:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Groyne and back twice, run throughs, drills. | ||
Monday Oct 22 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Prudence after a few weekends of racing. | ||
Sunday Oct 21 | ||
| Event: Moore River Multisport | ||
| Multisport race (Moore River) 3:33:46 [4] 38 km (5:38 / km) | |
| TriEvents first foray into the latest craze of renaming any event with a partial offroad component as an 'adventure race'. They did a pretty good job with a new venue, single transition and good prizes!
1.8km swim/16km mtb/12km paddle/10km run was the advertised distance. I think in reality my race was 1.8km swim/18km mtb/11km paddle/9km run. It was a 930am start but the wind was howling and it was pretty chilly. 1.8k swim, 24:12, 40s behind Sean O'Neill. I held the front pack of 5 for about 100m before Sarson went clear leaving, Sean, Keegan and somone else in the second pack. At the first of several dolphining sections I managed to catch-up and made my goal trying to hang on. Managed to till about 200m to go when my two tug-boats sped up and I couldn't go with them. Still, 4th out of the water was pretty cool. I had a leisurely transition and geared-up with hydration pack, Carboshotz bottle, socks (was expecting some jogging) sunnies. The 16km MTB was awful. 1:25, 5mins behind Sean. 3 or 4ks of bitumen/limestone and then into a lupin paddock which had a two wheel-ruts in it from a 4WD. The paddock also had about a billion small bush flies that coated your face and body. After a couple of ks of riding through long grass I was confronted with a large bovine blocking the track watching me ride laboriously towards it. It watched. I rode. It watched I rode closer. In the end about 20m away I called out "Hello Cow!" and it chat itself and ran off. Somewhere around then I caught a glimpse of someone ahead and a spark of motivation came back. Then the course seemed to leave the paddock and go into soft, fine grey sand littered with double-gee thorns (tetra pointed hardy bastards). Fortunately I ride with tyre liners in and although I collected a few double-gs the tyres withstood the onslaught. The bike became a jog-slog with pushing the bike up over crests, jumping on and trying to get some momentum up till the next sandy bog. I knew it'd be worse for the heavier guys, and the people who haven't had the misfortune to confront this sort of shit before and I backed off and just concentrated on moving steadily onward. I caught and past the big unit Brendan Sarson, fresh back from his Cooloongatta epic - he was bloody strong and actually riding ok for a big fellow, but not much finesse. Moments later I unexpectedly caught Keegan - and promptly lost my front wheel sideways on a sandy bit and fell onto him! We did the rest of the MTB together, including the bit where the course markings disappeared. Sars caught up and we randomly chose "right" at a fence corner, then "left" at the next junction as we could see a sponsors banner up there. Then we hit the bit we'd ridden before they turned left - but I noticed a heap of tyre tracks and called them back and said go right as we'd already done the left bit! Sars then got a flat tyre and keegan and I continued on the wrong way back to the road and back to transition. Turned out we added a few kilometres, as did a few people following our tracks but behind them a race official found that signs had been removed and most people did the correct course. It was terrible, hot and not fun. In one of those quirky thoughts you have sometimes I remember thinking "Red Bull lends you wings" - but although I had a thousand bushflies on my face I hadn't been drinking Red Bull!! Into transition far enough behind Sean that he had paddled out of sight. Keegan beat me through transition and in the run to the boats and I settled into minimising my losses on the paddle and hoping Sars had a decent long hard-to-fix flat tyre! Expecting an hour-plus paddle we were surprised to see Sean coming the other way only 20mins out. Turns out afterwards that he turned around at the 4k mark instead of the 6k mark. Given he was so far in front they "massaged" the results to keep everyone in the dark. My paddle time seems artificially quick too, and Keegan's, weird. Who cares? After the MTB debacle it was pretty academic. I got dropped with a km to go and again was about 250m behind out of transition. 10k run, 43ish, Left the camelback and just ran with bottle and belt. Waved to Jen as she headed out on the paddle. The run was good fun and I caught up with Keegan through the scrub and dunes before the helter-skelter descent to the river swim and pulled away from him over the remaining distance which was easier running, cruising home pretty slowly as I started thinking about the rogaine and Anaconda. Crossed the line about 30mins behind Sean, but my run time was ok and I felt good on the run. Almost as fast on the run as RobbieJ who did his first multisport race. $300 for coming second and a suitcase, nice! | ||
| C • expecting an ???? 1 | ||
| C • ... 3 | ||
Friday Oct 19 | ||
| Paddling (River) 1:10:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| Easy paddle from Freshwater Bay towards Freo into the wind and then back. I detoured into the wake of a couple of the Rotto ferries for a few minutes of flat out skate-chasing. | ||
Thursday Oct 18 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 31:00 [2] 11 km (2:49 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Gary Fisher mtb | ||
| Left home late so went the short way. Included 1km or so of technical jaw-dropping buttock-clenching single-track with radical drops around the hilly edge of Herdsman Lake. Feel fine after yesterday's run but will treat today as a rest day so I don't over-cook myself before the next 3-weekends of events. Ahh, wind-down time! | ||
| Road Bike (commute) 45:00 [1] 13 km (3:28 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Gary Fisher mtb | ||
| Tired physically and mentally. | ||
Wednesday Oct 17 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:00:00 [3] 3 km (20:00 / km) | |
| Still felt a bit flat this morning but had a maintainable pace. Problem was a the others in the lane had heard I swam well on the weekend and so wanted me to move up in the lane. They just don't understand that i do try at training but the absence of a wetsuit and it not being a race mean I just don't go as relatively fast. Eventually they got sick of being too close behind and I assumed my rightful place about 5th back. Main set 5x400 with the last 3 at 'threshold' pace. My last was my quickest at 6.05. Now to spend the day eating and recovering.
Apparently no girls have entered the Moore River race this weekend so Jen is looking forward to walking and cruising around for $500. I reckon a clubbie may make the trip up for the money - I certainly would if I had any abiliity and was female! In the guys Sean O'Neil will win the $500 barring mechanical failure plus $80 x at least 3 legs for the fastest Swim, Ride and Run! | ||
| Running long 2:45:00 [2] 30 km (5:30 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| Long run of 90mins with the pleasant company of Jen, Rob J, John and Wil. Then I ran over to meet Jen at her parent's place in Nedlands, slight misunderstanding here hence the extra long run today. Had no worries with the run although I got pretty hungry. | ||
Tuesday Oct 16 | ||
| Road Bike 1:38:00 [3] 50 km (1:58 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Easyish ride today, tried to stay away from the front bar the roll-thrus and didn't hammer any of the hills, just rode steady. It's quite a different way to ride. Had fun after Boltboi was rude and dropped me on the way home by drafting off a truck by catching the same truck later and letting it suck me along for about 2km along Empire Ave. Not often I ride up that hill in my big chain ring, and never comfortably!! | ||
| Running intervals (Beach) 20:30 [4] 4.2 km (4:53 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| 8 x 600m with 2.5mins rest. Big group tonight, Ben, Simon, me, Liz, Saz, Ian, John, Wil, Jen, Lynda, Bea, Meg, Dawn. I felt a bit awful in the warm-up, legs pretty heavy. It didn't improve in the set and Ben and Si blew me away with Ben running 2.30 or under for all of them.
2.36, 2.42, 2.45, 2.45, 2.42, 2.49, 2.59 And yep, I bailed from the 8th. | ||
| Running warm up/down 20:00 [1] 3 km (6:40 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
Monday Oct 15 | ||
| Paddling (Bicton) 1:00:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| Slept for 10hours last night and then went for a paddle on the river at Bicton - a beautiful morning, light easterly blowing and basically did a steady paddle with a few surges thrown in to make sure I was paddling with good technique. Jen was on the fibreglass boat and was markedly faster than the lavender tub she normally paddles, technique improved too. Days like this I really don't want to head into work - but after a busy weekend I really can't go out and train instead!! | ||
Sunday Oct 14 | ||
| MTB Orienteering (State Champs) 1:56:36 [3] 26 km (4:29 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| I entered on the day and was probably last start and expected to be feeling sluggish after yesterday's heat and racing. As it was I was pretty slow to start with, rolling down hills and spinning up them, but from number 8 onwards I could see that the course was more over than not over and I began catching social mtbers. I also began to notice that I was feeling good and not suffering from yesterday. Ended up pipping Ricky for 3rd spot, although effort-wise it was worthy of being a lot further behind the win. Probably the best ever display of spring wildflowers I've noticed in a few years - must be the extra frequency of late rain this year, there were swathes of almost irridescent blue from the Lechenaultia, patches of yellow, red native peas, whites, purples as all the prickly horrible bushes showed their tender side for a month or so. And about a million small cicadas. Jen won course 2 and while racing Boltboi home, who caught her out there, managed to crash (again) about 5m from the finish line in a ditch! Clumsy riders, I don't know... | ||
| C • Saz 2 | ||
Saturday Oct 13 | ||
| Event: Collie River Marathon | ||
| Multisport race (Collie Marathon Relay) 3:55:00 [5] 73 km (3:13 / km) | |
| 27k road bike (48mins), starting at 20s intervals - rode whole thing in my big chain and standing up grunting over hills rather than spinning. Race plan was to go as hard as possible from the start and see how long I lasted. 3rd on bike, fastest individual - very surprising given my lack of road ks. Straight into...
10km river paddle (58mins). Used the plastic spirit as I'd be told the river was full of weed that would tangle on my race ski's rudder. After 500m it was obvious that there was negligible weed. In time with each paddle stroke I was muttering "Bloody" "plastic" and feeling like I'd been sold for a sucker by the race director and two others who'd told me to expect weed. Amazingly I held my stroke and agression together for all but about the last 500m and managed to hold off the chasing ocean racers. Was 11th in the paddle. Then a 90min lunch break. Ahh, country races! Gave Boltboi and I enough time to do a car shuttle and collect our road bikes that had been left unsupervised leaning against a tree back at the canoe start! At the start of the next bit I was in third, but only a minute separated the top 3. Then... 1km river swim (14:30ish). Wore my new wetsuit for the first time and it was great - didn't leak like my old one. Was on the leaders feet for 400m, then staying true to my day's race plan I pulled out past him and tried to stay there. Mission accomplished, first out of the water with a 10s lead. Took the extra time to put socks on in transition so went out in 3rd behind Rob Lim and a team. 25km MTB (65mins). Non-technical but had some overgrown and lumpy lateritey tracks. Was back in front after 3k but then 4 teams came past about halfway through at warp speed. One flatted, and I kept the slowest one in sight till the end. Legs blew up with about 5k of the ride to go. And it got hot, 34 degrees. Tough after weeks and weeks of low 20s. 10km slog (47:50) I mean run. Pancake flat but so hard to keep running as I was stuffed. Ran well for 3k then dropped to 5min k pace and struggled through to the soul-destropying lap of the trotting track to finish. Heat was tough on the 2km on the bitumen road section. Was happy with winning, admittedly a small field of 15 or so individuals, but several of those are reasonably strong competitors. Main thing was I really felt like I was able to push as hard as possible right through the first 3 hours and properly race. | ||
| C • Top effort 2 | ||
| C • Top effort 1 | ||
Friday Oct 12 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Tired today, and running around like a headless chook trying to sort out tomorrow's gear, both bikes, borrowing a plastic ski 'cos of the weed in the river, etc. | ||
| C • ski 1 | ||
Thursday Oct 11 | ||
| Paddling (Beach) 50:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| A glorious Perth morning and I met Jen at Floreat for a paddle and a chance for her to familiarise herself with a real ski. That is, something faster than a plastic - namely an old spec ski. No worries for her, so she should be right to use it at Anaconda. Unusually for Perth the break is still 50m or so off-shore, legacy of the wintery weather we've had this year so it was fun afterwards catching a few waves as I did 4 ins-and-outs. I gave another tribute to Hughie when I got munched by a wave on the way out once. The ski and I made it through the face of the wave somehow but my cap was well and truly ripped-off. I'm feeling more and more comfortable on the Mako, not to the point where I don't have to think about balance, but where I am comfortable paddling in just about any conditions now. | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 45:00 [3] 19 km (2:22 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Easy ride to work. Felt good but my legs were tired. Had a Somali kid on a cheap MTB race me from Perth station out to Claisebrook - I got him on the last hill up the pedestrian ramp! | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 48:00 [2] 17 km (2:49 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
Wednesday Oct 10 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:00:00 [3] 3.1 km (19:21 / km) | |
| Felt like not swimming today but the pool was really warm and after about 2k I felt good and swam fairly strong, not fast, but strong. Main set 10x200m. | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching 25:00 [0] | |
| SMFR with the roller and some decent stretching straight after swimming. Hammies sore on the roller, but good walking. | ||
| Running long 2:02:41 [2] 20 km (6:08 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks | ||
| One of my more pleasant runs of late, although very cruisy. Met Jen and (other) John at Bold Park Pool and ambled around the drive-in on the trails, amphitheatre, bridle trail anti-clockwise to Grass Farm - amazing millions of millipedes on the ground, particularly in the hoof prints on the bridle trail, which was really really soft tonight, 7min/k++ along there. In Mombasa we used to call the millipedes 'tandalooloos' - must be the Swahili word. Funny how I can still remember it from 30 years ago! It is a cool word though. Back to the run... went from GF to SAS sandhill, down it, north along boundary fence to first track then through sth city beach, up the Bridle trail a bit then along WC Hwy to Boulevarde, up sand track, along to Empire and green strip, down Empire then up the steep road parallel to Durston and back to the pool. That was 90mins, then adding on my 12 min run there and then the longer 2/3 lap of the golf course home took me up to a proper long slow run status. Interestingly, the consumption of ibuprofen 10mins before I ran seemed to help as I was thoroughly enjoying the last half hour, no hammy pain, and it made it pleasant. Seems like a tactic to employ intermittently, before races and before hard running - as long as I stay hydrated intermittent tablet here and there will pose no health problems. | ||
| C • Drugs 4 | ||
Tuesday Oct 9 | ||
| Running intervals (Beach) 31:38 [5] 6.4 km (4:57 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| After having the morning off I felt ready to run by the evening and also took a couple of NSAIDs before the session to see if it helped my hammies. Seemed to, and I ran more freely. Ben (clubbie) was there tonight and kept me very honest. It was 200m soft-sand into a strong headwind, 200 back and repeat. A kite-surfer beached and laid his gear out across our loop for the first 3 reps so route choice was creative - do I go up the beach and into softer sand or down the beach and deal with the up and down slopes!
3 minutes rest between. 3.59 3.57 4.01 (went out too hard into wind) 3.55 3.55 (Ben caught me on this one at 550m, got him by end) 3.48 (Ben's last one, steamed past me with 100 to go!) 3.54 (Was proud of this one on my lonesome) 3.59 (Had a finish sprint in me, luckily!) Bloody tough session in the wind and soft-sand and was stoked to hold the times, was really determined/strong in last two reps. | ||
| Running warm up/down (Beach) 25:00 [2] 3 km (8:20 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
Monday Oct 8 | ||
| MTB 1:40:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Met Boltboi and Jen out at The Dell for a ride on an overcast morning. A memorable ride... a few minutes into the first downhill metres of Gungin I caught my pedal on a rock which stopped the bike dead. I fell left landing heavily on my hand on a stump and my shin got caught between the downtube and a nice big chunk of laterite. Not fun. I was stuck there under pressure until Jen could free me. 15mins or so later it began drizzling and just after a creek crossing Jen snapped a chain. The rain god then decided to let rip and it pelted down while we were repairing it. Jen had chain breaker, I had spare bits, and Boltboi the know-how. As we got going in the now-flowing (literally) track I jokingly remarked to Boltboi that it was his turn next. 15mins later he dutifully overcooked a ramp and landed heavily sideways and slid on the wet gravel. Big hole in his bib-suit, palm-sized red-raw patch of thigh, cut forearm, sore wrist, cut shoulder. He laughed it off and soldiered on as we u-turned and headed back to Gungin through the water. I went back via Gungin, they headed around, Dalto sore, Jen still a bit unwell. | ||
| C • Fun 1 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 30:00 [2] | |
| Felt a bit tired all day and figured a swim would wake me up and loosen me up. But like the mtb today, it just didn't really go to plan. My swim cap broke as I was putting it on. My goggles broke at about the 25min mark and I had to borrow a pair. Then my resolve broke and I got out. Still tired, more aware of sore bits (shoulders, wrist, shin) and hungry. Time for a stretch then head home. | ||
Sunday Oct 7 | ||
| Paddling (Paddle camp) 2:00:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| After a change of plans due to the bad weather we all met-up at Smith's Beach near Yallingup. The wind was offshore but really really strong. After ages of discussion they decided to go ahead with a revised plan. I changed groups to avoid another long drive and stayed with Jen's group who was launching from Smiths. it was pretty much pancake flat but with a 1 - 3 foot wave coming through every few minutes. We paddle up the coast for 15mins or so and got good technical feedback from the leader guru Nick. Then back. Then we spent a good half hour practising ins-and-outs which was awesome fun and very hard work at times as you suddenly find that extra bit of motivation to either punch through a wave or avoid be caught by one on the way in. Cold and windy though. | ||
| Running 1:27:14 [2] 14 km (6:14 / km) | |
| shoes: Asics Trabuco | ||
| Did the run course from Bunker Bay to Sugarloaf (8ks-ish) then ran back to the car at Bunker Bay on the road. We were glad we had a second go at this run course as it seemed heaps quicker than on the familiariser weekend, consequently heaps easier too. Jen had a bad stack on a spinifex root and got bloody and sandy which slowed her down a bit after that. We ran that section steadily, not slow, not fast but split up for the run back to car and I got some good speed up. Good old ibuprofen seemed to stop hammies getting much worse! I've definitely changed my thinking to now expect the bike to be the toughest part of the course, the last 5k of single track will be very tough as it is hilly. Yes the run will not be easy, but I think the bike will break more people than the run! | ||
Saturday Oct 6 | ||
| Paddling (Paddle camp) 3:00:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| Paddle camp down at Dunsborough area. I ended-up with the 'advanced' group and we put in at Bunker Bay and had some coaching about launching through the waves and running with the swells. Dean Gardiner and Guy Andrews were the two gurus helping us, but the other groups from Eagle Bay and Dunsborough also had some over-east and local instructors assisting. Great to see about 100 paddlecraft head down south for this.
Very very strong easterly which made for tough paddling conditions, I stayed on, and found it exhillerating on the paddle back with the wind from Meelup to Bunker bay, took about 20mins whereas going up took something like 50mins. Best part of the whole paddle was on the way upwind nearly running into a whale and its calf. Saw it about 100m ahead before it disappeared, shortly after it re-appeared about 5m away on my left, then gone. Amazing. And huge enough to be scary. Played mini-golf with Jen later in the day... had a bit of a win. | ||
| MTB 1:50:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Met up with a local guy, Ian, who came 9th last year in the WA Anaconda race. He lead 5 of us around the single-track which is about 1/3 of this year's bike course. Plus a bit extra as we avoided private land and so forth. He was a nice enough guy but when it came to riding some technical obstacles he'd rip through them and then arrogantly demean everyone by saying "You'll have to do that in the race" (negatory) and, "it's easy" (I don't think so) and then "My eight-year-old daughter can do that." (so what, she's probably ridden it 30 times). Would love to take the prat orienteering in a technical area and say "Here's a map, marked is the location of your car-keys. It's easy..." | ||
Friday Oct 5 | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:10:00 [3] 2.9 km (24:08 / km) | |
| Felt really really crap this morning when I woke up, still tired, still stiff and sore and oh so hungry. Not sure why the hunger as I had a proper dinner and dessert last night, courtesy of Jen, who can cook up a storm. Got to swimming a bit early so swam 500m beforehand and then a short but tough session. Main set was only 6 x200m, but the 200s were broken into 100m threshold pace, 10s rest, 50m steady, 10s rest, 2 x 25m max effort with 10s rest. Then 30s break and repeat. Pool was nice and warm and daylight was good. Pity about stupid bloody daylight saving starting sometime soonish. | ||
Thursday Oct 4 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 57:26 [2] 29 km (1:59 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Pretty stiff again this morning in my calves mainly. took a while to get going but was a perfect windless morning for a ride to work along the north bank of the river. | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 58:43 [2] 29 km (2:01 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Weary tonight, almost piked and turned at the City to do the shorter ride but dopily carried on martyr-like. Light sea-breeze in so had a headwind for the 20mins or so along the river to UWA. And a bug in the eye going up the last-but-one hill. One of those annoying bugs that seem to release an irritant when they impact. Probably the kamikaze cousin of the one that gave me a husky voice during yesterdays run when it blatted down my throat. Looking forward to a weekend off. | ||
Wednesday Oct 3 | ||
| Running long (Herdsman) 1:52:23 [2] 19 km (5:55 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| A work day I'd rather forget but still managed to notice my legs gradually stiffen up from yesterday's session and I really didn't feel like running at all. I employed the time-honoured technique of veggie-jogging the 10mins from home to the pool with Haggles on the lead. It usually loosens me up enough for a big stretch. It worked ok tonight and fortunately only other-John was there. We ran slowly back to my place, dropped the dog off and then headed clock-wise around Herdsman Lake. About 2/3 of the way round the evil spectre of Evo appeared from behind, carrying a backpack laden with rocks probably and his greeting was something along the lines of "you pussies are running really slowly". Admittedly so. He slowed, we sped up to a slow run then he turned off muttering something about getting up at 330am so he can ride to work on time. Damn those boys in blue eh?
Had undeniably a confusing bladder issue tonight. 10mins into the run needed a huge piss. 20mins later another stop, couldn't make it to Herdsman so had to do the fake-seated-hamstring-stretch-while-pissing manoevre in the middle of the school oval. 15mins later yet another massive piss. Finally, 40mins later another thankfully smaller piss! I was trying to work it out - no, I hadn't been drinking litres of water today, yes it was a cooler day, yes I hadn't trained in the morning so probably more hydrated but this was ridiculous. Finally I recalled that I felt shit and tired all day so while doing some grocery shopping at around 4pm I'd bought a choc-coffee drink. The 3 or 4 molecules of coffee must have acted as a diuretic!! | ||
Tuesday Oct 2 | ||
| Running (Beach) 38:00 [4] 8.06 km (4:43 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Back onto the beach now for some long intervals in the lead-up to Anaconda in 5 weeks. Beach was pretty soft and lots of bits of seaweed lying around, kind of awkward to get a rhythm up but after a few reps of the 250m up-and-back I was able to find my previous footsteps for one 70m section on the way back with the wind! 10 people tonight, 8 of them girls. Session 8 x 1km with 3mins 30s recovery.
4.38 4.41 4.44 4.43 4.47 4.54 4.44 4.59 The light was fading at about the same pace I was but on the 7th (which I'd decided was to be my last) I was trying to run Jen and Liz down, both of whom were trying to hold me off, consequently all of us ran that one hard. After that I felt duty-bound to do the 8th and finish the session. Funny how a couple of long races makes this session seem more do-able. | ||
| Running warm up/down (Beach) 25:00 [1] 3 km (8:20 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Jogs plus 6 run-throughs | ||
Monday Oct 1 | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching 15:00 [0] | |
| Some leg stretching in front of the news. It's high time I pull my finger out and do more proper stretching, I tend to avoid doing the necessary ones as it is not a pleasant experience. | ||
| Paddling (Ocean) 1:02:00 [2] 10.3 km (6:01 / km) | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| Paddled south from Floreat this time, almost to Swannie then turned around. Virtually no wind today, although yesterday's swell was still running. This time, thanks to yesterday's offering, I got out fine but fell off moments later when I took my hand off the paddle to press the split button on the watch. It's the first time in about 3 or 4 months that I've fallen off, something I've been scared to do as it was so hard to get back on but I got onboard first time. Sea was oily-calm today, but heaving a bit, kind of hypnotic on the way back and I began to feel a bit queasy unless I was looking at the horizon! After the long paddles at Forster going for a 1hour paddle seems pretty short now. | ||
| Running 41:00 [3] 8.5 km (4:49 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| Ran from home to the beach quite hard with Haggles on the lead, 11mins there, then took the shoes off and ran up to Peasholm St and back on the dog beach. Lots of people down there and it was pretty warm. Stopped for the dog to have a swim to cool down a bit before trying to run home solidly too. Crunchy nut cornflakes were nice after that, I was getting peckish after only a few bits of toast before the paddle. Spent the rest of the day pruning, sweeping, hacking and more pruning at Jen's place. I reckon sweeping is pretty good for your abs, better even than vacuuming. Particularly if there is dirt and sand in the leaf pile, but you must use an 'across the body' stroke rather than the 'push'. It's all about technique. | ||