Training Archive: ToomsIn the 31 days ending 2008-03-31:
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| 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 | S | S | M | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sunday Mar 30 | ||
| Road Bike 54:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Rode down to the river Yarra and upstream for half an hour or so and then back. was not really racing a guy on a roadbike on the way out from 30m behind him. in the end i rode past him on a hill. got back home in time for gladiators and my 4th or 5th high fat italian retuarant dinner in so many nights. I'm planning on being more insulated for the zero temeperatures up at falls creek next week... | ||
Friday Mar 28 | ||
| Running 54:00 [2] | |
| Ran from the hotel on Lygon St downhill towards the river through the city and then did a lap of a parkland area on the other side. Partway round I realised that the gravel I was running on was the well-known "Tan" track that Blair mentions regularly. I left it before a full circuit and headed back home for breakfast. | ||
Thursday Mar 27 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 30:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Slow interrupted ride to Melb bike centre shop to buy spare brake pads and a derailleur hanger. Amazingly, they had a matching hanger. You'd be proud Boltboi, self-motivated bike preparation!!! | ||
Wednesday Mar 26 | ||
| Note | |
| Off to Melbourne shortly for AAESS conference, a few days break and then the Keen race. | ||
Tuesday Mar 25 | ||
| Running hills (SAS sandhills) 10:40 [5] | |
| shoes: Brooks | ||
| 2 sets of 3 reps, jog back n' go, plus 1 single rep. 3mins bt sets.
Ahh, a hill for conneisseurs of lactic acid and burning quads, a gentle 50m or so of gradual climb then SMACK the gradient turns evil and the sand turns powdery loose and oh so evil. 1.32 1.35 1.32 A good first set, just behind Fletch. 1.31 1.44 1.42 The 5th was ugly, but Fletch blew on the 6th too. 1.25 Maximum, thrusters on! Fletch wasn't too healthy after the last. | ||
| Running warm up/down 22:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Brooks | ||
Monday Mar 24 | ||
| Running 42:13 [2] | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
Sunday Mar 23 | ||
| Running 1:25:22 [2] | |
| shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones | ||
| MTB 40:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Paddling 55:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| MTB 1:24:53 [2] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
Saturday Mar 22 | ||
| Paddling 1:28:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| MTB 1:47:45 [3] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
Friday Mar 21 | ||
| Orienteering 24:30 [2] 4.5 km (5:27 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| MTBjen set 'the' course for the UWA Nav Dash this arvo and I ran it while she walked around to identify control descriptions. The opposite of what we did earlier in the day at ECU Joondalup. Both of us set courses that were too long! Legs pretty lacklustre and had a very full stomach as we were there straight after lunch. These maps are in good shape with ECU being the more variable campus and more scenic with U-dub probably being more challenging if one doesn't know the campus off by heart. With Jen living within 200m of the campus for 12 years and a student there for 6 and me on-and-off studying there for 10 years the key bits are a bit familiar. Luckily they're always tearing down or erecting new buildings, bit like Diaspar*
Arthur C Clarke - The City and the Stars. | ||
| Running 9:00 [1] 1.5 km (6:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Rocked up for beach session but no one bar Gabrielle was there and she was as unmotivated as MTBjen and between the two of them the negative vibes overwhelmed me, and since no-one will know I piked we just went for a jog and then I swam out to the buoy and back. No stingers on the way out, but got hammered on the way back, typical, face, hips, upper arms. Itchy. | ||
| Swimming 5:00 [1] 0.25 km (20:00 / km) | |
Thursday Mar 20 | ||
| Road Bike (Red Rock) 1:58:40 [4] 61.4 km (1:56 / km) | |
| slept:7.5 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Awoke when the alarm went off, fully expecting to feel shattered but I was awake and ready to ride. A bit windy, strong easterly so I didn't expect many to rock-up, and was proved correct with only 15 people there, 2 of whom went as the "fast" group. 4 girls riding, wondered how they'd go with the Evo factor later in the ride, especially with such a small group. Heading down to Freo got a bit pacey and two of the girls faded. Being on the back I tried to give them some draft as I went past, fortunately we regrouped at the lights but lost one of them permanently as we went up the hill onto Preston Pt road. Then, after the roundabout the pace suddenly went wayy up and I was battling on the back, and then had 3 girls to pass to get to the new back which was now 20m ahead. Going up majestic hill we lost another bloke and all bar Evo faded on the top so I ended up on his wheel through to Canning Bridge, we regrouped down to Mt Henry but only 7 left now for rest of ride. Mts Bay Rd was a hoot with the easterly behind us, I was doing 57kph for half a k or so before Evo went by for the win. Only one other still there. Poor legs 'kn rooted on the way home, and quads a bit tender now at work. Got late finish at work now, so will have the rest of the day off. | ||
Wednesday Mar 19 | ||
| Running long 1:50:31 [3] 19.22 km (5:45 / km) +155m 5:32 / km | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| Surprisingly, given the intensity of yesterday's ride and then hill intervals, today's 545am start at work and 11hour day I felt really good after 10mins and for the first time in ages did a long run at a steady pace and felt that it was not a struggle, wasn't aching all the way, and stopped because I felt like it rather than after desperately trying to make it home and keep running. Maybe the large (too much for me) pasta lunch I had instead of the normal 3 sandwiches.
Ran with Wil over to McGillivray, Cott golf course, SAS boundary on the sandtracks, along the beach to City, up to Floreat and back to the pool, then I went clockwise around the golf course to turn it into a "long" run. Wil struggled today, I was hoping it wouldn't come crashing down on me otherwise tomorrow's ride will really suck. | ||
Tuesday Mar 18 | ||
| Road Bike (Floreat ride) 1:39:30 [4] 49.7 km (2:00 / km) | |
| slept:7.0 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Not a pleasant morning for a ride today, very blustery and strong easterly but I woke up and felt rested so went along. Was the first one there and in the end only 13 riding, down to 11 by Freo, down to 6 at the top of the first hill on McCabe street into the wind. I struggled a bit thru Mos Park but caught up again after Devil's Elbow. Hacket Drive was a simple war of attrition with only Carlo and two others having an attempt at a sprint - the wind meant once you were a bike length off the back you were well and truly gone. No other orienteers made it today, I guess Boltboi was hanging onto his roof at home in Gossies what with the easterly they get out there... | ||
| Running warm up/down 33:00 [2] 6.5 km (5:05 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks | ||
| W-up, c-d, recoveries down the hill and run throughs. Eight of us tonight, Oscar (super fast youngster), me (hasbeen), Mick (new fella), Saz (the motivated version), Liz (2nd in state SLSC 2k beach run), Wil (rogainer dude), Anthea (strong as), Jess (tonight's piker), Brian (...). | ||
| Running (Parabolic) 10:52 [5] 2.5 km (4:21 / km) | |
| slept:0.5 shoes: Brooks | ||
| 2 x 3 max efforts with jog back plus 30s. Extra 3mins between sets. Then a bonus one for me so that I did more than last week. Had Oscar the 13 year old (?) running machine keeping me very honest today, beat me on the first 2 reps, matched my 3rd and almost 4th, and was 2s or so behind on rep 5 and rep 6. This lad is a natural... but not surprising given his pedigree.
1.29 1.32 1.31 1.32 1.32 1.33 1.42 Much better than last week, and more consistent. And I felt more leg sore beforehand. And Fletch wasn't there so I felt better about myself, not so mediocre to all appearances! Interesting, in 2000 I ran a few 1.29s and a 1.28 - that was my fastest. Slight change in track conditions, but as the good Doctor says, it's closer behind than I have been for a long while!! | ||
| C • Good stuff 2 | ||
Monday Mar 17 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 44:52 [2] 19.75 km (2:16 / km) | |
| slept:9.0 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Another PB for a commute! But admittedly this one was because I've never actually come this way to work before... rode MTBjen's way into the city via Hale, Herdy, Fwy path, then eastern trainline out as per usual from the City. Longer than my other 'middle' way to work in distance and time but much flatter as it avoids going up the Subiaco hill. Lovely weather today, shame to ruin it by going to work. | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 48:00 [2] 20.7 km (2:19 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Cruise home with a stop for vietnamese food in Northbridge, was great, heaps and heaps of rice with some beef and chicken stuff, had heaps of energy after that for the ride home and for smashing Boltboi tomorrow morning. Some scungy roadie chick wheel-sucked off me the whole way home, right up to my driveway. Lucky I was only riding "bludge pace" tonight... | ||
| C • damn those roadies... 1 | ||
Sunday Mar 16 | ||
| Road Bike (Freeway Bike Hike) 1:27:00 [3] 60 km (1:27 / km) | |
| slept:5.0 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Another damn early start but what a novel experience, a free train ride down in the dark to Kwinana, arrived there wayy too early for the untimed ride back up to Joondalup. Lots of very serious people taking themselves very seriously on the train, pre-event and on the ride. As we came out of the station at 620am there was a chick riding hard on rollers (!!!!) warming up! A bit later pods of riders in matching gear started doing warm-up laps of the car-park 50m x 25m until it got too crowded. Then they did warm up laps of half the car-park 50mx12m and then it filled up with 1000 category A people. MTBjen and I were about 100 back from the start so got going fairly quickly and after about 3km were in amongst wall to wall riders and it stayed like this the entire ride. Picture a peleton of maybe 300 people riding between 3 and 5 deep for the entire time between 35 and 45kph.
Somewhere near Jandakot on a slight hill I saw a group infront of ours about 600m ahead numbering about 30 people, and another larger group maybe a kilometre head of them. They were gradually pulling away and by the City they were out of sight. I think Duncan's matching posse of Croissant Express 'serious' people was in there. Was a fun ride, although almost completely social due to the massive suck-along. Kept with MTBjen and Bill Darby the whole way. | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 25:00 [3] 11 km (2:16 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| From home into the City at 520am in the dark to catch a train. Found I was in the minority of people wearing a collared shirt and camelback!! | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 50:00 [3] 24 km (2:05 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Rode home down the extra-crap Freeway North cyclepath. Had some middleaged serious people gunning by who kept going the wrong way and passed us seriously about 4 times before we finally mislead them in Innaloo when we left the path. Then we, well I, chose to ride up Ewen St the steep way on the way home, a mighty climb at the end of almost 100ks of riding!
Somewhat leg weary by home. | ||
| Paddling (River) 1:36:00 [3] | |
| slept:1.0 shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| Met up with Fletch, Evo, MTBjen for a steady paddle on the river. In fact, that's our AR team for 2008 so a team of 4 orienteers, 4 APers!! Cruised up river from the East Perth Powerstation to Garret Road bridge and back via Ascot waters. Bit windier on the way back but I felt good. Mainly a "2" but with some efforts of "4" and one "5" racing to catch Evo towards the end. Fletch is paddling much better on his Lovely Lavender Launch and MTBjen and Evo are super strong. An enjoyable paddle with plenty of small wash from boats to practice staying on the boats! | ||
Saturday Mar 15 | ||
| Orienteering 50:30 [3] 6.93 km (7:17 / km) +170m 6:29 / km | |
| slept:4.0 shoes: Asics Trabuco | ||
| Pottered around putting tapes out for the training activity for the weekend and getting a bit frustrated with the poor printout of the map that was missing features and was hard to read. Mostly due to bad digitising of an old offset map I think. It was a lovely morning and I did quite a few extra metres double-confirming some pretty vague control sites. Found some purpose by treating it as a map-memory exercise (since I was stopping dead at every site to wrap toilet paper out there for Boltboi's dodgey digestive system) which was a bit more purposeful. | ||
| MTB Orienteering 51:34 [3] 10.8 km (4:46 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Rode an old medium course at Gungin with MTBjen. We did it leg by leg and took alternative routes to compare. No surprises that on every occasion the option we thought was faster at first impression actually was. A useful exercise nonetheless. By crikey I was knackered, the dusty dry and deep pea-gravel was what I imagine a truck arrester bed would be like to ride through. Ie. some of it was 10cm+ deep and unrideable. | ||
Friday Mar 14 | ||
| Paddling (River) 1:06:57 [3] 10.6 km (6:19 / km) | |
| slept:7.0 shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| I had a breakfast launch of the Emerging Leaders Program run by Dept Sport and Rec in Mosman Park at 730am so this seemed a good opportunity to take the ski and have a paddle straight after on the river below. Repeated yesterday's paddle but the weather was absolutely perfect today and I felt a heap better. Paddled more solidly today and got downriver from Freshwater Bay to the yacht club opposite Minim Cove. The incoming tide was surprisingly strong in that one point and there were standing waves groyne where the Left Bank Tri started, my turnaround point. Did a bit of wash-riding on the way down, but alas, none on the way back. Even so, I was faster on the way back by 3mins. Must be the tide. Was such a nice day I unwrapped my AUstralian orienteer and sat on the grassy river bank and read a bit of it for 15mins or so. | ||
| Weird Stuff (Lawn Bowls) 30:00 [0] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| As part of the junket this morning there was the opportunity for a few ends of bowls, and what better location than overlooking the river. 4 ends was enough to go from skill level of 'crap' to skill level of 'passable'. Passable being all bowls within 4m or so of the jack.
Having no idea what I'm in for in this Leadership programme, I asked when things started and what was next. The person in charge of the launch replied "I'm speaking to the course provider on Monday and then we'll be in touch with you in the next couple of weeks." Made me chuckle, leading by example with a disorganised start - no outline, no timeframe, no contents nothing except a promise that they'd be in touch! | ||
| Running (Beach session) 30:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| W-up, c-d, bits in between and jog to the groyne. | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching 25:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| The usual, but a nice non-windy day for it and lots of new faces. 13 people, Brian, Dawn, Saz, me, Jen, Ngaire, Vera, little Ngaire, Anthony, Jessica, Sophie and Gabrielle.
No Wil. | ||
| Swimming (OCean) 9:30 [2] 0.6 km (15:50 / km) | |
| Swam steadily from the groyne back to the beach session spot immediately before the session. Nice heaving swell running, bits of seaweed floating on a greeny sea. | ||
Thursday Mar 13 | ||
| Paddling (River) 56:00 [2] 7.2 km (7:47 / km) | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| First paddle in a looong time, can't say I enjoyed it very much as I was pretty sore in my bum and hammies from sitting - completely alleviated by standing up and walking on the beach for 30s. Stupid boney backside. Gonna need to build up a tolerance to paddling again, really shouldn't have stopped for so long. Was nice on the river though rather than fighting the stupid morning traffic that was wayyy heavy. Found out later that people had diverted to Stirling Hwy to avoid a truck rollover on the freeway - - but Cheyne at work drove up the freeway from his home wayyy south and said it was devoid of traffic as everyone was scared at went Canning Hwy or Stirling. Classic scare campaign by the radio stations!!! | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 19:58 [3] 10.73 km (1:52 / km) | |
| slept:8.0 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Complete contrast to the paddle, thoroughly enjoyed my ride to work - stonking great westerly wind blowing and it rained for the first 10mins, a bit odd. Big chain the whole way except up Green St and a massive PB for the "short" ride to work. Was coming down Hale Rd at over 60kph to start the ride off and it was Green St before the average dropped below 30. Looking forward to a strong easterly to push me home, it's bound to happen.
| ||
| Note | |
| Wore a new Cloudveil long-sleever for both paddle and ride to work to see what it's like as an AR top. So far so good, very soft, very light. Will run in it before giving hte go ahead to get it logo-ed up for the team's events this year. Hopefully they do a short sleever too as it may be a bit warm for a potential warm WA day... | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 1:00:26 [3] 25.7 km (2:21 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Dark for the whole ride home, stopped in at a nice takeaway place on near the steel bridge over Guildford Road, got to eat a few nice potato chunks served by a pretty waitress. And her son. And his Dad. As predicted no tailwind on the way home although the wind was mostly a southerly so I had it as a tailwind from U-dub home. | ||
Wednesday Mar 12 | ||
| Running long (plod) 1:59:17 [2] 19 km (6:17 / km) | |
| slept:7.0 shoes: Brooks | ||
| Pulled up pretty well from last night's run - no hammy pain at all, seems I've finally begun to put that particular beastie behind me, so to speak. However, the prospect of a long run was a little daunting as my legs did feel a bit below-par from 10mins of sprinting up a hill! Fortunately no-one other than MTBjen and I fronted so we had lovely rogaine-pace saunter around the coastal area. Pool - amphitheatre - zamia to grass farm - bridle -old terrain loop - ropes course - challenge - mcgillivray - stadium - pool. Jen bailed here as planned at 65mins and I kept on tootling down to the beach, which was quite nice as it was all downhill and into a breeze. Then I hit the sand and it wasn't quite as pleasant. Got to Peasholm, emptied one shoe of sand, the shoe with the big bunion hole on the medial side, then excruciated my way up the grass strip to Ocean Village shops - Holy Spirit - home. Quads a bit tender on the downhills. More a mental than a physical effort tonight as I didn't feel capable of going faster than a slow jog. | ||
Tuesday Mar 11 | ||
| Road Bike (Flroeat ride) 1:36:00 [3] 50 km (1:55 / km) | |
| slept:6.5 shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| Really struggled to get up today. Actually getting up was okay, it was more the waking up side of things that didn't happen till Fremantle. Stupid cat came in last night doing the short staccatto "meow, meow, meow, loo-what-I've-brought-in meow, meow". So I'm running nude around the lounge room at 3am chasing a mouse, occasionally a cat, and sometimes a cat-and-mouse. This time remembered to block the cat-flap to keep Molly out once I'd got her outside.
Left Floreat, with a slightly smaller group than it was a month ago - ambye something to do with the sun rise after the ride ends these days. The pace was fast to start with, and I couldn't put it all down to tired legs as they weren't. I rode Oceanic hill by myself off the back and caught up on the downhill to the lights. As we came through onto WCHwy the pace slowed a bit and was steady through to Marine Pde where it arced up again and punters were dropped off the back. MTBjen must've got blocked-in or something... I dropped back to try and pull them up to the main group and managed to get two or three across by the lights at Port. McCabe st was very windy headwind and some plonker clipped wheels up ahead as he weaved all over the road out of his saddle. Down he went (deservedly) like a bag of shit and I ended up on the footpath to avoid the mess. Boltboi climbed a hill properly today and the rest of the ride was pretty cruisy. There was no UWA sprint as the first 5 or 6 bolted as soon as they got across onto Hacket Drive rather than waiting for the group to come across. Good use of a dump truck by Carlo and Boltboi but both were done clearly by some guy on a Giant. | ||
| C • No wonder you didnt log the... 7 | ||
| Running warm up/down 40:00 [2] 6 km (6:40 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks | ||
| warm up, cool down and recoveries. | ||
| Running hills (Parabolic) 9:37 [5] 2.1 km (4:35 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks | ||
| 2 x 3 x max hill efforts, jog back plus 30s break. 3mins between sets.
Humbled by Fletch's awesomeness tonight... wasn't even close to him. I held the first set well, had a horrible start to the second set and got angry and vocal at myself in rep 5 and 6. This did the job and I found I was faster by attacking the start of the run, and again at the 1/2 way point when the initial adrenaline subsided. Wil and MTBjen were pretty strong too, it's a tough hill to run flat-out when you've not done a lot of speed work. And for MTBjen, with tired legs from riding hard in the morning. 1.35 1.35 1.36 1.45 1.35 1.31 | ||
Monday Mar 10 | ||
| Running warm up/down 25:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones | ||
| Running 19:35 [5] 5 km (3:55 / km) | |
| shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones | ||
| Spur of the moment decision to do the 5km round the golf course. Main motivation was the crap time I ran on Tuesday when I was weary. Ran from home through the golf course and met MTBjen over there, gave her 4mins 30s headstart then headed off in hot pursuit. Ran it pretty hard but was again aware I wasn't quite at top speed, intensity yes particulalry the last km when I could see I had a chance of catching jen. Passed her with 100m to go but my time was the slowest for this year. Felt the 72% humidity too - yuck. | ||
Sunday Mar 9 | ||
| Road Bike (Commute) 35:00 [1] 11 km (3:11 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Gary Fisher mtb | ||
| Lovely day for a blob. Not such a nice day to be at work. | ||
| Weird Stuff (spin class) 50:00 [4] 22 km (2:16 / km) | |
| The Keiser bikes are so smooth, but although I did plenty of hard work it's not the same sort of productive hard work as say a windtrainer session would be. Probably 'cos the instructors are just instructors and not cyclists. Sweat rather a lot. | ||
| Swimming 17:40 [2] 1 km (17:40 / km) | |
| Was going to put this down as 'weird stuff' but then reneged and decided that swimming used to be a regular in my log. Wandered over from the spin class, clambered in, swam a straight km then got out and rode home. | ||
| Road Bike (commute) 36:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Bike, Gary Fisher mtb | ||
| This sucked, a headwind and MTBjen on the roadbike to humiliate me. | ||
Saturday Mar 8 | ||
| Orienteering (Mt Billy training) 1:07:10 [3]*** 8.87 km (7:34 / km) +150m 6:59 / km | |
| spiked:16/19c shoes: Asics Trabuco | ||
| GPS says I spent 11mins stopped - about half of that was talking to Jen when I caught her and then a later comfort pause. First bush orienteer since about June or July last year and I certainly felt rusty, my trotting pace was exactly matched to my map reading ability and I found it hard to imagine I should be going 25% faster and still be able to read the map. Was surprised to find toilet paper controls much easier to spot than survey tape controls, bit more like looking for a normal control rather than having to get within 5 inches of the survey tape to spot it sometimes.
Had an excellent mistake on the second last control after a pretty clean trot up till then. Had seen no-one since passing Fog and Carol at number 9 and then at 18 chased Tony W into the control and left on the heels of LOST Richard and Boltboi with Ken B lurking nearby. Boltboi went straight, LR went around. I glanced at the map and decided to go around as well and use Boltboi's (reputation as a good navigator) trajectory as an intercept for the control site. A few errors all combined then i) I trusted Boltboi ii) I stopped reading the map iii) I began running properly iv) I crossed the big creek without checking its angle. When I realised that neither Boltboi or Richard (both ahead of me) had any idea where they were I went up the creek to a likely looking brown dot, realised it was wayyyyyy too far up the hill then hot-footed it for the right spot some 400m+ away. Must've been Boltboi's altered orthotics forcing him to run on an angle... Ahh, the good old days. I bet Craig's never made mistakes that are so silly they're funny. | ||
| C • Following the wrong person 3 | ||
| MTB (Gorrie Rd) 1:05:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Stopped at Gorrie Rd for a ride. Was looking forward to it but couldn't keep up with orthoticboi nor MTBjen and eventually was going to slowly up one hill that I fell off onto a pile of laterite rocks. Great. Then found my back brake was rubbing badly.... was it doing that before the crash?? Maybe that would explain my patheticness. Rode on to try and find the others before the aliens abducted me and fortunately they'd stopped to wait. Weakboi pretended he had schoolwork to do and bailed early to go home for a sleep, some DVD watching, a pizza and so forth. I soldiered on for a second lap - and managed to fall off on exactly the same section of lateritey track. This time I fell to the right, not the left, as the rocks were smaller there. Mentally I collapsed then and just tried to make it back to the car as it was blatently obvious that I no longer possessed any fitness, strength or MTBing ability whatsoever. I determined to work on my ice-cream consuming ability instead on the way home. | ||
| C • Weakboi 10 | ||
Friday Mar 7 | ||
| Core Stability/Stretching (Beach Session) 25:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Usual exercises but I was much more energetic today than I have been in weeks, amazing what a week off can do for you. Wil, Ngaire, Jess, Soph and a belated spectate by MTBjen. Lovely swim after the 'cardio' set. | ||
| Running warm up/down 29:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| SWarm-up, cool down and hard bits within the set. | ||
Tuesday Mar 4 | ||
| Running 23:00 [3] 5 km (4:36 / km) | |
| shoes: Asics Orient | ||
| Tired and sluggish 5km jog while others were disturbingly fresh after the weekend. I'm still yawning and flat, physically and mentally, the morning after. Not helped by the fact I'm in at work at 7am as the plant room for the 50m pool is the scene of a significant pipe rupture. Lots of pool bookings to politely cancel... definitely going to bail on tonight's usual long run and instead have a nap and then take the dog out. | ||
| C • stupid 1 | ||
Monday Mar 3 | ||
| Running (dog jog) 20:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Easy jog on the beach in the evening. Body a bit tired but my legs felt really really loose and no hammy stiffness at all. I think I've noticed this before after this sort of long stuff. | ||
Sunday Mar 2 | ||
| MTB race (Stage 1) 1:58:00 [5] 39 km (3:02 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Stage 1 of the brand-new course for 2008 and it weighed in at a mighty 39 undulating kilometres through towering karri, scrubby marri and ti-tree and lots and lots of pea gravel, although with the overnight showers the dust was not too bad. The organisers gave us the option of a 715am start or a 9am start but with stage 3 starting at the same time for everybody. Wil, Boltboi, Rhys and I opted for the 9am start rather than get up early. As it turned out 3/4 of the field went at 715am leaving 55 of us for the pacy 9am start. (Saz and MTBjen went at 715am).
First 8km was non-racing 23kph rollout along bitumen and then once we were on gravel the lead car sounded the horn, accelerated away and the pace immediately got uncomfortable. I managed to hang on the back of the main group till the track narrowed and the group elongated. Coming down a sandy slope to a creek I was really pleased with my negotiation of the 1 foot bank onto the granite stream bed past all the dismounted roadie-types but then one bike length later the front wheel dropped into the Mines of Moria and over the handlebars I went, full length into the water and landing hard on the granite. Sore left elbow and shoulder and right knee from then on, but no effect on my riding. This stage was quite good fun, much tougher than last year's stage but the track was in much better condition. About an hour in on a long climb I saw 10 riders up ahead but only ever managed to catch two of them. The stage incorporated Booroora single-track loop and that was pretty cool as the field was spread out by now. Lost my sunnies in there somewhere. Very glad to see the finish across a paddock just after catching and passing some of the punters from the 715am start. 6th open male on this stage, but lots of veterans (35yrs plus would you believe?) in front. And Steph. Got Rhys by 4mins and neither of us ever saw the other. | ||
| MTB race 1:10:00 [2] 18 km (3:53 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Didn't wait all that long to get going on the cruise stage and was shortly joined by Rhys once he'd had his front derailleur fixed. In retrospect it was this bit where I should have had a longer break and eaten more, but I was keen to get a good break at the lunch stop. Began feeling tired on this cruise stage but when I wanted to speed up a bit the legs felt good so I was looking forward to the next timed stage still. Met up with the others at lunch stop, Wil was happy, MTBjen was in 3rd and only 30s or so down on 2nd and as usual, obscenely upbeat. Boltboi looked hot and bothered when he came in and Saz, who'd flatted as the starting horn had gone knew the entire field by name. | ||
| MTB race (Stage 3) 1:50:00 [3] 32 km (3:26 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| A mass start of the remaining riders here with a very very dusty descent after about 1km, couldn't see a thing other than the bike or two infront! After 4km I started getting passed by riders and on a hill around the 6km mark I was barely able to ride up it, legs were empty and I began noticing my tight low back a lot more. At 8km I dropped to cruise pace and decided to try and just finish the stage and get a decent rest before the last two stages. By about 20km I was planning to bail and get a lift home from the end of the stage. Was amazed that more people hadn't passed me as I was small chainringing about 90% of the ride. The stage finished with about 4km of single track through a dry paperbark swamp and I eased past about 8 people who were struggling with the concept of steering their bikes. Seems that 95% of the field were similarly shattered. Popped out into the finishing paddock about 100m infront of a group containing the 4th girl and a couple of skinny fit types and estimated that their finishing sprint would come up just short. It did, by about 5m. Lay on the grass trying to trigger point my back and fight thoughts of abandoning. Saz piked here after a bad stage so I resolved to do another stage. This stage would've been great to do fresh, lots of long gradual climbs to power over. Next year... | ||
| C • Leaps forward 2 | ||
| MTB race (Stage 4 (cruise)) 1:10:00 [1] 18 km (3:53 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| Struggled here. MTBjen kept me company but I had to stop and stretch my back a couple of times and concentrated on just trying to keep moving forward. Small chain the whole way. Not enjoying myself. Got to the finish paddock (full of double-g thorns) and MTBjen went straight into the final 10km stage. I said I'd meet her back their after just rolling home on the bitumen. | ||
| MTB race (Stage 5) 32:00 [5] 9 km (3:33 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| This stage started in groups of 10 separated by 60s or so. A great improvement on previous years mass starts as the stage is mostly single track.
Boltboi rocked-up into the paddock just after MTBjen had left, poured scorn on my decision to bail and then suggested I rest in the paddock with him for while. I agreed to that and ate a banana, some sandwiches and about 5 carboshotz and two litres of water. After about 40mins (or so) and some trigger pointing of my spasmed lower back I decided that I'd have a crack at the last stage and if my legs were up to it good, if not I'd see it through. As it turned out my legs were up to it and I was able to push. The course was 4ks of good single track and 4ks of gradually uphill vehicle tracks to the finish. Starting near the rear of the field I was passing lots of people but the minor delays were no problem as I was happy to be able to actually push again. Oddly enough I ended up 8th open male (24th overall) even with the addition of my personal stage 3 'cruise' but I was 6th on both stages 1 and 5. Rhys ended up 7th, MTBjen 3rd girl and podium only 10 places behind me. | ||
Saturday Mar 1 | ||
| Event: Great Karri Ride | ||
| Running (dog jog) 20:00 [1] 3 km (6:40 / km) | |
| slept:8.0 (rest day) shoes: Barefoot | ||
| Going away for Karri ride this morning so took doggles for a run since he'll be cooped-up till Monday arvo. Cooler today but still very humid. | ||
| MTB race 5:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| 10min prologue plus two laps. From previous year's experience, even when I ride flat out I get lapped (it's a 700m lap) and you get the time of the last unlapped person plus 2mins. So this year, as for last year, I barely turn the pedals over and get lapped ASAP. Rhys, Wil and I teamed up to try and go as slow as possible, and only some clown who managed to crash just before we got pulled over finished behind us. Boltboi, seeking his victory over us for the weekend rode hard and did an extra lap before he was directed to leave the arena. We were quite a contrast to MTBjen who somehow contrived to have her opponent pushed off her bike at the start and then lead the first 3 laps of the women's prologue before crusing in for 2nd behind 'Wildside' Steph. | ||