Training Archive: ToomsIn the 7 days ending 2007-09-23:
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| M | T | W | H | F | S | S | |||||||
Sunday Sep 23 | ||
| Multisport race (Anaconda Forster) 5:28:00 [4] 64 km (5:08 / km) | |
| Day two dawned early and darkish again - but the weather was perfect. I felt good, just a bit sore in the bum from the unfamiliar ski yesterday. I'd seen the results from Day 1 and noticed I swam ok so I decided to hammer the swim today for the hell of it. I was 9th around the flag on the beach at the 1/3 point and lead the second pack out of the water probably 100m or so behind the first pack. Transition took a while into running gear and then out over the timing pad and onto the run. The legs took very little time to remind me they had exercised a bit excessively the day before and I soon had a veritable stream of athletes pass me on the first beach section - I saw numbers 2 and 6 go by so I figured I must have swum ok. 10-15mins later another few individuals ran by and I was in a world of sore hammies again, to the point where I stopped and stretched twice to no avail. The lead females passed me about the halfway point of the run which was mainly flat on leaf-litter and bark strips. Then there were two sandhills, the second extremely steep and soft. i found my legs didn't hurt going up these so I ran them with a very small stride and passed a few people. At the top I soon found my hammies were now co-operating and I set about catching about half a dozen people who had recently passed me. The last bit of the 17k run was a long climb but I felt strong. Into transition and while there Jen's team runner came in and I headed out behind her and Robbie P, neither of whom I saw again.
The 29km ride was great - flowing track with some hills and rocks to start with and lots of mud and puddles. At one point I sunk my front wheel into a rut, it disappeared under the murky grey water and a nanosecond later I too sisappeared face-first into it with my bike landing on top of me. Extricating myself from the narrow deep pool of cold water wasn't all that easy and I was filthy and quite cold after here. Legs had packed-up too so the last 10k or so of the ride was tough - I had not seen a rider since about the 10k point so others were obviously suffering too. 1hr 52 - timing system missed me. Outridden by Jen both days... This paddle was long, very shallow and tedious. It was also baking hot with a slight tailwind. I was passed by one ski at the 10min mark and I passed someone at the 70min mark. Otherwise on my lonesome. Ski took 1hr 22mins, timing system missed me for some reason. Ended up playing mind games of 20 strokes easy, 60-100 hard to keep some sort of impetus up! Finally the 3k run to finish - and after 300m or so of getting the legs moving again I felt good and for the first time for the weekend was able to actually run with decent speed. Too little too late but a positive finish. All in all I enjoyed the two races but was frustrated by being a runner who cannot run. Maybe it was the cold, but day two should've been fine. Maybe it was the shorter than usual ski, either way, if I can find a solution I'll take a good 40s or so a km off my run times. Really looking forward to WA event now, it'll seem a walk in the park after a two day event and I won't be scared to push hard in the swim and paddle now that I know I can actually maintain a good effort level. | ||
| C • Glad it was you 2 | ||
Saturday Sep 22 | ||
| Event: Anaconda Forster | ||
| Multisport (Forster) 4:57:07 [4] 53 km (5:36 / km) | |
| With a 7am kick-off it meant up at 445am to drop gear off at transitions. The race started with a 3km run to the swim start - and almost everyone wore their wetsuits. I carried mine and put it on when I got to the beach which meant for a slower run but at least I didn't sweat buckets. I can imagine the guys who ran 9mins something in full long leg and long arm wetties would've been pretty hot! I cruised the run, and the swim, as I was expecting a long long day. Next up was the paddle and I was on a borrowed XT which is pretty much a standard surf-ski - very stable. Unfortunately it was a bit short for my leg length so a little uncomfortable. The paddle was 17km into the wind, shades of Sorrento Challenge here! The swell was big, wind not so bad, but the rebounding waves off the cliffs made for a messy day for a lot of paddlers. I felt quite good for the first hour or so and didn't have all that many people come past - several that did, including the lead female chose to cut inside one of the marker buoys. When I questioned her on the water she said "everyone else did it". That's the spirit eh? Coming into the beach I semi-caught a couple of waves but then one caught up with me and I found that paddling a boat with no wave deflector means the nose heads for the sandy bottom quite quickly! No harm done, and some funny photos on the website.
Next onto a shortish MTB leg, grassy to start with, then some steep undulations and a longish hill climb. I got a flat pretty early and lost 6 or 8 places while fixing that then rode a bit conservatively on the downhills just in case. My distal 2 joints of my fingers stayed numb for about half the ride - it was cold on the ocean. On one hill there was a fallen rider with 2 or 3 people helping him. Turned out he went over the handlebars and perforated his femoral artery - not good. He's out of surgery and ok come Sunday though. Off the ride and onto the final run, definitely getting tired now and the weather took a turn for the worse. For some reason my legs were really sore, mainly the hammies and I was reduced to a slow jog only. Then there was the board paddle across the lake - that was nice and I bent my knees at 90 degrees to keep my feet in the air and dryish. Once I got running again the hammy pain had reduced hugely and I ran the last 2/3 of the run at a more solid pace, but still not puffing unfortunately. Just scraped under the 5hr mark but did manage to beat Jen's all girl team and the NSW Stingers! In fairness to them, I think the paddler had a wee bit of trouble with the rough conditions... All in all I was pretty happy with the day and other than the run and the flat on the bike was surprised with feeling good in the long (cold) swim and paddle. Immediately noticeable as different from WA was the complete lack of "punters" at the event. The individuals were very fit and took it (and themselves) very seriously - very little banter out on the course. Also, there were only two plastic skis in evidence - all the others were generally ocean racing skis with a few spec. skis in the mix and a couple of sea-kayaks. Certainly not the 50%+ plastic from WA last year. Shows the paddling scene / clubby scene is much bigger over east. Conversely, the MTB abilities and type of bikes seemed worse than in WA. I think we have more people who give MTB a crack, particulalry over winter than over east. Lots and lots of Giant MTBs, but not many good brands. | ||
| C • boat choice 1 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Drove south to Forster. Pacific Highway is very busy. | ||
Wednesday Sep 19 | ||
| MTB 1:30:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida | ||
| A very tired and slow ride, had to walk a lot of hills, no co-ordination on th single track either. Some nice forest particulary the rainforesty stuff but missing a night's sleep completely rooted me. | ||
Tuesday Sep 18 | ||
| Road Bike (Floreat Group) 1:48:00 [3] 51 km (2:07 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel | ||
| It wasn't raining, but it was windy. No rain for Eoin along Cottesloe, but there was a big rainbow a bit off to the west! Boltboi came along and lead the group for the first 20mins or so. Eoin and I tried to stay with the chase group from Freo but with the monster tailwind our little hearts couldn't beat fast enough. Rode alone but solidly through to the re-group and Eoin did his own lead-out and 'sprint' win today. Home via Kings Park. | ||
| Running intervals (Blackboy Loop) 17:45 [5] 4.68 km (3:48 / km) | |
| ahr:153 max:164 weight:74.2kg shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| On the warm up my legs felt awful - it's been about 5 weeks since I've done a Tuesday morning ride! 14 people along tonight, so it was fun - had to park on the rough as the car-park was full!
5 x blackboy trail loops, each loop 934m, several small but steep hills, no flat ground. 2mins rest. 3.33 151/160 3.35 152/160 3.35 153/161 3.29 156/164 3.33 154/163 Every rep was a hard effort, on rep 4 Ben (clubby) caught me at the top corner but I was able to get away from him on the downhills, barely (hence the higher HR). A really rewarding session given I was not expecting a good run and ended up being able to pretty much go flat out, something I am not used to. Even better, no groin pain even with the downhill running. Now off to the airport to miss a night's sleep and stiffen-up like a board. note: packing for a multisport race on the other side of the country is a pain in the backside! | ||
| C • Foster 1 | ||
| Running warm up/down 18:00 [1] 3 km (6:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Brooks Beast | ||
| 2k warm up, 1k warm down, cruisy. | ||
Monday Sep 17 | ||
| Swimming 24:00 [4] 1.4 km (17:09 / km) | |
| Was very annoyed with a staffmember who didn't show-up this morning, missed squad training but got in the pool after they finished and after a 200m swim and stretch tried to do a 1km hard swim, 200 cooldown before heading to pre-arranged 8am paddle. Swam 15:36 which I think is ok, particularly as I swam the first 400 in 6.12 meaning I pretty much held that pace. | ||
| Paddling (River) 1:05:00 [1] 9 km (7:13 / km) | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 | ||
| A gentle loosener sort of paddle upriver with Jen from Sophie's power station. Certainly found lots of tight muscles from the weekend! As we were finishing I heard a loud splash and Jen said "Look!" and over really close to the shore was a dolphin leaping out of the water. Unusually instead of going straight back in it was going fast and high, at least a metre clear of the water, turning sideways in the air and slapping down on its side like a breaching whale! Amazing. We turned around and I headed upriver to intercept them and two of the three changed course and headed out to me, ending up one on each side of my ski and about 2m behind. Then one went underneath and did three massive leaps in the air in front of my ski as I hammered along trying to keep up!
This was all miles upriver from the ocean, up past Claisebrook near Mercy Hospital - an exhilerating way to start the day again. Later as we were putting the skis back on the vehicles another big dolphin swam by in really shallow water, impersonating a shark for quite a while! And lots of walkers and cyclists glanced over for a bit, then carried on their way, obviously seen it all before. | ||
| Swimming (Squad) 1:00:00 [4] 3.2 km (18:45 / km) | |
| Evening swim - no probs with my back in the evening... good!
Main set a 1600m straight swim building in 400s. I was lapped at 1400 by the lead 2 but was able to stay on their feet for 150m. Then 8x50 on 50s, all between 40s and 42s. Felt strong. | ||