Training Log Archive: GM

MTBO event starting from Deek's Drive in Stromlo. This was a score event with an option of 45, 60 or 90 minutes. I chose the 60 minutes and was 2 minutes late back. I blame the up-hill, into the wind, finish, and not my lack of planning.

Really enjoyed the course. Except for the first and/or last controls, there was a lot of choice.

My only reallly stupid choice was the route up to number 55. There were two options. The first was a 160m long route up the 'path: difficult to ride' versus the 440m long route along the 'track: intermediate riding'. Both had about 35m climb . Should have gone with the second, because the first was almost impossible to push the bike up, let alone ride! More a case of 2 steps forward, 1 step back at times.

Saturday Junior League event. I started feeling very tired after about 30 minutes - had to walk a bit. Still, it was nice to get out there for a while.

Only one real mistake - lost about 30 seconds on the very short leg from 4 to 5. There was a mass of black in the circle: cliffs, rock faces paths, fences, etc. What I thought was a rock face turned out to be the path, so I ended up crossing a fence, then crossing a fence, then backtracking to near the control, then crossing back over the fence, the heading off to 6 by crossing the fence again. All this for a leg that was only about 50m long.

Should have a box to tick for 'Slack day'!

Warm up jog at the start of BL training.

I ran the Park-O course I had set for training. I made the drain/watercourse that runs through the middle of the park out of bounds, so quite a few legs had to deviate from the straight line to cross one of the numerous bridges.

It was fun, and even though I had put the tapes out on Monday, running the course is quite different. I think it is because I was approaching them from completely different directions.

I jogged around the park to pick up all of the tapes from training.

Run from home, leaving just after it got dark, to the North end of Spence, then down to Paspalum Place and back. Out in 18:00, but back in 19:21. Main reason was just after I turned around I was running on the rough grass beside the road. I was concentraing on where I was putting my feet and just didn't see the wooden signs that are fixed between two poles. The problem is that the bottom of the sign is at about 175cm and the top of my head is at 183cm .... so SMACK into the wood. The only good thing was that I had my beanie on so there were two layers for padding, and I saw it with enough time to turn and prop a tiny bit, so the impact wasn't as bad as it might have been. My only real excuse is that I hit the back of the sign which is just plain dark brown, and in the dark it is very hard to see.

The good news is that my back didn't hurt! I have had two lots of traction at the physio (last Friday and again yesterday) and I think it has helped a lot. I have two more traction sessions to go so maybe it is really on the mend.

Running around Telopea Park to put out some tapes for BL training on Wednesday. The park is not as big as I remember, and the b&w map is from 1992 so there have been a few changes - but it should still be fun.