Training Log Archive: devil

A good day for the googong half, not too cold and not much wind. There was a pretty good turnout, but not much talent as was immediately obvious when I was leading the early stages with Jackie Fairweather. After a couple of k's I decided her pace was a touch on the hot side so dropped back a bit. She was pulling away on the flat sections but I would make big inroads on the uphills. About 35 mins in there's quite a steep pinch where I went past constable frogga last year, I could see that jackie had slowed so surged past then got into a good tempo to the turn round (split here was about 48 min) I knew there were a few people close behind and on past experience was expecting jackie at least to have a strong finish, so I kept trying to push each hill and keep a good speed on the flat, however by he last couple of hills I was feeling the effects and didn't have much left in the legs for the last couple of flat ks. Could hear someone behind, who turned out to be compression sock dude, who has been quicker than me all season, he went past at a good pace that my response didn't match so had to settle for 2nd. The time was 3.40 slower than last year which I was happy with as most of the run there was no-one around. Should have had a snake or two but didn't see them at the drinks stations, otherwise I don't think I could have done a lot more. Apparently jackie had a dummy spit after the turn round and jogged back and drove off in a cloud of dust - whether this related to being out-surged by the devil wasn't clear.

C • looks like 1

Did a proper warmup round the first loop with sanders, stretched etc. Warm-down was walking round the carpark, eating sausages and chatting to scotty, tawsy, sanders, fel, pheebs, ben. Legs will be sore tomorrow.

A lunchtime run on black mountain. Went over the saddle and down single track and fire trails to the bottom of the doover crackenback which I surged in 10.03, then a nice easy run back to CSIRO.

Bilby's intervals, a bit chilly tonight but at least not raining. The set was 3min, 1 easy, 2 min, 1 easy, 1 min, 1 easy, times 4. Was hard work but was running fairly well. Gary stuffed up the timing on the first so we ran round like sheep and did an extra minute. There was also a weird woman walking round the track in lanes 2 and 3, you'd think that 40 odd runners going round the track would have prompted her to walk somewhere else, but no. I think she stopped at the end of the set.

Went out to the ACT league event at Orroral Crossing. Was expecting it to be a shocker cold day, but the sun was out and it was quite a pleasant day for running. I hadn't run on this map for a few years and since then there has been a big expansion in the amount of green on the map, due to bushfire regrowth. The courses had been set to start in the open area on the east of the map, but ACT parks wouldn't allow parking there. This meant that the course had been re-arranged so we did 7-22 then 1-6 to avoid a 3k run to and from the start. From the start it was clear it would be a tough run, there wasn't a lot of difference between the white and the various shades of green, there was lots of fallen timber and regrowth everywhere and pretty low visibility. I made surprisingly few mistakes, and those were figuring out where I was in the circle. Spent longest on control 2, which was quite hard to find a good attackpoint for until I located an unmistakeable big rock slab. The silliest error was coming into 19 where I was looking for a river crossing that was a ford rather than the bridge I expected, so wasted 3 minutes going along to the bridge then back up the other side. The last half of the course was back to the green and rocks, which went pretty well. Given the conditions was pretty happy with 11 min ks, as it was very physical apart from the bits across the paddock.