Training Log Archive: devil

Putting out the controls on Aranda hill, took a while as I'd used a lot of controls. Turned out to be a sunny but cold morning, no complaints about controls in the wrong place.

Collected a couple of controls then went down to stromlo for a long run with lizzie. Up the mountain then a big lap around the edge of stromlo west, a bit of single track and then fire trails. Really good to be running in the sun, but had too many layers on so was roasting.

Thursday ints, just gary, jack and emily there. The warm up run was a bit pacey, jack and I dropped the other two.

6 gate-to-gates on bruce ridge. About 10 secs slower than usual as my legs were not cooperating fully. Jack was doing broken versions with a recovery in the middle but still getting to the end before I did. It felt cold, although I don't think it was that bad. Good to get a second solid session in this week.
Splits up/down 4.19/4.01 4.20/4.02 4.27/4.08

A bit of a slower run back to the AIS

Went home to load courses for the Saturday event on Aranda Hill. Full SI despite a bit of resistance from some traditionalists. Did I do it right? We'll find out on Saturday morning...

Recovery run on the ridge, was out of work early because of some floor polishing so got to start the run in the light. Just enough to turn the legs over.

8x 1km(200) at bilbys. We were supposed to do them at 10-15 s per km slower than last week's time trial (3.27) so a range of 3.25 to 3.35 was OK. Took a pit-stop between 5 and 6 after which I slowed down quite a bit. I was glad I wasn't doing the 6 km set as this was supposed to be 10s per km faster than the tt time.

C • tough training 4

A big lap, was starting to get a bit nippy

Event: City to Surf
 

Got to the start at about 7, but by the time I'd queued up for toilets it was close to 7.30. Luckily I had a preferred start so worked my way through to the road out the front of the race and ran up to the tunnel and back with bourney. So after a quality prance it was time to pack into the start for the race.

The first time I've done the city to surf, so wasn't really sure what to expect along the course apart from stueys tip of going through the left hand tunnel. The main aim was to get under 52, which is the preferred start cut off, but thought going under 50 would be a big ask. I was near the back of the start group with daveo and humpty, but got up to speed pretty quickly. The start is a bit downhill, so there's a temptation to go off very fast. I didn't look at my watch until the first drinks which was abut 4km, saw it was just over 14 mins which seemed good, and I had a steady pace going. Purple shorts guy was running near me, as well as someone in a full suit and tie. About the 5km mark I thought I heard someone shouting 'devil', turns out it was lucymcg who wasn't running. There were a few little hills early on, so I tried to use the downhills to speed up. Then it was onto heartbreak hill, this was long and steady, rather than a tough climb, which gave me my slowest km but didn't take too much out of me. I did drop purple shorts and the suit man here though. I was expecting a bit of downhill after that but it was more undulating, so kept on with trying to get a fast turnover on the downhills. The weather, which had been windy then got a bit wet on the last climb before bondi. Then it was downhill into bondi, there was a stiff headwind going along the top of the beach, but I was feeling pretty good still so don't think it slowed me too much. Seemed like a long last km before the turn into the finish where I managed a bit of a sprint. Gun time was 51.15 so took 12s to get over the start line, 159th overall. Pretty happy with that time, not tapering seems to work pretty well.
Saw scotty after who'd done 54 out of the red start, lucymcg and a few actrunners and bilbys. Good race to have done, organisation is amazing to get 85000 people over the course, shame it wasn't a sunny day as i missed out on the post-run swim.

C • 159th 2