Training Log Archive: devil

A post-travel run to get the legs moving, pretty standard loop round farnley, dob park and clifton. A bit chilly so was glad I brought a beanie with me. Turned out to be a fairly quick pace

A similar run to yesterday, still pretty cold out and a bit of rain in the air. As it was saturday morning there were a few more walkers and even another runner out. Also saw a party of shooters - of the landed gentry variety - out to bag a few pheasants for breakfast.

Flying to the UK this afternoon, and had hoped to run this morning, but taking cat to his holiday retreat, work and finishing packing got in the way.

Summer series at the pinnacle. Seemed to be plenty of people there and it was a good evening for running. An OK run, mainly straight lines, but not straight enough as was a bit off the mark on some of the controls and was a bit lucky on 12 which was in a bit of a thicker area.

Warm down run then went out again to collect controls in the dusk.

Turned out to be quite a sunny and warm evening for bilbys. A big crowd there again. Did Dave's warmup, which is a bit slower than gary's.

A good old 8x 1km set tonight. Still a bit sore from sunday but seemed to be moving reasonably well. Was trying to keep the consistency through to the end and was pleased to only fade by a few seconds in the last few.

A big lap so I didn't seize up completely

An easy ride on the ridge, lots of other riders out there too.

A fairly early start to get down to orroral for the orroral valley classic. Got in a good warmup with jon and darren. There was a big turnup considering the early hour and the longish drive from the middle of canberra. A bit windy, but the sun was out, so not bad at all for running.

Orroral valley classic - billed as a mountain run, but it was on fire trail which is in very good shape, so more like a hilly road run. From the gun, craney set off on his own while the rest of the field sorted itself out round the first little loop at the tracking station. BigD and another youngster, tim, got into 2nd and 3rd, with me a 100m back from them once we got onto the main fire trail. After a km or so I could see that I was beginning to gain on them as we gradually climbed and was back level with them when we reached the bottom of the main climb. There was no way I was going to just sit with them then get out sprinted at the finish, so I put a solid effort in on the hill. It helped having done this last week as there were a few landmarks to tick off on the way up. I think tim was dropped pretty quickly but I could hear BigD for a while but getting quieter. I did think of sledging BigD for bludging as I went past, but thought better of it. I didn't hang around at the drinks station at the top of the hill and headed on for the turn-round. I went past stu, who wasn't racing. At the turn I could see I was a long way back from craney and had a bit of a gap on the rest of the field, so kept pushing on the little climbs back to the drinks at the top of the hill. I enjoyed the long downhill, then just had to tick off the landmarks on the way back to the start. Couldn't really feel a lot of the tailwind I'd been expecting on the way back though. Finished 10 mins quicker than when I ran this on australia day which is a good sign, nice to have a good solid hit-out.
A good day for the cockies too, with craney obliterating the alex matthews course record, and BigD and gareth taking 3rd and 4th.

My original plan was to do a long warm down to get near to 30km for the day, but as a reward for a good run, and as my legs were feeling a bit hammered I just did a warmdown with the cockies