Training Log Archive: devil

John Harding's 2 peaks race. Got there in time to test the kinvaras and decide that the nikes would be a better choice today, then over to the start. Good turnout of ACT runners, cockies and bilbys including grant, hoggster, marymac and BA. At the start wingeberry, fluoro and tom brazier took off up the hill and I was left by myself in 4th. I took the climb pretty steadily and had tom and fluoro in sight until the top of the hill, but then they descended quickly while I picked my way down the rocky fire trail. From there was just focusing on keeping the pace up with no-one else around. Had a good run through campbell park but had to tough it out up ainsle as a bit of tiredness started to creep in. I forced down the gel I was carrying at the summit drinks station and spotted a runner behind as I headed down the new steps onto the centennial trail which gave me a bit of motivation on the descent. It was good to get into the leaders of the 12km over the saddle as there were little targets to pick off. The last part of the course had a couple of extra pinches due to the road construction taking out the old course which was a bit of a surprise. Was 2 minutes slower than 2 years ago, which was OK.

Bilbys on bruce ridge with guy, fish, jonno, the hawaiians and kenny. 4 gate to gates. I was feeling tired and as a result these were pretty slow. It was good to get back on the ridge though, apart from the cloud of little moths that was hanging around on the track

Bilbys intervals, did the extra long of 4x 1km, 5x 600m. Blew up a bit on the last 1km, so the 600s were a bit of a struggle. Had jacko running with me on the 600s and he wound it up for the last one lance style. Managed to push a bit of speed out of my legs to keep up.

Aus relay. I was third leg in the cockies 3rd team following from hoggster and acejase. There was a lot of hanging around waiting for the mass start which then got put back by 15 mins. I thought maybe acejase would get back before then, but it turned out he was having a bit of a shocker so I set off with quite a few M21E teams in the mass start. It was good to have a few people around, I took the right hand option on the first leg along with jimbo and a WA runner. Jimbo took a good line into the control while I tried a straighter route but crossed the creek lower than I thought so had to do a big left hand turn to climb to the control. After that was going pretty well, and could see ecmo in the distance who had started a few minutes in front. I caught at about 3 and he was going pretty slowly so I took the lead. From 5 to 6 I kept high at first but eventually dropped to the fence where I was just behind ecmo again. Stopped for a drink at the spectator then into the final loop. Again this was pretty clean, had to slow down when ecmo put a stick through his foot near 12. Then I saw Lauren a few controls ahead running for the SA men so out in a big effort to catch over the last few controls - not sure who got the sprint finish, but it was academic anyway as we had to add acejase's extra time on. Still pretty slow but enjoyed getting back out on the map again.

RELAY M21E - Splits