Training Log Archive: Mounty

Cruise around the waterfront with Steve Craig who is in town. 80min of chatting. Given Steve lives in Stockholm. I dared not complain too much about the fact that I was freezing.

Today's experiment was to try and link the 'east' and 'west' foreshore loops from the Quay. Headed west first under the Bridge and around to Cockle Bay, and then cut across the city to Hyde Park fountain up Market St. City is narrower than I thought here - is only about 800m to get across. Thru the park behind the Art Gallery and then found a great walkway over the Eastern Distributor to get down to Wooloomoolloo, and on to the regular western loop home. Nice flat loop.

Interesting to note the effect of underground train lines on GPS. Apparently I hung a hard left on George Street and ran 500m, up Martin Place and then back along Castlereagh. Im pretty sure I would have remembered doing that.

Pleased (surprised?) to have decent legs after yesterday's effort. Morning river loop at a decent clip before taking Tom to sailing. Glorious morning.

Mt Solitary ouch session # 2 with Jono. Same session as a few weeks ago with the luxury of a later start this time (7:30).

Absolutely glorious morning to kick things off, cool and clear. Decent tempo from the start this time, Jono making the most of his bling new salomon speedcross shoes - until we hit the steep downhill at which point he said 'crap, these are too short'. On hearing they were a size 9.5 I offered him 50 bucks for them.

Hit the Kedumba river in 38min (having descended 700m), then launched in to 3 reps (680m climb over 2.4km each). Bit of a shock to the system with the first one, but then settled in for the others without undue suffering.
30:00, 31:00 & 32:45 splits.

Stopped at the top of the 3rd for a few minutes to sit on a rock, soak in the stunning view (very clear air day) and contemplate the meaning of life.
Rocks and views are a good combination for contemplating.

Back down to the river, grabbed the pack and drank my little bottle of coke which tasted like nectar from the Gods. Legs were in much better shape than last time, and I was pleased to be able to run a decent clip back up to the car.

4:12 for the session, compared with 4:42 last time. Only a tad quicker on the solitary hills, but quicker on the runs in and out. Getting some legs.

Stunned by the training that Jono is able to do. Between this run, and our 5hr jaunt last weekend he did a 16k hard effort (60min) and 2 sets of reps on Woolloomoollo stairs - including 50 yesterday.

Jonno joined me for a spin around my newly invented wharf loop via Barangaroo and Pyrmont. Agreed that it is worthy of making the 'regular' list.

Only running thru' Barangaroo do you realise how big the site is. No wonder there has been so much fuss. Will be great once done.

C • Wharf Loop 1

Slightly embarrassing start to the day. Got dressed and packed to ride to work, and wandered out to the garage only to find bike not there. Realised that I had left it in town on Friday, and ridden Katrin's bike home. Whoops. Walk of shame back inside to get changed and bus ride.

Finally rode bike home in the evening.

30 reps on the woolloomoollo stairs. Must be some fatigue left in the legs from the weekend as the quads started to lactate after about 10. A bit of willpower required to get thru' the session.

In other sport's news, Annika got herself picked in the sydney north regional softball team for the school's state champs. The main benefit of this from her perspective is 3 days off school (and a hoodie with lots of street cred).

C • hoodie 2

Continuing the recent theme of exploring new running options from the Quay, today I went the 'other' way - over towards Darling Harbour, plan being to see how far I could get next to the water.

Very pleasantly suprised as to how it turned out. Had expected lots of tourist dodging and Star City-eque concrete. In fact, you can get almost all the way to Anzac bridge running around lots of quiet wharves - timber rather than bitumen. And the big suprise for me was that Barangaroo has been opened up to pedestrian traffic (turns out it has been for ages), so you can run the waterfront all the around from the Opera House to King St Wharf.

Gonna make this one a regular. Much quieter than the Botanical Gardens waterfront.

Legs in pretty good shape after Saturday.

Ran the first half of the Oxfam course with Jono, which seems to be turning in to a tradition having done the same run on the same weekend last year. Legs have got stronger in the past 12 months, running half an hour quicker than 12 months ago.

Nothing too dramatic run wise. Met Bull and his Oxfam replacements running in the opposite direction at Jerusalem Bay (we weren't welcome), and got held up at Bobbin Head due to the marina being on fire. When we arrived there were about 50 firefighters there, and half the building was engulfed. Slight issue, given that the track goes along the side of the buidling. Little adventure in to the bush, but lucky to find an old trail to get thru'.

Finished at the Sphinx in good shape, then drove stright to Pie in the Sky for yummies.

Rather optimistically ran in brand new shoes, and a model I haven't worn before (Montrail Rockridge). Pretty happy with them.

Back on the bike for a hilly ride. Dad called to say that Godzone race was on TV this morning. Kids impressed to see Robbie giving interviews. Enjoyed the pre-race interview of MDs talking about how finishing was more important than results.

C • Yeah I had a good chuckle a... 1

Rode katrins scalpel home from the bike shop. Such a nice bike to ride.

Morning trot out along the middle spur.

Rode the bike home that I had left in town yesterday.

First ride to work in a while. Starting to feel better again. Hopefully fresh enough to stay up for tonight's Tour stage.

Cruisy lunchtime trot up the river. Running this time, but working on being very relaxed, and keeping the HR down on the hills. Got around quicker than it felt. Good opportunity to work on posture and running tall.

Very slow trot to start moving again. Over the cold but I think it was a viral one as Ive got the post-sickness fatigue feeling.

Cold

Short, slow morning plod. Not feeling great.

Early morning spin up the Nosh track to Lindfield. Surprisingly more sprightly than last night. Maybe recovery runs do work.

The first 5k of the NOSH along the river will always be one of my favorite tracks.

Slow, floppy recovery plod around Killarney once the kids were in bed. Tired.

After a morning of laser-tag, dropped Tom for a play date and Annika for softball training, and dashed to Clontarf for a paddle with Katrin before pick-up time.

Ripper conditions - with varied winds thru' the week, there were bumps coming from all directions. Not big, but very technical, and assistance in both directions if you concentrated. Paddled out along North Head and back when we hit ocean.

Coming back past Grotto pt, a huge cruiser (with very inefficient hull shape) came past pushing a big half-pipe of a wash. Fortuitously was in the right spot and managed to catch the front wave for a ripper ride. Somehow managed to get the angle just right, and sat angling across the face without paddling for a good couple of hundred meters, and the occassional tap on the rudder. Disturbingly good fun.

Holy crap. The lads weren't kidding when they said they were heading to the Blue Mountains for a 'hill' session. With Kokoda on the horizon, I'd arranged to join Jono & Bull for one of their jaunts up to Mt Solitary for some 'hill reps'.

Based on track-record I was sceptical about their ability to meet the proposed 6am start-time, but went with it as I had to be back at the Newport Arms by 1pm to catch up with Steve Craig (in town from Stockohlm with the fam) and Ant). Out of bed at 3:45am (ouch!), and sure enough received a call at 5 saying they'd slept in. Fortunately Marcus Warner was there when I arrived at the old Queen Victoria hospital, and I followed him down the hill to the Kedumba river and the Mt Solitary walking track.

The session consisted of 3 'reps' up the Mt Solitary walking track, then a 4th climb back to the car at the old Hospital. The Mt Solitary track is nuts/awesome depending on your perspective - a rough singletrack up the east face that climbs 650m in 2.4m, ie. 27% average with a couple of even steeper pinches along the way.

Did the first rep solo, then met Jono & Bull at the bottom for the next couple. Proceeeded then to get worked like I was running with the Schleck brothers. Jono went hard on the ups, while Bull attacked the downs. Very impressed by Bull's descending - he dropped me on the first descent and I was going flat out.

Climbs consistent at about 30min for up, and 18-odd for down. Left the boys after 3 (3:30hrs), then a 700m climb back to the car over 7.5km (mostly firetrail). Phew.

C • Tough session! 3

Relaxed morning river loop. One of those rather pleasant mornings when it has rained all night, but cleared up to a pleasant drizzle just in time.

Enjoyed the run to work via Manly-Spit track last week so much that I did it again. Took a little while to get going, but feeling nice and strong by the end. A bit quicker than last week.

Stopped for a while at the Tania Park lookout to watch the huge swell coming in the Heads. The rollers were sitting up and breaking on the bombora as big barrels for a rather spectacular show. Don't see that very often.

Bumpy ride on the jetcat. Almost cried that I wasn't instead on a ski as it would have been awesome.

Slow, gentle roll home after a nutty couple of days. Goal was to arrive home more chillaxed than when I got on the bike. Worked quite well.

Cruisy ride in to town to spin the legs out. Felt the quads on the ups.

Bit of a debacle getting away from work. Left the bike behind for a late and grumpy bus ride home.

Entertained though by a story putting the kidlets to bed on arrival. Apparently there was an arm wrestle competition at the school camp a little while ago amongst all the year 6 boys, with a couple of token girls. Annika won.

Drove up to Berowra for the loop to Cowan and back via Berowra Waters - the best bang for buck run that I know of in Sydney. Almost 3 and half hours for 27k, and I was moving quite well too. Sheesh.

Had planned to run with Jono, but received a text at 5:30am (thanks Jono) saying he'd just got home from a night out and would unlikely make it. Bonus hill at the start when I forgot that I was running the Oxfam course in reverse, and took the turn to Mt Kur-rin-gai and only noticed when I got all the way down to the water - and wondered why the water was on the wrong side.

A couple of steep hills, then another wrong turn for a loop on a little track that I didn't know existed. Rather nice views. Stopped for a stretch at Cowan, then home at a decent clip. The descents are so much fun thru' there - steep, rocky and windy. Feels like you're dancing with the national park.

Good hitout.