Training Log Archive: Mounty

Tempo 10k at lunch, starting at the Quay and around the pyrmont wharves. One decent hill and a long set of stairs in the 2nd km, otherwise pretty flat albeit with plenty of corners and the occassional traffic. Felt quite good.

Splits something like
4.00,4:30 (stairs), 3:50, 3:40, 3:40,4:00, 3:40, 3:45, 3:40, 3:53

C • Training 1

Nervously upgraded from joining Jono on his lunch recovery runs to a stairs session at Woolloomoolloo.

Did 25 reps, sitting out a couple after 15 while he continued and another at 20 to let the lactic settle. For context he did 60 at the same pace before the North Face.

Cruised home around the waterfront on a glorious day, discussing the finer points of the North Face 'scandal' which blew up yesterday. Saw that implosion coming, but perhaps not in such spectacular fashion.

C • Scandal 5

Lady Mac chair intervals at lunch. Suprisignly tired when I started to jog, but perked up enough for intervals. 5 reps on 50% recovery.

Down: 2:36, 2:36,2:37
Up: 2:40: 2:42

Quicker than last time and on shorter recovery. Had planned to do a couple more but crossed the cbf threshold after 5.

My punishment for going drinking on Friday evening instead of riding the bike home was the pleasure of riding it home on Monday in the dark and pouring rain. Luverly.

Which reminded me that I didn't note Saturday morning's long run was off the back of 3l of german beer and a pork knuckle. (You know it was a good pork knuckle when you can run 30k without breakfast beforehand). Nice to know I can still back up if required.

First genuine long run in a while. The gradual build back up has been going well, but wasn't sure how I'd hold up over a longer run. Pleased to find that the answer was 'better than expected', ticking along under 4.5m/k (when the terrain didn't slow things down) for the duration.

Ran from home down to Manly via the Manly-Spit walk, up the beach, and cut back along the lagoon to Manly Dam and then home. Gotta be one of the most scenic loops possible from here, with a nice mix of rough and not-rough bits. Glorious day.

Only real struggle was discovering the Scout hall no longer has a tap outside after having spent the previous half hour looking forward to a refill. Thirsty few k to finish off.

Lunch cruise over to Woollomoollo stairs, with 3 easy stair reps to loosen the legs and provide an excuse for running over there.

Putting the "i" back in to idiot, I ran in to Jono on the stairs who had just completed 30 reps less than a week after going sub-10 at the North Face.

C • What a tough nut! 1

Intervals at Barangaroo. Plan was to do 1k reps, but that was shortened to 500's upon discovering the northern end of the site is once again a building site.

Absolutely sh*tting down rain and freezing on the way over, but co-incidentally cleared for the reps - only to continue with the sh*tting down on the way home.

7*500m on even recovery. 1:38, 1:3?,1:36,1:32,1:32,1:31,1:28. Been a while since I've gone under 3 m/k. Nice.

Continuing the theme of hitting the staple running loops at tempo, I did a sub-threshold effort around the Magazines loop (the Killarney bit of the NOSH run). Managed a fair bit quicker than I've done that loop before, with a par time for a cruise usually about 36+. Nice little target of cracking 30 to chase.

Spectacularly cold for a midday commute. Was chilly even in the fluffy commuter jacket. Nice to spin the legs over after the morning run.

Arrived at work 30 seconds before it began to rain. Silent fist pump on the way to the changer ooms.

Graduated to the Bantry Bay loop for a tempo session. Adds a couple of big climbs and rough track as compared to the staple middle harbour River loop. Starting to get a bit of glide feeling and stride length back again. Makes running much more fun. Glorious day.

Squeezed in a long run between Toms rugby and afternoon band workshops, with a cunning plan to finish at the rugby oval to collect the car i had left behind in favour of walking the dog home.

Ran over to castle cove to do the loop i used to run there when i was a kid, contiing the theme of shorter but faster to ramp up the fitness again. Getting along ok. Slightly embarrased to note that the legs were a bit stiff after the kedumba rep yesterday...embarrasing as i hadnt run 85k when i got there.

Cracker of a day up at the North Face 100. Tough day out for Ramsy, who started in good spirits but never really found his mojo and pulled up after about 25k with an iffy gut and feeling dizzy. He turned around and walked back to Katoomba.

T'was a bit tricky to work out what was going on as Dari and I waited at CP3. First of all the timing gate didnt work at CP1 for the first 40 runners, and the then GPS tracker website was overloaded. After no sign of him on the result board from CP2 the GPS finally came to life and showed him...heading in the reverse direction. We jumped in the car and drove back, Dari using his phone to track Ramsy. We finally found him at the First Aid station near Katoomba, just as a medic tried unsuccessfully to take a blood prick from his finger....the needle wouldnt go thru the skin.

In the end he was real disappointed, feeling like he let the folks back home down, but slowly came good by the end of the day. The Kokoda guys really are great fun to spend time with. The best story was hearing that when he left home in Kokoda at 3am on Thursday morning he didn't actually know that he was heading to Australia to run 100k. He thought he had just been called down to Port Moresby for work. A side effect of this was that he hadnt told his wife where he was going, which resulted in a rather entertaining phone call a the international departure lounge the next day.

Close second on the story front was hearing how PNG is rugby league mad, in particular for State of Origin. At Efogi each year (halfway along the track) the village climbs the mountain with a TV, generator and aerial to catch the game. What an evening that must be.


Anyhooo....with Ramsy out of action we switched back to the front of the race to see most of the lads up front demolishing their PBs - robw included. Cracking show. I ran down the Kedumba hill hoping to fit in a rep b4 they came thru, but were all going so quick I ended up running past the top 6 guys as they ran up the climb the other way. They all looked pretty good.

Finished the day with a couple of beers back with the oxfam lads, a chat about the south pole with Cas and Jonesy (nutters), then up early and back to Sydney in time to catch Tom's rugby game on Sunday morning.

Midday commute off the back of an entertaining morning. I received an email from Gail in PNG that Ramsy's passport suddenly showed up last night at 7pm.

Ramsy is the guy who won the Kokoda run. Gail (the race organiser) had entered him in TNF but gave up hope on him making it a couple of weeks ago when his passport didn't come thru'. Much excitement over there when it arrived last night, the only problem is that getting an Aus visa is very difficult for tehm and usually takes 10 days. All sorts of shenanignas going on, chasing the Aus High Commission, letters from AROC etc....all while Ramsy was trying to get across PNG to fly to Brisbane. Apparently theyve been given a verbal its possible but still ongoing.

Putting all that aside, no logistics have been sorted at this end yet for him as they'd given up on coming. Time to step up after the hospitality they showed us. Looks like the time-pressured gear packing training from AR could come in handy tonight.

C • sounds like a great story i... 1

Lady Mac Chair-tervals. Its good to have a benchmark interval site that you've run for over 10 years, without having to resort to a track or pesky measurements on bitumen. Although it has probably put on a couple of seconds each way with tree plantings and growth over the years.

7 intervals on 4min (2:35,2:45,2:41,2:44,2:39,2:43,2:43 - the odd/return interval is 5 sec longer).

Glorious day. Shame about the whole going to work thing.

That tricky time of year when it is too brisk for just a jersey, too warm for the commuter jacket but arm-warmers/base-layer are too much of a hassle. Went with the over-warm option.

C • Paddy 2

Commutervals. Solid tempo on the ups, and a few flat drags. Quite tired by the end.

The biggest challenge with this session is timing the start of an interval. Ramping up just after someone has ridden past risks putting you at the twat end of a commuter-war.

Repeat of last week's run around the top of Middle Harbour. Nosh track, sneaky track, over the river and back home.

Love those days when you move along with nice flow and it doesn't hurt too much. Actually, I was quite surprised I was able to get around that quick - a bit more fitness hiding in there than I thought.

Enjoying the light shoes (X-talons).

Tempo river loop to continue the get-fit-for-the-Paddy-Pallin program. Is actually a PB for the loop, although not sure I've run it quite so solidly before. Felt not too bad. Amazing what a few quality sessions does for the leg speed.

Interesting sporting development of the day. I got a note from the athletics co-ordinator at Annika's school asking if she'd like to join the throwing squad. Turns out that her javelin chuck at last week's athletics carnival went an impressively long way for a beginner. Interesting because the chucking coach at the school is an Aths Australia coach and one of the squad girls is the U18 world #1.

Lunchtime commute, moving from the home office to the real one. Colder than expected. Going to be chilly riding home without a jacket.

Not fun riding home hungry and catching the smell of yummy dinners cooking thru' Willoughby.

Repeat of last weeks tempo session around the river loop. 7 * 4min on 2min recovery. Ran a bit too close to lunch for intervals but survived.

One of those ripper Sunday runs - glorious day, sneaky trail that no-one really knows about, good tempo. Up the NOSH track, around the top and back down through Davo park.

Reminded me that being fit enough to do runs like that is the real reason for training.

With Annika now a teenager (and a big black dog added to the mix) Katrin & I left the kids at home while we rode an Akuna loop. Katrin rode OK....for a paddler.

Friday lunch spin with jono around the Pyrmont wharves. Respectable tempo for a lunch run. Glorious day.

As a result of Annika starting high school this year, and the associated early starts (she has to be at Pymble by 6:45 a couple of days a week for the extra curricular stuff), have been forced to drag the day forward somewhat. A struggle to begin with but getting the hang of it now. Managed to drop her off for the school athletics carnival at Olympic Park, take Maxi to the dog park and run all before work.

River loop with 10min w.u then 7*4min tempo (in the 3:30-3:40 /km range). Have discovered that walking the dog is a good morning warm up for old man legs. Felt not too bad.

Being entertained at work by texts from Annika at the athletics carnival. 75 for 400, and 2:55 for 800, and a decent javelin hoik by pretending it was a big pointy softball.

First commute for a while. Impressed that I managed to pack the full complement of work clothes.

Quite enjoyable to ride with the lights on again.