Training Log Archive: fluceluce

I wanted to to go kayaking with canoe club, but I also wanted pasta bake and the pasta bake won....Canoeing started 7minutes ago....

Brisk Wu as got distracted with baking and set off late! Down to Goodwin

Goodwin to Blake St

ShUOC Hills session on Blake St. My legs felt shot this afternoon but it was such nice weather I went along, planned to go steady but when we started I felt good....

4X1min, 4X30s, 4X15s up Blake St.

1min - 161m 22m climb (6:13 per km/ 3:41 per km)
1min - 177m 24m climb (5:39 per km/ 3:20 per km)
1min - 177m 24m climb (5:39 per km/ 3:20 per km)
1min - 161m 22m climb (6:13 per km/ 3:41 per km)

30s - 97m 15m climb (5:09 per km/ 2:54 per km) X4

15s - 50m 8m climb (5:00 per km/ 2:47 per km) X4

Shuffle home - uphill of course...

Freshers Ride. Made it by the skin of my teeth leaving the Northern General by car at 13:11 and meeting the cycling club at 13:34....Good transition :-)

Missed lunch due to the rush so lunch turned out to be jelly babies which worked until after we'd stopped at the pub for a hr or so. By the time I got home I was starving!

Good pace, went faster on this freshers ride with MTB than I did the other year on the road freshers ride :-).

First time my legs have not felt good and strong on the bike for ages - thank you track training! Good spin out though and still love blacka plantation!

Track session - first one in a loooooong time (yr and a half? More?)
2X4min, 2X3min, 2x2min, 2x1min (1min jog back, 75s recovery). First rep was run wherever you like, on track, off track, wherever! Second rep was on track:

4min Off track - 950m (4:13/km)
4min On track - 1050m (3:49/km)
3min Off track - 770m (3:54/km)
3min On track - 800m (3:45/km)
2min Off track - 380m (5:16/km) (went exploring...got stuck down 2 dead ends...)
2min On track - 550m (3:38/km)
1min Off track - 300m (3:20/km)
1min On track - 275m (3:38/km) (bit boxed in)

Pretty happy with this as a first speed session for a while....was moving reasonably well but found the 2min/1min on track much harder than the track 4mins and wasn't moving much faster...feel a lot less dead than the last time I went to track :-)

Bit of jogging around and strides at the start, then wd with Liz and Hannah

Shuffle back up the hill from Hannah's followed by lots of stretching!

It was all going so well, just about ready to do some training without any stomach pain after making a mistake in what I ate at overnight camp at MMM and then I had to trust that the food Ratna had brought in for her leaving do was Wheat-free-meat-free. She assured me one was fine as it was only potato and vegetables in a patty so I put my lunch to one side for tomorrow. It was so nice I asked her for the recipe....And what exactly did she think the breadcrumbs she had mixed in had in them? This could make the hodgsons less enjoyable.

C • Tescos 2

IW - incredibly heavy bag! Failed to complete plan of riding in so getting in before the bus as I need a new free hub or rear deraileur or both so spent a while faffing with my bike before taking wils. His fits me better weirdly, maybe I'll invest in a new boardman!

HFW - Ride from NGH to Circuits. I am going to have to determine a way of not needing my laptop on a Tuesday if I'm going to do this regularly. My bag weight nearly killed me going up from Infirmary road. I would guess at around 8kg....It was enough to irritate my ITB as I was wiggling my knee all over the place wearing trainers on cleated pedals...oops..

Also forgot how much time u spend stopped at traffic lights at rush hour!

I have decided I really want a boardman bike - Wils is sooo comfy. He is now in charge of setting my bike up to feel the same!

No gentle intro this year! 45/15s straight off. One of the only times I have done circuits relatively fresh - felt awesome so worked hard! Going to hurt tomorrow!

Bit of wu/d before/after - stretching

Just in case my muscles weren't going to hurt tomorrow...I went to drills as well. Was good to get legs moving - felt good - will be good to keep them going!

Final bit of biking home - bit of pavement riding as hadn't bargained on it being dark by 7:30...oops...

Run with Rach, Rach and Zanthe from Charli,Gaz and Toms after housewarming party. Bit drizzly but pretty warm! Out to the Uni and around a boating lake then back via a shop to get milk for tea. We then went for a cooked breakfast at an American/Polish diner!

Novel to have a completely flat run!

C • flat?! 3

5 years after saying I would join the uni kayak club I have done it! Gentle reintroduction to kayak paddling for the arm at come and try it event. Tendonitis strap and wrist support worked perfectly and I don;t even feel like I've been paddling :-). Finger would be too sore to do any sort of proper length of time paddling atm, but after a few more training session hopefully its range of movement will improve. Even if I don't get out for hours in a kayak, pool sessions and Crookes Valley pond should at least keep things ticking over...

Good core session as was in the shortest white water kayak I have ever been in! And 'chariot racing' almost tore groin muscles! Hopefully we'll spend more time in the boats most weeks....

Missed girly run as the bus pulled up and nobody got off, so I couldn't get on given how far down the queue I was. Walked to Hillsborough thinking the next bus was likely to be late, I was right, it was starting to go up Herries road as I was leaving Herries road so it was a quicker to walk 3miles and get a 52 up the hill than to wait :-)

Run up to the Pork Sandwich shop to meet Zanthe. As it was raining I ran up to salisbury road, forgot which number their house is and ran back, by which time Zanthe had run around the other side of the block :-).

Her hip was out of place again (boo hiss) so run aborted and I ran back home, not all that bothered given the nice drizzle going on.

Legs sore but feeling good despite it...

Scott Aspect 45 Mountain Bike Stolen this morning! If anybody sees one for sale that looks a bit suspect let me know!

Mourne Mountain Marathon Elite - Day 2.

Well the sun that was forcast for Sunday had not materialised. In fact we woke up to the sound of such heavy rain and strong wind I thought I was at the OMM and certainly didn't want to get out of the tent!

Aparently the cloud base was 2100m...which meant we were camping above 2100m...

The start was a mass start so whilst we didn't know who the team 9minutes behind us were, I'm pretty sure they knew who we were and had a target! The first 2 legs were long! We probably lost a bit of time faffing with clothing and how many layers were required as although it was wet windy and wild it was also reasonably mild.

We arrived at 2 with another team and Wil immediately went for loosing them in the clag. Visibility was 20m at this point and we hammered it across the bog tussock monster to spike the next control and get the fastest split of the day for it :-)

The terrain was a bit different today with less steep ground but much more deep bog and big tussocks!

Pattrick Higgins and Johnny McCloy passed us at control 3 and were flying!! They went flying back past us at 4 and we arrived at 5 just after them to find them with the leading 2 teams and no control to be seen. There was a bit of a jumbled mess of decisions about carrying on or hunting, we checked out the other 2 sites that could be described as 'track end' before deciding it wasn't a misprinted grid ref, and continuing. We probably faffed around for about 30mins here!
We were racing with one of the top 2 teams after this effective 'restart' and were still doing well on the Nav, keeping with them until control 10. Next came a climb up a hill, traverse and then swift drop down to the finish!

We finished 7th on day 2 but only 30minutes behind the winners! Overall we were 7th (the team 9mins behind having had a stormer to finish 2nd on the day) and 1st Mixed team by 4hrs 15mins :-) First Elite MM done!

C • Well done 6

Mourne Mountain Marathon Elite - Day 1.

After coming 2nd overall and 1st Mix on the B in 2008 its taken an entire 3 years for us to finally get round to doing the elite, Wil being ill 2 years ago and me being post Terrex crippled last year.

We set off and it looked like the weather was going to be damp. The clag was down for the first 2 controls and whilst the 1st was not a problem, at control 2 Hurricane Irene had created about 60 new rivers that were most definately a smooth hillside on the map. We spent 20 minutes playing pot luck stream hunting, probably hitting the right one 2 or 3 times, before leading 3 teams into the control - rubbish!

We were then in a head to head race with Harold and Mark, but took different route choices and they ran off into the distance somewhere. The terrain in the Mournes is some of the roughest I've run on, unrelenting tussocky bog rocky rough on steep ascent or descent at all times!
We got through the free choice route section, choosing the same control order as the overall winners then were presented with a path! The first time all day and I got excited when Wil said it was only 3miles back to the finish! So we stormed it! Shame there was actually another hill to traverse to the finish that he had overlooked!

Finished in 6th Position, 1hr10 behind the leaders, having dropped only 10 more minutes to Harold and Mark in the rest of the course! And were 1hr and 50minutes ahead of 2nd MIX pair!!

And I couldn't resist an early morning run with LD. Ran down to Rivelin and back up via Lodge Lane. Really nice morning and good chat, legs back into it!

Ok, so not entirely rest...DPFR - me and Zanthe ran an alternative (shorter) route at a very easy pace. Legs felt like they'd had a week off and didn't quite know what to do...

Phew, made it! An entire week+ off! Going to ride out to the final trunce and probably run tonight, then attempt the impossible....more rest until Sat (with a bit of a leg stretch Friday) and the Mourne Mountain Marathon!

C • Happy Birthday! 4

Ride out to the trunce - missed the start due to some great faffing including failing to unscrew the valve of my front wheel inner tube and therefore riding on less than 20 PSI.....if I ever start to think my massi needs to be lighter again I just need to ride my Scott again....tank! 5kg extra makes going as fast as I normally do hard work!!

Ride back - got picked up from Hillsborough as was running out of daylight and knee still isn't overly keen on uphill...fail at running a trunce this year

Kielder 100 - bit of a wing and a prayer this one, made it about 25miles before the wheels started to come off (i.e. left knee started to fall off). At 38miles should have called it a day (road route back to base) but made it to 44, then couldn't pedal with left leg - very slow next 2 hrs making it back, just under 53miles in total. Really want to get round this next year. When actually moving well was on for 12-12.5hrs and in the conditions that would have put me in contention for 3rd, not bad for my 3rd ever mtb race and first one over 1.5hrs :-).
Great bits of single track! Loved those bits, good to see my technique has improved immensely! I felt very 'swoopy' and was able to keep with/be faster than everyone around me on the singletrack and these were proper mountain bikers!

Route looks funny on gps trace! http://connect.garmin.com/activity/111709188

According to my garmin I burnt 4701 cals - time to refuel :-)

Kielder 100 - This is the part of the race I consider to be 'racing'. I learnt immediately that whilst position on the start line isn't everything, it is something...next year I'm getting up earlier! Race started with a controlled lead out down forest track before some more forest track...then we hit single track. Lost loads of time being too low down the field - MASSIVE queue! Ah well...average for first hour good considering:

1st hour (inc lead out and queue) - 8.25miles, 252m climb, average 8.2mph

There was then a section that spread the field out a bit better, fair bit of forest track but a fair bit of climb and still some good singletrack:

2nd hour - 9.23miles, 307m climb, average 9.2mph

The third hour was predominantly slower tracks and single track - loved it! Also includes time at food stop where I faffed a little too much...7mins stopped!

3rd hour - 6.93 miles, 232m climb, average 6.9mph

Soon after the start I reevaluated my time target given the conditions, it moved from 11hrs to 12hrs...All in all on target given the conditions, completing just under 25miles in 3hrs with a representative amount of single and forest tracks :-) Very pleased.

After the food station I found I wasn't moving as well as before, left knee (strapped up with gaffa tape) had started to stiffen up, only slightly but it made uphill slower, not ideal for this leg.... mainly forest track, lots of climb with a bit of fun singletrack - for the first time in the race I lost a few places...didn't worry too much though as was still moving reasonably well!
4th hour - 8.17 miles, 290m climb, average 7.6mph

This was the proper beginning of the end. Came through the water station at about 32/33miles then off up the hill. Knee not feeling good, for the first time had to get off and push near the top... Lisa came past and told me there was a road route back from 38miles just after passing back through the water station. I started to consider it. But then there was some singletrack and downhill and it was so fun! By the water station all memory of bad knee feelings were gone....as were both of my brake pads :-) realistically I think I had been scraping by since about 27miles...

At 38 miles I stopped to talk to Steph about what my route options were, was riding fine at that point (flat) so she managed to convince me back onto the bike and off up the hill! It didn't take much convincing, the thought of the finish line still strong in my head! She informed me I had 1.5hrs to do the 11miles to cut off...which was a lie, I had 2hrs :-) Not a problem I thought as it was mainly forest track..

I rode up this hill having a good chat to a guy who I had been riding around since the start. That kept me going, then some good fun singletrack :-) before up again....this time near the top the knee gave in entirely - at 44miles it was off the bike and pushing for anything mildly uphill or wet/boggy...decision made, at the 50mile cut off I was calling it a day.

5th Hour - 6.14miles, 210m climb, average 6.3mph

6th Hour - 6.07miles, 300m climb, average 6.4mph

The crawl back to the finish, any uphill was a push, amazingly I ended up missing the cut off by around 5mins - totally unexpected at the start of this leg where I should have made it comfortably! So rode back with a group of people who had been cut off...

7th hour - 4.14miles, 117m climb, average 4.6mph

Last 45 mins - 3.64miles, 104m climb, average 4.9mph

To the top of school road to meet the rach's - was a bit late so hooned it - knee felt ok :-) Stomach was very upset after I accidently ate wheat yesterday - thought I'd got away with only a minor bit of stomach pain grumble but clearly need to be careful about trying too hard...

Similar loop to yesterday - good chat again :-) Just what is needed atm!