Training Log Archive: slow-twitch

Last opportunity to really punish myself before easter. Curious to see how quickly I can get out to the highway if I really try. 10:23 from the bottom of our driveway to the front gate (so that must be 11:33 for the return trip). Not sure what the total distance is but must be close to 5 km, with bigger climbs than most sensible people would throw into a 5 km TT. So for a self-declared non-athlete, think I can be reasonably happy. Will repeat one day...

C • Nationals sprint 1

Tutu Road Time Trial - Splits

"Rest day" - though stretches the definition when we spent the afternoon building up the 50 metre grid in the jungliest part of our jungliest block. Plenty of stretching and flexibility training as well as good practice for bastard course setting on bastard maps. Record rate of progress: 5 minutes to cover 10 metres.

Relaxed pace (all I was capable of really) for a few laps of the first cattle free paddock I could find.

Found some odd looking plants while tracking a robin today - can't find them in any of the field guides. When I described them to the flatmate she got all excited and suggested if we come across them again we should collect samples. Never seen her so interested in botany before...

C • Drug Testing 1

Tui Ridge (Vegas). First o for ages. Fun, but lots of it. Most of the course was fairly sprint styles so gave myself a good little talking to before starting that with 7+ km I couldn't afford to go full tit like it was a sprint race. Then went off at full tit like it was a sprint race. Strangely, things started to fall apart a bit in the last third. Was doing good things like planning ahead rather than just navigating the current leg, but on the other hand was being a bit lazy about things like checking the map was oriented. Almost wish that last had got me in to trouble somewhere along the way but hopefully just the fact I noticed will help the old self-discipline. Applying the Jamie Stewart Moment Theory to the biggest time loss incident (#15), misread a long narrow gully as a long narrow ridge as the spot to jump off the road into the forest and when I realised just dived off into the forest rather than stopping and figuring out how to fix the damage. Other than that just a few too many controls where I wasn't really figuring out what was happening inside the circle until I got there or choosing the wrong times to trust the veg mapping. Only 25 mins behind pcbrent so reasonably happy, especially as I reckon I dropped a disproportionate amount of that towards the end. Brent had his gps watch thingy and ran about 9.5 km, I imagine we all did a fairly similar distance.

Mailbox run, aiming for a fairly easy recovery pace (helped by the good workouts the last couple of days), yet strangely doesn't seem to take any longer than the days I really go for it!

Had planned (after an admin visit to TK) to have a cruise on the Mangaokewa walkway just out of town, but in my hurried packing (had had to get to the post shop before closing and thought I was cutting it fine by the time I left home) grabbed everything I needed except any sort of running shoes. Oh well, looks nice, I'll put it on my ever growing to-do list!

Shame I'm not in training for Pamplona. Had discovered a really neat plateau and valley while doing telemetry yesterday, and figured it would be a fun place to try and get in a good hour's work (though wasn't looking forward to what would have been a fairly punishing uphill to get to it). Found bulls had been moved into the one unavoidable paddock to get there. Plan B: no, beasts in here too, Plan C: this paddock looks empty, ...apart from the beasts hiding over the first spur.... etc etc. Somehow all this plan changing and backtracking managed to make up the hour I wanted, though very stop-start. Maybe I'm being a wimp, but being cornered a couple of days ago by some large grumpy looking animals does that to a person.

Need to get a rumour started that the beef market is about to crash, and all the money's going back into sheep.

C • shagger 1