Training Log Archive: W

Fast Trax roller-ski intervals with... no one. Le sigh. The plan was to do 22 x 1 minute with 1:15 off at 5k pace. So, pretty fast stuff. Decided to go down the long hill under the Wayne Gretzky bridge, which wasn't bad at all, and then headed out towards the Riverside golf course. Then, somewhere around interval 8-ish, I'm heading down one hill during an interval and one of my rollerskis gets way slower and starts to make a loud noise. I stop, and discover I've blown out the rubber on one of the rear wheels. Thus, at the furthest point out at my ski I have to turn around and wheel back gingerly, at any moment my wheel could come apart competely. In fact, I managed to do 4-5 more intervals, mostly on the uphills and flats, partly double poling on one leg.

With about 150 metres before the parking lot it mostly gave out as the rubber got caught on the fender and bent backwards preventing the wheel from turning at all, which forced a one legged abortation onto the grass.

So..... not the greatest workout. Fortunately I've still got my old old front wheels which will go nicely with my current old front wheels. These rollerskis are now... 7 years old? But they're still awesome. Best purchase ever.

Joined up with a the Kids Run Wild program tonight at Goldbar. Very enthusiastic kids. Possibly a little too much sitting and not enough running. Over the hour I think they totaled around 30 minutes, which I suppose isn't bad.

Rollerski intervals around Rundle. Most exclusive double poling since it was largely flat and we were doing classic. 26 x 20secs w/1:30 rest. Double poling tempo felt good, but that may be because my poles are 10cm too short. Several new blister on hands that appear to be merging with the old ones. Its not attractive.

So I was reading Murray's blog yesterday, and noticed the pace that he does almost all of his workouts, averaging well below 5:00/km. For my long-esque run, I averaged 5:42, over 2:10, while he ran for 2:16 at 4:05 pace. Granted, he marked it as a zone 3 run. But, I also notice that he doesn't really do any zone 1 runs either. Now, I'm a fan of the zone 1 run, BUT, I've also concluded that I could stand to do my zone 1 runs a little bit faster. I went through some old workouts and concluded my easy run pace hovered around 5:30-5:45 pace.

So, I decided that as of today, I'd jack up the speed of the easy run, which means for the next little while I'll be more stringent on Garmin and HR monitor, just to see how it stacks up. Turns out its hard to speed up by 15 secs/km, since I ended up running at 4:53 pace. But, if I compare the HRs, in my long run, I hovered in the low 130s for most of it, running at 5:40, whereas this shorter hour long run at 4:53, I averaged high 130s. I definitely felt like I was working harder, but my HR really doesn't show it.

I'm not sure I necessarily want to do every easy run at 4:50 pace just yet, I need to figure out what 5:00-5:15 feels like so I can start running around that, I think that will be good for the time being.

Garmin here:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/117344128

Long-esque run. Down to Hawrelak, across to Laurier, cross Quesnel, around Fort Edmonton, up to the neighbour, across Whitemud Drive, down Snow Valley, up Whitemud for a bit, then all the way back down to Keilor Road and home. When I do the math, I probably ran about 20 out of 23k entirely on trail, despite being in the middle of the city. I wonder why Edmonton is not more a hotbed of trail running. I blame off-leash dogs.

Also saw three helicopters flying in a row, pretty close to each other. Never seen that before.

C • Downtown Trails 2

Paul wanted to go for another roller-ski, so we went for a half arms only, half legs only roller ski. I'm okay with the legs only, arms only, not a fan of. My hands are also not happy about the 6 new blisters I have. All the callouses have disappeared from two years of not rollerskiing. And I liked it that way.

"Meet" at a Smoky Lake. Its a pretty nice map, just not a great course. This one person is very old-school, making "classic" courses of uniforrm leg length, except for occasional really long ones that mostly involve one route choice: go to the trail, run along it until you're within 50 metres, then jump back in and move on. I tried to jazz it up by navigating in the forest more than on the trail.

Still, with all the boredom, managed to make a dumb mistake on 9 after stubbing my toe on a log and tripping. Then screwed up 13 in the 'twilight zone'. Eventually I found it, but I wondered where the map found a re-entrant in virtually flat ground. I hate that bit.

C • favorite map 2

Ran my uphill loop over at Whitemud. 1 hill takes 3 minutes, the other about 6 minutes. Not a hard run, but a run nonetheless, regadless of steepness. Then blast the downhill, one is a straight shot on single track, the other are stairs, one stair/step, fast feet. Downhill is more fatiguing than uphill. Well, that's the idea.

Went to Fast Trax roller-skiing workout with Paul. And, hooray, no one showed up. So we ran the intervals instead. 30 x 10 seconds. Didn't really feel like a workout, per se, but it was nice to run fast.

5 Peaks run. Head over to whitemud, and run down towards the river, climbing out of the valley every time there is a decent trail to do it. Ends up only being 5 times, but its more climb than I usually see in a run unless I'm doing intervals. Its pretty steep too, and the point is to stay at a running clip.

Fast Trax does roller-ski workouts every Tuesday and Thursday, and I (in part), have to lead them! But guess who shows up? NOBODY. So, while I'd rather be doing the run workout, I have go do stupid classic roller-ski intervals at stupid goldbar in the stupid almost dark. And classic roller-skiing! Classic! So lame. I've never wanted winter to come so soon.

15 x 2 mins w/2minute rest, up Capilano hill.

C • Work-out 6

Run down around through Hawrelak and Emily Murphy then up through the university.

Barebones Long-esque. It wasn't quite a long since it only took us 70 minutes, and it was on a 1:10,000 map. More like a long middle. But I desperately need technical practice, so whatever. Was doing just fine until 13 and 14. Everyone messed up 13, though I did a little moreso, and then 14 I hurried and missed it too. As per usual, this meant I had fallen behind by three minutes, and had to spend the rest of the race trying to make up the time I so easily lose. I was 51 seconds behind at 12, then 3:19 behind after 14, and won every split after that to pull it back 49 seconds. Needed another... 20 minutes to get the rest back. Urge to kill... rising.....

Event: Barebones Party Weekend
 

Barebones middle at Rafter Six. Very pleasant forest and some complex stuff. Had to go fairly slow to ensure I didn't get lost. But, I'm very thankful of having experienced that Whitehorse terrain, because I think I can better recognize the high ridges to craft a fast and safe route. Eric caught me around 7, dropped him again on the long leg, but zigged instead of zagged so he caught up again. Then there were three legs of dead flat running so, booked it and dropped him again, but couldn't make up the two minutes, lost by 29 seconds.

Sprint race at the Nordic Centre. I do, to a certain extent, know the nordic centre pretty well so I can run half with the map and half with experience. Nevertheless, the trails can be pretty baffling and I was pleased that I was able to deal with the lower section well by navigating with features other than the trails. Made a mistake on the world's shortest leg, since I took about 8 strides from the previous control and had already overshot it.

30 x 1 minute intervals at 10km pace. Didn't feel wicked fast, but, they're 10k pace, so they're not supposed to be wicked fast, I suppose. Would have liked a bit higher effort, though. Swallowed several thousand bugs, its that time of year.

Back in Edmonton, back to normal function. Not quite sure where Tuesday went, even though I think it lasted about 37 hours. Nice hour toodle in Saucony Kinvaras, which, despite being only 1mm differential higher, felt like running on marshmellow. It was AMAZING.

Went for a final run in England. Last day of wearing F-lite 195's for quite some time too! *phew*

Light run number 1 post London City Race. Calves grumpy, of course, a little bit of pain on the [roximal part of my second toe. I'm sure its the 14k of running on hard pavement in f-lite 190s.

This is #2.

London City Race action. Have now joined the Elite club of people who has totally screwed up in the Barbican. I made the amateur mistake of not reading my control description to figure out what level the control was at. Then again, "end of wall" wasn't super helpful. Nevertheless, got to the "spot", then look over the edge and saw the wall. Then spent a little while running around trying to figure out how in the world to get there. Problem was, the line from 26-27 went directly over the little gap showing where the ramp was which was the best route. That's not a great excuse given several other people went the correct way, though.

Then did a circuit around London, making little mistakes here and there by reading ahead or reading control description and missing my turn. Then went back to the Barbican, and ran down a parking garage ramp instead of the one I wanted. 1:30 loss on both controls. As a plus, both Murray and Matt have raced the Barbican before. I think a little more calm map planning would have been the ticket. But more fundamentally, its just like everything else, I need more consistency. Its like yo-yo dieting, but with orienteering.

Headed out afterwards to get some headcam footage. Mine is way more wobbly than the guy who did the WOC videos, and I'm pretty sure he has the same camera. How?

Did some sprintervals. I realized I didn't use my Garmin, so I tried to count, and we all know how well that goes. 20 second sprintys. I'm pretty sure I did 10 out, then jogged another 5 minutes out, and then more 20s to the end of the railway again, so maybe another... 15-ish? So, let's say 25x20s w/1 minute rest.

Light run through the footpaths of the West Midlands, so it didn't take long to get lost.

Went for a light run in the evening. I figure it must be the travelling that has been giving me a perpetual tickly throat. It'd be nice to feel normal-esque, would like to do something fast before London!

Ran down the railway again in my orocs to give my calves some relief from F-lite 190s. They're getting better.

City Race in Lincoln. Now this was a sweet city race. More of what I'd expect. Tricky controls requiring clever navigation and map reading, epic long legs that spanned the entire map, tiny spinny legs in oddly shaped residential areas, and running through some cool passageways and architecture. I can only wish we'd ever be able to put something like this together in Canada.

Figured out the trap to number 2, but not before kind of heading in that direction. Route on the monster leg was also not necessarily ideal, but I didn't have to crash through some green like other people did. Made some slight mistakes in mis-counting roads. My calves burned like nobody's business wearing F-lite 195s. Great shoes, but sprint shoes. I really wish I had a pair of kinvaras. Its okay, only one weekend before London and then I can get back to more cush.

Oh yeah, and I won, by 20 seconds. I think I should have won by more. Now that I've made a sprint final, I have expectations.

Also, Nopesport (and Attackpoint, for that matter), is really irritating with how much whining people are doing. By the time we'd gotten home someone had already made two different posts making passive aggressive comments moaning about what he thought was mis-leading control description symbols, or the colour of the pavement, or something. When did the orienteering world become so whiny?

Routegadget here: http://www.log.routegadget.co.uk/log/reitti.cgi?ac...

C • fun! 7

Sheffield city race in.... well, yeah. Not the nicest area, kind of a sketchy apartment complex area. Lots of climbing, and lots of ambiguously crossable v uncrossable walls/fences. 'twas difficult to tell sometimes but a quick map stop often helped. Tomorrow Lincoln.

C • apartment complex 2

A - Splits

Stuck to the roads today. Got kind of hot by British standards, almost 25. Heck, I practically broke a sweat.

Went for an out and back jog along the railway again. Tried very hard to jog easily, and accidentally ran home faster than I did out. Whoops. Calves ready to explode with only running in f-lite 230s.