Training Log Archive: Pooleta

Event: Open 5 - Lake District
 

A very frustrating day. It was virtually impossible to ride my bike, either too icy for me to have confidence or too snowy to be able to make worthwhile progress, so spent the first 3 hours of the race taking my bike for a walk. In addition, there was one control that I did not find, and spent an hour of the race getting to where I think it should have been, looking for it and getting back.
At least the run was much better. Managed to run past Andy Conn on the way up the hill to the first running control, and stayed ahead of him all the way to the very top of the hill. It was misty so good nav was required, but I still spiked every control on the run and picked a very good route.
I wasn't happy with the result, and still have work to do to get these races right, so winning a prize is not everything when you know you could do so much better.

The session was intended to be a trail hills session. We decided on the back of Whitbarrow as a venue (on the way to M&Ds in Grange), and got a bit of a shock when we discovered that all the tracks were sheet ice. We tottered up the hill (and got a bit lost on the way), and after 15mins of very slow running / walking / sliding we found a nice runnable bit of forest. Change of plan, lets do terrain hills session instead.
So, 12 x 1min up, 1min30s down later, the session was done.
It was noticeable that for the one rep that Pooley joined me for (no.11), I pushed a whole lot harder and got a whole lot further (10m) up the hill then when I'd been on my own. Maybe I was suffering from lack of motivation.
Felt a bit dissatisfied with the session afterwards.

Had problems at the beginning of this session setting up the turbo, as I tried to use Pooley's not mine. Eventually got mine out of the shed and everything worked much better.
Session was 15mins W/U (should only have been 10, but had to W/U again when I swapped turbos), followed by 10 x 3min hard, 1min easy, then 5mins W/D.
Had to work pretty hard on this session, particularly to keep the speed and revs up at the end of each interval.
Unfortunately, HRM data is wonky and I forgot to stop my watch at the end, so no point in recording it here.

Long run on the dark icy lanes around Northallerton. Was a bit scary at first, but once I had realised that running surfaces were actually mostly ok I started to really enjoy it, and could have kept going at that pace for ever!
Maybe need to start picking up the pace a bit on my long runs - should be hitting 160 HR average.

10min W/U and 15min drill set on football field adjacent to Leisure Centre. Had to adapt usual tuesday night plans as track was closed and all pavements were like skid pads!

Intervals around football field at Hambleton Leisure Centre.
8 x 1 lap off 2mins. Each effort was 1:20, so 40s rest before starting again.
I was concentrating on quick leg turnover and keeping good posture, but felt really good and really strong. Sarah commented on how good I looked too.

Warm down by running home, 8mins.

Increased reps by 5 reps for each exercise for tonight's session. Definitely starting to feel much easier now, so may need to refine session some more and move on to more advanced exercises.