Training Log Archive: cricketk

Long chatty walk to the start with Ken. Took my time walking to 1 so I wouldn't do the thing where I lose my head and run off the map. So I did that on the way to 2 instead, with the complete inability to distinguish rocky knolls from not-rocky knolls and veering wildly all over the place. Took myself back up to the rocky knolls and this time figured out that they WERE rocky knolls and grumpily took myself off to 2.

Was planning to cut the whole route short anyway, but the enormous stuff up at 2 meant I had to cut it shorter again to get back in time.

After 2, I had a really fun time and despite the errors, am now confident that 21AS is where I should be for Easter. I had been considering abjectly asking to move over to Open B, where I at least feel confident that no rescue missions would need to be mounted.

Entertaining and enjoyable course.

I missed 1, due to simply not understanding what I was looking at. This part of the university hasn't changed at all since I went there and my expectations were completely getting in my way. Once I got my expectations out of the way and thought about what I was doing, I promptly failed to see the archway into the courtyard I needed to go through and spent a lot of time staring at a wall, behind which I could see the tree I needed to be at to punch my control and eventually gave up and kept moving.

Didn't actually then take it easy - there were people around who I knew had started just in front of me and that was enough encouragement to keep trying hard.

Apart from the minor, trivial, unimportant detail of missing the first control, I had a pretty clean run (by my standards). I was never in any doubt about where I was or where I needed to be. It's obviously been too long between sprints - I'm no longer sensitised to red/white flags. I arrived at the first few controls and had to stare at the feature for a moment before the flags appeared. I also had a few moments of dithering about route choice before I remembered that once started on choice, you're really committed within about 20m - changing will be too costly. Overshooting the last control was the only other time costly mistake - though not being able to figure out where the hell to put my SI Tag ₁ in the first control I actually found definitely irritated someone. Sorry!

Really, really glad to have had a chance to run a Sprint before Easter - I squished my schedule like crazy to make this one and I'm really glad I did.

Also enormously and noticeably fitter than the last time I attempted a Sprint. Really noticing the benefits of commute riding in both wind and (finally!) weight.

Note - extra time on the GArmin due to failure to turn device off - estimated 15 seconds.

1. It had a cable through it! It's been a long, long time since I've seen that!

Morning off work!

Lovely easy ride up towards Mt Helena. Delayed start due to flat tyre, which meant I hit my time limit before Mt Helena, instead of at or after Mt Helena as I was expecting. Felt very much like it wanted to rain for the whole ride - I would have really welcomed it if it had.

They're in the process of resurfacing the trail through the middle section of the national park. It's quite bumpy.

Saw another couple of bikes out this morning. One guy whizzed past me and we were cheerful at each other. Two were coming the other way into Parkerville on step-through bikes and we were cheerful at each other also.

C • Resurfacing the railway trail? 5

Felt like complete rubbish and gave up halfway through what was supposed to be a ladder.

100 x breast stroke
100 x free style
2 x (25 left arm, 25 right arm)
2 x 50 kicking
50, 100, 150 - meh

Did my eccentric heel raises and then went home.

Midday bike maintenance.

My workmate pulled her bike out of the shed and rode in this morning. On arrival, I noticed that her front brakes were not connected. Further investigation revealed a worrying lack of tension in the back brake cable.

Somehow managed to wrestle the front brake back together (I always, always, always have trouble with this and it's the one reason I will always love disc brakes), fiddled with the tension and voila!

I feel nice and competent and like it's safe enough to let my workmate ride home this afternoon.

C • Disc brakes 3

Bike computer 36.15, 31.6 kph

Really, really enjoyable ride in this morning. Sunny, just the right temperature, a nice breeze behind me and plenty of cheerful and friendly commuters.

La la la la la. *sings*

Score 0-1, plus a guy with tennis ball calves must have been idling/warming up and he repassed west of Bayswater station. Both people who overtook me today were like cannonballs.

Bike computer 37.55, 29.8kph

Had a nice ride home. I really like this cooler weather.

Score 2-0.

Totally half assed effort. Half the strengthening exercises followed by half the stretches. But did work on both sides, so hopefully not a half-assed result.

So. Magnesium comes in all sorts of food that I don't eat. Lets try a supplement.

C • Nuts 5

Very tired this morning. Left knee niggling during the walk home. Some kind of satellite fail during the warm up walk, so this only counts the intervals themselves and the walk home.

Class fairly evenly split between passive and hard work standing poses. Got very cold during meditation and am off to have a really hot shower.

100 breast stroke
100 freestyle
4 x 25 left arm, right arm, pull, kick, catch up
3 x 100 easy
200 breast stroke

Right arm felt better than usual this morning, though I was clearly running out of oomph through the end of the catch up, as there was a bit of flailing that wouldn't have happened if I'd used the kickboard.

Form also got a bit sloppy in the last 50m of freestyle.

Ouch.