Training Log Archive: hilarity

More fun in the skillz park with cricket. I rode the blue trail today and got a bit more confident over the obstacles. Gorgeous day to be out there!

When we got back cricket fed me yummy bread MMMMM. Nyah nyah Wally.

C • well 2

With Steve and Warren - plus Steve's 10 year old son in his guppy from the top pool to the lower pool at Walyunga.

I did not enjoy the lumpy bits up to Walyunga Chute, or the Chute, but we had to wait for the mother of the child to arrive at Walyunga so I did the Chute 3x and all 3x could not bring myself to paddle down the rapid.

During our wait at Walyunga I managed the score of the day, a pikelet from the slalom crew who were there. That was the best bit at that point.

Then off we went for the rest of the trip and all was ok until Terminator where I channelled Wally and screwed up. There is a rock at the top which apparently is usually underwater, and I saw it well ahead and tried to steer but the Spirit Racing Ski steers so much better than an ocean racing ski that I over-corrected madly and went over the rock.

I landed on the other side just fine, but then I got turned sideways and committed Cardinal Sin #1 of whitewater and leaned upstream. Oops! I did the rest of the rapid, which was quite a lot of rapid, on my bum with a death-like grip on my paddle and a tenuous grip on the hull of the boat. Oh and some foam in my mouth and a few dunkings under water. Blech.

However it DID NOT HURT so this swim was the best thing that could have happened to me.

I decided I was going to portage Bells but as we got closer I remembered how heavy that plastic boat was so I decided I'd just take my dose of HTFU and do it.

Mistake #1 (only mistake really) was to get turned side on to the rock just before the main drop. I think the people standing on the bridge were rubbing their hands together in glee cos here was a complete idiot who would totally stuff it up and make for good viewing. Like hell. I turned into the current and came down the main drop cleanly with a stunned expression on my face, and then followed Warren down the rest of the Bells bits and after a while he said 'you did Bells!' and it was over and I had not swum.

Well, Bollands Elbow was yet to come and I swam there but I have no friggin' clue what happened. However again no hurts so this was a good swim.

Overall I found the ski extremely (too much) manouverable - I'm possibly the only person who thinks a Spirit Racing Ski is manouverable. I'm heaps stronger now than five years ago which was really helpful when I headed the wrong way and needed to muscle myself out of something.

The take-home message from this trip is that I am capable of an Avon Descent. So the number of women in the race next year has just increased by 10% (sad . . .). Bring it!

C • For the record 6

Just a short splash to get used to my new paddle for the rapids. It's really light and feels like I'm not doing as much work as I'd like to be doing, but I like the 'light' part of it!

The usual group - and this time I felt good after the initial uphills! I even managed to get enough air in that I could have a conversation with Rach in the last 2km that didn't involve sentences of only two syllables.

It's been a while since I did this . . . I definitely need to be doing the abs bits several times a week.

Note to self for the weekend: Put together a better TRX program for myself!

A post-op PB for the Heirisson Island paddle - can't wait until it warms up though because my fingers froze on the way back.

Four of the km were sub-6:00, two on the way out and two on the way back. There were a couple patches of really slow water where I watched my pace go from 6:00 to almost 7:00 in the space of 100m. Weird.

Met at Kirsten's house (where her shoes were!) and headed out on the Heritage Trail with me demonstrating my newbie-runner inability to go at any other pace than whatever the one pace is that I have. Almost carked it running up the alleyway but I managed to settle down after about 700m and was fine for 2km.

Then the trail started going steadily uphill while looking flat and making me question what the hell I was thinking to enter City to Surf when I can't even run on a flat trail.

Then we turned around and it was just as K said - mush easier and downhill! We covered the next 3km at about 6:30 pace but I was still happy to see the end of this run as the gravel had aggravated the blisters that I thought had been sorted out.

Thankfully C2S is on roads - much easier!

The start of secret squirrel training with Anne. I arrived at Bayswater to cold and windy weather with rain threatening and Anne trying to suggest that we scrap it. No way.

We did one of the usual sprints around the island, then cruised down to the marker on the other side of the bridge and sprinted back around the island and to the original marker, then repeated that 2 more times.

This gave us a 1.5km sprint with the wind at our backs for the longer distance (but the current was against us so the speeds weren't that different) - but the good bit was the continued paddle down to the start marker which ensured we didn't get cold but still got rid of the lactate.

Two sprints apiece!