Training Log Archive: AndreM

Event: Kangaroo Gully (MTBO)
 

Started out ok, but I had failed to read about the overgrown path to 3 on the pre course notes and managed to go the full 500m through the stuff. Then lost a good amount of time to 5 going off the overgrown track heading up. Crossed the creek at a faux path short to 6 which meant I went up the parallel track first, where I first saw Dalto. The rest was quite smooth except for one error from the guy in front.

Managed to get a master class in MTBO from the Australian National Coach from cp 8 onwards. Was able to just about keep up, with one nav hesitation, some road slipstreaming, a fall and two sticks-clearance stops allowing me to stay in contact. Good thing too since the bottom part of my map needed folding out - rode blind for those few legs.

Learned a new O rule after the race - following is illegal. I knew it was so in rogaining since we have the rules given to us each race, but I've never seen any O rules yet. I'm pretty sure it's ok in adv racing.

LONG COURSE - Splits

Really valuable technique training session run by Gareth Candy.

A warmup exercise of following a line on the map, a corridor exercise, same with the full map, and then a race of 3 controls at a time and 30sec staggered starts on a 12 control course. The main thing was to break the leg up into a series of safe routes - which can then be run with confidence and minimal map info.

I managed to run the corridor exercise quite smoothly, then the quality dropped a bit in the full map exercise at comfortable pace, and then when we were racing I reverted a number of times back to my old habit of running and hoping to see something, which mostly ended pretty badly. Racing 3 controls at a time against the others quickly showed up where you lost/gained time.

Paddle with Shane, calm conditions. First time in a long while. My back was fine. Two weeks ago I figured out that my chair at work was mal adjusted, corrected it, and have been getting better ever since. Still not 100% - the fast running Thurs night brings it out a bit.

Reps of 1600m, 500m rest, 1100m, 500m rest, 500m, 2min rest, all x 2. Happy with my form, kept up the intensity throughout. Bit slow compared to Shane however.

1st 2nd
646 704
446 443
159 207

First time back on the bike again. Found even the small hills slow going, got convincingly passed by a commuter going up the first one but was then able to match him on the flats again, although never caught up.