Training Log Archive: Lizzie

Trolhattan city trail race. 10.5km up, down and along the river/gorge banks on small trails. Really fun and painful race with lots of sharp steep climbs and descents (advertised as 1040 stairs, but I'm not sure if anyone counted?).

Kine and I got offered free entry a couple of weeks back, and at the time I kind of said 'sure, why not?!' About 10mins before the start we were wondering what we might have got ourselves into, as unbeknownst to us it was a part of some Nations Challenge between Sweden and Norway. Fortunately, being a kiwi, my result wasn't to count (oops, that probably wasn't what they wanted from my free entry! ;) Our competitors included some pretty darn fast runners, plus a few very fit long distance skiers it seemed.

Anyway, I had a fun battle with 3 other girls, Kine included. I managed to keep Kine in sight, just about, for the first half of the race, with a local girl (later turned out it was the sister to one of our new juniors!), and white-shirt-and-speed-glasses lady between us. Then as we crossed the river, I noticed we were starting to bunch up a bit more. Around the sluices and I eased past Ida's sister, and then Kine. THat was at the 40min mark, and I was pretty damn sure I was going to crash soon after, so I didn't believe Kine when she said I'd beat her from here. I also didn't believe her when she said I was fighting for 3rd place.
Anyhow, long story short, I tucked in behind white-shirt-and-speed-glasses lady, camo-singlet guy, and bright-yellow-shirt youth, and gritted my teeth for the last few km. We'd sussed out the last km or so, so I at least knew what to expect there, and I'd sussed out the last decent climb on google street view (sprint geeking skills for the win).
I knew I was beating white-shirt-and-speed-glasses lady on the climbs, so on the second last stair climb I put my legs to work and hoped like hell that her legs would feel as leaden as mine at the top.
Seemed to work, and I even managed to (unintentionally) do the same to camo-singlet guy on the very last set of stairs. But only after we'd both given the little kid spectating two very satisfying high-fives.
With a couple of backwards glances to check the distance to white-shirt-and-speed-glasses lady, I gritted my teeth and ground out the last few hundred metres of flat path to the finish. bright-yellow-shirt youth put about 50m into me here, but whatever.

Turns out I finished 4th, so just out of the money (literally). Ah well, the organiser bought us free pizza afterwards, which tasted a hell of a lot better than an oversized novelty cheque. For the record, I was 5 mins off the winner, 2 mins from 3rd place, and 20s ahead of white-shirt-and-speed-glasses lady. Kine's watch says it was 240ish metres climb, but Strava says 390m...go figure. Reality is probably somewhere in between.

C • That was a fun read! I'm su... 2

Ertemarka with Kine. The bare rock was slippery as after the rain which made for some extra fun :)
Saw some of the Ladies Tour girls out on the roads coming home...i'm sure we intimidated them with our speed, technique and high-end equipment, or lack of all 3 ;)

Mmm tasty tasty shuttle runs!

To and from club intervals

4 x 4mins on tiny forest single-track. I was more than happy to call it a day at 4, given the last week and a bit, but Jo and Iliana kept going...so I did 2 token extra 45s, and a 1min to not seem like a complete slacker ;)
Legs feeling surprisingly good, although heavy by rep #4. Hit a new max HR. wooo!

First training in 2 months. Groin and ankle survived alright. Former needs some physio and latter would prob be best with some taping for football I think.

Jog from home. Seems there was a big storm last friday/saturday which has brought down a fair few big trees and branches. Somewhat ironically, this makes høiåsmarka nice relevant training for Latvian forests.

Home time.
Eventually got home after 11pm, after my train was delayed after it hit a moose :'(

Will back date my WOC training and races as my energy comes back. Turns out 10months post-surgery was not long enough to return to a WOC long fitness level. Who'd have known?!!

C • 10 months 2