Training Log Archive: slowphil

C • a few problems on the 2nd maybe?? 2

Event: Venice Street Race
 

First tme in Venice. Great fun. Helped a lot that Matthias organised things and knew what he was doing (14 previous visits may have helped!).

HIghlight was undoubtedly when I entered a small piazza just as two buskers, one guitar and one accordion, struck up a fantastic rendition of Blue Moon :)

Started carefully, as planned. Comparing to Ollie, Dan and Brooner, I lost more than 3 1/2 of the 6 mins that I was to lose to them in the first half hour. No real problems, so far as I can tell, but almost certainly not running quickly enough (perhaps poor route choices somewhere early, say to #1?). Settled into a good pace after that. A couple of 'proper' elite guys came past, and I ignored them - this wasn't somewhere to put your map in your pocket and get your head down and get after them, since relocation would be very challenging (and what's the point of going to Venice to do that?). Chose slightly conservative routes on the two long legs, perhaps giving up a minute on the first of the two, when I went through the bus station to the West of the map. Having the brown on the map for busy areas was really useful (I finished at almost 12:30) - I can see why early starts are useful there!

Ended up catching my one minute man, from Reims, about 2/3rds of the way round, and saw him fairly frequently after that. Whichever of us was in the lead when we took the same routes would seem to get held up more by the tourists, so it was hard for either of us to get away.

Great fun (as of course was the food, wine and especially the secnery on a glorious day). Up for that again, I think...

Seemed rude not to take this in, given it was 6 miles from Gatwick and I was flying out to Venice a couple of hours later...

Four 30 sec errors through being a bit scrappy. Where the other couple of minutes to Neil Crickmore went I'm not yet sure (probably running speed I imagine).

Shoulders still quite sore from the circuits earlier in the week.

Glutes stiff in addition to the shoulders, so decided to loosen them with a leisurely walk, despite it being a rest day.

A few hard bursts but mostly a comfortable swim. Shoulders, hams and glutes v sore after last couple of days' effort...

HARD work with Jeirdel, pushing me on upper body stuff (+ hamstrings) to the limit and beyond.

OK run - nice flow, rarely stumped by silly clues for once :) GPS struggled to lock on initially, so distance actually closer to 10.5kms, I think. Happy with route, and so I guess should be happy with result (missing one 40 pointer, not sure yet why, but that would only be one place in the overall scores anyway).