Training Log: kido

On call, so loops. Had Cyril around my waist again, he's still a pain but I think better? Still fatigued but improved a bit.

My goodness, we did a record this morning!

Easy boulie lap. Was chaos getting there because part of Heidelberg Rd had been closed. Felt quite OK aerobically but lots of fatigue still in the legs.

Well this was a bit of a farce! Coming into the valley last night, Google Maps was telling us that a section of the road between the caravan park (where we were staying) and the race start was closed. I couldn't find anywhere other than Google Maps with information about it, so to make sure we'd have plenty of time in the morning (if we had to drive right around), we checked it out, and it was open.

But then this morning, 6k from the race start...there was an enormous mountain ash fallen on the road which hadn't been there the night before! I decided my only real option was to do a super long warm up so we parked and I started running, while more people arrived on both sides of the tree (it was also the route to most of the aid stations).

I wasn't keen about doing a 6k warm up, and in the end one of the cars which had come from the start decided to turn around and drive some of those stuck on the other side. They took a while to decide this so I was setting in for a long one but eventually they came past and collected me!

Apparently shortly after that a few people with big 4WDs managed to winch and/or push the tree off the road, which was amazing given its size.

Run Tarra Bulga - "25k"

This went pretty well, I tried to take off at the start with the girl who would eventually go on to win but she dropped me almost immediately, I never saw her again and she beat me by 12min...

I certainly wasn't feeling as good as if I'd targeted this race and tapered for it properly, but I was feeling reasonable enough and able to push it pretty hard, though was careful not to overdo it.

Had a good little pack of guys to run with - dropped a few of them on the first big climb and caught up to another, but also got caught. 3 of us ran together from about 15k to the end. I got the older guy but the younger one took advantage of my confusion at the signs near the end to pull in front.

Parts of this run were stunning. I really enjoyed the first maybe 12k and the last 2k, but in between that was a lot of forestry roads which weren't thrilling (though at least the surroundings were still stunning). The second big hill in particular was very unenjoyable - a very steep climb on forestry road which was so unbelievably muddy you could barely progress.

But on the whole a great run, happy with 2nd (wouldn't have got that girl even on my best day), would do again.

C • The girl who would eventually go on to win 5

Had planned to do a longer warm down (maybe 4k) as training, but was feeling too cooked to be honest! Might have been OK if there was somewhere remotely flat to run.

Wasn't a planned rest day, but my planned lunch jog got consumed by work meetings :( need to stop assuming I'll be able to duck out at lunch.