Thanks for the comments on the last post! I do seem to have this natural ability to maybe bite off a little more than I can chew in one sitting :) That combined with my other habit of "all or nothing" does make life interesting. I like the saying that Plu has, ie "the mind writing cheques that the body cannot cash". That is a pretty good summary of my running, sometimes I do have enough training in the bank but even if I don't I'll still have a crack :)
Anyway, immediate running goal #1 was to get some endurance in the legs and so I lobbed up for the 6am Bobbin Head Revisited STaR on Sunday. Felt pretty good rolling along with the group but as we neared North Turramurra I had quite an urgent need and so dashed ahead of the group at a water stop, just as the 6:10 group steamed through (way ahead of pace....) in search of a toilet. After making good use of a tree in the bush at the entrance to the Bobbin Head National Park it seemed I had been passed by not only the bulk of the 6am group but also the backmarkers of the 6:10 group. So from here it was sort of solo running as I went past Bandana, just about caught up to the 6:10 rear group at the top of Bobbin Head and then swapped around with another Strider and Bandana who caught up to us at a water stop while I was downing a gu.
Anyway mission accomplished with about 31km down in around 2:55, somewhat slower than my last excurion through here but an enjoyable run on a great day!
Monday, May 28, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
The week that wasn't
Ok quite a deal going/gone on since the last post, but I try to avoid the title "update" for my intermittent blogs!
After the West Met success I had decent intentions of a long run on Sunday, but given it was Mothers Day (and I was flying out in the afternoon!) I judged that the DTI was in much more need of focus than 30km in the legs....
A nice Mothers Day family lunch saw me then dropped off at the airport for a whirlwind few days. A few days in Singapore and then a quick stopover in Bangkok for some more meetings eventually saw me back in Sydney early Thursday morning, just before the fog closed the airport! I actually got home around 6am and was tempted to go for a head clearing run but instead slept for around 3 hours before going off for a 3 hour customer presentation.
So this then brings me to the SMH, I had subscribed to the whole 90 min bus thread on cool running and even though I knew I had no chance, I thought I'd go out and see what happens. Started a bit further back in teh field than normal but was running in the clear after about 30 seconds and slotted in just ahead of Eagle and Greg. The pace felt ok but as I hit each hill I could sense the effort and on the way back out of Lady Macquaries chair I slid off the back of the back of the bus. I held them in sight until Argyle hill where I slowed a bit further. At the finish line I judge that I was on around 92 minute pace however at each climb the legs complained more and more. At the drinks stop at Lady Macquaries chair I did a walk break and by now the heart rate was down from around 175 when I was doing the 4:15 pace to 145 at god knows what pace! There was absolutely nothing left in the legs and for sure it was no a good sight as I ground my way back to the finish.
Popped up to the Striders HQ and chatted for a while and then walked with Horrie towards the CR watering hole. We had a good chat and I fessed up that for me at the moment that I am finding running frustrating. This is really as a result of what else is going on in real life.
Work has become even busier, with more responsibility and probably more travel, a growing family is obviously number one focus and we are spinning into a whole lot of after school committments, my extra curricular activities such as the Striders stuff is always still there and at the moment, despite the best intentions running and especially training is coming last.
Hopefully I can get over this hump of extra work and Striders stuff (annual presentation night) but the biggest problem with my running has been the lack of long runs, it seems ages since I did a full 30km star and it is now dawning as to the way these runs have helped me in the past.
Anyway, such is life and I'll squeeze in what I can, when I can, I just need to enjoy what I can do rather than hoping to achieve what I might be able to do if I was training properly.
After the West Met success I had decent intentions of a long run on Sunday, but given it was Mothers Day (and I was flying out in the afternoon!) I judged that the DTI was in much more need of focus than 30km in the legs....
A nice Mothers Day family lunch saw me then dropped off at the airport for a whirlwind few days. A few days in Singapore and then a quick stopover in Bangkok for some more meetings eventually saw me back in Sydney early Thursday morning, just before the fog closed the airport! I actually got home around 6am and was tempted to go for a head clearing run but instead slept for around 3 hours before going off for a 3 hour customer presentation.
So this then brings me to the SMH, I had subscribed to the whole 90 min bus thread on cool running and even though I knew I had no chance, I thought I'd go out and see what happens. Started a bit further back in teh field than normal but was running in the clear after about 30 seconds and slotted in just ahead of Eagle and Greg. The pace felt ok but as I hit each hill I could sense the effort and on the way back out of Lady Macquaries chair I slid off the back of the back of the bus. I held them in sight until Argyle hill where I slowed a bit further. At the finish line I judge that I was on around 92 minute pace however at each climb the legs complained more and more. At the drinks stop at Lady Macquaries chair I did a walk break and by now the heart rate was down from around 175 when I was doing the 4:15 pace to 145 at god knows what pace! There was absolutely nothing left in the legs and for sure it was no a good sight as I ground my way back to the finish.
Popped up to the Striders HQ and chatted for a while and then walked with Horrie towards the CR watering hole. We had a good chat and I fessed up that for me at the moment that I am finding running frustrating. This is really as a result of what else is going on in real life.
Work has become even busier, with more responsibility and probably more travel, a growing family is obviously number one focus and we are spinning into a whole lot of after school committments, my extra curricular activities such as the Striders stuff is always still there and at the moment, despite the best intentions running and especially training is coming last.
Hopefully I can get over this hump of extra work and Striders stuff (annual presentation night) but the biggest problem with my running has been the lack of long runs, it seems ages since I did a full 30km star and it is now dawning as to the way these runs have helped me in the past.
Anyway, such is life and I'll squeeze in what I can, when I can, I just need to enjoy what I can do rather than hoping to achieve what I might be able to do if I was training properly.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Another step forward
Back to West Met today for a 10km rather than the usual 8km on offer. This was promised as a flat course and you's be hard pressed to get much flatter other than running 25 laps around a track!
Saw Kev and entourage at the start waiting for Dawn and also caught up with superflake, seagull and Rod from Striders, also seeing Graham and Geoff from Striders.
The usual casual send off and I quickly slotted into the goove lurking behind Graham and Richard, the goal to stay with them as long as possible! Better effort than the last West Met, this time I held on until around 6km and even then they only slowly pulled away. The only negative feature of this course was the headwind on the outward leg, which seemingly increased on our second lap!
Despite some attrition in pace I held up sort of ok, posting a 41:51 which is a 1:39 improvement over the Domain Striders race 5 weeks ago!
Splits were
1km 3:55 3:55 (a little hot!)
2km 4:01 7:56
3km 4:03 11:59
4km 4:02 16:01
5km 4:08 20:09
6km 4:10 24:19
7km 4:25 28:44 (headwind/fitness takes it's toll)
8km 4:24 33:08
9km 4:23 37:31 (looks like I'm in the slower groove)
10km 4:20 41:51
Garmin said 9.99km which is close enough for me :)
Superflake took advantage and posted a good PB, for me I'm still climbing slowly back.
Saw Kev and entourage at the start waiting for Dawn and also caught up with superflake, seagull and Rod from Striders, also seeing Graham and Geoff from Striders.
The usual casual send off and I quickly slotted into the goove lurking behind Graham and Richard, the goal to stay with them as long as possible! Better effort than the last West Met, this time I held on until around 6km and even then they only slowly pulled away. The only negative feature of this course was the headwind on the outward leg, which seemingly increased on our second lap!
Despite some attrition in pace I held up sort of ok, posting a 41:51 which is a 1:39 improvement over the Domain Striders race 5 weeks ago!
Splits were
1km 3:55 3:55 (a little hot!)
2km 4:01 7:56
3km 4:03 11:59
4km 4:02 16:01
5km 4:08 20:09
6km 4:10 24:19
7km 4:25 28:44 (headwind/fitness takes it's toll)
8km 4:24 33:08
9km 4:23 37:31 (looks like I'm in the slower groove)
10km 4:20 41:51
Garmin said 9.99km which is close enough for me :)
Superflake took advantage and posted a good PB, for me I'm still climbing slowly back.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Crazy Cox's
Back to the hill for more solo reps. For reference last session (2 weeks ago) the 10 reps averaged out at 1:37.4 with 1:50.2 recovery (the length is approx 300 metres).
So some improvement with posting 1:33.4 and 1:43.6 respectively. Really focussed on lifting the intensity in the last few reps and despite going pretty lactic managed to hold the splits and even pull in a 1:32 as the last rep.
Interestingly this is pretty close to a session back in September as I was building up back then, although the recovery reps are this time quite a bit faster.
Funny about 3/4 up the hill towards the end of my session there was a disabled lady in a wheelchair, probably waiting for a maxi-taxi who was quite amused with me grinding my way up and then gasping my way down :)
So some improvement with posting 1:33.4 and 1:43.6 respectively. Really focussed on lifting the intensity in the last few reps and despite going pretty lactic managed to hold the splits and even pull in a 1:32 as the last rep.
Interestingly this is pretty close to a session back in September as I was building up back then, although the recovery reps are this time quite a bit faster.
Funny about 3/4 up the hill towards the end of my session there was a disabled lady in a wheelchair, probably waiting for a maxi-taxi who was quite amused with me grinding my way up and then gasping my way down :)
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Tracking on
Friday - Out for the standard weir run at tempo pace, held it pretty well on the way down but coming back it was obvious that the 1km reps yesterday had taken some sting out of the legs. Still 10.9km in 51 minutes for averages of 4:42 min/km and 166 bpm
Saturday - Not able to race the 10km at North Head as I had the 2 youngest in tow as our eldest and my wife were at a band weekend. So I headed over to setup and operate the timing system, with my 2 new assistants. A superb morning for running and PB's tumbling all over the place, especially for a number of runners I have crossed swords with who nailed the somewhat holy grail of the midpack runner, the sub 40 minute 10km. Congrats to Horrie, Hamburgler, langswm and Professor!!! Hopefully if I can pull the finger out for the next few weeks I might have half a chance of getting close at Lane Cove in June.
Sunday - Finally the rest of the family returned from the band thingo and I slipped out for my patented C2S prep route for another tempo run. The legs felt fresh after a day off and I pounded the stretch down to the weir! From here it was a push to keep that pace going with the hilly back end of this run. Anyway I really gritted the teeth to try and keep it going. Fairly happy with the 14.25km in 1:05:23 which averages out at 4:35 min/km and 170 bpm, good evidence that I pushed hard.
Rest day tomorrow as work sees me bouncing down to Melbourne and back with one of our senior execs, then back into it on Tuesday.
Saturday - Not able to race the 10km at North Head as I had the 2 youngest in tow as our eldest and my wife were at a band weekend. So I headed over to setup and operate the timing system, with my 2 new assistants. A superb morning for running and PB's tumbling all over the place, especially for a number of runners I have crossed swords with who nailed the somewhat holy grail of the midpack runner, the sub 40 minute 10km. Congrats to Horrie, Hamburgler, langswm and Professor!!! Hopefully if I can pull the finger out for the next few weeks I might have half a chance of getting close at Lane Cove in June.
Sunday - Finally the rest of the family returned from the band thingo and I slipped out for my patented C2S prep route for another tempo run. The legs felt fresh after a day off and I pounded the stretch down to the weir! From here it was a push to keep that pace going with the hilly back end of this run. Anyway I really gritted the teeth to try and keep it going. Fairly happy with the 14.25km in 1:05:23 which averages out at 4:35 min/km and 170 bpm, good evidence that I pushed hard.
Rest day tomorrow as work sees me bouncing down to Melbourne and back with one of our senior execs, then back into it on Tuesday.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Slowly but surely
A few days rest to let the blisters settle down and also seek some advice on the lingering piriformis/hammie/sciatic issue I have been having without the analysis being complicated by fatigued muscles.
A bit of a struggle to get out of bed, but the thought of Horrie and Professor regularly knocking over PB's somehow had a strange influence on seeing me headed out the door :)
Back down to my favorite spot in LCNP for some serious 1km intervals and assess if there was any improvement since the last set a month ago (average of 6 @ 4:01 with 2:00 standing rest).
The first rep is always a challenge and I just slipped under 4:00. I decided to abbreviate the standing rest back to 90 seconds and really hammered out the 2nd rep, no doubt enthused by having to chase another runner who had run past while I was gasping for air/recovering. To my amazement I posted a 3:45!
The subsequent reps were pretty consistent and so the whole session looked like
3:59, 3:45, 3:53, 3:51, 3:54 and 3:53
This equated to an average of 3:52.5 with average recovery of 1:30.5 so a reasonable improvement, but more to come.....
A bit of a struggle to get out of bed, but the thought of Horrie and Professor regularly knocking over PB's somehow had a strange influence on seeing me headed out the door :)
Back down to my favorite spot in LCNP for some serious 1km intervals and assess if there was any improvement since the last set a month ago (average of 6 @ 4:01 with 2:00 standing rest).
The first rep is always a challenge and I just slipped under 4:00. I decided to abbreviate the standing rest back to 90 seconds and really hammered out the 2nd rep, no doubt enthused by having to chase another runner who had run past while I was gasping for air/recovering. To my amazement I posted a 3:45!
The subsequent reps were pretty consistent and so the whole session looked like
3:59, 3:45, 3:53, 3:51, 3:54 and 3:53
This equated to an average of 3:52.5 with average recovery of 1:30.5 so a reasonable improvement, but more to come.....
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Going loooong!
Race report for Turon 24 hour Rogaine.
Firstly for the uninitiated a Rogaine is a long distance orienteering style event. Teams are given a pre-printed map with around 50 controls marked, each control having a points value and description to help locate. Generally the descriptions are terms like "the gully" or "the spur". You then need to plan a rough route to achieve the highest points yield for time/distance, also taking into account locations of water drops etc etc.
Picked Mr G up at around 7am and we got to Turon, with steady rain falling around 9:30. We spent time (in retrospect too much) trying to pitch the tent only to realise there was a bag of pegs missing, so we used some large stones to hold down the main part of the tent, which was a contingency anyway as the plan was to stay out for 24 hours.
The time lost in messing around with the tent then saw us rushing to prepare, ie getting changed, sorting out what to pack into the backpacks and very importantly plan our route!
We joined the masses at the start point for a final briefing which was pretty impossible to hear and then we were off! We had decided to do a northerly sweep first and then down the west side of the map before doing a full loop across to the east and north back home.
Through the northerly sweep navigation was good and we moved along pretty well. Mr G and I fell into a pretty standard pattern of me mostly leading and especially on the steep up or down hills where I would try and pick the best route, if possible taking advantage of tracks made by various animals etc. If I hit a tougher section then I could double back and lookm for a better option while he caught up. Certainly I took advantage of my lighter weight on the uphills, to the point that Mr G postulated that Dave in Chinese means calves of steel :)
We arrived at the first water drop just after dark and topped up camelbaks etc and had a more serious bite to eat than the nibbles consumed so far. Two controls later we had a significant nav challenge as we found ourselves headed east along a fence when we were supposed to be going south! A little teeth gnashing and eventually we righted ourselves. As we headed to the next water drop we came across a competitor rugged up sitting by the side of the track. Seems he had twisted his ankle and his partner had headed up to the water drop to flag down the sag wagon.
It was still quite a hike, including another steep uphill, to the water drop, which was located at a house. As we arrived there were some other competitors there trying to get a fire going. One of these was the teammate of the guy with the ankle while the others had had enough and were waiting to get a lift out. This was around midnight and so a logical point to have some more substanial food and also change socks etc. We did 2 loops out of the water drop to some nearby controls and still no sag wagon as we eventually left them at around 2am headed east towards the all night cafe.
As we headed towards #48 we finally saw some lights headed towards us, the first time we saw other teams on the course since about 5pm. One of these teams were 2 females who asked us if we had seen #48. I replied that I believed it was still about a km ahead of us, ie they had seriously gone past it! They then just asked if there was a road to the water drop which we confirmed and they kept going, rather than follow us back.
Our major mistake of the night now occured, after we got #48 and headed to #92, which was always going to be tricky a spur off a spur, we located the first spur, on very steep terrain but obviously dropped too early looking for the next spur and spent some time on the very steep slope before opting to move on rather than try and locate. We then spent a large amount of time negotiating our way down the steep slope in the dark to the creek bed below. Previous creek beds we had used were very navigable but this one was a nightmare and we lost a lot of time working our way down to the next major waterway which also had a proper track on it.
From here we had to adjust our plans based upon the lost time and head directly towards the all night cafe rather than taking a much more points rewarding option. Along this track Mr G was noticeably slowing down and becoming less lucid. Eventually he requested that we stop for a quick snooze and so we simply sat down on the grass next to the track, took off the back packs and he went to sleep! I tried but could not sleep and started to get cold. After about 10 minutes I made a bit of noise and suggested that if we were going to stay any longer I'd need to get out my space blanket to stay warm! He felt better after the break and so we decided to get going, finally getting in to the all night cafe just after 6am, only to find most of the food gone and only options were apples, bananas and cake, which we wolfed down.
We resolved to do a fast march back north as quickly as possoble, spurning points options on immediate offer in order to be closer to the finish and pick up points as available without worrying about time constraints. Eventually we hit the more open grazing land which was easier to navigate on and dropped back down through another creek bed to get back to the river. Unfortunately through here the blisters on my feet started to worsen and in the end when we hit the river we had to abandon plans to go a bit further south to pick up a pretty easy 100 pointer on offer as it would be touch and go if we would get back in time. As it happens we got back with about 30 minutes up our sleeve, bypassing a few more controls on steep terrain as mutually between my feet and Mr G's legs on hills we would have struggled.
Overall I was very happy with how things went. The only limiting factor for me turned out to be the blisters and the legs felt if they could keep on going for quite a while. This is a very good confidence builder for some future plans, granted we did not run, but just to stay mobile for around 24 hours and still being able to move is a considerable lift over my last tilt at a 24 hour event. Mr G also noted that I seemed to have a reasonable endurance base to operate from. Navigation wise we did ok, really only 2 significant errors which together cost us 90 points, but also I would say over 2 hours, which in itself is a large points penalty!
I have mapped out our rough route on GMap, with a link here. According to GMap we did around 56km but that is point to point and does not take into account vertical climb, which there was a lot! So the quandry is do I include this in the training log, ie is/was it beneficial to my running? I am inclined to say yes....
Have had 2 days off to sort out the blisters, should be back running tomorrow. Cheers to Mr G for being a great partner with all sorts of interesting facts, stories and jokes up his sleeve for use at appropriate times, I'm sure he must have gotten a little tired of me continually haring up the steep slopes like a mountain goat!
Firstly for the uninitiated a Rogaine is a long distance orienteering style event. Teams are given a pre-printed map with around 50 controls marked, each control having a points value and description to help locate. Generally the descriptions are terms like "the gully" or "the spur". You then need to plan a rough route to achieve the highest points yield for time/distance, also taking into account locations of water drops etc etc.
Picked Mr G up at around 7am and we got to Turon, with steady rain falling around 9:30. We spent time (in retrospect too much) trying to pitch the tent only to realise there was a bag of pegs missing, so we used some large stones to hold down the main part of the tent, which was a contingency anyway as the plan was to stay out for 24 hours.
The time lost in messing around with the tent then saw us rushing to prepare, ie getting changed, sorting out what to pack into the backpacks and very importantly plan our route!
We joined the masses at the start point for a final briefing which was pretty impossible to hear and then we were off! We had decided to do a northerly sweep first and then down the west side of the map before doing a full loop across to the east and north back home.
Through the northerly sweep navigation was good and we moved along pretty well. Mr G and I fell into a pretty standard pattern of me mostly leading and especially on the steep up or down hills where I would try and pick the best route, if possible taking advantage of tracks made by various animals etc. If I hit a tougher section then I could double back and lookm for a better option while he caught up. Certainly I took advantage of my lighter weight on the uphills, to the point that Mr G postulated that Dave in Chinese means calves of steel :)
We arrived at the first water drop just after dark and topped up camelbaks etc and had a more serious bite to eat than the nibbles consumed so far. Two controls later we had a significant nav challenge as we found ourselves headed east along a fence when we were supposed to be going south! A little teeth gnashing and eventually we righted ourselves. As we headed to the next water drop we came across a competitor rugged up sitting by the side of the track. Seems he had twisted his ankle and his partner had headed up to the water drop to flag down the sag wagon.
It was still quite a hike, including another steep uphill, to the water drop, which was located at a house. As we arrived there were some other competitors there trying to get a fire going. One of these was the teammate of the guy with the ankle while the others had had enough and were waiting to get a lift out. This was around midnight and so a logical point to have some more substanial food and also change socks etc. We did 2 loops out of the water drop to some nearby controls and still no sag wagon as we eventually left them at around 2am headed east towards the all night cafe.
As we headed towards #48 we finally saw some lights headed towards us, the first time we saw other teams on the course since about 5pm. One of these teams were 2 females who asked us if we had seen #48. I replied that I believed it was still about a km ahead of us, ie they had seriously gone past it! They then just asked if there was a road to the water drop which we confirmed and they kept going, rather than follow us back.
Our major mistake of the night now occured, after we got #48 and headed to #92, which was always going to be tricky a spur off a spur, we located the first spur, on very steep terrain but obviously dropped too early looking for the next spur and spent some time on the very steep slope before opting to move on rather than try and locate. We then spent a large amount of time negotiating our way down the steep slope in the dark to the creek bed below. Previous creek beds we had used were very navigable but this one was a nightmare and we lost a lot of time working our way down to the next major waterway which also had a proper track on it.
From here we had to adjust our plans based upon the lost time and head directly towards the all night cafe rather than taking a much more points rewarding option. Along this track Mr G was noticeably slowing down and becoming less lucid. Eventually he requested that we stop for a quick snooze and so we simply sat down on the grass next to the track, took off the back packs and he went to sleep! I tried but could not sleep and started to get cold. After about 10 minutes I made a bit of noise and suggested that if we were going to stay any longer I'd need to get out my space blanket to stay warm! He felt better after the break and so we decided to get going, finally getting in to the all night cafe just after 6am, only to find most of the food gone and only options were apples, bananas and cake, which we wolfed down.
We resolved to do a fast march back north as quickly as possoble, spurning points options on immediate offer in order to be closer to the finish and pick up points as available without worrying about time constraints. Eventually we hit the more open grazing land which was easier to navigate on and dropped back down through another creek bed to get back to the river. Unfortunately through here the blisters on my feet started to worsen and in the end when we hit the river we had to abandon plans to go a bit further south to pick up a pretty easy 100 pointer on offer as it would be touch and go if we would get back in time. As it happens we got back with about 30 minutes up our sleeve, bypassing a few more controls on steep terrain as mutually between my feet and Mr G's legs on hills we would have struggled.
Overall I was very happy with how things went. The only limiting factor for me turned out to be the blisters and the legs felt if they could keep on going for quite a while. This is a very good confidence builder for some future plans, granted we did not run, but just to stay mobile for around 24 hours and still being able to move is a considerable lift over my last tilt at a 24 hour event. Mr G also noted that I seemed to have a reasonable endurance base to operate from. Navigation wise we did ok, really only 2 significant errors which together cost us 90 points, but also I would say over 2 hours, which in itself is a large points penalty!
I have mapped out our rough route on GMap, with a link here. According to GMap we did around 56km but that is point to point and does not take into account vertical climb, which there was a lot! So the quandry is do I include this in the training log, ie is/was it beneficial to my running? I am inclined to say yes....
Have had 2 days off to sort out the blisters, should be back running tomorrow. Cheers to Mr G for being a great partner with all sorts of interesting facts, stories and jokes up his sleeve for use at appropriate times, I'm sure he must have gotten a little tired of me continually haring up the steep slopes like a mountain goat!
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