A so-so week last week after the last blog post. Ran the moonlight orienteering course set at Glebe, a good hit out on street/park orienteering to prep for summer series but with the extra challenge of running at night. Was fairly happy with my route selection, could have fine tuned a little, the main challenge was trying to maintain a smooth navigation, rather than stop/start running.
Thursday was scheduled as a recovery/rest day but then Friday morning, when I was planning a tempo run got hijacked by tradesmen at the new house, dropping kids off at school and a day trip to Brisbane.
So as penance I went out Saturday afternoon for the tempo run on the usual just over 10km route, with fresher legs as a result I again posted a PB for this course, knocking close to a minute off the recent PB, now dragging my pace down for this to 4:25. Important to note that this is still not racing it, as the average HR for all my tempo runs on this route are within a few bpm of each other (169 on Saturday) where as my avg HR for is usually about 10bpm more...
Sunday was the Middle Harbour Picnic STaR, quite a few more hills than the last few weeks with a very unkind start running up fromthe Roseville Bridge to Killarney Heights! To make life more interesting not only were the legs slightly feeling the tempo run from yesterday afternoon but also we went out for dinner to celebrate a friends 40th and I drank a little too much and also did not get to bed until 1:30 (getting back up at 5!) Anyway after dropping down to the Spit Bridge we started the climb up Parriwi Road to Mosman. For some reason this climb is just the right grade for me, not too steep, but long and I got into a very comfortable rythm which the others did not seem interested in matching so I decided just to keep it going all the way to the top finishing up a few 100m in front by the end. I had already decided that I was doing the 25km option and split off with a smaller group, leaving the others to drop down into Balmoral. I had not run the "short" option on this course before and there were a few nice "surprise" climbs on the short cut. I eased up a little coming back through Northbridge and Willoughby to Roseville but finished up with an avg pace of 5:12 for the 25km.
The next few weeks are going to provide some challenges in regards to training as I have a few work related travel committments looming. So this week I need to have a pretty full on week as I'll no doubt be spending time on treadmills, which if nothing else will sharpen the leg speed.
The jury is still out on goal time/pace for Sydney, given the above conditions it may mean I come into the race on a somewhat enforced taper.
GNW campaign summary 18 from 25 days of running for 280km in total and 68 days to go....
2 comments:
Good runs Dave. That tempo is getting faster which is good. First time for me on the short STAR course. Parriwi Rd is a good road for hills, kept going until we split at Awaba St.
Sounds like a great STaR run - some excellent bush tracks in that part of Sydney.
I'm not the foreman of the jury, but I'll submit a verdict of 3:21.
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