A rest day on Thursday, with work Xmas dinner on Thursday night I decided to run in on Friday morning (knowing I'd drink a little at dinner). Friday was quite warm and I was a little hungover so a great way to sweat it off. Even cruising I posted my fastest time for the run to work!
Had another party on Saturday night where I behaved myself drinking wise but probably not ideal food consumption so I topped up when I got home.
Up nice an early to get up the The Entrance to register and get ready for the race. Saw and caught up with a few people beforehand and then we were off to the start line. I had decided I was going to aim for 4:10 splits which would give me around 88 minutes given the stated nature of the course being "flat".
Went out just a little too hot, missed the first km marker and so at 2km I posted 7:53. Eased up a little with a couple of 4:05's and then got into a good groove. Hit the 10km mark at 41:05 and 11km at 45:17 so was on target if I could hold it coming home. Hauled in a few more runners in front as we headed back and 15km was 1:02:28 so all I needed to do was maintain 4:15 pace and 88 was in the bag! However I was starting to fade and my splits started blowing out. It felt like I was running in treacle all of a sudden but the wierd thing is that only 1-2 runners went past me the rest of the race, seems everyone was slowing... A real grind to get to the line as I pushed hard into what seemed to be a head wind, never mind the humidity!
Finally hit the line with a time of 90:28 so for the last 6.1km my time was 28 minutes, enough said... Post race discussions saw everyone commenting on the struggle to get home so while disappointing I suppose thats life!
Rested on Monday, but did do my Pilates class and this morning headed out in wet, muggy conditions for a crack at my 10km tempo course, 2 laps of East Killara, since I had not done this for some time and was keen to review it as a benchmark. Despite it bucketing down in the last few km, I posted 44:06, just under a 2 minute improvement from my previous best back in September, not bad just 2 days after the smashing I gave the legs at the Half!
Thus ends November, December is going to be a pretty heavy month as I work on a solid base for Six Foot. Last year in December I only ran 123km, this year I am aiming for close to 3 times that amount.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Summer Series - Epping
Backed up from the Sunday STaR with a return to the hill rep course and a good smashing at that....
Summer Series orienteering tonight and based at Epping. First look at the map reveals a very long course to try and get major points. Anyway, off I go, a half hidden control at about 1km gives ms some extra distance. Get to one of my decision points and have to cut short, a good decision as the stuff through the trails along a creek on the way back was slower going, combined with some very sinister control locations.
Got back lateish for around 10km, but am starting to get a little underwhelmed with a few of the recent events. Seems for some reason that the setters think they now not only need to start setting longer courses, but also combine trickier control locations which only slows you down further. Will persevere for a little while in the hope that this is just a abnormality affected by some relatively new course setters. Easy to criticise I suppose, but the goal should be a course with good route choice options to tempt the faster runners aiming for the lot, with relatively "orange" control locations that are visible if you navigate correctly. Too many times recently I've been in the control circle searching for a "hidden" pot...
Anyway a decdnt run for the legs, recovery tomorrow, then a tempo run on Friday before the Half Marathon at The Entrance.
Summer Series orienteering tonight and based at Epping. First look at the map reveals a very long course to try and get major points. Anyway, off I go, a half hidden control at about 1km gives ms some extra distance. Get to one of my decision points and have to cut short, a good decision as the stuff through the trails along a creek on the way back was slower going, combined with some very sinister control locations.
Got back lateish for around 10km, but am starting to get a little underwhelmed with a few of the recent events. Seems for some reason that the setters think they now not only need to start setting longer courses, but also combine trickier control locations which only slows you down further. Will persevere for a little while in the hope that this is just a abnormality affected by some relatively new course setters. Easy to criticise I suppose, but the goal should be a course with good route choice options to tempt the faster runners aiming for the lot, with relatively "orange" control locations that are visible if you navigate correctly. Too many times recently I've been in the control circle searching for a "hidden" pot...
Anyway a decdnt run for the legs, recovery tomorrow, then a tempo run on Friday before the Half Marathon at The Entrance.
GNW 2010 - The final battle
For what it's worth, here's a quick summary of my 3rd GNW experience that I posted on CR and then some additional thoughts....
Nice steady and easy start along the road, but it was obviously noticeably hot and humid, even at 6am! Immediately fell into my hydration and nutrition plan and as we entered the dirt was hovering around just behind Blue Dog and in front of Horrie with Robin C also there. Took it very easy on the climbs up to the first peak and enjoyed the descent down to Freemans Gap, runnign for a little while with the girl from Singapore. The climb up to Heaton was tougher than I had previously experienced and so I eased up looking to regroup at the top. Enjoyed the gradual downhill to the water tank and entered the rainforest section. Immediately noticed how more humid it was in there, at one point I swear my breath was condensing on exhales. I was also very slipperly through here and there was a group of us (including Kelvin, Graham and Horrie) that sort of hung loosely together, a few wrong turns from the front guys keeping us grouped. The climb up to the hitching post was brutal and I was starting to struggle here and could not get going, starting to get nausea and a few dry retches. I was really looking forward to CP1 but struggled in and was concerned as to how the rest of the day would unfold.
Took quite a while in CP1 to recover, for a while I was not certain that I'd even go back out, but after a rest, some cool drinks and a change of shirt and shoes I felt re-energised. I actually felt quite good along the ridge to Barraba and caught a few people, including ERB and Hermie, but being very careful to taking it easy. ERB and I started the descent down to Congewai Rd, but I eased up a little as we went down starting to feel nausea again. Near the gate I caught up to Brick and we rolled down the rest of the descent. As soon as we hit the road it was like someone hit a switch and I was violently ill, quite a few times. I caught up to Brick and we opted just to walk it out to CP2. A few km along another runner (a girl but cant remember her name) caught us and then shortly after Hermie also caught us. I was starting to flag again and so I opted to ease up further and they kept going. After a little hill I was really struggling to even walk and feeling faint. In the distance I saw a car and umbrella and it was Steve, who was doing some photo's. I got there and sat under the umbrella for a while hoping to clear the head, but instead had another massive vomit attack down to repeated dry retches, ie nothing left....
That was enough for me, knowing what was in store immediately after CP2 and that I was already dehydrated and unable to digest/keep down any fluids it would have been sheer folly to go on and looking at the results it looks like a number of runners had to pull out through that next leg, not making CP3. After 3 unsuccessful attempts at GNW, I've decided to pull up stumps. Clearly my strength is not in dealing with high heat and humidity and with GNW scheduled when it is means it will always be a roll of the dice on weather conditions for me to perform to my expectations. To exorcise the demons properly I may decide to have a solo effort over the course, but in the middle of the year.
So I have contemplated this a little further and still think it best to set aside trying to do GNW while ever it is in November. Amazingly the weather immediately after was much more temperate. So time to get refocussed, not like last year where I dilly dallyed around until mid January for Six Foot prep. This year is my buckle year and I'm revved up for a big run. Actually just under 16 weeks to go so perfect time for a additional base build up. I've had a little break last week and am ready to go, but will have acrack at my new Half Marathon PB this Sunday on what has been described to me as a pancake flat course at The Entrance. After that I'm aiming for a big December, not much on in terms of races so just solid prep.
Did a run with the Striders 6ft traiing grou[ last Saturday on the Equaliser course and felt good, really hammering the climbs and then backed up for the 30km STaR on Sunday at Barrenjoey and again ran well, probably so well that I really should be thinking about moving to the 6:20 group as I well and truly dropped people like Sharpie and Alex on the last big climb near Avalon, who I struggled to keep up with 2 months ago!
The blog is going to get a little mini make-over to keep me even more focussed on the build up for 6 ft....
Nice steady and easy start along the road, but it was obviously noticeably hot and humid, even at 6am! Immediately fell into my hydration and nutrition plan and as we entered the dirt was hovering around just behind Blue Dog and in front of Horrie with Robin C also there. Took it very easy on the climbs up to the first peak and enjoyed the descent down to Freemans Gap, runnign for a little while with the girl from Singapore. The climb up to Heaton was tougher than I had previously experienced and so I eased up looking to regroup at the top. Enjoyed the gradual downhill to the water tank and entered the rainforest section. Immediately noticed how more humid it was in there, at one point I swear my breath was condensing on exhales. I was also very slipperly through here and there was a group of us (including Kelvin, Graham and Horrie) that sort of hung loosely together, a few wrong turns from the front guys keeping us grouped. The climb up to the hitching post was brutal and I was starting to struggle here and could not get going, starting to get nausea and a few dry retches. I was really looking forward to CP1 but struggled in and was concerned as to how the rest of the day would unfold.
Took quite a while in CP1 to recover, for a while I was not certain that I'd even go back out, but after a rest, some cool drinks and a change of shirt and shoes I felt re-energised. I actually felt quite good along the ridge to Barraba and caught a few people, including ERB and Hermie, but being very careful to taking it easy. ERB and I started the descent down to Congewai Rd, but I eased up a little as we went down starting to feel nausea again. Near the gate I caught up to Brick and we rolled down the rest of the descent. As soon as we hit the road it was like someone hit a switch and I was violently ill, quite a few times. I caught up to Brick and we opted just to walk it out to CP2. A few km along another runner (a girl but cant remember her name) caught us and then shortly after Hermie also caught us. I was starting to flag again and so I opted to ease up further and they kept going. After a little hill I was really struggling to even walk and feeling faint. In the distance I saw a car and umbrella and it was Steve, who was doing some photo's. I got there and sat under the umbrella for a while hoping to clear the head, but instead had another massive vomit attack down to repeated dry retches, ie nothing left....
That was enough for me, knowing what was in store immediately after CP2 and that I was already dehydrated and unable to digest/keep down any fluids it would have been sheer folly to go on and looking at the results it looks like a number of runners had to pull out through that next leg, not making CP3. After 3 unsuccessful attempts at GNW, I've decided to pull up stumps. Clearly my strength is not in dealing with high heat and humidity and with GNW scheduled when it is means it will always be a roll of the dice on weather conditions for me to perform to my expectations. To exorcise the demons properly I may decide to have a solo effort over the course, but in the middle of the year.
So I have contemplated this a little further and still think it best to set aside trying to do GNW while ever it is in November. Amazingly the weather immediately after was much more temperate. So time to get refocussed, not like last year where I dilly dallyed around until mid January for Six Foot prep. This year is my buckle year and I'm revved up for a big run. Actually just under 16 weeks to go so perfect time for a additional base build up. I've had a little break last week and am ready to go, but will have acrack at my new Half Marathon PB this Sunday on what has been described to me as a pancake flat course at The Entrance. After that I'm aiming for a big December, not much on in terms of races so just solid prep.
Did a run with the Striders 6ft traiing grou[ last Saturday on the Equaliser course and felt good, really hammering the climbs and then backed up for the 30km STaR on Sunday at Barrenjoey and again ran well, probably so well that I really should be thinking about moving to the 6:20 group as I well and truly dropped people like Sharpie and Alex on the last big climb near Avalon, who I struggled to keep up with 2 months ago!
The blog is going to get a little mini make-over to keep me even more focussed on the build up for 6 ft....
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
And now, the end is near....
So it is 3 months since I started training again with the goal of GNW. A quick summary of recent activity and then a review of my overall progress.
After the Striders Half PB and a recovery run on the Monday, back to the gym for a treadmill session. Continually improving here with now 6.5 1km reps @ 4min/km pace. Then a good hit out tempo run for Summer Series. I decided to use te long run at Bobbin Head as a hit out for GNW and so loaded up the camelbak. Tough going up the track out of Bobbin Head but as soon as we hit level ground the legs took over and we ran hard all teh way back, just under 30km with an average pace of 5:09!
Back to the hill reps on what should be called Threshhold Tuesday and again an improvement, increasing the number of reps by one, but also decreasing average rep time. A long bash at summer series on Wednesday and then a rest as I tried to sort out an emerging PF problem. Decided to run the CR 5km on Saturday hard and test the PB. Splits were
3:40, 3:44, 3:52 and then 7:57 for the last 2 km, forgot the 4km marker to give me 19:14 which is a 1 second PB! Probably could have done better if I went out a tad slower...
Sunday saw the Running Wild event at Woodford and was a good hitout up some testing hills and technical single track. Ran well against some of my usual benchmark runners but not sure how I did overall. Finally today, back to the gym for my final treadmill hitout. I decided to up the ante and am surprised how I went, running 8 reps @ 3:55 pace with 1:30 jog recovery. This means things must be looking good for the last 10km of the year on Saturday at Lane Cove!
So to a review, I started my campaign on August 1, weighing 85.1 kg. Today I tipped the scales at 77.2kg, I've run 840 km in the 3 months with a total vertical of just over 10km and have had 47 sugar free days from 94. Not only am I in probably the best running form I have ever been in, I know there is a lot more in the tank to come (be scared any beer betters reading this!).
I'll start to ease up a little now but still with 2 Summer Series events plus the Striders 10km before GNW, I'll get some intensity in. Here's a shot from the Running Wild event on Sunday.
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