Training Log: Craney

Given the long race still being in my legs my plan was to do some solid intervals around Ainslie without over exerting myself. Unfortunately I bumped into Marty on my way there and found myself asking him if he wanted to join me. Cue 6x hard 3 minute efforts trying to hang onto the back of him! Not the ideal day to do my first interval session with Marty, but it was a good tough session and I was pretty pleased with how it went all things considered.

1min recoveries + around 12mins each way to/from the start/finish.

Central basin loop - feeling slightly sore.

Uh oh, won the WOC long trial :s

This was a good day for me though. Feeling really sleepy at the start after yet another bad night's sleep, and a bit stiff in the legs after yesterday. But told myself just to enjoy it, get the most out of myself given these conditions, and not to leave myself looking back on a wasted opportunity. Started well and picked a good straight route to #5. Felt quite bad on the climbs early on, but took a gel as I left #7 and found myself feeling really good on the first very steep climb up to #8. Then picked a load of path routes for the middle third of the course, which got me into a good running rhythm and possibly saved some energy for later in the course. I also passed half the field in this section, but managed to form a bit of a train with Matt Schepisi and Rob Bennet who stayed with me the rest of the way. The final third of the course was generally uphill and a bit terrainy and I could tell I was losing some aggression out there - probably also a symptom of my lack of proper long training this year. But having said that I was still moving at a solid and sustainable pace, and finished feeling like I had a bit more left in the tank.

All up a good run with only smallish mistakes at #3 (went to wrong boulder), #18 (overshot) and #24, and probably one wrong route choice to #16 (although only Simon got that right, and his route looked quite tiring).

Terrain was really enjoyable and suited me well: runnable but with a few sticks and brashings, and lots of relatively small ups and downs.

Pretty flat out race, a couple of small misses but was a good run - came 4th (including Pat who won M20).

Lunch jog around some roads - good to get a break out from a busy day at work.

10x1min, then 4x30secs to get the legs moving a bit before the weekend.

Too busy again - oh well, enforced taper week’s no bad thing.