Training Log Archive: IanW

Downley, Naphill and Bradenham for the Chiltern Challenge - an M21L after a 100min run the previous day not particularly easy, but was just shy of my 75-80 min target time.

The navigation today however wasn't at all great, perhaps because the legs were already feeling heavy. #3 was the worst - missed the start of the taped route through a field when it should have been obvious where I'd reached (1 min), then was stopped by a guy on a mountain bike telling me someone had dislocated a shoulder and an ambulance had been called. Seeing the road crossing wasn't far behind me but I was about as far from assembly as I could have been, he went off to the guy on the road crossing and I continued on, contriving to completely miss #3 (don't think I can really blame the mountain biker for that though) by misinterpreting a potential attack point (90 secs).

Was scrappy a lot of the way round, route choices not up to scratch, not picking up on things on the map, compass work poor, no real plan on many of the legs. No big mistakes though, just poor routes. #8 summed things up quite well, although the nice strip of runnable woodland near a fence didn't actually exist - it seemed the dark green was more runnable :-O Second worst mistake was on #14 mainly through my own stupidity, not reading the map enough again.

Looking at the splits:

#2 - 30 secs (hesitation/poor attack)
#3 - 3 mins
#5 - 20-30 secs through poor route (too high in green)
#8 - route choice cost 90 secs+!
#14 - 45 secs
#20 - 30 secs on route choice (high thro' woods rather than field)

Physically was OK-ish, except on the hills - the last one up to #20 was a real killer and as last week had very little left for the run-in. Was definitely surprised to be within 12 mins of Mr Catmur's time though! (and 14 mins off Tuomas who won it - looks like I was going better than I thought)

Long run with Jon M - from home to Iffley Lock then Kennington - Bagley Woods (damn St John's, it looks absolutely gorgeous white forest in the majority of the area and they won't let us in) - Bayworth - Old Golf Course - Boars Hill - Youlbury - Chilswell Valley - South Hinksey - Abingdon Rd - Donny Bridge - home.

Feeling fairly good (well better than earlier in the afternoon when was feeling a bit rough) until about 80 minutes in when R Hamstring/glute started feeling a bit tight. Mixture of road and off-road, shin wasn't complaining too much, maybe new shoes are doing their job! Although they don't look very new any more given the marshy nature of some of the paths we went along...

W/U - 1km easy 4'58"
Some drills, Lots of Stretching

W/D 800m very easy 4'31"
More stretching

Trying out new shoes on track, session to judge how unfit I currently am. 7 x 600m with 200m walk recovery, starting at 3' and taking 10" off for each rep.

Times (rest) [intensity]:

2:58.5 (1:50) [2], 2:48 (2:00) [2], 2:39.5 (1:55) [2/3]
2:27.5 (1:59) [3], 2:17.5 (1:59) [3/4], 2:11 (1:59) [4/5]
2:00.5 (2:25) [5]

First 4 felt comfortable, the 2'20" was clearly OK as went under the time, but the 2'10" was a bit of a struggle and the 2' absolutely knackering. Think this would have been the case even if I'd felt perfect, which wasn't the case today. Rough conclusion from this is that 600m reps in 2'15" should be doable and anything much more is pushing it. Plenty of room for improvement then.

New shoes felt quite nice and bouncy on the track, no real problems with shin whilst running :) And an absolutely gorgeous day for February to go running in - perfect clear blue skies and quite warm too!

Another day off, up late and then finally got some results (of sorts) from my experiment - some of the small bubbles disappeared as they should be doing :) So something good from the day!

Aborted attempt at a loop up to Shotover - was feeling rubbish, right leg felt particularly strange, was really quite wet underfoot as was sliding here, there and everywhere (needed something with more grip like Walshes), and perhaps linked to all of this shin wasn't at all happy... Walked/jogged back through Magdalen Woods and across the golf course.

Not particularly worthwhile, fun or morale-boosting.

C • Morale 1

The "becoming standard" game of It to warm up - quite literally, it was pretty nippy in the squash courts...

Circuits, with music and added Lunsen maps :) Can't do diamond press-ups...