Training Log Archive: Mark3

C • Rest day? 3

Jumps right in at #1 for hardest things I've ever done. Sorry, OMM!

The Romanians know what they're talking about when they say 'technical descent'. More when I'm not falling asleep.

About 6th.

EDIT:
Should probably get around to writing something here for future reference before I forget it. But three weeks after is not an ideal time!

4th/116
http://www.transylvania100k.com/#!2016/myjwh

Set off at what I thought was a pretty quick pace based on knowledge of what was to come, (about 4:20s) but the leading group of about 5-6, with Jack in it, were running about 4s and soon disappeared into the distance.
Kept running, mostly on my own but trading places with a couple of people, until we left the main path and joined a forest path, and then a bit further until it got too steep.

At that point I was thinking 'this is tough, but it's not as steep as the Blorenge'. Then - it became steeper than the Blorenge. And that went on for a really long time! So it was mostly walking uphill through trees... until we emerged at 8k so...well, up a mountain! With snow in the reentrants and glorious views. There was some contouring which was possible to run with care needed not to fall off the snowy bits. Then another climb up to a strange snowy shelter, and then it began to misty...and then there was a bit of a snowy downhill...and I began to regain some ground and passed some people, and then I started to pass people on the 50k and 100k who'd started 2 hours before, and it became hard to know who was on which race.

There was a technical, steep descent through some trees into the checkpoint; at this point it wasn't clear where to go, people kept pointing me toward to the food, but I just wanted the route! I should have remembered the route better - I thought that the courses separated here, but they didn't; they all went the same way. So lost about a minute in the confusion.

There was a bit more rocky uphill, where I managed to impress lots of people on the 50/100 by running bits of (not sure why they were impressed, they were going so much further!) - and then the course turned into this snowy wall which looked impossible from afar - it was the sort of this experts ski down - but when we got closer there was a rope to pull yourself up. There was maybe 500m of this? It was tough. Looking at Strava flyby, Jack was about 6 mins ahead of me when we got to the top of this. Obviously I had no idea; it could have been half an hour.

This point was about halfway in distance; I thought that the last 15k would be easy because it was all downhill. I had not considered that 2300m of up also means 2300m of down, and that is a lot of down.

It started of through varying depths of steep snow, which was hard to run fast in because the depth would suddenly change. Then there was some heathery grassy stuff which was nice to run on as long as you avoided the rocks. Then it became steeper and steeper until it genuinely became not a race and just a mission to get down safely. It was seriously precipitous and very dangerous. I actually feared for my life on several occasions and after a fall where a bashed my knee on a rock quite badly, I started taking this very very slowly. I'd caught a bit on Jack on the first bit of down, down to 4 mins, but after this steep bit the gap was back to 6 mins again.

Then - finally - it levelled out a bit as we got into the forest and became a bit more of an orienteer's dream - technical but nowhere near as steep, meaning I could go pretty quick. Didn't stop at the next checkpoint as wanted to keep up momentum.

Then after 23k or so - overtook Jack - was not expecting this! He was really struggling to run downhill after a knee injury. Felt really sorry for him because he's much better than me. But it made me think I wasn't doing as badly as I thought I was. So that inspired me to push a bit harder.

Psychologically this was really tough because I'd mentally budgeted for between 3 and 4 hours, so maybe 3.5. But it was already nearly 4 when I overtook Jack, so I really needed that.

I can't remember when I had my first two gels, but I needed the third one at 4 hours 15. Managed to pull out a few 4min ks on the section very near the end (downhill, road) but was dead for the unexpected undulations afterward.

Amazed to come 4th. Amazing views, very hard work but very rewarding. Would I do it again? I don't know. I'd definitely do something similar...

Need I say more?!

Bit disapointed; same time as best 2015 time and 7 seconds slower than 2014 time. Very good running conditions.

Mile times about 5:44 and 6:00.

2x(3x450m),5x300m,10x150m

450s: 89,90,90,91,89,89
300s: 56,58,58,57,56
150s: 26,27,26,27,26,27,26,28,26,26

Can see the dip in performance from having no track sessions for 2 weeks. Bit windy but not overly.