Training Log Archive: blairtrewinIn the 1 days ending Feb 9, 2014:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| « | » |
| » now | ||||
| |||||||
| Su |
Sunday Feb 9, 2014 #
9 AM
Run 3:07:00 [3] 36.0 km (5:12 / km)
It would be fair to say that I went to a fair bit of trouble to make this run work - not least travelling 300 kilometres to somewhere where the conditions this morning were likely to be more favourable than they were in Melbourne (you'd have had to have looked fairly hard to find conditions this morning less favourable than those in Melbourne).
In the end I did essentially what I wanted to do. I was looking for something in the 3+ hour range at least once before Six Foot, and having missed the chance last week, this weekend was the last realistic window of opportunity. The only drawback of Port Fairy (from the viewpoint of Six Foot preparation) is that it's flat, though the wind created a few pseudo-hills (of which more later).
The change went through Port Fairy just after 8, and 20 minutes later I was off and running, on the rail trail to Warrnambool with Koroit as the turnaround point (had there been someone to pick me up at the other end, going all the way to Warrnambool, about the same distance, would have been a good option). Quickly settled down on a track through farmland - an environment I've often run well in - and was going smoothly on the outward journey; the first 20km was the best I've felt running, over any distance, since before Two Bays.
Took a gel (second of three) at Koroit, and then started the trip back. I'd thought the W/SW wind in the wake of the change might have dropped out by the time I started heading back, but it didn't, and the stretch from 20-26k was fairly hard work (though only about 8 seconds/km slower than with the tail wind), straight into a 20-30 knot wind across open country. The trail turns around a bit from there, but the 30th kilometre, on an elevated embankment, featured a buffering crosswind. That seemed to take a bit out of me and from there I was hanging on, though it was never as bad as the later stages of Two Bays.
I'll probably need to find another 75-90 minutes on top of this in four weeks' time, which won't be easy, but enough things went right today to give me a bit of confidence. (In particular, the gels seem to have worked; I didn't feel as if I was getting enough water flow out of my pack, but the bladder was nearly empty by the end so I must have been taking some in). Quite drained by the end without being totally flattened; thought the drive home might be tough but was fine once I'd spent 45 minutes snoozing under the trees in a Warrnambool park. Longest run I've done since 2008, I think.
In the end I did essentially what I wanted to do. I was looking for something in the 3+ hour range at least once before Six Foot, and having missed the chance last week, this weekend was the last realistic window of opportunity. The only drawback of Port Fairy (from the viewpoint of Six Foot preparation) is that it's flat, though the wind created a few pseudo-hills (of which more later).
The change went through Port Fairy just after 8, and 20 minutes later I was off and running, on the rail trail to Warrnambool with Koroit as the turnaround point (had there been someone to pick me up at the other end, going all the way to Warrnambool, about the same distance, would have been a good option). Quickly settled down on a track through farmland - an environment I've often run well in - and was going smoothly on the outward journey; the first 20km was the best I've felt running, over any distance, since before Two Bays.
Took a gel (second of three) at Koroit, and then started the trip back. I'd thought the W/SW wind in the wake of the change might have dropped out by the time I started heading back, but it didn't, and the stretch from 20-26k was fairly hard work (though only about 8 seconds/km slower than with the tail wind), straight into a 20-30 knot wind across open country. The trail turns around a bit from there, but the 30th kilometre, on an elevated embankment, featured a buffering crosswind. That seemed to take a bit out of me and from there I was hanging on, though it was never as bad as the later stages of Two Bays.
I'll probably need to find another 75-90 minutes on top of this in four weeks' time, which won't be easy, but enough things went right today to give me a bit of confidence. (In particular, the gels seem to have worked; I didn't feel as if I was getting enough water flow out of my pack, but the bladder was nearly empty by the end so I must have been taking some in). Quite drained by the end without being totally flattened; thought the drive home might be tough but was fine once I'd spent 45 minutes snoozing under the trees in a Warrnambool park. Longest run I've done since 2008, I think.