Training Log Archive: Craig

Warm up hit with Liam before his final tournament match.
He was hitting it ok in the warm up but the fatigue from yesterday really showed in his match. Still managed to scrape home 4-2 4-3.
Stayed to watch the end of the final between Brendan and Rhys which went down to a sudden death point in the 3rd set tie break. Brendan was looking pretty knackered too, even before starting the final point which lasted about 10 minutes.

Heel was a bit sore in the morning so I thought it would be better to do an afternoon bike ride than an early morning run but when it came to the afternoon I couldn't find the motivation to ride my bike so went for a run instead. Aim was to run as far as Rachel did in the morning but my heel started to get a bit sore at about 45 minutes so I didn't try to extend it for the extra couple of minutes I needed. Very busy in the park, as usual on a sunny weekend afternoon. Saw a quenda near Park Ave.

Warm up hit with Liam before his tournament.
He played a total of 5 matches and said he was feeling tired by half way through the second so probably could have done without the warm up.

NavDash Murdoch. Struggled to keep up with the map reading through the first few controls, then struggled to get past Rachel for a couple, then struggled to keep running after going up the stairs.

Long - Splits

Easy run in KP with headlamp, mostly on the sand which is very soft now. Very stiff and sore from pump yesterday but didn't affect me too much while running.

Pump class with Cc. Nobody had told Cc or anybody else that the pump class was not on the calendar anymore so all the usuals were there and class was on as usual. Just legs today, lots of variations of squats and lunges. Legs pretty shaky by the end. Jogging home I was trying to angle across from the right hand side of the road to the left but I couldn't get over the hump in the middle of the road and kept drifting back into the right hand gutter.

Ran to the shops to get some bread and a few other things. With orthotics.

Little jog around RP with a stop at the gym.

Thought I should do a gentle gym session to prepare myself for getting back into pump class on Thursday but when I checked the gym calendar the pump class seems to have disappeared (again). Still did the session but kept it very short and light.

Easy run in KP with Rachel. Lower calves very sore but heel pretty good, almost pain free.

C • KP 1

Warm up hit with Liam before his private lesson with Josh. Liam broke a string so had to switch to the 27" racquet for his lesson. Also found out Liam's Monday group lesson starts this week so he kept playing until 7:15pm.

Event: World Masters Orienteering Championships 2017
 

Taupo Parkrun.
Went out too fast and came home faster.
Perfect conditions, cold and still, and a pretty flat course so seemed like a good opportunity to see how fast I can actually run at the moment. I was guessing about 21 minutes but after a faster start I had slipped to a 4:13 second km, my breathing was out of control and my heel was starting to hurt so I thought it would be a stretch.
Hit the turn in around 10:25 and thought I would have to really push the return journey to be within striking distance of 21 when I got near the finish. I must have recovered a bit from my too​ fast start with inadequate warm up and actually picked up the pace quite a bit on the way back which I did not expect. Really felt I had given it all I had by the end so good to know where I stand at the moment. Heel not hurting at all on the way back but started to hurt a bit, along with calf, pretty soon after finishing.

Hit with Liam before heading to Turangi to go rafting.

Another hit with Liam (some with Rachel) after getting back from rafting.

C • Log 3

Hit with Liam from our arrival at our tennis court house in Taupo until it got dark.

Middle Earth longish in The Redwoods - Whakarewarewa Forest, Rotorua.
Fantastic forest to run through but very hard to find a lot of controls on small features in the green so lots of time lost all over the place. I lost significant time on 11, 15, 20 and 23 with each being a bit worse than the one before. Just had a little trouble locating the small pit at the edge of the light green at 11. Going into 14 I went a little wrong and ended up approaching from the direction of 15 and then started following the line back to 13 instead of 15. Only realised when I thought it odd that I was heading back to the same road crossing I had just been through when I thought I remembered there being two crossings. Then made it worse by running to another control I could see from the track about 100m before mine. On 20 I had trouble understanding the contour that was partly obscured and I couldn't really work out a safe way of approaching the small depression in medium green. I overshot a bit and bumbled around for a while not knowing what to do when I saw Jon McComb run past looking confident so I tried running back where he had come from and found it. Caught up to Jon at 22 and considered the track route that he took from there but I realised this was the last significant leg and I thought I would rather have a last bit of running through the beautiful forest than a track run so I tried to straight line it. Knew where I was at the last track crossing but I missed it a bit high and had to come back off the track behind as I think many others did too. Jon got this cleanly, seeing others running out of it, and almost got back the 4 minutes that he had started before me (he dropped behind at 18). I pushed pretty hard to the finish because I knew Liam would want to compare finish splits. It turned out Liam had a different finish (and lost 3 minutes on it) anyway but it did help me go from 4 seconds behind to 3 seconds ahead of a Finn for 4th place.
Amy had a great run to be 2nd, less than a minute off 1st.

Middle/Long - Course 5 - Splits

Oceania Middle.
Very steep and muddy area. Got a bit stuck in the first marshy creek I tried to cross and slipped over a few times on the first couple of hills and dropped into a very conservative mindset, just aiming to get around without hurting myself rather than really racing. Didn't feel I was reading the map very well, no significant mistakes but kept having to stop and work things out because things were often coming up much faster than I expected (1:7500) and most of the rock was much smaller than I was expecting. Don't really remember how I was feeling out on the course but I was enjoying running up and down the hill looking for Amy after I finished so I guess I didn't push as hard as I could have. Amy had already finished and was pretty pleased with herself for getting 6th place and 1st Australian.

Oceania Relays.
Signed up at the last minute before starting the long race to run last leg in a composite team with a Russian and Chinese. Turned out the Russian only did finished half of the M45AS course and the Chinese took 4 hours on M45A so I expected to be going in the 1pm mass start which I was not looking forward to but the Russian didn't turn up so I was very happy to swap to first leg instead.
Still wasn't particularly motivated to push hard but had a steady enough run and did about the same time as all the Australian team runners.

Oceania Long Champs at Rototoa (Woodhill).
Started poorly. Went for the conservative route around the tracks on 1 but misjudged the scale badly and stopped way short for a while. Eventually convinced myself I just had to keep going and found it ok but slowly. Probably lost a bit over a minute. Feeling pretty nervous after that so was very stop start through the next few but no real problems. Started to gain in confidence after a while and the rest of the course was pretty clean although I was starting to struggle a bit physically towards the end.
When I first looked at the results and saw my time would put me third I assumed there must be more to come in, then I remembered I was last starter and thought they must be having a problem with the results system, but in fact it was correct. I was a long way behind Darren and Carsten but also a long way ahead of Scott in 4th. The part I was most pleased about is that Aston Key was the only M18 to beat me.

C • You've still got it! 2

Long - Course Course 5 - Splits

Event: Oceania Championships 2017
 

Had a little hit with Liam and Rachel at Western Park until my heel started to hurt a bit and I left them to it and helped Amy climb a tree instead. Nice playground with flying fox and some big slides.

Oceania Sprint Champs at Unitec Auckland.
Pretty clean run. Lost a bit of time when I slipped, put my hand down, stepped on my map and then slipped again standing on my map so spent the next couple of legs concentrating more on trying to wipe the mud off the map than racing. Lost a few more seconds at 13 because I thought it was going to be on the other side of the building but it wasn't far to go around. Pretty happy with how I felt physically, never really felt fast but didn't feel as though I was struggling either. Didn't really notice the heel until after I finished. Ended up 4th, close to 2nd but a long way off Carsten.

Sprint - Course - 4 - Splits

Booked an hour on the indoor courts at Albany to give Liam a fix of tennis as we won't get many opportunities on this trip and he wasn't very happy about missing all the April tournaments at home. Started a bit early and kept going a bit late to try to get better value for our money.

After work run in KP with Rachel. Heel sore but getting better by the end.

NavDash JFNP Tavern.
Felt very slow and not particularly efficient but didn't really make any mistakes and there was a bit more real orienteering than your average NavDash so apparently that was good enough to win by a couple of minutes.
Heel was mostly pretty good but getting a little sore down low right at the back towards the end.

Long - Splits

Pump class with CC. Jogged most of the way there and heel was feeling ok. Thought about attempting a longer jog on the way home but my legs were not interested by that stage so I just walked back.

Jogged around the outside of RP on the way to the gym. Sore on the outside of the left heel from the start, then started to hurt a bit on the inside as well after a few minutes.
Felt much better on the short jog home but still a little sore.

Did a much shorter easier version of what we usually do on Thursdays.

Hit with Liam for a little while after his private lesson. When Ian started warming up his serve on the next court ready to play Jeremy I got Liam to go and return his serves instead. He was almost returning them well but just struggling with the timing a bit. Not used to the extra spin and bounce I think.

Spent all morning at the junior club champs tennis. Started with Liam and Amy playing orange ball doubles together at 8:30, which they won 4-0 4-1. Liam then had semi final of green ball singles at 9:30 and final at 10:30, winning both 4-0 4-0. Finished with Liam and Amy playing the orange ball doubles final at 11:30, winning 4-1 4-1.
I don't think the other orange ball kids thought it was very fair having to play Liam, and he certainly didn't go easy on them, but Amy was pretty happy with it. To be fair to Liam, he did ask the coaches if it would be ok for him to play with Amy and was encouraged to do it. I'm not sure the green ball kids were any happier about having to play Liam anyway.

Wasn't keen enough to get out of bed in time to do this before tennis started so had to go in the afternoon when I was feeling even less keen. Heavy legs, sore heel, not much fun. Soreness was kind of vague and mild and did ease a bit in the second half at least.

Thought I should do a bike ride since we didn't have much planned today so it should be easy to fit in a longer ride. Planned to do it as soon as Rachel got back from park run but couldn't actually find the motivation to set out until the middle of the afternoon.
I replaced the seat, bar tape and gear cables on my bike last week and it was a lot nicer knowing I could change gears when I wanted to but I'd still had enough by the time I got to Pt Walter. Chased someone along the freeway path from Canning Bridge to the Narrows just to help get it over faster.

Had to make a note of this in case it is the last time I ever see a 6 at the start of my weight. Probably needed to drink a bit more.