Training Log Archive: Magic

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Long day travelling home. Tour good fun and areas very interesting (and maps mostly poor). Calf a lot better but needs some work.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Relay training with the French at Gistrup. Excellent exercise planned by the French; one person relay and enjoyed by all ? good running from the guys and Bex as well. Nothing from me.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Warm up and checking controls.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Middle tour champs on Blokhus. Started well and running ok, but lack of training showed as it got a bit tougher. Navigated well but lost 4 minutes looking for a flag that I just could not see despite being on the right spur (it was there, I found it straight away when I came back). Tired towards the end when my leg calf started hurting. About a minute down on the fastest guys so would have whooped ass had I been a bit luckier!

C • leg calf? 3

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Hung a few controls for Sprint training on a very, very bad map (Molleparken). Pity, as it was a good area.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Warm up with the Juniors while Jase and heather hung controls.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Classic training on Vester Torup. Cracking area, but map a bit vague in places, lots of green and low visibility. Difficult. Shadowed Alice for first few and the collected men's courses. Ran hard (first time in ages) and had a few problems until I got into the rhythm. Very much enjoyed it, juniors not so much (too green).

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Classic training on Hammerbacker (?), shadowed Anwen. Surprisingly hilly but very easy, white very fast, map very poor. Rainy.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Hanging and collecting controls for relay training on Rold Skov. Very fast open forest but an amazingly bad map. Juniors enjoyed session (easy running and map reading!)

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Hanging controls on Bulbjerg for a middle type race with route choice. A lot more runnable than yesterday, especially the open. Nice little area.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Shadowed Kris around the course that I?d just hung. Started very fast in the open but a lot slower through the thicker forest.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Warm up with the juniors around the paths on Blokhus.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Shadowed Spongy on a line O in a very thick bit of Danish dunes.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Shadowed Alice and then Hazel around a middle course in Blokhus. White forest was fast and runnable but walk green was very slow and thick.

Pre JWOC Junior Coaching, Denmark. Hanging controls for a control pick type exercise on southern Blokhus. Tough dunes (long grass) and tougher forest (trees very close together and many lean due to wind so very difficult to move quickly between them).

Work and travel, don't think that I'll be running today.

Work to do and want to run next week, so taking it easy today.

Loop round Eccy Woods. Legs tired and heavy, maybe from the weekend or maybe from the past two months. Probably both. Trails very wet and muddy, where has the summer gone?

Wanted a flat run that offered some protection from the threatening rain; Sheffield doesn't offer too many possibilities of this combination but found a great loop around Damflask and Agden Reservoirs. Shame that it's such a trek to get to them as it made a great recovery run. Tired but not hurting anywhere (still coughing occasionally), very enjoyable and some post Rat-Race analysis with a hungry zizi. Invo8's still not fitting snugly (and they are more than crap on wet stone).

http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/gb/bradfield/8471248...

Planning on an easy jog today but just ended up with too much work to do and needing sleep. Still coughing but I think it's about time I stopped marking it down as 'sick' as I'm well tired of being pink!

Edinburgh Rat Race, Day 2: nine to five. Despite the Channel 4 interview when we were (again) busy faffing with route marking we didn't approach this with the expectations of a good result. None of us have done more that a few rides over the past months, two of us had never done an adventure race, kayaked or abseiled... Great team then! Surprisingly none of this seemed to make much of a difference. Clean start meant we were near enough the front not to get held up cycling (carrying) the bikes down the steps in the old town and an on the ball Jonny made sure that we were through the aerial photo orienteering and anagram in no time by working out 'ratify' as the answer after getting the i and y! Then had our only mishap of the day with a puncture in the city centre, took 5 minutes to change. Got stuck into a good rhythm after than and were pretty much on our own until the kayak, where despite massive amounts of cramp and swan attacks we cruised along the canal and passed one of the two mixed teams ahead of us in the process. A long cycle, a short O course around Heriot-Watt and a long bike down and up a very steep track (which zizi took a dislike to) to the Pentlands where poor Jonny had to swim a very uninviting length of a reservoir while zizi and I looked on, had some food and recovered! A good descent (with Jonny and me trying to keep up with zizi) was followed by my favourite memory of the weekend; zizi falling off her bike in a hay meadow and becoming very "cross" with herself because she couldn't move with cramp (Jonny and I watched from a safe distance!). Poor Jonny, only just having warmed up from the swim was then subjected to cramping himself while crawling through a wet storm drain under the bypass - this bit is going to make great TV! Easy spin back into the centre from there with a short but fun abseil in the library (?) of Napier Univ. Max points (1000) but about 13 minutes behind team Helly/Hansen so we knew it was going to be close (we beat them by 13 points the previous day). Too close, we lost by .7 of a point (or maybe 15 seconds) over 8.5 hours. Still it was awesome fun and we did far better than we ever expected.
Results: (Average Joe in a Buff): http://www.ratraceadventure.com/page378.asp

C • nice one! been thinking abo... 5

Edinburgh Rat Race, Day 1: Mean Streets. Last minute entry with Jonny G and zizi. Lots of faff sorting out the check points and working out times that some of the challenges were open/closed. Picked a route heading anti clockwise round the northern controls, then crossing over and clockwise around the southern ones. Worked well until we got to the Dragons Den one where the Dragon's lived up to their name and took an age interrogating people, waited 10-15 minutes resulting in being back 2 minutes late and having to miss a control. Otherwise Jonny got wet (but not as wet as Brooner!), I got slightly tipsy and zizi ran away from both of us. Finished second overall with 388 points and first mixed team. Surprised but we were expecting to do better on the run anyway.

C • congratulations 2

Lots of work, driving and rain so no run.

Still not well but well enough to do the Rat Race on the weekend - think I'll be fine at low intensity.

Whoop, a nearly normal feeling run, although the cough is still there. Actually managed to run in something approaching a normal manner and even managed a few hills. Decided against the Sprint O in Graves Park in favour of a steady run and I think it was the right thing to do. Legs well tired for a short easy run though!

No time today, busy with work, but cough still present - think I need to do some more light running to try and move it.

Well tired and legs sore from yesterday, silly after so little running but it shows how little I've been doing.

Event: Cliffhanger Ultrasprint
 

Much fun had at the Untrasprint, fun courses and a good mostly sunny day. Heaps of 'common' (public) people around adding to the challenge in the latter rounds. Started with 3 qualification races with the 16 combined quickest times going to the semi final. Ran cleanly in these but not fast and finished in second but some way behind the flying Danger.
This meant running with the quickest four (Danger, RobB and Dids) to try and get one of the four places in the A final. Again finished second behind Danger and ahead of an improving Nails with camel joining us after RobB spent some unnecessary time in the last maze section. Felt tired after this as pushed harder than my body was capable of, lots of coughing ensued.
Body didn't want to do the final before hand but I ignored that once started and the four of us had a good battle, changing position through most of the race and we were all within a few seconds coming into the maze for the last time. Nails got it right (very confusing with lots of loops) and Danger, Camel and I didn't! Lost a few seconds on just about every leg and just about held Camel off but was way behind Nails and Danger.
Body now hurting but orienteering like this is just so much fun. Thanks to everyone for putting so much effort in to making this such an enjoyable event yet again.

What an effort, legs felt like they were recovering from a marathon not a short and slow run around Graves Park. Still at least they were working and I think it did them good to get a little more action, health still improving but not too sure that I'll be able to manage much more than a slow run tomorrow, but muchly looking forward to it anyways.

Not going to rush back into hard training now that I can move again so having the day off, still ill enough to classify it as a sick rather than a rest day though.

Jog up to Graves Park and back down.

C • good to see you 3

Whoop, whoop, whoop! I managed a jog without ejecting my internals or feeling like death cooled down! Jogged up to Graves Park (15 mins) to do a sprint planned by candyman (16mins), then jogged back around half of it to collect the controls (10 mins) and back home (12 mins) after the healthy boys had had a bit of fun in the chase. Certainly not fixed but definitely an improvement which is more than I hoped for after so long not being able to do anything. Legs didn't quite know what to make of doing exercise but a great evening to be out and a fun little course.

Yes! My cough seems to be turning into a 'normal' cough and feels like it should. It now has to go soon.

Feel iller but in a weller way. Fingers crossed.

Was doing okay this morning but have started coughing more all afternoon and am feeling worse now. Am telling myself that it's the cold making a last stand before I get rid of it.

Not exercising meant that I could enjoy the highlights of The Tour today; what a great finish.

C • Get well soon 2

Feel a bit clearer in my lungs today but the cough still isn't going anywhere.

Some exercise at last, still not so sure that I should be doing it though as I was creating a lot of unpleasant sounds. Made it without dying though and feel a bit clearer for the effort. Beautiful morning for a ride and met ba-ba and Faz in Broomhill for a loop over Stanedge, Burbage, Blacka and Eccy Woods. Faz didn't want to play on Blacka so left us at Lady Cannings, his loss though as it was the best bit of the cycle. Not been on the bike much this year and it felt like it, very rusty all round so happy to take it easy, although ba-ba was riding some of the hills pretty strongly. Contact points now sore.
http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/gb/sheffield/1491246...

C • Any more MMs coming up? 4

Still inhaling a lot of moisture when coughing (result is that I fell like I?m drowning and can't breath or talk for 15 seconds) so didn?t run. Walked home from work with a bit of purpose but that was it.

Tomorrow I SHALL run, well at least try.