Training Log Archive: Craney

Felt a bit bad running all these races relatively fresh, so headed down to Mt Clear in Namadgi with Gracie and (kind of) ran the M21E course from the Oz Champs in 1984. On a 1984 map. Bloody brilliant it was too. Fantastic sunny day, beautiful scenery, nobody about and some really cool terrain. Kind of minced a bit over the various sticks on the ground, and head not really up for concentrating on technical granite, so ended up vaguely following the shape of the course but sticking to the nicer running areas. No snakes, but 3 wild dogs, one of whom ran at me until it was only 10m away before veering off, which really gave me the shits. Pretty rooted by the end. Had a lovely picnic with Grace, but had to stop at the visitor centre for Gatorade and water on the way back as I was so dehydrated. Saw turtles in the pond. Unfortunately picked up a flat tyre at this point, so spent the next hour in direct sunshine trying, and failing, to change it til a nice man leant us a hand. Made it home with about a 5min turnaround before...

C • Nice! 4

...another sprint race! Came 3rd at Remembrance Park this time. A really fun course, mainly in the bush, set by Olle. Started with Simon and did most of the bush bit pretty well but for a minor wobble at #12. Then hit the faster, easier stuff and started to get really tired. Dropped a fair bit of time on a leg with some building works (even relatively to the others who had similar problems). Annoyingly, Simon appeared at the last control just as I was approaching, so pipped me into the finish, but I was pretty happy to end up only a few secs back on another Dow win. Nice to feel like I've had a decent day's training for the first time in a while.

Day 4 Remembrance Elite A - Splits

Sprint at CSIRO. Came 1st, but the youngsters had already doubled up on the training today going into this race, so I had no excuse having spent the day looking at houses, drinking coffee and eating potato pies. Ran quite aggressive, dropped 20s at #7, but cleanly otherwise, and felt pretty good.

Day 3 CSIRO Elite - Splits

Mass start sprint around Radford School. Came 5th having gradually worked my way up through the field from 15th-ish at a rather hectic 1st control. Dropped a place at the last control not spotting a tiny gap in a wall. Might have got in a boo if it had been a big race, but it was actually a lot of fun.

At the AIS. Came 2nd, 4s behind Lachy. Had a pretty good run, avoiding getting caught in any traps and only minor hesitations. Maybe chose the 2nd best option when faced with a L/R choice a few times. Felt reasonably good running-wise and enjoyed myself.

Elite - Splits

7 races in 8 days will be a bit of a rude awakening from a couple of months of slumber. The first was a fun control picky type course in the bush. Very rusty - direction all over the shop on a few controls and struggling to move in the terrain. Still, got to start somewhere if I want to be competitive by Easter (which I do).

From Callum Brae and home via Mugga and Davo - pretty much got this route down now into a goodun. 4 wedge-tailed eagles circling above me in Mugga, which was nice.

Morning run up Red Hill this time (rather than Davo, which was the norm for last week). I'll be getting pretty good at 40-60min steady runs if I keep going like this.