Training Log Archive: schnitzer

Usual route from home. Early morning extensive tempo run to finish this last week of the first 4 week block of base training. Woke up as usual with some stiffness/pain in the lower back region which stayed throughout the run - not something that I've had to put up with recently but then I don't really ever run b4 breakfast. I guess my glutes/piriformis gets gradually tighter thru the night depending on how good the bed is and it takes a few hours after I get up to loosen depending on whether I stretch or not. So it will obv take a lot more than a few days of stretching/SMR to sort my long term muscular balance problems... but I will get them sorted whatever it takes.

26:10
26:05

Another long SMR and static stretching session. The pain seemed to be pretty even on both sides glutes/calves today which I guess is good news. Spent ages on the calves really trying to break up those knots. Stretching is working I think - seem to be more flexible already.

Usual routine. 9*14 press ups - sets of 15 next time.

Didn't quite start this in time and had to hurry outta the house and get up the ski slope. Missed out hamstrings, adductors and calves.

Hammarby ski slope XC race. Registered at the top, started at the bottom and then did 5 laps from the top. I started out deternined to stick to my training plan and run this at intensity 2 - that went out the window after 1-2 laps. The rest of the race I was probably averaging intensity 3 (I am just guessing based on perceived exertion - have no heart rate monitor). It was really difficult to stick to a particular amount of effort. Uphill I found my breathing getting heavier and felt near to race effort at the top of each steep bit esp on the last 2 laps. Downhill I had to speed up as it felt too easy.

I must've been in last place after the initial climb into the 1st lap but from there overtook several runners per lap - it felt good to still be competitive knowing that I was running well within limits. Saying that Nick and Gustav overtook me on lap 3/5 and ended up beating me by 15mins. That's 5mins off Nick's PB. Maybe he wudda got nearer to it if he hadn't done a spinning class earlier or hashing/orienteering yesterday.

Rudan-Granby. Third visit to this nice bit of complex forest - this was actually an LL race but just jogged around. Def a better chance than last Tuesday to spike all of the controls without a compass what with much more detailed contour and rock detail. However, Nick and I turned up lateish and got our maps hand drawn - some of the circles were not that well centered.

1. Not a great start but not my fault - my start triangle wasn't in the right place! Unsurprisingly nothing really made sense and eventually relocated way NW of the red line on a path junction. Fine after that.
3. Once into the block from a path bend navigated perfectly past a couple of crags, past a funny shaped hill top then downhill into the reentrant - no flag. Wandered around a bit then an old guy who I had overtaken catches me up and leads me in - my circle was way S of the actual feature over a different reentrant.
5. Wasn't paying attention and ran str8 past the path junction I wanted - just switched off maybe a result of going slowly. Need to concentrate no matter how slow I am going or this sorta training is pointless.
7. After a bit of rock climbing navigated perfectly into the reentrant again no flag - not sure what happened here but when I eventually found it didn't seem right (didn't even seem like a reentrant, well, not one on my map anyway).
8. Navigated perfectly right to the feature, triple checked my position and eventually found the control on the side of the reentrant next to the knoll - I think this was hung in the wrong place.
10. Really shudda done better here. A perfect no compass training leg with lots of little wet valleys, crags and boulders. Lost contact and ended up running around in a circle trying to relocate.

Overall quite pleased with today. On the whole I had a general feeling that a compass is just not needed on an area like this. Some of the spike splits were really not that far off Gustav's and Olle's (35 and 37 mins respectively) which is pretty incredible considering the speed I was going. Just need to concentrate a bit more and then gradually speed up the process.

Loosening up before hashing.

Underground hash (21). Coming up to the end of the first four week block of base training and I've had enough of all this continuous tempo malarky - had a good break and it's time to move up into the extensive tempo block and add another hour on each of the next 4 weeks.

I have been feeling all twisted up these last few days (esp in the lower back/hips) and I can only conclude it is because of 8 days running in a row (but it doesn't seem to have affected my running much but then I've hardly been pushing it). As I will be gradually building up the hours even more over the next few months it's time to start REGULARLY releasing the knots and increasing the range of movement.

Rolling around on the medicine ball was more painful on the right hand side glutes/piriformis, excruciatingly painful on both adductors and more painful on the left calf so obv lots of tightness that needs attention. Some good news is that I can't feel any restriction when stretching the left hamstring at all so the pre-Oringen crash that caused me some problems in the left glute/hamstring area and the slight recurrence of those problems post peat hag jumping at the OMM seem to be totally behind me now.

Usual routine but did 8*13 press ups and a bonus set of 15. That's the most I've ever done (8*13 + 9 on Fri 30th Oct) when doing a set amount of reps per set - starting to get strong. Still too easy, sets of 14 next time.

Felt so good tonight after a rest day. If anything we were going slightly faster than on Thursday for the first half but I crashed twice on the muddy section (no damage). It wasn't such a clear night and it was much harder to see properly. Chilled it a bit coming back cos Andrew had a lower leg niggle.

24:10
25:35

I knew that 182 pounds on Fri was a little too light for me. Back to something a little more healthy after a rest day.