Training Log Archive: slow-twitch

Hillside Station 2 hour rogaine. Normally I'd use the AR label when I'm being scathing about the quality of an event but this time it seems the most appropriate description for a fun (but hard!) session. Not much running involved what with the steepness and the cattle-pug and the bush, but kept pushing along at a hard pace. Took a loop around the southern part of the map, which I figured wouldn't use up the 2 hours but nothing I could feasibly add (but a number of options to drop if time got short or if I didn't have the legs). Controls were mostly set in places within the limitations of the map, while the electric fences were not on the map I almost always seemed to hit them at an easy crossing point and despite the warnings the native blocks weren't much of a lottery. Good tough workout, and also got charged (probably accidentally) by a wild turkey defending her chicks and came face to face with some very surprised feral goats

Made it to the end of the month! Gets easier again for a little while now.

Something I've been wanting to do for a while but never had the timing right - started with a 10 minuteish warm-up lap of Forest Lake then headed west, up Ellicott Road, a little bit of looping through the upper parts of Nawton (which added some climb sections) and down Baverstock etc before back along the flats to Forest Lake. That last bit somehow felt as hard as the uphills!

Got off to a good start when I topped my first (I think) grade 15 - one I'd either never tried before or maybe had been barely able to get started on some time ago. Turned out that was the only one I made all night but still had some good attempts on a couple more before the fatigue kicked in. And it really did kick in - I ended the night repeatedly falling off the really easy one I've been trying to make my regular warm-up/confidence booster climb... Also I might need to get back into the habit of using chalk - decided some time back I prefer without it but now things are warming up the odd slippery hold is becoming a more common occurence.

Felt a bit flat for the first couple of kilometres, then the rest was just hard work. But knocked almost 50sec of the last attempt - in the (unlikely) event I can knock a similar amount off again next time, we'll be talking PB's.

Long bridge loop (which is basically the round the bridges course, so I guess that means I should enter that this year). Was never expecting to repeat the sub hour effort from my last take on this, so surprised and happy to be so close - if I'd had a few less sidetracks to add some little hills/get off the paving/concrete from time to time, who knows? Distance is 12ish km - that's the RTB length but I imagine my preferred routes vary from theirs a bit.

Tried to be good with stretches and a proper warm-down jog after - planning on doing a 5km race tomorrow!