Training Log Archive: W

A nice, albeit shorter than I would have preferred, ride to the shop for working on Sunday. Hit up several trails that I have no ridden in quite some time, including when that has a quite steep pitch at the bottom, made even more steep by a bit of a erosion. When its that steep I'm way behind my seat, and with that little drop, I kind of sacked myself on the back of my seat. It was a fast drop and a quick stop. Better than my collarbone, I suppose.

Commute on the way home doesn't count as training.

So there's this guy. He used to ski in Jack's group. He is, albeit well meaning, but super, super incredibly annoying. I knew that none of the people I like to hang around with at Fast Trax training would be there, but there was a distinct possibility that he might be there. I don't think he shows up if he knows Jack is going to be there (a small mercy), but the possibility of him being there made me afraid going. So, instead i did elements of the interval workout as part of a run to the shop. 5 x 6 minutes w/ 3 minutes rest.

As always, some are rolly, some are on pavement, some on pavement, but, hovered comfortably around 3:40 on the ones that were flat-ish. Just slightly faster than a 6 minute mile. Not blazingly fast, but I did feel it was comfortably hard.

I really had to peel myself off the couch for this one, after a long day of work at the shop. But, I was glad to be out, because although a little fatigued, I felt pretty good. Pace was fairly slow, but just tried to plug through it with good form.

Well, you know what they say, "Any publicity is good publicity":

Are the downtown pedways too hard to navigate?

Not that I always consistently do it, but I do try to amp up the speed at which I do my regular runs a touch. Not necessarily a "tempo" run, but certainly quite brisk. This was one of those cases. Although I was wasn't dying, my heart rate was definitely up and I was putting in effort.

Many skiers feel that the zone I may have been in, Zone 2, is a colossal waste of time. None of the fitness benefits of going harder, but all of the fatigue impacts. But, sometimes I disagree. I think one solid way of being a faster runner, is, wait for it, running faster. I can't just keep doing easy runs all the time. I think my slower runs have slowly averaged up, and I hope these pull them up even further. Hopefully a faster base level will push up my maximal level a bit too.

Although I used my road bike to ride back and fro from the shop (about 30-40 minutes each way), it was just too "commute-y" to really call it training. Despite being fully lycrad out!

Okay, simple plan. Run to orienteering at Terwilligar, then do Terwilligar at a good clip, then whip out a few more intervals.

It all went wrong when it was determined that the goal when planning the course set for tonight was to make it "easy". As I moaned before, this is symptomatic of my club sometimes, many people feel that the best way to attract new members is to make 100% sure they never have any difficulty at all (see, "let's make our open course 1200m long and only follow the edge of the lake!"). Naturally, I disagree, courses shouldn't be "easy", they should be "fun". No athlete begins their competition and says "gee whiz, I sure hope this is going to be really really easy, I sure don't want any physical or mental stimulation". To be fair, it actually turned out not to be as easy, because the lakes were flooded that cut off several average routes, so you had to do some navigation to not get your feet soaked. And the grass in the field was chest high.

But still, the course was quite bland, and a disappointing run like that left me discouraged and not so keen to do the intervals I intended to do afterwards.

I probably shouldn't be so sensitive. I'm a delicate flower.

C • Easy / Boring 2

This was sort of meant to be active recovery since the day after was going to be fairly difficult, but, as you'll see, that didn't quite happen either.

Just getting in some junk miles. Though perhaps more junk miles would be in order. Like... volume. More actual runs, or longer single runs? I'm not sure it really matters, as long as there's more of it. I would say that my runs are definitely a bit faster though. It doesn't seem it because they're always rolling and gravel. But I do try to, say, "pointedly" run.