Training Log Archive: W

Thank goodness Patrick decided to do only 2 hours of roller-skiing instead of three. Great day for it though, warm, kind of sunny, low traffic, no rain, smooth roads. We were able to go 4k faster than the week before in the rain, so hit 30k in 1:58 and then polished it off back home. Patrick was a tad distraught to see that his HR averaged around 140 and mine was about 115.

Apparently all this running stuff translates a little over to skiing! Woot!

A little warm-up run followed by some shop strength. The circuit of 2 x (5 x 1min) of Pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups, box jumps, dips. Although I felt like I did a little better than last week, I was also a little more tired the next day. No more of that for a bit. Having strong arms is great for improved leg drive though. I already felt a tangible difference there.

Training at Blackfoot. Meghan planned the course, my mother put out the flags, and I rolled my eyes at inviting the club to come along.

No, it was pretty good. 12 people came, and almost half of them actually read the content of my e-mail. And most of them did the course in the correct direction!

The plan was a contours only control picking exercise, followed by a line-o, followed by a few more controls. The control picking went fairly well, good compass, reading ahead, big features (sometimes), questionable plans. The line-o got really tricky at one point with some sidehilling and then a trip across a contour-less plain and some really tricky almost flag bit. I think I overshot the corridor a little, but I think I got it back together. I haven't had a chance to plot my course to check. Most surprising bit - most people didn't understand what a corridor exercise was.

Still, it was a nice refresher and one of the few places in Edmonton where "straight" is an option. That will probably be my last chance to do that before Nats. However, the o-blitz will continue this week.

I've run into a major problem with my training plan. I'm getting carried away. This run was actually a touch too fast. I mean, it wasn't too fast, I felt great the entire time, but I extended the route a little, and inadvertently ran the same time as my 10 mile loop, but ran 18k instead. I basically hovered in the 4:10-4:20 range and forgot I was going that fast. I didn't look at my watch until Grandview and thought "woah, I thought this would've taken longer!"

At some point this will come back to bite me, if I don't reel it in a little. Just a little. A twag.

Wednesday Frank's Race at McNally. Drove to the shop and started the warm-up from there to run to the race. Because various trails have fallen into the river, this one was fairly bland, ans we ran on the paved (!) bike path to the Capilano bridge then back on the otherside, cross Dawson, and then a brief amount of trail. I think because of my hills yesterday, my legs were feeling a little sluggish. Lungs were fine, but the legs lacked that certain punch that got me some place last week. Although I pulled Jack back again for the most part, I ran out of real estate, while Brian had the energy to get past Jack for the win.

And, by win, I mean second place, since Francois won. But he always wins. So much so he barely even counts in my head anymore.

C • Winner 5

Back at the shop to do a short strength plyo workout with the gang. 2 reps of 1 minute on 1 minute off of Dips, Push-ups, Chin-ups, Box Jumps, Sit-ups with 5 minutes in between. Turns out my arms don't *quite* have the strength they once did (e.g. 15 chin-ups v..... 3).

Opted for a nice 5 peaks run through Whitemud in the rather chilly conditions. Spent a while thinking what my prep workout for nationals would be. My heart says some steep, steeper, steepest punishment intervals, but my brain says 10 x 400m on the track.

For some reason, Patrick really wanted to scope out a meandering route through the community above McKinnon in anticipation of roller-skiing around there (for 3 hours, no less). So, we did sort of an easy spin going back and forth throughout the community, where I got to hear all sorts of statements revolving around "I have no idea where we are and I couldn't get back here by myself if my life depended on it". Is the average person really devoid of an modicum sense of memory or direction, or are they just playing stupid to further mock my sport? Considering the regularity of which they do the latter, I get the impression its that.