Training Log Archive: murraystraining

Round and round the car park.

SprintScotland3: Grangemouth (but it could have been any housing estate in scotland, really). I know Kris is flying just now, but I was not expecting him to catch me a minute on an easy sprint like this after 12 minutes running - and only one 5s banana on my part. Either I was more fatigued than I thought from yesterday or he's winning WOC in a couple of weeks.

Jogging with Jonny Schminty and Kris.

Warm up for the sprinting with a steady effort at Callendar KrapRun. Didn't know the course so hung back till half way, pushed on a bit after that.

SprintScotland race 1. Fast and furious. Just about held it together technically although there were a few wobbly moments. Did a bit too much running on grass maybe - better to run slightly further on flat tarmac than contouring on steeper bankings. Flagging on the uphills towards the end. 3rd behind Jonny and Soren Reicharts.

SprintScotland race 2. A bit easier so even faster. Went over my ankle leaving the housing estate for the park the first time which really distracted me, ended up going through the wrong gap and losing time when nothing made sense on the other side. Took a couple of minutes for the ankle to ease off then got going again fine. 2nd behind Jonny, managed to tie with Soren after two races.

Out to Calder Road to pick the car up from the garage. Legs feeling battered.

Maddy Moss Hill Race. Spectacular black clouds over the Ochils while driving over drenched us at registration and made the course fairly damp but the rain more or less abated by the start time.
I was rubbish on the long steep climb up the Law - I ran all the way but big gaps opened up in front of me. I summited the Law in 5th, and thankfully felt much better on the easy running over the tops and passed Waldie and a young Westie before the top of Ben Cleuch. I held a gap over them over to Andrew Gannel Hill but couldn't extend it, while the gaps in front to Tom Martyn and Joe S seemed massive.
With Waldie bearing down on me I decided I better remember how to descend so started hammering the fast running on the grassy spur. That held him off but didnt make much of an impact on the gap to Tom, and Joe was out of sight. When the path got trickier a marshall told me I had a 30m lead on Waldie so I ran it pretty aggressively - helped by a brand new pair of iRocks, amazingly grippy - and sure enough, quickly reeled in Tom mincing down through the rocks. A couple of good guesses got me within sight of the finish and then suddenly Joe was only 10m ahead of me! It turns out his guesses hadn't been so lucky and he had ended up in a gorse bush. There was only about 20m left when he appeared so no chance of beating him but the scottishhillracing %'s will look a lot better than they might have!

Very easy spin for the legs.