Training Log Archive: jennycas

Legs weren't very happy during the night, so I took them for a swim. Problem is, I sometimes think this actually makes my midsection tighter afterwards :(

After a thuper thitty thurthday even by usual Thursday-at-work standards I needed some time to myself and decided on a longer run tonight but slightly underestimated the remaining daylight (or remembered when I used to be faster), and so by the time I got to the southern boundary of the park was really watching to see where I was putting my feet and my groin was really complaining about the impact of the flatfooted landings. Singletrack up past the waterfalls and down into the redwoods was nice though.

Treated this as hydrotherapy, but got a bit bored towards the end. I wonder if I run as gumbily as I swim? :)

3-falls loop with B&S, John, and visiting Italian Ricardo. Felt very lactic/leaden going up hills but was able to stretch out a little on the descents.

Attack of the Killer Masseuse
Hamstrings & calves a bit tight. Guess they weren't very good shock absorbers yesterday.

Lovely, albeit warm, evening in the park for a jog that started out fairly slow and included plenty of stops to catch my breath, wipe the sweat from my face and listen to the birds, who seemed very happy indeed - and there was no sound of traffic noise at all in the valley until a freight train went past. I watched a family of blue wrens (or more likely one male and his harem) flitting around and also saw a koala lounging in a tree wishing his earmuffs were removable.

C • Earmuffs 1

Mass start race, two loops one approx 3km with splitting along the creek channel and going only a little way up the hill then the next loop about 7km starting along the creek then going up the ridge & into a valley which we went up & down the steep sides of about 5 times due to the 'butterfly' loops before crossing over the main ridgeline and making our way via a sequence of common controls back down into town. The interesting thing about the map was that a lot of it wasn't mapped: i.e. no detail on the western face and a line of rocks marked along the ridgelines but little else in the way of detail apart from creek channels. It worked, though! No surprises that I was a fair way back before even finishing the first loop but I did see Anna Dowling when climbing the hill, although I was too far right on the first two ascents and lost a minute or so each time, then on the 3rd (hunting for the pit on the ridgeline) deliberately aimed left, but confused myself when I got to the ridge and because it was quite flat thought I must be too far right already and went further left, ending up back at a control I'd been to already - oops, that's 5 min wasted. From then on I was running around the same pace as an older guy who was better than me at going up hills (I had to walk a lot because my groin wasn't very cooperative) but I had a few cleaner routes than him toward the end and gradually gained back enough so that it was a sprint along the creek at the very end with a dead-heat finish for something like 29th place, much to Jim's amusement.

Can't believe how un-race-fit I am and also how much I enjoyed this weekend despite that fact...

C • Lidar 5