Training Log Archive: Bashman

Easy
Run to the bus stop in Banchory after a one-off party at a friends in Strachan last night. Thought this would be pretty epic to manage considering I hadn't eaten anything for 15 hours, hadn't slept, was in quite a poor state and pretty dehydrated too. However pushed through and climbed up Scolty without any obvious differences to my normal pace/effort. Quite surprised at this, so I headed up Goach and down the MTB path. This roller-coaster made me very queasy and it was here, 5km to go, that I realised I was pretty dangerously dehydrated. Strange feeling as I ran back probably because of this, just felt a bit light-headed, but made it to the bus stop alright. Only a few stops to take pictures as it was such a nice day! Probably a bit of a stupid move doing this run but my recovery was more than adequate and I should be back to normal by intervals tomorrow. Definitely wouldn't have managed the O today so will have to do it some other time.

C • Post Party 3

WU
Had thought about a Tempo but felt pretty wrecked and just wanted to get through the O first. Short loop of the trails.

Cambus O'May Colour Coded - Brown - 7.9km - NO KITES
Acquired last week's map from Ewan very kindly and luckily got a lift out with Tanja and Gav.
Off to 1 and it was a pretty regular leg. Hit what I think was the right crag bang on. Across to 2 was good and 3 was alright too. Made a parallel error to 4, wasn't really reading the map properly so exited from the wrong feature. Of course, this caused a mistake onto 5 and I spent a good 2 minutes double checking once I finally found it, so maybe lost 3 altogether here...
Annoyed at this, I pushed on through 6 and 7, only missing 7 but a tiny bit but I saw what looked like the pit behind me. 8 and 9 looked scary. A bare white slope with a few dot boulders and a little marsh. Ran between a few boulders to 8, convinced that I found it, but then changed my mind when I ran off to 9. So had to relocate from the green 20m below and lost a minute.
Angrily pushed to 10, missed the ride junction but made it look like a small banana. Began to feel pretty sick (had been feeling a bit queasy up to this point, probably because of messed up eating) once I was off to 11. But I had to at least be breaking the hour today so ignored what could have potentially made me stop.
Found the correct control (same as 4) this time and took the paths to 12 as I would do in a race. Ploughed through the heather up to 13, nice terrain here. But suddenly it all changed to rough stuff up to 14, some strange slate quarries instead. Hit both 14 and 15 and back down the hill to 16. Found a tag here so I knew I was in the right place, took this with me (to save any complaints, although unlikely ;-) ).
Follow-the-fence to 17, fine to 18 and 19, and finished about to chunder...
A DOMA map should be uploaded soon but in the meantime: RG - http://www.maroc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#154
8 minutes behind GG but I'll take that since I wasted a good 4 minutes due to there being no kites. Feeling sick but happy.

DOMA: http://www.scottish-orienteering.org/doma/show_map...

WD
Ran up to meet Tanja and Gav but they didn't show, so I looped back, waited at the car for a bit and did an extra loop going through 5 again with Alfie (once I had found them). Tempted to Tempo but forgot how crap I felt..
Ate something on the way home and felt much better :)

WU
In the gym on the cycling machine.

Regular stuff with a few squats at the end. Think I should give up on strength work for this season because I'm definitely not doing it enough.
Feeling knackered otherwise, the easy day had definitely been due for a while.

C • S+C etc 2

Good week in the bag without any really problems, expect some tight Achilles. Rest day tomorrow and an orienteering-filled weekend should do it.

Shake Out
Pre-Breakfast, really beginning to feel yesterday now. Slogged up Hillhead Road and back down picking up some speed. Recced a possible future terraintervals loop which turns out to be 400m on the dot which is useful... Perhaps next week...

Steady
Really struggled to get to a steady pace to start off with, felt knackered and hit the hill hard... Up to Corsee and the pace wasn't great from all the mud. Down a path I like to call Ankle-Ache Avenue due to all the rocks, roots and mud there is there. Pushed where possible but not often. Came out onto the golf course road and finally I settled into a good steady pace. Biggest loop of the golf course possible, Achillies were getting sore from all the long grass though. Back through the bottom track and through some very rough forest past the Hospital. Along the big path over Sunset Hill and back down to school really pushing it now. Almost a progression run, and definitely felt better by the end.

Hill Sprints
Had a few minutes before my bus so did 6 x 10s hills one every minute. Getting further and further on each one.

WU
Feeling good despite it being pre-breakfast.

Drills
Solid set, haven't done them for a while but felt pretty stable and explosive which oddly contradict each other...

WD
Running for the sake of the pancakes waiting at home.

WU
Unexpectedly feeling brilliant, ready to crash at any point.

Solo Intervals @ the inaugural "Cults Blocks"

Didn't manage to get a lift to athletics tonight, but looking back at this session, I'm glad that I didn't. It went so well that I am ready to write a massive story about it.

So I spent a while looking at somewhere that was lit and pretty flat where I could do intervals. I found this perfectly rectangular block in Cults with a steep uphill and downhill along it's shorter sides and flattish otherwise. So it went NW steep climb for 100m, NE gentle incline for 400m, SE steep downhill for 100m, SW gentle downhill for 400m. Now what made it even better was I had a pretty strong Southerly wind in my face for the descents and a good push from behind for the inclines. This helpful factor made it a little bit fairer.

On the way there I decided that I would do: 400m, 500m, 6, 7, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. This added up to a good distance of 6km for intervals.
Recoveries were 60s for 4 and 5. 90s for 6 and 7. 120s for 8.

I began this session at a comfortable pace and felt really good. Avoided missing any of the steep ascents just because I had recovery times to walk up them. So I kept it fair. As I grew closer to the 800ms I was really surprised at how good I was feeling despite my concerns over tiredness for the whole day. Mid way came out of nowhere and I was blitzing (at least, for me) each rep at a good sub 3:20s pace. At the end of the first 800m, I began my recovery, and noticed that I hardly needed it at all...what was going on.
Of course as I went back down the ladder it began to hit me a bit more, and I could have sworn the wind was picking up. Scared the hair off a few walkers as I ran round the corners in a criminal-like fashion. But soon I had done the last 400m and made the decision to stick in a 300, 200, 100 at the end with 30s recoveries, although the last was more 120m and into a hurricane wind.

Done! What I noticed is that my pace really doesn't change all that much as the reps increase, but here are the splits anyway. The capitals D and U mean a lot more downhill, and the small d and u mean a little bit more of...

1:16u - 1:33u - 1:50d - 2:15U - 2:31d - 2:30D - 2:20U - 1:51D - 1:42U - 1:11D - 59U - 34u - 21d

Obviously very pleased with that considering last week's poor sessions. Splits aren't really comparable due to the differentiating wind and incline. But even by the end I was feeling the best I've ever felt after intervals really...

C • Like it! 1

WD
Quick breath catcher and back home.

Easy -> Steady
Brilliant day outside, and woke up feeling really good. So after (just) managing to keep patient during my first three lessons I headed out and towards Scolty. Running well on the way there, decided to see how much had been chopped south of the car park. I was slipping around a bit, so I went up the East MTB track. Over the top and began heading towards Goach. Still very slippery and it felt like a good core work out keeping myself from falling. Up Goach with fantastic scenery and decided to head back the same way, because the re-entrant path would probably be a lake. At this point I stopped myself from pushing too hard so just went up and over Scolty from the saddle and back down the shortest path. Back to school after this at a steady pace.

Core + Stretching
Pretty tough, shaking by the end. However, strongest I've felt for a while.

Easy
Nothing special just plodding through Banchory/Corsee. Feeling good remarkably.

Recovery number 2 in the gym.
A few 20s "strides" put in but otherwise just spinning at a good effort level on the machine.

Light Core, saves me not doing it tomorrow.