Training Log Archive: Bashman

WU
Short one with drills.
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Crathes Colour Coded - Brown - 8.2km, 260m climb
Thought the rest day had done me good but felt even worse running today. Not too bad on the flats but the hills just destroyed me annoyingly... A load of things seemed to go wrong too.
Straight to 1, no bother. Then a bit of an S to 2, just avoiding the fallen trees. Hit 3 bang on and nice line to 4 too. Then I was heading perfectly to 5 but got distracted by a few people heading to a control on what looked like a boulder. Turns out it just happened to be next to a boulder on a path. Bit annoying. Down to 6, got stuck in some mess and also had to go back and double check the code because I thought I saw a different code about 5s after passing it.
Down to 7 was alright, but then Alfie came out of no where and chased me to 8. Had to return him to Dad which wasted about a minute. Also missed 8 after that because I lost track of where I was heading to find my Dad. Good up to 9 and 10, just trying to refocus. Had thought about the bottom route to 11 initially but took the top one in the end which looked shorter and had less climb than what I initially thought. Probably the wrong choice though. Got 12 and then took ages climbing to 13. Banana'd to 14 and headed down to 15 finding it easily. Through 16 and then two long running legs to 17 and 18 both of which were flawless.
Had to queue to 19 because some people seemed to think it was wrong and then felt great going down the hill to 20. Thought I had turned things around. Quite a nice route to 21, but maybe not the fastest, diverted by fallen trees again. Going to 22 a stupid branch grabbed my laces and wouldn't let go. This resulted in a 10s battle which I eventually won by kicking the branch a good number of times. Had to stop a further few seconds to fix my laces angrily. Bounced of 22 and then got something in my eye. Whatever it was it was extremely sore and I could hardly see out of my right eye. Began to tear up enormously and anyone passing probably thought I was having a weep. Carried on running whilst poking my eye with my fingers trying to get it out. Still got 23 somehow and landed bang on 24 with just a rough bearing. Continued wrestling with my eye and thought about stopping and going to get some cold water on it. I was beginning to suspect it could just be my muddy fingers infecting it now. But went on, found 25 and 26 fine, whilst almost launching myself into a tree recovering from the classic 2m cliff jump that has to be done at 26. Bottom route to 27, no way was I climbing any more. And down to the finish.
Spent a few minutes at the finish with my eye and eventually got something out, felt much better after that. But annoying that there were so many expect-the-unexpected 's in this course with my dog, laces and eye. Good practice for somewhere like Bulgaria, although it looks a bit harder than Crathes. And good to be relatively clean technically.

WD with Alfie.

Core
Solid regular session, starting next week tonight.

Went for a walk but not much else.

Body is screaming at me to rest, so have to cut this huge week short and rest tomorrow... Still 125km is a good amount and looking forward to banking it tomorrow.
Had an idea to do Glen Fearder trains tomorrow but will have to do it another day now. Free for the next few weeks so will be able to at some point.

Recovery
One of the slowest plods I've ever done but it was definitely better than nothing this morning. Incredibly sore from last night's race but loosened off towards the end. Also have the classic Pressendye deep heel blister (that you can feel but not see) after the heel-slapping descent. Did a big loop of Bieldside, Foggieton, Hillhead Moor, Murtle Den and back. Lots of terrain in there.

WD

WU
Very short one, not much room and didn't really need one.
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Sluie Forest Sprint - 1st
Completely ruined before even starting but just about slogged round. Good course planned by Joe and good weather made it go by quicker. Not bad with a pair of tired legs. Tempo speed, no mistakes.
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WD
With Alfie who was dragging me round this time.
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WU/D
Not a good morning for it, heavy training is catching up with me. Also these pre-breakfast runs are getting a bit late.

Drills
Shorter, more dynamic session.

WU
Down into Tarland and back, then drills and strides. Feeling pretty rough to be honest.
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Pressendye inogural Hill Race - 2nd by 1:35 behind Harry Smith

I wasn't expecting too much at all after 105km in the last week already, and thought I'd be treating it as a bit of a tempo - glad that changed in the end.

Went off with Harry and Dan W chasing behind, about 3:20s on the road. Had a look back and we already had a few seconds in front of 4th, could already tell that this race was between us 3. Up the nice path between the trees and then an unexpected downhill. I was 2nd in the train, with Dan breathing down my neck. Up the hill and I began to feel poor. It was the gradual climbs that did it for me today, thankfully there weren't many.

Dan took me and began to slowly pull away with Harry. I had an advantage though, knowing the course, and I knew there was still a lot of steep ascent to come. So I hanged back a bit and let them blow up. Hit the steep hill hard, and I was amazed that I was still running without walking breaks half way up. Hill legs weren't feeling great this morning... We got further up and Harry began to pull away, whilst I began to reel Dan in. I knew there was a flat section coming up, so pushed a bit extra to catch Dan more and more.

But then came the final climb, and I hardly remembered how brutal it was before. Managed to run until about 4.5km but it was so steep, that I began to catch Dan more by having power-walking intervals. Felt ashamed doing so though. Caught up Dan and tailed him to the top. Round the trig point and overtook him straight away. I knew I should kick his ass at the downhill. Harry was making the gap even bigger so it was me vs Dan. Kamikaze'd down the initial steep descent and made a nice 10s gap. Cheering from the others really helped here. But then came to the flat bit and my legs were jelly. Still running 3:15s but it felt crap! And Dan was closing the gap.

Came to the next steep section and went crazy again, but Dan was pushing to stay about 5s back. It felt awful, and I knew there were lots of flats and even small ups coming up. He closed in through the last few flatter kms and I knew it would be a sprint finish. He was 2s back at the top of the nice path and I pushed on. But then 30s later I looked back and he was 20s back! Unsure on what happened and I don't think he's telling anyone the truth. I wasn't complaining though and I attacked the last climb and run in hard but slightly more relaxed than before.

Really good session, if not a bit hard for a threshold run. 1.30 behind Harry but 3 mins in the expected winning time, which is my main achievement for today. Good to beat Dan too, but it was my turn... First time it hasn't been down to the sprint finish between me and him though! Won my first alcoholic beverages at the age of 17 but gave them to my mum anyway. A good new race, highly recommend it to everyone if it's on next year.
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WD
With Wullie into Tarland once again.

Easy
Felt really bad starting off but then got to the top of Hillhead Road and extended it. Looped back through Murtle Den and Milltimber. Wet morning but feeling around 5 times better by the end.

Easy Core
Kept it pretty easy before the race tomorrow, harder stuff on Friday.

Steady
After updating in Duthie for a couple of hours - hopefully for the last time - I ran home along the river. Wanted to take it steady but the path just got worse and worse, and the wind in the face didn't help much either. Put in some good kms at the start but then it was impossible to keep the pace with the overgrown, twisty path. Effort remained the same so no matter. Got home pretty tired and hungry, probably because I was pretty much shivering from cold by the time I started running. Good today but I'm not sure how tomorrow's race is going to feel....

Excited to be selected for the Mountain Running International Youth Cup again, in the Italian Dolomites this year! Should be a good WU for JWOC (and might be able to squeeze some O in...).

WU/D
Quite a late pre-breakfast session... but had a good sleep and a nice, low HR this morning. Feeling good.

Drills
Thorough session, finished with a few strides. Brilliant weather made this go by pretty quickly.

WU
Long one deciding on what to do tonight, up to Craigton Road in the end. Most of it felt like a walk in the park, except Abbotshall Road and Jacob's Ladder, they were not walks in the park.
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Solo Speed Endurance Out/Backs

2 x 1km, 2 x 1.5km, 2 x 0.7km, 4 x 300m, 2 x 200m - 12s / 100m of reps recovery (eg. 2 mins for 1km)

A real killer that I spent a lot of the day planning, now that I have nothing else to do! Original plan was different but had to be changed after I started way too hard. Basic idea was 8km of reps on Craigton Road, which had a 20m per 1km incline, hence every second rep was uphill. Aim was to be as close as possible on both reps, so I took the downs slightly under interval intensity, and the uphills significantly over. This didn't really work though as the downs were always a lot faster.

3:18, 3:26, 5:03, 5:25, 2:18, 2:25, 56, 58, 54, 59, 35?, 35? - watch glitched on the last two

Nevertheless quite happy with these, especially with the pretty short recoveries. A good base session. Could have been worse with the differences due to the hill too.
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C • :o 1

WD
Crawling home over Cults, dead/hungry/thirsty/sleepy....

Weekend all updated!

Morning Recovery
Flat one out along the RL and back through Milltimber. Feeling better by the end.
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Core/Stretching
Typical Monday set, TV is almost the only thing that gets me through this unfortunately...

Easy
Although taking into account there was about +60 elevation difference and a bit of rough path/terrain, it looks a bit like a Steady one... Felt easy though so good stuff.
After fluking an Advanced Higher Chemistry exam (revised 30mins last night) I was off up Scolty the South way. Did a loop of the top and a terrain descent to the saddle, very slow in the high heather. Back down after that keen for some O. Felt generally pretty bad but quite good by the end, hill legs were not active today unsurprisingly (after the weekend). Still managed to run everything and only stopped at the top to observe the amazing views today, good day for it.
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Scolty Forest Sprint - No Kites
Did the course from Friday, more like a control pick though. Wanted to practice bearings but forgot my compass... So practiced my bearings without a compass, if that makes sense. People were complaining the terrain was horrible but I quite enjoyed it really, although it could have been the nice sunny weather. The forest was messy yes, but there were nice bits of o-heaven in there. Got on pretty well and only stopped at one control to figure out what pit the map was showing. Kites would have changed everything.
Map will come soon.
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WD
Rolling back down and through Banchory, picking up a reward at the shop. Some very smart MTBers have made a path winding alongside the road up to Scolty which is awesome to run on! Makes this longish trek to/from Scolty quite a bit more enjoyable.
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