Training Log Archive: Lizzie

Didn't stretch last night...

Actually feeling pretty good. But didn't sleep too well due to all the thorns and scratches :s

good to ease out the legs. A little brisk in the morning now...

Warm up straight up the hill to the top of the map. For some reason i ran the whole way...

Some days I love this sport, like yesterday. Others I find myself wondering why I do it, like parts of today.
Got a sign of things to come in the first 20m from the start - thick spiky undergrowth! Managed 1 and 2 OK, then slow to 3 making sure I read off features along the way.
...then 4. Decided to guts it up the hill and bounce off the hill top/track then back into the control...bad idea. So many rocks! and in thick scrubby stuff. Checked sooo many rocks, then eventually popped out to the clearing below the control, which I'd purposefully avoided cos I didn't trust the mapping of the clearings. And sure enough, the clearing was double the size as on the map, and the control was calmly hanging out on the edge of it! So dropped 5 mins on the control compared to those who went straight to the clearing first up.
Let no.4 piss me off and as a result made a mess of my route to 6, going straight over the hill rather than around as I planned. Good sign of my fitness that I got to the top without noticing that's what I was doing i spose? Dropped another 3mins on Grace here, so 8 minutes down and just having a shite time of it really.

Decided to start afresh from 6, and got 7 cleanly while planning my long leg to 8...up and over the saddle and down the long, admittedly green striped, reentrant (sorry, gully). Mmm. Yeah. Got competely stuck in green, over head high, spiky, scrub. Emerged 10mins later, hating life.
Lucky for the sake of all who shared my company later in the day, the course then got a lot more runnable and I could turn on a bit of actual running speed. Clean enough through to the last few controls then.
3rd to last control refused to beep at me (i'd been turning all the controls on, but this one took aaaaages). So I clipped my map, then tried again - and it beeped straight away! Garr! Exited the wrong way, dropping 30s on the next control.

And then my master stroke on a brilliant day - followed the tapes from the last control, only to find myself at the penultimate control of the blue course...neat little 180 mistake, lucky it wasn't in view of anyone! So my finish split is 6xlonger than anyone elses...

Crap race from me, and area far more overgrown than mapped. But everyone had to deal with the same thing.

And now my body is covered in 1000 scratches and spotted with 100 thorns. Which drew plenty of comments at soccer

Felt surprisingly good during the warmup!

vs Woden who won the pre-season comp and are one of the top two teams in the league (off last year's form...)

Another even match. 0-0 at the half and we completely dominated the first 25mins of the 2nd half, going 1-0 up and should have been more (say that every week though). And then they played a long ball and a striker beat the offside flag... completely against the run of play :(

Finished 1-1 but so frustrating that we didn't win! A good sign that the team is more annoyed that we didn't win, rather than being satisfied with still being unbeaten this season. We're starting to expect more of ourselves

Event: ACT Middle and Long Champs
 

Was running a bit behind on getting ready for racing, haven't had to do it so long! So short warm up. Gave myself a bit of paranoia on the start line when i put pressure on my achilles attachment and found a bit of pain - but if you press anywhere hard enough it's going to hurt!

Just happy to get around cleanishly and be in one piece at the end!

Some really well set legs climbing or dropping diagonally along the slopes, mixed together with short sharp legs with plenty of direction change. Really enjoyed the course, even with all the dead trees and branches on the ground :)

Physically found it tough going at race pace after a month or so off, but once I got into it fitness took over (nice to see it's still there!), and I just concentrated on nav.

One 30s mistake on 15 where I had my bearing perfect, but didn't recognise the knoll so headed upstream. And a 10s mistake on 10 where I got distracted by Heather and Hanny and climbed too high.

to uni, to uni again after dropping off the midget mobile gen 2, and home via soccer night out.
Have moved into antisocial WOC prep mode. Heading home at 11 when the rest of the team headed into town...bring on 2 months of being a hermit :s

Woo! Managed to ace every road crossing! Think the longest I waited all day was about 10s!

glug glug glug.

I like how everyone stays out of my way at the pool :) Probably cos I look like an absolute idiot bobbing around by myself in the corner

freeeeezing!

another stop start training. marlos was 30min late again...nice. will get better once he knows the team better and vice versa.

but yeh, plenty of running, and shooting. We managed to get 4/10 of our balls stuck in the middle of the creek behind willows...talented

Had two of my pet hates along for the ride home tonight:
1. A guy with super slow acceleration who kept pushing in when waiting at a road crossing. I passed him 4 times!
2. A person with super bright lights who rides right behind you, so all you see is your shadow, and none of the potential obstacles hiding in that shadow

C • Oh dear. I totally understa... 3

Same as monday, but with a bit of a jaunt in the pines at the top added on. Felt so good to run niggle free and with no pain from the blisters!

wu/wd and 20x30:30. Still have a really dead thigh from Sunday's game which made the intervals fun! managed to find a much better form for the last 5 or 6 efforts, which lifted the intensity. Not sure I went hard enough otherwise, but didn't stop me being super hungry when I got out!

New coach was 15mins late to training - good start! Blisters did well, bit sore when we played a game at the end, just with more turning and starting/stopping.
Ripped out my fluoro yellow tshirt for the first time. Meant I got put in the yellow bib team all night - no more wearing over sized smelly training bibs for me! win :)