Training Log Archive: roar

Easy with Jonny down from registration at the normal school to the bike park entrance. Feeling good. A little late for the supposed briefing time but it was late so no worries.

Mad Makara - XTerra - 9th

Group started kind of slowly for the first 50m and it was pretty easy to choose a spot I wanted to sit in for the single track, about 6th. Pace slowly crept up along here, one guy went off the front and once the gap opened 2 guys bridged but the rest were stuck behind people who were holding the pace. Passing was really tough on the single track but 1 or 2 guys hit the wall pretty early and went out the back. By the top of Koru it had filtered out and I was in 7th, 2 off the front, original yellow off the front guy and group of 3 20m in front of me and Jonny sitting just behind. Stayed that way up Sally Alley, then once we hit the downhill MIssing Link I closed that super easily. What I should have done is sat in, but instead I worked quite hard to find gaps and space to get past the 3 guys and bridge to yellow guy. I thought then I'd have some time until the bottom of the hill but there was a steep bit I didn't know about. This came at the worst time and I died. 2 of the 3 came past with Jonny close behind and I ate some Jelly beans.
Relaxed more on the next descent, staying behind Jonny trying to get some legs back and felt ok, but once we hit the big slog of a climb I really wasn't moving anywhere quick at all and it felt like people were streaming past me, though probably only 6 in total for the whole climb. That was quite the suffer fest. When a guy who was about to pass me stopped for a photo op and then passed me I knew I was in a rough place!
Once I actually summitted though I got back into it. Rapidly caught photo guy but couldn't get past him easily and he couldn't hear me with his headphones in. Caught a few more then and some nice tricky descending allowed me to close a few gaps. 2nd on the Vertigo descent CR though is annoying.
Climb up Trickle Falls then was grim. I stayed with the same guy the whole way, trying to fight to the top. One blue guy came past and I tried to keep him in sight to catch on the descent and thought I had done an ok job.
Last downhill was a proper sufferfest. Not actually that downhill and only technical in parts. Past my co-climber early on and then was solo just working hard the whole way. Fastest on the day down North Face. Three Brothers was a flat/slightly uphill bit and that was rough. Short course people were on the course from there then and also had to pass them. By Lazy Fern I was getting pretty tired and only managed 3rd on the day, all the while wondering where the hell the blue guy was, never caught him.

Fun race. Did ok, nice to be up there at the start but I got the pacing a bit wrong with the first descent and paid for that. Felt really quite good on the gentle ups, flats and downs but the steep ups undid me. Bringing Conor to the airport probably didn't help and I had an amazing nap in the afternoon.

Stayed a few mins to cheer Gina into the finish and got a bit cold. Calves were crazy tight and legs tired so it was quite the shuffle cool down back to the car.

warm up with Jonny & Conor. Bit late this morning so only had time for a few short strides and drills. Lovely calm morning.

5x 1200m, actually with short rest

4:30, 4:25, 4:17, 4:16, 4:16
Started a bit slow, got my maths wrong and wasn't that warmed up. Got into it a bit better on the second one. Then on the third Jonny came past me after a lap and I had no interest in letting him go so stuck in. Conor looked back and didn't have his usual gap, so sped up, then we sped up to hold the gap and it was all just quick. Felt comfy enough though and reckoned the same would go for the last 2. Started crazy quick on 4 after some antics by Conor but paced it ok in the end. He went mad on the last one, trying to go sub-4 (he didn't) but I stayed on pace and was pretty happy with that session, considering the last day I did them all in 4:24.

Zoo lap with Conor and Jonny. The road is quite a bit nicer than the steps. Then we we saw the kingfisher I looped back to point it out to Gina & Jake, then continued with them.

Nice easy afternoon run with Jonny. His skyline loop which is a little shorter. Felt really good, moving nicely on the hills relaxed on the downs. Enjoyable.

Some forest exploring, trying to do a bit more terrain running. Took the cemetery map and did some controls/lines in the forest. Quite hard work at times. Few very steep bits and then spider webs of vines. Good exercise though. Fell off a cliff which wasn't ideal. Nice big scrape down my forearm but otherwise grand. Back feeling much better after it kinda clicked into place when stretching this morning.

Easy with Conor along the skyline in the fog. Legs feeling good and moving well. Back felt a bit weird after, kind of a pain right in the middle since Monday that I'm not sure what it's about.

Over to Hangdog this afternoon for a bit of climbing. Nice to mix up the walls and some cool problems. Climbing pretty well I thought today, so were Gina and Conor and we got some tough ones. Didn't notice the back at all.

Taking it easy after the weekend. Foot and back reasonably sore from falls yesterday but should be grand tomorrow.
Few things to sort out life wise. Starting on selling all the things we bought for one. Will have a sit down and chat and think about training for the rest of the month later today.

Warm up to the far away toilets in the slowly warming up day. Had been up early helping with set up again. Putting up tents and then creating a makeshift urinal trench. Once running got warm quickly enough anyway and legs didn't feel to bad.

QB day 3 - Middle - 10th


Shorter today and wanted to be pretty aggressive. Started well, taking 1 as I wanted.
#2 was in the green and I made sure of it, though it was actually not that hard with the big tree.
#3 was bloody tough running through undergrowth. I took a very heavy fall here and had a good 5s on the ground being sore and a bit winded. Got the control nicely though.
#4 was fairly flat out. felt a bit close to the hills, hence the little wobble.
#5 My plan was to go left and attack the green. Going right is way better. I then drifted on the compass and fought pointlessly through it dropping like 40s. Took the control well in the end though
#6 was grand, hesitated a little short but once I read the map no worries.
#7 I read the map wrong, thinking I just had to follow the ridge but there was a big depression. then when I hit the forest nothing worked. Took a while to work it out dropping another 45s.
#8 Reset well and got fairlu good lines to this, using the open to my advantage
#9 I was still going well. Had to get out into the nice runnable forest early, away from the low trees near the edge and had nice simplification to pick the important features. Led some randomers into it
#10 was tough. Balance between climbing and getting around the hashing. I could have been a little lower
#11 was just pace. Passed Lara.
#12 fence hopping and running. Little bit unsure in the circle and hit the ridge before the control.
#13 more running, but getting into the control was tricky as it was quite high on the ridge. Could tell the brain/legs were on the edge.
#14 I was afraid of the green and wanted to make sure of the control so went around to the left a bit. Didn't actually enter where I planned and then mis counted the features. Saw Aaron P (2mins behind) going at 90 degrees to me and confidently proceeded up the hill I clearly shouldn't be going up. Didn't notice he was right behind Matt O so missed out on that train pretty badly. Faffed around then for a minute trying to figure out what was happening.
#15 back to paceville, not that I had a huge amount of that. Tripped on some branch and rightly hurt the front my left foot. Simple control
#16 some climbing that my legs weren't happy about
#17 hit the track and tried to keep going hard. Met Jake going the wrong way. Overshot it very slightly ~5s
#18 Through the field and more up & down. Very hard to read the detail in this area
#19 Didn't really understand the map on this one. Was mostly right on the line but got on the wrong track at the end, making a parallel error into the wrong depression.
#20 I was just slow, not sure why. Easy control
#21 Creased myself on an invisible fence. Hopped the next 2 super gracefully. Nice obvious knoll for a control
#22 Easy, follow the hill
Finish, just sprint it out.

Still have a bit of a fear of green it would seem. 5 & 14 were fundamentally caused by having the wrong attitude to the low visibility. Safety and aggressiveness flipped around. Also compass was bad at the same time. Better than Saturday but still a bit off the pace really.

To the toilets and back again.

M21E Day 3 - Splits