Training Log Archive: rcro

Feeling knackered all day. Christmas holidays now at last!

Event: SWOC Street Event 4
 

Another wet evening but was forecast to pass just before 7, which it did. Put phone in bumbag, and again had the problem where I couldn't hear it beep the start (yet could at other checkpoints mostly fine) - not sure if the app beeps the start and finish more quietly? Given the choice would change the beep to be something more obvious anyway as had an email come through with same beep about 10s after passing second checkpoint. Will put in a request for the next app update if I get round to it...

S-12-6-19-33-13-2-32-14-22-42-15-3-25-23-26-5-16-17-11-7-4-20-24-8-F. 530 points.

Didn't start super fast as had spent so much time faffing (third start lucky!). Went from 33 to 13 as map made it look as though there was clearly no way out of 21 to the north - when if you look closely there is path in the hedge, so 30 pts binned for 30s extra time. By about 32 was really feeling my legs were struggling - uphill felt very hard, guess not recovered from yesterday yet. 22-42 and around 15 felt like a lot of up. On way to 25 was thinking of cutting short and heading back as had nothing left in me.

23 was an interesting control site as needed careful thought as to the best time to fit it in, so got it out of the way early and could avoid the middle on the way back. Came close to taking a wrong turn on way to 16 but fortunately it was on Clare's road and the road I turned into had the wrong name... Similarly benefitted out of a cut through by Mark's house - which is what tempted me to do the bottom loop rather than just had straight back through the park to finish. Still had 2 mins left at the end so reasonably happy with that.

Add 21 (30 points on) and think I'd have had joint 2nd, which isn't bad given how the legs were!

https://www.strava.com/activities/2941768642

At the track to catch up with a few friends. Session was 6 laps, then 4x 2 laps - with 1 lap jog recovery, followed by 2x 1 lap with 200m jog recovery. Never going 100% as haven't had a rest day for a while.

Paces (/km)
6: 3:55
4: 3:44, 3:44, 3:48, 3:45
1: 3:36, 3:27

Cold but had to take layers and gloves off - so down to base layer and shorts for most of it. Fog was quite thick so couldn't see the corners of the track from half way down the back straight.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2939555027

Twmbarlwm from Risca with the Monday night crew. Steady chatty pace up with Keith/Adam/Ben, steady chatty pace down with Mark and Alice - so swapped places with Meg!

Nice evening to get out and eaten far too much good food after. Thanks Mark & Alice!

https://www.strava.com/activities/2937424677

First time with latest new torch and seems pretty good for [apparently] only 450 lumens. I'm happy with it so far.

Also first day of commuting on [partially] electric trains. My prediction for months was that the new train timetable would fall apart by 7.30 on the Monday morning but turns out it was 8-8.30ish when it really went to pot. Coming home was surprisingly on time but no records despite a very clear run in.

Long run with John in the Forest. From Staunton layby around the back of the quarry, down to the railway bridge and up to Staunton Meend and Buck Stone.

From there into Staunton, along and down the crappy path to lower track and the Suck Stone. To river and along to Symonds Yat and up to the rock. Then followed Mailscot trail until around half way and then straight up track to top - then stuck to edge of forest and road to finish, briefly stopping off at the stone by the road just before the end.

Quite muddy and hard going, particularly the up in Bunjups and the down along the wall. Nice to have some company and chat away the hours. Weather was miserable on the way out but mostly good whilst we were running.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2934672400

Ticks off the last HM run for the year, and elevation should be in a good place so I don't need to do the Transfan next weekend.

Arrived just over an hour before race start to absolutely nothing going on. All races held back after a girl tripped and injured her head, and waiting for an ambulance to pick her up. They may have undersold the injury as the air ambulance came by and was parked for about 30 minutes - I hope it was more out of convenience than necessity.

The delay meant that races of the same distance were merged so we didn't know when our race was going to start. We were expecting a 10 minute warning to give us time to warm up as per previous delayed races but this was missed for ours so had no time at all to get legs going (it was far too cold and windy to speculatively undress and warm up...). I sympathise with the organisers a lot as they clearly had more important things on their mind, and it's to their credit that the last races actually went ahead at all.

Legs weren't ready, and I didn't need to race hard, so started pretty much at the back (only 2 behind me) and used the first couple of laps to get the legs turning. Downside to this is that I didn't know the course and how narrow it is, so was stuck in a traffic jam for first 4k.

Downhill was very slippery and really needed bigger spikes as couldn't take the corners faster than walking pace. The meadow was pretty much impossible - so sat back on lap 1 and loop, stuck to the middle "lumpy" bit of the path on other laps and was able to grip better. Woods were rooty so needed to see what I could trip over, and the up was narrow so lap 1's pace was determined by the speed of the man 10 in front of me.

Able to do some overtakes in the grassy car park at top of climb, but the slow guy sped up a lot too and was right with me. After this was a long gravel track section where spikes weren't a good idea at all, before a very slow going boggy field back to the start.

From lap 2 had a stitch, or something stomach related developing - which I think is combination of fighting the wind and not having a warm up. On all the laps I was knackered from mud at the bottom of the descent so just plodded back up, and the boggy field got at least 200m longer each time.

Lapped by the winner at the bottom of last lap climb, and by 2nd place at the finish line - so was fastest person lapped by 2 or more people. Was doing mental calcs with the watch and by the end of the first "short" lap worked out we were on for 10k rather than the advertised 9, think some of the less good runners in front of me struggled with that extra k. Pretty knackered from the effort despite not giving it totally everything, now see why people don't like this course!

Be interesting to see what it's like in the dry - should be many minutes faster!

https://www.strava.com/activities/2932466014

Thought I should try and do something to ease legs out but really not up for it. Definitely starting to go darker.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2932466194

Note - this is the first opportunity for the "wholly enclosed" rule to be applied - hence I haven't needed to run onto the road to join with where I've run before.

After some false hope earlier on, seems I've now lost this week's battle with my brain and feeling very delicate all morning. The route turned out to be crap - ODP and the two tracks basically unrunnable due to deep mud, water filled ruts and sharp cambers. Should have just stuck with the Mark and Alice route. Had to do a few stops to try and compose myself so that I would at least get back in one piece.

Did manage to do most of the surveying in Monmouth I needed to, but it didn't really help, and had got very cold by then as is usually the case. Spent a lot of hours sat in the car and then lay in bed and still not totally with it at 8.30. Hopefully tomorrow will give me a distraction.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2930128024