Training Log Archive: mikeyA

Calderdale Relay leg 4 with Julian Rank as my pair. Started off badly when we missed our previous leg coming in so kinda rushed off to grab the baton and start. Probably only lost 5 or 10 seconds though. This did mean that my shoelaces where hopelessly tied so had to stop twice to sort them out but was able to catch Julian back up fairly easily. On the flats and downhills especially we were fairly even but on the climbs I'm pretty sure I could have gone a fair bit faster. Also there were a few points he went the wrong way and so I had to shout at him and wait a little bit. I reckon by myself I could probably do 70. But still a good run out and certainly didn't feel too fresh at the end. Got over taken by 2 teams who were miles quicker than us.

Basically no warm up due to the unexpected arrival of our teammates and then a minimal warm down back to the car.

Up and down.

Huddersfield parkrun. Absolutely ridiculous amount of people turn up to this, 753 today. This didn't help on the second lap where a lot of weaving in and out of people occurred due to the fairly narrow paths, slowing me down quite significantly I reckon. Also it's a fairly slow course as it is with quite a bit of climb and a lot of bends, many pretty sharp. Finished 3rd in the end having got out sprinted. Pretty pleased with the time though I think. If I'm able to do this time in hudds I'm pretty certain I can go sub 17 at Cramond.

Recce of the calderdale relay leg 4 route. Quite a few stops to inspect the map to make sure I was going the right way. As it turns out my partner for Sunday has got injured and so been replaced by someone out of the Vet team who dad says isn't much faster than he is so it's looking like I won't be getting too quick a time, hmm.

Last day of the training camp with Tam and Ali and what a way to end it. Started out from the tent so 3km into Aviemore. Missed the bus by 10 minutes meaning it was a 50 minute wait for the next but managed to hitch a lift up to Glenmore Lodge with a very nice man and his dog who took to me quite well by licking my face. Started out from the lodge and went somewhere and ended up on the top of Bynack More. Bit of brutal climb at the end that was a walk despite Tam's assurances it was just a small kicker. A short stop for some pics and midget gems before continuing on. Dropped off the far side of it and over to the lake at the bottom of Cairn Gorm and then climbed up the back side of Cairn Gorm. This again was a walk on the worst 'path' I've ever seen before cutting up and across a fair amount of snow. We must have stopped about 15 minutes from the top after Tam went wrong in the other direction this time by saying what we could see was a false top and that it was quite a bit further than we thought which he was happily wrong about. Lost the midget gem packet here as it blew away and over the hill to begin its new life on the hills. After some more pics at the top we dropped back down underneath the funicular railway. Continued all the way down down some nice, closed path through some trees before eventually arriving at Loch Morlich for a dip. Well sort of, it was freezing and even £5 wouldn't tempt me. Bus back to Aviemore and several Frij's later we had to shuffle the 3km back to the tent. Overall an amazing run and possibly tops Will's birthday run as the best one yet. Sad to leave 1 The Depression but I think it was probably about as much as my body could handle. Also hit 116km rolling week which was very nice.

Jog from the tent to the start of the Loch Vaa course.

Training on the heathery bit of Loch Vaa. Did the exercise that the Swedish team did for WOC. In the form of a trains exercise but we just ran the whole thing alone. First three were good. Fairly clean and focusing on getting to an attackpoint and then using an accurate bearing from it and it worked well with few mistakes. Only issues were that some controls were taped and some weren't and so wasn't 100% sure I was quite right on a couple. Last three I died. So tired and my head just went and stopped concentrating completely. Became a struggle to get round. Badly needed water because it was so hot. Not much learned from these apart from don't do so many miles leading up to a race.

Absolute death. Despite necking a litre of water when I finished I struggled running back so badly. Couldn't concentrate on anything apart from just moving. Could have definitely decked it on a couple of downslopes. Got to the tent and felt stupidly dizzy, was pretty scary tbh. Ate so much food. Very glad we decided not to do the stuff in the forest across the tracks as well.