Training Log Archive: Craig

An hour with the ball machine taking turns with Rachel. Arm got tired pretty quickly. Got a lot of work to do. Probably should have started with the balls coming a little shorter and slower to make it easier.

Aiming for more of a steady run than a build run this week but I don't think it worked out that different. Just tried not to build beyond a moderate effort but I felt better than last couple of weeks so probably wasn't that much slower. Added 3 hill sprints near Saw Ave at the end.

Recovery jog in KP.

3x1500 in 6'00" + 3x200 in 42" with 2' rest at McGillivray.
Felt a bit tired on the 1500s but never felt as though it was going to be a problem to make the times. Wasn't really aiming for 42 on the 200s, just wanted to run them as fast as I could while staying relaxed and hoped it would be at least under 42. Actually did 38.75, 36.5, 32.07. Probably not completely relaxed on the last one but wasn't really straining.

C • 32?! 24

Easy run in KP with 3x8 second hill sprints near the end.

Pennants vs Kings Park.
My opponent this week had a similar ranking to last week but this time it was probably about right. Won with Daniel 4-2 4-0 and with Brad 4-2 4-1 I think. Felt as though my opponent was definitely the weak link on their team and I should win my singles easily but found myself down 0-1 and 15-40 on my serve before I got my act together and won 4-1 4-0. Played a lot better than last week but against much weaker opposition. Brad was a little down on himself after losing in straight sets while everyone else won in straight sets but his opponent was by far the strongest and he was actually playing pretty well.

Very slow long run around KP. Amused myself by trying to cover as many tracks as possible on the North side of the park on the way up to the war memorial without retracing my steps too much. Did enough that I had to take a direct route back down the broadwalk to avoid going too much over my planned distance.

2x12min tempo with 3min jog recovery around the river to Tawarri and back. Initial plan was to do the first at 4:20/km and the second at 4:10/km but I felt so stiff and tired on the warm up that I thought I should allow an extra 10 seconds/km. First effort was mostly into a light wind and I was over 4:30 for a lot of it but ended up around 4:25 mostly due to overtaking another runner and partly because the last bit was more sheltered and with the wind. Second effort was mostly with the wind and I kept it close to 4:10 all the way but kept wondering if I was pushing a bit too hard.

Right achilles and tib/fib joint a bit sore by the end. Need to get a new pair of Frees.

500m of swimming spread over half an hour. Mostly doing single 25m laps of catch up with plenty of rest. Timed one 50 in about 47 seconds feeling quite cruisy but arms felt pretty tired doing another easy 50 a short time later.

Build run in KP while Liam had his tennis lesson. Probably felt a little better than last week setting out but the legs quickly started to feel tired. Eventually got moving a bit faster but then the calves started to tighten up a bit. Heart was a bit annoying too, not really slowing me down but a bit uncomfortable a lot of the time. Added a couple of short (8 second) hill sprints at the end at the suggestion of Brad Hudson in the book Daniel loaned me yesterday. Those felt quite good, might try to do them regularly.

Recovery jog on sand tracks. Feeling a bit of a wreck this morning.

5x1k with 90s rest at McGillivray on the 1k loop or at least approximately where it used to be. Took advantage of working 0.8 time for a while and a quiet week for Rachel to do the session with Rachel after school drop off which made it a bit easier to back up after tennis.

Aiming to keep it just under 4min/km again but the second effort was a little fast and then I just tried to keep the same rhythm throughout the session. Getting pretty tired by the end but managed to hold the pace ok. Seemed to be over a bit faster than last week, having a bit of company probably helped.

Recovery jog. Needing it.

Need to make a bit more effort on the diet front.

Pennants vs Bull Creek.
Playing new fast 4 format which is best of 3 short first to 4 sets. Played very erratically which was quite frustrating as the other team were very consistent so I kept creating chances and then screwing up. Lost with Dan 2-4,4-3,2-4 with Brad 2-4,2-4 and singles 0-4,2-4. Played best in last set of singles which was good fun. Thought I might have a chance in singles being number 3 in our team but their number 3 was actually their best player and hardly missed a shot all night. I think his ranking had just dropped from not playing officially for a couple of years.

Just looked up the results and found the guy I played (Rob) had a singles CTR of 4.5 when he last played in 2007 and has won all 23 singles matches he has played. My CTR was 7.2 (lower is better) and his had been automatically adjusted to 8.2 from not playing. I feel better about winning a couple of games now as he has beaten better players than me 6-0,6-0 several times in the past.

Easy long run in KP. Calves are a little sore so tried to just take it very easy and take advantage of the rain by sticking to the nice firm sand tracks. Bumped into Lauren up near the war memorial so turned around to run with her for a few minutes before her ankle seized up.

Feeling good about the first week of training properly. Motivation levels were increasing with each run but my calves are struggling a bit. Slightly concerned about how they will cope with Monday night pennants and Tuesday morning intervals.

A bit of West family tennis for Rob's birthday. One set with Damien against Rachel and Rob then two sets with Rachel against Damien and Rob. Pretty clear who has been playing more recently.
Daniel turned up as we were about to leave so I had a little extra hit with him in preparation for pennants tomorrow night. Rachel's pennants team were practicing on one the other courts.

5k tempo around the river in 20:54. Possibly pushing a little bit too hard by the end. Didn't help that I had to overtake a couple of cyclists with a couple of minutes to go. Wind was pretty much pure crosswind.

Just 25 or 50m at a time with lots of rests in the indoor pool during kids lessons. Total time would have been about 45 minutes so twice as much resting as swimming. Much more enjoyable than continuous swims in the 50m outdoor pool. I actually feel reasonably competent for 25m at a time.

Build run around KP. Met Alan Fenelon about 15 minutes in and stopped for a bit of a chat. He has just started training for 6 inch. Tried to meet up with Aislinn but we must have crossed on parallel paths the first time so didn't meet until almost at the end of my planned run. Did a bit of extra warm down just so that we had a few minutes to chat. Legs a bit sore from intervals on Tuesday and tennis last night but felt alright apart from the soreness.

Recovery jog in KP. Feeling very stiff and sore to begin with. Just stiff and sore by the end.

Pennants training. Served OK but ground strokes were very erratic.

Rode my bike up to Railway Rd to shorten and flatten the warm up/down a bit and then ran over to McGillivray to do some intervals. Riding part way seemed good, didn't think of doing that until after getting up this morning but I think I will do it again. Stopped the gps while doing drills and strides.

Still haven't actually made a training plan so I was going to go for the old standard 5x1k but when I got there and saw the 400m track only had one lane blocked I decided to go for 6x800m with 1min rest instead. Ran in lane 2 starting from the 400m start for lane 3. Aimed for 3:12 (4min/km) and ran most of them in about 3:07 (3:06.6-3:09.1).

Effort felt about right, getting tired by the end but could have done more. Had doubts about wanting to do this every week but I think that is normal and I should be ready to try again by next Tuesday. Need to set an alarm and go to bed earlier next week, made it to work just after 8:00 but it felt a bit rushed.

Proper training starts today. Just an easy jog around KP to begin with. Haven't actually made a training plan but the basic structure will be something like this...

M - recovery run
T - intervals
W - recovery run
T - build run
F - recovery run or rest
S - tempo (+ short hills)
S - long run

Need to start a diet today too.

C • Proper Training 2

Longish easy run with Rachel on the rail trail from Carters Rd out to Burnside Rd and back. Detoured through some of the single tracks in the pines on the way back to add a bit of distance and fun. I was a bit surprised how few bikes we saw out there. I always imagined those single tracks would be super busy most of the time but we only saw a couple of bikes and never on the same track as us.

MTBO middle distance champs.
I found it really hard to read the map on a map board last time I tried MTBO so I decided to just carry it this time. Spent most of the minute before starting folding the map to put it in my A4 map bag then tried to look at the first leg and all I could see was Craig Dufty written on my map bag. Spent most of the next minute pulling it out and turning it around so I could read the first leg. Got heaps of air trapped in the bag this time. Didn't even realise the maps were waterproof until two days later but the map bag did help to keep it folded smaller.

First bit of single track was quite steep with lots of roots and I was worried that this was not going to be much fun for me but it was all pretty riding after that (except when I rode the same track again just to be different when mikedufty was in front of me and took my first choice route). Had a hairy moment when I turned down towards one and quickly picked up speed towards some unexpected sharp bends. I had my braking fingers caught up in my map and nearly went off into a tree. I was more careful how I held my map after that.

Saw mikedufty leaving 2 as I approached which surprised me as it was a pretty simple start. Turns out he decided to visit 5 on the way to 2 which slowed him down a bit. Ameko went flying past on the way to 3 and straight past the really obvious junction. He caught up again and the 3 of us were pretty much together to 4 and 5 only because Ameko kept riding past junctions. I was behind Mike when he turned up towards 6 so I decided to try going around the bottom. I came in just behind and followed out towards 7 where we watched Ameko ride right past another junction on an obvious bend. Mike was out of sight ahead by the time I got to 8 and I had kind of assumed Ameko had also gone back past but apparently he lost more time than I thought at 7 and even more at 8.

Going to 9 I couldn't see nay better way to get to it than taking the obvious route to get close and then doing a loop on the one way tracks. I tried to be careful but obviously missed a junction and ended up out on the main track to the East. Worked it out fairly quickly and headed back in but failed to see the other end of the same track and got confused when the track seemed to swing around and come into the control the wrong way. I ended up turning around and going back out the same way I came in because I couldn't make sense of the tracks which means I went the wrong way down a one way track anyway so I might as well have done the short bit everyone else did and saved myself 5 minutes. At the time I felt the tracks made no sense but I think it was really just one indistinct track and a couple of bends that were not quite right so mostly my mistake.

Kind of had enough by this time and lost a bit of interest so rolled around the rest without any urgency. Sounds as though that is about as good as MTBO gets in WA and I really didn't find it that much fun so I think that will probably be my last MTBO event.

Margaret river tennis club open day. Played 3 sets of doubles and a bit of hitting before and after with Liam, Rachel and Rusty.

Middle Distance Course 2 - Splits

Event: WA State MTBO Championships - National Series Rd 3
 

Headed North from Glenbourne towards Gracetown for 5km then turned around and came back the same way. Pretty much all uphill going out and downhill coming back. Legs really tired starting out so I had to turn it into a build run.

Sprint the SW Cowaramup.
Didn't really do any warm up and didn't feel at all like sprinting on the way to the first control so I just cruised around at a comfortable pace. Wasn't sure if you were allowed to go through the green so was looking at left/right options to go around it on 11. Eventually decided it was ok to go through but was only considering left/right at that stage and forgot to even look at the straight option so just cut through a little to go around to the right.

Sprint the SW Amazen Margaret River.
Felt more motivated this time so did a bit more warm up but it didn't really help. Don't think my route on 1-2 was great but I got all the early controls ok. Almost caught Juffy by 5 but didn't see him after that (probably because he decided to do the maze early). Enjoyed the garden section from 6-10 and then it was into the maze.

I found the maze a little too hard for my liking. The required routes were a bit too long so I always wondered if there was a better option and I had trouble remembering the planned route and keeping track of where I was up to at the same time. Lots of near collisions with other runners also made it much harder to maintain contact. Didn't ever get lost but didn't feel I was doing it very efficiently either.

Still good fun but I really preferred the gardens to the maze. Impressive run from Bruce.

Cowaramup Long - Splits

Ameze'n Long - Splits

Event: Sprint the South West
 

Australian Relays, Moondyne Road.
Third overall well behind Denmark and about a minute behind Victoria.
Oscar came in with the lead group and I set out with Bruce on second leg. Stayed with Bruce on the first loop thanks partly to a shorter split on the first control but once we started going uphill Bruce steadily pulled away. Saw the Danish runner a few times as he kept making mistakes but he was running a lot faster than me and got well clear in the last third of the course.

I had a pretty solid run. In hindsight I could have done a few legs a bit better but didn't make any real mistakes, just need to get fitter.
I was a little disappointed to let Bruce get so far ahead (4 minutes) but there wasn't really much I could do about it. Tomas pulled back a bit of time on David Brownridge on the final leg but couldn't quite catch him.

It was nice have a competitive team for a change and maybe we can do it again when Henry returns from Sweden. I'll need to get a lot fitter if Iwant to contribute again but Tomas is considering sticking with the Nomads and Cameron was only a couple of minutes slower than me today so maybe they won't need me.

C • We still need you 7

Australian Long Champs, Warranine Brook.

Had real problems adjusting to the 1:15 scale at the start. First control looked easy but I just couldn't make anything fit leaving the start so I was really hesitant and checked the compass heaps. No problem finding 1 in the end but I was still really shaky leaving 1 and didn't really have any map contact until I passed Wayne running across the paddock most of the way to 2.

Felt a lot more comfortable into 2 and across to 3 where I found fletch coming back into it as I left. 4,5,6 was ok without being super smooth. Steve started to pull away up the hill to 7 but was missing the controls so I was ahead into 8,9,10. He passed me again climbing up to 11 and got a bit of a gap but we were back together at the control.

Leaving 11 I planned to drop down the hill to the left early but I was drawn a bit right by more open running and kept trying to read the map as if I was leaving 17 instead of 11 so got caught up a bit in the green S of 17 before swinging a bit left. Steve ran past me climbing the hill to 12 but missed it once again so I had a bit of a gap heading to 13. I thought Steve was right behind me again at 13 so I was surprised when he wasn't there leaving 14 but it turns out he didn't see me punch 13 and lost a bit of time there. That was the last I saw of him and I was alone the rest of the way.

I ran pretty straight to 15 and 16 and got them fine but I was getting very tired climbing up to 17. I had a gel here but it was maybe a bit late as I was having real problems thinking clearly on the way to 18. I was stumbling through pretty straight and having real trouble making the map fit and unable to maintain focus. Eventually realised I could just bail out W to the fence and come in down the creek so I did that. Not a major mistake but definitely slow.

Kind of switched into survival mode at this point. Didn't drop the pace too much but more concerned with just getting home without a blowout rather than trying to be really efficient. Decided to straight line 19 as the light green was mostly pretty fast. Went a bit wider left than intended on 22 as I just couldn't get up the hill but from there I felt pretty comfortable and in control to the finish.

Happy with the run and the result. Feel I could have gained a lot of time with better fitness, especially up the hills. Might try to do some proper training for a while and see if the speed starts to come back.

Making up a 4 for Rachel's pennants team training. Tried to play like a girl.

Easy run around KP with Rachel. Felt pretty good.