Training Log Archive: fletch

Fairly solid paddle along the standard Banks--> Ascot Kayak Club and return through the channel. Lovely warm evening, light breeze and I only saw a couple of fisherman and no boats of any description. Bit sad really.

Played around with adding a little bit of padding to the back of the seat to try to save the back of my hips, but effect wasn't dramatic. Might have helped a bit.

Pretty uninspired session around the terrain loop this arvo. 2 double laps with the first one steady and the second one faster, 3 min between, then theoretically a single.
First one was pretty slow, and I had to stop a few times to put out tapes, move logs across paths etc so people wouldn't get lost.
10:49, 8:08
8:29, 7:58

Was well down on the pace I should have been running these and not feeling that great. Put it down to being allergied up from mowing the lawn earlier in the day. Breathing just never felt right.

Jogged around the single at the end to pick up the tapes in 9:30, then trotted back to the cars.

After slacking off all weekend, I decided that prioritising running ahead of other training probably doesn't make any sense for the next two weeks, so headed out for a long ride instead. Just a nice, flat easy one down the freeway bike path (to Mundijong road?) to get my legs and my backside used to the long bike rides that I heaven't done all year.
Started pretty conservatively, and had a bit of a headwind along the river, but that died away as I headed further south and started to pick up the pace a little as boredom set in after not much more than an hour.
All went pretty well after that except for the obligatory puncture on the return journey just before Murdoch station. Tempted to hop on a train, but found the offending bit of metal and changed tubes (never ever buy short valve-stem tubes for double-walled rims. Nearly impossible to pump up, but got it done eventually.
Legs startesd to seize up a little in the last half and hour, but pretty happy all up and knees etc weren't really grumpy at all, which was a pleasant surprise.
Channelled the trickyasaurus for nutrition and did the whole thing on one bar and about 500mL of water... just the way I won't want to do it come race weekend :)

C • tRicky 1

Should have trained this evening, but lost all motivation by the time the kids were in bed. Weird feeling this arvo - I was expecting to be either really pumped or a little depressed, but not I'm just impatient for next Saturday. Stoopid football. Draws are for soccer games. Should have had a penalty shootout and made Cloke and Dawes kick for Collingwood...

C • GOlden goal? 4

Long run before school. Felt really flat and disinterested as I headed ddown to the coast and ran north towards Jindalee and into the dune system. Started to feel a little more normal after about 40 minutes. Put it down to not having done much running befor ebreakfast recently. Ran through the sand tracks and along the beach from about the 25 min to 1hour marek, then began to look for a good way to cut through to Marmion Ave, as I decided I didn't want to just do an out and back. Found a track that looked more major than the others coming out of a big sand bowl and followed it out, only to find myself in the middle of the brand new Shorehaven development with big excavators and trucks rolling around everywhere and lots of menacing looking private property signs. Ignored these, as I had to get out to the road somehow. Pity about the development, it's turning the best part of the entire dune system into a dead flat sandpit. Would have made a great map, as the dune vegetation was lower than many other areas and very runnable, with some quite intricate little knolls and depressions.
Was a bit worried I might have bitten off a bit too much, but the return trip was much faster. Right medial knee a little niggly in the last half hour, particularly around the 100 minute mark, but generally legs were pretty good. No calf seize-up today.

C • Shorehaven 3

Lazy day yesterday. Bailed on training to go watch my little darlings at gym. Finally out on the bike for the first time in a while this morning. Will need to get a couple of long rides in during the next couple of weeks...

After a long, tough day at work (read a not very long day at work that mainly involved a little bit of lifeguard work and some body surfing as I slaved away at the beach and generally slacked off) I enjoyed the ride home. Medial knee a little niggly again, but the wind light, and predominantly a crosswind rather than in my face, so it felt pretty easy to keep up a solid pace. Fun times.

Just to remind myself, achilles all good today. No niggles at all.

Warm up, followed by 4 grass farm loops and a token cooldown. I forget what the session was meant to be pacewise - for me it was all about towing practice.
First lap towed Saz solo trying to keep pace with Tooms. 2nd and 3rd laps we shared the towing and Tooms hung on up a couple of bits of hill, last loop was pack free. Felt pretty fresh starting that one. Bit over 2 minutes quicker running solo, but also pushing a bit harder trying to catch people.

Event: WA Long Distance Championships
 

First control I was unnecessarily cautious, as it was in the middle of a whopping great clear area, but maybe not a bad thing, as it wasn't all as obvious as it might have been. As it was, I burst into the clear area and had a minor heart attack when I couldn't see the rock, but after taking 2 steps forwards, I was only about 30 metres off it. Got near 2, but got a bit vague coming up the hill, so it was good to see Ben coming out of the control, but I didn't really know where I was, and took about a minute scratching around to get it. Was clean to 3 and stoked to see Ben coming in just behind me. Was a little scared over the hilltop to 4, but hit it spot on. A little off line to 5, through the wrong saddle to hit the creek higher up than intended, but didn't pay enough attention coming down the creek, missed one bit of rock and ended up low, then follwed the wrong rock detail way too far in before seeing Ben bolting away and correcting.
Compounded my problems at the next. Over the knoll in total control, could see the big rock surface past hte control. Tried to use it to steer myself into the control, but still missed. Maybe distracted by a bunch of oldies heading to a nearby one. A bit rough through 7 as well and a good 5 minutes went down the toilet.
From there clean for a while, with a strange directional wobble on hte way to 10, but no real probs till 13, when I misidentified a thicket and ran below the control and dropped another 20 sec. Had actually caught back up to Ben on time at this point, but lost it again at 13 and he ran away from me. 30 seconds more lost standing still near 15 when I was exactly where I thought, but thought I was way too close to the track below and couldn't figure out where else I could be. Ran it out to the end, but the damage had been down and Ben came home full of running to stretch the gap to over a minute. Craig about 9:40 in front of me. Bugger.

Course 1 - Splits

Event: WA Middle Distance Championships, Malmalling
 

1 - aimed a little left and skirted the edge of the 2 clearings on the way. Could see the control feature from hundreds of metres away, complete with my 2 minute man just standing there
2 - ran staright past 2 minute man leaving control, but got off line in the thicker stuff and hit the track on the wrong side of the knoll. Corrected along the track and straight into the control
All pretty clean, can't really be bothered with the description, except for a minor wobble into 4 and a silly little error coming down to 10 when I hedged my bets with an old bloke looking for the same control and got it a bit wrong. Probably dropped about 30 seconds. Clean through 11 and 12, but lost it all at the last. Left the control a bit off line to the left, thought I had corrected and hit the control feature or missed right. Turns out I was left, so searched the wrong pile of rocks, snuck out the back of the rock detail, couldn't see anything, so turned left and went to the next knoll. Nothing there either,, so back to where I started, then on to the correct feature. Dropped about 2:45 there, to turn a good run into a pretty average one, but just held on for second, about 4 minutes down on Craig.

MH1 - Splits

Well, my ideal last few days prep has gone out the window. Walking from my office to the car after runnig yesterday I got a sharp stabbing pain at the base of my achilles / heel. Has kept bothering me since, even when just walking. Have iced and nurofened, but no real improvement.

Then I decided to do something really silly. Joined in a game of rugby league last 2 lessons today. The bad news is that my heel is not 100%. The good news is that it doesn't bother me when I'm warmed up. So will scratch the jog this arvo off the plans and just have a really good stretch etc tonight and make sure I warm up properly tomorrow.

C • Brilliant 2

Loosener before the weekend. Much needed after paddling.
10 min WU, run thrus, 5 x 400m leaving on 3 min (nominally at 5km pace)
10 min CD
First one felt really hard and legs felt tight, but got better after that, and couldn't slow down to the right pace. Long recovery helped.
80, 77, 77, 77, 78

Will repeat the dose with an even shorter session tomorrow, and then enjoy the weekend :)

Paddle with Tooms from East Perth. Pretty straight to the Narrows, into the seabreeze. Bit choppy, worked fairly hard for most of it. Had a drink and a stertch then came back South Perth side. Got into a couple of really shallow bits. Much nicer coming back, but arms died towards the end. Haven't paddled at that intensity for a while...

At the end of the session, I returned to the car to find my keys were no longer in the key pocket of my shorts. A slow walk around the warm-up loop ensued, accompanied by Wil and Tooms with their torches. About 2/3 of the way round I had a little scratch, and lo and behold, the key had fallen out of the key pocket into the built in jocks themselves. How it had been there for nearly an hour without me noticing... can't explain that one. Sorry if you were late for dinner Wil!

After an extended weekend break feeling not too flash, I looked forward to getting out on Monday, forgetting that I had school relay practice in the afternoon, so didn't get to do anything except a few 100m sprints with no warm-up subbing in for kids who were no-shows.
This was followed up by my final (phew) knee-busting turn as a softball catcher, the combination of which felt me feeling quite stiff in the quads despite having done no training for nearly a week (although i did a good stretching session on Sunday night).

Fortunately loosened up fairly quickly on the first rep and enjoyed the session.
3 x grass farms @15km pace, recover through to start and go straight away. 8:31, 8:34, 8:27. Felt pretty good.

Event: Spice Brook
 

Bugger. Felt really flat yesterday, so had a morning off. Felt really lethargic and was starting to feel a bit crook in the guts by the time I got home from work. Thought it settled down with dinner and thought maybe I just hadn't been eating well, but around the time I went to bed, I started getting hit with waves of stomach cramps that were still going strong in the morning. No poos or spews, but very uncomfortable. Fortunately eased off during the morning, but think I will have the arvo off as well and try to get out on a map tomorrow.

Bludge into work. Was a bit windy. Got a bit wet, then too hot, then wet again. Glad to have the raincoat on after all. Also glad to have a bag with a built in pack cover.

Rained again, but not enough to make me feel good about the raincoat. Got too hot. On the bright side, there must have been a bit of northerly in the breeze, coz I got home fairly fast without a lot of effort

Possibly the shortest Tooms training sesion I have ever done, yet I was so stuffed after the last one I struggled to walk back down the hill. Somewthing evil about that sand hill.
5 short reps, jog down plus 2 minutes, which is really heaps, but didn't feel like it by the end.
42.0
42.8
40.9
41.8
42.8

Easier than normal session, as I wanted to do it mainly to try to loosen up the calves from last night. Extended warm-up, then a 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 pyramid, then a short cooldown. Much improvement from barely walking this morning. Hopefully a good stretch tonight and I'll be back to normal ;)

Evening wander through the suburbs. Nearly dodn't make it, but the rest of the weekend was a training write-off, so glad I made it out, and glad I did the whole run. SOMS started in the calves at about 3km mark, so tomorrow will be a struggle to walk, right medial knee niggle surfaced again at about 70-80 minutes, but eased off after about 20 minutes. Hip flexor gave the slightest of complaints in the last 2km, but virtually 100%. Aerobically felt very easy, which I guess is a positive if I can keep myself in one piece.

Skipped the early morning run to have a sleep in and continue cold-recovery, but did feel much better today and managed to sneak away from work for a bit between the end of school and the evening social I had to attend. Ocean was relatively calm I think. Didn't paddle particluartly hard, just tried to stay relaxed in the boat. Shame to have to finish, really felt like having a little play with some ins and outs at the end, but just didn;t have the time.
Experiment with my brother's short sleeved wettie was interesting. Kept me toasty (too) warm, but chaffed around the front of the armpit. Didn't feel too restrictive on the arms. Will try again witn bodyglide to see if it is feasible for GSAR.

C • Armpit chafe 3

Boo. Came down with the family cold yesterday afternoon. Given I am working till 10pm tomorrow, thought I'd have the day off training and try to get on top of it.

Not feeling terribly creative today. 1-2-3-4-5-6-5-4-3-2-1 with 1 minute recoveries. Had to squeeze it in before work due to kiddie commitments later. Legs not feeling great, but bette rthan expected after last night.