Training Log Archive: fletch

Run from Craig and Rachel's house. Nice change of scenery and nice to have company. Anthea, Kellie, Dalto and Rachel. Only Rach for the last 40 minutes or so.

Right knee a bit sore on the right side after about 30 minutes. ITB still too tight. Back to the roller. Otherwise all good. Felt pretty relaxed. Nice to talk thru a few plans for summer training.

Before work plod down to the beach, and along a bit in each direction. Felt a bit flat an uninspired. Back was a little sore, and right knee and left ITB and left hip tightened up noticeably after 9-10km. Didn't use the roller last night, and was stupid enough to use the rower and do a couple of sets of 60kg squats at school, so got what was coming to me.

OK. The numbers don't suggest it yet, but training is back on. Hip pulled up much better from Tuesday running this week, and worked solidly enough on the bike this arvo to hurt a fair bit. Running again Friday and Sunday and away we go...

Things I should have added in the log
1. Had an allergic reaction on the way home from training last Tuesday. Bit weird, as i can't remember eating anything after 12:30, and nothing terribly unusual before that. Stomach had been pretty unsettled for the previous week, so maybe that had something to do with it.

2. My knee is much better than it used to be. Good enough that I am going to remove pattellar tendinitis from the injury list. 4 runs a week seems like it just mught be a feasible proposition again... but I'd better actually do 3 consistently for a few weeks to make sure :)

C • Hooray! 1

1.7km of warm-up - 1.2km to the beach (in shoes) and 500m on the sand to put the turning markers out.

Session was 1x1km, 3 min rest, 4x500m with 2 min rest between each, then 4x250m. Big recovery berfore the 250s and a bit over 2 min between each as we regrouped and went off Tooms' watch
4:50
2:13, 2:12, 2:12, 2:13
53, 56, 50, 1:00

Started the 1km a bit conservatively, but worked the rest pretty hard, and the last 2 x 250 were a bit ridiculous after Tooms went flat out for the first 100m of the first one and I dodn't want to let him get in front... then had to try to finish the session off into the wind. Blurgh.

WEll, not much to report since last entry. Hip still doesn't feel 100%. I tried a walk with P. on Saturday, hoping that would loosen it up, but it didn't do much if anything. I have had a couple of decent roller sessions, but still not there and I can't quite pinpoint where the problem is. Everything else is feeling OK. Knee didn't even register 15 minutes of low intensity basketball at school.
Still hopeful that it will resolve itself with a little bit of management. If it flares up after tomorrow's training then I am definitely physio-bound.

Have struggled a bit with left hip soreness since Tuesday's run, probably due to massively tight ITB's and failure to stretch, so just had a bit of a play today. Legs felt surprisingly crap. Follwed it with a strewtch, but will need to attack the foam roller pretty hard to get things back to normal, I suspect.

Longish, harder than normal warm-up followed by 5 laps of the balga loop.
1st one hard on the ups, recover on the downs, second one the other way around, 1 minute between themn. Then a 3 minute break followed by 3 x hard laps with 2 min recovery, except that my stomach didn't want to play, so I spent most of the second lap looking for emergency exits, then had a longer recovery and ran the last one with Tooms and Karl. Knew it was heaps slower, but still felt like hard work

3:46, 3:39
3:01, 3:08, 3:28

No issues running again. Nice to be able to do that loop without my knees complaining. Expect to pull up a little stiff though.

Short little pootle around Quinns looking for a suitable venue for a bike time trial for the kiddies tomorrow. Will have to stick to Ocean road, speed bumps and all...

Fever went away quickly after THursday night, and I felt a little guilt skipping work on Friday, but I've still got the runs and feels pretty tired, so I guess it was justified?
Tuesday training restart starting to look less certain.

Some belated thoughts on the race:
- My paddling has improved, but still not enough, especially when fatigued to start with
- I was disappointed to start cramping so early, something I thought I had dealt with, but happy that I did enough once the problems started to get back on top of things.
- I clearly still don't drink enough when it is hot. Part of this is due to the higher intensity we were forced to work at and the length of time it takes to suck a decent drink through a drink tube. I get much better hydration out of bladders where I have disposed of the bite-valve. May have to do this on my newest bladder also (which I used for most of the race)
- I appear to be able to race blister free in eaither my O shoes por Salamons, but start to take the skin off the inside of my ankles with the stupidly wide soles of the SAlamons when I get tired
- Tooms' bike is much nicer to ride than mine (even if I only did the one bike leg)
- Our support crew was amazing. Things were exactly where and when we needed them. Food was delicious and real food makes all the difference in legs that you sit out. Having a bike mechanic is also handy, as well as someone super organised who has lists of all the individual quirks in gear that we require for each leg. I reckon there'd be heaps of teams that lost over an hour to us in transition over the course of the race. Thanks Jen, Brian, Danger, Tim and Sue
- The team worked well together. No big dummy spits, better use of the tow ropes in all 3 disciplines and the people with the best functioning brains generally had the map in hand. Practice might not make perfect, but it certainly gets you closer.
- Orienteering Champs are six months away. My training needs to significantly shift focus again if I am to perform to my satisfaction. Whether I ever switch back to AR training remains to be seen... (but chances are pretty high)

C • Support 2

Mmmm. pools of sweat last night. Bit better today, but not totally. Guts still not great. Oh well, anything I did before Tuesday was always going to be pretty token. Will have to see if I can remember how to structure a running origram with 4 runs a week in it...

Was feeling really good today till about 2pm when things suddenly went a bit weird. Now have an elevated heart rate and a slight fever. Ah well. Good timing really.

Oh yeah - another one. Feeling pretty good now, but no need to rush things.

Mmmmmm. Rest. Thought I was pretty much good to go till I had to walk up a flight of stairs.

After our support crew got some timing issues from the previous day sorted, we were surprised to find that we were in front by half an hour. It didn't change the fact that getting race maps for the whole day at 5:30am for a 6am start makes for a mad rush, but did get us thinking that the prime focus for the day should be consistency.

A metro Orienteering leg was a good way to start from our point of view, with the best part of 30 controls to collect, many worth 10-15 minute time bonuses. Seeing as there was no stress in making the paddle cutoff time later, and no point in getting to the paddle before the window opened, we opted to collect all but one of the controls. Had one little miss and one route choice change where we decided to go around the river and over the bridge rather than a swim option.

It took a little while for my legs to get going, with Saz initally runnig stronger than me, so tRicky navved throughout. My legs came good again after about 20 minutes, and we saved Sarah a little with some towing in the second hald of the leg, as she was doing the first 3 legs straight.

Seemed to come back in about the same time as many other teams. With so many optionals out there it was hard to know how we'd done, but figured it was pretty well, seeing as we'd only left 15 minutes bonus out there. Saw RobbieJ leading his team at a fair clip a few times, but were happy that we seemed to go a different way to most from the start, so didn't end up giving anyone else a tow around the course.

Another short MTB leg = my turn to sit out again. Felt much healthier than after the first run yesterday. Don't know much of hte details, but Captain Tooms came in pretty happy with the world having passed a bunch of teams near the end. Had made a bit of a charge on this leg and were (I think) second into transition. Hooray for navigation.

Out of transition and down to the beach for Tooms to swim to the checkpoint in the middle of Green's Pool. Most teams had the person who sat out the MTB suited up in full wetsuit, but I had no desire to get in the water, and Tooms was prett sure he wouldn't freeze in a 100m'ish swim, so jumped in in his knicks before doing a strip on the rocks next to the official photographer.
All done very efficiently, especially the missing Jo Fisher by millimetres during the swim, and we were off on a coasteer.

We were at the head of quite a pack of teams to the first checkpoint, and as we descended to where I thought it was marked, I tossed up whether the circle was out by a bit or whether JJ really wanted us to wade knee deep so early in the leg. After checking a different buch of rocks, I headed back to where it was mapped and went wading with Woop Woop to find the control. After this one, Tooms took the map and I took the punch card...
A bit annoying to lead so many teams in, as it was pretty well hidden, but not a big time loss.

Similar story at the second one. A small islet. Got to the vicinity and decided it must be on the island on the other side if a 20m channel. Oh well, more wading, so in I went - up to my neck at the time Tooms yelled out that it was on a much smaller piece of rock that I could have gotten to without getting wet. Bugger.

Had one more minor time loss when Tooms stuck his thumb over a checkpoint and we went straight past it. Quickest I moved the whole leg was going back to get it.

The rest of the leg was pretty straight forward, but some of the rock clambering was a bit dicey at times, and got wet plenty, even without the rain squalls that started coming through in the second half of the leg. Gradually pulled away from the pack behind, and were gradually left behind by ?the Mongrel Madmen?.

We left the last optional as we thought we couldn't gain much, but could lose significant time if we weren't clean on it and headed in to the start of the paddle.

The rock scrambling felt slow and hard at times, but it probably helped keep the intensity down a bit, which was a good thing by this stage of the race. Very glad to have switched into the light shoes for this leg, as they were wet throughout.

C • Second-guessing JJ 3

Well, I'd been hoping to miss this one, but as there was no ocean, Saz got her way :) Started by dragging the boats 300m or so to the mouth of the inlet and began. There was a nice tailwind, but I was more fatigued than I realised and was pretty quickly falling off the back. As the wind picked up and some squalls came through we angled across the inlet. Happy not to be going straight across it this time :) even if it wasn't so big. No hassles staying on, but hassles staying on AND going anywhere at a decent speed.
Once we were lined up a bit better with hte wind and chop and into a more sheltered part, we grabbed tRicky's paddle leash as I had been getting left behind pretty badly and tied me on to the back of Tooms' ski. This worked a treat early, but got harder as we had to change direction across the chop a bit more, and I spent much of my time alternating between trying not to surf a wave into the middle of John's back and then trying to give him a little slack in the tow rope so that he could turn himself back in the right direction after I had pulled him side on to the waves.
I think he'd had enough by the time we beached to look for the stolen control with a few other teams and we unhitched. Spent a little while here running up and down the beach to warm up as I had fallen in a couple of times in quick succession not long previously.
It may well have been easier to stay in if I wasn't attached, but it's not easy to tell. There's a very big difference between what I can hadle comfortably for a one hour ocean paddle and what I can handle at the back end of an adventure race.
When we left the beach I made it around the headland on my own in one piece, and then we could turn to have a pretty clean run with the wind to the river mouth. Had a bit of a second wind here and was moving at a decent clip, but by the time we hit the river mouth for the last couple of km I was shattered again and desperately trying to stay in Tooms wash.

I knew we'd lose time here, particularly with me needing the tow, but given our lead from the fist day, our pretty clean efforts to this point and the fact that the paddle wasn't the total disaster of the previous couple of years, I was confident that we were still in a strong position.

As floated earlier with Tooms, he was fresher than me after the long paddle, even after falling in under the bridge with about a km to go in the paddle, so I took the soft (or best for the team) option of sitting out the last leg, the first change to our planned team line-up for the whole race. He didn't make much sense in transition, but his brain came back quickly.

I got to help with one final pack-up, then drive back to the middle of town to wait. No team run finish this year, so my race was done. And I wasn't hypothermic. Hooray!

Waiting at the finish line was a little nreve-racking. I was expecting to see teams finish, then wait and count the minutes to try to figure out where we sat. Was stoked to see Saz and the lads flying into the finish first! Given that we had only missed half an hour of time credits on the day and had started with a lead, we figured this had pretty much guaranteed us the win, but it was only a few minutes before a few more teams rolled in, so we weren't entirely confident until the presentations later that evening.

Event: Denmark Adventure Race
 

Pretty happy to be sitting out the first paddle. tRicky had looked pretty comfortable in the boat last week, and I had been off it for a couple of weeks and not feeling totally stable. Joined the mighty support crew for the drive to transition and began the long wait. As it turned out, my relaxed state didn't last as time seemed to crawl, with no teams arriving.

The race book had said 75 minute winning time for a 14km paddle. We knew we'd be well off that pace, but first 90 minutes ticked by, then I took a wander a bit further up the river and it was nearly 2 hours before the first team arrived. Turns out the front of the pack had significantly overshot the first control.

Given the length of the paddle, I wouldn't have been surprised to see us about half an hour down, but teams ticked through pretty quickly and PPS pulled into view just outside the top ten and only just over ten minutes down.

Jogged with the team out hte track to the car, ran back to check that we'd been signed through, then off we went on the next leg, with Saz subbing out.

This was a long bike, but it was navigationally straight forward and all on pretty major tracks. We left out the 15 minute bonus in the middle and got everything on the long loop around the outside. A couple of teams came blasting past us early, but by later in the leg, we were passing teams again as one or more members began to wilt in the heat. Had a chat to McNiff as he pedalled off the front of his team to be friendly and a few other teams around as we made our one error of the leg with a minor overshoot of a small track, which we had seen, but weren't confident about.
Maintained a pretty reasonable pace through the whole thing and generally fely comfortable, although I was a little worried when I had the first hint of a calf cramp after about an hour and a half. Not a good sign given that this was my first leg.

The first 50m of this paddle set the tone for the first half. Logs everywhere. Hopping in and out of the boat so many times was hard work and I had several nasty cramps. It was frustrating at times to get to logs and have to wait in a traffic jam for several people to get over first, but gradually we snuck through and got out into more open spaces. That said, the spirit of the racers was great and Wally helped me out several times getting me unstuck and over things as I seemingly kept getting in his way.
Got a bit of a break on Woop Woop and the Goats before half way, but weren't surprised when the streamed back past us in the last 500m or so of the more open river before transition. Wally was towing Will - something we had briedly discussed before, but never practiced. Glad we saw someone else doing it - it ended up being pretty important later on. Saz's arms were suffering a bit from the huge paddling load early, but that wasn't a problem with the paddling done for the day and lots of running to come.

This leg was always going to be a case of getting as much time bonus as possible without jeopardising getting to the Treetop walk and out before the 5pm deadline. We started with a pretty substantial hill, so got Saz on the towrope early.
What I assumed was the marked track up the first hill had a very big Private-No Entry Sign on it, so we took a parallel track up the hill, but seemed to go forever before we hit anything and we weren't totally confident where we were. There were a couple of other teams with us on the road, and as we crested the hill, I was pretty happy to see street signs. Even happier to see the Goats charge straight down the hill on the (unmapped bit of the)road. I waited till they were far enough gone, turned left, then on we went. The first checkpoint was in thick, nasty bush and we marginally overshot it, looked around, and decided that it would be too mean even for JJ for it not to be visible from the road. Sure enough 20m back up the hill I saw it. Got the just on a couple more teams here.
The first time bonus control we went for we had to hack through a couple of hundred metres of bush along a creek, then had the choice of repeating the dose or going 4 times as far around a track. We took the track option, but the junction we needed didn't exist, and the overgrown track we thought we might have been on disappeared and we ended up back on the main road and decided to cut our losses.
Things were getting a little tighter for time than we would have liked, so we picked up the intensity a little and we were clean through the next few through to the track-creek crossing at 17. The control had been moved pre-race so we thought it might be a little tricky, and despite being confident where we were, no sign of the marker and we had a little bash through to the farmland, up the fence to the corner and back to where we started. tRicky channelled his Caffeinated experience here and sure enough the control was right next to us in the concrete culvert pipe. Annoying, and now really pushed for time.
We decided that despite the extra 10-15 minutes down the toilet we could still get a very valuable half an hour at 18 only going very slightly longer than the shortest way to the Treetop walk and the steep downhill finish looked like we would still get there comfortably. Pity I had the contours upside down and we had 2 savage climbs to get over.
Bolted into the Treetop walk, speed-walked over it and caught Woop Woop, who we thought were taking it surprisingly easy. Turns out they had already missed a compulsory. A quick run arounf the Ancient empires walk and out to transition.
Tooms and the support crew assure me they were always confident that we would make it, but the first team had only been through 15 minutes before us and many hadn't made it. The time when we hit transition? 4:57pm. 3 minutes to spare and I was abdolutely shattered. The tow rope had gradually begun to get heavier as the leg progressed...

Sooooooo happy to be sitting/lying/cramping out the next leg. Got on with the process of rehydrating and eating as much as possible as the cold shivers had set in a goof hour before the finish of the run and I knew the next MTB wouldn't take long.

Confident that we were going to finish the first day in a good position after this one.

No idea what happened on this leg, but the team smashed it and came into transition near the front of the field, having overtaken a bunch of geographically challenged teams just after exiting transition.

Made a little error straight out of transition, but quickly corrected onto the beach and had no issues following the Bib Track to the first hut to pick up the first checkpoint. The hour sitting out had been juist right for my legs to seize up and I struggled at the start of the leg, with a couple of big cramps, but settled into it pretty well after the first 20 minutes.
The next section was a challenge as it was getting dark and the Bib track was quite different to what was marked on our map. We ended up0 bush bashing over to a track closer to the beach, then followed that into a campsite before a little hunt and a slide down the near-vertical overgrown track that we found to the beach. Apparently we could have just followed the road. The campers returned just after us and judging from their shouting weren't too happy about us being there, but no idea what they were saying. Got the checkpoint on the sign cleanly, then ticked along getting all the others trouble free and making pretty good progress to the finish.
Got to the line about 8:30pm to be greeted by a loud cheer from Brian who correctly guessed that it must be us.

Still no idea how we were really sitting, but knew we had done pretty well and retired to our accomodation to catch up with Saz who took off after the last bike.

Knackered but happy.

Well, either the XT is much more stable than the PRS, my paddle stability has gone to crap over the last few weeks, or having a trailing rudder on a PRS makes a significant difference.

Felt very tippy in Dolf's PRS this morning... Was a bit lazy getting out therough the little break at Brighton. Crashed through one little wave just as it was breaking, then relaxed and pondered which way to go, only to realise that the next wave was bigger and breaking further out. Didn't quite manage the crash through that one and came out, but got 'thorugh ebough' that the ski stayed out behind the break with me, so I got back on and had a little unsteady paddle south and back. Mistimed the run to shore too and came off again.

No falls out the back, but felt very unsteady until the last 5 minutes and the conditions were pretty much perfect. I nominate tRicky and Saz for the ocean paddles.

In other news it is very quick and easy to change the rudder over on Dolf's PRS, so might have to change it mid-race to use the ocean rudder where possible.

C • Makes sense. 15

Starting to feel a little better this evening, but throat infection has started... Hmmm

Bit of a stretch calling this training, but I slowly rolled around the 'burbs for a while, looking at streets near my house that I've never been down, making sure that Tooms' bike is set up OK for the race on the weekend. Think I should be able to cope with it just fine.

Felt better rolling around that I have all day, but have basically felt the worst I have all week today. Grrr.

Was pretty sure by last night. Nowe definitely have the cold that's been threatening for a week or so. Bugger. Nothing serious yet, so if this is all there's going to be I'm still pretty happy. If it's going to get worse, i wish it would hurry up...

Very slow, and not very long run from home, around Herdsman Lake and over to casa del Tooms to pick up his bike so I can have a little ride before racing on it. Just didn't feel good. Maybe like I have the start of a cold.

Got home and discovered that Esther has a cold, so there's every chance that I'm headed that way. As long as it's a little one and not a Tooms special, I don't mind the timing...

Roll home on Tooms' bike. Need to get the seat height right and give it a little lube. Otherwise feels pretty good. Slightly smaller frame than mine I think, but that is a good thing.