Training Log Archive: fletch

tRicky, Shane and I there to prove to Andre that tapering for a rogaine is crap. Anne and Tash also.

2 sets of 4 threshold reps on Kalinda. Couldn't really remember how we structured Kalinda sessions before, but now, looking back through my log it seems we usually just ran them hard and focused on technique on the steep bit and over the top of the hill. So this almost counts as original.

Got pretty wet at the end of the warm-up, but not during or after, so was nice for running.

2:12, 2:05, 2:07, 2:05
2:00, 2:05, 2:08, 1:59

First one wasn't warmed up properly, first one of second set I can never get the pace right, and the last one was deliberately a bit quicker. Left heel again good for most of the session, but a bit twingey by the end and sore since.

Will probably take hills easy next week as a post-rogaine recovery session and then see if some flat intervals are any better. (I hope that's what is on the program...) Don't really want my achilles headed back to where it was for most of last year.

Same as last week.
lost times for first set.
3:25, 3:05; 2:38 for second set. started last rep really aggressively but then had a mental fail where i didn't want to hurt too much in the middle before finishing strongly.
Achilles was 100% till a slifht lateral heel niggle on left foot for last 2 reps.

C • 2.38 12

1-2-3-4-5-5-4-3-2-1 pyramid with 1 min recoveries.

Totally stuffed by the end. Reckon my quads (and various other non-cycling-accustomed muscles are going to complain at me for quite a while.

Easy 30 min on the windtrainer to loosen up for a thorough stretch and find out if I can use it indoors first thing in the morning (no).

Foam rollers are not fun. But they are effective.

After writing off this session both Saturday and Sunday mornings, and having an allergic reaction to some food (I think) at arvo tea, I finally started feeling good again at about 7pm, so headed out for my first 'long' run in a while. Given how the achilles has felt this week, was prepared to turn around early and went straight down Brighton Rd to the beach and along the bike path to City Beach.

Slight heel twinge disappeared in the first few hundred metres, and from then on I got into a pretty decent rhythm that felt really comfortable. Calves started to tighten at about 30 minutes, and when I got an achilles twinge at about 10km, I stopped. Gnerally they felt OK after that and even started to loosen up a bit by the end (although got sore soon after finishing). Right hip flexor grumbled a bit on the uphill home. Need to get working on that between now and the rogaine. ITBs also both started to tighten down near the knees. Not surprising really, given recent lack of stretching and the fact that was my longest run this year bar the Trail half.

Waiting till 5:35pm got us a slightly larger group this week. Brian (thanks for the birthday treat :) ), Andre, Wil, Alisha (from last week and last year tRicky) and Rebecca (new - laready into orienteering).

1.35km WU, 1.2km-ish CD

S-M-H x 2. Not sure about the first slow one - stuffed up starting my watch. Assume it was somewhere around the 3:30 mark.
then 3:09, 2:46.
Second set felt dreadful for the Slow and medium, good for the first third of the last one then died horribly.
3:31, 3:07, 2:50.

Hardest running I've done for a long time, for some (unsurpisingly) unspectacular, but not totally dreadful times.

C • Alisha 6

I always used to laugh at the warning on icepacks not to put them directly on your skin, figuring that you would notice the pain before they burnt your skin. Apprently not if you are distracted enough. Prett ysore heel trying to jog this morning, but OK apart from that. Heel niggles less noticeable that yesterday. Better stick to the old shoes this week... night have to go and find a matching pair and add another pair of shoes to the "wear when everything stops hurting" pile.

Cruise along at the front of the group, then doubled back to the back and walked in to the end. The 15 minutes walking was pretty dull. Running felt easy, but slight niggle on outside of both heels through much of the run. Didn't shift to the regular troublespot, but still something to be wary of.

Back to the other shoes for tomorrow.

Finally decided that the week and a half of missing training wasn't really coz I was too tired and working too long, it was just me lacking motivation and making excuses not to get up in the morning.

With that figured out, I gout out of bed no worries this morning and headed into school to hop on the windtrainer as a way to ease back into riding. Unbelievably, after 15 minutes I managed to flat a thorn proof tube on the windtrainer. Almost pinched the replacement tube, but, unlike tRicky, I realised what I'd done and fixed it before I pumped it right up ;)

Got going much better after tht and actually enjoyed the last half an hour. Even put in some solid work at times. Long way back though... good thing I've still got nearly three months till Espresso!

It's not training... and it;s kind of embarrassing to admit in public, but in the interest of trying to figure out how the Natureplay mob got DSR and daprtment of community (or whatever they're called) funding, I took the family to a FAmily Week Geocaching morning.

They had set 30 little geocaches to find and given us 90 minutes. Each one worth a different number of points, most points wins a GPS (and one for second and third too). In theory, there were so many out there and they were SOOO well hidden that nobody would go anywhere near finishing. As well as having all the cache locations pre-programmed into each team's GPS receiver, we were given an aerial photo with the locations accurately marked.

Seeing as we had a couple of friends there, we briefly discussed letting me have a map and an answer sheet and going for a run. In the end it was me who had to talk the others out of it.

The GPS unit kept the kiddies occupied enough that we got around all of the caches (the only one that was causing people too much grief was the one with the padlock where you needed to know pi to 5 decimal places to open it - too much misspent time in maths class for it to be an issue....) Got dirty looks from the other teams when I got the answer and left without telling them,.

Anyways, even with a pair of 6 year olds, we got round the lot with 15 minutes to spare, and I only looked at the GPS unit to program it for the kids. The map was more than adequate.

In the wash-up, quite a few teams got them all, so they just did a luck draw for the GPS units out of the teams that got all of them, and we won one of them.

Wife and kids loved it. Reasonable turnout there and everyone seemd to love it. I'm not sure how much of it was playing with GPS stuff or whether you could achieve the same vibe with an aerial photo / map and some hidden markers and clues to make it more like a treasure hunt than real orienteering.

Griff Longley (organiser) seemed happy and was contemplating trying to make it a regular event. I suggested having a competition between teams with GPS and teams without and wasn't dismissed totally...

Might be worth making (another) effort from OAWA to link up with Natureplay in some capacity. They obviously can set up one off events and get government support for them. If they would do all that side and just get OAWA to put together the park orienteering side of things, it could be a goer. Would be relatively easy to put together a series of 4-5 monthly park events with their backing??

Food for thought anyway (and another distraction for the kiddies to get them outside to one of the apprently many geocaches hidden randomly somewhere near our house).

C • Natureplay 17

Event: Jorgensen Park
 

Gentle cruise out from the camp near Bindoon around some random roads, past an old school site and generally just drifting along enjoying the relaxation. Wish I knew my way around enough to just go fence jumping and run around some random farm paddocks and hills, but kept to the road verge for the most part.

Same fitness session as the other 2 times this week.

Brian returned from last week (despite saying he wouldn't), Mat sent a sms to let me know he couldn't make it, Andre and Shanel in SA, tRicky was there to smash everyone, Brenda back for the second time ever and finally got to put a face to Anne's name after having her on the mailing list for ages.

2 sets of 4. First at 'threshold' second set 5-10 sec faster. 2 minutes between sets
UP DOWN
1:47 2:05 (approx 400m rep)
1:48 2:04
1:44 2:04
1:47 2:06

?? 2:04
1:34 2:15
1:34 2:21 (coaching stop :) )
1:34

Will look up how much slower this is than normal some time soon

A little fitness session with year 9's Down the stairs at Clayton's beach, along the sand to the first big rocks, turn around and back up the stairs x 5.

After a long mental battle this morning following my 5:30am alarm, I finally got up and was actually feeling pretty positive and enthusiastic about the chance to cruise for an hour or so before work. As I was pulling into the driveway at work, I remembered that I was coaching cross country at 7am, which didn't leave time for a run. Bugger. Did a bit of work till 7 and nobody had showed up. Got a bit frustrated and went back to working. One kid showed up at 7:05, so I took him for a session (ie he ran, I sat in the corner and stretched.) At least he tried hard.

Felt a bit less grumpy after getting the HR up for a bit doing this silly stair run. Not surprisingly, despite having a gentle cruise, I comfortably beat all the kids (they have a 20 minute time limit.)

Not the smartest way to get a little bit of 'training' in...

Cross country with the year 10 students. I ran off the front so I was back in time to make sure the sickies got the timing right, so 3km hard with no warm-up. Probably explains why the second lap was 13 seconds faster than the first. Take 13 seconds off the overall time and I'd be a little less depressed.

C • tRicky's time 2