Training Log Archive: fletch

Event: WA Relays
 

Thought I'd better do a decent warm-up seeing as the races were so short today. Did a bit of a cooldown too, but not the 1 hr jog that I had foolishly considered to get the distance up a little.

First leg of the relay. Made a pretty bad mess of it. Got the first one on top of the hill fine, had a good attackpoint for the second, yet was strangely 50-75m right of the control. Luckily saw it. Butchered 3. Not careful enough with direction, missed it low, then ran to 2 wrong controls despite seeing the right one, before returning to it. 4 was the spectator control, which I ran straight to a wrong control again, as I had seen it from the start and wrongly assumed it was the spectator control without even looking at my map. 5 I was one spur off into the gravel pit, clean through 6,7,8 to get myself back near the head of the pack, 9,10,11 also good, but then missed 12 badly. Ran past it woithout seeing the one and only rock in the area, nito thicker bush. Stopped, realised that the veg. was mapped, just the print was very faint, backed out, past the control again, up the hill, back to the creek line before finally seeing the control. Ran past Russell Wade and Juffy again on the way to the last control. Beaten by Simmo. Oh the shame!
Time is a guess as I forgot to stop my watch, and I know it was less than what was suggested by the sportident...

C • Time 4

Much better this time. Little miss on the first when I recognised the number from one of the wrong ones I went to on the first loop. Ran to the wrong 'wrong' control, before correcting fairly quickly. Carefully through the next couple on the fallen-timber strewn hill. Got into running stride on the rest of the loop and ran it out hard and cleanly. It probably helped that there were 3 repeat controls from the first loop in addition to the 3 visits to the spectator control.

Bit of a team skills session with Tooms, Saz and Boltboi. Launched from Floreat, paddled up to Brighton, then did some ins and outs. Only came out once on the way out, plus one time getting back off to avoid the incoming Boltboi ski that was aimed right at Tooms. Managed to take a couple of waves in the chest and the face and still stay up, so I must be improving. The way in was not quite so special, never quite made it all the way in, though got into shallow water near shore just about every time.

Got caught out by one large wave that I wasn't expecting, just after I turned to come back in. Didn't have time to get up to speed and knew i was going to end up at the top of the wave, so started trying to back-paddle my way out of it. Knew I was still in a bit of trouble as the wave went under me, so I bailed to improve the chances of not snapping Jen's ski. Somwehow the ski went over the wave and down the back, and I swam over to it and got back on. Better outcome than expected.

No issues at all heading up or back from Brighton. 2 layers of thermals kept me just warm enough given the fairly regular soaking I was getting trying to get back to the beach.

More boat time on the ocean. First half didn't feel too bad, the 10 minutes after I turned around felt a bit dicey before I decided to zig zag a bit more to change the directions that hte swells were coming from. Added a bit on at hte end, but then saw the rain closing in and bailed for the marina. Started raining on the way home.

Note to self: The key to surviving an ocean paddle of any length is going to be taking it easy and staying relaxed, as if I'm working hard enough that the arms and hands start to get fatigued with much of the paddle left I'm going to be screwed. No such issues today, but right wrist was getting pretty sore by the end. Don't know why. Isn;t bothering me at the moment, so will see how tomorrow morning goes.

I ignored my alarm this morning and went back to sleep. Much needed. Was determined to run in the arvo instead, but in the end, the lack of lunch won and I went and got Macca's at about 4pm and drove home. Maybe tomorrow morning... or maybe not.

First windtrainer for the month, and legs pretty shattered from yesterday. Arches really sore. Think it was my first barefoot beach run since about April. Sand has been too cold for barefoot runs in the morning through winter.

So... nothing new or exciting. 7 x (5:2). Hard work. Legs now stuffed. Wanted to ride to work tomorrow, but my front light is in pieces, so will probably run tomorrow and try to scavenge some lighs or batteries later.

Warm-up from City Beach shops down to the beach, run throughs, then
1km, 2 min recovery 500m, 30 sec recovery 500m, 2 min recovery
3 times through

Really tough session, particularly as I started the first one way too hard.

3:58, 1:55, 1:53
4:05, 1:57, 1:55
4:08, 1:57, 1:54

Right calf felt a bit twingey by the end of the lat rep. Better look after it.

Bugger. Really wanted to do a windtrainer session, but got stuck at work, then spent most of the evening digging up the front yard, looking for a plumbing access point. Found lots of rubble, a brick etc etc, but no access point. Annoying. If the next plumber doesn't find it (given that we have already got 2 different diagrams of where it is meant to be) then the water corp can come and find the stupid thing.