Training Log Archive: fletch

1 lap of the course before, one after. Legs felt weary from windtrainer at the start, and for the first km of the race, but good after that. Cooldown was sloooow.

First Harriers Champs run of the year, and I was pretty sure I would be comfortably slower than last year, when I ran it as a tempo run after a 30+km long run the day before. They changed the course around a bit this year, so I'll claim the course was slower (added a sandy bit around the practice fairway which was a bit hard on the legs).

Times from last week's run, which I didn't do, suggested I'd be lucky to nab third today, but figured I'd go out as hard as I thought I could get away with and see if the fact we weren't on flat bitumen helped me any. Very quickly had Ben sitting on my shoulder and he pretty much stayed there until the 5km mark. I thought he sounded like he was working a bit harder than me, so I just plugged away and resisted the temptation to let him past and see what happened to the pace.

At 4km, another bloke came steaming up to us and I figured it was all over. He slotted into second but never came past. Starting the third lap, I figured I'd try to work hard up the hill and see what happened, figuring if it came down to a sprint finish, I'd be third, and I was pretty surprised heading up the fairway to hear the bloke in second call Ben thru. By the time I hit the top of the 'hill' I had a small gap, so tried to keep the stride long heading back the other way and heading out onto the sandy bit with 1km to go, I knew I had it in the bag if I didn't blow up.

Came home feeling pretty strong, so happy with the day's work. Still a long way to go to being 'fit', but a lot further from complete unfitness where I was languishing a month ago.

C • Sprinter 3

Windtrainer session - because I really need to spend some time on the bike but was on home duties. Not sure I could have been bothered getting out anywhere anyway. Was meant to be done before breakfast, so I was only out by one meal.

10 min WU
8 x 2:2
10 min CD

Was going to be 10 x 2:2 but I pre-emptively bailed after almost dying last time I used the windtrainer for an interval session. Turns out a teeny bit of running fitness transfers to not dying on the bike, so I should have done all 10. On the other hand, it also shows that a bit of cardio fitness doesn't suddenly get cycling muscles working, because those HR figures are depressingly low.

Quads felt a bit sore and tired after my uber-long run on Thursday night, but felt much better by the end of the session.

First run in a long time around what had become my standard "easy 1hr starting in the dark" morning loop during marathon prep.

Tonight's run had a lot of positives and proved a few things to me:

- Even when I don't feel like training at all (like most of the last two weeks) I should just get out and do it, because I usually feel pretty good once I've started. Just need to remember that in the dark at 6am!

- I pick up fitness very quickly once I start doing any training at all. Today's run felt aerobically pretty comfortable throughout, despite being the longest run I've done in forever.

- My knee (which started the slippery slide to long term injury about 12 months ago) is still not 100%. But it is definitely related to my glute. Tonight it was getting sore after only a couple of km. I've been toying with a few things while I run, trying to get it to settle and tonight I think I nailed it. I had managed to do something with my glute since I started running again, but it still didn't feel 'right' or symmetrical. Tonight I focussed on really extending my hip (I can tell I did that, because my hip flexor felt unusually stretched by the end) and managed to get the right bit of my glute doing its job, which helped to settle the knee almost completely until around 10km, when I really needed to focus to try to keep the technique together.