Training Log Archive: slow-twitch

Oceania Relay - Moore's Taipo on a HOT HOT day. Probably toughest 6km I've done for some time. Both controls that I lost time on (1 - not much time at all - and 12 - a fair bit of time gone there) were about dropping down off a plateau into reentrants on a steep slope, so I guess not keeping on line as well as I should have. A few route choices made by the ankle but for the most part they were valid choices. Would have liked to do the aggressive contouring from 12-13 but had to climb back up to the top of the slope and back down again. Overall not great country for ankle management and got a couple of further twists in. And in general started to fall apart physically around control 13, which probably had a lot to do with the heat but it's also noteworthy this was about the 45 minute mark which would be the longest I've done any proper runs of late. Think this will probably be the end of my Oceania participation and I'll try to get to the point of at least being able to do the urban STB races

C • So how hot..... 3

Current circumstances mean that I probably won't be bothering much with warms up and down on the days I do race this week, but it was kind of unavoidable today with the long haul to the start! Some impact-related soreness in the foot, sort of felt like it was below the base of the strained ligament.

C • suggestions... 1

Oceania Sprint Champs, 3 controls in town belt then the rest in Wellington East Girls and Wellington College.
Only 2 real mistakes but both relatively bad ones. 1st control didn't have my head into the scale at all so over ran where I needed to jump off a track by 50 metres south (but more crucially 15-20 metres up!). Probably about a minute lost there. 6-7, when I got down into the main W College campus somehow had my orientation wrong or got completely confused which building I was looking at, or possibly what I ended up doing makes sense if I was trying to navigate from 9 to 7? (Don't think I've ever done that kind of thing before) - anyway for whatever reason I ran just about all the way down one side of the wrong building. Which was a large one. And rolled on a loose rock with the bad ankle while doing so, putting recovery back a couple of days easily. And then, when I was finally back on track, spent a few too many seconds standing at one of the too-many-other controls in the spectator area waiting for its number to turn into the one I wanted. Easily 90 seconds lost overall on that leg. As further indication I didn't have my sprint-brain working for most of the course, also missed a track that was on my route-choice for 4, but as it happens the route that dragged me on to was probably actually slightly better.
Barring miraculous recovery tomorrow I will now skip the Oceania Long on thursday (which I was still 50/50 about before today's race) and aim for the relay on friday

foot sore on and off during the day, but mostly like deep bruising rather than as if I'd repulled something. Have decided to drop the heat baths, should have decided that before this morning as that's when I first noticed the soreness, and try to get more icing in on the active days

Oceania Middle Distance, Waikawa Beach.
Was never 100% sure throughout the morning if I should go out there today but after watching the world cup action and hearing nothing but good comments from the top runners about the terrain it was just too tempting to resist. Did go for a jog on the most uneven bit of ground I could find once I ws strapped up before making the final decision and the prognosis seemed ...ok. Just aware I was going to need a lot of discipline to keep at a safe speed.
So... the race itself. Got off to a good start, trotting along at a happy pace and navigating well. Somewhere along 7-8 it became apparent that speed control was unlikely to be a problem - even with fully operational ankles my fitness levels wouldn't have been playing ball. Probably only lost around a minute-90 to this point, a few issues with detail in the circles and drifited wide to the vague thing I thought was the track I was going to attack 4 from -despite the fact the real one was bleeding obvious. Lost a bit at 11, turns out it would have been safer using the beach route (but others went much further astray here anyway). But the real problems were 16 & 17, dropping me from 10th (and ahead of Eric Morris) to 13th. 16 must have been almost on the control before I started ignoring my compass and got dragged out almost to the stream. Took a long time to relocate then had to work hard to convince myself I had punched 15 - think I'd got a little brain-cooked in the open dunes. Then despite simplifying 17 down to a nice simple leg still tried looking for it well too soon. So a bit disappointing what would have been a satisfying run in the circumstances fell apart a bit at the end.
Despite the soft sand and scrubby veg being everything I'd feared in terms of ankle-risk, seemed to get through ok. Feeling afterwards it had been tweaked a bit but nothing I noticed at the time. A bit sore now but more tired-sore than pain-sore. Will endeavour to get a few minutes worth of ice onto it sooner after the remaining races.

Maybe tomorrow? I guess I've got another morning on my feet to get through first but at the moment rapidly alternating between feeling happy and confident about the foot and nervous about the outcome if I turn out to be wrong.

Event: 2013 Oceania Carnival & WC Races