Training Log Archive: Lizzie

recovery round lower tracks of wilton bush

Up Kapakapanui in the Tararuas with Magnus and Laura. Actually got some views on the top as opposed to last year.
some wicked track, magnus and I are keen to return and push harder as reckon we can take a good 20mins off our time.
Not sure laura would have come if we'd told her the first 1.20 was straight up hill :) good strength training anyhow.
Again though, left foot is quite sore today. ankle felt fine though, did not feel it tweak once. (well maybe once)

On the way down magnus and I came up with new lyrics for the Spice Girls. (in our defence we were dehydrated?)
"I'll tell you what I want what i really really want,
So tell me what you want what you really really want,
I wanna huh (x4)
I really really really wanna kapanuinui huh"
"If you wanna be my runner, you gotta run with my friends,
walking takes forever but running never ends"
"If you wanna be my runner, you have got to give
taking is too easy, potluck's the way we live"

guess what i had in my head the rest of the run...

Ran the gorge track with Chris, who's much fitter than at christmas. was keeping a comfortable pace with me. I was keen to explore some of the side tracks but he was having none of it. Had a good little interval trying to catch him up after my exploring!
Had a tight calf and sore stomach to start but once that was gone felt awesome :D until my foot started hurting on the way down. not my ankle, but mid foot, kinda like the bone going to my little toe. Will have to keep an eye on it

went around the lemon course for next weeks event as a warm up. only took me about 8mins, but i'm assuming i'm faster than the little kids that will do it. that's a pretty big assumption though!

checking the timing of the sprint course for next week. Awesome map but it's pretty small. Fastest guys will prob be 12mins, which is alright by me. Might set some small exercises just for the heck of it too, cos the area is def worth it.

C • whats the sprint thats happ... 2

a short warm down before boosting off to the physio. hope my feet weren't too sweaty by the time i got there!

got home too late and too tired to stretch etc. bad i know. physio tomorrow too

potluck run from bill's. some sweet tracks out his way. legs felt good and ankle surprisingly good after the steep downhill yesterday.

ditched work a bit early and ran up johnston's hill. legs pretty tired again. thought taking a steeper way down might be easier on the ankle cos the duration of the downhill would be less. wrong.
found yet another new track (or old track in this case) for lisa and i to explore another time. can't believe i havent found these tracks before! It's only taken 8 years...

was real bad and didnt do any of this at the weekend :s

Run with mags and lisa around tinakori hill. tried out a new track and what turned out not to be a track. legs pretty tired

turning on all the controls at EIT in the fricken rain. got rather cold (and wet). then collecting them again

putting out, bringing in, turning on controls etc. estimate on the time, but i was pretty damn tired after

Event: Sprint-the-Bay
 

around the lower tracks of kaukau again. opposite way from earlier this week and did a bit of exploring of old tracks below the 2nd clearing. again will explore them more another time when parents back home wont wonder why im taking ages to do a 20min run :)

ogang run, or really just a run with magnus and lisa as noone else showed up. Maybe cos we're about the only 3 not running STB. still was a pretty easy run. started at the sanctuary entrance and zig zagged all the way up wrights hill, then around the top and back down again. it's funny how you can go up really steep bits of track and you don't realise just how steep they are til you have to go back down again!

from uni to run and then home. overtook a road cyclist on my trusty rusty mtn bike. (and a couple of other mtn bikers) :)

just around the lower tracks of kaukau with mum. I'd got way ahead on the first uphill, so went back down to her and waited. Then she got way ahead on the downhill (which is good, otherwise i was going too fast). but i never caught her up on the next uphill, which was a bit gutting. and she caned me on the last down.

lots of stretching and exercises from the physio today. got a wobble board off her, which will be good. (though i have sore calf from it this morning!)

with lisa. down from hers to guidehall woods. then all the way up through there onto crows nest and into the howling northerly. we stopped and were immature seeing how far our spit went in the wind. it was impressive! then eased down electricity board road on the way home.

also, spent 20mins today standing in the sock aisle at the warehouse trying to find some half decent running socks. they used to have good ones,but theyve vanished. in the end i settled on some others, which have the obligatory pink/purple or blue trim. apparently girls aren't allowed to wear black or dark running socks?? we'll see how long these new ones stay white... have to admit they are comfy. but then i looked at the guys sock aisle...socks that i wanted were right there but ofcourse way too big for me! sigh.

and yes, i just ranted on about socks for a whole paragraph, i could go on for a lot longer believe me!

C • Immature? 2

don't know the exact time. ran with mum from wilton's bush up to the skyline and along to karori park. had to run back to her a few times as she hasnt run in a while. let her get ahead on the downhill to the park though as i took it easy

Back to the dr this morning for MRI results.
pretty much good news all round in that the fracture is healed. The niggling pain i still feel is the remainder of the "massive bruising" i had on my talus. so yep, I've been out of action for 6months cos of a bruise! It should clear up eventually but bone bruising takes ages to heal so just have to be patient and sensible.
so going to ease out the rest of january, then re-assess. Pretty much the next aim is nationals and then hopefully worlds, so no hurry as yet. Sprint racing is out for the next little bit as its the sharp turning that's likely to aggravate things.

C • Cross-training 2

C • You dont wanna be hurting t... 2

a real mix of a run on kaukau. set off up the hill and did some hill efforts, intermixed with heading off the main tracks and investigating possum lines to see where they led. in the most case the answer was nowhere, although i did find an old unmarked track which was quite nice. cant believe ive run past it all these years without noticing! got a few weird looks from people as i reappeared onto tracks from the bush. and think i overtook one girl about 3 times which confused her no end!

did my exercises while watching family guy :)

another easy run around wilton. this time with lisa, from their place down to the horse paddock. up to the ridgeline, around to saddle before johnston's. Then down into the pines and up the new track a bit. At that point we decided to explore a possum line, which brought us down to the 800yr old rimu track. went down that a bit before finding a nice unmarked track on the left. So followed that, which was a really nice track! real obvious and quite smooth, not sure why it isnt marked. and amazed that i've run past it for years without noticing it. Probably cos I've always been intent on my run, rather than looking around.
Anyway, the track went around the hill to a valley, up the other side and then pretty steeply up the ridge, joining up with another unmarked track which I think mags, jamie and others found acouple of months back. Followed it back up to the ridgeline, then back to lisa's the same way we came out.
3 little tweaks on the downhill today. 2 days til MRI results...

did strength before dinner, and meant to go back and do stretches after dinner. but forgot. must remember tomorrow.

had another MRI on my ankle last thurs. Dont get the results back til this thurs but at the moment i'm bout 95% certain i won't be running STB. which is perhaps for the best, aside from ongoing problems with the ankle/leg, I haven't had the chance to do any structured training and haven't done any speed work since June. So wouldn't be doing myself and justice if I did run. Infact, I'd crash and burn.

stink

easy run at wilton bush, along the bottom, up through the cemetary and up the easy gradient tracks to the skyline. then down through flax clearing, taking it extra careful.
My stomach's been acting up the last few days and grumbled all the way round the run. then decided to really kick in for the last 10 mins which wasn't nice. usually it goes away after a while but not this time. on the up side I concentrated really hard on where i was landing on the down hill and got down with only 2 little tweaks.

out at makara peak with mags and lisa. Have realised that i'm actually pretty good at the uphill tracks, really enjoyed them and can get around all the corners fine. but downhills im just a bit too chicken. can't handle downhill hairpins at all, just skid out.

also realised i'm very much a left sided biker. I mean, i'm right handed when it comes to writing, throwing and batting at cricket etc. I'm predominantly right footed at football. but when biking i always lead with my left foot on the downhills, always put my left foot down first (not so good considering my ankle), and always feel more comfortable riding one handed with my left hand. weird.

also also, i didnt fall off once today. which is a vast improvement of my last trip to the makara peak tracks :)

easy run with mags from his place up otari and back down via the horse paddock. stomach was all over the show, maybe the chips lisa and i had whilst watching inception before hand? (personally we were disappointed by the movie, had fun taking the piss throughout though)
or maybe it was the milk i had on my cereal this morning, as it was best before today...
took it extra easy on the downhill but felt the ankle a couple of times. sigh.

with mags and lisa from theirs, up to the ridge line and along towards makara saddle.
my seat decided to play stupid and kept swivelling all over the show, which made the corners a bit more interesting! eventually tightened it up with a bit of brute strength (or magnus' brute strength)

made it through all those silly gates just fine today, apart from the very first one, but that doesnt count...

for some reason agreed to go for a walk with Rita and family along the belmont hill tops. I didn't know when i agreed that this meant ALL of the belmont hill tops, from the quarry all the way up, along, and down to petone! was good fun though, despite the extremely strong winds on the tops trying to blow us down into the hutt. (nooooooooooo.....)

Decided I'd had enough of this walking stuff, so Rita and I ran down from belmont trig to bakedbeans bend, and along the stream to Petone. Nice to have an all downhill and flat run for once! although the downhill was pretty hard on the ankle, got a number of little shocks there :(

C • Downhill 1

new years day missioning with the crowd.
started up the end of moonshine creek where nat rogaines started. climbed up the track a bit before heading off track and scrambling up to the top of the ridge. Here I tried the possum running technique, but found it a bit tiring after last night so reverted back to human scrambling technique. We lost greg on the way up, but that was alright, as it gave me a chance to rip out a rendition of "i see greg" when he re-emerged. ( i see red, get it?! he has red hair too, making it extra funny, or not) He didn't seem as impressed as I'd thought he'd be with my serenading, i'll blame it on him just being tired.
we then followed the 4wd tracks for an hour, passing a couple of hunters and a good number of hunting dogs. one of which seemed to mistake us for its hunting pack and followed us for a fair bit (do we smell like dogs?). I was jealous of the garmin that the dog had around it's neck. maybe i should run with one around my neck?
after 70mins we came to a jn and went onto smaller, muddier track which lead us down to the whakatikei river. this is where any real running ended, and we spent the next 4.5 hours splashing, rock hopping, rock scrambling, and swimming down the whakitikei river. Which was real fun, but damn tiring! Casper pulled out his waterproof camera and took some pics. he tried to capture an eel (on camera, not literally, though that woiuld have been cooler), but i think failed. guess we'll have to wait for the photos to see.
I managed to refrain from having to swim for the large part of the trip by scrambling along rocks and occasionally climbing out of the river. Glad I did, cos Tessa and Penny looked freezing after they'd swum through some deep bits. After over 4 hrs in the gorge we came to the last canyon, where the only option was to swim. So i reasserted my swimming dominance over casper :D
very relieved to climb out of the river, and we got to pretend we were a bunch of gulls drying out in the sun, so the trip was totally worth it :)