Training Log Archive: Lizzie

Mt lowry with Laura. Always get caught out by how unduating the ridge is! Great loop, good times.

Jog from Korokoro up and past the dam with Tessa. Chatting pace. Seem to have tweaked my hammy with all of the squatting and standing up all day at the excavation site yesterday. Hope it eases off over the next couple of days.

Had an amusing but frustrating interaction with a yellow-hammer on the way down. It refused to fly off the path, instead flying 5m ahead, landing, then flying another 5m. This continued for a good 100m of track before it eventually conceded and flew up into a bush.

C • Just to be anal 2

Day (and a half) trip up to Napier to help with sampling some old hangi sites and fire pits that archeologists had found in a central Napier building site. Interesting but very long day. (far easier than other fieldwork though)

Sprintervals at whiteria with Laura. Good session.more spring in the step than 2 days ago anyway. A couple of little slips missing turns in the tight stuff which cost seconds but nothing more. Good with company :)

Easy loop of wilton. Out on blue to the cemetery, then up to the saddle and down through flax clearing.

Immediately postrun

Sprint training at Unitec. 6 x intervals and 1x longer loop course.

6 intervals, with 1.15 or 1.30 rest between. Shortest one 2:50, longest 4:40

Final loop course. My legs were smashed by this point. Long first leg over fields and slightly up hill, was going full effort but looked at my watch to see my pace was 5min/km!

Really good fun all up. Nice to train on an area that is pretty new to me (think I ran here once, testing oceania courses 3yrs ago)

Eve asked for a 2hr long run...so I delivered ;) haha

Stopped at Pukenui forest, by whangarei, on our way back down to Auckland. We started from the S side to avoid the extra drive around to the North. Turned out the track I'd picked on the topo map was actually a private access track, but no worries, the house there seemed happy enough to let us through. Once in the forest though it was obvious the track was little used, as there was very little sign of it on the ground, just the usual orange markers on the trees! So the first couple of km was a pretty rude introduction to NZ native bush for the Finns :D
After 25mins (and 2.5km) we came to the more trodden loop path. Half of this was more trodden at least and a proper track. The other half was more 'tramping track' so single track full of roots winding it's way through the jungle.

If I've learnt anything this week, it's that we actually do have home-terrain skills in NZ, in the form of steep hill-climbing and hill-descent skills, and smooth running on rooty and rough single tracks. So I've been tutoring up-hill running (short steps), and down-hill descents (relax and swing like a monkey). Apparently I am the finns 'monkey guide', probably a fair call in this jungle stuff! Anyway, there was a bit of looping and scooping to be done, and some waiting on the last couple of km to make sure Eve and Jesse hadn't lost the 'track'.

Good fun and awesome forest, just not sure it's what Eve had in mind when she said "long run" ;)