Training Log Archive: slowphil

First full day on this trip to CT. 7am start to avoid the heat of the day, so breakfast at 5am, which felt like 3am. Celebration dinner the night before, so no early night either. Who said there's no jet lag when flying to South Africa? :)

Steep trail is single file in places, so the race goes off in ten batches of 20. Finishing in the top ten in my last two races emboldened me to ask for a group 1 start, so I was able to witness briefly a few mountain goats leg it up 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 gradients, before they were out of sight. There were two 300m ascents and descents on the course, and it quickly became apparent that my relative weakness to those who would have roughly my total time was on the descents. My ankles may be a little older than theirs, but in some cases these runners' ankles must be made of rubber! Kept going reasonably well, especially considering finishing in temperatures in the low 20s and, unlike most competitors, not bothering to carry water. Finished 14th/120.

As ever, right calf a little stiff from midway, and stiffening further afterwards, but not too limiting during the race itself.

Occasional mist at the very top of the ridge, but most stunning views over the ocean, on the rare occasions when I wasn't looking at the trail ahead of me!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/250847900

4x100 again. Close to 100s/100m each time. First set had lengths under this benchmark - unusual!

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4x100. Close to 100s/100m each time.

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Event: SLOW OK Nuts Trophy 2012 (Esher & Oxshott Commons)
 

Yet another ok run, but hitting the top gear on neither pace nor accuracy. Haven't seen any splits yet, but felt as though there were only minor hesitation mistakes on the first few. Loss of concentration in the circle at 5 cost perhaps 15-20 secs, then nearly picking the wrong path to 6 cost perhaps the same again. Another 30-40 secs went when I couldn't make the vegetation fit in the open area at 8, and then maybe again when stopping short of 9 (felt closer to the road than I expected). Then pretty clean until 16, just beginning to get away from a couple of other runners, until being distracted by another flag close by, where another 30-40 secs went begging. Long wait to cross the road in heavy traffic - good that it was zeroed out, but almost so long to go off the boil a little. Didn't read the contours properly to 23, and ended up way above the flag, but at least that meant I could look down and find it. Overtaken by Paul C and Abi at 25 and heading to 27, then bottled out of the straight route to the last flag and found even more vegetation as a result, costing a final 20 secs. Not bad, coming on the back two a couple of big nights out.

As ever, right calf stiffened up after just over half an hour, and was pretty stiff afterwards.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/248649551

Brown - Splits