Training Log Archive: markg

Long-ish OY at Dalmoak. We trained there about 18 months ago and the grass seeds were dreadful and it was infested with spiders. It's been grazed since and today it was a beautiful place to run - lots of open eucalyptus with granite. The plan for today was steady and accurate. I wasn't sure how well I'd recovered from yesterday and suspected I was going to die at the half way point. Luckily, I didn't but the lack of any major hills certainly helped. I was reasonably happy with the run, my first in the forest since Tasmania, but I wasn't happy to make four significant errors to the tune of 6 minutes (#1,3,7, and 10). The theme of the errors was lack of focus. Errors primarily occurred mid-leg because I just wasn't reading the map enough, either to keep in contact or to plan properly. Mikko pipped me by exactly 1min - I think he may have a perfect record against me in long distance races! Pekka had a spectacular bomb-out and finished well behind. I guess it was his first time in this terrain so he has a bit of an excuse.

With two events in the Q-league already now done, I reckon the City vs. Country competition is going to be a winner. The two teams seem to be pretty even at the moment so it should be a close, exciting competition. Lack of numbers in some classes is proving quite decisive and I figure it will continue to do so - it will be interesting to see if our two team leaders work hard on the participation front.

C • city vs country 3

1st of 2 stages of an Sprint OY in Toowoomba. Fun race around two adjacent schools with some tricky sections amongst the buildings with tricky walls and fences that you had look at carefully to see on the map. I aimed to be conservative so as not to cock anything up as well as to save myself for the 2nd stage and the longer distance of tomorrow. Unfortunately my brain was being chummy with my legs and took it easy too, so I made a few little errors from not reading the map enough or sufficiently carefully and dropped 1:20 to Pekka - not a good start!

The plan for this one was to increase both speed and focus, hopefully enough to overhaul Mikko at 18s. In the end it was a pretty good run, the key problem being a lack of speed at the moment, the splits show I was leading at the end of the first technical section but then had dramatic time losses across the ovals. I also lost 10s on #16 through a poor route choice and 10-20s on #18 when the SI unit didn't work - I should've just punched manually straight away but gave it a few long chances first. Oddly enough, the only other person who was affected by the malfunctioning unit was Pekka who, to my shock, was 1:02 faster. I did however get Mikko by 40s, enough to take 2nd overall. Overall, I was pleased with this run and I can see a technical race at UQ next weekend might have a closer result.

Did most of a Mona's fartlek, dropping the 4 x 15s at the end because I was running out of time to get back to work for a meeting. I tried to do this one with slightly slower on sections and faster floats because I keep hearing people say that's how it should be done. It was a continual struggle to drop the pace just a fraction instead of a lot. Sometimes that instant relief from slowing right down is the only thing that gets me through an interval so it appears I'll have to harden up if I'm going to keep doing these.

Warm up/down incl. dynamic stretches.

6 x 500m on the Anzac Pk ring road. Felt super slow and unable to get any leg speed, even on the flat middle part of the course. Times 1:56, 2:00, 1:57, 1:58, 2:05, 1:54. About 10s slower/int than at the end of Nov.

2 x laps + dynamic stretches for warm-up, 2:30-ish jog recoveries, and short warm down.