Training Log Archive: fletch

Event: Adelaide NOL
 

Good warm-up and pretty token cool down.

Legs felt pretty good on the warm-up which was a happy surprise.

Poo.

Really took my time out of the start to have a good look at the first leg. Executed it well, but took a poor option, despite having a good look. Clean through the next two, then tried to get the legs moving on the way to 4, as I went wide left and over the bridge rather than run the down and up on the straight line. Felt like it was really hard work to move not very fast, and surmised that my cold was having some effect when the intensity went above an easy jog after all :( Pretty alarmed to have my minute man (Brodie) run through me here (but in hindsight, a chunk of the time loss was on the poor route choice and he did comfortably win the heat, so I actually wasn't moving that bad...)
Had a little hesitation misreading the detail near 7, but ran hard to stay in tough through 8 and 9. Also clean, but not so fast through 10 and 11, but botched the route to 12. Ran through the spectator control feeling physically flat, like I was running particularly slowly, and thinking that my pre-race thoughts of being able to be a little conservative and still make the final had gone out the window.
14-18 were all pretty much OK - just one detour round an extra garden bed where I thought a stair case was as dead-end.

Coming into 19, I had a little look to check the control site from the top of the wall and didn't see it. Had a minor panic, rechecked the map and got confused for a few seconds before having another look over the wall and seeing the control.

Only two controls to go, and, as it turned out, I had a full 2 minutes up my sleeve over the last eventual qualifier from my heat. I wish I knew what I ended up doing. I guess I had a little panic after my hesitation on the way in and blasted out in completely the wrong direction. I thought I had sorted it and could correct what was going to be a sizeable error, but I misidentified what I had done and just compounded the problem. If I had just stopped when I first realised it was wrong, run straight back to the control and tried again, I still probably would have snuck into the final. As it was, I spent 10 minutes on a 1 minute leg and I had absolutely no idea where I was for most of the time. None at all. Still can't work it out. Once I had it sorted, I jogged through the last couple to the end.

Effort to prepare properly for the second sprint race of the day, but my heart wasn't in it, and legs were feeling far from fresh.

First control went well (it was easy, then I ran into what I thought was a dead-end on the way to 2 and didn't see either of the quick ways to correct, so backed out and went the ultra-long way around. That pretty much killed the little enthusiasm I had for this race. Happy through 3-4-5, then over-committed to a route to 6 before realising it was on the top level and bailing out as I again didn't see the alternative the way I was going (stairs a bit past the control). Solid through 7-8-9, executed my route to 10 well apart from a little hesitation in the middle, but it wasn't a great route apparently. Had a brain failure heading into 11, OK through 12 and 13, missed a path into 14, then totally fell apart on both 15 and 16, dropping about 1.5 minutes over those 2 controls as I wandered around in confused circles. That gave me enough of a rest to run hard through to the finish without screwing up again.

No cool down afterwards. Couldn't find the motivation. At least my problems were all my own fault though. Rachel had the misfortune of running the final with the wrong map.

1C - Splits

Course 1 - Splits

25 min WU. Felt really good after the first few hundred metres. Got into a good rhythm and felt smooth and easy.

Followed up with a bunch of drills and 5 x approx 200m with a walk recovery between and a short cooldown.

Then met the Thursday running group and ran back down to Kapinara, demo'ed a few drills again and jogged back to the car afterwards.

Feel pretty coldy in general and work was a bit of a struggle, but felt pretty good running, so there is still hope for the weekend. Will stock up on the cold and flu medications just in case...

Pffft. Intended to do a short, wasy run today, but it never happened. I had eventually decided on running after dinner, but I
a) ran out of time
b) had a cold by then anyway

so it didn't happen

10 min WU
Drills
5 x 400m in 77 point something, 400m recoveries in 1:59-2:04
approx 1km cooldown

Felt pretty reasonable after the first 500m of WU. 400's felt a bit hard at that pace, but the recoveries were massive, so didn't get any harder as I went.

C • 15 2

Warm-up, 3 downhill courses and walking uphill between the courses.

I was woeful. Got gradually better in parts, but overall bombed all three courses. Felt like I was making good plans, but dismally failing to execute. Real trouble actually seeing what was around me and matching it back to what was on the map.

In hindsight, I think I can put a lot of it down to not feeling comfortable moving through the terrain and spending a lot of time looking at my feet instead of my surroundings. Hopefully be better for the run and bush with less undergrowth may be less of an issue next weekend. If not, I will need to run more conservatively and make a real effort to hold straighter lines, as I was all over the shop today when essentially meant to be on a bearing.