Training Log Archive: Anvil

Cross country race down at Grove near Huonville. Wouldn't normally have travelled that far for a race (I was driving longer than I ran), but I'd been told it was one of the best courses they do.
3x2.3km loops around the perimeter of an apple orchard - it was really cool, lots of 90 and 180 degree turns in mud and wet grass. First km had lots of muddy puddles, everyone ran around them and the start and was just ploughing through them by the 3rd loop. Frost covered grass out the back of the course and the final section right through the middle of the orchard under that netting stuff they use to stop the birds.
One kid who was behind me the whole race tried to overtake me on the inside of a 90 degree corner coming off a downhill and fell on his arse. I laughed on the inside but asked if he was OK.
Great fun - beats running out and back on a bitumen road any day.

Down on Taroona set by Nicko. Not a bad loop, except for the bits where he had us running up private driveways.
Had an awesome spell with Louis and Nicko where we were pushing about 3:10 min/km for about 5 minutes - it was on a very slight downhill slope, but still, usually I struggle to get that speed just doing intervals and it felt easy this time!
Ryan was unable to keep up, so sulked and went missing. Tried to blame it on the map. We had to wait in the cold and dark (note the low avg. heart rate) and then complete of slow search and rescue for him.

Points for this week:
Nicko: 596 - Trying to get us arrested
Emma: 501 - Doing her own damn course
Jess: 482 - Setting a better course last week
Lukey: 21 - Falling over on a dark rocky beach pussy deduction
Louis: 2 - Excessive clothes scheduler, same T-Shirt 3 weeks in a row.
Patrick: 1 - Using a twisted ankle as an excuse to lose a stage
Ryan: -666 - Inferior head torch penalty and making me cold.

Solid session. $10 worth of chips goes a long way. Not many post-flopular but enough for Louis and myself. The torsion test should be studied in greater detail.

Loop up the pipeline track and back around Chimney Pot Hill. Broke out the tights for their first run in a while, so good and toasty warm the whole time. Felling really good on the long hill slog.
Lots of council workers about today - weird.

C • Council workers 2

In order to combat the fact that I become a lazy moron when I start to get tired, I did an old sprint course in Ridgeway after the run and tried to force myself to run hard and read the map the whole way.
Worked OK, but struggled pushing hard due to a fair bit of crap on the ground. May try again next week.

Wanted to do an easy hour run, so I did this loop on the mountain I like, usually takes about 57 or 58 mins to do. Also wanted to test out my new shoes (and socks and running top).
Looked like it was gonna rain, but I had blue skies the whole way. After I was above 600m, it was snow the whole way, really cool. A few sections that are usually really rocky were just a nice even white trail to run along, although another section thats usually really nice was boggy and the trees were all bending over the trail cause they were heavy with snow.
Got to the springs in about 40 minutes and I realised I could do a really fast time if I fanged the last part - so much for cruisy. Almost had a big accident coming down the stairs around Silver Falls but got away with a mild ankle twist. Fanged down the last part to beat my old time by about 2 minutes! I blame the new shoes.

Did some invervals around Rosny Hill. 1-2-3-2-3-2-1 minutes on with 1 minute walking recovery inbetween. Really struggled with the middle 2 and last 3 min ones, didn't help that they had all the uphill. Felt sluggish today, but looking back my diet hasn't been too crash hot for running lately. Atkins would be proud of it though!

Warm up/cool down/recoveries. Explored some tracks near the golf course on the way back. Was starting to write this blog in my head on the way back and was going to gloat about how I dodged the constant showers that had been going all day. Then it pissed down. Ran back through the Eastlands carpark to stay dry and the rain got heaps harder just as I came out from under cover on the last section back to my car. If I'd gone straight back I'd have beaten it. Bad rain karma today!

Usual run out to Tranmere and back. They've graded the track all the way through the Tranmere foreshore now - nice, but now mornons on bikes think they can ride along it.
I think it was 'Bogans with unoriginally named dogs' day in Bellerive today. "Diggsy, diggsy, come here', I'm guessing the other two were named Barksy and Sniffsy.
Another dog lunged at me but mistimed and got my knee to its face (by accident). I would have felt bad, but it hit me right where I fell the other day and it was trying to bite me!