Training Log Archive: Anvil

Weird run. In Mostar now, hottest part of BH. Headed out as dusk was kicking in, still above 30 - only planned on a little jaunt to loosen my legs up and luckily that's all I could manage.
Went to a part on my map from the hostel that was green and has a little man running on it. Took me ages to find a track off the street, then all the tracks kept leading to dead ends and fences. Then I came out on some weird big marble structure, possibly an old water feature/fountainy thing - long decrepit, now just had youths drinking all over it. Decided to pull the pin and headed back, then got lost and ended in some very dodgy area. You know it's dodgy when there's an 8 year old sucking on a durry, digging through rubbish whilst 2 cats shag nearby.
Now thinking I should have headed for the hills, but again warning of land mines and the such scared me a little - especially when this town is still covered in war scars.

Time for a hill session, and since Sarajevo is surrounded by hills, seems like as good a time as any. Did want to get out into the surrounding hills, but more than one person mentioned unexploded ordinance so I decided to play it safe and not risk losing a leg. Or a toe, we know how pesky they are.
Did 4x90, 4x60 then 4x30secs with equal recovery. Slowly made my way up one of the hills in town to finish at a good viewpoint of the town. Came back twisting through all sorts of one way streets masquerading as two way street and all the subsequent mini-traffic jams.

What started out being just an obligation to get a run in Belgrade turned into one of the best runs of this trips. Legs felt great and kilometres melted away effortlessly. Went from the city centre, over the river and along the bike track on the edge of the river, back over and back into the city through the Citadel - where I picked up a buddy who led me all through the alleys and tunnels (another killer sprint area) and back home down the main mall.
Not sure why I felt so good on this one tonight when I've been regularly struggling to break 5 min/ks on this trip. Could be almost no a) traffic lights, b) hills, c) constant dead ends and doubling back, d) cobblestones or other crap on the ground e) hangover, f) actually had a good nights sleep.
Belgrade is a pretty nice city, which surprised me, I was expecting another dump after some of the bigger cities I'd seen through this region. Think it may have even more pubs, bars and cafes per person than London, the entire stretch of both sides of the river I ran along had them, floating or on land. They do a mean coffee here, but beer is sub par.

Transylvania Open Day 3.
'Middle' Race, chasing start
The chase didn't really happen, I was the last within the chasing start cut off, so had a big wad of runners starting at 1min intervals behind me. Made sloppy mistakes on 2 and 3 and was caught by my number 1 and 2, but lost them on the long leg 4 - I was sloppy towards the circle so not sure if they got in front of me or not, but never saw anyone again for the rest of the course.
Wasn't that enthused with the course - 4 to 9 was amongst the yellow and green crap of yesterday and I never got any good flow here, then instead of finishing with a good control pick through the subtle contour detail and eroded stuff, we run ran straight through it and had a few controls on the hillside next to tracks.
Lost concentration again to 13 and ended up a long way down a spur that I needed to be, forced myself to get my act together for the last few and enjoyed the super fast and open forest and a nice cruisy downhill couple of legs to finish it off.
Expected to be well off the leaders after a very sloppy run, but wasn't much off the pace - sort of frustrating, I could have possibly gained a few places if I'd been a bit more aggressive.

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