Training Log Archive: jennycas

Terrain loops of Blackwood Forest. This was quite an effort and I can see that I should have been doing it every weekend. One lap takes about 10 mins depending on how much of a slalom one makes of log jumping on the downhill. I did 4 1/2 laps because I couldn't face the uphill for a 5th time (it was getting ever-more painful on the hamstrings) and then contoured through the middle. Wasn't as stiff afterwards as I thought I might have been.

Not as stiff as the other day but muscles still quite fatigued (and arms all over the place). The smell of baking waffles wafted over the pool from the bakery on Leader St.

Mortlock Oval intervals x 8. I ran out of legs before I ran out of light but that was mainly a function of my underestimating the duration of civil twilight. There was rather a headwind, so it will never be known: whether I was really slow or merely fairly slow. Hamstring sucked.

53, 53, 52, 53, 52, 51, 51, 52

Warmup 12:06
recoveries x 7 9:04 (1:15-1:20)
Warmdown 17:11

Very tired but hopeful that it's reversible by the process of spending a couple of days being a tourist in Perth next week. Being away from my desk may possibly help the hip/ITB/hamstring too. Scavenged a huge juicy pomegranate on the way home :)

Long Gully, up & over the hill, back via the redwoods and the creek path which is finally reopened. Tentatively, I'll say running was a bit easier than at any time in the last week, although it's always hard to tell in the dark whether you're actually running faster. One thing confirmed: when hamstrings are less achy, as they were tonight, then it's possible to identify the location of the intermittent twinge in my groin, which can even trouble me when walking. I ditched my nice new office chair today: it was too big for me and so I have been sitting at a funny angle, which can't be helping the problem.

C • Hip flexor? 2

Hmmm...not very successful. Normally I loosen up after about halfway but today I just got more inflexible - neck & back being rather too post-physio.

Short Colonel Light Gardens loop. Tried to lift legs higher and lengthen stride and the time turned out quite respectable but it felt more like 3 hours than half an hour because I have no rhythm. Each step is a conscious movement of the legs forward from the hip, place foot on the ground and repeat. Oh, for the days when my legs just did the running by themselves and my brain could wander wherever it pleased...

Attack of the Killer Physio

Yep, adductors are really bad. Compared to having Kath digging her thumbs into them, having her put her entire weight behind her elbow which was digging into my hamstring insertion point was really quite relaxing.

Chose not to run tonight...desperately need not to aggravate anything before Easter.

Legs kept me awake in the night so I was pretty tired and mid-afternoon the thought of running wasn't at all appealing, but a second cup of tea and some Panadol fixed that.
From home to Fern/Tyson's the most direct way (involving Shepherd's Hill reserve and Eden Hills station: 39 mins
Run around Eden Hills & Bellevue Heights with Fern, Tyson, Simon, Eric, Nicole: 30 min
Then I peeled off by the fire station on Shepherds Hill Rd: 32 min home past the station & through the park. Was a nice evening with half a moon and the smell of wood smoke in the air, and when I got home George had put the heater on (first time this autumn).

C • Autumn 4

It was raining and 10 degrees when I got to Mack Creek, so I didn't wear my glasses but didn't need them for a 1:10 000 map. Parked on the hilltop in the SW corner, start was about 1.5km down the road, first control was on a stile a further 200m down the road, next 2km loop was possibly the moderate course under another name. After punching the fence crossing control again (BTW, I thought that the controls where the numbers are vertical on the stands are no longer legal?) the course got more physical and technical and there was a good mix of singletrack/open runing and steep up & over hills. More than once when dropping down a hillside into a control my bearing wavered slightly and I ended up in the wrong place along the line of rocks, which accounted for maybe a minute on 9 and 30 sec on 19. Overran 15 which was a mound next to the track, and veered a bit right going down to the drinks at 18, and left the track at the wrong fence bend on the way to 19 so climbed an unnecessarily green spur, but these were minor things.

Last year's SA champs I did 82 for 9km so this was slower - but my hamstrings were very tight/fatigued today (crouching on the floor for 4 hours washing walls will do that to you) and I thought I did well to maintain some sort of fluency through the scrub - and also I think we had proportionally less track running options today. And I enjoyed the bush/course more than I had expected to, so that's all right. Legs were hammered afterwards though.

Um, 'cos I didn't get around to this yesterday and because I thought it would make me less stiff. In fact, it made me completely lactic, quads being exhibit A!