Training Log Archive: AC

Easy run to get back into the swing of things. Everything hurt of course, and felt slow and heavy. But good to get back out there after the big fall.

Easy swim while Freya has her lesson. It has been a few weeks and it showed with the lack of fitness in the pool.

Good spin on the indoor trainer to get the legs back into action. Did half a dozen 1 min H / 1 min E towards the end.

A week off all exercise has not been great, but I haven't really felt like doing much exercise I must confess. Got the stitches out on Friday and the actual wound has healed up nicely, although still very sore around the side of my head and having constant headaches. I am assured that this will pass, but that I shouldn't exercise too hard or too soon. Will get back on the bike trainer in the next day or so and see how it goes. Very frustrating!

C • woah 3

Good warm-up - feeling fit.

Nationale Sud-Est - Foret des Echarmeaux near Macon. H55, 7th place. Pooh, buggar, bum. Dramatic end to the race meant that I missed out on the win, had a trip in an ambulance and got 4 stitches in my head. This was a tough and hilly race and I got off to a reasonably solid start. Hit #1 okay and then a long 1.3km leg to #2 that involved a 20 contour climb up to a track and then a long track run to close to the control. Missed 30 secs on the short #3 by being a bit off to the left on a downhill leg, then got #4 and #5 okay, although not particularly fast. Then a long uphill leg (another 20 contour climb) to #6 and slpits show I was quite slow on this - walked the first partof the uphill and then ran slowly for the rest, so not hard to see where I dropped a minute + to eth fastest really. #7, #8, #9 went fine without much trouble, although they were in green and quite tricky. Downhill finish to the course thank goodness and had a short climb followed by long 1km downhill track run to get to #10. Had teh fastest split on that leg and the next to #11 and was fairly flying along. Was in 2nd place and closing fast on 1st, only 30 secs down with 400m to run and finishing strongly. Headed into #12 and weaving my way through some largish boulders and saw the control off to the right. Then ...

... the next thing I remember is talking to the ambulance officers in the first aid tent. Blood everywhere and a pounding headache. Apparently I emerged from the forest after somehow finishing the course, and jogged in to the finish. I chatted to Lisa, Freya and others and they had guided me to the first aid tent. Lisa reckons I lost about an hour of memory and that I just kept asking how I got out of the forest and where are we. Anyway, long story short, I got a trip in the ambulance to the local hospital (siren and everything), a 3 hour wait in emergency and 4 stitches in the left side of my head just above my temple. There was quite a bit of skin damage to the left side of my face and bruising and cuts to my left arm and left leg. I remember nothing of crashing, but I clearly had a big fall onto rocks or a branch at #12 and bounced my brain around a bit.

Long drive back to Paris (someone else was driving thank goodness) and a very sore head and body this week. No lasting damage I hope, but haven't felt up to running or cycling so far this week as the headaches haven't settled down as yet. Bit of an adventure, but mostly pissed off that I missed out on the win, which was there for the taking with my fast finish :-).

Morning run into the Burgundy countryside from the hotel in Nitry where we stayed overnight on our way to the Nationale near Macon. One of those runs that are straight out of a Nike ad - country track through fields if canola, glorious weather, feeling good, could have gone for a while. But on to the race tomorrow.

Steady run around the Bois with Rob. Glorious sunny day and not too warm. Legs felt fine, but the rest of me felt quite tired. Need a couple of good nights' sleep before the weekend.

Tuesday lunchtime group intervals (around 10 in the group today). A good tough session. After a good warm up we did a pyramid of 30-60-90-30-60-90-60-30-60 with 30 secs rest. I found the pace quite tough and really struggled towards the end, and then piked on doing the last few intervals (of 90-60-30). Pace was 3.43, 3.56, 4.01, 3.49, 3.56, 4.09, 4.24 (really struggling here over 90 secs), 4.13, 3.53, 4.11). Probably started too fast for the set and so that explains the slowdown towards teh end. Jogged slowly home.

Indoor trainer session. Just spent 30 mins spinning away while watching QI Dictionary episode. Very entertaining - the QI show that is, not the spinning.

Start times for Sunday's Nationale race are odd. I am starting at 12.59, with first starter at 9.00. All the top ranked H55s are gathered in the last start block with 2 minute intervals. THe organizers seem to have done this with all the classes, trying to make for a climactic race I guess. Better have a bit of a lie in and get a good brekkie! Should be an interesting race - see http://se2014.beaujolais.free.fr/se2014.beaujolais... for the old maps and a cool video of the terrain. Forest is mostly pine and some kind of deciduous tree (ash?), quite rocky in parts, lots of hillside marshes and ditches, lots of old low stone walls.

Didn't get much time for a warm up.

Ile de France Middle Distance Champs. Ran the H21E course so not going to be a true MD race for me :-). Advertised course was 5.4km with 160m climb and 22 controls, and actually ran 6.45km. New map, quite hilly, relatively open forest although with a lot of ground cover and saplings in large parts of the map. Got off to a bad start and missed the first control, which was all of 100m from the start triangle. Ran right past it and searched on a hillside a bit further on before circling back and finding it. 2 minutes binned there. Not too bad from there. Ran okay and navigated quite well, messed around on a couple of controls in the circle. Ran all the way to the end so pleased with that. Finished up as the top H50+ so that was good. Winner did 35min.

Jogged back along the jalonné course (streamer course) to meet up with Freya and Jane. Good fun warm down.

Fartlek run. Pretty tough week at work and feeling very tired. But after an easy km warm up started to feel pretty good and got going at a cracking pace. Decided to mix it up and so did some random fartlek. Got tired after about 6k and started to feel my heart go a bit funny so slowed down and cruised home. Rest this weekend is on the cards.

In Istanbul for work. Pollution, traffic and crowds didn't inspire me to head outside for a run after the conference and meetings so hit the hotel treadmill. Bored to death after just a couple of minutes so quickly got into the planned interval session of 90 secs H / 60 secs E. Did 5 of these and then got bored again. Settled into a steady quickish pace for a while longer then cooled down. Watching the Fashion Channel in Turkish was entertaining for a while, but the fun faded rapidly. Decided to finish up by running the hotel stairs - 25 flights in 5 minutes and pretty tired legs at the end. Didn't feel like doing it again so just took the lift down to my room and hit the shower. Tick that one off ....

C • memorable 2