Training Log Archive: shanel

Decide to invent another hill, so made a detour to a gentle incline on the way to work.

Quite a lot of cars coming out of the sprawl, but once I got on the incline I only saw two cars until I came down the decline. I was pretty surprised to see a transperth heading down the hill at 6:30 am but he gave me plenty of room like everyone else who was passing me.

More cars on Mond'y Rd and was pretty happy that only one big truck went past. I'd been a bit concerned that riding in a 110 zone might be less than fun, but everyone gave me plenty of room still and it was actually much nicer than riding on Rowley Rd.

Had a long way to go into the wind once I hit the freeway path, but I was close to par when I got there and the Northerly didn't hurt too much most of the time. After a while I thought I must have been approaching Rowley Rd, but it turned out to be Thomas Rd.

Approaching Cockburn I had some difficulty working out distances and started thinking I must have stuffed up pre measuring my route and my planned 92 was going to turn out to be over 100, but I eventually remembered it's only 27km from Cockburn, not 37km (but having a closer look now it seems to be 29km at the moment).

Anyway no one to help me along the way, one guy snuck past whilst I was waiting to cross under the narrows, but I could only close half the gap he opened whilst I was waiting for a break in the traffic, and by the time I got the the brewery I wasn't closing any more so I let him go.

Managed to finish up only about 6 minutes over par, which isn't to bed with the incline, the head wind and no help. So pretty happy that the Super (silly?/psycho?) Commute turned out nicely.




Darling Downs to Claremont via Jarrahdale.

C • 90ks 4

Probably should have had an easy cruise home, but it's not very often I get a puff of tailwind to help me get home. So I had a couple of followers on the first section of freeway path, and when one of them came past he went like a rocket, so I went hard to get on his wheel and didn't have to work too hard to stay there, after a while he slowed up behind someone else who was still doing a reasonable pace, and then he went into rocket mode again after Canning Bridge, so I got on again but unfortunately took the next turn off.

So back to doing my own thing, with bonus detour. Apparently 3 detours aren't enough, so now there's 4. Although 4 joins 1 and 2, so maybe there's only 2 detours now.

Caught someone approaching Cockburn and after relaxing behind him through the underpass he picked up the pace nicely so I sat in a bit longer before going to the front for a while and he did another short turn before he turned off.

Back under par by now and got home still under par even with the detours, can't wait for all the roadworks to finish, pity it'll be seabreeze time by then.

Event: Catholic Ag. College
 

Event: Mountain Designs ARA
 

Lots more driving in the time and distance.

Another early start, not as cold as yesterday. Started in the NE of the map with the gentle drone of the far off conveyor belt.

Lots of dodgy tracks to negotiate today wasting lots of time driving around fallen tress or running extra track to controls. Probably should have had a closer look at one control but it was the second most remote control on the map due to an undriveable track, so I couldn't be bothered.

Got everything vetted, so we're done now and got home at a resonable time. We didn't see a single person the whole time we were out on the course. But plenty of evidence of imminent logging activity.

C • Logging driving 5

Time and distance includes a lot of driving on course. Hard to believe the distance though.

Pushing the limits of alarm clock capabilities with a 4am wake up to be picked up by Mark at 5am and be ready to start vetting at first light.

Bit foggy head in the last 10-20km particularly in the valleys.

First thing Mark noticed on the map (which I hadn't) was the lack of north lines or any other grid lines. After a few minutes we found a solution, using a street directory as a ruler to copy north lines from an old map that we were "fortunate" mark had bought along.

Got to the first control to find the setters had only put out setting plates, with no tape, so expected we may have difficulty spotting the plates.

Very cold early on, coldness on the face made me suspect it was below zero as it felt colder than a near zero bike commute. Suspicion confirmed by -1.8 recorded by BOM at Wandering.

Only major delay for the day was Mark having trouble with the most remote control on the map having run in a bit fast, whilst I was driving a couple of controls (which were undriveable, so I had to run half of them anyway). So we had to walk all the way back in again , stupid setting plates can be hard to find by themselves.

Knocked up one short of half the controls, so should hopefully get the rest done tomorrow, even negotiated an extra 15 mins of sleep time.

Nice paddle, was getting good speed without too much effort early on but it didn't last too long and was a stuggle to keep the speed up on the way back.

C • Hill 2

Delayed at the start as we waited for someone who'd left home without his helemt and had to go back for it and I think never showed up.

I was a bitt off the back on the Preston Point climb, but the guy who always gets dropped was further off the back, so I waited a bit to give him a chance to catch up, but he wasn't closing so I caught back up the the others.

I finally decided to go to the front along Burke Dve, but got someone decided we should let the dropped guy catch up, I think a few doubled back, and we waited at Canning Hwy, still no sign of dropped guy we continued again.

I went to the front again on tthe run to Mt Henry, then towed the line the rest of the way.

The Barista mob turned on behind us at the south side of the narrows (we were running later than normal), but they crossed Riverside at the narrows whilst we looped round through the underpass and they were long gone by the time we got to Mounts Bay Rd, so I couldn't catch them for fun times through Dalkeith.

C • Shambles 6

Only Andre and Fletch at the start, so nearly an Espresso team training run.

3 x Grass Farm loops at tempo pace with only a jog recovery, guesstimated a target pace of 4:30/k.

9:57 - 4:29/k
9:56 - 4:28/k
9:55 - 4:28/k

Longer than planned recovery after the first rep. to talk to Wil who'd turned up despite not being on our team. Started the 2nd rep slow chatting to Wil and had to pick up the pace after he dropped off.

I'm still not sure what my target pace should have been, from the vdot 49, the table gives me a 10k pace of 4:12/k or 15k pace of 4:25/k. So not sure if I was going a bit slow, or if you allow for the terrain it's about right.