Training Log Archive: Craig

Achilles and knee rehab with a row warm up and a little bench press.

Jog with Liam from our apartment to the start of parkrun, after a few minutes of walking. A bit of soreness around the achilles attachment. Enough to make me think running hard is probably not a good idea but not enough to stop me from doing it.

Albert Park Parkrun.
Liam wanted to do this so I went along as well. I was kind of interested to see how fast I could run at the moment so thought I would try to run it hard if I felt ok. Quite crowded at the start with over 700 runners so the first km was fairly conservative. Found myself just behind Liam as the crowds thinned out so I just tried to settle in and follow his pace. I felt reasonably comfortable with the pace but my legs felt a bit heavy so I thought the pace was probably not that high. I was guessing something close to 22 minute pace. Around half way I started to drift a little behind Liam. A few faster runners came past me around the same time and Liam went with them for a while before accelerating to the point where I couldn't see him at all by the end. I concentrated on just trying to hold my own pace which I did pretty well. Maybe could have started a little faster without hurting the finish but felt pretty close to my current limit. Quite pleased with that, maybe haven't lost as much fitness as I feared.

Out to the road and back a few times. Expecting a close race so thought I needed to be ready to push hard from the start.

Oceania Relays at Argonaut, running second leg with Steve Craig first and Matthew Stocks third. Expecting a close battle with New Zealand as all the individual races had been tight. NZ made a late change to put Carsten last so when Nathan Fa'avae came in only a few seconds behind Steve the pressure was on me to open up a gap on Tim Wright to give Matthew some chance of holding Carsten off.
I hit the first couple of close controls ok without noticing Tim at all so I guess he had a different split. I took the tracks around to the right on the next couple of longer legs and kept expecting Tim to appear next to me at some stage but I never saw him at all and had stopped thinking about that by number 5. The first loop was pretty simple but the second loop went into much more of the complex mining detail and was made harder by fatigue starting to affect the concentration. I tried to take the simpler route choice where possible but was a little shaky on 12 where I was a bit indecisive and lost contact a little near the end. I spotted a big rock that I thought would be good to relocate on and found it on the map in the middle of the circle. I think there was something wrong with my process there but at least I didn't lose much time. Rest of the course was fine and Tim did come in until 14 minutes later.
Matt had a good run, not losing any time to Carsten so ended up with a comfortable win.
I thought we would be on the same course as M45 since there was no M50 class for entries but they ended up moving us down one course to the same course as M16 and M21AS.

C • M50 course 3

Run to the start and a little extra just off the track trying to get ready for the terrain.

Oceania Middle Champs at Hunt Tin Mine.
Had trouble reading the map on the way down to the start triangle but once I stopped and focused on it I was ok and felt pretty well in control for the rest of the course. Felt a bit inefficient on the long leg where I had a bit of trouble trying to follow the ditch through the marshes and climbed a little more than needed at the end (misjudging the 2.5m contours). Passed Rob Murphy just after that and was a little distracted by having him behind me for quite a while. Got away after the control I thought was the spectator control. I ran quite aggressively straight at that one because I thought I knew what it looked like but it was actually a different control. Worked ok for me anyway as I had the fastest split by quite a bit on that leg. Finished third, 1:48 behind Carsten and 0:31 behind Steve. Happy with my run again on a good fun course.

Slightly stressed run to the start after spending 20 minutes in the toilet queue. Spent most of the run trying to convince myself to relax because I did actually have enough time. Got there two minutes before I needed to.

Oceania Long Champs at Bells Marsh.
Smooth start through the first 4 which was quite heavy going but nothing too thick or steep. Saw someone ahead crossing the creek out of 4 so thought I'd trust them to have found a reasonable crossing point. I couldn't see how deep it was so was a little surprised to go in over my waist but at least it was refreshing. Didn't really pick exactly where I was at any point on this leg so although I went pretty much where I intended I was lacking purpose and not getting through the thick stuff very efficiently. Definitely felt like my worst leg in the course and that shows in the splits. Long leg from 6-7 where the obvious route choice was to the top of the hill and along the ridge with about 150m climb in one block from before 6 to the top of the hill. Passed Blair on the way up the hill. Once I got to the top it was mostly downhill and good running for the rest of the course apart from the climb up to 9 that felt much harder than it looks on the map. No navigational issues but Carsten was much stronger than me up the hills so got me by 5 minutes this time. Pretty happy to hold off everyone else given my current fitness level.
Our course seemed easier than most with the long leg allowing us to go around most of the tougher area.