Training Log Archive: RobB

Went up to Edinburgh to see the XC and there was a 5 k road race around Arthur's Seat in the morning. My race time is slower than I thought (in my head I had done just under 16 minutes) but I didn't clock it on my stopwatch.

Really hilly looped course basically up Arthur's Seat and then back down around the other side (first k flat 2.57 second k uphill 3:45! ). Enjoyed the race and felt good, got overtaken by about 5 guys on the way down the hill because couldn't get my legs turning over fast enough (and got a bit of back pain gyp in left hand shoulder) - they were just too quick for me.

Murray ran a class race to finish second. I finished 11th. Results here: http://www.winningtimeuk.com/index.php?page=result...

C • Nice time! 1

Lots of jogging around including a lap of the course as warm up.

Watching the world XC champs was a great experience. Couldn't quite believe how unrelenting the pace was in all the races. The crowd was great and there were loads of good viewing spaces. The commentator went balistic when Bekele lost his shoe.."he has lost 10 places, 20 places, 30 places" and watching him motoring through the pack was something else.

Day off travelling up to Edinburgh.

Got a massage in the morning which was good; really struggle to relax my legs and this makes it extra painful!

Nice surprise when we got to Edinburgh was that our appartment had been upgraded so we were about 5 minutes away from the start of the race and the XC champs.

Foxdahl interval session (90:30s) up the parks and back again. It was chucking it down so at least the number of prams that I had to contend with had reduced.

Pretty muddy and slippery but felt nice to be out - tough on the way out (up), but nice on the way back (down). Finished with an extra long surge up the Botanical Gardens.

Standard lunchtime run up the parks - tried to keep the pace up. Baby buggy pushers were taking over Endcliffe park, all taking up all the paths - Nails would have gone ballistic.

Steady run with the boyz. As OJ would say "it was muddy wuddy", and the hills felt pretty tough. My legs felt great for the first 10 - 15 seconds of the run. Longer run than planned but a social and convivial affair.

Got home, thought that I might treat myself to a bath then realised that our boiler was broke and it would be a cold (well actually freezing) shower for me.

C • slippy-whippy 1

Not sure if you could really say I warmed up or warmed down due to the dire weather but certainly did a bit of jogging!

2nd leg. Neil brought me back within the thick of it. Had fun racing with a pack of 3 for the first few controls (Bobach again and Nixon). Totally blew control number 2, made the mistake of trying to use the "distinct" veg boundary on the map that did not really exist. Other than the mistake had a good run - ran at the same pace as the top guys on the leg but it would have been sweet to have made up some time and sent OJ out with the leaders.

Felt sorry for Craney; shame he never got to have a fight with Fraser.

C • that would have been... 3