Training Log Archive: bigE

Tested some local cliffs. It was raining by the time we arrived and the rocks were kind of wet so we only stayed for one climb.

Went Mountain biking with Brent. Wow! All of the mountain biking I have done, was in preparation for my arrival here. I never really thought the Granny gear was that important. That is no longer the case...

The whole ride pretty much consisted of a long hill climb followed by a long descent. Steep in spots, curvy and softish single track that wound down the foothills of a mountain. Very fast, very fun. The bike I borrowed, out of necessity, had everything: disc brakes, full suspension, the whole package. There's a seemingly endless supply of trails here... Looking forward to more of this.

C • Sounds spectacular....keep ... 1

A first taste at Yukon College. My side hill technique could use some finessing... Conditions here are brilliant. Perfect temeprature. Air is completely dry. Forest is fast. No shortage of big hills and jaw dropping views.

Looking forward to the good stuff still to come.

Last Wednesday session with the OOC running squad :'(

I will miss you guys. Train hard while I'm gone!

C • Train hard while you're gone ;) 2

Mixed feelings about this one. Disappointed about #12. Lot's of hooks and a few hesitations. Warming up my core still felt beat from yesterday, the beginnings of a possible side stitch lingering. I ate a single undecorated crape for breakfast, no water. Despite this I was extremely nervous I'd have a repeat of the long. Thankfully as I warmed up the feeling seemed to relinquish but the situation was less then ideal. I was just happy to get a forest run where I didn't have to jog around hunched over walking up and down the hills...

Physically good but technique left some things to be desired. Control #1 I thought I was off my bearing when in fact I was not. This resulted in me dropping some unnecessary climb and loosing 40 seconds. Moral of story: trust the compass.

I lost another 40 seconds on control #5 where I had trouble seeing the control circle itself, and ended up too high. My eyes kept getting pulled toward some circular shaped impassible cliffs North of the control number. It's an extremely tricky spot and even after the race I have troubles simplifying the leg.

The worst and silliest mistake by far was control #12 where I didn't realize I had to go over the hill to get to the re-entrant. Since the hill the control was hiding behind was so big, I knew I would be able to see it easily. However, when I left the control I let the vegetation push me North and once I had dropped off the hill from #11 I didn't correct and ended up dropping many contours and loosing tons of time. This was nothing more then a bad case of loosing focus at the end of a race.WinSplitsRouteGadget

Blue - Splits

A killer Long. My O-speed was 12min/km but I should have been able to run 8min/km. Unfortunately my body seemed to revolt against me after I ate a light breakfast only 2.5 hours before my start. I thought I would have been ok having only eaten a small bowl of dry cereal and two cups of water but even while I was warming up my stomach was audibly sloshing and complaining. In retrospect I would have been better off just not eating breakfast at all because from beginning to end I struggled with side stitches, a problem I'd thought to have conquered. Some might say I was suffering from the heat, but historically I've never had trouble with temperature. The heat did eventually catch up to me at about the 1:40 mark when, despite a slow pace I was feeling exhausted and had troubles just staying in motion. However, having spoken with the other runners, I think just about everyone was similarly exhausted by that stage of the race. Leg #19 was particularly hard on the old moral.

According to AP I had 7 minutes of error but in actual fact only ~4:30 of that was actual error, the rest was fatigue. The only notable mistakes I made were on controls #5, #11 and #16. The rest was bad execution on some of the long legs.

All said and done, I'm ok about this race. My biggest mistake was 2 minutes. Far more time was lost because of slow running. This is a bit frustrating since I know my legs have more strength then ever. Below 1:50:00 was for sure achievable. RouteGadget Winsplits

C • ....wow....what a day..I go... 1

Blue - Splits