Training Log Archive: shanel

500m freestlye
500m - 50m recovery (breaststroke) 50m max effort (alternating free and breast)
500m flippers
500m - 50m recovery (breaststroke) 50m max effort (alternating free and breast)
500m freestlye

Did more interval like stuff than normal, getting very close to time to get some coaching.

Need to start doing more longer runs, so hopefully this will be the start of a regular effort, hopefully progressively increasing to some completely insane distances and gettting up into the hills.

So headed over Thomas Rd, through more new urban developments, past the site for the new West Byford primary school, which hopefully they start building this year. Through some bridle trails towards Byford, saw the rec centre so figured I may as well go past there, saw someone else jogging towards the rec centre, so started chasing him down, but he soon got in his car and drove off. Through Byford, stopped at Sophies' school on the way past to see which class she'll be in. Then hoisted the spinnaker and raced home with the tail wind for a while.

Nice loop through some areas I haven't been to before and didn't feel too hot till towards the end.

Event: Wellard Metro Series
 

Legs have been feeling much better this week than they normally would after a rogaine, but I've felt tired and crook all week (I reckon some of the water at the huts may have been dodgy).

So finally went for a light run this morning, GPS battery didn't last long enough to locate satellites, so swapped back to my normal watch before starting out.

Normal short bridle trail loop at easy pace.

Very hot this morning, but still managed to get into gear afterwards and get useful stuff done around home. Found the list of things I need to do to my trailer before I take it over the pits .. in my old diary ... in Jan ... 2009, hopefully I'll finally get this sorted soon.

C • Water 1

Had the whole day to kill in Launceston before flying home, so explored/walked aimlessly around for a few hours, covered 5 or 6 km's before finally returning to the backpackers to veg out for the rest of the afternoon.

Distances guessed so far.

Event: Bassendean Metro Series
 

Event: Australian Rogaining Championships
 

Where Eagles Soar - Tasmania (with Andre)

We were going to plan an 84km course, but in typical fashion this turned into more like 86.5, and whilst this was very optimistic and would require a dream run, we had some easy to drop controls around the 50-60km marks.

Between our 1st and 2nd controls we tested out a couple of steep gullies, which resulted in us concluding that should stay away from any similar ones. Soon after we made a 300m climb over about 1100m to a control on a rocky, scrambly razor back spur, to find that the navlight punch didn't work, so we had to write down it's secret code.

Anyway we soon started to fall behind schedule and our first water drop which was meant to be at the 5 hr mark pushed out to 6 hrs, and since it was quite a hot afternoon Andre ran dry for an hour or two, and I survived on sips till just before the water drop.

Soon after refilling our drinks we dropped a control which gave us a nice bit of track time rather than more nasty gully time and started the trimming back of our course. By the time we got to the 40km mark which we'd planned to reach at 10pm I think it was already 11:30. So we dropped a 40 pointer and cut out the NW corner, which would hopefully save about 3 hrs and get us back on track.

We didn't have too much trouble finding any controls until around 4:30-5:00, just when we were thinking it would be light again soon, thus started a run right through to the end of Andre and I taking turns to loose concentration, and luckily just loose a few extra minuts finding controls. I think one of the causes of this was that after Andre had pushed the pace and led from the start ( and me struggling to hang on) and then after dark I started to lead more, around daylight we started yo-yoing with me pushing the pace up the hills and then Andre pushing the pace down hills and across the rocky stuff (me struggling to keep up again), so I think, we did't have one person leading for each leg and we'd also started loosing concentration.

Anyway after our second last control Andre zoomed off up and over our last hill, leaving me to gave to run to catch up eventually on the road, and the rest of the way back I just couldn't walk at Andres pace, so I kept having to run to catch up and get ahead a bit (the road felt like the hardest surface I've ever run on) and then from the last control we had to run all of the last 1.5 km back to the HH as the final minutes quickly ticked down and past, with us getting in 37 secs late (I think).

After bugging the admin guy (because there too slack to read all the results) looks like we got a very pleasing 7th overall and tRicky and Mark Imbert got 3rd overall. If we hadn't lost 10 points for running late we would of got 6th and ther were so many times we could of saved that time, even up to the last control.

Other noteworthy things were seeing an Echinda, a Wombat with a baby, Andre saw a Tassie Devil, plus heaps of Wallabies. And last week the bridges to get across the river to the northern 2/3rds of the map were flooded, which would of made for an interesting event if it had happened this week.

C • Great stuff! 2

Nearly the same as yesterday, light and easy with a few bursts of speed. On the second sprint, going down hill, I got up to 20kph, but when I wanted to drop back the pace I had too much momentum still going down hill and had to run it out a bit more before I eased off again.

Light and easy keeping loosener, with a few short bursts of speed, working on the theory that I don't want my legs to get too use to taking it easy.

Took the kids to the beach at Rockingham this morning, so swam a couple of laps between the pontoons whilst we were there to get a token amount of open water swimming practice. Judging from NearMap the pontoons are about 230m apart

5:06 out downwind
7:14 back into the wind

C • 230m 2

Event: Wanneroo Lakeside Metro Series
 

Another very poor example of route this week had me cover about 1km more than everyone else.

Since I decided to drop the four northern controls I went my own way out of 6. Heading out of 10 things started looking bad, dropped 12 but still did 13 even though it was rubbish.

Think I led a few people (tRicky included) astray by missing the gates into the showgrounds and having to go round the long long way, Sten also went past around here.

Since I'd already dropped six controls I had to get everything else and some of them were really bad, particularly 25, 23, 20 and 16 (and had to count controls done a fee times as well, since I was having trouble keeping track of what I'd dropped.

Had someone get to 18 not far in front of me, so went hard to catch him at 15, then ran clear to the finish.

Think I'll miss next week and go and follow Andre around/lead him astray for 24hrs instead, can't wait to have 3hrs to plan our course.

Light and easy loosener.

Decided to cross Thomas Rd and see what's happening in the peasant zone these days.

Darling Downs to Claremont

Legs felt like spam from the start, so took it easy all the way.

Lots of people riding on the Freeway bike path, even some south of Russell Rd. But looked like there wouldn't be any opportunity to get a tow until finally someone came past along the Como foreshore, so got an easy fast ride up to the narrows.

Claremont to Perth

Took a sneaky shortcut home today.

Blasted down Mounts Bay to the brewery, nice not to have to turn and ride back into the wind for a change. Met Belinda at her work and we went and got the kids from my parents.

At home with the kids, felt like rubbish most of the day.

Another somewhat futile effort.

Already struggling with the pace by the time we turned onto Challenger, luckily Andre who'd been sitting on the back came up and dragged me back to the others, but I was off the back again before we got back onto WC Hwy.

Danger dropped back and tried to drag me back (thanks) but I was on my limit just holding him before he pushed on to get back to the others, so off I went again.

Thought I was going to catch them again at some lights, but it was another group. Decided to take a short cut and crosses over to Stirling Hwy so I could potter along for a while hoping I'd be in front and they'd catch me again, so I could try to hang on the back for a bit more.

Except I didn't know if I was north or south of McCabe St, so after an extended rest waiting for a couple of trains and a red light I went north. Oh well no McCabe St, I'll just go past CCGS and head in there. Somehow not a single person came past on the way round to UWA.

Still no one came past all the way back to Floreat, until I was getting back in the car and what I presume was the Floreat group came past, and what looked like a Tooms came past.

C • Painful! 2

8 x 1km at 5km pace with 4 mins rest between each odds up hill into the wind, evens downhill with the wind

Aimed for 4:15's

4:21 4:15
4:19 4:13
4:20 4:04
4:17 3:54

Looked at my watch near the start of the first and thought I was going too slow, then thought Tooms was taking it easy as I was running beside him, looked at watch again and I was going too fast, so kept an eye on lap pace after that to try to get it right. Kept getting behind pace going into the wind and then working hard to bring it back a bit up the hill round to the finish.

Down winds were easy, picked up the pace on the 2nd last downhill, then upped it again for the last. Almost got the planned pace right, but probably didn't quite hurt enough, but that's OK with Tassie only a week and a half away.

C • Tassie 1

Matilda Bay - Kings Park hillyish run.

Into Kings Park and up the Law Walk, feeling really slow round and up to DNA tower, stretched out a bit on the way down Broadwalk. Thought I was 4 min behind normal planned average pace, eventually realised that was due to a change in timing technique and I was maybe only the normal couple of minutes behind. Worked hard the rest of the way back but couldn't get the average pace down to 5:00/km.

I think I'll really struggle tomorrow, but after this week I'll be taking it easy before Tassie.

Wungong Gorge walk

Got up at 5am this morning, had breakfast, then had a snooze on the lounge.

Eventually got going, sort of, with some gear maintenance , sewing a button on my pants and putting dubbin on my hiking boots. Also put some extra ballast in my pack, although wasn't too sure that it wouldn't be too heavy and destroy my webbing, but went with it anyway

So nice and warm when I eventually started. Lack of any hill training since NZ was immediately evident and whilst the ballast made my pack only slightly heavier than carrying a kid in a backpack, it was a lot less comfortable.

Anyway on I went, things now getting a bit hot, up a hill, down a hill, up down, try to cross the river, bash through thick veg to get to the river bed. Then blackberry ... queue 20 mins to get a very short distance up to the track. When will I learn, getting off track around here sucks.

Time now getting on, things getting very hot and tired, so up one more hill and down again.

Got home and took my lunch outside and ate in the pool, then went inside, turned on the aircon and watched a DVD and was too trashed to do any thing useful for the rest of the day.

C • Same idea 1

Event: City Beach Metro Series
 

City Beach MetrO

Major route choice failure saw me start out getting the northern controls ACW, resulting on a hard slog into the wind up the beach between the groynes. Decided to get out of there (away from the into the wind beach run) and cut SE to run down the eastern controls then back up through the beach controls, missing the most southern ones.

Darling Downs to Claremont

Took it easy all the way. Worked out my inability to correctly adjust my gears means I now need to use the middle ring most of the time instead of the big ring, hopefully this will work nicely for into the wind riding, where I used to have to change from big to middle way too much for my liking.

Got passed by a guy along Mounts Bay Road who would of had a BMI of 0.0001. Jumped in behind him as we were heading into the wind, although I'm not sure he was wide enough for it to help a whole lot. Felt guilty for not taking the lead from him along Hackett Dr since he was working pretty hard, but didn't want to break my rule of resting up before Princess Rd.

Oh and passed Fully Sikma going the other way north of Mt Henry.

C • BMI 2

C • Gears 5

Pretty respectable seabreeze made for slow progress down the freeway.

1:04 down to Cockburn had me thinking the seabreeze may be able to beat the easterlies pre christmas effort after all and maybe it would be nice to take the short way home, oh but there isn't one.

Fortunately got onto Rowley Rd and all was good in the world again. Got home for more stomach pain after having some earlier at work, seems to happen way too often on ride to work days.

C • Short way 4

Two days with no training, but after yesterdays exhausting effort shopping for a new lounge actually got some jobs done at home.

Bit of tractor action to mulch up piles of prunings, leaves and branches which had been lying around the place. Bit of chainsawing of dead tree, fallen branches and the last tree I chopped down a couple of months ago.

Effectiveness of chainsaw went up about 200% after I used a new bit in the sharpener, which is actually the right size for the chain, unlike the one which has been in there since I "borrowed" it from my dad a "few" years ago.

Also took the opportunity to drive the tractor round and round on my firebreaks to squish them down whilst the ground was moist, hopefully they won't be quite as soft and dusty now.

Managed to get to the start point on time after getting up at 4:30.

Was struggling to stay on the back early on with HR already up around 180, got dropped on the hill coming up to Campbell Barracks and the others waited for me to catch up heading down the next hill, but when I was dropped again at the next hill I didn't see them again.

Didn't know exactly where to go from North Fremantle and hence went the wrong way, had a nice ride along a bike path for a while before spotting some other cyclist to follow for a while, ended up coming back onto Stirling Hwy at the Eric St Lights, so decided to go past work so I could see how long it would take to get from there to the start spot.

Cruised back along Brockway except when I tried to jump in behind a pair who'd gone past, but the legs couldn't hold onto them either.

Passed Tooms on the drive back to work.

Will have to upload GPS track tonight

Oh and despite my best efforts to clean and lube chain and adjust gears yesterday, my bike was still very squeaking and clunky.

C • Well done 2

5 x 1500m intervals at 12km pace.

I was aiming for around 6:10 to 6:20. 1st, 3rd and 5th were in the easier CW direction. Went a bit too fast on the first without too much effort, 2nd was harder with the into the wind and uphill and Linda passed me towards the end to start tormenting me. Really started hurting on the 3rd, big blowout on the 4th and just held things together for the last.

6:00
6:14
6:06
6:32
6:19

Couple of laps around Champion Lakes, mostly no wind, few rowers and couple of paddlers around.

Also the two guys I'd seen riding on the Tonkin Hwy path a couple of days ago (edit: make that yesterday) seemed to be doing bog laps around the lake, made me think maybe I should do some intervals around the lake on my bike sometime.

Just got back through the gate to the island as one of the boat club members was locking it on their way out, maybe next time I won't go through if the gate's not fully open.

Easy ride from home to Champion Lakes and back.

Bit windy but not too bad. As normal very quiet on the Tonkin Hwy path, passed two other guys on the way out and passed the same two on the way back.