Training Log Archive: shanel

Only Jake, BB and myself this morning. Fine conditions to start with.

Probably should have done more work in the first half, as by the end of the ride it became evident that Dalto was still ill and Jake was depleted.

Didn't experience the usual surge down to Port Beach and I was left unchallenged for the sprint. Dalto took the shortcut through Mosman Park and Jake let me lead most of the way up the water tower climb and same up Devils elbow.

Just past CCGS the rain kicked in and we had a short interlude whilst those with rain jackets put them on.

Once past the annoying twisty stuff that I hate even when it's dry, I eased onto the front trying to show some caution with the amount of water on the roads and the visibility reduced, but it seemed BB and Jake had had enough and kept easing off the back. I went off early for the final sprint and was uncontested.

I really do like riding in some descent rain, but it's not ideal in a group.

C • What does... 3

Back to the ute. Oops found I'd left it unlocked all day (again), last sec grabbing of the GPS must have done it.

Joined by Ann and tRicky for the inaugural Toomsless Tuesday run. Building on the last session.

"Reabold reps, 5 at threshold then 5 faster, jog recovery to bottom, roughly a 390m hill. 2 min recovery between sessions."

1:49, 1:58, 1:58, 2:01, 1:57
1:47, 1:47, 1:44, 1:41, 1:42

Looks like thresholds were 5-10sec fast than 2 weeks ago and faster ones were 3-4 secs slower without Wil and Luke for competition, but surprising not as much slower as I'd expected, probably because my legs were feeling a lot better than they have lately, right calf felt fine for a change.

Got started quite late after lots of faffing about at home this morning. At least it was light, the rain had stopped except for a light shower on the way back and it was very still.

H1 - Splits

Event: (Autumn Classic) Peterdine
 

H1 - Splits

Darling Downs to Claremont

Kinda pootled in, didn't put any big efforts in anyway, except when someone passed approaching Mill Pt Rd, I jumped in behind to the other side of the narrows.

Tried to get my cadence sensor working again last night, it seems to picking up the magnets from the pedal and wheel, but my GPS isn't seeing it, will try a new battery even though it didn't seem flat when I tested it, but I think sensor unit it probably stuffed. Also managed to stop my old chest strap from working, so now have two dead chest straps as well.

Claremont to Darling Downs

Cruised till someone caught me whilst I was waiting to cross Cranford Ave. He went past for we went down under Leach Hwy and played the usual game of someone get away through the twisty bits and me catching them up again. Went to the front after Farrington, but he turned off at the Roe Hwy loopy bit.

Averaging just over 30km/h when I turned off the freeway and with the breeze seeming a bit fickle and concerned it may hit me when I headed down Rowley Rd, I was very happy when it was maybe a tailwind, or maybe nothing at all. So smashed it the rest of the way home.

I think my previous best time for the ride home was 1:38:26, so I think I've blown that away.

Opted for sleep rather than run early this morning, then had too much to do in the morning to be able to get organised for paddling during Kindy time. Zoomed up to Anaconda after dropping Ryan off to get a supposed $300 wind trainer for $100.

Get back in time for a random medium dist. easy run from Ryans Kindy. Found a nice reveged watercourse, then some derelict land developer area, then some land developer area trashed by trail bikes and rubbish. Went through what looked like POS at the end of a dead end road, along Wungong? river towards champion lakes, slowed down heaps as it became thick long Kikuyu invested unappealing crap along the river. Quickly round the end of Champion Lakes and back to kindy through what used to be Westfield, checking out the real estate.

After failing to go for a run on the way home yesterday, I got out early this morning, with my headlamp on, for a short fast run. Was hoping it would be a bit faster, but didn't seem to have any more speed to give. Still dark when I got home, but it was somehow a nice change.

Might have to see if I can get anyone interested in a Toomsless Toosday Renegade Run for next week.

C • TUes Running 3

Good morning for a ride. Was feel the pain after taking the lead heading to the cop shop and then being hit by Tooms and then Chris upping the pace, was starting to let a gap open in the middle of the group, but was saved by a slight easing at the roundabout.

Despite Tooms observation I was actually a long way off the back by the top of the water tower climb and had to haul arse to just catch up before the start of devils elbow, so was pretty happy to stay in contact for that one.

Few more random efforts than normal, but good to keeping getting to that feeling of having nothing left, but avoiding getting spat out the back and having another go later.

Good to see the return of the DangerMan (to give me a push along so I didn't drop off the back from the front). Pity to see the departure of the Toominator, can we entice a cameo next time he's in town?

C • Cameo 2

Event: Boundless AR - KillaAvon
 

Event: Wundabiniring
 

Thought I might have a chance of a respectable result without the 6hr warm up (Rogaine) the day before. So went out pretty hard to try to stay in contact with some of the faster guys.

Andre tried to lead us all astray by not going up past track upto TA1, so as he led a pack off in the wrong direction I went with some others who seemed to think it was probably the right one, was very happy after climbing the hill to find it was the right one.

Caught ShotRat early in the orienteering after he got past whilst I was changing shoes. Stuck close behind the pied piper of Peterdine most of the rest of the way round, but started to run out of puff on the way to 8 and dropped off, leaving Robbie to chase him alone and leaving me to veer left on the way to 11 after passing Woop Woop and Ameko's team, letting them get in front again.

Came out of TA between Woop Woop and Ameko and BIGPete. Great downhill run back down to the road, my first run on the new bike. Caught Woop Woop on the track along the road and sat in behind them figuring once we got onto the bitumen I'd be able to work with them through to Muresk. We were catching ShotRat and I thought he could join the train as well, but he took a dud fork and we passed him by. Hard ride on the road, had a couple of goes on the front, Jake did most of the work, after my first go on the front I nearly dropped off as Jake came by and working really hard to hold on for quite a while until the pace eased a bit.

Got the Muresk and did all the controls, probably should have seen if some of them were worth dropping, but didn't have the descriptions out and I hadn't bothered working out which one were only worth 1 minute before the start.

Then I made the big mistake of doing the double G controls. Chased Robbie up the hill hadn't caught him at the top and then he took off down the hill opening a huge gap. Another super fun downhill run, tried to stick to the vehicle track through the paddock figuring surely the vehicles would have picked up all the double G's. Caught Robbie down at the watercourse as he was looking for the control, I spotted it and rode over to it as he went past, but I think I may have yelled out to him. After X20 Robbie stayed high on the contour whilst I cut through diagonally to the road. Was catching Robbie an a bunch of others when I stopped to refold my map, but when I pushed off again the front tyre was flat. Nearly everyone passed me by whilst I picked out double G's and eventually got the new tube in and got going, soon after the back tyre also went, so everyone else passed me by as I sorted out that one. Then stuffed around heaps looking for 22.

Eventually got to Northam already running pretty late but went for all the controls anyway, thought I saw Andre heading my way as I turned towards I, but didn't see him for a while so thought I must have been imaging it. Stuffed around heaps trying to find the lookout at A and was a bit disappointed at the finish to find that I'd missed seeing J on the map.

Andre came into the transition back to the bikes just as I did and proceeded to writhe around on the ground with agonising cramps. Left transition before Andre, but he somehow recovered and caught me up on the way out of town and so started our cat and mouse game for the rest of the race. Since Andre thought it was a good idea to get the climb the hill to the extra control X24 off we went, and it was a killer and so was the hill to 25. We faffed around with someone else at 26 as we'd somehow approached the water tower from the wrong side. Then Andre tried to lead me astray by stopping at the wrong bridge (like everyone else apparently), I slowed for a quick look and suggested it was the wrong bridge. He caught me again when we got to the right bridge and I lead for a while towards the finish. Feeling that if I led too long Andre would be able to get me in a sprint, I let him led the rest of the way, he tried to get away heading in to the finish and I struggled to stay on, so I thought I'd let him have it, but when the finish was a bit further in than I'd expected and Andre seemed to pause for a cramp, I decided it was game on again and squeezed into the finish in front.

Thanks for a great race to the end Andre, I don't know how you recovered from Northam to be able to still try to shake me at the end.

Thanks to Tooms, Dalto and the rest of the crew for another great race, and once again showing us the silly things we'll do in the name of racing, despite being fully warned that it would probably be a bad idea (the double G's that is).

C • Dud fork 7

Got my new bike last night, so gave it a quick spin around the bridle trails (and front paddocks and driveway). Even found a section of trail which I didn't know was there even though I've been right past the end of it many times before.

Felt pretty ripped off that the bike shop doesn't do a free fitting on a new bike and wanted $150 to do it.

Was about 4 degrees when I headed out, but didn't feel too cold with a jumper on. Bike feels pretty good, but back was slightly sore, feels like I need the seat back further or the handle bars forward more. Oh and I've got it dirty already :(

Need to try and fit on a water bottle carrier and get a spare tube or two now.

Not too happy riding with the flat pedals, so I might take the pedals off my road bike and use them tomorrow.

Short and easy. Saving the legs for Sunday rather than doing the usual Friday commute ride.

After an hour driving in the dark and rain didn't really feel like running, but figured if Edmund can make it to running in the rain then so can I.

By the time I started it was actually sort of light and not raining. Was feeling pretty bored plodding along heading back but then it started raining again and somehow I felt much better.

Got back to the car in time for a torrential down pour driving to work with minimal visibility, got a lot wetter walking to the office than I had whilst running.

Planned to hide down the back to avoid being spat out the back when we got to the big hills, but it didn't help too much, probably just put me into lame/lazy mode.

Used the mysterious tRicky to get to the front through Dalkeith and paid for it soon after as the train seemed to be passing me by, but managed to hold on.

Tried to take Dalto's lead heading up my favourite hill, but was soon passed by all sorts of random characters who seemed to come out of nowhere.

Doubled back from UWA and headed straight to work.

Legs, body and mind all feeling very weary at work throughout the morning.

Just need to get through the final Tooms session tonight, hopefully without completely destroying my calf, then I can just do rest and recovery for the rest of the week.

Note: ordered my new MTB yesterday, seems it probably comes with flat pedals (I'm sure the one I looked at had clipless, but the picture in the brochure has flat). So I'm considering if I should swap the MTB pedals from my road bike and get proper road pedals and shoes (or maybe tri shoes). Think I'll just stick to the flat pedals for KillaAvon but and save on transition time.

C • Tri Shoes 1

Rain, all the way , got suitably soaked, wishing I'd put my mud guard back on. Got back to the ute and got on some nice dry running gear, ready for the final Tooms running session

"Reabold reps, 4 at threshold then 4 faster, jog recovery to bottom, roughly a 390m hill. 2 min recovery between sessions. It was raining when we started the session",
I don't think it stopped sometime but I didn't notice when. Most of my time was spent racing Wil and Luke and annoying the crap out of myself with my squeaky shoe which made sure everyone knew exactly where I was.

Stuffed up timing the first 2.

?:?? ?:?? 2:10 2:04
1:39 1:43 1:38 1:39

Started behind Wil and Luke for the first of the fast ones, passed them early then worked hard to avoid the repass, trying to keep an eye on the light from Wil's headlamp. Third was a killer. Luke got away on early on the last rep and Wil pulled out a big finish to beat me to the line.

Very nice peaks in the HR graph.

Well that's the end of Tooms sessions, will have to see what Toomsless Tuesdays may hold for the future.

Super easy trying to appease my dodgy calf.

Event: Julimar
 

Event: NavDash 7 - Curtin University Stadium (WA Sprint Champs)
 

Good run on what was once familiar ground, but now somewhat different. No major mistakes but not brilliant either. Right calf still pretty sore.

Course 1 - Splits

The mechanics have lived up to my expectations of their "profession", hence I will be on my bike back to Gosnells to requisition my Mums car for the next couple of days. I guess I may as well be prepared to swap it to my Dad's car for the weekend so Belinda will be able tow the horse float.

Darling Downs to Claremont

Took it easy, resisting temptation despite the nice easterly blowing and mainly because my calf was sore. Still had a nice game of keeping ahead of the trucks I passed which were stuck in the freeway traffic until the traffic cleared out at Roe Hwy.

Hope I get my ute back today, so I don't have to ride home tonight and then have to ferry the kids around tomorrow without a car.

Claremont to Gosnells

Couldn't decided on a good route to take, so decided to go through South Perth, past Curtin, over Riverton Bridge and through Lynwood and down Spencer Rd.

Then I got distracted going under the narrows and went the normal way over the West side of the narrows. So plan B - Over Mt Henry, through Rossmoyne, Shelley and back onto plan A.

Seems to be a lot more cyclists around on a Wed. than a Fri. and after getting into a bit of a train and working nicely for a while, seemed it would be a pity to abandon it at Mt Henry, so went onto Roe Hwy.

So plan C - Roe Hwy to Spencer Rd. Turns out it's a long way up Roe Hwy, in the dark, by yourself, when you were planning on driving home ........ ...... ........ eventually went under Spencer Rd and then though "Oh f...or the love of dog, there's no turn off ... then I spotted the turn off.

Made it eventually and can now rule out any desire to take that route ever again (unless I'm just racking up k's for the hell of it).

Oh, and realised along the way that it will be pretty hard to do my planned paddle tomorrow with no way to get my boat anywhere.

C • Racking up k's 2

Had the novel experience of leading off at the start, not sure how much everyone else appreciated my yoyoing slow through the round abouts then fast out. Assumed a more standard position taking cover and hanging on once we hit WC Hwy.

Went on the front through Mosman Park, until Dalto saved me before the start of the climb, where I then self destructed. One day I'll work out how to ride that hill.

Off the back with Andre on Devil's elbow and lost Andre as I tried to close the chasm. All regrouped just past CCGS and I sat tight for a while before having another go on the front until Jake took over. Had on last go leading out early at UWA before dieing.

Failed to fully appraise the situation and by the time I rolled off from work I needed to really smash it to get to running on time. Got there a smidge late, luckily everyone patiently waited for me to transition into running mode.

Killer hill reps, first one the short loop, then 3xlong and 3xshort, easy recovery down the hill plus another 30sec rest.

First two times round the long loop, Luke got away from me at the end of the main climb, but I managed to catch him by the end.

After Tooms said to have a 1min rest after the last long, we got confused and pretty much had a minute rest after all the rest as well.

No push left approaching the top of the hill each time and just struggled the last section.

Right calf has been getting gradually sorer since being randomly sore on Sat. morning, might need to rest it a bit, maybe.

Short: 1:19 220m
Long: 2:30 600m
Long: 2:40
Long: 2:42
Short 1:12
Short 1:09
Short 1:06

Had to wait for Belinda to pick me up after taking the kids to the movies (since my ute is getting a new clutch), by the time she finally got there and we got home, I could have ridden it (except for the major blowout of at least an extra half an hour I would have had by that stage, and I wouldn't have got to eat left over popcorn all the way home).

Event: (MTBO) Pickering Brook
 

Off to a bad start wasting some time whilst I got myself orientated and work out which way I was going. Remembered to start my watch just before I got to the first control, so time and dist is a guestimate.

OK from there till half way to 4 where I missed the fork to the left, bad go a reasonable dist before I realised I was on the wrong side of the watercourse and heading south up a hill, and off the map. Thought the track might head east along parallel to the watercourse. Came across someone else who was doing the short course and thought he was still on the map, so I kept going eastish and soon turned north and came across a junction that seemed to match one on the map, so turned south again, thinking maybe I was on the map afterall, but the contours looked all wrong,, eventually headed north again and relocated properly and had to approach 4 from the overgrown side, so had trouble working out where the track actually was.

Pretty clean from there, took a lot more care reading the junctions. Baffled by how Andre passed me going the opposite way on the way to 5, then he passed me again going the opposite way heading to 6.

Better make sure I get started as early as possible next time, to avoid the wrath of course closure time. Thanks to the Wallys and Co. for setting a good course and not packing up before I got back.

Long - Splits

Event: NavDash 6 - Guildford
 

Was off to a quick start from home so figured the wind must have been favourable, so decided to try to put in some effort to try for a new record.

Not a brilliant time through to Cockburn but not too slow, was just about going supersonic as I blasted by a poor soul on an MTB rounding the end of Roe Hwy, and put in some extra acceleration to head down to Farrington.

Finally someone to play with leaving Canning Bridge, thought about resting in behind as I caught him, but decided on the pass instead, unfortunately he'd latched on and despite some 40kph effort he stuck tight till over the narrows.

Got in under 90mins for a solid but non record effort.

Pleasant conditions, into the wind, then away from the wind.

Only Jake, BB and myself this morning.

Bit chilly starting out, but not too bad with suitable attire.

Jake and BB did nearly all of the work, I put in a couple of efforts on the front, around the cop shop (I think) and heading through Mosman Park. That unfortunately resulted me going off the back for both climbs, mercifully the boys let me get back on both times.

Had another go heading round the tennis courts and the boys let me stay out there a looonnngggg time, until an interloper who'd latched on back at CCGS went off the front heading up my favourite hill.

Good hard ride today with the legs running on empty on some of the hills back to Floreat.

3 x up the hill (520m) then recovery back down
2 mins rest
2 x up the hill (520m) then recovery back down
2 mins rest
1 x up the hill (520m) then recovery back down

2:17, 2:13, 2:09
2:09, 2:14
2:08

Did the first with Wil, Luke and Andre. tRicky joined in the second which Wil led most of the way with tRicky covering the overlatking lane, eventually squeezed past them both across the top.

Spent the rest by myself as tRicky disappeared into the distance. Major effort on the last rep trying to close a big gap on Jen, but Jen kicked up a gear to hold me off across the top.

Only 2 weeks left and then I may have to work out how to plan a training regime for myself, or hope there is some remnant Tues running session.

Needed to get home in time to be ready to go to the zoo at 9am, so aimed to squeeze in about 12km.

Decided to head through a magic portal that took me to the mysterious land of Oakford. Kept heading east till I got to a big drain, follow the well loosened sandy track along the drain until I came a cross a crossing and headed east and back north along the drain, kept going more east, still not up to an appropriate half distance, kept going, past half distance hoping to came across a trail to loop back on, eventually headed south along a trail which was just east of Nicholson Rd.

Got back to the drain, trail didn't appear to cross so headed north again with waining enthusiasm knowing I'd probably end up back on the soft sandy trail, ended up back where I'd originally cross, the headed south, didn't find a trail to head east again so ended up popping out in Thomas Rd still a long way from home

Got back home just before 9am and still had to have breakfast and a shower, so ended up in trouble.

Will need to plan a route before my next expedition to the distant world of Oakford.