New 10km PB!

Thursday
Didn't get out of class til late so missed the squad session and just did an easy 1.5km instead. Felt pretty good though considering my swimming's been so slack lately...

Friday
Went for an easy ride to and around Mt Cootha following Miners new rules of only pedalling on the uphills and not leaving the smaller chainring - it certainly makes for a different ride! All up it felt really good though and it definitely feels like it trains the legs better. Plus makes it a lot easier to spin!

Saturday
Bought new elastic laces so HAD to try them before Sunday's race... :P Just did an easy 3km gallop around the park near my place, felt good and really relaxed.

Sunday - BRRC 10km Handicap - 40:30
Felt good on race morning but was still about skeptical about getting 40. It was the first time I've run with these guys and they gave me a 33minute handicap (one of the biggest!) but in the end it turned out to be pretty accurate. I started well and got the first km in exactly 4:00, but from then on I couldn't keep them consistent and they kept varying from 3:50 to 4:10. I managed to throw in a couple of good surges in the last two km though and got home in a time I'm very happy with! Thanks to Clairie for introducing me to some of the other members.

Bring on Noosa!

... A REALLY good burn...

Monday
This definately SHOULD have been an easy, no watch, recovery run day but the thought of hitting 40mins for 10km on Sunday was weighing heavily on mind so I decided to do a bit of a time trial "just to see"... I know it was naughty but I couldn't help myself...

So I did 5km pretty much dead on 20mins (20:04 actually, but I think it was 60m too long...). Definately the fastest I've timed (but I haven't done many of them...) and considering it was with very tired legs, in my older shoes and a full stomach (it was the afternoon), I was very happy with the result and feel a lot more confident for Sunday. I did however have a really sore right glute which is a niggle I've been trying to play down for the past week. I think it's a result of shifting my cycling position and this was confirmed on Wednesday (see below). I've been managing it with a heat pack before bed...

Tuesday
Did an easy 1km swim and finally had the recovery session I should have had Sunday afternoon... It felt really good considering I haven't swum in a fortnight. I'm going to first squad session Thursday.

Put the heat pack on my ass before bed again...

Wednesday
Another 40/10 brick session. It was really good and I finished in about ten minutes less than last week. This is mainly because of a change of route on the cycle leg so the actual time difference isn't a big deal but I did feel heaps stronger off the bike, was into a rhythm much faster and my glute felt heaps better than it did during last weeks' session, and the way it has for the last few days.

Again I think it's because I was really focussing on spinning my legs rather than pushing them (something I think I slipped back into Sunday's hills which may have aggravated the situation...). Clearly this is something I'm going to have to seriously concentrate on because it's having a really positive impact when I get it right and a whole basket of negative ones when I bugger it up!

Oh and I got swooped by yet another magpie. Not as scary as it was three weeks ago, now I just shake my head a bit and break into a sprint...

Overall I got a finish time of 2:06, now I just need to get that swim time down to 24mins...

Tomorrow is my first attempt at squad (provided I get this last assignment done tonight...) and then an EASY 8km on Friday and an EASY spin session on Saturday morning... Look out Sunday!

It's a good burn...

After a crappy day at work on Friday I cam home and did a hard 45mins on the windtrainer. It was really intense (I was COVERED in sweat!). I felt good afterwards but wasn't sure what effect it was going to have on my long run the next day...

Saturday
Went for an awesome run with Clairie, Tesso and Charlotte. All up we did about 21km in about 1:45. Good to be back doing long runs and especially good to be doing them with these three lovely ladies. I felt fine after the spin session the night before and we did a progression run for the last 4km which was really good. We also ran past a person that Tesso seems to think is my identical twin despite some serious physical differences! 'Twas hilarous!

Sunday
Went for a ride to Mt Gravatt and did three reps up the mountain staying in my seat the whole way and trying to get faster as I got closer to the top. It's about a 2.5km climb. I felt really good afterwards and flew home very quickly. I'll definately do more reps next time. Or try pushing a higher gear...

Rest today although I might run for 30 mins without the watch this afternoon and then another 40/10 brick tomorrow. I'm going to try and two laps of a 20km loop for the bike this time to see if I can avoid some of the traffic that slowed my down last time.

I might also be having a crack at a 40 minute 10km on Sunday at BRRC. Not so confident of that yet, I think I'm at about 41:30 pace... but we'll see!

Breakthrough sessions

I think I'm finally starting to make some progress with my cycling! This is good because in comparison to the run focus of my training my cycling focus has taken a long time to get a bit of momentum but I seem to be getting there. The only other problem is the animals! I've been swooped by three more magpies and chased by a dog since my last post!

Friday
Went out for a ride that was going to be 70k just nice and easy. After about 25 I was still feeling really good so I fuelled up on a muesli bar and decided to see if I could stretch out my distance a little. All up I ended up doing 80km which is a new threshold for me. Apart from having to break into sprints every time I heard a CRAAAAWWWWWW!!!!!!!!! followed by the crack of talons on my helmet, the whole ride felt really good, no niggles etc, just focussed on keeping back in the seat and spinning my legs rather than pushing the pedals. All up it took about 2:45 which means an avergae speed of abot 28km/hr. This was just above 30km/hr for the first 60km, but I couldn't maintain that pace in the last quarter. I also had another coffee before I left and this seemed to work really well.

Saturday and Sunday
Rest (had an exam Saturday morning, had to work Saturday afternoon and Sunday and had drinks on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights...)

Monday
Spent a cruisy 30 mins on the magtrainer that was pretty much just a random fartlek session of different sized intervals ranging from 3 minutes to 30 seconds in a variety of gears.

Tuesday
Went out with the plan of running a 10km TT but got three km in before realising I hadn't started my watch properly. I was feeling pretty out of it so I just jogged home and did another 30 mins on the mag trainer at a constant pace.

Wednesday
The goal today was 40/10 brick set hammer to see where I was at. In order to avoid the wildlife that appears to have it in for me I had to stick to the main roads which meant lots of traffic lights so my 40km bike stretched out to 1:28 and felt really stop-start with all the traffic. The wind also played a massive part in my ride today as it was very strong going out and seemed to have just disappeared on the way back. I did manage to get into a good rhythm for the last 10k of the ride though which set me up really well for the run...

And what a run! I started out very slowly because my glutes were feeling a little tender from the ride but it had all cleared up by about 3km and when I hit the 5km turnaround I just gave it everything I had and got home in about 45 mins. All up the run distance was about 10.75km which means I was running about 4:06 a km. Very happy! and no animals!

I did learn however that I'm absolutely going to have to eat something on the ride as I was getting seriously hungry by the 4km mark of the run. I need to make sure I'm taking on more water as well.

Finally, after much thought I think it's possible that my recent bad luck with animals could be a result of my rather indulgent statement in reference to a trail run in a previous post where I said "Just Owen v nature, and Owen won." So in order to settle my debt with nature I hereby retract my earlier statement and instead say to whoever's listening, call off your minions you evil goon!

Apart from discovering a rather vicious magpie has taken up residence at the end of one of my favourite stretches of road (swooped me four times and nearly took my ear off!) this morning's ride was quite uneventful. 30km all up at 30km/hr pace. I made an extra effort to stretch PROPERLY and tried two changes to the way I rode which seemed to have paid off, sliding back further in the seat so that the weight of my body is on my butt, not my legs, and this in turn meant I could focus on "spinning" the pedals, rather than pushing them. Apparently it worked, perhaps it wasn't a problem with the way the bike fitted me as much as a problem with the way I fitted the bike...

The other interesting note about this morning's ride was that I experimented with a coffee beforehand. It felt good for this distance but I don't know whether it would be much help for anything longer as the buzz was just starting to wear off when I dismounted. I also plan to try coke in my water bottle before long.

After work I backed up with a 7km run around the neighbourhood which also felt good, overall today felt much better than most days of late, everything seemed to flow better...

Eventful longish run

I was trying to start building up my long run again today with a 20km run with a turnaround at the top of Mt Gravatt. It was fairly good but slow (very hilly the whole way), but I just felt awkward the whole way. I'm not sure way but running just felt like a very alien action for my body for some reason. All up it took my about 1:40 for 18 very hilly kms.

The "eventful" bit was that about 2km from home a car blew up about 150m in front of me! I'm not joking! I was just coming over the top of the second last hill and starting down it (thinking smugly to myself how nice it is to be running faster than the traffic is flowing) when about 150m ahead of me at a set of traffic lights flames started pouring out of the front of this Volvo and the driver bailed. All the surrounding drivers got out of their cars and people started calling the firies etc.

Thankfully, no-one was hurt.

It's not about the bike...

Had planned to do two 60k rides yesterday because of time constraints (ie. rather than doing one long one...) However at about the 40k mark my shin started to hurt again! It was really tender for the next 12km and then finally started to loosen up in the last few k.

It's beginning to get very frustarting because I can't work out what I'm doing wrong. I've had my fit checked, I've been stretching and warming up properly, and it only happens occasionally...

Thankfully the ride wasn't a write off as I still got a good distance in and felt like I'd done a solid work out at the end but it's very uncomfortable.

Tomorrow is 20km with the halfway turn around at the top of Mt Gravatt.

A hectic week

The last week has been an absolute mess but I've managed to squeeze in a fair bit of training and I've had my bike refitted and it now feels fantastic. I've also had a serious rethink on my position on trail running...

Saturday - boot camp run
After a seriously average day at work I really just wanted to hurt during this one so I did 9km total with a mix of short and long intervals, pushups and chinups on some playground equipment and some hill reps as well just for good measure. Very satisfying, but left me feeling very tender in the upper body.

Sunday - swim/run brick
After another crappy day at work I was well fuelled for my planned 1.5km threshold swim so I could establish a benchmark for Noosa. I did it in 27 minutes which was expected, but not great. Hopefully with a bit of stroke work I can get it down to about 25. The swim felt good, and I did the most thorough warm up and cool down yet.

About 5 minutes after I got home from that my best mate called and asked if I wanted to go for a light run around Southbank, the Botanic Gardens and Kanagroo Point and I couldn't say no to some cruisy recovery running. We started slowly enough but naturally the pace got faster and faster and by the time we finished we were going flat out to see who would crumble first (him :P ). My form felt really good on this run, I think because I started out so slowly. All up, an easy undulating 9km.

Monday - hill reps
One of the highlights of Sunday's run was re-discovering a hill I had run ages ago but forgotten about. It's about 150m, almost 45 degree angle (or at least that's what it feels like) and usually traffic-less bitumen. Still feeling fresh on Monday morning I headed back to do some hill reps and did 1.5km warm up, 6 reps of hard up and slow down, and then another 1.5km back to the car as cool down. Felt good and the legs still felt fresh afterwards, I think I could have done more reps but I had to get to work... next time I'm going for 10.

Tuesday - rest
Dropped bike off for a service.

Wednesday - like new!
Picked up the bike early and had them check the fit. This was something I had been planning to do since I switched to clipless pedals and just hadn't gotten around to. I should have done it sooner!

As soon as I got it home I changed and took advantage of a break in the rain to get out and put it through it's paces and it felt fantastic. The service meant everything felt clean and smooth and the new fit felt soooooo much more comfortable. I rode 20km hard and then took it to Mt Gravatt for a hill ride. This is another hill which I had forgotten for quite some time but will hopefully make many more appearances in my training from now on!

All that's really been changed is that the seat is a little bit higher a little bit further forward but it feels radically different and I don't feel like I'm stretching for the handlebars any more which is good. The best part of all was that it felt better the longer I rode, something I hope is further extrapolated on my long ride this weekend (providing the rain clears a little!).

Thursday - I am a mountain man...
When I went to bed on Wednesday night, I was a hardcore roadie and trail runners were hippies who ran naked and lived on forest berries and river water. After an hour running in very limited bushland in suburban Brisbane, I still think the same about trail runners, except now I'm one of them! and Six Foot has been added to the list of races I have to do before I die!

I basically just went for an hour cruise on some local trails, it was raining lightly when I started and when I got to the top of the mountain (hill) and into a clearing some really dark clouds started rolling in. The rain started getting heavier and I just kept running backwards and forwards exploring the different paths of the trail. When the rain got really heavy I ditched my singlet and just ran as hard as I could. It was very primal but awesome. Just Owen v nature, and Owen won.

I felt fine immediately afterwards but had a sore hip this morning and a slightly sore ankle, mainly (I think) because I'm not used to running on such irregular surfaces yet, a good bit of stretching soon cleared it up.

Friday - rest
Had to work a 10 hour shift so didn't have time for anything else!

So all up a very interesting week. It's only looking back now that I realise I did a LOT of hillwork and very little else. Not happy that none of my workouts went over 75 mins but I'm going for a long run and ride on the weekend which should even that up and hopefully, in combo, build on my aerobic base.