I’m pumped as usual after my first full-volume week of strength orientated training after my block of slower paced base training. This week’s menu had a hilly focus so I has more than happy to head out to my playground of Whitford Forest again after work on Thursday. I have been building a very positive relationship with this forest after getting very lost on my first run 6 months ago, and I now I not all of the forest roads and mountain bike tracks well. Thursday might have been the day to jeopardise this relationship though.
I started the run in the rain and finished the run in the dark – a turn off for many people but just another set of experiences to contrast from my day in the office. Once I was warmed up my blood was pumping I started the subthreshold effort and put some pace into the trails. I picked up some good speed on short downhill and could feel myself fly though the forest. I caught my foot on a small stump, and suddenly I was flying for real, but only for an instant! About 4 meters after the stump was a tree in the middle of the trail and I collided with it very hard. I was still travelling full speed and based on the bruising and scratches from my collar bone onto my back, my body was at least horizontal when the collision occurred. I was relieved that my collar bone, which took a bit hit, was still intact. I ripped the strap off my Garmin watch though, and even bent the stainless pin which connects the strap to the rest of the watch. My left wrist was under my body when I landed and the poor thing didn’t stand a chance. Part of me wishes this had been filmed because I couldn’t not laugh at the situation after the shock wore off. It must have looked hilarious from behind. The discrete stump and strategically placed tree, both perfectly centred on the track. Anyway, I continued my run, flopping out a strong 60 minute subthreshold, and it didn’t get properly sore until later that night.
Saturday’s running objective was to find three 15-20 minutes climbs to treat as long efforts. I found these by running 2 of the roads from Henderson Valley up to Scenic Drive and the final from near The Cascades up to Scenic Drive. There was more road running that usual and you can see that my average pace was relatively high for a run in the Waitaks. I was pretty tired at the end of this session and should have taken a gell with me because the fuel tank was definitely running on empty on the last climb. Check out the great session here on Strava! I’m looking forward to the 4 x long hills coming up in the program soon!
Today at the 2nd race of the Rogaine Series I couldn’t defend my winning streak and finished 3rd behind Tom Reynolds and Cameron Tier. I was a little tired but, but the main difference was the planning. Tom and Cameron made the right decision to avoid climb in an area where I took on too many hills. The terrain was very tough and it was important to stay aggressive and fight down to end. I pushed hard and covered 12.4kms to get all of the controls in a time of 83 minutes and 30 second. I had a few small issues coming into a number of the controls but most of the navigation was straight forward, it was simply me getting distracted.
So another quality week wrapped up and another week closer to some serious racing on Queens Birthday Weekend!