17 weeks ago I started my big 20 week build for WOC and now 2 weeks away from race day I can make some assessments on what has worked and what hasn’t. Consistency has worked! This has involved a lot of repetitively steady running but I now love those 90 minute night runs in Maraetai Forest – knocking off 700m elevation on a Tuesday night makes for a fun and interesting session and builds strong legs. No weeks in this build had excessive volume, and the slowly increasing durations were unnoticeable week to week. Follow me on Strava for some good training ideas!
The WOC build was all going great until 1 month ago when a tendonitis in my right ankle flared up in and Xterra race and caused enough damage to require a 2 week recovery. This was just after I had a big fall trail running, which left a large wound on my knee, preventing me from cycling. In fact this wound is still shedding layers of skin/scab, 5 weeks on, and I can feel from the scar tissue that it was more serious than I gave it credit for at the time! =O Anyway, no running and no cycling was not a good combo for me and these first 2 weeks of my 5-week speed block passed with no significant training. The O-Ringen week was next and with 5 races I think it’s safe to say that my body got a good amount of stress for this strategically placed hard week. Last week was also an extremely important week, where I was supposed to get in some high quality speed work and spend many hours getting my legs used to the heavy terrain I will be facing at WOC, but that was far from what happened.
I spent 6 days being sick with a nasty cold that has been going round over here – half of my house mates have been out of action with this mucus-fest too. 6 days with no good sessions was a big blow to my training at this crucial time and it has been tough accepting that I can’t make the most of my time here in Halden after planning for it so far in advance.
While I was sick I did manage to trundle around some short courses to get some navigation practice without stressing my body too much, and I am mostly recovered now and back on my feet again. So it could be worse and I am back in control again. Yesterday, Tim Robertson joined us in Halden and we knocked off a nice sprint training in the centre of the town. I kept the pace down while Tim did some intervals through sections of the course, while he too is battling a bit of sickness. This was a great confidence boost for me because my body responded positively to running again, feeling much better all afternoon and evening compared to before the run. So it’s all go go go for WOC again!
For ways to follow the team and I for the rest of this trips subscribe my blog and also my YouTube Channel where I will be creating more videos now that I am training again and actually have cool things to talk about! Please like and share these videos!