Wednesday, October 31, 2012

October Training Update

After a rather ordinary September, October proved to be a very good month consistency wise. I'm back into a nice rythym of base training and enjoying it thoroughly.
Goals were as follows:
- Enjoy it
- Cruise
- Swim lots
- Run lots
- Bike steady
- Nail some strength and plyo work

I nailed a great swim month (for me; not for a fish) with some great workouts. I'm feeling good in the water and thinking a 1hr swim is on the cards for IM Melbourne in about 5 months. We'll see.
I'm really pleased to have been able to nail four back-to-back 60km weeks on the run. I've only done one long run in there (not including the Half Mara), and will start picking up those next month. Run form is feeling good despite carrying an extra kilo or two at the moment.
I haven't been doing a lot of riding outdoors given the low light levels and the relatively ordinary weather. I have snuck a few good rides in on the weekends when weather was cooperative. Most of the riding, however, has been on the trainer using TrainerRoad.com. I love this program. I'll write a blog one day about why, but for the moment, just know that the hard work done in winter = the results in summer and TrainerRoad makes it really easy to put those hard yards in.

Fall Colours in Gatineau Park  on a ride last week. Too nice.


Saturday, October 20, 2012

Race Report: 9 Run Run 1/2 Marathon

First road race since the spring and the first half-marathon in 12 months in the bank! Ideal conditions greeted us this morning for the 9 Run Run road-races - a local race which supports Do It for Daron, an organisation supporting and promoting awareness of youth mental health.

Going into the race I had no finite expectations. I just wanted to gauge my fitness and have fun. The second ever - and most recent - half-marathon I ran was 2011's Army Run where I nabbed a PB of 1:27:51. A year of consistency later, I wanted to throw my cards down again and see if I had improved without really any specific training whatsoever. Well, I'm happy to say that I did. I took about 4:30 off my 2011 time, with an official split of 1:23:23 and 6th overall from 552 finishers.

Josh and I coming back into town
The course was good. The first few km's were fast and the front boys took off quick. We settled into a solid pace around 3:50 until 5-6kms where the constant +1-2% false flat and ~25km/h headwind broke the group pretty well by the ~10-11km marker when we turned north and began the way back. By that point, I was working pretty hard and still losing time - my average pace blew out to 3:59 by 10km. Thank [insert preferred deity here] that a Euro-Sports guy came up beside me  and towed me along the second half of that straight - picked me right up! I dropped said Euro-Sports guy and his mate at the turn and headed off solo in pursuit of a few guys running ~1 minute ahead.

Insert Josh Mintha. Dude was pacing this race like a pro, splitting 20/40 for the 5/10km's. He came up and we exchanged a few words before setting in to a solid pace. Josh did most of the pacing (for which I was really grateful!) and we began passing a tonne of walkers from the 10km race along. At this point I was feeling much better and working less (thanks, tailwind!) than before - and the pace was better!

We were ticking off the km's on our way back into town and I was trying to appreciate the scenery along the trail and made sure I thanked the volunteers and small crowds. Not sure what happened to Josh, but he hit some kind of wall at ~19kms and dropped off. I ran 'er in for the finish and he followed about a :45 later.

Beautiful morning and a fun local event! Thanks Aug for the cheering and congrats to Marie-Noelle on the PB in the 10km race! :)


Bringing.....

...it home



Beautiful trailness..

2012 vs. 2011



Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Slow September

After knocking out Esprit, I pulled up a little in my hip/lower back. This was a bit of a niggle which had been around since the previous weekend and I figured it was simply due to sleeping awkwardly on a crappy futon, or in the car. Nevertheless, the Monday following Esprit I went on my routine 60 minute run and midway I was really struggling. Pain was pretty bad and my gait had turned to crap to compensate. I limped home and went to bed.
The next few days were awful. A lot of pain walking and I struggled to put any weight on my right leg without feeling really uncomfortable. I decided to rest up and see what happened. After a week with little improvement, I was getting pretty stressed (read: depressed from lack of exercise and having grave fears about how bad it could be) and images of Paula Findlay at the Games were running through my mind.
The pain subsided - for the most part - after 8 or 9 days of no biking or running. I went to see a doctor on the Thursday in the second week (at which point there was almost no pain) and he said I likely strained a muscle in my lower back, and eliminated any hip problem (Paula, at this point, ran out of my mind).
''No exercise whilst it hurts', was the good doctors advice, 'it could take two to four weeks''. ARRGH! A month without running would be awful. Considering that prior to this hip/back thing, the longest period without running in the previous year, was 3 days - after not even two weeks I was already going pretty mental!
In the end, I heeded his advice and attempted a 25 minute easy run/walk on the treadmill at a slight incline exactly two weeks later (after having no pain for 4-5 days). It went really well - no pain! I was back! I ended up doing a 55km week of running that week and it all went by without any pain. Problem was, I had gotten a shitty old cough-cold which was going around the office. Uhhkk.
The end result of everything, was a pretty lame month of training. On the positive side, it was rest for the mind. In hindsight, I did enjoy coming home and just cooking or resting up.

October is here and I'm settling into a good routine. Swim volume is up and bike volume is down, as a consequence of the seasons and the daylight and things are rolling along well!
Best,
Steve