Howdy sports fans!
It’s been a while between blog entries. A few eventful things have happened in the 5 or 6 weeks since my last update.
Firstly, I competed in Xterra Great Ocean Road (off-road triathlon) down on the picturesque Surf Coast region of Victoria (same area as the Surf Coast Century for the ultra-distance trail running fans out there).
In theory, this race sounds fun. A 1km ocean swim, followed by a 26km MTB ride, and a 10km undulating and beach run to bring it home. In practice, it was a different story.
I’ve done a number of Olympic distance triathlons and this was easily as hard, if not harder, than those. At the end of the day, I was happy that I had the fitness to get through the race – but, a little more race specific training (intensity and duration) wouldn’t have gone astray!
I’m not going to give you a blow by blow description – but let’s just say, that after spending way too long on the MTB my quads and calves were screaming! This ultimately made the run, which comprised a substantial length of soft sand, together with steep tracks up and down (to get over headlands) a very hard task!!
The weekend after Xterra I was supposed to line up at the Mordialloc Olympic distance triathlon. This was going to be awesome. It is a 10 minute drive from home and I work across the road from the start, so i had a carpark.
Unfortunately, the weekend before had left me both mentally and physically shattered, and I pulled the pin a few days before the start. On the upside, the various distance races were our tri-club’s Club Champs, so it was great to go down and cheer on the crew. (Note that this was 2 weeks after IM Melb, so there was a large contingent of the IM crew also cheering from the sidelines, which made for some hilarity!!)
A few weeks ago, another local long course tri was added to the calendar, Mornington Triathlon.
This promises to be a ripper of a race! Being so close to home, I will be able to train on the cycle and run course all winter.
Unfortunately, it has made my November somewhat crowded…
· 2 November – Noosa Olympic distance (1.5/40/10)
· 16 November – Challenge Shepparton (1.9/90/21.1)
· 30 November – Mornington Long Course (1.9/90.1/21.1)
On the upside, it’s going to ensure that I have a solid winter’s training and will leave me in no doubt as to how my IM training is going!!
So with the Puffing Billy Great Train Race done and dusted (more on that later), it’s time to look forward. Next on the agenda is the City to Surf, and for the first time in my (less than glorious) athletic career, I’m going to seriously follow a training plan in the lead up to a race.
The plan is a 10 week plan, with 2 quality sessions, 2 recovery/easy sessions and a long run a week. I’m also planning a 6 week off-season 70.3 triathlon plan. So I’ve melded the C2S plan into the tri plan and I’ll see how it goes. I’m thinking I may need to lower the intensity of one of the quality run sessions – but I’ll make that call when the need arises.
This plan starts in 3 ½ weeks, so I’ve got that time to get over my latest injury (which we’ll come to shortly) and build the fitness to be able to handle ~10hrs a week.
Before I get to Puffing Billy and my new and exciting injury, it would be remiss of me not to mention the Family 5km Showdown, or as the race organisers prefer to call it Run the Rock.
This was the highly anticipated race between my wife and our son (9), and the trash talk had been high from both sides. Claire sensed trouble when the youngster ran a sub 5 min k at the little aths cross country the previous weekend, and snagged a 3rd at the school 2km cross country qualifiers on Thursday. She was hanging onto the hope that he’d go out too fast and have to walk most of the race.
But before I get to that, a big shout-out to little miss 5, who (along with myself) did the 2km run at Run the Rock.
Now back to the main event. And as Claire predicted, young J went out of the gate fast…however, unfortunately for her, he just kept going!
The next time we saw J, at about the 3.5km mark, he was powering up the hill, giving it a bit of “mum’s back there somewhere”.
The lad stopped the clock at about 26:45 (a not too shabby 5:21 min/km), with Claire about 5 minutes further back. It was a great run by both of them, considering the course comprised almost 2km around a wet, muddy, soft, long-grassed horse racing track; as well as having some steep little rises.
Now…hello steam train!! It’s time for the (and my 4th annual man against steam machine, Puffing Billy Great Train Race. The PB GTR is a 13.5 km hilly sealed road race (with minor gravel tracks), with the aim of the faster runners being to beat the train. The time which the train takes is quite random, and generally between 52 to 60 minutes.
As has become expected, the conditions, were cold, wet and windy – so, near perfect running weather!
Unfortunately for me, that’s where the near perfection ended. My time for the race had been getting progressively faster (pretty much in line with my running fitness over the past few years). This year, after a number of good hilly training sessions I was hoping to go low 60 minutes…but that wasn’t to be…
The first 4-5km felt good, and I considered I was on my target time. Then at 5km, I turned the corner and the hit the long hill, and things began to unravel. I tried to hold pace up the hill, but my lower back was screaming to stop! And this became the story of the day. The uphills were a slow jog / walk / stretch the back, and the flats I was stuck in first gear. Every time I tried to ramp up the pace … nup … my back had other ideas …
In the end I was disappointed with my time, but still happy to get out and run the fantastic event!
Tuesday morning a physio visit was in order, and it turns out I’ve got an aggravated / swollen disc in my lower back, combined with tight hamstrings. The physio commented that he was amazed I actually managed to run the race.
The blame has been fairly and squarely pointed at poor posture – predominately sitting hunched over behind a desk all day.
So together with concentrating on sitting straight when working, I need to work on my uphill running technique. I think that when I go uphill, I tend to lean forward from the waist – this needs to change, so that I’m keeping my body straight and leaning forward from my ankles.
So that’s that, and I’m back to the physio tomorrow & hopefully he gives me the go ahead to ease back into things again.
Happy Trails J
