Some running and some cycling

Friday was a brief 8km to Shelly and back coming home to find Timmy in the house eating a chicken lunch. At least the leftovers fed Ruby for the afternoon. We had the inaugural England v Ireland golf tournament at Wakehurst in the afternoon. The Irish, unburdened by Enda way who was a late pull-out, could rely on their better players to sneak a win against Team England. Great afternoon despite the crap weather. Durante and I then met Darren, Enda and Micky at the Wharf Bar, drank way too much which left me hungover on Saturday am.

Rather than do the sensible thing and have an easy day on Saturday, I’d arranged to do 500’s with Darren. Could only manage them in the afternoon although did get up to take Maggie to Parkrun at Curly where she ran 21:50 with Zara her bestie. Anyway, chased Darren in vain but on 7th rep started to feel the right hamstring tighten a bit. Was getting worse on 8th rep so upped stumps and limped home. Think I got it early so hoping it’s only 4-5 days rest but it’s very tight when trying to touch my toes.

Woke up Sunday feeling sorry for myself but while walking the dog I decided to sort my bikes out and jump on straightaway. I’ve got Westpac Tour de Cure and L’Etape in March in any case so need to get some bike fitness back. Went on the indoor trainer as it was wet outside, decided on 4 Box Hill loops on Zwift (67km with 1,000m+ vert). Got two loops through and was getting light-headed from loss of fluid sweating. So stopped half way through 4th loop at 51km (170W Ave). Ok start, just need to keep it going.

400m reps

Didn’t fancy hills which was on the HuRTs calendar so headed over to Rushcutters with all my mates for 400m reps. Had seen Brad for a massage in the am which wasn’t ideal but left hip flexor is still sore so needed some work. He seemed a bit exasperated by my running plan and told me that if I insisted on doing 400m reps at least start them easy. So that’s what I did.

Started at 86s and worked down to 76s. Think (hope!) my lap was a bit long but regardless, it was a session done and reasonably controlled.

Long cool down to end of Darling Point before heading home for 13+km all up.

67kg. Seem to have put a kg on over past 2 weeks despite consistent training. Maybe body adapting to workload?

Plod slog 20km

Late out so it was a solo effort. Couldn’t face the return wharves route, couldn’t be arsed to climb Oxford St to Centennial Park so did Hickson Rd, Pyrmont Wharves then over Anzac Bridge (my favourite Sydney bridge btw) and around Blackwattle Bay. Feel like you’ve covered a bit of ground when you do this route.

Legs felt like dead weights so it was super slow (made an effort in last 2kms to get the average under 5mins/km) but at least HR averaged only 131bpm so didn’t take too much out of me. Becoming a convert to HR effort based on being able to run well last year off low mileage but with tough bike interval sessions thrown in.

20.24km all up.

Back to the Blog

Have been getting the achilles under control (lots of nerve stretching seems to be the key) so just trying to get some consistency in my training again.  Set the goal before Christmas of getting 10 weeks straight of 100km+ per week under the belt. So far, so good and have completed 5.

Was very tired after the weekend’s efforts yesterday so had a rest day (my 2nd in 40 days). Had a great day walking with the family down to West Head beach though then Bec’s belated birthday dinner at Freshie Mex.

(Photos from yesterday).

This morning rode the motorbike to the City with Mags riding pillion to watch the Oz Day 5km.  Lauren won the women’s by a country mile (16:01) while Joe Burgess pulled ahead of Matty Hudson at the end to win the men’s. Run of the Day was Ollie Cashman making a huge leap forward running 15:04 and beating some good names. 

Today was stinking hot (36C) so ditched plans for any sessions and just did my favourite 17km loop with plans to jump in the harbour half way around.  Ditched even that plan when I saw how busy everywhere was. 

Slow and just managed to get under 5min kms average for the loop (1:24:42 or 4:55’s).