Quarry Rd TT

Quarry Rd, popular training route for anyone attempting a hilly trail race like six foot track. It's basically a fire-trail with steep downhill then steep uphill then flattish to the end then return, about 12.5km all up. This has become a regular testing track for me to see how I'm going, the start is less than 2km from my house so it's nice and easy to go for a hit-out once in a while.

With Jungfrau marathon 3 weeks away I figured it was time to try it again, my C2S race wasn't as good as I'd hoped so I was looking for a confidence boost. Quarry Rd is a tough run to get right, having run it so many times I know you have to go hard the whole way to get a fast time. That means going hard on the descents and also on the steep climbs while managing to keep the pace up on the flat section on the Dural side. The hardest thing is probably mental, every time I go for a fast time I know it's going to be a painful run so it's difficult to be in the mood to go hard.

I started fast down the hill and pushed hard to the bridge, on the climb i felt like I was slowing a bit so made sure I ran hard on the flat section to the other gate. Turned and started on the return leg but I felt like I'd lost too much time, tried to pick it up on the descent to the bridge but was struggling a bit on the last climb then pushed it to the end. I reached the gate in 50:43, scraping a few seconds off my previous best of 50:50 so really happy with that and a little bit surprised because I thought I'd lost too much time. Some of the time improvement can be attributed to the recent work they've down re-grading the surface, it's definitely a bit smoother and probably a bit faster, but to get even close to my best time means I'm going reasonably well.

Garmin connect

Start of the pain

 

Bridge at the bottom

City 2 Surf

Officially finished 41st in 47:15. Was really hoping to get about 46:30 or better so not entirely happy with the time, also got chicked by Lara Tamsett but it's fair to say that I'm getting used to that. Pretty windy conditions out there especially over the last 4 kms. Went through 10k in 34:00, 6 secs ahead of last year's time but finished 15 secs slower overall.

It was a good hit-out, not great conditions at Bondi so ran back to the city with Richard, and the Truscotts before continuing on to St Leonards for the train home. 28km all up for the day then had an afternoon nap...nice. It was interesting to see the last group still lined up on the starting line when we got back to Hyde Park, makes you realise just how many people do this race.

The Training Camp



Apparently Kenyans have training camps and they seem to go pretty well so I thought I would copy that approach. The chosen campsite was the cox's river campsite on the six foot track, the first challenge was to see if the Subaru could handle the drive in via Coxs river road, I was a bit concerned about the difficulty of the road but it was pretty straightforward. We arrived at the site and the only other guests were a bunch of middle-aged ute driving VB drinking campers who we were to find out had a passion for the musical talents of Jimmy Barnes. I was there to run some big long hills while my mates were going to head downstream to catch some trout in the freezing waters of the Coxs river.

  

Training camp



I was in two minds as to how I approached the run, I wanted to do 2 reps of pluvi but I knew that would be tough mentally, I was thinking of heading down Moorara Boss fire trail but wasn't sure about that and didn't want to carry extra water so in the end I did 1 lap of pluvi  then back to camp for some refreshments then back to the cattle yards and up the road we drove in on, here it is Pluviometer run

I was surprised to see the track had been graded (the day before apparently) from just after Alum Creek all the way to pluviometer, pretty good surface now and will definitely make for some faster times come six foot track race next year.

The clear waters of the river enticed me in for a post-run ice-bath, this was a big mistake. I walked into the river up to my knees and I was in pain after a few seconds, the water was freezing. My feet and legs began to ache so I scrambled out and put on lots of layers to warm up and prepare for the cold night ahead. That night around the campfire was freezing and even a few sausages and beers couldn't warm me up so I went to bed early just to keep warm and dozed off to the sounds of some early 80's Cold Chisel...could be worse.

In the morning we went downstream looking for trout, didn't find any so we packed up then I ran back to the explorer's tree while the guys drove the long way around to pick me up. I felt pretty good running up Nellie's Glen, I'm usually in a terrible state when I run this section Explorer's tree

Familiar sight



Should be trout in there somewhere



All up it was a good training weekend, I feel like these long hill runs are getting me ready for Jungfrau. My speed is improving too and I can see that with the recent HuRTS sessions, here are a few of them

4 by 2km

1 min on 30 sec off

Looking forward to the city 2 surf now, it should give a good idea of how I'm going then it will be a few more weeks until Switzerland.



Seeded entry, trying to hang onto one these



Into the mountains

On Sunday I travelled to current hot training location of Kedumba Pass to get some serious climbing in. The plan was to park near the hospital and run to Mt Solitary and back to soften up the legs a bit then do a full lap of Kedumba Pass and try to run all of the way back up. It was a cool clear morning and nice running weather although there was a strong breeze on the exposed sections which was pretty cold. I took it pretty easy on the way out and walked most of the Mt Solitary climb but it's still a tough run. After a brief rest to take in the view I started the return leg to the car, the steep descent tested the quads a bit more and then the long climb out of the valley had me working pretty hard but I can safely say the legs were nicely softened.

After some refreshments I started the big downhill back into the valley, again I took it at an easy pace and went as far as the sign for the slab hut before turning and starting the long climb. It was getting pretty warm in the sun out of the wind and I just tried to keep a steady pace and run the whole climb, it was mostly OK but I did walk a couple of short steep sections, especially near the overhang. Nice to get to the end for about 37km all up.

Looking across to Mt Solitary

View from Mt Solitary

My apologies to the young lady I passed on the way up Kedumba, she was walking and I was running (slowly) and I said hello as I went by but she had headphones on so hadn't heard me approaching. It's fair to say she completely freaked out and screamed pretty loudly, she actually freaked me out a bit with her scream.

On the wildlife front I saw a wallaby, two lyre birds and a wombat, much better than the snakes I usually see in summer.

Here is a link to the Garmin file of the run

Tuesday was supposed to be a 45min tempo with the HuRT squad but my legs were still pretty shattered so started off pretty easily and picked up a bit towards the end for about a 3:50min/km average.

Starting again

I had plans to start some big training after the city mile but a decent week was followed by a viral chest infection that kept me out for about a week then another easy week coming back from that. Last weekend I managed to do the Athletics NSW road relays for Striders, I ran the first leg of 35+ and the last leg of the open team. It's a good event, always nice to be running for a team rather than alone and the Striders team of Tuckey, Fattorini, High and Highnam won the gold which made it even better. The time wasn't great but not too bad and some more speed work and consistent training will help with that. Sunday saw me do my first long run since the North Face 100, 35kms along the M7 cycle path on a warm winter's afternoon and it was run at around  4:10min/km pace so that's a good sign.

All plans now are around the world long distance mountain running championships in Switzerland on 9th September, they are being held in conjunction with the Jungfrau marathon which is a race I've wanted to do since walking parts of the course with my wife many years ago. Race details can be found here http://www.jungfrau-marathon.ch/en/ but it's basically an uphill marathon with most of the climbing coming in the last 15k. Looks pretty tough and there should be some crazy fast times by the top runners.

My in-laws arrived from Wales a few days ago so they can help with the kids while I'll be aiming to get some consistent big weeks of training in and I'll also head to the blue mountains a few times to bash away at some big climbs. Speed is also something I'll be looking at and I started today with a bit of a test at the ANSW short course cross country championships. 3 loops of the course for 7.5km and I came 21st overall in 26:07 and 3rd place in the 35+ category (can't believe I'm officially racing in the old-boys category now). Happy with that although I ran 24:51 in 2009 on the same course so not quite where I want to be. Another team gold medal for Striders 35+ though with Fats, Tongey and Macca so Captain Tom will be happy. 4 weeks now to C2S which will be another test.

Gwlad

Friday saw the second running of the city mile along a flat Barangaroo out-and-back course. Last year the course was definitely short and this had been addressed with a little loopy bit at the turnaround and was also reflected in the slower times. I was a bit scared about my speed going into this one and although I was trying to beat the boys the main goal was to defend the team title we won last year for the HuRTS trophy cabinet.

The start was fast but not crazy and I was feeling pretty good early up near the leaders but by half way a couple of younger guys took off and I started to fall of the back of Tom. Tom went on to narrowly miss 3rd place and finish 4th, Bartlett ran hard early and hung on for 5th, I staggered home in 6th just ahead of Aussie mile record holder Lisa Corrigan and 4th HuRTS man Binfield. My time was 4:43, pretty average but we won the team event and celebrated with too many beers. It's amazing how painful a short event like that is, I even had "lactic forearms" at the end which is weird, not sure what that's about but I guess the pain has to go somewhere.

Saturday saw trip to Melbourne to watch the Aus v Wales rugby match and Meinir sing the Welsh national anthem. Big moment for her, bit of a dream job really so she was a bit nervous. A group of us went down to watch, great singing, great game.

Full game here, singing starts at 8:00

Meinir in action

Had a short run when I got home from Melbourne but  need to really start getting back into serious training again.

100 km to 1 mile

Has anyone seen my fast twitch muscle fibres? I'm sure I used to have some but I seem to have misplaced them while training for the 100k race. I did nothing much running wise the week after tnf then did a few easy runs the following week and have just started to get back into it this week. Completed a couple of sessions with the squad, 45min tempo on Tues where I managed about 12.3k at 3:37 pace without destroying myself and yesterday was the 10 by 400m off a rolling 2min. Eased into them running behind  Bartlett with Timmy also going pretty well. Times were 74, 72, 72, 72, 71, 71, 71, 69, 69, 69 so happy enough with my first fast sessions for a while. I guess there are a few fast twitch fibres left which have been surviving off a few sprints to the train station over recent months.

Next race up is the City Mile (probably closer to 1500m in reality) on the 15th where the HuRTS team will try and defend our title, probably not in great mile shape to be honest but should be fun, I'll just try and beat Tom, that's all that matters really.