Tussock Traverse

Rainbow in the clouds as we drive to the start.

The remains of tropical cyclone Wilma swept across the north of the North Island the day before the race, with the township of National Park receiving a good downpour during the night. But the rain was forecast to clear, so it shouldn't be a problem. Apparently conditions on the other side of the mountain weren't so good though, and the organisers delayed the start of the race (and the departure of the buses to the start area). After a 2 hour delay it was finally on to the buses and on our way. Luckily I had extra food with me, so it was no problem keeping my energy levels topped up.

Trentham United 5k Series

New PB! Much to my surprise I walked a new PB of 28:14 tonight. Given my lack of recent short races and the Hutt River Trail ultramarathon on Saturday, I thought that I would be working hard just to get a time in the 30 minute range. This was an extremely pleasing result on a course that is known to be slow, with several rises, sharp dips, corners, and two short sections of grass.

I did a warm-up 5k earlier in the afternoon, and another shorter warm-up and stretches before the race. Nearing the end of the first lap I was surprised that the runners hadn't yet started (walkers had a 15 min head start), and I ended up going through the lap in 14:05. The second lap was a bit tougher, but I didn't slow like I thought I might, clocking 14:09. Perhaps my recent speedwork is making a difference already?

Results are here under "Race 1".

Hutt River Trail Ultra 2011

Approaching the end of the Rimutaka Incline.
Photo courtesy Richard Wall.

Weather conditions this year were generally good: for the first 8k to the Rimutaka Incline summit it was heavily overcast with pleasantly cool temperatures. After the summit tunnel there was a patch of drizzle, and conditions remained good (overcast) through Tunnel Gully. The weather then started to clear and temperatures warmed up considerably. It remained warm for most of the way down the valley, but I do recall a few cooler patches at times.

This year's event confirmed what I had suspected for a while: my endurance is fine, but my leg speed is not. To be fair, my time this year (7:29:39) was a smidgen faster than in 2008 (7:32:14) or 2009 (7:30:42), but it was well short of my PB (7:14:49) last year. As the only walker in the ultra I still took the win, but I was hoping for a quicker time ahead of the Taupo 100k in four weeks time.

There's a few factors that might each individually account for a minute or so in time, but I was losing time (compared to last year) at every split for the first 40km. Possibly the biggest factor was not being in the right place mentally to race. I have four weeks to fix that, less when recovery from the weekend and taper for the 100km are factored in. Time to ditch the repeats that I've done for the last three weeks in training and start doing a few 5km races. A 10k or Half Marathon would also be good, but there doesn't appear to be any at a convenient location in the next two-three weeks.

4x1km Repeats

After a light week of training my legs should have been fresh for today's set of repeats, but my legs felt a bit sluggish and the first two repeats were a little slow. I dropped my car off at the mechanic's and then walked the 5k to my training circuit. That provided a good warm up so it was straight into the repeats, 4 x 1km with 500m recovery. The first was 5:59 and the second was 5:57, both of them a good 15s slower than what I wanted. Then I managed to pull out a 5:34, followed by a 5:42 (checked briefly by a car, so still happy with that). From there it was a 500m recovery and then 5km back home.

The 7 days had started with a 10k recovery on Wednesday after the previous set of repeats. Thursday was a 10k tempo session, structured as a 3k warmup, 4k tempo, 1k recovery, and then 2k warmdown. That ended up being the best 10k time I have recorded on that course for many months.

The Whakatiki River. The stream we explored was just out of shot
on the left.

Friday was a rest day, so I went exploring a local stream with my boys. Just 3.3km, but 90 minutes! Saturday was a 9.4km run up to the Birchville Dam and return.

Sunday was intended to be a 21km, but that never happened as I spent the afternoon working on a document instead. Monday my quads were still a bit sore from Saturday's run, but after a 10k recovery session on the Hutt River Trail were feeling quite a bit better.

This coming weekend is the Hutt River Trail 60km ultramarathon, so the rest of this week will be relatively light. Whether my legs are in any sort of shape for any speed training next week remains to be seen.

Another Mixed Training Week

Last week's post was written just after I had done 5x500m repeats. The next day I was definitely feeling the effects of the speedwork, with several tight and sore muscles. So Wednesday was a light recovery session, 9.5km in total.

Thursday was my first tempo session for many months. I could still feel some of the effects of Tuesday's speedwork, particularly in the way of sore shins. I slowly warmed up for 4km, then did 3km at about half marathon race pace, then warmed back down again for a total of 10km. The whole session was faster than I have done on that course for many months, so I was happy enough with that. But big improvements still need to be made!

Friday was a rest day in anticipation of a 50k session on Saturday. But Saturday's session was a disaster... toilet stops required every couple of km, and after 20km and 8 toilet stops I decided to call it quits. My legs were sore and I was feeling like I had walked 40km rather than just 20km. My guess is that something was wrong with my electrolyte levels, hence why I was "losing" so much water. So I went home to rehydrate with lots of electrolyte drink.

Sunday was about 21.8km on an undulating road circuit through the rural area in the Mangaroa Valley behind Upper Hutt. Monday was another rest day.

Tuesday was time for speedwork again, this time 4x800m with 500m rest. My average pace was faster than for the 5x500m, and I felt like I could have done a few more when I finished. Will probably step up to 4x1km with 400m rest next time. After that I need to start thinking about reintroducing some short races: 3000m and 5000m on the track, and 5km on the road.

Training Highs and Lows

The passing of Christmas means it's time to get serious about training for the Taupo 100km on 19 February.  So towards the end of a week of reasonably good training I had a 50k session on Thursday 30 December.  My time was nothing spectacular, but nor was it intended to be: this was just a good long session, and I came away from it feeling good.

A rest day on the Friday and then a 10k for recovery on the Saturday.  Sunday was supposed to be something a little longer, probably a 21k, but instead I kicked the table leg and did something painful to the little toe on my left foot.  Very painful, so it was out with a bag of frozen veges to try and reduce the damage.  A bruise developed as the day progressed and it was still quite sore.  Monday my little toe was still sore, but improving noticeably towards the end of the day.

Photo of my left foot after today's training session, showing the bruising.

Tuesday my foot was good enough for some speed work.  This was the first speed work or short race that I had done for many, many months, so I started conservatively with 5x500m with 500m recovery.  Being out of practice I struggled to hold a constant pace over all 5 repeats, but the last two were the fastest so I am happy with that.

The general plan for the next 6 weeks is to progressively build up the speed work to at least 5 x 1km repeats interspersed with 5k races, and to include another couple of 50k sessions and the 60km Hutt River Trail ultra.