Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Things are heating up

warmish week up here.
not as bad as down south but 33-34 every day.
no cloud cover.
60+% humidity.
hard work when its 30 degrees at the end of a morning run.
not that much cooler at coot-tha.
i hate the heat.

thursday: 14km flat 72.00
friday: 14km flat 72.20
saturday: off
sunday: 14km flat 71.30
monday: JRR coot-tha 1.44
tuesday: 30mins easy bike
wednesday: 14km flat 69.00 and massage

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Mileage

was thinking this week i need to get back to doing some 'decent' mileage.
or perhaps that should be kilometerage.
years ago i wouldn't have even thought of doing even a 'short' ultra without a few 100km+ weeks and before my first 100 miler i had regular weeks of 120-140km.
not necessarily wanting to go back to those days but i have been running off damn low milegae (50-60km) for a while now.
running ultras once a month is often the best training (and fun) but i wonder if more is needed for the 100mile stuff.
1 of which i have coming up in march - alpine.
so people might see me out and about around the river a bit more over the next month or 2.
you never known maybe one of these days i will do as much mileage as bellthorpe ;)

assuming hiking counts i 'ran' 3 days in a row on the weekend: first time in a long while i have done this.
also need to add one bike session a week.
so thats 5-6 days a week of 'something'.

wednesday: 14km flat ?time
thursday: off
friday: 14km flat 68.00
saturday: 6hr hike o'reillys (lamington NP). toloona creek circuit then some 'narlier track' exploring around lyrebird lookout on the way back.
sunday: 1hr gentle run o'reillys
monday: off
tuesday: 14km flat 72.00

mt glorious (32km 1500A&D) is the next race feb 7th.
i like the way kato describes this race: "you start by running a few hundred metres along a road then suddenly you are running up an (expletive) cliff" :)
cool.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Consolation prize

Glasshouse Hares&Hounds 55km 10.1.10 6.12 16th/33

so only an hour or 2 after returning with the boys on day 6/the final day of AAWT i am doing some stretching.
whippet looks at me and says... youre going to do bogong on the weekend aren't you? :)
well derrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
to be honest with the weather and lack of zip in the legs i would've been skirting the langford cutoff big time (only had 20mins grace in 2008).
i absoltuely hate running in the heat and decided a 4th trip to the vic alps in 2 months was a little too much so headed back home instead .... to glasshouse.

nice event this one.
has taken me a while to fully understand the concept.
basically the 55kmers (hares) start at 3.30am and the relayers (hounds) start chasing us down an hour later at dawn.
yeah i understand that bit but i mean how it works in a running and social setting.
i think the good thing is the amount of people mixing together in the team atmosphere.
in the second half of the race a lot of the teams are at the cp's waiting for their runners and cheering everyone on which is great.

did a 6.03 a few years back and due to 2 x 50kmers in the last 5 weeks planned to do a 6.20 this time.
long story short passed a group of 7 running together just after the lookout which tailed me for a while so i couldn't relax until a km or so until the end.
hermie told me before the start his 1 goal was to beat me ended up getting passed by the group after the last cp (where i caught him) and was a whole 12mins and 8 places (!) back at the finish.
serves him right i guess ;)
didn't quite get the nice easy training run i was hoping for but it was nice to run an 'ultra' again rather than the really hilly/bushy 5km/hr stuff i have been doing lately.
nice splits - 2.53/3.19 or thereabouts (26.7km/28.5km 'halves').
the pool was fantastic at the end for cooling down which i really needed.
warm day but not as bad as b2h would've been.
guess i better start thinking about alpine 100 at some stage :)

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

We are runners not bushwalkers

AAWT 29.12.09 - 4.1.10 670km+ walhalla to tharwa. team mellum = dnf

i am sitting in my tent at the end of the first day (50km).
firstly i am wondering why i didnt take gaiters that day - what had i not read in karl's track notes (karl finished in 21-22 days in feb-march 2009): "good singletrack up, across and over the baw baws - in northern sections vegetation across the track and pulling at the legs".
hardly describes what was essentially trees completely covering 'trail' and a case of 'looking up and seeing the guys 20m ahead and not knowing how they got there'.
several hours of 2-3km/hr really plays with your mind and scratches on leg scratches is just really frustrating.
i guess shows what growth can occur over a 10 month period.
my stupid error.
you would think having had experience of this before would make me more likely to push through it: http://undercuvabrother.blogspot.com/2008/03/all-or-nothing.html
quite the contrary, i found it simply made me fearful of what was to come.

so what has day 2 in store for me?
55.6km (well probably closer to 60km as we had done 4km over the book estimate day 1) with 2800m A&D.
description (a little edited) from karl ('mr dutchy') : the 'overgrown firetrail' north then NE up to mt shillinglaw from black river - GOOD LUCK!! this is what i wrote that night for this section as i travelled it south. followed overgrown FT to saddle then basically bushbashed completely unmarked ridge to river. covered 5km in 3hrs thought i would spend the night on the ridge. like i say 'GOOD LUCK'!!

hmmmmmmmmmm and if i crack on and do days 3 and 4 (the overnighter) i need to cover ...
day 3: 41.3km (book distance) 2330A 2020D not including an hour or more bushbash to find water and haul it (4-5 litres) up over mt mcdonald (1620m) for use at camp that night and first 10km the next day.
and day 4: 51.3km with 3480A and 3620D!!

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

funny thing was i felt fine physically.
it was mental.
ultrarunners are used to the mental side pushing the body along.
not the other way around.
i was broken and i wan't even sore.

i did pack my bag that night but after a sleepless night realised once again that there wasn't any point and wished andy and spud well on morning 2.

so i guess the brief version is i pulled out after day 1 (50km) :)

after bushbashing up from the river that night (arrived 9.30pm) 'the boys' looked as bad i did after day 1.
they now call it the 'dave look': pale, lifeless, an element of impending doom.

to their credit they headed out on morning 3 for the overnighter me presuming that days 3&4 would turn into 3,4 and 5.
long story short they came into camp 4 lunchtime on day 6.
by the sounds of things they had 'had it' mentally sometime during day 3.
they have quite cool descriptions of the 2 hour bushbash to find water at the creek :)
vicious thunderstorms nights 3 and 4 certianly hammered it home but by the sounds of things the die had already been cast.

there was a huge amount of prep done by many people for this.
you know who you are.
just mind boggling how much there is to do.
planning the days, maps, car/'mothership', camp gear/setup, cooking, gps...
a great effort over many years.
having said this we probably needed to do three times as much.
for no guarantee of improved performance.
such is life.

"We are runners not bushwalkers": whippetman (reminds me of this quote form a few years back: (near the bottom) http://undercuvabrother.blogspot.com/2008/02/bugger.html

"I knew this was going to be hard, just not (poignant pause) THIS hard" : WM with a steely look in his eyes end of day 2.

"You made a wiiiiiiiiiiiise decision (pulling out)": heard this many times from WM

"I would not send anyone down that trail, its not advisable to go down that trail at all, there IS no trail, just NO TRAIL AT ALL!" Spud (discussing ascent from black river) day 2

"You're wanting to take a camera? Do you want a camera or food? You're going to spend 2 nights out there yunno": UCB the day 3 morning pack

karl is a legend.