Follow me on my Half Ironman marathon training and #100DaysOfTri journey’s concurrently. Here is how my week unfolded.
Now that I’ve committed to running the Buller Marathon, that is where my training is focused.
I’m away with my partner and our respective children and friends camping to relax and celebrate New Years but I still manage to fit in a bit of training each day.
MONDAY
#100DaysOfTri Day 59
After the big day of adventure on Christmas day I needed an easy day so my Monday stretch session was the perfect tonic.
TUESDAY
#100DaysOfTri Day 60
It had been a long time since I’ve ridden the trails in the Richmond Hills immediately behind my house as Silvan Forrest has been the trails of choice for a long time. Last time I was up there (about 18 months ago) I never would have had the confidence to ride trails such as Hang Ten. So after shooting up Escalator from Easby Park, my partner took me up some forestry roads to get us to the very top of Hang Ten, now I’ve done a fair bit of running up here and often wondered where certain roads end up and never found the time to explore, so it was great to get the guided tour.
My partner is a more confident and competent rider when it comes to technical downhills, so she left me for dead but paused at key points to make sure I didn’t kill myself on certain aspects. I enjoyed the challenge of this track and even got some reasonable air in various places.
WEDNESDAY
#100DaysOfTri Day 61
After establishing our campsite at Quinney’s Bush I snuck off for a quick 30 minute run. Having been told about a great we gravel road just down the main road I set off with the plan of running 15 minutes out and then turn around for 15 minutes back, imagining I’d do the bulk of the run on the gravel road, however it took me 12½ minutes just to get to the gravel road. I was feeling slow and sluggish and didn’t enjoy the run at all.
THURSDAY
#100DaysOfTri Day 62
Today’s session involved completing 4x 800m in 3:00 minutes (or under), then taking a 3:00 minute Rest Interval (RI). I decided to do this session on the Fitness Trail at Quinnies Bush, finding a nice 400m leg that was pretty flat and didn’t have any gates to open or any sharp turns. So after my Warm Up I started from a wee bridge and ran 400m to a fence post that I had measured to and placed a rock on top of so I can identify it and back as qwikly as I could. Now I missed my 3:00 minute time by a few seconds each repetition, but it wasn’t a bad session for my first speedwork in a very long time.
FRIDAY
#100DaysOfTri Day 63
After my failed run to the Olde School Road on Wednesday, I figured I’d repeat the run and head into the hills, taking a good hour and get some strength into my legs. Today it took me less than 11 minutes to get to the gravel road and away I went. As I needed to be back to cook dinner I had decided to turn around after 33 minutes which would leave me 20 minutes to run back from the start of the forestry roads, as that is how long it took me to run to the forestry roads from our camp site. Great plan, unfortunately I suffered a really bad bout of very rapid onset of Runner’s Trots!!!! Luckily, there was a very ample supply of long grass around in the hills.
SATURDAY
#100DaysOfTri Day 64
Having left my run until late in the day I was only left was basically 30 minutes within which to do my run. Luckily I ever planned to have an easy 30 minute run today. Being apprehensive after yesterday’s experience I wasn’t wanting to push things too far (so to speak) but I did want a bit of a challenge, so decided to see if I can set the Strava Record for the Fitness Trail at Quinney’s Bush. Having no idea if there was a record or not, or what it might be I set off on my workout of doing 1½ laps of the Fitness Trail from our campsite for my warm up, this will finish at the start of the trail, then complete one lap as fast as I can, leaving half a lap for a Cool Down. BOOM…..new Strava Record but it hurt.
SUNDAY
#100DaysOfTri Day 65
Today I needed to head up to St Arnaud, so decided to make the most of the day and get a run in up there. My Partner did a session up the St Arnaud Range past Parachute Rocks a few months ago whilst she was training for the Spring Challenge and sent back amazing photo’s of the views from the tops. With the weather cold, wet and miserable I wasn’t going to get those sort of views today. Never the less, away I went and slowly climbed up the track I’d never done before (I’ve done pretty much every other track in the vicinity of St Arnaud except this one). It was wet and slippery under foot and very hard to get into much rhythm during the accent. I wasn’t dressed the most appropriately for the conditions but kept a close eye on things and was prepared to turn back if conditions deteriorated. After about 50 minute I met a couple rugged up to the nine’s coming back down having turned around without getting to Parachute Rocks. Not sure how much further I needed to go, I pushed on and at the one hour mark, made the decision to push on for another 20 minutes and if I still hadn’t got to the Rocks I would turn around regardless, but still keep the option of turning around early if the weather got worse. It didn’t take long before I popped out of the bush into a biting wind and icy rain to go with the low cloud making visibility minimal. I grabbed a qwik selfie with a big rock that I can only assume is Parachute Rocks and got back into the bushline and started descending as qwikly as possible. Speed wasn’t that fast today as the slippery conditions meant my feet kept getting swept from under me and occasionally ended up on my arse. By the time I got back down to Lake Rotoiti the day was turning into a great day and the sun was blazing. A slow 2 hours in the hills.
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