Big, kick-arse week of running. I had a ball!
MON 31 MAR
AM | 12.0km, 145m VG, 1hr 17min – easy group road run
PM | 20min – strength circuit
Warm-up 2km followed by easy Chisel Runners group run.
Short PM strength session waiting around for dinner.
TUE 1 APR
AM | 9.7km, 440m VG, 1hr 18min – easy group trail run
Gold Coast Trail Runners group run. Primarily singletrack except for 3-Hills fireroad home. Easy paced with plenty of breaks to re-group. First 30mins or so was in the dark with head torches. Fun morning!
WED 2 APR
AM | 13.2km, 1000m VG, 1hr 47min – mid-week long/hilly trail run
PM | 15min – strength circuit
Mid-week long run on the Bonogin hills. It was a lot of hiking to control HR - the new HR strap is awesome...finally getting proper readings, so keeping around the 150bpm was much easier. The hiking felt good today, and I didn't have any rests on the climbs - legs generally are feeling strong.
Rounded off a solid day with a short strength circuit – a bit of slosh tube, a bit of TRX.
THU 3 APR
REST DAY
Complete day off.
FRI 4 APR
AM | 12.3km, 215m VG, 1hr 15min – easy group road run
PM | 20min – strength circuit
Easy 3km warm-up followed by Chisel Runners group run. Easy pace with breaks.
Short, sharp strength section – basically a justification for the Burgers to come for dinner!
SAT 5 APR
AM | 9.8km, NIL VG, 60min – easy stroller run
Copy from last Saturday - easy 2km W/U followed by easy Kirra parkrun 5km with stroller (effort was aerobic throughout) followed by easy 2km C/D. In case I didn’t say it enough – it was easy.
SUN 6 APR
PM | 46.2km, 1505m VG, 5hr 53min – long trail run
One of the two "key runs" I'll do in the lead up to TNF100. Kept the effort aerobic and focussed on trialling nutrition, gear, etc. Got hot in the middle heading into Numinbah which slowed me up a bit, but I got a second wind at the top of the Apple Tree Stairs. Got hit by a storm coming up from Warringa Pool near the end - it was awesome...most fun I've had running in a long time. Made me forget I'd been running for 5hrs!
Nutrition worked well (primarily Tailwind, with a handful of Jelly Beans and coffee beans at Binna Burra and Numinbah). Would have liked more plain water at a couple of points - just got a little tired of the flavour of the Tailwind.
Energy felt good - I definitely could have pushed harder, but I wanted to keep the effort aerobic to assist with recovery. There were a couple of sections - middle of the section between O'Reilly's and Binna Burra, and coming down into Numinbah - where the trail got very technical and narrow which slowed me up a fair bit. Tourist traffic got heavy on the last Purlingbrook Falls climb which also slowed things up.
All in all - pretty happy with the outing!
TOTAL
Running | 103.2km, 3315m VG, 12hr 30min
Cross-training | 55min
Total time | 13hr 25min
Really, really happy with the week’s work AND, more importantly, I had a blast doing it!
The almost 6hr long run was a blast – it had a bit of everything and it’s given me great confidence for TNF100. I wasn’t really pushing the limit at all during that run and felt I still had plenty left to give. I also felt I got a surge of energy around the 40km mark, which would be awesome come race day!
Just one of the awesome trail sections during my 6hrs:
My only (ongoing) complaint is my damn feet. They’re not getting worse, but they’re definitely not getting better either.
Another couple of big weeks to go, before the slow march into taper town…
See you out there – Juddy