BACK TO TRAINING

With most of the running down over the Christmas break just running it was time to start training once again, so without really worrying just who much training / running the guys have done we jumped into training with both feet...

Monday was easy... EASY, well the session wasn't there to leave you dead, but just to stretch your legs, so after a 5km warmup we found ourselves on the track.
20 x 200m

1st 4 were at 10km pace 42sec
2nd 4 at 40sec, 5km pace
3rd set of 4 at 38sec, 3km pace
4th set of 4 at 36sec, 1500m pace
them the last 4 flatout... they ended up around 34sec.

It was nice to stretch the legs a big and without clock watching as we will start doing as the big races get closer it was very do-able.

Tuesday was a different story, Yes it was hot and the route I choose for our 2 x 5km session wasn't flat... But it's early days and we really just wanted to run hard, and what time we did was not important... I was a good 30sec slower than last year this time!

Now while Wednesday had an easy forest run on the program I headed out to Tygerberg for the first of the Spur Summer Series Trail races...

These are hard to race, and this is a brutal race with a climb of 240m in the first mile... it took me 10:39 to get to the top, I was in 3rd place with my friend and running team mate Bernard out front and some kid, a track running inbetween us! This race might offer amazing views of table mountain, but like a roller coaster we flew down a mine shaft and then from 3km to 3.5km we climb another 70m, on this climb I moved into 2nd place, and for a bit I though I might beat a couple of the open guys...

Dylan caught me climbing through the forest

I should have been flying down the long single track, but the old legs just don't work like they did back in the 90's and 2 skinny youngsters ran me down, but with a bit of a climb now I was able to stop anyone else from closing the gap... I had a look over my shoulder and if I kept my running honest my 4th place (1st 40+) was safe. Now I was also clock watching as I now wanted to finish in under an hour and beat the setting sun!

59:27 for 12.3km with over 500m climb, the tailender would take twice as long and come home under the stars by head lamp.

The View from the top

When I put together the program I didn't aim it at me who would be racing on the Wednesday, so Thursday had 10-15 x 400m waiting for the boys... I left them to run on the track alone and heading into the forest for an easy 10... I'm getting lazy in my old age, or was it because I had a 36km race to run on the weekend, I don't know!

Red Hill 36.2km Classic is really just used as a training run and I set out doing that. A number of friends were running the marathon on offer, so I set out with them the help with a 3 hour bus. At 20km when they turned off I found myself alone with Red Hill to climb 160m in 2km... Dawn was on the bike watching the race and I passed her and the first lady on my way up. At the top I asked the officials how I was doing, 18th and 4th old man...

So what did I do? Jogged down the hill to the coast, then upped the tempo to see if I could run down the other old men!!! So much for an easy day out I start knocking off sub 4:00 km the truth be told it wasn't that hard, it felt good to be running like this after Bay 2 Bay a couple of weeks ago. Dawn had caught me (easy ofter the hill) and with 8km to go she gave me a split of 4 min to 3rd 40+... (2nd and 1st not to much further ahead)

He was a broken man and it didn't take long for me to run him down, with 3km to go I could see the next guy 40sec ahead, but I didn't had a couple of 3:30's in my legs to run him down, so I had to settle for 3rd (14th overall) 2h32:06

One of the nicest run in Cape Town

9km was enough for Sunday and I called it a week at 95km...

Next week more of the same...