Over the last few weeks I've been really getting in to mountain biking. There's a bike park in Auckland (well, it's more the "greater Auckland area" and about a 140km round trip from home) that has around 60 or 70 trails, and I've been there every weekend for the last few. I really enjoy the combination of exercise plus the quite intense adrenaline rush of fast downhills, jumps and such, plus it's much more social than running or road cycling - probably helped by the fact that a lot more of my mates do it, probably because they look at it as "fun" rather than training or exercise.
A jump at Woodhill, from Google image search
The trails at Woodhill forest are a great set up - they have a series of map stations with several different trails providing the routes between each. Most of the trails have jumps and/or wooden structures on them, with each rated by difficulty and usually with a bypass to avoid it if needed. The trails are mostly sand-based, which means they don't get too boggy when it's wet, although you do still get some decent mud puddles on the busier trails.
Another Woodhill shot from Google images
I've seen small increases in my skill, and disproportionately large increases in confidence - which is great, each time I go I'm tackling harder jumps and structures, going at increasingly absurd speeds on the descents, and finding my limits (i.e. falling off) more regularly. No real injuries other than the odd scrape or bruise yet, hopefully I can keep it that way
River crossing at the Hunua Ranges mountain bike trails (Google images again)
Yesterday we went out to the mountain bike trails in the Hunua Ranges, just south of Auckland. The trails there are quite different to Woodhill - largely dirt or clay with gravel laid down, a lot tighter and narrower, not as highly maintained, no man-made structures or jumps, and generally a lot fewer trails (maybe 5 or so?). It was still great fun, it was pretty wet so we all ended up incredibly muddy and quite saturated; the river was high which meant carrying the bikes through nearly waist-deep water at times. I would say I still prefer the trails at Woodhill, but Hunua does make a nice change (and being only a 100km round trip it's moderately more convenient)
I think mountain biking is likely to become a staple of my winter training diet. Especially during bad weather, it's much more enticing than getting on my road bike to dice with cars on Auckland's roads, and I do like to get a bit battered, bruised and muddy every now and then :)
Vibram Five Fingers
I wanted to add a brief note about my VFFs. I've been steadily increasing my running in them, last week I did 3 runs of 6.5, 7 and 10.5 kms in them, and I'm really enjoying it. Last night I did the 10.5km in pouring rain and it was great fun - the lack of cushioning and increased feel underfoot really makes you feel more connected to the experience than running in normal running shoes. I now don't even think about my stride or landing in them, I just run and it all comes very naturally. My calves still get quite sore by the end of a long run, but they're fine the next day and feel fully recovered 2 days later. I think I'm going to sign up for the next race in the Xterra trail run series and do it in these.
Song of the Day
Oops, forgot again. Keeping with my current tradition of posting a pretty diverse range of music, here's some dubstep - one of my secret, dirty pleasures. Last night's run I was listening to a bunch of Skrillex, streamedfrom my laptop to my phone thanks to Audiogalaxy (awesome program), here's one of his tracks called Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
I haven't been able set aside time to write a blog entry here in a while - work has been uncharacteristically full-on and I've had a few other things on my plate. Unfortunately blogging is near the bottom of my list of priorities so it's the first to be dropped when time is really tight.
Huntly Half Marathon
About 14km in, looking serious
So I ran my second half marathon last Sunday. I devised a training program with a sole focus on running to span the 5 weeks from my last triathlon to the half marathon. My main goal was to improve my run-specific endurance so that I could maintain a relatively fast pace for the full 21.1km. I started with a 44km week, built to 60km/week. I was cautious about avoiding injury (although I did break the 10%/week rule), and ended up cutting the distance down in my second to last week when my legs were telling me they'd had enough.
My original goal for the race was to go sub 1:40 - having run a 1:47 at my first half marathon. My run pace in the Olympic triathlon (sub 4:30/km) and the pace I was able to hit on mid-distance training runs made me think I might be able to get close to 4:30/km pace for the race, which would be 1:35. It seemed a bit ridiculous because to me that kind of time is getting into the realm of "good" runners (and is faster than my 5K pace was in December).
Finish chute
The first couple of km's of the race I was running about 4:15 pace and told myself to calm down and slow down. As each successive km marker went past, I found I was managing to hold a sub 4:30 pace without feeling like I was pushing particularly hard. About 14km in I decided if I was still feeling good I'd pick up the pace at 16km. I actually started gradually picking up and by the time the 16km marker went by I was pushing a decent pace and passing a lot of people. The last km I picked up further and actually approached my 5k pace, to finish with a time of 1:31:04. Unfortunately the organisers later announced they had screwed up their calculations on the measurement wheel, and the whole course was 600m short! They adjusted times for the additional distance and mine was 1:33:57 - still a time that I'm immensely proud of.
I actually wonder if I would've gone faster if the course had been marked correctly - the slightly short km's meant I thought I was running faster than I was, and forced myself to slow down a bit. I also wonder how things would've gone if I hadn't been wearing a stopwatch and monitoring my pace, and had just run to RPE.
Going through the GPS data I recorded (with more accurate distance), I ended up running a decent negative split - first half (only 10.25km) was 46:31 and second half was 44:33. In fact I did the final 10km in 43:37 which is about 4:20/km pace and a 10km PB for me. So now I have a new goal (which I wont be testing until near the end of the year) - sub 1:30. Requires a 4:15 pace but I think I'll be capable of that after a winter of marathon training.
O'Hagans
I've run the O'Hagans 5k every week since early April - I had posted earlier about how I was consistently dropping my times. Two days after the Oly I managed a 19:22, but since then I haven't come close. The following week was 19:5x and then the last three weeks I've run either 19:38 or 19:39. I can't decide if this is due to fatigue (my initial guess, but during my taper before the half marathon I didn't get any faster) or if it just reflects the change in the intensity of my training. I also won a $100 bar tab as a spot prize at one of the races...that went down well :)
Five Fingers
I tried to incorporate a short run in the VFFs each week, usually 4 or 5km. I really enjoy running in them, I think perhaps over the next few weeks where I don't have any specific events to be training for, I might get out in them more and build my distance in them further. Actually since it took me so long to finish this post, I ran the final O'Hagan's run of the series yesterday in my VFFs. Found them to be a little slippery in a couple of spots (it was raining), and my calves felt alright at the end (sore today though). My time was 5 seconds slower than my last runs in the Kinvaras, which is better than I expected to do in them.
Other Stuff
I've done very little riding and no swimming for the last month or so, have done a bit of mountain biking and think I might try get out and do that more regularly over winter.
Song of the Day
Nearly forgot. Bit different from my last few, Sound Check (Gravity) by Gorillaz from their first (self titled) album
