Endomondo Running Workout: "26.99 km in 2h:38m:00s"
A typically generous assessment of the performance from Endomondo; in point of fact, 2h:50m. Very slow; this was a *hard* run.
Running Activity 23.23 km | RunKeeper
Runkeeper's elevation profile is a much better view of the race; look particularly at the drop down to river level and the climb back up. I was hammering along nicely until that ascent; by the end of it I could hardly manage to move forward. Well, maybe it wasn't quite that bad - the really slow bits are checkpoints - but those last two hills coming up to the finish line were soul crushers. (There's a pun there somewhere) A lot of people passed me there.
In retrospect I guess I started out too fast, although I was running around 5:40 per km (I do 5:00 for road races this distance) so it didn't feel too fast. Initially I was quite pleased to be holding my own on the climbs & descents, because I'm not much of a descender, and I settled in with a pair at "chat speed", which is not that quick, in absolute terms. It transpired that one of this pair was the women's winner of the 2010 event, so perhaps that was a warning; sadly, one unread.
Trail running really is a different can of worms. I've only really done one before, which was the NOSH. That was certainly a much tougher 15 km than my usual training runs around Canterbury-Marrickville, and in fact, NOSH finishes higher than it starts by virtue of not being an out-and-back course, but NOSH didn't compare with this. Of course the extra 9 km makes a difference. The big difference though is the steepness of the hills, which does two things. Firstly, you have to lift your legs much higher, so it's like running up a staircase compared to running up a road. That gets into the quadriceps, which by-and-large isn't a runner's muscle. After a while, it starts to hurt.
Secondly, the hills push the heart rate up really, really high. I wasn't wearing a monitor for this run (it's broken) but on the big hill at NOSH - which was long, but not as steep as the climb up from the river here - where I was wearing the monitor, I got up to 181 bpm. Compare that with Canberra, where I averaged under 160 and peaked at about 170. I don't particularly like to push too hard in this regard; mind you, I can't claim that I felt I had much choice in the matter. My legs didn't want to push either.
I usually start too fast (amateur/beginner error) but I don;t think I've been punished for it quite like this before. I also have a feeling I might have mismanaged my food intake, because I got a very unexpected kick from a couple of jellybeans I picked up at a late stage feeding table. Again, that's a useful lesson, because my Sunday runs are focused around teaching the body to burn fat, so I only take water, not sugar. But maybe in a race a bit of sugar wouldn't go astray. *update: I've seen the times for the race now, and I feel a bit better about it. There were a lot of people at 2:40, including the two here.
It reads like a bit of whingeing, but it's meant to be reportage. I mean, I enjoyed it - more after it stopped, and the last 3 km maybe not so much - but it was certainly good to run in the bush. I swear you can feel that the air is oxygen rich and low in monoxide (note the chiasmus). I'll need to learn some bird calls - there were plenty around; some calls I didn't know at all and I don't think there are any (except perhaps a kookaburra) that I can actually name (that's a bit poor, really). *update: I can in fact recognize the call of the Eastern Whipbird, as I imagine, can any child over the age of 4.
There weren't a lot of flowers out - one bush with hardenbergia-purple flowers that wasn't a hardenbergia - which I think I saw in a couple of places (or maybe twice, once out, once back).*update: almost certainly a Hovea.
One other challenge is to work out a way to stop the glasses fogging up: this is a serious problem because it's actually more dangerous running with fogged up glasses than with none: but I'd guess my eyesight is about 2/4 (from 20/20) so none is not exactly entirely satisfactory either.
At one stage I stepped on what I though was a flat-topped rock - it was actually a 45-degree down-sloping rock and I totally lost my footing. Luckily it was a slide/slip rather than a fall, so I was back up quickly (you can see it on the pace profile above; it's the little spike on the left hand side of the canyon). All the pictures you see here are of the smoothest surfaces that the race covers; there's a fair bit, perhaps about 20%, that is nothing much more than wallaby tracks.
I say bush, but quite a lot of the run is along the back edge of the residential intersection with the bush, which is a bit worrying. How much longer is the bush going to survive, because there's plenty of signs of continuing development? Another curious feature is the number of aged care facilities that are situated next to incoming bushfires; immediately adjacent. First line of defence? Or a headache for emergency services? Still, for the time being I'm a little jealous of the running opportunities. It leaves the Bardwell Valley TVT somewhat for dead, and I'm not finding running 28 laps of Henson Park particularly inspirational at the moment.
The run is organised by ex-pat South Africans; they're nearly more Australian than Australians, it's the first time I've seen beer supplied free as replenishment fluid at the end of a run. It's a pretty hit-and-miss exercise as far as directions/signposting, but I think this was only the 6th time they've run it, so they're are still ironing out the kinks. Their directions suffer from having been written by someone who knows the track too well (a typical race director), and not checked by an idiot who doesn't know it at all (the average competitor).
Anyway, next year I'll get in some serious practice on hills and go back.
A typically generous assessment of the performance from Endomondo; in point of fact, 2h:50m. Very slow; this was a *hard* run.
Running Activity 23.23 km | RunKeeper
Runkeeper's elevation profile is a much better view of the race; look particularly at the drop down to river level and the climb back up. I was hammering along nicely until that ascent; by the end of it I could hardly manage to move forward. Well, maybe it wasn't quite that bad - the really slow bits are checkpoints - but those last two hills coming up to the finish line were soul crushers. (There's a pun there somewhere) A lot of people passed me there.
In retrospect I guess I started out too fast, although I was running around 5:40 per km (I do 5:00 for road races this distance) so it didn't feel too fast. Initially I was quite pleased to be holding my own on the climbs & descents, because I'm not much of a descender, and I settled in with a pair at "chat speed", which is not that quick, in absolute terms. It transpired that one of this pair was the women's winner of the 2010 event, so perhaps that was a warning; sadly, one unread.
Trail running really is a different can of worms. I've only really done one before, which was the NOSH. That was certainly a much tougher 15 km than my usual training runs around Canterbury-Marrickville, and in fact, NOSH finishes higher than it starts by virtue of not being an out-and-back course, but NOSH didn't compare with this. Of course the extra 9 km makes a difference. The big difference though is the steepness of the hills, which does two things. Firstly, you have to lift your legs much higher, so it's like running up a staircase compared to running up a road. That gets into the quadriceps, which by-and-large isn't a runner's muscle. After a while, it starts to hurt.
Secondly, the hills push the heart rate up really, really high. I wasn't wearing a monitor for this run (it's broken) but on the big hill at NOSH - which was long, but not as steep as the climb up from the river here - where I was wearing the monitor, I got up to 181 bpm. Compare that with Canberra, where I averaged under 160 and peaked at about 170. I don't particularly like to push too hard in this regard; mind you, I can't claim that I felt I had much choice in the matter. My legs didn't want to push either.
I usually start too fast (amateur/beginner error) but I don;t think I've been punished for it quite like this before. I also have a feeling I might have mismanaged my food intake, because I got a very unexpected kick from a couple of jellybeans I picked up at a late stage feeding table. Again, that's a useful lesson, because my Sunday runs are focused around teaching the body to burn fat, so I only take water, not sugar. But maybe in a race a bit of sugar wouldn't go astray. *update: I've seen the times for the race now, and I feel a bit better about it. There were a lot of people at 2:40, including the two here.
 |
| Halfway - Bobbin Head Park |
There weren't a lot of flowers out - one bush with hardenbergia-purple flowers that wasn't a hardenbergia - which I think I saw in a couple of places (or maybe twice, once out, once back).*update: almost certainly a Hovea.
One other challenge is to work out a way to stop the glasses fogging up: this is a serious problem because it's actually more dangerous running with fogged up glasses than with none: but I'd guess my eyesight is about 2/4 (from 20/20) so none is not exactly entirely satisfactory either.
At one stage I stepped on what I though was a flat-topped rock - it was actually a 45-degree down-sloping rock and I totally lost my footing. Luckily it was a slide/slip rather than a fall, so I was back up quickly (you can see it on the pace profile above; it's the little spike on the left hand side of the canyon). All the pictures you see here are of the smoothest surfaces that the race covers; there's a fair bit, perhaps about 20%, that is nothing much more than wallaby tracks.I say bush, but quite a lot of the run is along the back edge of the residential intersection with the bush, which is a bit worrying. How much longer is the bush going to survive, because there's plenty of signs of continuing development? Another curious feature is the number of aged care facilities that are situated next to incoming bushfires; immediately adjacent. First line of defence? Or a headache for emergency services? Still, for the time being I'm a little jealous of the running opportunities. It leaves the Bardwell Valley TVT somewhat for dead, and I'm not finding running 28 laps of Henson Park particularly inspirational at the moment.
The run is organised by ex-pat South Africans; they're nearly more Australian than Australians, it's the first time I've seen beer supplied free as replenishment fluid at the end of a run. It's a pretty hit-and-miss exercise as far as directions/signposting, but I think this was only the 6th time they've run it, so they're are still ironing out the kinks. Their directions suffer from having been written by someone who knows the track too well (a typical race director), and not checked by an idiot who doesn't know it at all (the average competitor).
Anyway, next year I'll get in some serious practice on hills and go back.
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