Training Log Archive: Chief

After sleepless night due to freaky wind last night, whole day today was kind of dull.

Although I was able to hit the times, was a little distracted at the workout tonight!!

200 kick TT PB by 13s!

Event: Peak-2-Peak Enduro
 

Peak2Peak supposed to be training run for Raid. Lot of familiar faces at the start line and during the run plus as always its starts to drizzle as soon as I get there! Guess am turning to be 'the Rainmaker'

If I had my ways, I would finish the course in no time and go for some hot meal! But a friend of mine showed up, who has signed up for Raid and will be navigating for his team. Today was his first time orienteering and he had a antique looking canadian-tire compass and first thing that comes out of his mouth - how hell do I use this compass!

I knew I couldn't leave them alone so decided to stick with them just to make sure they get back safely! He was not bad for first couple checkpoints which were closer to trails but then I kind of had to nudge him to correct his course! We were slow but moving and managed to get every control but for 5 controls !!!

I get to the finish line with almost frozen hands & irritation in my chest - never experienced it before !! My nipples were on fire...damn chafing !!!

Oh almost forgot.. a rouge dog attacked me & then aggost on the way back !! Glad I narrowly escaped another trip to ER - phewww !

C • hahahah, well that explains... 2

Event: Ottawa OC Rogaine 2012
 

Another great swim workout with hypoxic & paddles!
Legs we little sore after yesterday and felt little pain on push offs during flip turns... will have to see what it is about!!!

After terrible night with not much sleep due to sinus congestion, the meetings, fire fighting at work didnt help me much!
Needed to buy nose clips (mine is currently sitting at the bottom of the pool!) so decided to walk to UFT which turned out to be good 70 mins - easy on the eyes but not on the mind.

Decided to get to gym and do some weights mostly legs - need to get back the lost muscle!

Kind of easy workout with a lot of pull/paddles. Lots of 50s with dives - felt like i totally forgot how to dive....
Missed out on tim hortons giftcard for underwater swim....

Navigation clinic for entire day at Kerncliffe Park, Burlington. Good to see how I am able to recognize features on the map & comfortable with compass compared to a year ago.

Kerfcliffe Park had an aid station at Raid the hammer 2 years ago where we had narrowly missed 2nd place!! The park also brought back the memories of overtaking this team of 3 females just after the aid station. The woman in the middle was running differently & I was about to ask her if she was doing alright but I was dumbstruck at what I saw that no words came out of me !!!. She was pregnant & running !!! It was none other than Leanimal with weeanimal in her belly!!! I had just heard about her until then but I realized how crazy (in a good way) she is!!! To top it off, a couple weeks later at a thomass event she shows up again with tiny weeanimal tucked away under her jacket !!!

That incident has been a source of inspiration - thanks Leanimal ! And I can only imagine how weeanimal is going to turnout when she started running & doing crazy stuff before even born and now has mountains in her backyard!!!

C • Great Day of Nav Training! 2

After the navigation clinic. I met up with Kura`s friend to do a training run for Raid. I had maps of Kerncliffe Park & he had maps of Hardrock enduro of last year in waterdown. So we decided to combine both and try and get to as many checkpoints.

Although it was cloudy, weather held for the clinic. But as so as we got out of our car for the training run, as always it started raining!

We started out at race pace, picking controls in Karncliffe Park before moving to 2nd map of waterdown area from Hardrock. Had a bit of trouble in the area connecting the two parks as we didn`t have the maps for the area. It resulted in good 3k trail & road fun which kept us warm. Trails were very muddy & slippery but we maintained a good pace and got to almost all checkpoints. 3 hrs and a short rock climbing session later, we were at the parking lot and both my knees were about to buckle !!! I was tired & had to take a 20 min powernap before driving back home.

Good & productive day in the woods!!!

One relaxed but hard day. Was surprised to hit 1:33 for 100m and ever getting closer to my dream number of 1:30!

I am starting to think those 8 weeks of downtime was what really my body needed. 2013 is already shaping up to be a big & challenging year and hope the downtime helps me when I start training full on from Dec 1!!1

Wall pushups, planks, underwater swims... what not. Since my legs were still sore, main sets of 600m were done as pull. My pull is still faster than free and that needs to change....

Event: The Great Toronto Rogaine
 

Got my a$$ kicked again by Radical loop, the rain + my first mechanical !

I was just telling someone that its been 3-4 years and I haven`t had a mechanical, not even flat! I think I jinxed it....

I get to the race site and as usual, it starts to rain but starts pouring down as soon as the race starts !! I figured, it would be a good test of my leg but rain+mud took it a whole new level...

Serious (11k - medium : 0:50:02.8): I hadn`t really tested my new tires in rain & mud and seeing people slip and slide in the first lap did not help my already shot confidence. I was a nervous wreck for the first half the lap and kept thinking about the bike sliding underneath me the whole time ! But the tires came through.. they did very well on slippery rocks, wet roots and muddy trails. It was a confidence booster and I picked up some speed and dropped a few people!

Radical (15k - very advanced: 2:04:37.9): Epic lap - I started off well with my new found confidence but 5 mins later trail starts to show its scary side - big drops, wodden planks, super steep climbs and downhills and a ton of rocks + ofcourse the rain and mud. I had couple close calls and confidence was back to square one!. Everything was so slick that I almost did a split on wet logs and slid off a good 10 feet clif! After an hour of misery, I hit a nice stretch and all of a sudden my chain breaks! I stop to fix it and 2 mins later, I am shivering as I was soaking wet. I take a chin link out but in a hurry I rip the cover so hard, one of the link flies into air and vanishes! After miserable 15 mins of looking for the airborne link and shiverring, couple people from the slower group caught up to me and stopped to help me out with the chain! They were all wearing rain jackets & I felt stupid for not wearing one! I lost good 32 mins with the ordeal but started moving again. It was mostly hike-a-bike & started noticing pain in my knee!! Those 30+ mins of stop/shivering started taking toll on me now & ultimately costed me the race! 55mins to first cutoff.

Cranked (8k - medium: 0:41:29.9): This was absolute beauty of a trail - no big hills, very flowey with a lot of switch backs and I loved it. I had to push here but going was slow with so much mud. 1:15 to next cutoff!

Gnarly (12k - advanced: 1:30:29.9): This is one long loop with so many techinicall hills and gnarly, sketchy downhills. I enjoyed the long technical climbs but sucked on downhills. My shoes kept unclipping & lactic acid kept building up in my quads on almost every climbs, almost to the point of burning sensation [Never happened before!!!]. I missed the 2nd cutoff by good 15 mins this time around and DNF was mine, again!!!

Fun (6k - easy to medium: not sure): I just continued on to finish this easy loop like last time.

This definitely was the most challenging (physically and mentally), painful but most rewarding race of the year! As much as I hated it during, I was happy with my performance in the end - considering my state and the conditions. And I found a keeper in my new slant six tires !!!

C • Way to push through 3

Coach circulates a message to the club about teams performance at last week's TT highlighting certain individuals. Below is what she has to say about me:

"Chetan PB ( if you want an example of what kicking will do to speed and body position...he is one of the finest examples :))".
Not sure if she is referring to my improved kicking or she kicking my a$$ the entire year on my technique!!!

As a result I get promoted to a faster lane which means I move from lead to the back of the line again, have to swim faster and longer with little breaks and a big jump in expectation from the coach.

Main set included 10x100 at Z4 (1:35-1:45). My fastest ever was 1:38. When I say it is too fast for me to maintain response from lane mates was 'you can swim faster'!!! Although I was able to hold b/w 1:35-1:42, I felt like I was about to die in the pool today...

C • Congrats 3

Started with 15 mins of water running & vertical kicks. It really seems to be working in the past few weeks - rehab for my knee, 15 more mins in the water and warm-up before warm-up!!!
Tonight's workout was all about pacing - Z2-Z5/6. I was little surprised that I could hold the exact pace at z5/z6! My coach was happy & so was I !!!

Now if I can only figure out why I am having trouble with the chlorinated water after the swim. Ny nose gets stuffedup and runny after the swim -Sinus congestion. Never had this issue before but now its interrupting my already short supply of sleep. Need to do something about it and soon!!!

Signed up for the long course. Not sure what happened at the start line but I had open course map instead of elite course. Had 12 controls in total & wanted to finish under 2hrs. It went well except for #3 & #6 where I spent quite a bit of time. Colorful leaves all over the trails didn`t really help!!!

Well.. I was there at Halton hills for orienteering event so thought why not bring my bike and try out my new set of tires. But as soon as I get out of my car, it starts to rain just like almost every time I go out for biking ever since my date with rain & gravel!

Although rain & colorful rocky ground didn`t help with my already shaky confidence but my new slant six definitely did! Pretty slick trails with tons of rocks and the tires held their own so much so that I thought I could take on the advanced 5k trail. 4k of which turned out to be hike-a-bike which wasn`t fun on bike shoes!

On my way back I was surprised to see this guy stil on the orienteering course at 2:35!! I was so high from the ride that I showed him the way for the next control he was looking for and continued on. 2 mins later it hit me..what was he doing on the course so late and what was I thinking!!! I turn around but he was already in the bushes. Soon after I met some volunteers and let them know about the lone guy.

As soon as I got back to the parking lot, it started pouring down. Looks like mother nature was helping me get comfortable with riding in the rain!

C • Overdue 7

Event: 2012 Ontario Orienteering Championships
 

Event: Frontier Adventure Challenge - Fall Classic
 

A make up swim for regular thursday night. It was longer than usual but was fun!

It was bench mark workout today.

Warmup, some drills and race start routines and then then to 50m all out (34s - abt 1.5 sec faster than last one) and then to 400m TT which took 6:45 about 6 sec faster than the last one...

At the start, wasn't even confident to even finish the workout today as my legs were still sore from the weekend, but things worked out well.
Not loaded legs or accident - not sure what the reason is but I am liking the energy and speed!!!