Baby Brick

Today Total: 10k (+20k MTB)
Week Total: 31k
Month Total: 239k
Year Total: 239k (34k MTB)

I took the mountain bike leg out hard, deliberately using the toughest gears I could handle and really taking the hills (not that there where any monsters) as aggressively as I could standing right up over the peddles and cranking hard. A fat labrador on a treadmill would have looked in better shape than me I was breathing that hard.

My belief is that the key to pegging a good time for Six Foot is being able to hold it together on Blacks Range. For the unintiated that is the 10 or so k section that trends upward after the big climb (around 1,000m cumulative by that stage) from the fabled Pluviometer to Caves Road.

The score for me on Blacks Range is Blacks Range 2, 2P 1 and I aim to even the score. Last year I carked it after getting to Pluvio in 3.30 (right on schedule) all I had to do was maintain a better than 7.50k pace to go sub 6 hours and I  couldn't hack it. When the demons visit and the buzzards start circling overhead it really comes down to what you can maintain as your minimum trudge pace and for less than the elite at Six Foot this is the key.

Enter todays session. At least twice per week for the next few weeks I intend to toast my legs either on the bike or stair/hill repeats and then run and try to maintain a reasonable trudge. As the Romans used to say "better to hurt in training than bleed in battle" and by the time I get to Blacks Range this year I'm hoping my legs will say "oh this session again".

So onto the run - yikes! The first 3k were ugly with the 2nd k split dipping to 6.45 (yowser - I wanted to say to everybody I saw that I'd just done a hard session - really!) but after 3k I came good for the next 5 and they were not too shabby at all. But I bonked big time at 8k - I didn't just hit the wall I stood there head butting the bastard, just after 9k (I'm guessing my energy system switched to burning fat) I managed to get going again at a reasonable pace and actually brought the last 500m home at a 5.30 pace. Total for 10k - 63.04 - fairly pedestrian.

All up I'm satisfied with this session but it does show I still have a lot of work to do over the next few weeks.