I've kicked off my 2018 campaign the right way I reckon. I'm 5 (6?) weeks into a training program from Pat Carrol, and it's going ok. The volume has been building up, and there's a couple of interval sessions thrown in during the week to add some variety and (hopefully) speed improvements.
The training program has seen my volume slowly step up to about 35-40km a week at the moment. That's going to start increasing as the long runs (currently at 1:50) will start to ramp up in the coming weeks. They top out at 3:20, which sounds quite outlandish. I've done it before, but the memory fades, leaving only a vague disbelief that that sort of effort is possible.
My planned run of events has been going pretty well. The Ipswich Trail Run Series runs were a bit of a mixed bag - the long courses were lap based and very heavily focused on single track.
I don't really enjoy either that much; laps feel like a wasted opportunity, and at the start of a race, single track is as frustrating as holiday traffic on the Bruce Highway with all the overtaking lanes removed. Also the tshirt this year turned out to be a singlet, which my least favourite form of torso covering.
Even so, really enjoyable runs, they make a great series of runs to ease into the year, and I'll probably be back next year.
ITRS #1 was a new course at White Rock. It was good to get some variety, and the terrain was mountain goat worthy in parts. Some great fun descents.
Hidden Valley hosted ITRS #2, and this is where I really noticed the downside of both the laps and the single track. The single 11km loop of the previous years was a really diverse and challenging run, and while this one was challenging, I felt the diversity lacked a bit. Doing two loops does mean that you can use the first lap as a sighting run, and it makes it easier to estimate when it's safe to start stepping up the effort for a strong finish, but at the expense of new scenery.
The three ITRS runs were about three weeks apart, so in between here I headed up to Stanthorpe to take part in That Dam Ride, a 125km ride that starts and finishes just out of town at Storm King Dam. I haven't been doing as much cycling this year, what with the training program and a tyre blowout, so I lined up at the start with a fair bit of trepidation. It's pretty hilly country up that way, and it did not disappoint in that regard - 1600m of climbing over the 125km. I rode with a mate from school, Mark, and we ended up in a well matched group of about 8 riders, which made a big difference to the last 25km or so.
The ride and the training load had taken it out of me, so the week leading up to ITRS #3 was very light on activity. Probably was the right call as the third race was by far the toughest - 4 steep, long grinding climbs followed by swift, sharp descents on some narrow, rocky and technical single track.
Luckily the following week has turned out to be a recovery week. Woohoo!
A big trail run coming up in a few weeks (Up The Buff 25km), so I'll be doing a few long runs with my camelbak to iron out any issues there. My body is holding up ok, tightness is starting to creep in around my hips and ITB, but managing to stay on top of it with pilates, massage, chiro and lots of foam roller.
Oh yeah, signed up for the 110km Great Brisbane Bike Ride as well. Should be good.
Only 16 more weeks to go.