Newton 30 on coming Sunday. So that means not riding on Saturday – to rest for the race. Decided to ride on Wednesday and did a 12x200m striding on Tuesday.
Tuesday’s recovery – yes, under advise from Andrew – went quite well. Compared to last Thursday’s similar workout. I was clocking sub 50s then but Tuesday was 6 laps of sub 50s, next 5 in 45s and last in 40s. So that was good. What didnt go well was Wednesday’s bike. Went horrificly wrong. Either that, or Andrew just was too fast. I should have been able to follow him through the route but I lost him within 3min. And by 40km, I was quite expanded and I could feel that I had nothing left in the legs. Even he was surprised. But he was doing resistance training for his vertical marathon so he could have pushed on very heavy gears and knowing his power output in climbing, that could have explained why he dropped me so fast. It still didnt explained why I couldnt last the distance of 95km.
The only explanation was that I had yet to recover from TNF 100 run. When I did Sundown marathon in 2009, I was biking at low 20kph on the bike after 2 weeks. I was slightly better this time and could go above 30kph still. However, endurance was clearly missing. I can only hope that it was due to the 50km trail run and not due to the run sessions I had been doing.
***
Somebody directed me to Kilian Jornet’s video on YouTube. His agility, stamina, sense of balance was awesome. And yes, his background in ski mountaineering and mountain biking definitely would have helped him to what he was now. It was so inspiring that it made me want to go out there to run the mountains – JUST KIDDING! I know I wont be able to survive 5min. Even Hill 265 during TNF I was slowly walking up – and that was a 100m hill only?
He is world champ at climathon, winner of Mt Kinabalu 21km run 2011. A fraction of his ability would suffice for me…
Coincidentally, am reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. About how a hidden tribe that has super athletic ability to run. Tribe Tarahumara or Raramuri is found deep in the Copper Canyons in Mexico. This running tribe can run for 2 days non stop, covering distances of 300 miles, or nearly 12 full marathons back to back! It’s simply amazing!
Tri-4-Life 