Desert Endor
Posted by: stevecaddy on: Sunday September 5, 2010
34km and 580m of climbing, (via Neil’s blog), but the most important things are best described with pictures anyway.
This goes up:
This goes down:
Moody and Neil’s mate Andrew Downie joined us for a 2.5 hour joyride from the bottom of the Stockyards, up over the ever-awesome link track to swoop and giggle our way speeder-bike style through the pencily gums. We took a small break to fool around on a newly discovered pump track, teased the roadies among us about their cautious attitude toward puddles and generally had a rockin’ good time.
Oh, did I mention that Ryan had done a 1.5 hour trail run before meeting us and still spanked me good, with 26 less gears? Good.
Pics co-opted from Nell’s Flickr.
Classic movements
Posted by: stevecaddy on: Saturday September 4, 2010
Warmup
5 pushups
10 situps
15 squats
x3 rounds
Dynamic stretches
Workout
5 Thrusters
7 Hang power cleans
9 SDPH
All at 30kg
AMRAP in 20 min = 5 and three thrusters
Kriss Kross will make you…
Posted by: stevecaddy on: Friday August 27, 2010
Warmup
4x15m Lunge + 15m Bear Crawl
Workout
Barbell Triplet: Clean/ Front Squat/ Jerk
2x 5/5/3 @ 40% (of Jerk 1RM) = 35kg
2x 4/4/2 @ 50% = 40kg
2x 3/3/3 @ 60% = 45kg
Then:
Dynamic Isometric Squat @ 35kg (fat bar for comfort)
Slow descent holding for 5 seconds @ 160, 140, 120 & 90 degrees
When finished holding at 90 degrees explode upwards, feet should leave the ground
Then:
4×1 Dynamic-Isometric Back Squat @ 35kg (variation)
Hold 5-seconds @ 160 degrees & full Squat Jump +
Hold 5-seconds @ 140 degrees & full Squat Jump +
Hold 5-seconds @ 120 degrees & full Squat Jump +
Hold 5-seconds @ 90 degrees & full Squat Jump +
This completes one rep, do 4x total
Rest 1-2 min between reps
Then:
10x DB Push Press @ 20-25# DBs +
60-second Row/Ski/AirDyne 10/50 (10-sec sprint, 50-sec recovery)
5 rounds, switch positions as fast as possible – no rest!
Then:
Cool down and stretch
Race: Castlemain Six hour pairs
Posted by: stevecaddy on: Tuesday August 24, 2010
The thrusters/pushups WOD from earlier in the week did a number on my arms, to the extent that I spent the remainder of the week out of the gym. Claire has been on-again off-again sick, and sleep has been inconsistent so it didn’t seem like a bad idea (to bludge the 2nd half of the training week).
I went to bed a cough and that getting-a-cold feeling and just put it in the back of my mind. I’d been looking forward to this race for a few months now and the night before a race is not the time to pull the pin on an old racing partner. I woke up with the same cough, took a couple of cold and flu tabs, got my gear ready and jumped in the car when Neil arrived. He was developing a similar complaint but had some insanely nice wheels to make up for it.
We got a rushed recce lap in (just) before race start. I was feeling good up until I stopped to wait for Neil, who’d dabbed on a trick rock section and realised that I was breathing with almost race-pace heft. Just the warm-up limiter. No biggie.
Neil put down a solid first lap for the amount of traffic he had to contend with, putting me out into 12th place. I was happy enough to be behind the really fast guys because I wasn’t firing on all cylinders anyway. It’s one thing to be detuned, but it’s another thing altogether to be riding feeling like your tyres are flat. Lap one felt ok, but sitting down after tagging Nell, I just wanted to sleep. Lap two was a fight, lap three a struggle, and the final outing – after a double rest – is best described as ‘limp’.
I didn’t lack the will, it didn’t hurt, I didn’t pop and barely suffered. I just had zero gas. Couldn’t spin the cranks quick enough to make anything else fire up. I rode through treacle to just barely get back in under 45 minutes and send Neil out for a quick final lap which nabbed us 8th in the pairs.
Thinking about how I’d sum up the race on the way home, I felt like this was the kind of race that’s best forgotten. The post-race feeling is the one that makes you wonder what’s good about this, and the training that opens the door to good time racing just seems like a fat, selfish waste of time. It’s only fifteen years of riding and racing that provides the wisdom required to see those thoughts, and to let them go.
It’s now Tuesday night. I have a few bruises that don’t do any justice to the pain that bumping bone on granite produces and I’ve been sick for two whole days. I’m tired and sick of it. And the only thing I can think of that I’d really like to do is hop on a bike, turn the cranks over smoothly and just let all the good times buffered up in that machine flow back up into me.
Rest
Posted by: stevecaddy on: Friday August 20, 2010
I skipped Thursday’s workout because Claire has been sick and sleep has been sketchy. Today was the aftermath of that, in a context of no time and very little will. How was the recovery from Tuesday’s WOD? Metabolically, fine, and my quads have stopped reminding me that they’re responsible for generating the lion’s share of thrust in thrusters, but my triceps are still really, really sore.
