Sunday 30 January 2011

5.5m Rolle Perroy

Been on a big Burns Supper night last night, so was please to even make it out at all.

No plan in mind, but vaguely to see if there was an alternate route to Perroy through the vines. That worked ok and at Perroy I decided to go up and got the hrt pumping with the HILL. Lovely path with trees to shelter you from the wind, but boy is it steep. Near vertical scramble reduced me to 12 min miles. At the top I had to stop for a few seconds to get my breath back and figure the next part of the run. I found the route I take back from signal so it was a joy to be on the down and the 8min mile pace felt like I was on for a 4 min mile. Back to Rolle too soon to stop so pushed out for an extra wee loop to make sure it was at least five miles.

Garmin

Friday 28 January 2011

7m Airport Hill, Mubarak and a full database.

Aurelien came out with me today, determined to make it to the top of the airport hill.
First incident was outside the president Wilson hotel, when my Garmin went berserk. It had filled up the database and could not cope and was desperately trying to get me tell it to delete something and make all sorts of choices about data retention strategies. In the end I somehow managed press the right combination of buttons to make it shut up. I later discovered I had been so brutal with my disposal of data that I'd also managed to delete the run I was doing!
Anyway, just as I had sorted that out I was aware of the fact that I was now in the middle of a crowd of people with Egypt flags gobbing off in Arabic and chanting, presumably voicing their disapproval for Mubarak - in amongst all this, I make out Aurelien's voice over the crowd, come on Niall we've dropped of pace. Alright, data management and riots just won't stop this guy. He and Tenke will get on just fine.
So after that it was pretty uneventful to the top the hill, no problems for Aurelien and then back down. We picked up the pace a bit at the top and avoided the protestors on the way back. About 100m out I asked Aurelien if he felt he could still whip me over 100m and he responded by spinning his legs like the coyote in the roadrunner cartoon and accelerated of at world record pace. He confessed later to being a sprinter in his younger days and the speed is still there. Looking to get to the track together at some point. Now I know that the kick needs to be at least a mile out!
One hour two mins. Not fast, but decent speed back stopped it being a very slow run.

Wednesday 26 January 2011

Swim: The Red Rabbit Sinks, Lane Rage in the Pool

I confidently slipped into the Red Rabbit lane and went for my first set of 200m front crawl.
Not even 50m in I felt the urge to overtake and my confidence was boosted as I eased past and turned neatly. By now the next guy was within touching distance and I pulled out to over take, a little peeved with him that he had not waited for the stronger swimmer (ie me) at the turn. I caught a glimpse of him as I drew level and he was going like his life depended on not letting me past. I kicked again and was at max speed. As I turned to breath on the off side I caught a glimpse of the white water coming right at me like a tsunami as a real red rabbit powered past someone going the opposite way. There was no time to do much about it so pulled in on top of the guy racing me and I felt first his arm hit my thigh then his hand grab my foot so I kicked it away with my other foot and an realised that I was spent after 75m. But there was no way I was stopping after that so I pushed on and turned trying to put some distance between me and the guy I crashed into. Oh no, now I've caught some woman doing back crawl - so I go around get by ok and move on, into just the 4th length and yet more drama unfolds. I pull out to overtake again and Mr Tsunami is going the opposite direction on another overtake and this time it is too late, we interlock arms and I realise just in time what is happening and let my arm go limp and unravel it from his limb and gulp some air.
At the end of the 4th lap have zero confidence left and slip meekly into the yellow rabbit lane, where the pace is more sedate and the risk of lane rage and Tsunami death are much less.
Another 1km bagged.

Tuesday 25 January 2011

5m 8min rep cycle

Great workout in lovely conditions, if a shade cold.

4x the 8min cycle, which is 5mins hard, 30s recovery 1 minute fast 90 seconds recovery

I decided to not get too hung up about the 5min cycles and focused on making the 1m sections count. In my head I had it that I needed to clear at least a 1km through the 4 one mins. Should be easy.

The last and the 2nd saved me, well under the 4min km pace required and others were on the mark, so that was good, finally going a little faster.

The 5mins were not that bad, coming in around the 7:20-30min mile pace which is significantly faster than my regular cruising speed.

Run highlight was the misty view of Geneva at the turn, outline of the old town with the water jet in front. What a great place to run.

Garmin

Sunday 23 January 2011

11.4m Bursinel Dully Gland

I'd been checking out this website which I recommend highly to anyone doing anything outside in Switzerland.

Swiss Maps

From it, I decided to explore route 4 heading towards Geneva from Rolle and I was not disappointed. Picked up the route from the port and no problems following the 4 signs all the way to Gland.

Unfortunately, I had to run back into the Bisse wind and the exposed sections next to the road and then next to the railway were grim. I decided to push for home and broke the 8min mile barrier on the last km which was something of an acheivement against the wind.

Still pretty slow, but the route was all new and I had stop many times to check the map as the way back had plently of sections where I was not too sure what was on the other side of the hill.

Highlights were going past Christel and Richard's place in Dully, the woods behind Dully, the toblerones just before Gland and re-connecting to route 4 on the way home!

Garmin

Friday 21 January 2011

7m Airport Hill

The lake was like the North Sea. The ice cold bisse wind whipped up the spray from the lake and made the lake side impossible to run along, we did not want an ice cold shower or worse - the ice was forming under the spray and so avoiding the wet ice was important.

Out bound was tough being blown backwards trying to run into wind. I was actually looking forward to the hill for the shelter!

It was Auriellien's first outing with us. I'd explained to him the options of Niall's field and Zosia's field to avoid the hill, but nothing could persuade him not to follow us up the hill. He held on but as I focused on not letting Tenke pull away suddenly he was gone and Tenke and I got past all six of the others on the hill. We did some circles of shame, but he never appeared.

Turns out he made it as far the clay tennis court, which the satellite photo confirmed was 20m from the top of the hill. He was gutted to have come so close and not finished, but he'll be back to try again next week.


The 7min mile pace was a joy on the way back as the wind pushed us home.

The spray from the breakers crashing in glowed in the low sun and was spectacular! Worth it just for that.

As every, Tenke was the solution to my slowness and we averaged just over 8 min miles, with a close to 7min mile finish with the wind behind. Total time 58 mins, always nice to do this route in under one hour.

Garim

Wednesday 19 January 2011

3.5m Easy run route attempted faster

Having gone super long at the weekend I wanted to go super short today.

To compensate, I decided that I should go a shade faster than the 10min mile pace I degenerated to on Sunday. So off I went, steady to the turn to the park and then I thought I tanked it up the hill though the trees and I was Mr TPV all over again, yeah ha!

Tried so hard to focus on the speed and it felt like lightening. The only problem was it was not very fast at all. Only the last km before the warm down was anywhere close to 10km pace (4:12 for that km) so rather disappointing.

Swim tomorrow and then another run planned for Friday.


Garmin link.

Sunday 16 January 2011

14.3m St. Prex Long and Slow

Long and super slow, just kept inside 10min miles.

At least I know I can still get the distance in when required.

Muscles still hurting from skiing.

Was nice to be out and with no garmin to bug me and no-one to run with - it was my choice to go long and slow.

Saw the run rise over the French Alps on the other side of the lake - an orange ball peeking over the heights and then rising to take the edge of the frost and heat me up. Saw a heron fly out to the lake along the line of a stream which was spectacularly beautiful, with the right camera that image would win an award!

I was suffering most on the upper thighs (which should not be working so much anyway) and so some high knees and heel kicks kept me moving as I could feel my jog turning into a shuffle as I seized up en route so kicked for 20s and then kept going. I made a mistake in Perroy on the return as after the cobbles I saw the gate and heard the ghost of Jason breathing down my neck and he made me sprint to the gates. Well, it felt like a sprint, but was probably 8min miles!

So longest time on feet so far in Switzerland 2h 21m. Oh dear. I feel the need for some speed work before doing that again....

MapMyRun

Friday 14 January 2011

Reps 10x 2mins on 1min off

5 out and 5 back. I just could not get going, felt sluggish.

Then, half way into rep 4 I see Aurelian running back to Geneva, I called out, "catch you on the way back!".

That injected some meaning into the activity and I noted 6 runners between him and I. To make catching him easier I did not go too hard on rep 5 and did the recovery heading home, rather than keeping going outbound on the last recovery as is my normal habit.

Great to catch the groups ahead and by rep 7 I thought I could see him. Big push for the last two reps, but I only caught 5 of the required 6. Back at the office he admitted that his run became seriously motivated after he saw me and he tanked it back determined not to have me catch him. So our chance encounter did us both some good.

I was stiff from skiing still. And slow. But, the hrt was far too low, pushing only gently into zone five on the last two reps. Pathetic performance, only made 485m on the longest rep (normally my 4min reps are faster) but I'll try again next week with something similar and see how I get on. Aurelian was showing an interest in the running track....

Garmin

Thursday 13 January 2011

7m Airport hill and woods

All on my own and no garmin.

Stiff from skiing still and feeling tired I talked my self into running the hill, the hill, the hill. I figure the more I do it, one day I will just glide effortlessly up it. But not today.

Rewarded a few times:

By the call of the birds in the trees at the woods on the top of the route
The fountain outside the chuch that has been protected from the ice that I could drink from
By the stunning views to Mont Blanc over the lake on the way down the hill

And finally, I was punished:

In the Botanic gardens they were using a high powered water jet to clean the bird poo out of the empty duck pond, yup I got a face full of water and duck muck mist!

Such are the joys of running in Geneva. 1h 2mins time on feet so not much to shout about, but more time on feet, it all counts.

Sunday 9 January 2011

7.7m Allaman Perroy super slow

First run of 2011 today. Paul (my son) came with Richard and I on the "warm up" around Rolle and then he ducked out at the lakeside and we set out on the longer loop.

After a week of ski and thermal baths my legs were aching and I was struggling to get any pace and Richard reminded me several times he had not been for a run for 5 weeks.

It turned out to be a very slow 9:31 minute mile pace, but very good to chat and catch up. There were also several "Jason memorial" moments:

Coming back into Perroy there is a narrow passage under the rail way, Jason once drove a car through there just because he wanted to see if it fitted.

There was the sprint to gates that never happened at the park.

There was his new office that we ran past.

We miss you Jason!

Garmin