Sunday 24 April 2011

Trail-X, Gran Canaria (VIDEO)


Sorry for terrible Spanish.

Sunday 10 April 2011

Trail-X, Gran Canaria

Yesterday I competed in my first race since my accident in December. After having 4 months away from racing it was a good opportunity to go through the processes of racing before the Spanish Cup on the 1st of May. The Trail-X is a new race to Gran Canaria and was run in the Valley of Fataga in the south of the island. The half marathon was an out and back race along a dirt track into the mountains.


I wanted to test my leg speed in this race so I went out hard from the gun setting a pace which was too fast for the other runners to respond to. Going through 5km in under 20minutes I felt very good however the heat was starting to get to me, temperatures reached 35degrees during the race and I had to make use of all the water stations during the race.

At the half way point I took a split on my watch to allow me to try to work out what sort of lead I had. I past the 2nd placed runner after 2min30 so I could work out that I had roughly a 5min lead. On the way back down it was nice to hear the encouragement from all the other runners. At times during the race I felt like easy up because of the extreme temperatures however I didn't allow myself to ease off the gas. I crossed the finish line in 1h25mins over 8 minutes ahead of Carlos Rodriguez in second place.

Overall I was pleased with my performance, however I feel that I could do with a little more speed; something to work on over the next few weeks.

Saturday 2 April 2011

One month to go...

It is  nearly 4 months since my accident in Tamadaba and it has been a long struggle to recover and get back into training fitness. At the end of January I was given the all clear to start jogging again. This extremely difficult at first as I had lost so much form and to add to the difficulty I also had to wear a figure of 8 supporting brace to stop my shoulders from moving too much which pressed tightly on my chest restricting my breathing. However I managed to run for about 30minutes per day and it felt great to be moving again.

My first training regime fell off its tracks a little at the start of February because of G-COM, I had so much work to do that my running had to take a back seat for about 10days. When I was able to run again it felt like I was starting from scratch. But after putting a few good days behind me I felt like I was back in the game. In February I had the pleasure of training with some of the World's best orienteers who were in Gran Canaria for winter training camps.




By March I felt like I was in a proper training regime again, and was doing all of my 'key' weekly sessions. For the last 2 weeks I have been running for approximately 14hours per week plus gym, cycling and swimming sessions. As I have built up my volume I have been feeling stronger and stronger.

In exactly four weeks time I will be in Granada to run the 1st Spanish Cup race of the year, which will be not only my first major test since the accident in December but also my first real test against serious competition.