My first race in Switzerland. I planned to thoroughly enjoy this race, get a couple of points for UTMB/CCC qualification and get a feel for some new equipment (poles and pack). In addition to that there was a lot of climbing to do at about 3,500m during the 55km of the race. It went really well and I achieved all my objectives. My Chilean friends will be super pleased to know that I was bombing the downhills and making up plenty of places on the technical descents (thanks for the guidance on Manquehue and other mountains, Max, Mati and Moi!).
Quality training session
Intervals: 4x[1km @ 4min/km, 200m recovery]
This week's intervals were a shorter session with a race on the weekend coming up. I ran four controlled intervals and it felt good. My legs were turning over nicely and I felt good all the day. A confidence building run for sure.
Other
The second week of the general strength and mobility series. I'm getting stronger and feeling the benefit of these exercises already. A little more work still needed to perfect each exercise, but I'm looking forward to adding some more complexity during week three.
I did another hiking session with the poles and I felt a little more comfortable with them in my hands. (In retrospect, the practice with poles made a huge difference during my run in Les Diablerets.)
Equipment used
Salomon Sense Mantra 2, Skechers GoRun Ultra, Nike Terra Kiger 2, Black Diamond z-pole ultra, Garmin Fenix 2, 32Gi (chews, endure tabs, foodbars)
Garmin statistics
104.50km
12:28:14
4,890m (elevation gain)
144bpm (average heart rate)
Summary
A great week of running mostly because of the awesome fun I had on the weekend running in the Alps. It felt a little strange to be tapering down for a race when last week I said that I was just "finding routine", but it turned out well and I ran a solid eight hours with plenty of climbing on Saturday which went a long way towards setting up my future objectives. I learnt a lot of things about the terrain, about what training I need to focus on (sustained climbing) and had a great time.
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| Les Diablerets with the mountains and climbs in the background. |
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| Les Diablerets is a beautiful village nestled in the Alps. |
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| About to finish up my 8 hour running day! |
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| No Swiss event is complete without some alphorns being played. |
7 comments:
Do you use a Garmin foot pod with your Fenix to analyze your cadence and stride? I've been looking to do the same but read a few comments about how people lose their foot pods, is that your experience? It's quite pricey...but really nice to see Garmin Connect making the data available - it's not available in Strava, yet.
BTW, congrats on your race. You mentioned you got some guidance on bombing downhill. Will you share those tips or techniques in one of your blog posts? :-) *very interested*
Hi - I don't use the footpod with the Fenix 2 as the newer Garmin heart rate strap has the ability to measure cadence and a few other running metrics. (I think that the FR620 also does this). The metrics are available on Garmin Connect and imagine they will become available on Strava soon as more Garmin devices include these metrics.
I can't imagine that it's possible to lose the footpod - mine has been through the Kalahari Desert and Amazon Jungle and it was secure all the way.
OK - downhill running techniques added to the list of future blog posts. Thanks for the suggestion!!
THANK YOU! The reason for my full interest is my husband and I are racing Manaslu Mountain Stage Race (our first ever!) in November so, trying to learn as much as we can. We've trained all year for just one stage race. We have had amateur cycling racing background so very familiar with training but it's always a learning process no matter what. Hope you don't mind all the questions! We are now on our final build phase before leaving for Nepal. Your blog site have the most useful information about stage race, which is very rare. Thanks for sharing!
It's a pleasure! I'm glad that you find the tips useful. It's hard to put everything into one race, but I believe that it can reap huge rewards. I hope it goes well for you.
Please keep asking questions and I'll help as much as I can (I'm sometimes a little slow to reply, but I do!).
Thank you and yes, you replied and that's so much appreciated! :-) I don't mind waiting.
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